A comedian’s modest proposals for the Democratic Socialists of America

By Larry David

I recently attended a meeting of the Democratic Socialists of America, where I officially enrolled as a member. Though I was new to the party, I put forth a number of proposals, many of which were met with considerable enthusiasm and, I’m happy to report, have now been incorporated into their manifesto. I present them herein.

1.

Let’s never forget we’re all in this together. Therefore, we have determined that all doors to private homes must remain unlocked at all times. Strangers may enter as they please to open your fridge, use your bathroom, floss, or just relax and watch a ball game. This open-door policy is the perfect way to get to know our fellow Americans. READ ON

Have we reached Peak Beatles?

By Eric Spitznagel

This week, the Beatles, a band that broke up before Watergate, disco, punk, Star Wars, MTV, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, will release a new song. “Little Girl” is a John Lennon home demo from the Rubber Soul era, recorded in 1965 and apparently unknown outside the Lennon estate until this summer. Producer Giles Martin says Sean Lennon passed along the tape almost casually, as one of those things where somebody says, “Oh, and then there’s this.”

Every Gen Xer with boomer parents knows the cheerful announcement that several boxes of “family treasures” have resurfaced, which usually means old tax returns and copies of READ ON

In 1980s New York, Donald Trump had the press in the palm of his hand. Only one satirical yet scrupulously reported magazine had the temerity to note the length of his fingers …

By David Kamp

“S

hort-fingered vulgarian”; “Queens-born casino operator”; the “WA-A-A-A-H!” cover depicting Donald Trump as a toddler mid-tantrum. These are all, presciently if tragically, now a vital part of the historical record. Forty years on, Spy magazine is best remembered, not unjustly, as the first entity to call out Trump for his tackiness, villainy, and arrant idiocy.

The cover story of the October ’86 issue, Spy’s very first, was entitled “The Ten Most Embarrassing New Yorkers” and described the future president as someone afflicted with “a Dynasty notion of panache.” The piece proceeded to indict him with a series of his READ ON

The American voter is a very unhappy customer right now—and management is about to get an earful

By Anthony Scaramucci

I lasted 11 days in the White House, which means I’ve spent more time in line at the Nassau County D.M.V. than I spent advising the president of the United States. When you get fired that fast, you learn to read a room, and the room I’m reading now is the American electorate, less than six weeks out from the midterms, standing in the checkout aisle at ShopRite, looking at a receipt like it’s a ransom note.

What I call the Money Point of View of History explains midterm elections better than any consultant with a PowerPoint. If you want READ ON

A forgotten 1970s film predicted an A.I. dictatorship. Why is Elon Musk such a fan?

By Philip Shenon

Several big-budget movies set for release before the end of the year portray real-life Silicon Valley titans, especially those at the forefront of the artificial-intelligence revolution, as villains whose products undermine society and now threaten—literally—to end the world.

Artificial, opening Christmas Day, depicts OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman (Andrew Garfield) as something close to a sociopath whose A.I. research risks human extinction. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, a fierce OpenAI competitor, is the bad guy of The Social Reckoning, opening October 9, which reconstructs the 2021 showdown between Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) and whistleblower Frances Haugen (Oscar-winner Mikey Madison). Elon Musk, another leading A.I. champion, is threatening to go to court to block next month’s release of a nearly four-hour documentary by filmmaker Alex Gibney that portrays him as a dangerous megalomaniac. READ ON

Half of America sees Lindsay Clancy as a monster. The other half sees her as a kind of feminist heroine. The truth, I can say from bitter experience, is more complicated

By Daphne Merkin

It was more than three and a half decades ago, but I remember that time clear as a bell. I had just given birth to my daughter, Zoe, who emerged, with some hesitation, at less than seven pounds. She had tufts of strawberry-blond hair growing straight up from her scalp, like a mini-Mohawk; delicately etched eyebrows in the shape of accents circumflex; and a perfect rosebud mouth. As I cradled her in my arms, I felt the stirrings of many different feelings: love, pride, protectiveness, anxiety, and panic. Here was this tiny little girl, breathing almost imperceptibly, infinitely vulnerable, and wholly dependent on me for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t as though she had come as a surprise, and yet I didn’t feel ready. READ ON

