In the Post-9/11 Media Landscape, the Fake News Was Coming From Inside the House

Twenty years ago, George W. Bush and Tony Blair lied their way into invading Iraq. The mainstream media cheered them along.

QAnon Will Not Be Leaving Us Anytime Soon

Will Sommer, author of the new book Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America, explains where QAnon came from, why it isn’t going away anytime soon, and how material deprivation helps drive conspiracy theories.

Why QAnon Will Outlive Donald Trump

QAnon has become far bigger than any one political figure attached to it. Q is a new and radically postmodern species of right-wing politics, capable of transcending the boundaries of nation and culture. And it’s not going away anytime soon.

Democrats in Michigan Are Showing National Democrats How to Actually Wield Power

Democrats usually waste their electoral majorities. So it’s shocking when the party uses its power to actually pass progressive and pro-worker legislation, as it just did in Michigan — including repealing the state’s right-to-work law.

Florida Republicans Are Reminding Us Again: The Right Doesn’t Care About Free Speech

The Right makes a big show of supporting free speech. But Republicans are advancing legislation in Florida that is doing the exact opposite, attempting to clamp down on the free speech rights of bloggers who criticize Gov. Ron DeSantis.

How the Right Gets George Orwell Wrong

Free-market zealots like Friedrich Hayek and others on the Right love claiming George Orwell as their own. That requires ignoring Orwell’s entire body of work defending democratic socialism — and denouncing the right-wing worldview of figures like Hayek.

Mainstream Media Is Doing PR for Pete Buttigieg

The press is supposed to hold the powerful accountable. But Pete Buttigieg keeps getting treated by mainstream reporters with kid gloves.

Even Right-Wing Think Tanks Are Finding High Support for Socialism

Poll after poll after poll keeps showing high levels of support for socialism in the United States and Canada — even when it’s conservatives doing the polling.

The Root of Fake News Is the Corporate Lust for Profit in Media

Recent court disclosures prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt: Fox News knowingly lies to its audiences. But corporate media is fundamentally a vehicle for profit-making, which means that both right-wing and liberal outlets have an incentive to lie.

Joe Biden Should Have Been in East Palestine Before Donald Trump

The Democrats’ absurdly slow response to the recent Ohio train derailment repeats an all-too-familiar pattern of liberals creating openings conservatives are able to exploit.

The Capitalist Road to Serfdom

Some multinational corporations are now larger and more powerful than individual nation-states. If those companies were countries, they would be authoritarian dictatorships.

What Was MAGA Nationalism?

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump fused nationalist appeals with selective attacks on Republican market ideology. As president, he provided more rhetoric than change.

For the GOP in 2024, It’s Still Trump

Since he first ran for president, Donald Trump has not only become the dominant figure in Republican politics — he’s embedded his own priorities and personal style deep in the GOP base. They’ll accept no substitutes for the real thing at this point.

Joe Biden Still Has No Plan to Turn His Rhetoric Into Reality

Joe Biden actually showed signs of life in his State of the Union. And Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s response reflected a GOP determined to stay weird and unhinged. But whatever his rhetorical innovations, Bidenism in practice remains grounded in Beltway orthodoxy.

Liz Truss’s Press Tour Is an Exercise in Reality Denial

Britain’s short-lived Tory prime minister Liz Truss has finally emerged from hiding to tell the story of her less than two months at 10 Downing Street, and she’s already rewriting history.

Democratic Leaders’ Craven “Socialism” Vote Is a Symptom of Political Cluelessness

Some Democrats apparently thought voting for the GOP’s ludicrous anti-socialism resolution would keep them safe from Republican attacks. They’ll find out soon enough how wrong they were.

Cities Are Spending More to Brutalize Homeless People Than It Would Cost to House Them

Few scenes are as emblematic of the barbarism of American capitalism as the now-routine “sweeps” in which police round up homeless people and destroy their belongings. By some estimates, it would be cheaper to just provide them with housing.

Own Your Bad

Big Pharma Is Obscenely Jacking Up the Prices of Publicly Funded COVID Vaccines

With pharma giant Moderna planning to quintuple the price it charges for its COVID vaccines — developed using taxpayer dollars — the case for nationalizing an out-of-control drug industry has never been stronger.

Why George Santos Won’t Resign

In a world where norms and codes of conduct mattered, George Santos’s would be an open and shut case. But as long as he remains useful to the narrow Republican House majority, the chronically dishonest congressman likely isn’t going anywhere.