Paul Glastris

On affordability, Democrats have the stronger hand. They just need to stop folding.

The winter issue of the Washington Monthly is here, featuring @glastris.bsky.social, @jrakove.bsky.social, @alexbronzini.bsky.social, @billscher.bsky.social, @gooznews.bsky.social + more: shorturl.at/38NmN

The Unraveling Right The MAGA movement is fracturing between donors, intellectuals, influencers, and an increasingly radical base.

If you want to understand the roots of the MAGA crack up we are witnessing in real time, read this review essay @washingtonmonthly.com washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/29/t...

Putin’s Energy Blitzkrieg is Backfiring Putin and Russia’s drone and missile campaign aims to break Ukraine’s will. Instead, it’s deepening civilian resolve and national solidarity.

If you want to know the reason why Russia is not going to win, read this @washingtonmonthly.com washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/29/p...

How to Bring Down Grocery Prices A civilian equivalent of the commissary system could deliver more affordable grocery prices to hard-pressed Americans.

A public option for grocery stores, based on the proof of concept provided by the commissary model, could not only vastly improve food access; it could inject more competition into the broader grocery market and bring down food prices for all Americans in the long term. By @clairek.bsky.social

Is FEMA ready for this storm? How will cuts impact Americans? Will Trump provide equal support to red and blue states alike? This will be one of those tests of governance that every administration faces...and that Trump-led administrations regularly and often disastrously fail.

Pew Research Institute (2023):

• Red State Texas has about 2.1 million undocumented immigrants

• Red State Florida has 1.6 M undocumented immigrants

• Blue State Minnesota has 130,000.

And yet only Minnesota is being occupied by masked thugs over "immigration."

It's *not* about immigration.

In Denmark, U.S. lawmakers contradict Trump on need to own Greenland Leaders of the bipartisan delegation said most Americans don’t want to acquire Greenland, and that Russia and China don’t pose imminent security risks to the territory.

More of this please. Screw the water’s edge. The world needs to hear from national leaders of both parties that Trump’s foreign policy is broadly detested in America on borrowed time. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

The number of representatives House Rs can afford to lose on a floor vote:

Yesterday: 3
Today: 2
Soon after Jan. 31: 1
After GA-11 special (which will happen next) (barring upset): 2
After NJ-11 special (barring upset): 1
After CA-1 special (sometime in May) (barring upset): 2

Best Colleges For Your Tuition Dollars - TestBright An assortment of institutions as diverse and differentiated as colleges… Read more

Had a great discussion with the hosts of the Tests and the Rest podcast about which colleges provide the best value for your tuition and tax dollars, based on @washingtonmonthly.com’s 2025 college rankings. gettestbright.com/best-college...

The GOP War on Nurses Donald Trump and the Republicans cut graduate student loans for nurses and social workers to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

To pay for tax cuts, Republicans cut graduate student loan support for female-dominated professions. That turns out to be bad policy and terrible politics. @glastris.bsky.social

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/12/22/g...

finished Death By Lightning, pretty good! nice plotting, well acted etc. didn’t really buy the saintly portrayal of Garfield but boy are we loaded up with a lot of Guiteau type people today

A New Path for a Free Palestine Pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist activists now face a moral test as antisemitic violence surges worldwide. Can they change course?

Israel isn’t going to disappear and calling for its liquidation spurs antisemitism. There’s a better way.

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/12/16/a...

Beware of Trump’s Global Broligarchy The president’s pay-to-play mentality is undermining U.S. foreign policy.

The Trump administration has broken with decades of settled practice on corruption issues, and the American people will pay the price, writes Christian Caryl.

Why Can’t America Build Enough Weapons? The debasement of the U.S. defense industrial base began, ironically, under Ronald Reagan, and won’t be reversed until we abandon the free-market fundamentalism he introduced.

…you would have known all about it in the summer is 2024. @washingtonmonthly.com washingtonmonthly.com/2024/06/23/w...

Opinion | Overmatched: Why the U.S. Military Must Reinvent Itself Investing in the old ways of war leaves America at risk.

This devastating NYTimes assessment of the American military’s broken weapons development and military industrial systems is spot on. But if you’ve been reading @washingtonmonthly.com…/1 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

1. Thread: Why America fails to build public infrastructure cost effectively.

High Costs Are Not an Engineering Problem
They Are a Political–Fiscal Design Problem

Countries like Sweden and Germany do not build transit cheaply because they have better engineers per se. They build cheaply because:

Hoosier daddy

Mad respect for this headline. www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Now Trump gets to count the war twice

How to Fight Authoritarianism To manage the rise of China and other illiberal forces, the U.S. and Europe need a new kind of alliance.

This was the correct path. Trump and the GOP abandoned it. America and the world will pay the price. washingtonmonthly.com/2021/04/04/h...

China’s Trade Surplus Climbs Past $1 Trillion for First Time

China’s predatory economy is the problem. Uniting with our allies to fight back is the only sensible response. Instead, Trump is undermining our allies, and hence we are losing. There was an alternative. /1 www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/b...

BREAKING: ‘This hurts’: UNL eliminates 4 programs despite faculty, student pleas The University of Nebraska-Lincoln eliminates the Earth and atmospheric sciences 8-0, educational administration 7-1, statistics 7-1, textiles, merchandising and fashion design 7-1 programs.

Without a higher education program, the University of Nebraska is going to have a hard time recruiting and keeping the next generation of higher education leaders when competing institutions offer the chance for staff members to further their education. This decision will backfire.

One aspect of the "affordability" story that the great minds who write on this shit seem unable to see is that Trump and his rich friends are trying to end work from home and force people back to the office. This is equivalent to an 8% pay cut, but I guess that's too simple.

Trump's dementia has grown so extreme that a select group of advisors are now running the country without his input. To find who those advisors are and what their plans are, buy my new book, which will appear in March 2029.

Oh this is so definitely going to happen.

Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Corisk did the math Europe's politicians haven't.

Arm Ukraine to win: €522-838 billion. Let Russia win and rearm Europe: €1.2-1.6 trillion—double the cost. Plus 6-11 million additional refugees.

I'm not sure it's in the self interest of America's tech bro billionaires to suggest that we bring back public executions to punish the most destructive people in our society.

“.. Federal data shows corporate investment levels are roughly in line with last year, with companies on track to invest over $5 trillion in 2025. The $20 trillion surge Mr. Trump has claimed does not appear in the available data.”

@cbsnews.com
www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-2...

Only Europe can save Ukraine from Putin and Trump – but will it? | Timothy Garton Ash Whether using frozen Russian assets, ramping up defence production or deepening the relationship with the EU, it’s up to us to secure Ukraine’s future, says Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash

Will Europe finally stand up in the face of Trump’s betrayal and Putin’s savagery?

Trump’s Security Strategy Focuses on Profit, Not Spreading Democracy

If the five familes had a foreign policy it would look like this. It’s the U.S. making its terms of extortion explicit. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/u...