Ideas

Law

Eradicating the ‘Fourth Branch’

By ending the independence of federal agencies, the Supreme Court has taken another step toward the creation of an elected presidential dictatorship.

October 22, 2026 issue

Sue Halpern

The Plot to Delete Democracy

In The Nerd Reich Gil Durán shows how Silicon Valley billionaires have pushed a fringe ideology—what is popularly called techno-fascism but is closer in aspiration to straight-up totalitarianism—into the affairs of state.

November 5, 2026 issue

Jed S. Rakoff

And Yet It Warms

A new edition of a manual that helps federal judges understand scientific subjects included a chapter on climate change that was withdrawn after attacks by denialists.

September 24, 2026 issue

Mark Danner

Trump’s Constitutional Dictatorship

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s inside account of the Trump administration portrays a president with a vast appetite for power but who repeatedly backs down when the costs of his actions become too high.

August 20, 2026 issue

David Cole

Close Calls

In the Supreme Court’s recently concluded term, it showed that it is willing to constrain Trump but less willing to accept limits on its own authority.

August 20, 2026 issue

David Cole

Born in the USA

For the Supreme Court to accept the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke birthright citizenship, it would have to repudiate the Constitution, its own precedents, and the long-standing position of all three branches of the US government.

April 23, 2026 issue

Linda Greenhouse

As Kennedy Went

Justice Anthony Kennedy often confounded Supreme Court observers with his seemingly unpredictable opinions, but during the years when a majority could be achieved only through some measure of compromise, he wielded enormous power over the Constitution’s contemporary meaning.

March 12, 2026 issue

Laurence H. Tribe

Is the Constitution ‘Dead, Dead, Dead’?

The difficulty of amending the Constitution does not mean that it is a flawed and outdated relic of a distant past.

February 12, 2026 issue

Born in the USA

Sherrilyn Ifill

How America Ends and Begins Again

Because so much of what we have come to expect of our country is unraveling, we have an opportunity to build it anew.

December 21, 2023 issue

‘The High Tide of Immigration—A National Menace’; cartoon by Louis Dalrymple from Judge magazine, August 1903

Sarah Churchwell

The Racist History of US Immigration

Discussions of eugenics and other fascistic ideas in American history tend to provoke the defense that they never took root. But if they never took root, why do they keep flowering?

September 26, 2019 issue

Joseph O’Neill

Real Americans

‘This America: The Case for the Nation’ by Jill Lepore and ‘This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto’ by Suketu Mehta

August 15, 2019 issue

Pramila Jayapal

A New Moral Imagination on Immigration

In our country’s history, immigration has never been just about policy. It has always been about who we are and what we are willing to stand up for.

December 3, 2018

David Cole on the Supreme Court

David Cole

Trump v. Trump

What happens when a president sues himself?

May 20, 2026

David Cole

The Second ‘Redemption’

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais deals a fatal blow to the Voting Rights Act, using reasoning that Congress rejected more than forty years ago.

June 11, 2026 issue

David Cole

Born in the USA

April 23, 2026 issue

David Cole

The Lie of ‘Preventive’ War

Never has Donald Trump’s willful blindness to legal limits been more evident than in his decision to start a war with Iran.

March 6, 2026

The Latest

Nina Siegal

Indiana’s Indiana Jones

FBI agents who raided an Indiana farm in 2014 were astonished to find some 42,000 artifacts and bones looted by an amateur archaeologist.

May 28, 2026 issue

David Cole

The Second ‘Redemption’

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais deals a fatal blow to the Voting Rights Act, using reasoning that Congress rejected more than forty years ago.

June 11, 2026 issue

David Cole

Diversity by Other Means

Progressives may have lost the battle for racial affirmative action, but ironically, Supreme Court decisions should allow colleges to give advantage to groups defined by their income, geography, or heritage.

March 26, 2026 issue

Joyce Carol Oates, in conversation with Jarrett Earnest

Joyce Carol Oates on True Crime, Her Improbable Life, and Joan Didion

Episode 3 of Private Life

February 25, 2026

David Cole, interviewed by Daniel Drake

Contempt of Court

“True accountability lies with the American people. Do we sit by and accept such behavior? Or do we take to the streets to express our disapproval of what the government is doing in our name?”

February 14, 2026

Vanessa Ogle

Rolling with the Economic Tides

Ian Kumekawa’s Empty Vessel follows the lifespan of one barge, from bunkhouse to floating prison to barracks and back, as it traces the shadowy outer limits of the maritime economy.

February 12, 2026 issue

Nicholas Guyatt

The Most Rancorous Line

How did the Mason–Dixon Line—meant to resolve a long-standing colonial border dispute—come to represent the US’s foundational divide between slavery and freedom?

January 15, 2026 issue

Clair Wills

Blood Work

A rare genetic mutation is best treated the nineteenth-century way, with bloodletting, showing up the strengths and weaknesses of the NHS.

January 15, 2026 issue

Robert Sullivan

The Third Sovereign

If there is hope for the earth, it will depend in part on acknowledging indigenous sovereignty in the face of insatiable resource extraction.

December 4, 2025 issue

Cora Currier

Pervasive Impunity

Richard Beck’s Homeland charts how four presidential administrations managed to evade moral responsibility for the “war on terror” by hiding behind legality and process.

November 6, 2025 issue