For the second time in three years, U.S. life expectancy has declined. The last time that happened, World War I was raging in Europe and a virulent flu pandemic was ravaging the home front. This time around, the diseases stalking ...

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In 1953, Charles Wilson, then the president of General Motors, famously told a congressional committee that “what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” A version of that soft industrial nationalism has been Donald ...

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In an 1827 essay titled “On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth,” English author William Hazlitt noted that “no young man believes he shall ever die . . . to be young is to be as one of the immortal ...

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I’d always shuddered to imagine what it would be like to live as a dissident under some autocratic regime, hunted and harried as an “enemy of the people.” And now I suppose I’m getting a slight taste of it, since ...

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Just in time for the midterms, a caravan of migrants, thousands strong, is wending its way north from Central America toward the U.S. border. President Donald Trump is on the attack. And, lo, it’s time for another national conversation about ...

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It’s always wistful news when a big retailer dies, but the Sears bankruptcy announced Monday feels borderline tragic. Sears is the foundation of so many fond memories for Americans: the autumn trip to buy new school clothes, the tires for ...

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Politics, more art than science, resists easy generalizations and defies hard rules. And yet there’s one fixed principle that has stood me in good stead over two decades of writing it: The minute you start sounding like a John Bircher, ...

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When Donald Trump was elected, journalists who write about politics were inundated with warnings about “normalizing” his administration: This was no time for “both-sideism” or anything else treating the Trump presidency as, well, a presidency, instead of a national emergency. ...

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“Anyone who welcomes one little child like this in my name welcomes me,” said Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. “But anyone who is the downfall of one of these little ones who have faith in me would be better ...

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Last spring, when I was considering coming to work for The Washington Post, I sat down with one of the paper’s senior editors for an important conversation. “Before I can accept your offer,” I said, “I need to lay out ...

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