New York Times Opinion
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We amplify voices on the issues that matter to you. Read on: https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion
"Even if the Trump administration somehow manages to muddle through in Venezuela, we seem to be returning to the pre-World War I era of strongmen and spheres of influence," Ben Rhodes writes. "Whether we choose to ignore it or not, history shows us where that leads."
Opinion | Trump Is Falling for a Trap We Can All See Coming
Trump’s increasing belligerence abroad should raise alarm about more than the fate of Venezuela.
nyti.ms
January 6, 2026 at 2:52 PM
"Even if the Trump administration somehow manages to muddle through in Venezuela, we seem to be returning to the pre-World War I era of strongmen and spheres of influence," Ben Rhodes writes. "Whether we choose to ignore it or not, history shows us where that leads."
“Jan. 6 was shocking. That Trump left the scene of the crime to return to power is a little less so,” our columnist Jamelle Bouie writes.
Opinion | There Is a Sickness Eating Away at American Democracy
Jan. 6 is a symptom. Elite impunity is the cause.
nyti.ms
January 6, 2026 at 1:59 PM
“Jan. 6 was shocking. That Trump left the scene of the crime to return to power is a little less so,” our columnist Jamelle Bouie writes.
President Trump’s culture war represents “a significant consolidation of executive authority beyond formal governmental boundaries,” Shari Berman tells Thomas Edsall.
Opinion | Trump Is Pushing a Culture War That Knows No Bounds
The president is deploying his domineering tactics in unexpected places.
nyti.ms
January 6, 2026 at 11:39 AM
President Trump’s culture war represents “a significant consolidation of executive authority beyond formal governmental boundaries,” Shari Berman tells Thomas Edsall.
“Trump’s incoherent revisionist mythology of Jan. 6 has become an organizing policy commitment of his administration,” writes Jamie Raskin, who was the lead prosecutor in the president’s second impeachment trial.
Opinion | Jamie Raskin: Jan. 6 Never Ended
Five years after Jan. 6, 2021, we are still caught up in a struggle over the meaning of that day.
nyti.ms
January 6, 2026 at 6:15 AM
“Trump’s incoherent revisionist mythology of Jan. 6 has become an organizing policy commitment of his administration,” writes Jamie Raskin, who was the lead prosecutor in the president’s second impeachment trial.
"Art is supposed to break our hearts," Margaret Renkl writes. "It’s supposed to crack us open to every raw, elemental feeling a human heart can bear. That’s how it makes us more human."
Opinion | A Case for Beauty in a Fleeting World
We turn to art to make sense of a life that is heartbreakingly fragile.
nyti.ms
January 6, 2026 at 1:09 AM
"Art is supposed to break our hearts," Margaret Renkl writes. "It’s supposed to crack us open to every raw, elemental feeling a human heart can bear. That’s how it makes us more human."
"The raid against Mr. Maduro may be one of the top three most important foreign policy victories of Mr. Trump’s second term in office," writes Matthew Kroenig.
Opinion | Donald Trump Was Right to Oust Maduro
President Trump made a bold decision, and it was a stunning success.
nyti.ms
January 6, 2026 at 12:48 AM
"The raid against Mr. Maduro may be one of the top three most important foreign policy victories of Mr. Trump’s second term in office," writes Matthew Kroenig.
“The history of science is indeed a graveyard of theories, but the fact that science keeps changing is a mark of its strength,” writes the philosopher Elay Shech.
Opinion | Science Keeps Changing. So Why Should We Trust It?
Naïve faith and wholesale pessimism are not your only options.
nyti.ms
January 5, 2026 at 10:42 PM
“The history of science is indeed a graveyard of theories, but the fact that science keeps changing is a mark of its strength,” writes the philosopher Elay Shech.
“Laws and norms don’t matter unless there’s someone willing to enforce them,” writes our columnist Michelle Goldberg. “America once acted like the world’s policeman. Now it’s a mafia.”
Opinion | Don’t Call It Regime Change. This Is Something Else Entirely.
To understand what’s unfolding in Venezuela, you have to look to the mob, not traditional foreign policy doctrines.
nyti.ms
January 5, 2026 at 9:14 PM
“Laws and norms don’t matter unless there’s someone willing to enforce them,” writes our columnist Michelle Goldberg. “America once acted like the world’s policeman. Now it’s a mafia.”
“President Trump’s intervention in Venezuela could well be the first chapter of an era of expansion that will not benefit the American people and is sure to damage our position of leadership on the world stage,” Roger Hirschberg writes in a letter to The Times.
