Politics

Columns

The Year of Our Baffler 2018

The Baffler

December 28, 2018

2018 proved once and for all that cruelty and stupidity make energetic bedfellows. It was the year of children in cages and “a very stable genius,” of Paul Manafort’s leathers and attempts to legislate trans people out of existence. The measured, expert testimony of Dr. ...

Benefactors and Malefactors

Whitney Curry Wimbish

December 27, 2018

The Whitney Museum's board of trustees is loaded with malefactors of great wealth.

Pity the Conservative Consumer Watchdog

Zoë Beery

December 20, 2018

They deserve no sympathy for their awful views, but values voters are right to whine: almost no one wants their money.

Waste Not, Want Not

Madeleine Wattenbarger

December 19, 2018

If the Zero Waste movement wants to move beyond green environmentalism, it has to get off Instagram and into the world.

Sleeping Rough in the Mattress Economy

Ed Burmila

December 17, 2018

We've lowered the bar of aspirational living from condos to mattresses.

Beyond Relief

Robert Raymond

December 17, 2018

A new network of mutual aid centers across Puerto Rico wants to do more than provide disaster relief—it wants to build a movement.

Fresh Hell

The Baffler

December 14, 2018

ICE is Making a List, Checking it Twice

Lies, Damn Lies, and Prosecutions

Paul Pelletier

December 12, 2018

Mueller is now preparing his report and the final charges against the remaining rogues gallery.

Going in for the Shill

Tom Sexton

December 11, 2018

Joe Manchin, coal industry darling, cannot become become our bulwark against a nightmare future of rising, boiling seas.

Malice in Dairyland

Michael Duffy

December 06, 2018

In a special-lame duck session, Wisconsin's state legislature has frantically stripped powers from the governor’s office.

Football Nation

David Roth

December 05, 2018

The NFL repeatedly mistakes itself for a nation state—a sort of parallel America.

A Christmas Story

Ben Schwartz

December 04, 2018

George H. W. Bush has been transformed into a symbol of bygone kindness and civility. It's a Christmas Miracle!