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Matthew Shen Goodman

Matthew Shen Goodman is the editor in chief of The Baffler. He was previously a senior editor at Triple Canopy.

A claymation still depicts five people in motion in a wrestling ring: a tanned female bodybuilder in a metallic green bikini standing on the ring’s ropes, holding a car with two men grappling in one hand, and a large dumbbell in the other. Within the ring, a light-skinned racecar driver in a gold suit is falling through the air to the ground with his helmut above him. To the right of him, a black boxer with red boxing gloves, assless black chaps, and black boots is falling face-forward onto the ring’s floor, which is littered with blood splatter, bowling pins, and a video game controller. There’s an audience surrounding the ring, and pink and blue lights in the rafters. Two large grids of spotlights are in the rafters, and an audience surrounds the ring. One audience member is holding up a sign that reads “I STEAL COPPER.”

Own Goals

“America first does not mean America alone,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on April 23, seeking to reassure the market three weeks after the president declared Liberation Day and tariffed the world. Spooked by turbulence in the bond market—or eager to discard the ...
An illustration of a floating window in a cloudy sky with purple petals floating toward the viewer.

Been There, Done That

Forty-Five has become 47, and Donald Trump is now the first president to serve two nonconsecutive terms since Grover Cleveland. With protective tariffs anathema to Uncle Jumbo, as Cleveland was known to family and friends, the two wouldn’t have agreed on all counts, but our ...
A digital collage of an abstract landscape with mountains, lighting, and sea has various digital post-its arranged on top of it. They include the names of cities, such as Berlin, Mexico City, Tokyo, Cartagena, Bangkok, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro, and more.

At Home He’s a Tourist

On the morning of November 5, the day of the 2024 presidential election, the algorithm delivered me the promise of escape. Titled “Here’s How to Buy Citizenship in Another Country,” the article lamented the global character of climate change and the fact that “political ...
A photograph depicts the creation of the front cover on a work desk—the paper sculptures of stanchions standing along a red sheet of paper that fades from red to pink. Printed sheets of the sculptures before assembly—in 2–D—are taped to the wall, and glue sticks and scraps of paper are scattered across the desk.

On the Clock

Choose your precipice. The grist that makes modern life will run out at some point—when will we tap the last barrel of crude, blow through the remaining stocks of helium, deplete those rare metals only getting rarer? More pressing than bismuth and boron as I write this in ...
Purple, cartoonish, bloodshot eyes peek out of a cloud of smoke.

Just Say Yes

You can trace the liberalizing contours of the American public’s relationship to drugs by way of the last few presidents’ consumption habits. Clinton famously didn’t inhale, only willing to admit to touching reefer in England. Before his religious reawakening at forty, ...
A photo of an intact mug spills coffee as it approaches a black and white tiled floor.

Nohow On

Failure abounds today, but also its recuperation. Who hasn’t been sold “resilience,” what with a vast industry of self-help hucksters and combination fitness-business influencers imploring you to grit your teeth and embrace the grind? Samuel Beckett’s call to fail again ...
An egg sits in an egg holder next to a cup and saucer.

Age of Onset

We’ve never been so old. There were 95,000 centenarians in 1990 and more than 450,000 in 2015, according to estimates from the United Nations. Global life expectancy doubled from 1920 to 2020; the pandemic saw a dip that was horrifying but comparatively minor in the scope of a ...