Magazine
Also In This Issue
Articles
Brexit, for Real This Time
The Conservative-party electoral win puts an end to years of attempted sabotage.
Andy Warhola’s Religion
An exhibition at the Warhol Museum explores the artist’s Byzantine-Catholic side.
Features
Paid Family Leave Finds Proponents on the Right
Two GOP Senate bills propose to create a federal program—before the Democrats can.
Books, Arts & Manners
Are Americans Overdoing Democracy?
A review of Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place, by Robert B. Talisse.
In Search of George Washington’s Mother
A review of Mary Ball Washington: The Untold Story of George Washington’s Mother, by Craig Shirley.
Horace Greeley’s Ill-Fated Crusades
A review of Horace Greeley: Print, Politics, and the Failure of American Nationhood, by James M. Lundberg.
Reading Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Darkling Thrush’ at Year’s End
There is more going on in the poem than perhaps even Hardy intended.
Families Are the Murder Victims in Knives Out! and Marriage Story
You will not find these films compared in many reviews, but it’s interesting to read them through each other.
Sections
Okay Stupid
Some cadets made a gesture during the Army–Navy football game, and that led to an investigation of their ‘intention.’
Excerpts from My Nose Is Red But My Heart Is Blue, Memoirs of Rudolph Reindeer
‘Rudolph,’ he said quietly. ‘With your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?’ I took a deep breath. Was this, at last, the moment of acceptance?
A Rocking Chair Song
The joys of fatherhood are great, not least to lull your gentle weight...
Fictions of the Right
One of the best explanations for the Republican acquiescence to Trump is that we can’t stand to live in chaos, and so we seek to make sense of nonsense.