The Essays
America Doesn't Exist in the World
America is in a culture war with Australia. And nobody told the Americans.
Do trash cans actually make cities cleaner?
Surprisingly, the data says no
Ten surprises from Mexico City
Americans don’t know a lot about a country they love to talk about.
Citizen, Asterisk
An army recruitment sign in Mexico City said you had to be Mexican by birth to enlist. That sent me into the surprisingly particular world of how Mexico decides who is Mexican,…
Does Mexico love China?
I landed in Mexico City and a stranger told me to download a Chinese app. Turns out the whole country already did.
Will we make it in time?
Everyone is racing to get their AI slop product to market. Will you be done with yours before the window closes?
Do whatever you want
American individualism was once bounded by genuine community obligation. It has shed that obligation and kept the freedom. What remains is something the tradition's founders would…
The hypocrisy that is not hypocrisy
Americans hold their ideals sincerely and accept, without much distress, that the country falls short of them. Understanding why it works the way it does is the beginning of…
How to negotiate with Trump
The countries getting the best outcomes from Mr Trump are not the ones being most accommodating. The pattern is visible and consistent. Most Western governments are still not…
Someone needed to say it
Tony Blair is largely right about Labour's political crisis, wrong about America, and written from a distance from ordinary British life that he does not seem to notice. It still…
A competitor that has not noticed the consequences of winning
American capitalism sets the terms of global economic competition. The terms are unsustainable. The rest of the world cannot change them without America changing first.
Which country does Goldman Sachs work for?
Empires do not collapse suddenly. They fade, across decades, in ways that are legible only in retrospect. What will American corporations will do when the fading becomes…
The obligation J.P. Morgan understood
The Chinese government was not afraid of Jack Ma. It felt wronged. That distinction matters more than it might seem for understanding what the state is entitled to demand from its…
Playing by the rules
AI did not break higher education. Grade inflation, credential obsession, and decades of institutional cowardice did that. The students using AI to navigate the result are not the…
No longer anyone's guest
The Supreme Court borrowed a room from the Senate for 134 years. Then it built its own palace.
An old constitution in a new world
The Supreme Court is giving the president more control over the civil service while restricting what that civil service can do. Neither move restores the framers' balance.…
The monument on the hill
Americans revere their presidents and regard their Congress with contempt. The founders built it the other way around. The shift between then is the story of a republic slowly…
Fifty years of unequal votes
India's parliamentary map has not been redrawn since 1971. The reckoning, when it comes, is being handled in the worst possible way.
The bomb the ayatollah prevented
Khamenei's death removed the one person holding Iran back from nuclear weapons. The political logic driving the region toward proliferation is now stronger than it has ever been
One veto less
Mr Orbán's defeat hands Europe a genuine opening. Europe is unlikely to use it well enough.