Tag: President Donald Trump
All the Iran Options Have Failed
Just three weeks before Hamas’s gruesome attack on southern Israel, the first anniversary of Iran’s “Women, life, freedom” movement quietly passed on September 16. Even in the heat of events in Israel, the women’s uprising was worth a lament: If the theocracy hadn’t subdued it, Iranians might have toppled the Islamic Republic; and among all the other salutary effects, Hamas’s onslaught against Israel could conceivably have been smaller and less ambitious, or might not have happened at all.
Hamas, an
There’s a Good Chance You’ll Regret Quitting Your Job
In my dreams, Google begs me to come back. Human resources tells me that they have the perfect software-engineering role and that I alone can do it. Even though it’s been three years since I quit—frustrated by sexual harassment, an excruciating HR investigation, and being discouraged from applying for a promotion, which led to a reduction in pay—I always accept their offer, flooded with joy and relief. I clip my holographic badge back on to my belt loop; I clutch
Brian Stelter: I Never Truly Understood Fox News Until Now
The basic story of Fox News and the 2020 election is well understood. Fox’s relatively small news operation covered the vote count accurately; this coverage infuriated President Donald Trump, the MAGA base, and Fox’s opinion stars; some viewers temporarily flipped to further-right outlets, such as Newsmax; and Fox panicked.
But thanks to Dominion Voting Systems, which is pursuing a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, we now know that the network’s sense of crisis was even more intense than it
How to Make Diversity Trainings Better
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Last week I asked, “What do you think of the diversity-training and DEI industries?” Dozens of readers shared their personal experiences, good and bad––so many, in fact, that I’m going to run some additional responses on Wednesday (if you haven’t
Conspiratorial Thinking Is an American Disease
As an American living in Britain for the past decade, I’ve had a front-row seat to two dysfunctional democracies hell-bent on embarrassing themselves. President Donald Trump warned that a hurricane was “one of the wettest we’ve ever seen, from the standpoint of water.” Prime Minister Liz Truss failed to outlast a lettuce at Downing Street. These years have not inspired confidence in democracy.
In Britain and the United States—and across most faltering Western democracies—this democratic dysfunction is routinely chalked up
Why Beijing Wants Jimmy Lai Locked Up
HONG KONG—When Beijing imposed the national-security law on Hong Kong in 2020, its goal was not simply to stifle free expression and lock up dissenters. The idea was to subordinate every institution in the city, leaving the “one country, two systems” framework that granted autonomy to the Chinese territory an empty slogan. Henceforth Beijing would no longer tolerate criticism from Hong Kong, or protests on its streets.
With the prodemocracy movement of 2019–20 effectively crushed, the Hong Kong government and
Jaime Herrera Beutler’s Lasting Regret
Among the things Jaime Herrera Beutler remembers about January 6, 2021, is that her husband managed to turn off the television just in time.
He was at home with their three young children in southwestern Washington State when the riot began. It had taken him a few moments to make out the shaky footage of the mob as it tore through the Capitol. Then he started to recognize the hallways, the various corridors that he knew led to the House
How to Fix America’s Elections Problem
Aaron Van Langevelde was probably surprised to find himself in the middle of a battle for the future of American democracy. But at the November 23, 2020, meeting of the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, there he was. A staff attorney for the Michigan legislature’s Republican caucus, he held one of four seats on a board that, as he emphasized that day, was meant to take the certified results from each of the state’s counties, “look at the math, and
Gordon Sondland, The Only Ambivalent-About-Trump Pundit
From 2017 to 2021, a string of businessmen with long, lucrative careers entered government service and left with their reputations tarnished. Rex Tillerson was a world-bestriding CEO who found himself hated by both his new boss and his new employees. Steven Mnuchin, a successful though largely anonymous moneyman, developed an image as a sloppy supervillain. President Donald Trump was arguably the paragon of the class, transforming himself from a famous personality to an infamous threat to democracy.
Gordon Sondland was
Family Separation Can Happen Again
The moment was practically unrecognizable in modern politics. Just four years ago, Democrats and Republicans in Congress seemed to agree on something. And not on an innocuous topic like fixing roads and bridges, no—they came together on one of the most controversial subjects in the history of American political debate: immigration.
When the American public learned definitively in June 2018 that government officials were forcibly taking children away from their parents as part of a misguided scheme to discourage