2021 Year in Review
A Year on a Hinge of History
If we want to save the republic, we will have to do it ourselves.
D.D. GuttenplanJanuary
The Confederacy Finally Stormed the Capitol
And then, because the rioters were white, they were allowed to walk away. But just imagine if they had been Black.
Elie Mystal
How the United States Chose to Become a Country of Homelessness
For months, our leaders have known that the Covid-19 crisis could force millions of people from their homes. They decided to let it happen.
Dale Maharidge
Who Voted for Hitler?
Just as there are myths about Trump voters, there are damaging misconceptions about who brought the Nazis to power.
Dan SimonFebruary
46 and Done: Why Joe Biden Should Be Our Last President
Parliamentary democracies give their citizens tuition-free college, state-subsidized child care, generous paid leave, socialized medicine. We get “Hail to the Chief.”
Alexis Grenell
First, Nurses Saved Our Lives—Now They’re Saving Our Health Care
Throughout the pandemic, nurses have been at the forefront of the fight not only to treat the sick but also to fix our ailing medical system.
Sarah Jaffe
What Popular Culture Misunderstands About Addiction
Much of the film and TV we consume misleads audiences with inaccurate and harmful depictions of recovery and treatment.
Zachary SiegelMost Read Articles of 2021
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March 3, 2021
Kelly Loeffler Just Lost Her WNBA Team to a Player She Refused to Meet
A massive story just went down in Atlanta, if we take the time to acknowledge it.
Dave Zirin -
January 22, 2021
The Ignominious Deceits of Congressman Cawthorn
Representative Madison Cawthorn has misled the public about training for the Paralympics, just as he misrepresented his education and business history.
Sara Luterman -
January 7, 2021
Madness on Capitol Hill
Part insurrection, part happy hour, Trump supporters lost their minds, and I watched a man urinate on the Capitol steps. The nation, ashamed, was left to mourn.
Andrew McCormick -
July 1, 2021
Nancy Pelosi Outplays Kevin McCarthy Once Again
The House minority leader threatens GOP members who agree to serve on the Select Committee to investigate January 6. But Liz Cheney defies him, and now Pelosi has a quorum.
Joan Walsh
March
The Future of Postcolonial Thought
A pair of books—one by Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh, another by Achille Mbembe—consider the unfulfilled promise of decolonization.
Arjun Appadurai
The Great Hypocrisy of Right-Wingers Claiming ‘Cancel Culture’
Conservatives don’t hate cancellation. They hate consequences—for themselves.
Kali Holloway
Parenting as a Radical Act of Love
In our special issue, we consider the ways in which parenthood can push us to recognize our interdependence and spur us to fight harder for justice and equality.
Emily DouglasApril
Blowout in Bessemer: A Postmortem on the Amazon Campaign
The warning signs of defeat were everywhere.
Jane McAlevey
Blake Bailey’s Life as a Man
The disgraced writer’s Philip Roth biography is a document of a misogynist literary world. But I had to read the book to get the whole story.
Katha Pollitt
April
The Story Behind Your Salad: Farmworkers, Covid-19, and a Dangerous Commute
Each day, Mexican farmworkers endure a grueling journey to get to their jobs in US lettuce fields. This year, that journey turned potentially deadly.
Esther HonigIt’s one in the morning and the stars are out as hundreds of people shuffle slowly along the wall that marks the US border in the small Mexican city of San Luis Río Colorado. In heavy boots and wide-brimmed straw hats, most everyone here is headed to work in the… Continue Reading >
Books of the Year
Sally Rooney’s Fiction for End Times
In her third novel, Rooney does more than just respond to critics; she surveys the wreckage of modern life.
Tony Tulathimutte
Brandon Taylor’s Potlucks and Parties
In his new collection of short stories, the Booker-Prize nominated novelist explores the desires and discontents of people living in small university towns.
Jennifer Wilson
Jonathan Franzen’s God
A multigenerational saga about a Midwestern family, Crossroads is like most of Franzen novels—with one exception: Every plotline leads to the big guy himself.
Rumaan Alam
June
The Miseducation of White Children
The attacks on critical race theory are just another attempt to prevent this country from reckoning with its racist past and present—by keeping white kids ignorant.
Elie Mystal
AMLO Has Been a Disappointment to the World—for Mexico, He’s Been Far Worse
The Mexican president’s botched Covid response and his lean toward militarization indicate that he takes his cues from the past, not the future.