Opinion | The Aftermath of Trump’s Raid on Venezuela
Readers worry about the repercussions and a resurfacing of “America’s imperialist past.”
nyti.ms
January 5, 2026 at 7:34 PM
“President Trump’s intervention in Venezuela could well be the first chapter of an era of expansion that will not benefit the American people and is sure to damage our position of leadership on the world stage,” Roger Hirschberg writes in a letter to The Times.
“The biggest winner of the leadership change in Venezuela may not be American consumers or oil producers but instead the U.S. government itself,” Rebecca Patterson writes.
Opinion | Trump Wants Venezuela’s Oil. Who Benefits?
Producers seem uninterested and consumers might not notice
nyti.ms
January 5, 2026 at 6:52 PM
“The biggest winner of the leadership change in Venezuela may not be American consumers or oil producers but instead the U.S. government itself,” Rebecca Patterson writes.
"The Los Angeles fires mark a new phase, and seem to affirm a new consensus among a certain cohort of fire experts, that we have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the problem and mismanaged fire risk as a result," David Wallace-Wells writes.
Opinion | Which City Burns Next?
One year later, we haven’t really begun to reckon with the real meaning of the Los Angeles fires.
nyti.ms
January 5, 2026 at 5:52 PM
"The Los Angeles fires mark a new phase, and seem to affirm a new consensus among a certain cohort of fire experts, that we have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the problem and mismanaged fire risk as a result," David Wallace-Wells writes.
“The most important word in politics and economics right now is ‘affordability,’” Jared Bernstein writes. “Fortunately, politicians can embrace a more realistic affordability agenda.”
Opinion | Government Can Provide Affordability
Americans want affordability. Here’s how politicians can deliver.
nyti.ms
January 5, 2026 at 4:37 PM
“The most important word in politics and economics right now is ‘affordability,’” Jared Bernstein writes. “Fortunately, politicians can embrace a more realistic affordability agenda.”
"Mr. Trump’s reckless and unnecessary wars, combined with his lawless and counterproductive economic attacks on our friends around the world, are an assault on the foundations of America’s strength and prosperity," Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer write.
Opinion | After Venezuela, Trump Needs to Rediscover Restraint
Abandoning restraint, the president is growing reckless.
nyti.ms
January 5, 2026 at 3:31 PM
"Mr. Trump’s reckless and unnecessary wars, combined with his lawless and counterproductive economic attacks on our friends around the world, are an assault on the foundations of America’s strength and prosperity," Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer write.
“Restraint is more persuasive when people actually remember a world war, and the people who built the United Nations and NATO had been through two. In that sense, the moral argument against aggressive war has practical application,” our columnist David French writes.
Opinion | Gunboat Diplomacy Is Back. What Could Go Wrong?
The high cost of forgetting what world war is really like.
nyti.ms
January 5, 2026 at 2:51 PM
“Restraint is more persuasive when people actually remember a world war, and the people who built the United Nations and NATO had been through two. In that sense, the moral argument against aggressive war has practical application,” our columnist David French writes.
Regime change in Venezuela, writes M. Gessen, “is a victory for Putin, because it is a blow — quite likely fatal — to the new world order of law, justice and human rights that was heralded in the wake of World War II.”
Opinion | Maduro’s Ouster Plays Right Into Putin’s Hands
Allies? Who needs allies?
nyti.ms
January 4, 2026 at 11:25 PM
Regime change in Venezuela, writes M. Gessen, “is a victory for Putin, because it is a blow — quite likely fatal — to the new world order of law, justice and human rights that was heralded in the wake of World War II.”
On a vacation abroad, his family rediscovered the joy of spontaneous dance, Boris Fishman writes. His daughter “was seeing her parents not only as harried people bowed by work and chores." They were dancers.
Opinion | Want to Have a Better Year? Just Dance.
On a vacation abroad, my family started dancing in public. We haven’t stopped.
nyti.ms
January 4, 2026 at 9:02 PM
On a vacation abroad, his family rediscovered the joy of spontaneous dance, Boris Fishman writes. His daughter “was seeing her parents not only as harried people bowed by work and chores." They were dancers.
“It’s quite possible that the Maduro regime will stagger on without Maduro, leaving the population increasingly impoverished,” writes Nicholas Kristof.
Opinion | The Venezuela I Know
Many are celebrating the ouster of a brutal dictator, but the Maduro regime may survive the loss of Maduro.
nyti.ms
January 4, 2026 at 8:38 PM
“It’s quite possible that the Maduro regime will stagger on without Maduro, leaving the population increasingly impoverished,” writes Nicholas Kristof.
