Derek Thompson

Donald Trump has promised a “golden age of America.” But for all his bluster about being the champion of an American century, Trump’s actual policies point to something different: not an expansive vision of the future, but a shrunken vision […]

What’s the matter with the United Kingdom? Great Britain is the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, which ushered in an era of energy super-production and launched an epoch of productivity advancements that made many life essentials, such as clothes and

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. By reputation, Elon Musk and Donald Trump are builders. Musk has grown two of the largest hardware-innovation companies in the world, Tesla and

For decades, America’s young voters have been deeply—and famously—progressive. In 2008, a youthquake sent Barack Obama to the White House. In 2016, voters ages 18 to 29 broke for Hillary Clinton by 18 points. In 2020, they voted for Joe

This is my third time honoring what I see as the year’s most important scientific and technological advances. In 2022, my theme was the principle of “twin ideas,” when similar inventions emerge around the same time. Just as Alexander Graham

Americans are unusually likely to die young compared with citizens of other developed countries. The U.S. has more fatalities from gun violence, drug overdoses, and auto accidents than just about any other similarly rich nation, and its obesity rate is

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a tangle of biographical ironies. He is an anti-elite renegade bearing the most elite surname in politics. Once feared for his left-wing radicalism when Barack Obama considered him for a Cabinet appointment in 2008, he

In 2022, pollsters and political analysts predicted a red wave in the midterms that didn’t materialize. Last night, polls anticipated a whisker-thin election, and instead we got a red wave that carried Donald Trump to victory. The breadth of Trump’s