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Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Kennedy and Trump’s ‘Game of Thrones’
Sycophants still line up to play his game.
By Charles M. Blow
I am fascinated by precedents and historical corollaries — I view human beings as stuck in rotation of our failings and frailties — so I often use history to contextualize our present-day politics. I’ve written, for example, about the enduring legacy of lynching and what the presidential election of 1912 can teach us about fighting extremism. I also reflect on lessons from my own life as a queer man who grew up poor in rural Louisiana.
I have written two New York Times best-selling books: “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which has been turned into an opera, and “The Devil You Know,” which inspired the HBO documentary “South to Black Power.” I joined The New York Times in 1994 as a graphics editor, later becoming the paper’s graphics director and eventually the Times’s design director for news. I left in 2006 for National Geographic, where I was the magazine’s art director, before returning to The New York Times in 2008 as an Opinion columnist. I received a B.A. in mass communications from Grambling State University in Louisiana. I am a political analyst for MSNBC, and I live in Atlanta.
I strive to be accurate, fair and empathetic in my writing. Every piece I publish is fact-checked and edited. Along with all Times journalists, I am committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook.
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @charlesmblow
Threads: @charlesmblow
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Sycophants still line up to play his game.
By Charles M. Blow
Though he has aged, the flashes of the old fire brought back warm memories.
By Charles M. Blow
The vice president is giving Democrats what they want while disorienting Donald Trump.
By Charles M. Blow
Harris is selling something different, but would continue his legacy.
By Charles M. Blow
Authoritarian tendencies and misogyny rise together.
By Charles M. Blow
This election has become a contest between Harris’s high spirits and Trump’s dark vision.
By Charles M. Blow
Her death is the manifestation of a societal sickness that devalues Black life.
By Charles M. Blow
Sexual orientation doesn’t always come down to genetics.
By Charles M. Blow
MAGA won’t be content to beat the vice president. It’ll try to destroy her.
By Charles M. Blow
Mike Johnson said that like the first president, Trump escaped death through the hand of providence.
By Charles M. Blow
If Democrats don’t stop laughing at this G.O.P. effort they may soon need an “autopsy” of their own.
By Charles M. Blow
Six political effects of the attempted assassination.
By Charles M. Blow
They understand the nature of persecution.
By Charles M. Blow
Forcing the president out of the race would be an invalidation of the democratic process.
By Charles M. Blow
Gretchen Whitmer, Kamala Harris, President Biden — who is best positioned to beat Donald Trump in November?
By Charles M. Blow, Ross Douthat, David French, Nicholas Kristof, Pamela Paul, Lydia Polgreen, Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vishakha Darbha and Jillian Weinberger
Instead of clearing the way for victory, liberals may well be paving the way for defeat.
By Charles M. Blow
While Maryland embraces egalitarianism, Louisiana veers toward Christian nationalism.
By Charles M. Blow
A collection of stories on the challenges and joys of coming out later in life.
By Charles M. Blow and Vishakha Darbha
The best way to think of the holiday is not as the moment Black people attained freedom but as a moment in the struggle to realize freedom.
By Charles M. Blow
I remind myself to relish every summer day.
By Charles M. Blow
The seemingly transactional relationship between hip-hop artists and a politician with legal troubles.
By Charles M. Blow
Descending to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s level can be satisfying, but it is also degrading.
By Charles M. Blow
What his rants about protesters say about his authoritarian streak.
By Charles M. Blow
The president’s complicated relationship with a key demographic.
By Charles M. Blow
In her conversation with the vice president, Drew Barrymore allowed informality to veer into disrespect.
By Charles M. Blow
Lessons from a tumultuous summer.
By Charles M. Blow and Jillian Weinberger
The suffering in the war in Gaza is unacceptable. Young people will make that point clear this summer in Chicago.
By Charles M. Blow
With the issue of abortion rights, the vice president has hit her stride.
By Charles M. Blow
For many Black Americans, the verdict was proof that injustice could be applied equally.
By Charles M. Blow
Jerrod Carmichael’s stock in trade is the exploitation of the awkward.
By Charles M. Blow
Attempts to show Black inferiority amount to another form of white supremacy.
By Charles M. Blow
Like the “Lost Cause” ideology, Donald Trump’s propagandistic mythology negates the truth.
By Charles M. Blow
There are signs that Black voters are inching closer to the patterns of other demographic groups.
By Charles M. Blow
The two movements have a strong intersection.
By Charles M. Blow
Protesters could create echoes of the 1968 convention in Chicago.
By Charles M. Blow
Many would have preferred that she represent her House district, rather than run for the Senate.
By Charles M. Blow
Her vote against authorizing the war in Afghanistan was an act of true courage.
By Charles M. Blow
If alarms weren’t already sounding in the Biden campaign, now they have to be.
By Charles M. Blow
Gaza weighs on their minds, but for many, domestic concerns matter more.
By Charles M. Blow
Why some Democrats won’t be supporting Biden in the primary.
By Charles M. Blow
To those advancing Christian nationalism, the will of God counts more than the will of the American people.
By Charles M. Blow
The trial may not be affected, but the Democratic Party’s standing in Georgia will be tarnished.
By Charles M. Blow
Too many people have settled into a hagiographic view of the former president.
By Charles M. Blow
It’s heartening to watch Black pop culture embrace Black cultural institutions.
