Section

Politics

Power, institutions, and democracy

Lead Story

The Fracturing of the American Center

For decades, political scientists told us the center would hold. They were wrong about the center — and wrong about what held it together in the first place.

Elena VasquezMarch 12, 2026

Politics

Why the Senate Stopped Working

The world's greatest deliberative body has stopped deliberating. The failure isn't about individual senators — it's about what we've asked the institution to do.

James OkaforMarch 8, 202610 min

Politics

The Administrative State at the Crossroads

The decades-long conservative legal project against administrative power has finally arrived at the Supreme Court. What it replaces, if anything, is the most consequential open question in American governance.

Elena VasquezMarch 2, 202613 min

Politics

The Courts in the Crossfire

Prediction markets are pricing in something that legal scholars dare not say aloud: the federal judiciary's independence may already be lost.

Marcus WebbFebruary 18, 202613 min

Politics

What the Immigration Debate Gets Wrong

Both parties have built their immigration politics on fictions. The truth, as usual, is more complicated — and more interesting.

Priya NandakumarJanuary 22, 202614 min