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New York Times
07-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Now You See Josh Hawley, Now You Don't
Senator Josh Hawley sure knows how to scurry away. The Missouri Republican showed as much on Jan. 6, 2021, when he gave that infamous clenched-fist salute to the unruly mob bound for the Capitol — go get 'em, tigers! — then sprinted like terrified prey through the halls of Congress to evade them. He later wrote and plugged a book titled 'Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs.' It extolled virility, valor, grit. All the qualities that he embodied on that heroic day. And which he just modeled anew in voting for President Trump's monstrously big but not even marginally beautiful domestic policy bill. For months before Hawley fell meekly in line last week, he sought and got enormous attention for being a holdout, a maverick, someone willing to tell the president uncomfortable truths and determined to prove that the MAGA movement really was looking out for the little people. His fist was once again clenched, his arm once again raised, this time in defense of the health insurance on which so many less privileged Americans depend. 'We must ignore calls to cut Medicaid and start delivering on America's promise for America's working people,' he wrote in a guest essay for Times Opinion in May. It was 'must,' not should. It was declarative, not ruminative. He explained that 'slashing health insurance for the working poor' would be 'both morally wrong and politically suicidal.' He sounded like a warrior — and a masculine one, at that! — manning the barricades. Which, inevitably, he abandoned. The arc of Republican lawmakers in the Trump era bends toward complete submission. That's the posture in which Hawley and other Senate Republicans granted the president his financially reckless and needlessly cruel agenda. Back in November, I observed that the second Trump administration would test the Senate even more than the first one had, revealing 'how shamefully far from its onetime description as 'the world's greatest deliberative body' it has strayed.' The verdict is in. Having rubber-stamped many ridiculous senior administration officials, Senate Republicans have now signed off on a sprawling policy package that will, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, add more than $3 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade, even as it cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid and results in nearly 12 million Americans losing their health insurance. The legislation makes a mockery of the party's longtime claims of prudent fiscal stewardship. And as Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, explained in a Senate speech, it 'will betray the very promise' that Trump made not to go after people's Medicaid. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
12-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Inside Our Voters' Guide to New York's Democratic Primary
Here are two things I know about American politics: Our choices in elections matter more than ever, and our trust and interest in the process is shakier than ever. Voting can have enormous consequences, yet many people don't believe their vote makes a difference and, perhaps because of that, don't look closely at which candidates best match their priorities, concerns or values. Coming out of the 2024 election, I've been thinking a lot about ways that Times Opinion can help readers assess politicians, understand issues and make informed decisions. Today we are publishing The Choice, a new form of civic journalism from Times Opinion, which we intend as a public service for voters during election seasons. Our inaugural project focuses on the Democratic primary race for mayor of New York, one of the most important U.S. elections this year. The Choice brings together 15 New Yorkers who are deeply involved in the life of the city and draws on their expertise, experience and range of viewpoints to assess the nine main Democratic candidates for mayor. Some members of our group are experts on key issues in the race or on communities and neighborhoods, politics and leadership and the corporate world — all things that matter greatly to the future of New York. Our editors spoke to scores of New Yorkers this winter and spring about taking part in the project and chose these 15 in hopes that their commitment to the city and their insights will prove helpful to voters. Over the past two months, our panel conducted their own research on the candidates and six key issues that will be important for the next mayor. Affordability in particular is a cornerstone of the project, given the cost of living in New York today. Times Opinion asked the members of our panel to rate the candidates on the six issues as well as choose the candidate that they thought would make the best mayor. Many members of our panel began their work still uncertain about their top pick; some even donated to candidates whom they ended up not picking. (We disclose all donations from panel members in the project.) Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Can Embracing Punk Save Gen Z — and Our Flailing Country?
