Luke Savage is the author of The Dead Center: Reflections on Liberalism and Democracy After the End of History and a writer on Substack.
The bizarre tale of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’s years-long defrauding of many of the world’s most “sophisticated” investors and celebrities highlights the mendacity and self-deception that drive Silicon Valley tech culture.
The Biden administration has reneged on key promises that candidate Biden used to entice younger voters to turn out for him in 2020. Surprise: his approval ratings with the young are now in free fall.
The Biden administration’s U-turn on distributing millions of COVID tests free of charge — after White House spokesperson Jen Psaki ridiculed the idea two weeks ago — is a case study in how meaningless claims of “political impossibility” often are.
Mass culture is becoming a museum dedicated to itself, its artifacts curated by an ever-narrowing family of conglomerates. Nowhere is that clearer than in the decline of The Simpsons, whose groundbreaking satire was killed by monopoly capitalism.
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are dead set on expanding commercial space flight — even though a single person taking one of their carbon-spewing joy rides will produce more pollution in a few minutes than people belonging to 1/8th of the world population will in their entire lives.
A recent gathering of right-wing politicians and intellectuals underscores conservatism’s increasing illiberalism — and suggests the GOP might move even further toward authoritarianism and phony economic populism.
It’s hard to think of anything more symbolic of America’s gilded and decadent ruling class than elected officials owning pieces of the very economy they’re officially charged with managing.
Thanks to COVID-related developments like expanded unemployment insurance, US workers have seen wages increase. But corporate profits have grown even more — meaning labor’s share of the economic pie is still small compared to its 20th-century peak.
The White House spokesperson was asked why the administration doesn’t just send out free COVID tests, as other countries do. Her mindless, condescending response was a reminder that the Democrats are still the party of Aetna.
Chris Cuomo abused his platform at CNN to help his politically besieged brother. It was flagrantly unethical, but in keeping with the culture of complete unaccountability for unethical abuse that American media elites have long enjoyed.
Centrist Democrats use phrases like “accessible and quality health care” to sound like they support reforming the broken US health care system while avoiding the only genuine reform: removing health care from the market altogether.
With the spread of the new Omicron variant and low levels of vaccination throughout much of the world, there’s still no real end to COVID in sight. It’s bad news for global public health — but great news for big pharmaceutical companies.
Capitalism imposes massive suffering on the poor and working class. But even the detestable superrich are being made miserable by the sadistic things market competition implores them to do to the rest of us.
All signs now point to a full-court press by the GOP to rig state election rules in a bid to stay in power permanently. So far, Democrats have barely put up a fight.
The role of philanthropy in Bill Gates’s global empire is well known. But the Gates Foundation’s contributions to media organizations are huge, underexamined, and a significant part of how one of the world’s wealthiest men has built and protected his image.
Amazon’s new Pete Buttigieg documentary attempts the impossible: making the disturbingly empty yet also unnervingly ambitious mayor of South Bend somehow seem like a compelling historical figure. It fails.
Billionaires now hold so much of the world’s wealth, their apologists argue, there’s no choice but to rely on them for philanthropy. But we can’t take our eyes off the ball: We need to tax the ultrarich out of existence.
Barack Obama’s trademark schtick — soaring rhetoric about transformational change while cynically catering to the status quo — was on display at COP26 in his address to young people. But young people already learned the hard way that Obama’s act is hollow.
Is it really true that if the Democrats had big majorities in Congress, we’d see the sweeping change party stalwarts promise in election campaigns? Here’s a good test: look at the blue states, where Democrats govern virtually alone. It’s not a pretty picture.
Rich people have a carbon footprint 25 times the size of even the typical American. To tackle climate change, we need to start with fossil capital and the most affluent.