Compact

Compact is an American digital magazine that launched in March 2022. It was co-founded by Edwin Aponte, a Marxist populist, along with Matthew Schmitz, a former editor at the conservative journal First Things, and Sohrab Ahmari, a journalist known for his conservative views. According to The New York Times, the magazine's editorial team is made up of individuals with a range of ideological perspectives, including Marxist feminists, conservative Catholics, and populists. The magazine takes a critical stance on liberalism, addressing it from both leftist and rightist viewpoints.

National

English

Online/Digital

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#127689

United States

#39465

Community and Society/Faith and Beliefs

#467

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

The Ugly Side of the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’

2 days ago | compactmag.com | Patrick Brown

If you are inundated this fall with campaign ads alleging that “Republicans claim to support the working-class, but they cut food stamps for low-income kids to pay for a tax cut for millionaires,” just remember that outcome could have been avoided. There’s a lot in the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” that would make conservatives happy.
Germany by Other Means

3 weeks ago | compactmag.com | Clarke Micah |Peter Hitchens

Freedom: Memoirs 1954—2021by Angela MerkelSt. Martin’s Press, 720 pages, $40On a calm, cool September afternoon in 1939, an actual nightmare took solid form on the streets of the handsome town of Brest-Litovsk. I could say that Brest-Litovsk was in Poland, as it had been until that day. But it would not really be true. The town lies in those strange badlands where (if you are not murdered or deported by the latest invader) you may visit several countries in a lifetime without ever leaving home.
The Techno-Populist Convergence

3 weeks ago | compactmag.com | Alex Hochuli

For more than a decade, we have been told that insurgent populists are challenging a complacent post-political technocratic establishment. Combatants on both sides testify to this polarization. Poland’s Donald Tusk, former President of the European Council and the country’s current prime minister, stated back in 2017 that “we must challenge the populists”—and he did so, defeating the right-wing Law and Justice Party in 2023.
The Man Without Illusions

3 weeks ago | compactmag.com | Dan Hitchens

Do something on Samuel Johnson, the editor urges me. Nothing political. Not “What would Samuel Johnson think of the method of tariff calculation.” Just a purely literary essay on this mighty figure of our civilization. At this, my mind goes temporarily blank, and when it restarts a figure comes into view. He is tall, big and clumsy, compulsively twitching and muttering (Tourette’s, some have diagnosed him with), wearing an 18th-century wig singed from holding a candle too close while reading.
Pope Leo’s Challenge

4 weeks ago | compactmag.com | Dan Hitchens

There was a Pope Leo who saved Rome from Attila the Hun. And a Pope Leo who worked miracles and toured Europe fighting corruption. But presumably neither of them was uppermost in the thoughts of the mild-mannered administrator Robert Prevost, who has just become the 267th Pope, when he chose the name Leo XIV.
The Millennial Darkness of Matthew Gasda

1 month ago | compactmag.com | G.D. Dess |GD Dess

The Sleepersby Matthew Gasda Arcade, 288 pages, $14.99Few contemporary American authors are as in touch with today’s zeitgeist as Matthew Gasda. His break-out play Dimes Square premiered in 2022 and was hailed as both “decadent and delicious.” The play provides a generational snapshot of millennials and aspiring careerists and, as contemporary theater goes, it is “as good as it gets,” reported Vulture.
Trump Must Fix the Grid

1 month ago | compactmag.com | Emmet Penney

The American power industry is racing to keep up with the AI boom. Microsoft, xAI, OpenAI, and Meta have all announced ambitious data-center projects that have sent utility stocks soaring. The need to meet this soaring demand gives Donald Trump the chance to go down in history as the energy president. He campaigned on cheap power prices and “energy dominance,” and installed a highly capable engineer, Chris Wright, as energy secretary.
The Persistence of Lesser-Evil Politics

1 month ago | compactmag.com | John B. Judis

There have been five comprehensive surveys of public opinion in the last two weeks that attempt to assess President Donald Trump’s standing with the public at the end of his first hundred days. The polls are by The New York Times/Siena, The Washington Post/Ipsos, CBS News/YouGov, NPR/Marist, and The Economist/YouGov. Some of the results are unsurprising: Trump is in trouble with the public, but so are the Democrats.
The Persistence of Lesser-Evil Politics

1 month ago | compactmag.com | John B. Judis

There have been five comprehensive surveys of public opinion in the last two weeks that attempt to assess President Donald Trump’s standing with the public at the end of his first hundred days. The polls are by The New York Times/Siena, The Washington Post/Ipsos, CBS News/YouGov, NPR/Marist, and The Economist/YouGov. Some of the results are unsurprising: Trump is in trouble with the public, but so are the Democrats.
The Great American Novel Will Not Be Substacked

1 month ago | compactmag.com | Valerie Stivers

Major ArcanaBy John PistelliBelt Publishing, 352 pages, $24.95There’s been a recent trend of writers, mostly men, asserting the need for a new kind of fiction writing that will supposedly fix the publishing industry and draw in new readers. I am sympathetic to this movement, which I have been informally labeling “rebellion literature.” The better versions of it go beyond the standard anti-woke or reactionary talking points to offer ideas about what a renewal of the novel would look like.