Dawn Paley
Our ‘Racial Reckoning’ Is Turning Out to Be a White Lie
Black demands for full citizenship are being treated as entitlement and calls for racial accountability redefined as white persecution.
Kali HollowayVillains of the Year
Bill Gates Gives to the Rich (Including Himself)
His renowned charitable activities seem to serve mainly private interests, namely his own.
Tim SchwabExpel Paul Gosar From Congress
The Arizona Republican, who has a history of consorting with neo-Nazis and insurrectionists, shared a video Monday depicting him killing AOC. It’s time to expel this twisted fiend.
John NicholsJuly
Our ‘Racial Reckoning’ Is Turning Out to Be a White Lie
Black demands for full citizenship are being treated as entitlement and calls for racial accountability redefined as white persecution.
Kali Holloway
Utopia and Dystopia Are Twins—Both Are Born Out of Criticism
But it is only Utopia that allows us to dream together.
Jeet Heer
Haiti Has Been Abandoned—by the Media, the US, and the World
Human rights activist Antoinette Duclaire’s murder is the latest for a country in chaos—where an obsession with elections obscures a complete absence of democracy or accountability.
Amy Wilentz
TV of the Year
“Succession”’s Repetition Compulsion
In Succession’s moral universe, no one can ever get what they want or what they deserve.
Sam Adler-Bell
“Squid Game”’s Capitalist Parables
Netflix’s breakout series depicts a world of violent and macabre individualism and desperation.
E. Tammy Kim
The Collective Trauma in ‘Mare of Easttown’
Unlike a standard true crime show, the HBO series focuses less on the mystery at its center and more on the community that must bear its consequences.
Erin SchwartzSeptember
The War on Terror: 20 Years of Bloodshed and Delusion
From the beginning, the War on Terror merged red-hot vengeance with calculated opportunism. Millions are still paying the price.
Tariq Ali
Bernie Sanders’s Third Campaign
As chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders’s big-government message has found its moment.
John Nichols
This Is What the First Hours of a Near-Total Ban on Abortion Look Like
The Texas law SB 8 will force abortion clinics in the state to turn away about 80 percent of all patients.
Amy Littlefield
Obituaries
What Was Rush Limbaugh So Afraid Of?
The late bully’s 30-year reign on talk radio traced and drove the rise of a grievance politics that led to Trump—and the January 6 violence.
Joan Walsh
‘What Would It Mean to Think That Thought?’: The Era of Lauren Berlant
Four writers on the legacy of Berlant’s thinking both in the academy and in public life.
Judith Butler, Maggie Doherty, Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Gabriel Winant
War Criminal Found Dead at 88
The human and economic costs of Donald Rumsfeld’s wars are staggering.
Phyllis BennisNovember
How Thousands of Black Farmers Were Forced Off Their Land
Black people own just 2 percent of farmland in the United States. A decades-long history of loan denials at the USDA is a major reason why.
Kali Holloway
Guam: Resisting Empire at the “Tip of the Spear”
The Pentagon is increasing its forces on the US territory, but Indigenous residents are fighting back.
Chris Gelardi
The Supreme Court Is Poised to Give a Giant Gift to Gun Nuts
Yesterday, the nation’s highest court heard the most significant Second Amendment case in a decade, and it did not bode well for gun control.
Elie MystalQ&As
Gayatri Spivak: ‘The Subaltern Speaks Through Dying’
A conversation on the educational empowerment of rural poor in India, and the evolution of Spivak’s thinking about state and citizen.
Francis Wade
Charles Mills Thinks Liberalism Still Has a Chance
A wide-ranging conversation with the philosopher on the white supremacist roots of liberal thought, Biden’s victory, and Trumpism without Trump.
Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins
Desire in Our Times: A Conversation With Amia Srinivasan
An interview with the philosopher about her new book, The Right to Sex, the need for more internationalist feminism, the politics of consent, and much more.
Nawal Arjini
Films of the Year
Denis Villeneuve’s Humanistic “Dune”
His adaptation was the first to understand the scale—both intimate and epic—the sci-fi novel required to translate to film.
Erin Schwartz
‘Minari’ Is a Landmark for Asian American Cinema
Lee Isaac Chung’s poignant immigrant drama is the kind of film that can be felt with all five senses.
Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
Joanna Hogg and the Art of Life
Her remarkable two-part film The Souvenir examines how an artist turns the fragments of their personal history into an enduring story.
Devika Girish