Guest Essays

All policy decisions have trade-offs, and cannabis legalization is no exception.

By Aaron E. Carroll

There’s no getting around this if we want to avoid the deficit cliff ahead.

By Mitt Romney

Adults need to set up rules for students so that it’s not on them to self-regulate when it comes to going tech-free.

By Colleen Kinder

Restricting Tehran’s growth and water use — however politically difficult — would be more prudent than trying to engineer ever more elaborate workarounds.

By Peter Frankopan

As a politician, Justin Trudeau was an excellent celebrity. And the rest of the world could learn a useful lesson from how he wielded his star power.

By Stephen Marche

Liberals should reconcile with America’s oil and gas industry.

By Matthew Yglesias

National security shouldn’t ever have a price.

By Ben Buchanan and Matt Pottinger

In life and art, he was the successor to Norman Lear.

By Todd S. Purdum

If the post-Trump G.O.P. makes the same mistake the Democrats did with their identitarian fringe, Republicans will meet a similar fate.

By Vivek Ramaswamy

Chile’s new leader wants to rewrite its past and recast its future.

By Ariel Dorfman

The victims were let down by a government whose role it is to do what individuals cannot: keep our nation safe from terrorism and mass shootings.

By Alex Ryvchin

Consensus may be a thing of the past. And that’s good.

By Jason Furman

In Rob’s hands, my most autobiographical novel rang true.

By Stephen King

Gimme, gimme, gimme. Gimme some more.

By Thomas B. Edsall

The real issue is how to address overall cost. Haggling over Obamacare subsidies or what might replace them isn’t the solution.

By Peter R. Orszag

What A.I. imperils is not human creativity itself but the ability to make a living from creative endeavor.

By Caitlin Petre and Julia Ticona

Demotion need not be traumatic.

By Anton Jäger

We asked readers to tell us about the most memorable presents they’ve received.

By New York Times Opinion and Maisie Cowell

We must not succumb to the darkness of hate and fear.

By Sharon Brous

We are headed for more confrontation, more brinkmanship, more war.

By Greg Grandin

Sometimes Trump’s unconventional foreign policy just works.

By Jonathan Guyer

The Hong Kong publisher’s fate will reveal whether democracies still have the resolve to defend their own values.

By Mark L. Clifford

The first rule of dark money is to quit blabbing about it. Did they think people would thank them for it?

By Michael Hirschorn

Not once, in the four and a half years I learned at home, did anyone from the state come to assess what sort of education I was receiving or even just check on me.

By Stefan Merrill Block

An explanation for the sharp decline in President Trump’s approval ratings.

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

To really understand what is happening today, we must understand the ideology and thinkers behind the MAGA New Right.

By Laura Field

Gaza has turned California classrooms into political battlegrounds.

By Leighton Woodhouse

The way to oppose President Trump’s era of corrupt deal making is to present the American people with a clear and principled alternative.

By J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston

David Ellison is cozying up to Trump in his effort to save Hollywood. It’s a risky strategy for our democracy.

By Steven Zeitchik

For hundreds of millions of Indians, toxic winter air poisons bodies, constricts lives and wears down spirits.

By Anurag Minus Verma

Unlike during his last time in the White House, people now disapprove of Trump because of the economy, not in spite of it.

By Kristen Soltis Anderson

If he learns the right lessons, the mayor-elect could pull off something remarkable.

By Rachel Cohen Booth

It’s an actual place, not an arbitrarily bounded zone.

By Christopher Caldwell

Colleges should not be allowed to squeeze applicants in a vise.

By Daniel Currell

The high cost of health care in America is suppressing wages, driving job losses and fueling inequality.

By Zack Cooper

If the Trump administration allows Nicolás Maduro to endure, it will signal that a criminal dictatorship masquerading as a state can stare down the United States and win.

By Ricardo Hausmann and Jose Morales-Arilla

I doubt this was what Trump meant when he called himself “Mr. Brexit.”

By Thomas B. Edsall

“One Rulebook” is not the kind of A.I. regulation this country needs.

By Amy Klobuchar

Either merger would be bad for the country.

By Tim Wu

Threats against us aren’t limited to one hemisphere.

By Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson

A case over a firing at the F.T.C. has far-reaching implications for the federal government.

By Kate Shaw, William Baude and Stephen I. Vladeck

The system in the House promotes control by party leaders over accountability and achievement.