From the box office to the ballot box, America is stuck in reverse

By Bruce Handy

We all know something has gone very wrong. The feeling runs rampant that we’re living in a screwy simulation, like in The Matrix, or that we somehow drew the worst possible card from the multiverse’s deck. The only question is when precisely we veered off the “normal” timeline. A recent essay in The New York Review of Books posited Joe Manchin’s pulling his support from the Build Back Better Act, in 2021, as “the moment when reality forked.” That might be a stretch, unless your reality also includes working at Axios.

More common answers include Joe Biden’s disastrous 2024 READ ON

What is the U.S. Open? The sport’s chaos magnet

By Owen Lewis

Consider the thing that does not know what it is. The United States. Most people in their 20s. The humble croffle. A tennis event might not be high on that list—make the draw, sell the tickets, let the players scythe each other down till there’s a winner; it’s a pretty simple recipe. But on any given day, the U.S. Open is also a lifestyle brand, an alcohol hotbed, an oven disguised as a park, a gathering of the famed, the site of a short-lived dating show that had nothing to do with tennis but was nonetheless promoted on the Open’s YouTube channel, and, a few spots further down the list, one of the biggest tennis tournaments on earth. READ ON

Israel’s unlikely savior is a Sephardic career soldier whose family paid the ultimate price in its recent wars. But can he coalesce enough disparate factions to finally end Netanyahu’s poisonous reign?

By Yossi Melman

Everyone in Israel understands that the country has never been in a more precarious state. It is increasingly isolated and facing accusations of war crimes. It’s fighting a multi-front war that is stretching its military capabilities, and confronting a rising cost of living and a weakening economy, while Israeli society itself is divided. An increasing number of young, educated Israelis are leaving in search of a different future. And yet the future they seek might be on its way.

In just under nine weeks, Israel will hold what will likely be its most consequential election in the country’s young READ ON

The comedian Lenny Bruce, who died 60 years ago this month, was a fearless champion of free speech. Today, he would have less to fear from the police—and more from the audience

By Scott Simon

My father once played the same Baltimore club as Leonard Alfred Schneider. “Change your names,” the owner told them. “I don’t need more Jew comics.” My father, who neglected the club-owner’s advice, stayed Ernie Simon. Schneider went on to fame as Lenny Bruce.

Bruce died 60 years ago this month, at the age of 40, of a morphine overdose in the bathroom of his home in Hollywood Hills. His electric typewriter, still humming, had “Conspiracy to interfere with the Fourth Amendment const” struck onto the sheet of paper in the roller.

Over the last six decades, the comic’s haunted, READ ON

Why are A.I. agents suddenly going rogue? The computer scientist who wrote the textbook on the subject has the answer—and the solution

By Michael Oreskes

The pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing once said a machine can be thought to have achieved human-level intelligence when we can’t tell it’s a machine, a moment we seem to have arrived at. It’s a breakthrough that has inspired a lot of fear. Yet the biggest challenge of A.I. isn’t what the machines are thinking of us, according to Stuart J. Russell, one of the foundational figures of modern A.I. and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. It’s the way we have been thinking about these thinking machines.

Since the 1990s, Russell has been saying that the READ ON

Six decades on, the most shocking thing about the 1966 mass shooting at the University of Texas is how routine such gruesome events would become

By Bruce Handy

“No one could believe it. Who would do such a thing? Who would kill people he didn’t even know?” That was the ABC Radio News journalist Charles Osgood, channeling the nation’s shock and asking sincere, non-rhetorical questions during a grim “Special Report” on August 2, 1966. A day earlier, not long before noon, Charles Whitman, a 25-year-old engineering student at the University of Texas, had taken an elevator and then a staircase to the observation deck of the school’s 28-story bell tower. Dressed as a maintenance man, he brought with him two hunting rifles, a carbine rifle, a shotgun, three handguns, and a machete, stowed in a foot locker. He fired his first shot from the observation deck at 11:48 READ ON

A specter is haunting the Democratic Party—the specter of Hasan Piker

By James Kirchick

In his final interview, the late Democratic congressman Barney Frank worried that his party could blow the next presidential election by moving too far left. From immigration to transgender issues to policing, Democrats too often allow radical ideas to go unchallenged, he told me, leaving voters with “the impression that we agree with them.” That such a warning should come from a progressive stalwart such as Frank—one of the first openly gay members of Congress—is something that should concern not just partisan Democrats but anyone alarmed by the increasing extremism of the Republican Party.

