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If Trump Were an Airline Pilot
Through the 2016 campaign, I posted a series called “Trump Time Capsule” in this space. The idea was to record, in real time, what was known about Donald Trump’s fitness for office—and to do so not...
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On Trump and Queeg: A Follow-up
Three days ago I argued that if Donald Trump were in any consequential job other than the one he now occupies—surgeon, military commander, head of a private organization or public company, airline...
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What Trump Has Shown Us About Leadership (Continued).
Whatever is wrong with Donald Trump is getting worse. A week ago, it seemed noteworthy that he was canceling a long-planned state visit because an allied government didn’t want to let him “buy...
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‘Local, Local, Local’: How a Small Newspaper Survives
This is another road report on the state of local journalism, which is more and more important, and more and more imperiled.It is important because so much of the future of American economic, cultural,...
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Where Are America’s ‘Rebel Tories’?
After the riveting debate in Parliament yesterday about the terms and timing for Brexit, 21 Tory “rebel” MPs defected from the Conservative party on a major vote. They joined members of other parties...
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The End of the Roman Empire Wasn’t That Bad
Hanna BarczykIt’s time to think about the Roman empire again. But not the part of its history that usually commands attention in the United States: the long, sad path of Decline and Fall. It’s what...
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‘After the Fall’: What Rome Means for America
The new issue of the print magazine contains a story by me called “The End of the Roman Empire Wasn’t That Bad.”The title (which, like most titles, I didn’t write) represented (like many titles)...
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Why Local Innovation Is the Answer
What’s the point of writing a “thought experiment” article, like mine in the current issue about the bright side of the Dark Ages?It’s to generate some thoughts! On top of the first round of...
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‘I’m Not Tossing in the Towel Yet’
The new print issue of the magazine has a short thought-experiment article, by me, on what happened after the fall of the Roman empire. (As I point out, this concerned the Western empire only—the one...
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Without a Functioning National Government, What’s Left?
Here is one more dip into the waters of ancient Rome. For those joining us late:In a “thought experiment” article in the new issue of the print magazine, I ask: What can troubled citizens of today’s...
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There’s Hope for Local Journalism
Everyone knows that local newspapers are in trouble. That’s why Deb Fallows and I have been chronicling examples of smaller papers that have bucked the economic trend—in Mississippi, in coastal Maine,...
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‘Lessons From Danville’
This summer, Deb Fallows and I visited the southern-Virginia town of Danville, and the surrounding rural areas of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and the adjoining Caswell County, North Carolina. In its...
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The Press Is Embracing False Equivalence—Again
If you’ve paid any attention to press retrospectives on the 2016 election, you’ve seen the term false equivalence. It refers to the mismatch between a long-standing procedural instinct of the press and...
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Building Your Future in Indiana
This spring, Deb Fallows and I made a trip through Indiana for a series of events and meetings co-organized by New America Indianapolis and Indiana Humanities. We were in Muncie, Fort Wayne,...
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How Art Can Renew a Community
This is No. 2 in a series of three videos from our friends at New America about the realities of community revitalization and economic recovery in the much-discussed Industrial Heartland of America....
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Rebuilding After Incarceration
More than 2 million Americans are in the country’s prisons and jails now, giving the United States both the largest number of prisoners and the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. For...
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Start Planting Trees
Recently Deb Fallows kicked off a series of “Big Little Ideas”—innovations or reforms that could be applied fairly easily at the local level and that might have cumulatively very important...
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‘We’re Doing It for Love of Community’
Do local public-radio stations play an important role? In big cities, from Boston and Washington to San Francisco and L.A.? In small towns, like those across Mississippi or Alaska or Maine? Do they...
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The New Approach To Local Journalism
Here’s another installment in the ongoing series on how local news operations, especially newspapers, can devise new ways to stay in business. For previous entries—from Mississippi, from Maine, from...
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The Gem City Moves Forward
This is the first in a series of posts on the city of Dayton, Ohio. I’ve been there three times since August and am about to make another trip.Almost every trend affecting modern America is on display...
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