“To classify Tom Brady as the greatest football player of all time is among the least controversial assertions anyone can make about anything,” Chuck Klosterman writes. “The only problem is that this assertion is wrong."
Opinion | Tom Brady Is Not the GOAT
That’s not a criticism of Brady. It’s a criticism of how greatness is considered.
nyti.ms
January 4, 2026 at 8:18 PM
“To classify Tom Brady as the greatest football player of all time is among the least controversial assertions anyone can make about anything,” Chuck Klosterman writes. “The only problem is that this assertion is wrong."
“We are all in a constant state of grief, even though we don’t always admit it,” Brian Keith Jackson writes. “Grief comes with any change. Our friends, our lovers, our jobs, our health: Nothing is ever as it was the year, or the moment, before.”
Opinion | Grief Has a Rhythm. Nature Knows It.
We are all in a constant state of grief, even though we don’t always admit it.
nyti.ms
January 4, 2026 at 7:16 PM
“We are all in a constant state of grief, even though we don’t always admit it,” Brian Keith Jackson writes. “Grief comes with any change. Our friends, our lovers, our jobs, our health: Nothing is ever as it was the year, or the moment, before.”
“In Venezuela, we have long faced a brutal paradox: an absent yet omnipotent state,” Colette Capriles writes. “Our society has been orphaned, ground down to its most basic capacities.”
Opinion | This Is What Venezuelans Really Want
We have long faced a brutal paradox: an absent yet omnipotent state.
nyti.ms
January 4, 2026 at 4:12 PM
“In Venezuela, we have long faced a brutal paradox: an absent yet omnipotent state,” Colette Capriles writes. “Our society has been orphaned, ground down to its most basic capacities.”
“In the wake of Saturday’s predawn military operation in Venezuela, in which Mr. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured and flown to a U.S. warship, Mr. Trump made clear that it was essentially about the oil all along,” W.J. Hennigan writes.
Opinion | Now We Know Trump’s Aim in Venezuela: Oil
Trump’s true intentions finally come clear after talk of fighting drugs and instability.
nyti.ms
January 4, 2026 at 2:20 PM
“In the wake of Saturday’s predawn military operation in Venezuela, in which Mr. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured and flown to a U.S. warship, Mr. Trump made clear that it was essentially about the oil all along,” W.J. Hennigan writes.
"The Trump administration just broke the leadership of Venezuela; Trump now owns responsibility for what comes next there," our columnist Thomas Friedman writes.
Opinion | To Trump, on Venezuela: You Break It, You Own It
His administration just decapitated the country’s leadership; he’s now responsible for what comes next there.
nyti.ms
January 3, 2026 at 6:18 PM
"The Trump administration just broke the leadership of Venezuela; Trump now owns responsibility for what comes next there," our columnist Thomas Friedman writes.
Perhaps what excites people most about the show “Heated Rivalry,” Jim Downs writes, “is not the thrill of naked bodies but the shock of being emotionally known. That is what some of us have been missing.”
Opinion | A Sweet, Sexy, Happy Love Story Between Two Men. Revolutionary.
We need stories that capture how we live — in the touch, the embrace, the everyday if boring intimacies that were never meant to be translated.
nyti.ms
January 3, 2026 at 5:14 PM
Perhaps what excites people most about the show “Heated Rivalry,” Jim Downs writes, “is not the thrill of naked bodies but the shock of being emotionally known. That is what some of us have been missing.”
“The Trump health cuts constitute a double blow because they not only reduce access to clinical care, but also undermine public health initiatives related to vaccinations or addiction,” our columnist Nicholas Kristof writes.
Opinion | Can We Really Afford to Let Health Care Get Any Worse?
With Trump’s health care cuts, I traveled to Ohio, Mississippi and Alabama — and encountered devastated families bracing for even more difficult challenges.
nyti.ms
January 3, 2026 at 3:15 PM
“The Trump health cuts constitute a double blow because they not only reduce access to clinical care, but also undermine public health initiatives related to vaccinations or addiction,” our columnist Nicholas Kristof writes.
President Trump “is pushing our country toward an international crisis without valid reasons,” the editorial board writes after the U.S. attack on Venezuela was announced on Saturday. “If Mr. Trump wants to argue otherwise, the Constitution spells out what he must do: Go to Congress.”
Opinion | Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Is Illegal and Unwise
We know that Mr. Trump’s warmongering violates the law.
nyti.ms
January 3, 2026 at 1:42 PM
President Trump “is pushing our country toward an international crisis without valid reasons,” the editorial board writes after the U.S. attack on Venezuela was announced on Saturday. “If Mr. Trump wants to argue otherwise, the Constitution spells out what he must do: Go to Congress.”