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Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger remarked in 2018, ''may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to [...]

“Severance,” the Apple TV+ serial about a corporation whose employees have agreed to “sever” their workaday minds from their normal streams of consciousness, remembering nothing of office life at home [...]

This is not my first vibe shift. I was there the last time that the American right seemed to have suddenly claimed a real cultural advantage, the last time liberals [...]

Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio How many times has your soul been saved? Probably not as many times [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat I didn't expect that the first great struggle of the Trump administration would focus on the United States Agency for International Development. But in hindsight it makes [...]

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been recording conversations about my new book, “Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious,” and one of the striking things — not unexpected, but still [...]

My parents ate health food in my youth, in the days before Whole Foods was everywhere, when seeking out even a veggie burger could require entering a subculture as exotic [...]

The fight for Donald Trump’s ear. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nyt-audio/id1549293936 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matter-of-opinion/id1438024613 https://open.spotify.com/show/6bmhSFLKtApYClEuSH8q42 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b42495b5-3d35-424f-8dcb-2b402b49f9ea/matter-of-opinion https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdMrbgYfVl-t_zd7kglNy7D0LOyASEMw7 Ross Douthat: On this week’s show, we’re continuing my one-on-one conversations with figures who represent different, potentially clashing worldviews [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat A scene from the first week of the second Trump administration: After the president held a White House event announcing a shared venture, with up to $500 [...]

A scene from the first week of the second Trump administration: After the president held a White House event announcing a shared venture, with up to $500 billion of funding, [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat In the years just before Donald Trump's ascent, political commentary increasingly aspired to a quasi-scientific style of analysis, with data journalism in all its forms supplanting the [...]

Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists David Brooks, Ross Douthat and Michelle Goldberg about Donald Trump's presidential inauguration on Monday and [...]

Marc Andreessen explains the newest faction of conservatism. Listen to and follow 'Matter of Opinion' Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio Below is a lightly [...]

Marc Andreessen explains the newest faction of conservatism. Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nyt-audio/id1549293936 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matter-of-opinion/id1438024613 https://open.spotify.com/show/6bmhSFLKtApYClEuSH8q42 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b42495b5-3d35-424f-8dcb-2b402b49f9ea/matter-of-opinion https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdMrbgYfVl-t_zd7kglNy7D0LOyASEMw7 [...]

It is clichéd-sounding but still accurate to say that the allegations of sexual assault and abuse against the fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, as recounted in a New York magazine https://www.vulture.com/article/neil-gaiman-allegations-controversy-amanda-palmer-sandman-madoc.html [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat My great-great-grandmother was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, and first saw the United States as a 10-year-old. My great-grandfather was an Irish Canadian who married a [...]

A cleareyed review of Biden’s term. Is President Biden more of a Jimmy Carter or a James Buchanan? It may be years before Biden’s legacy is truly understood, but that [...]

The debate over H-1B visas and skilled immigration that flared up while this newsletter was on Christmas holiday was, in one sense, a foretaste of the likely policy conflicts between [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat In March, I drove with my family up from Rome into the mountains of southeastern Umbria, to reach the town of Norcia and the monastery - now [...]

In March, I drove with my family up from Rome into the mountains of southeastern Umbria, to reach the town of Norcia and the monastery -- now an abbey; it's [...]

Any cultural critic can complain, as I did in last weekend’s https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/14/opinion/pop-culture-glicked.html, about the lack of creativity in American popular culture right now and the unmet “hunger for a certain [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat When 'Wicked' and 'Gladiator II' debuted together late last month, there was a painful attempt to call their shared box office success 'Glicked' - a reference to [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat My last newsletter before Thanksgiving was devoted to an argument about the potential resilience of both liberalism and democracy, even in a world where the post-Cold War [...]

Beneath all the furor around Donald Trump's appointments -- Matt Gaetz down and out, Pete Hegseth down but maybe coming back, the Kash Patel drama waiting in the wings -- [...]

Patrick Healy: Ross and David, you both have written extensively about the rule of law and presidential power. You both have a good sense of what American voters care about. [...]

Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists Ross Douthat and David French about President Biden's decision to issue a broad pardon to [...]

Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists Jamelle Bouie, Ross Douthat, M. Gessen and Lydia Polgreen about Donald Trump's preparations for a [...]

Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio After a “stranger than fiction” presidential race, the hosts take a deep dive [...]

Patrick Healy: Folks, I want to take you back to November 2016, after Donald Trump was elected president. Much of what we saw in that first Trump transition process foreshadowed [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat Before Donald Trump's victory, making detailed predictions about how his second administration would govern seemed like a fool's errand - there were too many multitudes within the [...]

Before Donald Trump's victory, making detailed predictions about how his second administration would govern seemed like a fool's errand -- there were too many multitudes within the Trumpian tent, too [...]

My https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/opinion/donald-trump-election-new-era.html last weekend made some pretty sweeping historical claims: that the re-election of Donald Trump proved that we have definitively exited the post-Cold War era, that the phase of [...]

On this episode of “Matter of Opinion,” Ross Douthat is joined by his good friend Reihan Salam, a former housemate and co-author and the president of the Manhattan Institute. As [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat Kamala Harris lost the presidential election, but one of her campaign slogans was vindicated in defeat. 'We're not going back!' the Democratic nominee insisted on the campaign [...]

Kamala Harris lost the presidential election, but one of her campaign slogans was vindicated in defeat. 'We're not going back!' the Democratic nominee insisted on the campaign trail, and she [...]

Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio As nominees roll in, the reality of Donald Trump’s second administration is rapidly […]

Donald Trump’s nominations of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services are similar in the degree of opposition [...]

Byline: Ross Douthat For the first time since the night of Nov. 4, 2008, a presidential election went exactly the way that I expected it to go. Having been surprised [...]

Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio In this special post-election episode of “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts take stock [...]

Aaron: The political scientist Lee Drutman had an https://leedrutman.substack.com/p/perfectly-balanced-totally-unstable on his Substack recently in which he talked a lot about minimal winning coalitions, an idea made famous by the political [...]

Aaron: It was only four months ago — not even, quite — that Joe Biden gave up his campaign. The Democrats quickly consolidated around Harris. Regardless of whether she wins [...]

Aaron Retica: Welcome to our live conversation with Ross Douthat and Ezra Klein. I will be asking some questions I have, Ross and Ezra may well ask each other questions, [...]

Aaron: Elon Musk has been deeply involved in this campaign on Trump’s side. He just https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1853948745521439079?s=46 a few minutes ago “Dark MAGA assemble.” Do I know exactly what that means? [...]