Join The New Yorker’s writers and editors for reporting, insight, and analysis of the most pressing political issues of our time. On Mondays, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, presents conversations and feature stories about current events. On Wednesdays, the senior editor Tyler Foggatt goes deep on a consequential political story via far-reaching interviews with staff writers and outside experts. And, on Fridays, the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the latest developments in Washington and beyond, offering an encompassing understanding of this moment in American politics.
Join The New Yorker’s writers and editors for reporting, insight, and analysis of the most pressing political issues of our time. On Mondays, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, presents conversations and feature stories about current events. On Wednesdays, the senior editor Tyler Foggatt goes deep on a consequential political story via far-reaching interviews with staff writers and outside experts. And, on Fridays, the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos discuss the latest developments in Washington and beyond, offering an encompassing understanding of this moment in American politics.
Dexter Filkins on what motivates the Florida congressman to wreak havoc within his own party.
The co-host of the popular show explains how the withering of the media and the threat of political violence are warping the Presidential campaign, and what Biden’s team needs to do.
The Biden campaign’s response to a special-counsel report claiming the President has diminished memory may not quell voters’ growing concerns about his age. What’s next for the Democrats?
This week, a special counsel’s report renews worries about the President’s mental acuity, and the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell, seemingly loses his grip on his conference.
The New Yorker staff writer and historian Jill Lepore on how an obscure constitutional provision that will be interpreted by the Supreme Court could affect Donald Trump’s candidacy for President.
The passage of a wide-ranging national-security package is being held up by House Republicans and Donald Trump, leaving the Biden Administration in a delicate position ahead of the election.
Supporters of the Trump and Biden campaigns are trying to engineer viral moments to win the election through memes and social media.
Introducing The Runaway Princesses, from In the Dark
“American Fiction,” nominated for five Academy Awards, satirizes the literary world, and upends Hollywood conventions about Blackness.
As Israel continues its military campaign in Gaza, President Biden navigates a divided Democratic Party.
Evan Osnos untangles the real meaning of a term that has become a useful shorthand for a wide array of grievances.
The chair of the powerful Congressional Progressive Caucus looks at whether President Biden can put the Democratic Party back together again in time to achieve victory in the 2024 election.
New Yorker staff writers respond to listeners about the 2024 race for the White House.
Sarah Larson, reporting from Des Moines, discusses the meaning of the Florida governor’s lukewarm performance at the Iowa caucuses.
Whether he wins as expected or somehow underperforms, the former President has upended the Republican contest without participating in a single debate and having barely campaigned on the ground.
The 2024 Presidential primary officially begins with next week’s Iowa caucuses, but the race for the Republican nomination is already in its home stretch.
Antonia Hitchens, reporting from Des Moines, examines Haley’s surprising surge in the polls ahead of Monday’s caucus.
The Wisconsin-based Nation reporter wasn’t at the Capitol when it was attacked. That hasn’t stopped Donald Trump’s attorneys from holding him responsible.
The attack on the U.S. Capitol, in 2021, is set to be a central issue for both the Trump and the Biden campaigns in different ways.
How the tech billionaire built a one-man monopoly over American infrastructure and became too powerful for the U.S. government to rein in.
The last major overhaul of the immigration system was in 1986. Changing conditions and a political impasse have created a state of chaos that the Biden Administration can no longer deny.
From Vanity Fair: How Donald Trump’s Lack of Faith Attracts Conservative Christians
In 1979, a minister received a telegram from Iranian militants who had taken hostages in the American embassy, inviting him to perform Christmas services. Two days later, he was inside.
With an embattled House of Representatives, a four-time indicted former President, and wars raging overseas, 2023 was a year comparable to none.
Tyler Foggatt looks back on 2023 with The New Yorker’s infamously relentless interviewer, Isaac Chotiner.
The Palestinian writer and New Yorker contributor was wrongly accused of being a Hamas activist by Israeli forces while he tried to flee Gaza with his family.
Many Republicans are resisting calls for more U.S. aid for Ukraine. Part of the explanation is the right’s affinity for the projects of Viktor Orbán, in Hungary, and Vladimir Putin, in Russia.
The New Yorker staff writer discusses the enforcement of “memory culture” in Germany, and the ongoing battle over the definition of antisemitism.
Once a top Republican, Cheney is calling out her former colleagues in Congress—including Speaker Mike Johnson—for “enabling” a would-be dictator.
Former Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee joins The Political Scene to discuss the rush of lawmakers leaving Congress and what’s driving them away.
Jill Lepore revisits the overlooked story of Jefferson Davis, an insurrectionist ex-President, and considers the lasting cost of leniency.
Jelani Cobb, Jill Lepore and Evan Osnos on the precarious state of American democracy and why—yet again—we risk losing it in the upcoming Presidential election.
Henry Kissinger, a shaper of the twentieth-century world order, died this week, at the age of 100. He leaves behind a complicated legacy.
The so-called godfather of A.I. believes we need to put constraints on the technology so it won’t free itself from human control. But he’s not sure whether that’s possible.
Geraldo Cadava, a historian and contributing writer at The New Yorker, considers the issues that might be attracting a traditionally Democratic voting bloc to the Republican Party.
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt talks about antisemitism “from all ends of the political spectrum, and in between.” It threatens not only Jews, she says, but the stability of democracies.
Jonathan Haidt on “The Anxious Generation”
April 22, 202428min 2sec
Both anecdotally and in research, anxiety and depression among young people—often associated with self-harm—have risen sharply over the last decade. There seems little doubt that Gen Z is suffering in real ways. But there is not a consensus on the cause or causes, nor how to address them. The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes that enough evidence has accumulated to convict a suspect. Smartphones and social media, Haidt says, have caused a “great rewiring” in those born after 1995. The argument has hit a nerve: his new book, “The Anxious Generation,” was No. 1 on the New York *Times* hardcover nonfiction best-seller list. Speaking with David Remnick, Haidt is quick to differentiate social-media apps—with their constant stream of notifications, and their emphasis on performance—from technology writ large; mental health was not affected, he says, for millennials, who grew up earlier in the evolution of the Internet. Haidt, who earlier wrote about an excessive emphasis on safety in the book “The Coddling of the American Mind,” feels that our priorities when it comes to child safety are exactly wrong. “We’re overprotecting in [the real world], and I’m saying, lighten up, let your kids out! And we’re underprotecting in another, and I’m saying, don’t let your kids spend nine hours a day on the Internet talking with strange men. It’s just not a good idea.” To social scientists who have asserted that the evidence Haidt marshals does not prove a causative link between social media and depression, “I keep asking for alternative theories,” he says. “You don’t think it’s the smartphones and social media—what is it? . . . You can give me whatever theory you want about trends in American society, but nobody can explain why it happened so suddenly in 2012 and 2013—not just here but in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Northern Europe. I’m waiting,” he adds sarcastically, “for someone to find a chemical.” The good news, Haidt says, is there are achievable ways to limit the harm.
Note: In his conversation with David Remnick, Jonathan Haidt misstated some information about a working paper that studies unhappiness across nations. The authors are David G. Blanchflower, Alex Bryson, and Xiaowei Xu, and it includes data on thirty-four countries.
