A broadside against Matt Yglesias on Twitter/X a couple of days ago caught my attention. There is, of course, nothing unusual about Yglesias getting attacked—or Yglesias attacking others—on the ...

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 ...

“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 ...

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

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 ...

Going back to last year, I had a feeling that the Zohran Mamdani-Jessica Tisch dynamic would never easily resolve itself. My own thinking on the appointment has evolved over time. Initially, in the ...

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 ...

A couple of days ago, a former mayoral candidate posted that Zohran Mamdani’s might be imploding. The Democrat, former City Comptroller Scott Stringer, was reacting to a photo on Twitter/X that showed ...

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 ...