Politics
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 Vasquez12 min read
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 Okafor10 min read
Global
India's Democratic Reckoning
The world's largest democracy has been testing the limits of democratic governance for a decade. The results are a warning that the rest of the world has not adequately absorbed.
Sunita Krishnamurthy13 min read
History
The Weimar Warning Has Limits
Historians and commentators keep reaching for 1930s Germany to explain the present. The analogy is partly useful and partly a way of avoiding the specific analysis the present requires.
Cara Novak11 min read
Ideas
What the Attention Economy Is Doing to Democratic Thought
Outrage is algorithmically optimized. Nuance is penalized. The platforms that organize public discourse have created an information environment that democracy was not designed to survive.
Devon Mitchell12 min read
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 Webb13 min read
Global
Europe's Long Reckoning
The continent that invented liberal democracy is struggling to defend it. The far right is not the cause — it is the symptom of something deeper.
Sophie Laurent12 min read
History
The Internet Revolution We Misread
We predicted the internet would bring democracy, abundance, and connection. It brought all three and also their opposites. Understanding what we got wrong helps explain what comes next.
Cara Novak12 min read