Two books about the Democratic Party’s losses among the working class offer a sobering warning for its future.
Washington Examiner, December 14 2023
When every nostalgia trip is a hyperbolic “event,” there’s something charming about a TV sitcom that’s just “good enough.”
Washington Examiner, October 27 2023
Swift’s theatrical victory lap is both a testament to her success and a reminder of why the expectation to care about it is vaguely insulting.
Washington Examiner, October 20 2023
20 years after the melodrama’s premiere, it tells a story about the triumphs and limitations of regular old network television.
Washington Examiner, August 4 2023
The “Barbenheimer” phenomenon and America’s persistent cultural obsession with the “self.”
Washington Examiner, July 28 2023
A painfully dull reality show reveals some unexpected truths about American “cowboy” identity.
Washington Examiner, June 9 2023
I spent an entire day falling further and further down the app’s rabbit hole, only to find something disturbingly familiar at the bottom.
Politico Magazine, April 30 2023
The mogul and reality TV pioneer’s surprisingly delightful memoir reveals her instincts as a cultural critic.
Washington Examiner, April 21 2023
The Twitter chief’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show was a revealing look at the collision of American politics and “progress,” broadly defined.
Politico Magazine, April 19 2023
How the pop chanteuse came to bestride the music world without really saying much at all.
Washington Examiner, March 31 2023
The 2023 Academy Awards stealthily celebrated superhero culture’s global takeover.
Washington Examiner, March 16 2023
A sci-fi micro-thriller carries a thinly-veiled warning about our present.
Washington Examiner, March 10 2023
The show is not only unenjoyable, but a downright disorienting trip down “memory” lane.
Washington Examiner, January 27 2023
Silicon Valley’s “cult of the founder” meets modern Republicans’ anti-“woke” culture-warring.
Politico Magazine, November 23 2022
Of the dozens of current and former officeholders vying for our ears, none can get it quite right.
Politico Magazine, August 19 2022
Why the online far-right has adopted Blake Masters, the 36-year-old Arizona Senate candidate.
Politico Magazine, August 12 2022
A review of “Sharp Stick,” the auteur’s first feature in 12 years.
Washington Examiner, August 11 2022
The strength and character of the GOP’s culture-war coalition is about to be severely tested.
Politico Magazine, July 22 2022
The richest man in the world’s coming-out party as a Republican was all but inevitable — but not for the reasons you might think.
Politico Magazine, June 10 2022
The unexpectedly massive success of “Top Gun: Maverick” reflects a desperation to feel good — together, for once.
Politico Magazine, June 3 2022
From the start, the millennial auteur gave her audience too much credit.
Washington Examiner, April 7, 2022
“Winning Time,” the hoops-centric new miniseries from “Don’t Look Up” and “Vice” auteur Adam McKay, is far more insightful and satisfying than his recent political fare.
Politico Magazine, March 20 2022
In a world full of wannabe Angry Video Game Nerds, Norman Caruso is just… a video game nerd. We’re all the luckier for it.
Fanbyte, March 18 2022
A new miniseries from British documentarian Louis Theroux tests the limits of traditional journalism in covering America’s racist youth movement.
Politico Magazine, March 12 2022
Football has had a brutal year of controversy, but its enduring popularity contains a lesson for our beleaguered political leaders.
Politico Magazine, February 13 2022
The stunt-comedy franchise’s latest cinematic installment is unexpectedly life-affirming in its subcultural egalitarianism.
Washington Examiner, February 10 2022
All of us. The half-hearted response to China's human-rights abuses may be the only realistic approach, but it's creating a jaded audience pretty much everywhere.
Politico Magazine, February 5 2022
Chuck Klosterman’s “The Nineties” brings to life the last decade where ambivalence was socially acceptable.
Washington Examiner, February 3 2022
One year out from his historic ban, it’s clear the former president was more a symptom than the cause of the platform’s toxicity.
Politico Magazine, January 22 2022
The president wants to remove lead from drinking water, but the ailing Michigan city needs more than just an infusion of federal money.
The New Republic, January-February 2022
With policy and public opinion shifting rapidly against 20th-century notions about college athletics, the massive institution finds itself at a potentially dangerous crossroads.
Indianapolis Monthly, January 2022
As a smattering of true believers gathered in Michigan to dunk on Joe Biden, a mini Trump rally revealed the odd, unpredictable tensions in modern Republican politics.
Politico Magazine, November 22 2021
The "Ruthless" podcast is unintentionally revealing of Republicans’ Trump-era identity crisis.
Politico Magazine, October 30 2021
The retired quarterbacks are giving Monday Night Football a glow up. But the league needs to do more than that to connect with Gen Z.
The Atlantic, September 28 2021
A longform investigation into an eccentric local business that was ultimately far more — and far less — than it appeared.
Indianapolis Monthly, August 29 2021, with Michael Rubino and Julia Spalding
Even as younger generations seem to be at war with baby boomer ideals, there is one relic of the ’70s they can get behind: the soft-rock sounds of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. How did a band known for its love of jazz and songs populated with down-on-their-luck characters become popular all over again?
The Ringer, July 21 2021
A lightweight sequel, 25 years later and in a whole new political world, tests the limits of cynicism.
Politico Magazine, July 17 2021
The Barstool-ification of the GOP could reconfigure its cultural politics for a generation.
Politico Magazine, June 20 2021
The never-ending debate over what it is to be “canceled” obscures the reality of our bubble-driven world.
Politico Magazine, June 5 2021
The sketch-comedy troupe’s surreal feature-length film, a Roger Ebert–panned comedy about depression, nearly destroyed the crew. But decades later, it stands as a testament to the quirky Canadians’ indelible brand of humor.
The Ringer, April 13 2021
The millennial senator-elect’s incessant posting shows us the future of public life.
Politico Magazine, January 10 2021
With Twitter, the president turned a barrage of gadfly attacks into the voice of American power. His legacy as a tweeter will long outlast his account.
Politico Magazine, January 9 2021
Just as our politics fractured over the past four years, so did our culture. Here, a look back.
Politico Magazine, January 2 2021
The highest-profile public-works tragedy of the past decade has triggered a bigger breakdown in trust—and carries a lesson for post-Covid America.
Politico Magazine, December 23 2020