Political Commentary

That you should never meet your heroes, as they are bound to disappoint you, has become such conventional wisdom that it requires no author to affirm it. In a 2020 satirical New Yorker article, Alex Witt attributed the proverb to the faceless “they” (“They say, ‘Never meet your heroes,’ ” …

Donald Trump is now the first former president to be indicted on federal charges, having earlier this year become the first former president to be criminally indicted on state charges. Both cases charge felonies. The New York case could result in prison time if there’s conviction. But in this federal …

Al Gore once told me, “When it comes to climate change, everyone has an ‘oh shit moment’ — that moment when it gets real, when they realize what is at stake.” East Coasters are having an ‘oh shit moment’ right now. You look up at the sky and it’s orange, …

Happy Pride Month? This year, it’s more like Happy Wake the Fuck Up Month. Over the last few years, a lot of white, cisgender gay men like me have gotten pretty complacent. Sure, the Right was attacking trans folks and denying that systemic racism exists, but we seemed safe with …

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed several bills into law that will criminalize multiple aspects of being transgender, part of a broader attack aimed at making it at best difficult — and at worst illegal — to be a trans person in Florida. Although inaccurately framed as being …

There’s a self-defeating argument I’ve often heard used to explain the state of gun violence in this country. It goes something like this: If we couldn’t change things after 20 first-graders were murdered at Sandy Hook, what hope is there now? I understand the impulse to give in to cynicism …

Let’s just take a moment to stop and smell the sweet bouquet of justice, as it were. E. Jean Carroll received a very public vindication on Tuesday when a jury of nine people — six men and three women — agreed that she sufficiently proved she was sexually assaulted by …

I woke up last week to a text from my mother. Its contents hit me like a sucker punch. “CNN is hosting a town hall with Trump; Kaitlin Collins is moderating. WTF!!!” Then came confirmation: CNN will in fact host a town hall on Wednesday, May 10, in prime time. …

If you’re a little bit bored by Tuesday’s announcement that Joe Biden is running for re-election, I sympathize. The guy and his re-election campaign are not that exciting. Ageism aside, he’s 80 and showing it. He’s basically an establishment liberal, not pushing for the kinds of systemic changes that many …

Electric cars are awesome.Now, thanks to new vehicle-emissions standards proposed this week by the Biden administration that aim to accelerate the adoption of electric cars, it’s pretty obvious the internal-combustion engine is the dodo bird of energy technology, soon to exist only in the memories of aging car buffs and …