We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in political writing.
political analysis
Posted inEditor's Pick
How America Lost Its Identity
From the outside looking in: reporter Holger Stark, who spent the past four years as Der Spiegel’s Washington correspondent, asks “What led this once mighty nation into decline?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
America’s New Opposition
From Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter, the left has been reborn. Can it find a way to harness the populist uprising that brought Trump to power?
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Finding the Limit of a Nation of Laws: Integrity, or the Lack Thereof
This David Frum piece in The Atlantic is a roadmap to Trump’s likeliest path to authoritarianism and self-enrichment — and therefore also a guide to what Americans of conscience need to do to protect democracy.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Build an Autocracy
The preconditions are present in the U.S. today. Here’s the playbook Donald Trump could use to set the country down a path toward illiberalism.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
President Trump, Three Days On: The Sound and the Fury
This story in the Washington Post — based on interviews with almost a dozen senior White House officials and and Trump advisors — paints a picture of an uneasy administration trying to stay in orbit around its hyper-sensitive leader and his insider cabal.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The First Days Inside Trump’s White House: Fury, Tumult and a Reboot
“At the center, as always, is Trump himself, whose ascent to the White House seems to have only heightened his acute sensitivity to criticism.”
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2016: Political Analysis
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in political analysis.