Strawberries in Winter

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. Some years ago, trying to understand what it might take to break America’s fever of political violence, I asked a former Justice Department official what she thought about the possibility of a second civil war in the United States. Mary McCord, a former federal prosecutor who has spent much of her career thinking about how to combat extremism, was worried about worsening political violence. (I favor a simple definition of political violence: actions…

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Democrats’ Epstein Derangement Syndrome

Updated on September 5, 2025, at 2:55 p.m. To hear Donald Trump’s critics tell it, all of the disquieting news that the president has generated this summer—the FBI raid on former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s home, the National Guard deployment in cities, Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, his accusation that Barack Obama led a coup and committed “the crime of the century”—has been an effort to divert attention from the issue that truly terrifies Trump: the Jeffrey Epstein files. It has become the Democrats’ go-to…

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The Wrong Way to Win Back the Working Class

Sign up for Trump’s Return, a newsletter featuring coverage of the second Trump presidency. In its period of exile, the Democratic Party has a lot of decisions to make. One of those decisions concerns its relationship with organized labor. Joe Biden and members of his administration—and, indeed, much of the party’s leadership—believed that forming a historically tight partnership with organized labor would help arrest the party’s decline with the working class. They turned out to be wrong. Working-class voters, even the small and shrinking share of them who belong to…

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Only One Republican Is Holding This Many Town Halls

Even as most congressional Republicans are avoiding their constituents, one has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to engaging with voters in the flesh: 61-year-old Mark Alford of Missouri held not one but 15 public events across his district this week, including five town halls. The second-term lawmaker is not an otherwise noteworthy member of Congress. He represents a safe Republican district, and has voted along party lines 89 percent of the time, according to Heritage Action. But in a moment when so few Republicans are making an effort to hear from…

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Fast Times at Immigration and Customs Enforcement

In a video produced by the Department of Homeland Security this month, two tricked-out ICE vehicles roll around on the National Mall to “Toes” by rapper DaBaby: “My heart so cold I think I’m done with ice (uh, brr) / Said if I leave her, she gon’ die / Well … you done with life.” The vehicles feature a new ICE logo and DEFEND THE HOMELAND in block letters, painted in a color scheme similar to the president’s private plane. The Lincoln Memorial zips by and DaBaby continues: “Better not…

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Nobody Likes John Bolton

This morning, Donald Trump claimed he knew nothing about the raid on the Maryland home of his former National Security Adviser John Bolton. “I’m not a fan of John Bolton,” Trump said, calling him a “lowlife.” In that respect he agrees with many Democrats: After Trump fired Bolton, in 2019, Representative Adam Schiff of California (now a senator) said that one “should question John Bolton’s patriotism,” and Representative Nancy Pelosi called him a “disgrace.” In January, Trump pulled Bolton’s security detail, which had been in place due to credible threats…

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