By Nancy Mace

The latest and best evidence of the damage is a warning about Trump-era tariff policies.

By Binyamin Appelbaum

Will the court grant a vast transfer of power from Congress to the president?

By Kate Shaw

Do you know where your retirement savings are invested? When I looked into mine, I discovered that parts of it ran counter to U.S. foreign policy priorities.

By Jonathan E. Hillman

Many states have proposed bans on the sale of ultraprocessed foods in schools. The problem is the way they define ultraprocessing.

By Lindsey Smith Taillie

A former secretary of homeland security on the illegality of Trump’s boat strikes.

By Jeh C. Johnson

A former secretary of homeland security on the illegality of Trump’s boat strikes.

By Jeh C. Johnson

The Warner Bros. deal has the town on edge.

By Sharon Waxman

Mounting questions will go unanswered because of a Supreme Court decision shielding presidents from scrutiny.

By Jeffrey Toobin

Syrians crave a normal life so fiercely that almost any alternative to al-Assad feels like salvation. That longing is where illusion begins.

By Loubna Mrie

After my father-in-law died, we found something interesting in his files.

By Dan Sturman

Being a smart consumer has never been easier. Influencers and the fashion industry are all taking advantage of that.

By Isabel Cristo

The demise of Hollywood has been predicted many times. If Netflix is allowed to acquire Warner Bros., it might actually happen.

By Roy Price

We need to question the strikes’ legality. But we also need to see how they fit into the Trump administration’s larger effort to change America.

By Phil Klay

When buyers can’t see the climate risks of prospective homes up front, they may take on more exposure than they can afford.

By John Marshall

Once nativism escalates, it’s hard to stop.

By Amanda Frost

We are seeing an intentional effort from justices to rebalance the separation of powers in the federal government.

By Sarah Isgur

Generative A.I. needs a course correction for the sake of energy efficiency and for its own advancement.

By Carl Benedikt Frey

Cartel extortion is pushing up prices in Mexico — and becoming a political problem President Claudia Sheinbaum can’t ignore.

By Ioan Grillo

Attacks on Somali Americans are a cruel distraction.

By Ilhan Omar

The administration is pausing asylum and upending families.

By Elora Mukherjee

A singer’s almost totally relatable look at the woes of aging.

By Lizzy Goodman

Progressives have an opportunity to start thinking boldly again about how to conceive of and use public authority for Americans.

By Marc J. Dunkelman

Centrist governments are failing badly in Europe’s leading economies, setting the stage for a far-right sweep.

By David Broder

Federal lawmakers have ample powers to uncover and end administration abuse.

By Michael Waldman

Free buses would be transformative not only for riders, but for the ecosystem of the city as a whole.

By Nicolas S. Rohatyn

Suburban professionals want amenities, not austerity.

By Aaron M. Renn

A field guide to the MAGA movement and its future.

By Thomas B. Edsall

He was, in the very best way, the Ralph Lauren of architects.

By Paul Goldberger

Compared to human drivers, Waymo cars were involved in 91 percent fewer crashes that resulted in serious injuries.

By Jonathan Slotkin

The Japanese leader’s candor over Taiwan brought the shared regional stakes out into the open, and the U.S. must stand behind its ally.

By Craig Singleton

Victory will belong not to the side with more resources, but to the side with the stronger, more adaptive and unyielding will to win.

By Dmytro Kuleba

Winter won’t hold forever, and when it comes, a spider will disappear from the corner where she has made her home.

By Margaret Renkl

I help to build A.I. systems, and even I know there are real reasons to be concerned about how A.I. affects our children.

By Soulaiman Itani

It may be tempting to memory hole what happened in Gaza. That would only compound the mistake of ignoring, or rationalizing, an intolerable reality.

By Ben Rhodes

Mandatory arbitration, underfunded enforcement and corporate malfeasance have eroded Americans’ trust in institutions. It’s time for government to fight back.

By Seth Frotman and David Seligman

Changes to the vaccine recommendation could be disastrous.

By Helen Ouyang

Latin Americans have proved surprisingly acquiescent to U.S. aggression — but that won’t last forever.

By Brian Winter

Four years ago, my husband and I made an increasingly common choice: We hugged, apologized for our shortcomings and freed each other.

By Cathi Hanauer