The Cross Section At One Year

This newsletter is one year old. It's been something.

In December of 2023, I departed my longtime employer, the Washington Post (which later lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers, just saying) and embarked on a new phase of my career, which has included publishing this newsletter. It has been an eventful year, to say the least.

I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has subscribed, including those who have generously chosen to make their subscription paid, even though everything I write here is freely available to all.

Like many of my friends and family members, I’ve had moments of despair since the election in November. These next four years are not going to pleasant, even for those of us insulated from the worst of Donald Trump’s predations. I completely understand why some people have chosen to disconnect from politics, at least for a while. But I don’t have that choice, for reasons of both temperament and professional obligation. Staying engaged may not itself constitute effective resistance, but it’s a place to start.

I’ve always struggled with the question of how much my work “matters,” and the answer depends on how one defines the word. I don’t know whether anything I’ve written ever changed the course of events (maybe, but probably not), but what I’ve always returned to is the belief that if people read what I write and decide that they understand what’s happening a little better, or even that reading it was a pleasant way to pass a few minutes, that’s enough to make it worthwhile.

So I hope this newsletter continues to be worthwhile, and thanks again for reading.

The top 5

These were the most-read Cross Section articles of 2024. Most of them are pretty recent, both because I gained subscribers as the year went on and because attention increased with the election:

1. The Real Reason Reporters Won’t Talk About Trump’s Mental Decline (September 5). They’ll say Trump is acting crazy, but it’s all presented as a show.

2. Stop the Votewashing (November 8). My post-election look at why people really voted the way they did, and an argument against painting voters’ choice to elect Donald Trump as more virtuous than it actually was.

3. Trump and Vance Are Preparing for a Bloodbath (September 11). On their blood-and-soil nationalism and repulsive lies about immigrants.

4. The Best Thing About the Olympics Is What Trump and Vance Can't Stand (August 13). The Olympics shows America in all its diverse glory, so of course they have nothing good to say about it.

5. Everything is Awful (December 13). What if the feeling that it all kinda sucks is the most powerful force in politics today?

There’s no particular pattern here (other than the presence of Donald Trump)— it seems to be some combination of timeliness, novelty, and random luck that garners more attention than usual for a piece. I’ll be honest: There are times when I finish writing something and think, “People are going to go for this,” and times when I think “I care about this, but no one else will,” but most of the time I have no idea whether something I write will get attention or not.

Some of the less noticed stories

These are some pieces that I was fond of but didn’t get quite so much notice. Click on the images to open the links.

An essay on overcompensating congressmen and how politics and culture tell us that the way to achieve and maintain masculinity is through violence. With consideration of the 1970’s Kenny Rogers hit “Coward of the County.”

My response to Joe Biden’s repeated insistence that Israel is keeping diaspora Jews safe, with a look back at Theodore Herzl and the foundations of Zionism, along with Jerry Seinfeld and Uncle Leo.

Laken Riley, Mollie Tibbetts, Kate Steinle — only 2 percent of American murder victims are women killed by strangers, and a tiny fraction of those were killed by undocumented immigrants. But we know their names, and their terrible stories are told over and over.

A look at the insane philosophy underlying conservative gun ideology, and how the Supreme Court is trying to turn the entire country into Texas.

An examination of the politics of attacking your own party, featuring Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, with a vital digression on table saw safety.

That’s the year-end wrap-up, and may 2025 be less horrific than we imagine it will be. Thanks again for reading.