A leading, if not the READ ON

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the murderous supercomputer HAL ends up deactivated. What would ChatGPT have done differently? Ah, what a great question!

By Bruce Handy

How I long for the good old days of 2025, when it felt like the only people who had to worry about A.I. were writers, artists, designers, actors, musicians, analysts in any field, teachers, coders, editors, and tens of millions of back-office employees.

Did you know the Pentagon has now integrated A.I. into its operating systems? I didn’t, until the news broke in March that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had officially declared Anthropic a “supply-chain risk” because the company declined to remove safety constraints from its Claude A.I. That’s in contrast to OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, which has READ ON

Despite being forced to wear an ankle monitor following a conviction for robbing taxpayers of millions of dollars, France’s far-right politician Marine Le Pen is entering the election fray

By Alexandra Marshall

It’s YOLO season in global politics. With apologies to Graham Platner’s campaign consultants and the lone opponent in Nigel Farage’s gimmicky by-election—in which the far-right British politician is facing off against a satirist who goes by the name of “Count Binface”—the prize for most reckless goes to Marine Le Pen. The French politician announced on Tuesday that she’d be running for president for a fourth time, despite her extremely unclear legal status, which won’t be decided until at least April of next year, the month of the first round of the election.

Le Pen, the 57-year-old daughter of the READ ON

Why our nation’s 250th has us thinking twice about the American Revolution

By Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Today marks the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. And where do we start? We find ourselves under the truncated thumb of a real-estate huckster and former reality-show host who, among other destructive acts, leveled the East Wing of the White House without approval. (You try doing that in your neighborhood!) His vision for its replacement, as we all know, is a $600 million gilded ballroom that wouldn’t be out of place in a Russian period drama.

Trump has also ordered up his giant Arch of Triumph—an oversize self-tribute that would make Napoleon blush. There’s the Justice Department led by READ ON

The East Room of the White House was once the country’s most exclusive music venue, hosting everyone from Duke Ellington to Johnny Cash to Prince. Under Trump, it has fallen silent

By David Browne

It’s June 2015, and Prince and his band are playing an exclusive, intimate show for about 200 people, an audience that includes Angela Bassett, James Taylor, Tyler Perry, and Jon Bon Jovi. At one point, Stevie Wonder makes his way onstage for a duet of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours).” After the show, DJ Cassidy takes over, cranking up one of the host’s favorite bangers: Parliament’s funk throwdown “Flash Light.” The beats are so thunderous that, Cassidy recalls, the historic paintings adorning the walls had to be doubly secured to prevent them from falling off.

The venue? The East Room of the White House. The host? Barack Obama. The thought of such an event happening now? Unimaginable. READ ON

As the Russia-Ukraine war drags into its fifth year, it’s clear that traditional diplomacy has failed. But an unlikely go-between has stepped into the breach: high-living oligarch Roman Abramovich

By Andrew Ryvkin

“T

hree weeks ago, a representative of our business community called me with a question,” Vladimir Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia’s version of Davos, earlier this month. “I’ve known him for a very long time. We’re not close, but I trust him—he’s a decent person.”

The businessman, Putin explained, had been invited to Kyiv and wanted to make sure the Russian president was aware. Putin said he told him that he could not act in any official capacity: “That should be handled by serious, specially trained people.” According to Putin, the businessman replied that he READ ON

Which World Cup team are you? A guide for the FIFA arriviste

By George Pendle

The World Cup comes to North America this summer with 48 teams vying for the title. But which one should you support? There’s always the home team, but where’s the fun in that when, for one month, you can try on a temporary international identity? Don’t worry if your understanding of the beautiful game is a little limited. Air Mail is here to help confused New Yorkers decide which team to accessorize with—even if you don’t know your Erling Haaland from a hole in the ground.

