The Baffler

Some good stories that we didn't publish.

Release the tapes Despite David Frum’s pearl clutching over our precious norms, it should be obvious to anyone that the deluge of leaks coming from this administration is a good thing. In the New Republic, Brian Beutler lays out an argument that embarrassment over leaks might ...

“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock” The best read of the week, and quite possibly our lifetimes, is this batshit insane Ryan Lizza piece recounting a conversation with Anthony Scaramucci. If you somehow missed it, well, buckle up because it’s ...

It has been a very long week.

What do rich people and cockroaches have in common? Honestly, lots of things, but in this case it’s the ability to survive a nuclear apocalypse. Over at The New Republic, John Carl Baker looks at the trend of luxury bunkers and how, even at the end of the world, the ...

What if democracy but too much?   Over at Current Affairs, Nathan J. Robinson tackles the pundit class’s surprisingly resilient idea that elitism is a good and defensible thing. Please remove your monocle before reading.   Hashtag spectacle of ...

After Piketty it’s the after-party First up, our very own editor Chris Lehmann read a book titled The Wisdom of Money and it went as well as you might expect. It seems that if this “book can teach us anything, it’s that, as fathomlessly wise as our market may be, it ...

Will the revolution start at the mall? Regular contributor Sarah Jaffe takes an in-depth look at the oft-ignored retail sector. Dismissed as temporary and low-skilled, it may come as a surprise that retail workers are leading the charge on labor rights. No, we can’t all get ...