Why This War? A conversation with Pankaj Mishra, Ben Rhodes, and Suzy Hansen on what the war means for the future of US politics and America’s place in the world

www.nybooks.com/events/why-t...

How People Reacted to the Nazis (Part 2) A Warning for Americans

"Trump simply could not do the destructive things that he has done without the collaboration, consent, or capitulation of countless people." open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...

Enduring Freedom to Epic Fury What We Can Learn from how America Names Its Wars

"We will not recover our democracy without ending the Forever War and detoxifying our country of the fury that is consuming it." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/enduring-f...

Can You Explain this to a Child? A different way of looking at war

"Can you explain this to a child? If the answer is no, then perhaps we should reconsider whether the thing is worth doing in the first place." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/can-you-ex...

How Putin Wins the War in Iran Russia could be a beneficiary of Trump's war on Iran.

Donald Trump keeps doing things that help Vladimir Putin. benrhodes1.substack.com/p/how-putin-...

On Trump and Netanyahu's War on Iran False Pretexts, No Endgame, Chaos in the Region, and the Obligation of Opposition

"Imagine, for a moment, being a parent who sent your child to that girls’ school that got bombed in Iran. Can you?" benrhodes1.substack.com/p/on-trump-a...

Opinion | The Great Lie of War

The Great Lie of War www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/o...

Opinion | The Great Lie of War

Talked to Ezra Klein about the war in Iran - how we got here, where we're going, and what I'm worried about. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/o...

Opinion | Trump May Come to Regret This

"Authoritarian politics and military aggression are a dangerous mix." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/o...

Opinion | Trump Wants You to Get Used to This. Don’t.

Trump Wants You to Get Used to This. Don’t. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/o...

Trump and Iran, War and Authoritarianism Do you know why we seem to be on the precipice of war with Iran?

"What does it say about the United States that there was far more debate about a diplomatic agreement with Iran than there has been about a potential war with Iran?" benrhodes1.substack.com/p/trump-and-...

This is why people don't trust institutions and elites. If you ignore the views of your own voters over and over and over again people give up on politics.

Democratic leaders have been feckless and wildly out of touch with their own voters who don't want another pointless war in the Middle East.

How People Reacted to the Nazis A Warning from History

"Just because people have legitimate grievances against a failed establishment does not mean they are justified in turning to fascism." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/how-people...

Remembering Jesse Jackson through his words “I was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me,” Jesse Jackson declared defiantly.

"He wasn't extreme. He was early." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/rememberin...

Remembering Jesse Jackson through his words “I was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me,” Jesse Jackson declared defiantly.

"If we want to find a way out of our mess, we would do well to look back to Jesse Jackson’s words." open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...

Reflections on the Munich Security Conference There was something unsettling about the Munich Security Conference.

"What happens to a conference dedicated to security cooperation when America has become, to many Europeans, a threat?" substack.com/home/post/p-...

MAGA and the Lost Cause On Trump, the Obamas, Race, and the Lost Cause

"What’s disturbing about Trump is not his occasionally overt racism, particularly directed at the first Black President – it’s that his ascent to the presidency is unthinkable without it." substack.com/home/post/p-...

An American Reckoning | Ben Rhodes Robert McNamara’s failure to reckon with the exceptionalism that led the United States into the Vietnam War contributed to fifty years of foreign policy failures. It can help us understand the crisis ...

On McNamara, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Gaza, and finally Trump. "Once you allow yourself to play by a set of rules that’s different from everyone else’s, the rules themselves are made brittle and ultimately break." www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

On the Epstein Files and Power Consider the picture of a smiling man next to a girl with her face blacked out, or the dashed off email with poor punctuation referencing a victim of human trafficking with a life in front of her like...

"MAGA die-hards have deceived themselves for so long that Trump was somehow one of them when he has always been more comfortable with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein than the vast majority of his own voters." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/on-the-eps...

On the Epstein Files and Power Consider the picture of a smiling man next to a girl with her face blacked out, or the dashed off email with poor punctuation referencing a victim of human trafficking with a life in front of her like...

"I was struck by how much the Epstein files resemble an autopsy for what’s gone wrong in the 21st century." open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...

Why Trump is getting more comfortable with war Why is Donald Trump getting more comfortable with war?

"For Trump, there is just a group of people – some in uniform – who stand when he enters the Situation Room, and a different group of sycophants who will tell him in the Oval Office that whatever decision he made was the right one" substack.com/home/post/p-...

Why Trump is getting more comfortable with war Why is Donald Trump getting more comfortable with war?

Why Trump is getting more comfortable with war
open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...

Opinion | The Rot Goes Deeper Than ICE

"Yes, Americans want a secure border. But most of us are also tired of war, wary of an intrusive militarized government, welcoming of immigrants, and protective of our core freedoms." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/o...

Opinion | The Rot Goes Deeper Than ICE

"The war on terror has become a war against ourselves. That forever war must come to an end. Enough with the military gear. Enough with the mass surveillance. Enough with the constant fear of an ever-shifting Other." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/o...

Living Under Lies What if there was no video?

"If you are 18 today, Donald Trump has dominated your experience of American political leadership for a decade. What have you absorbed, through cultural osmosis, because of that experience?" benrhodes1.substack.com/p/the-normal...

The Normalization of Lies What if there was no video?

"If you can’t trust a single word that the Department of Homeland Security says, how can we have any idea what is going on out of sight?" benrhodes1.substack.com/p/the-normal...

Notes on the Stories We Tell These are disorienting times. It is harder to understand the story we are living through, as individuals or a collective.

Starting a new substack: "We can watch a man get killed by federal agents in Minneapolis and then hear him besmirched as a terrorist or assassin despite what we saw with our own eyes. It makes you feel powerless, which it is intended to do." open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...

All We Say by Ben Rhodes: 9780593595121 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? This sweeping history of the United States told through fifteen speeches relives the battle over American identity, from a New York Times bestsell...

19. I hope you’ll pre-order this book, and look forward to sharing more stories and ideas in the months to come: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717294...

18. The title comes from MLK’s speech the night before he died: “All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper.” To close that gap, we must understand our past and tell a different story for the future.