The writer and performer John Cameron Mitchell has a message for members of Generation Z: Stop playing it safe and embrace punk. Mitchell, who wrote 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' sits down with Opinion's deputy editorial director of culture, Carl Swanson, to talk about what he learned touring around the country and talking with college students about rebellion. Below is a transcript of an episode of 'The Opinions.' We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Please note: parts of this conversation contain strong language. Carl Swanson: My name is Carl Swanson, and I'm the deputy editorial director for culture at Times Opinion. We are only four months into the second Trump administration, so it's too early to say what the cultural response will be, but it's not too early to ask the question: What should the response be from art, music and from youth culture? The actor, writer and director John Cameron Mitchell recently wrote an essay for us with an answer to that question: 'Today's Young People Need to Learn How to Be Punk.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
15-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Two Opinion Columnists on Trump's Era of International Bullying
With President Trump meeting with heads of state in the Middle East this week, the Times Opinion senior international editor Krista Mahr sat down with the columnists Lydia Polgreen and Nick Kristof to talk about how the president is emboldening leaders of all kinds worldwide, and what relationships they're most worried about. Below is a transcript of an episode of 'The Opinions.' We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Krista Mahr: My name is Krista Mahr. I'm the senior international editor at Times Opinion. One of the things my colleagues and I have been watching closely in the first four months of Trump's second term is how world leaders are reacting to this new administration. I wanted to talk about this so-called Trump effect with Lydia Polgreen and Nick Kristof, columnists who have reported extensively on America's relationship with the rest of the world. Lydia, Nick, welcome. Lydia Polgreen: Hi, Nick. Hi, Krista. Nicholas Kristof: Good to be with you. Mahr: So, from my perspective, it looks like there are a few different types of leadership that have emerged in response to Trump 2.0. There are the emboldened leaders like Vladimir Putin who are using Trump's foreign policy to advance their own agendas. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Why These Five Broadway Shows Are Inspiring for America Right Now
If you're lucky, you have something in your life that gives you purpose, and you have people in your life to talk to about it. Purpose gives me focus; it helps me not get distracted by the hour-to-hour tumult and chaos of the world, and it gives me gratitude for what I'm doing and what I have in my life. When I feel that gratitude slipping from me — when I feel restless, irritable or frustrated — it's usually because my sense of purpose is slipping for some reason, too. I've been thinking about this because, after Times Opinion's coverage last week of President Trump's first 100 days in office, I heard from readers and podcast listeners grappling with this moment and ways to live through it and remain intact. And I thought about the inspiration I drew this year from a favorite source of mine: plays and musicals on Broadway that dealt with purpose in different ways. These shows delve into dismay and disappointment in the world, and their characters' determination to make things better or happier. They are misfits and outsiders trying to break free of their own private frustrations: the high school student Shelby in the play 'John Proctor Is the Villain,' who wants to transcend men who have used or abused her; the helper-robot Oliver in 'Maybe Happy Ending,' who wants to reconnect with his old owner; the school board member Suzanne in 'Eureka Day,' who wants the community to flourish as long her values dominate; and Mary Todd Lincoln in 'Oh, Mary!' who just wants a moment back in the spotlight. These characters stayed with me because they were driven by clear intention and a hunger for life and vitality; their performers — Sadie Sink, Darren Criss, Jessica Hecht and Cole Escola — were knockouts in my book because they understood and ultimately delivered on that sense of purpose. All four, along with their shows, were nominated for Tony Awards on Thursday. But my favorite Broadway show of the season, just narrowly ahead of 'John Proctor,' was the aptly named 'Purpose,' by the great playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. At the risk of being too on-the-nose, if you want to think about purpose, see 'Purpose.' In the tradition of the plays 'August: Osage County,' 'The Piano Lesson' and 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,' the play concerns a few days in the life of a sprawling American family that's awash in a reckoning over betrayal, mendacity, inheritance (literal and figurative) and what people are called to do. There is a lovely scene toward the end of 'Purpose' — no real spoilers — where the patriarch of the family, a character who calls to mind Jesse Jackson, talks about tending to the civil rights movement long ago and tending to bees now, late in his life. 'Honey never, ever spoils — did you know that?' Solomon Jasper says to his younger son, Naz. 'And bees just … make that. And to think that I could, in some small way, participate in the miracle of honey, a sweetness everlasting. It gave me … purpose. Yes. A small sense of purpose. Which was always something I needed. Because without it there is just despair. There is just emptiness. You've heard me say it a thousand times, but the movement was … there was such an extraordinary sense of God's presence then — everywhere you looked. Purpose. And we felt as organized as a hive. Everybody knew their role, knew their potential, that common goal and how to achieve it — and we were all walking through the world just glowing with God. And when that world began to change … there was nothing like it, no feeling like it. The vision of the better place we all carried with us — it was coming true.' More than anything, 'Purpose' challenges you to think about the life course that we find ourselves on, or that we chose, and whether it's right for us and whether it's enough. What happens when we lose our sense of purpose so much that we are no longer intact — as humans, as a family, as America? It's a play that meets our national moment.
