The pro-Israel Democratic voter should be very worried. If one of their candidates doesn’t win or come especially close to ...

A few days ago, Michelle Goldberg, the New York Times columnist, wrote about the challenge of her child’s application process for New York City public high schools. “New York has an almost purely ...

Democratic socialism is ascendant for now, and media outlets are dedicating far more time to covering the phenomenon. The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells just published a large piece about the ...

Once in a while, I find myself catching a Bari Weiss news cycle. Given the enormous amount of consolidation in media and the power she now wields as David Ellison’s mogul, that’s not very hard. He has ...

“Saw a ‘Mx.’ the other day and the first BIPOC sighting in a year. Are we back?” the writer Jay Caspian Kang asked on X a few days ago. His post was a response to Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, who ...

Some of you might know I’m the editor-in-chief of The Metropolitan Review, one of the great young literary magazines in the country. I’ve got a great team with me, and they make the magic happen. On ...

This is Ross Barkan's newsletter - original essays on politics, society, and culture. Click to read Political Currents by Ross Barkan, a Substack publication.

Like many in the literary world, I read, with great interest, Naomi Kanakia’s recent exegesis on the “little” magazines like the Partisan Review and their various descendants, including n+1, The Drift ...

It can be true, simultaneously, that Donald Trump is dangerous and Donald Trump is weak. All American presidents, by the nature of the position, are dangerous. The powers of the office—the inherent ...

I’ve got a new essay in Jacobin on the state of literary publishing, the male novelist, and the curious resurgence of Lonesome Dove. Have a read. It’s not surprising, in the present day, the ...

Come next year, Hakeem Jeffries, barring incredibly unforeseen circumstances, will be the speaker of the House of Representatives. This will make him highly influential and much more famous than he is ...