Peter Savodnik

3 days ago | thefp.com | Peter Savodnik

Ever since they were walloped in November, Democrats have been asking not just what they’re supposed to do next—but who they’re supposed to be. With the first primaries of the 2026 midterm now coming into focus, the navel-gazing will soon come to an end, and the debate about the future of the party will stop being theoretical and start becoming reality as voters go to the ballot box.

2 weeks ago | thefp.com | Peter Savodnik

The historian Jeffrey Herf and I sat down to discuss this week’s attack in Washington, D.C., in which two Israeli Embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were shot to death outside of the Jewish museum. The alleged assailant had earlier been affiliated with a Marxist group that glorified Hamas.

2 weeks ago | thefp.com | Peter Savodnik

President Rahm Emanuel? He Thinks So.At a time when Democratic insiders have never been more distrusted, the ultimate Democratic insider thinks he can be president in 2028. CHICAGO — We had just sat down in our booth at Pizzeria Portofino, an upscale restaurant on the riverfront he revitalized as mayor, when I asked Rahm Emanuel how he was doing. “I don’t have prostate cancer,” he quipped. There it was.

3 weeks ago | thefp.com | Peter Savodnik

Timothy Snyder Spent Years Studying Fascists. He Thinks Trump Is One. Is the Yale historian a prophet, as his supporters say? Or is he stripping the word ‘fascism’ of its meaning? TORONTO—“Is Donald Trump a fascist?” I asked the historian Timothy Snyder. We were at a lovely restaurant on the campus of the University of Toronto, where Snyder had taken up residence after leaving Yale—and America—last August. I was in the middle of the grilled calamari.

1 month ago | thefp.com | Peter Savodnik

Joseph Massey says he tries to avoid politics in his poetry. But politics has found him, whether he likes it or not. Massey, 46, has just released self-published his fourth self-published poetry collection, America Is the Poem, and it is blowing up on Amazon: Earlier this month, it was in the top 50, peaking at No. 14—out of 32.8 million titles available. (Books of poetry usually underperform. As of right now, there are only two in the top 100, both by Dr. Seuss.)And he’s got some high-profile fans.