By Charles M. Blow
A divide bodes ill for Democrats and perhaps even for Palestinians.
By Charles M. Blow
Periods of backlash take shape after surges of Black progress. We have entered another such period.
By Charles M. Blow
By staying in the race, she’s softening him up for the general election.
By Charles M. Blow
Two libertarians haven’t given up on him.
By Charles M. Blow
It was as mixed-up and contradictory as her campaign.
By Charles M. Blow
The pandering that works for Trump doesn’t work for her.
By Charles M. Blow
Some governors are putting political philosophy over badly needed aid.
By Charles M. Blow
Who will be the best of the rest?
By Charles M. Blow, Gail Collins, Jamelle Bouie and David Brooks
They’re not persuaded that Biden would be much better.
By Charles M. Blow
The president’s speech at Mother Emanuel was a missed opportunity.
By Charles M. Blow
As Black women have raised their profiles, they’ve also raised some right-wing hackles.
By Charles M. Blow
As people lose faith in institutions, they can lose faith in democracy itself.
By Charles M. Blow
President Biden’s insistence on seeking a second term comes at high risk.
By Charles M. Blow
It is here, in the dispute over definitions, that things begin to break down.
By Charles M. Blow
The risk of a loss for the president is real, and no amount of political ego can disguise that.
By Charles M. Blow
Where he and I are from, even would-be oppressors can be affable.
By Charles M. Blow
An increasingly disaffected activist base on the left could be disastrous for the president in 2024.
By Charles M. Blow
In this war, a gloves-are-off, by-any-means-necessary retaliation is unacceptable, regardless of who is engaged in it.
By Charles M. Blow
A medical breakthrough has a history tangled up in questions of medical ethics and racial exploitation.
By Charles M. Blow
Republicans’ impulses to disrupt and destroy keep winning out.
By Charles M. Blow
He has deceived his followers into believing in trickle-down tyranny.
By Charles M. Blow
It’s a sad state of affairs that our current political system starves young people of hope and optimism.
By Charles M. Blow
On the 60th anniversary of a K.K.K. bombing, Sarah Collins Rudolph is still seeking restitution.
By Charles M. Blow
His opponents keep refusing to return his barbs, and are racking up political wounds.
By Charles M. Blow
On Wednesday night, Vivek Ramaswamy was seen as the greatest threat.
By Charles M. Blow
An argument for consolidating Black political power.
By Charles M. Blow and Derek Arthur
Is anyone served by this bastardizing of history?
By Charles M. Blow
It had a sense of historical correction.
By Charles M. Blow
The document isn’t a pleasant read, but it’s surprisingly readable.
By Charles M. Blow
Florida’s distortion of the history of slavery is more consequential than many comprehend.
By Charles M. Blow
Trump recognized that for many Americans, celebrity was more powerful than character or civics.
By Charles M. Blow
White nationalism was fundamental to the creation of America. That fact doesn’t change because it makes some uncomfortable.
Charles M. Blow
By striking down affirmative action, justices take the absurd position that racism must be ignored for racism to be overcome.
By Charles M. Blow
G.O.P. politicians today aren’t constitutional absolutists. They’re constitutional opportunists.
By Charles M. Blow
Many people, including me, come out in later adulthood. Our stories are not only uplifting but also illuminating and educational.
By Charles M. Blow
Times columnists chose the TV shows, movies, books and songs that capture the country as they see it.
By Charles M. Blow
Queer people and their families are registering the danger in some states and considering relocation.
By Charles M. Blow
This year, there is a pall over Pride.
By Charles M. Blow
If they can’t outpace Trump, they’ll lie in wait to catch him limping.
By Charles M. Blow
As political figures, they’re not innovating. They’re peddling ahistoric drivel.
By Charles M. Blow
The breathless headlines about the president’s age are fueled, at least in part, by political manipulation and media complicity.
By Charles M. Blow
What the cable host could “taste” in the heat of the moment was the power to assign death.
By Charles M. Blow
Biden has to demonstrate more fight for more progressive policies.
By Charles M. Blow
Belafonte asked, “Where are the radical thinkers?” His question kept repeating in my head.
By Charles M. Blow
I’ve often been delighted by how older men lean into sartorial whimsy when they exit workplace life.
By Charles M. Blow
Veteran campaign managers worry about Biden’s age and the country’s polarization.
By Charles M. Blow
Their lust for vengeance and opprobrium not only failed — it backfired.
By Charles M. Blow
The former president’s post-arraignment speech at Mar-a-Lago reinforced just how stale he’s become.
By Charles M. Blow
The state’s crusading censors are choosing the comfort of ignorance over the inconvenience of truth.
By Charles M. Blow
Trump is still fighting old battles. But Republicans have moved on to their own war, a new war, a culture war.
By Charles M. Blow
We are called to endure what I call the inconvenience of the necessary, a point at which something is morally right but the political timing is problematic.
By Charles M. Blow
Prosecuting the former president would be a step toward mending the country.
By Charles M. Blow
Ron DeSantis’s censorship craze centers the feelings of white children. But what about children searching for a history that includes them?
By Charles M. Blow
The right has found a more vulnerable subset of the L.G.B.T.Q. community to attack.
By Charles M. Blow
Are Black mayors too quickly and easily blamed for rising crime?
By Charles M. Blow
What Scott Adams said really wasn’t anything new.
By Charles M. Blow