Matter of Opinion

With the midterm elections just nine months away, the Democrats face some hefty existential questions that need answers: Who are they in this post- and possibly pre-Trump era of American politics? Are they simply the anti-Trump party? Or are they the party of progress? Who are the voters they need to turn out in November? Should they excite the base by building a coalition united against white supremacy, or should they moderate their message to win over Republican-defectors? This week on “The...

A year into the Biden administration, most of us can agree on one thing: The United States remains a deeply divided nation, with polarizing opinions on all sides. But what about the voices from the middle, the independents? Swing voters are arguably one of the most consequential groups for the midterm elections, so we wanted to hear from them about how they view President Biden’s first year and the current state of American democracy. So this month the veteran G.O...

2022 is a big year for supporters of Supreme Court reform. Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that gave women nationwide the right to have abortions, might be overturned, and the debate around changing the way we structure the bench — in particular, packing the court — is getting only more heated...

There’s a divide in the Republican Party between those who believe the ‘Big Lie’ — that the election was stolen from President Donald Trump — and those who don’t. But which side is ultimately the future of the party? That’s the question Jane Coaston poses to Charlie Sykes, a founder and editor at large of The Bulwark, and Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review. Sykes and Lowry discuss what the G.O.P...

Just how much trouble is American democracy in? When we look to 2024, it’s easy to focus on the doomsday scenario: an election where legitimate results get thrown out. But our democracy has been eroding for years — and we’ve never been an equal democracy for everyone in the first place. Host Jane Coaston discusses the state of the U.S. democracy and whether Jan. 6 was a turning point with Masha Gessen, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and Corey Robin, a political scientist at Brooklyn College.

As the days left in 2021 dwindle, you may feel that annual tug to judge this calendar year as cruelly as possible. After all, it was yet another year lived in a pandemic, on a warming planet, with teetering democracies and aspirational autocrats (tune in next week for that debate)...

Last month, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges related to the shooting of two people at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisc. Before, during and after the trial, journalists and pundits broke down the most sensational moments on the stand, and many tried to discern what Rittenhouse’s not-guilty decision meant about the country at large...

With the midterms just months away and the 2024 presidential race around the corner, the press is gearing up to cover more deeply polarizing election cycles. And how it should do that is an equally polarizing question. The media’s role in preserving — and reporting on — our democratic institutions is up for discussion. Last week, the New York Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat pushed back on media critics like the N.Y.U. associate professor Jay Rosen...

A group of scholars and journalists announced last month that they were founding the University of Austin on the belief that free speech is being stifled on college campuses across America. “The reality is that many universities no longer have an incentive to create an environment where intellectual dissent is protected and fashionable opinions are scrutinized,” wrote Pano Kanelos, the inaugural president, in the initial statement...

Facebook, Meta — whatever you want to call it, the tech titan has drawn a lot of ire, and not just from privacy advocates and people fighting misinformation. Antitrust regulators are sharpening their knives, too. Forty-eight attorneys general want to slice the Big Tech giant into less-powerful pieces. They’ve joined a parallel lawsuit with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to challenge what the agency alleges to be a monopoly engaging in illegal acquisitions...