A View from Afar Michel Houellebecq’s praise of Trump is a timely send-up of decades of American triumphalism, which seems to be imploding under its own weight [“Donald Trump Is…

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A Question of Identity Mychal Denzel Smith’s essay about black public intellectuals is a nuanced examination of a complex dilemma [“The Gatekeepers,” Essay, December]. At one point, Smith expresses guilt…

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State of Mind As a solution to conservatives’ stranglehold on federal politics, Jonathan Taplin posits a progressive federalism, under which environmental, economic, civil rights, and other reforms are undertaken by…

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Give Love a Bad Name? John Hockenberry asserts early in his essay that millions of women have reexamined their sexual lives “looking for evidence of victimization” [“Exile,” Memoir, October]. This…

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Get Up, Stand Up It was heartening to read Garret Keizer condemn the fact that labor leaders “turned their backs” on Bernie Sanders’s candidacy in 2016 and willfully scorned their…

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Basket of Implausibles The assertions in Walter Kirn’s “Illiberal Values,” especially his critique of liberals’ sudden confidence in this country’s intelligence agencies, are eminently reasonable [Easy Chair, August]. But my…

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Death and Taxes Kevin Baker’s essay about New York is a comprehensive catalogue of the symptoms of overdevelopment affecting the city today [“The Death of a Once Great City,” Report,…

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What Is It Good For? The earnest ruminations of military experts, convened at West Point by Harper’s Magazine, about our “endless war” never once addressed how to actually bring about…

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All of us at Harper’s Magazine deeply mourn the death of our longtime friend and contributing editor Tom Wolfe (1930–2018). Some of his most influential writings were published in this…

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Great Pains Elizabeth Royte’s report about a water crisis in rural Kansas reflects the reality that federal regulations place a disproportionate burden on small businesses and towns [“Drinking Problems,” Letter…

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Fool Me Once Thomas Frank is right: the Trump reelection nightmare could happen [“Four More Years,” Essay, April]. But I believe it is crucial that we not ignore fundamental truths.…

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Things We Can Do Without Katie Roiphe ignores the fact that gender inequality is a psychological condition, not just a material one [“The Other Whisper Network,” Essay, March]. She dismisses…

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The Braindead Megaphone “The Other Whisper Network” [Essay, March] is a rehash of Katie Roiphe’s decades-old argument that women are prone to hysterical overreactions to male sexual behavior. In the…

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Where to from Here? My husband and I recognize that we owe a great debt to the LGBT generations of the past, but with social acceptance and the freedom to…

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A Seat at the Table Theodore Postol suggests that a swarm of defensive drones hovering over the Sea of Japan might force Kim Jong-un to the bargaining table [“Destroyer of…

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Cut Too Deep In “Monumental Error” [Essay, November], J. C. Hallman unfairly skewers J. Marion Sims, the “Father of Gynecology.” He attributes to Sims a huge ego and the desire for…

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Kingdom Come Andrew Cockburn [“Crime and Punishment,” Letter from Washington, October] draws much-needed attention to Saudi Arabia’s deceitful lobbying campaign to derail the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA),…

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Book Collective Jonathan Dee’s reflections on the status of the social novel are a welcome critique of contemporary writing, but his argument is compromised by an elision in his survey…

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Green the Vote Richard Manning profiles the Democratic officeholders in Western states who are leading the fight for progressive environmental policies [“Political Climbers,” Report, August]. Manning believes that a pro-conservation…

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Black Like Me Zadie Smith writes that Americans “live in a mixed society” and that “there is no getting out of our intertwined history” [“Getting In and Out,” Review, July].…

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Secret Wars Michael Glennon fears that there is potential for a war between the Trump Administration and the national security bureaucracy [“Security Breach,” Revision, June]. He makes sweeping accusations about…

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In Name Only As Robert O. Paxton notes, it’s tempting to label President Trump a fascist [“American Duce,” Revision, May]. Just look at Trump’s far-right entourage—Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller…

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Building Consensus Alan Feuer would have us believe that the mayor, Bill de Blasio, is doing everything he can to stop gentrification in New York City [“Defender of the Community,”…

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Turning Blue Andrew Cockburn argues that the current crop of elected officials in Texas are right-wing extremists and that the state’s citizens — minorities and the poor in particular — are under…

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Rules for Radicals “Resistance” derives from the Latin verb resistere, literally “to stand against.” A call to action — to stand up — is embedded in the very etymology of the word.…

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Threat Watch Jeremy Miller criticizes the McKittrick Policy as a threat to wolves, claiming that “it’s not clear” why the policy exists [“Bounty Hunters,” Letter from Utah, January]. On the…

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Red Herring Andrew Cockburn’s article was entertaining in a creaky, retro kind of way [“The New Red Scare,” Letter from Washington, December]. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that…

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Left Out I want to thank Thomas Frank for his insightful article on the media’s treatment of Bernie Sanders [“Swat Team,” Essay, November]. Like many Americans, I initially dismissed Bernie’s…

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