How Things Work

3 days ago | hamiltonnolan.com | Hamilton Nolan

It was the hottest day of the year, and the hottest man in New York was headed uptown. Way uptown. Inwood, where the street odometer clicks past the 200s, so far uptown it makes your eyes bleed if you have to come from Brooklyn on a 1 train with broken air conditioning. Kids splashed in the fountain in Fort Tryon Park. Fruit stands slung avocados.

5 days ago | hamiltonnolan.com | Hamilton Nolan

Nations have governments. Nations are full of people. The government and the people are two different things. The failure to take this distinction seriously lays the groundwork for much of the world’s suffering. In China, teenagers shyly ask their crushes on dates. In Russia, families gather for a grandmother’s birthday party. In Yemen, harried mothers decide what to make for dinner. In Ukraine, men get excited for their favorite sports team.

1 week ago | hamiltonnolan.com | Hamilton Nolan

In 2014, New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro (who would go on to become one of the paper’s superstars as host of its podcast “The Daily”) posted this tweet:After receiving a good deal of ridicule, Barbaro deleted the tweet. The nervous sentiment he expressed, however, lives on.

1 week ago | hamiltonnolan.com | Hamilton Nolan

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that the House passed is objectionable for many reasons, most obviously because it is the most regressive economic bill of my lifetime, the class war condensed into in legislative form. Its tax policies and spending cuts will erode the well being of Americans slowly for decades to come.

2 weeks ago | hamiltonnolan.com | Hamilton Nolan

Much has been made of an alleged “crisis of masculinity” among America’s young men. This sort of sweeping cultural proclamation should always make you skeptical. As an angle, it is catnip because everyone can fill in its details based on their own lives, and male writers, in particular, can use it as a launching pad to subtly cast themselves as the sort of well-developed masculine figure who might—now that you mention it—serve as a good role model. I don’t know about all of that.