The Hamptons Agrarian

You’re deeply involved in land preservation, by which you mean you’re asking Annabelle Selldorf to design a 12,000-square-foot wellness barn on “under-utilized” wetlands. Your guesthouse is called “the Old Milking Shed” and has a climate-controlled wine room. READ ON

Trump has pardoned thousands of people in return for barely disguised bribes. But in Jho Low, the flamboyant fugitive behind the multi-billion-dollar 1MDB fraud, he may have hooked his biggest fish yet

By Jennifer Gould

It was only a matter of time before Taek Jho Low asked the White House for a pardon. Low, the Malaysian-born Wharton School dropout, better known as Jho Low, is accused by federal prosecutors of looting billions from 1MDB, the Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund he helped launch in 2009. He is reportedly in hiding under Chinese protection, while still believed to control vast sums of money.

The request was audacious, even by the standards of a man accused of one of the largest financial frauds in history. A government insider says the pardon is unlikely: “He is a very bad guy. He fooled a lot of people.” But never say never with Trump in the White House. Especially when the fugitive in question may still be worth billions. READ ON

The proliferation of A.I. fembots is only the latest iteration in a centuries-old quest to create the “perfect” woman

By Olivia Rutigliano

At the Cannes Film Festival last week, Demi Moore shared her thoughts on the arrival of A.I. in the film industry. She told a reporter from Variety that Hollywood should “find ways [to] work with it” because its involvement is inevitable. “A.I. is here,” she said. “And so to fight it is to fight something that is a battle that we will lose.” But she assured the crowd that, while Hollywood could do more to “protect” itself, “the truth is there really isn’t anything to fear because what it can never replace is what true art comes from, which is not the physical, it comes from the soul…. And that they can never recreate through something that is technical.” Except, of course, they already have. READ ON

It’s Trump’s F.C.C., not Stephen Colbert, that represents a threat to public decency

By David Kamp

How’s this for a political scouting report? White man in his early 60s from deep-red South Carolina. Progressive views on civil rights and a deeply held Catholic faith. Happily married to one woman for more than 30 years. Three kids. Used to teach Sunday school. Has a loyal dog that sits at his feet when he’s working in his office. Can carry a tune. Speaks from the heart about loss and grief, having lost a parent and two siblings when he was a child. Adept at cracking jokes.

I’m not suggesting that Stephen Colbert run for president. I’m merely pointing out that he embodies the phrase “paragon of decency.” READ ON

Whether it’s a proposed 250-foot arch, a billion-dollar ballroom, or a planned “Garden of Heroes,” everything Trump builds is a monument to himself

By Paul Goldberger

For all of you out there who have always thought that the Arc de Triomphe in Paris was a little too modest, a little too plain, and, worst of all, a little too small, here comes the “Arc de Trump,” which is neither modest nor plain. And at 250 feet high, it is emphatically not small. If it is ever built—a possibility that will do nothing to improve either Washington, D.C., as a city or the position of the United States of America on the world stage—it would be the largest triumphal arch in the world.

That, of course, is what the current occupant of the White House wants. READ ON

Elon Musk says OpenAI abandoned its mission to protect humanity. But is his own A.I. crusade against the “woke mind virus” any better?

By Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff

Few people are as bullish about the future of A.I. as Elon Musk. On Thursday, he took the stand for the third day in the opening of his bitter legal battle against OpenAI, a company he co-founded in 2015 with Sam Altman and others as a nonprofit committed to developing A.I. for the benefit of humanity. The Tesla and SpaceX C.E.O. contributed nearly $40 million but ultimately left the organization in 2018 after a power struggle with Altman. OpenAI’s subsequent evolution into a for-profit entity is the stated reason for the current lawsuit. Musk claims that OpenAI, now valued READ ON