Tag: United States
The Delta Variant Is Surging in Missouri
The summer wasn’t meant to be like this. By April, Greene County, in southwestern Missouri, seemed to be past the worst of the pandemic. Intensive-care units that once overflowed had emptied. Vaccinations were rising. Health-care workers who had been fighting the coronavirus for months felt relieved—perhaps even hopeful. Then, in late May, cases started ticking up again. By July, the surge was so pronounced that “it took the wind out of everyone,” Erik Frederick, the chief administrative officer of Mercy
Two Editors Who Showed What Publishing Should Be
Amid the many controversies that have occurred in American book publishing, I still measure the industry by the people who showed me what it could be at its best. For the better part of my 30-plus years as an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, I sat in an office next to Sonny Mehta, the former head of our company. He hired me, and over time we became great friends. When I spoke at his memorial at the New York
The Truth Behind the Amazon Mystery Seeds From China
Sid Miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, sat atop his stallion Smokey and faced the camera. It was Saturday, August 1, 2020. Miller had a message to share.
“Good morning, patriots,” Miller began, raising the coiled lasso in his right hand by way of greeting. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of all these surprises coming out of China. First it was the Chinese virus, then we had the murder hornets, then we had to close the
Will the GOP Steal the 2024 Election?
The greatest threat to American democracy today is not a repeat of January 6, but the possibility of a stolen presidential election. Contemporary democracies that die meet their end at the ballot box, through measures that are nominally constitutional. The looming danger is not that the mob will return; it’s that mainstream Republicans will “legally” overturn an election.
In 2018, when we wrote How Democracies Die, we knew that Donald Trump was an authoritarian figure, and we held the
Opponents of Critical Race Theory Are Arguing With Themselves
The United States is not in the midst of a “culture war” over race and racism. The animating force of our current conflict is not our differing values, beliefs, moral codes, or practices. The American people aren’t divided. The American people are being divided.
Republican operatives have buried the actual definition of critical race theory: “a way of looking at law’s role platforming, facilitating, producing, and even insulating racial inequality in our country,” as the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who
North Carolina Finds That Banning Indoctrination Is Hard
Among the dozens of bills filed by Republicans to restrict how educators teach about race, perhaps none was more carefully written than the one in North Carolina. And therein lies the larger problem with such bills: The downside of even the most cautious efforts likely outweighs their benefits.
In numerous other states, legislators purporting to target critical race theory or “divisive concepts” have packaged sensible reforms—including prohibitions on requiring students to proclaim particular points of view—together with irresponsible clauses
Why Is Mitch McConnell So Powerful?
To visit Mitch McConnell at his office in the Capitol, you must first pass through a faded world that he has meticulously preserved. A fireplace in the reception room still bears a crack left by a fire British soldiers set during the War of 1812. Through a doorway, a conference room displays portraits of former GOP Senate leaders, among them the luckless Charles McNary, who landed the job just when Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Democratic Party captured whopping majorities. Looking around
The Irony of Being Undocumented
The last time a Democrat lived in the White House, I was nearly detained outside of its gates. It should have been obvious to me, an undocumented immigrant, that giving my blank passport to a Secret Service agent could get me in trouble.
But I, along with a classmate, had been asked to be there for a meeting about college access hosted by first lady Michelle Obama’s higher-education initiative, and my security form had cleared the night before. And
The Words of the Declaration of Independence Still Matter
When my wife and I were young parents living in Manhattan, we rented an apartment above a psychiatrist with many wealthy patients. Through each hour of the working day, a succession of limousines and drivers would wait on the curb for one patient after another to exit the office. I once had the opportunity to ask what brought his clients to his door. He answered that they all presented versions of the same complaint: They thought they were frauds. I
What Biden Must Do to Right the Wrongs of Guantánamo
Many Americans like to tell themselves a story about the choices the country makes in times of national crisis. We see our country’s policies as a pendulum. We may overreact at first, temporarily sacrificing principles and rights to meet the emergency at hand. But eventually the crisis recedes, and in restoring our commitment to foundational principles and the rule of law, we push the pendulum back toward equilibrium.
This story is comforting; it makes sense of America’s reactions to crises