Advertisement · 728 × 90

Posts by Nathan Heller

Preview
Trump’s War Hits the Chaiwalas Restrictions and attacks in the Strait of Hormuz have made fuel prices rocket. Just ask the roadside tea venders in New Delhi.

A Delhi Postcard in this week's @newyorker.com: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

3 weeks ago 2 2 0 0

It's not just the water; societies that value art create art.

2 months ago 11 2 0 0

Isn't this, notoriously, the old serial-killer trick?

2 months ago 5 0 0 0

This is your moment to shred, man. No excuses!

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

Seems clear that the forces of serendipity are conspiring to deliver you a future as a manliness influencer. The door has opened; just book an arena and walk through it!

2 months ago 1 0 1 0
Preview
Special Report: The night everything at DCA finally went wrong D.C. midair crash was the result of a complete collapse of the protections designed to keep aviation safe — and the institutions that design and maintain them

This is the best reported account of exactly what led to the DCA mid-air collision I've seen. theaircurrent.com/aviation-saf...

2 months ago 3 0 0 0
Post image

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

2 months ago 10351 3075 161 419

There is nothing order-keeping, law-enforcing, or public-safety-protecting about this.

2 months ago 2 0 0 0
Advertisement

Much worse than stripping for a physician, definitely.

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

I say (as a fan of his best work) that the later writing about sex is reliably some of the most hilariously quotable and repulsive in the American canon.

2 months ago 1 0 1 0

My view here is: let's go. If someone's writing truly is indistinguishable from what an A.I. grinds out, by all means, step aside. It just demarcates more clearly the realm of writing that A.I. can't do—what's original, human, singular, and interesting—and makes its special value clearer.

2 months ago 5 0 0 0
Preview
Gavin Newsom Is Playing the Long Game California’s governor has been touted as the Democrats’ best shot in 2028. But first he’ll need to convince voters that he’s not just a slick establishment politician.

Very good @newyorker.com piece on Gavin Newsom, by @nathanheller.bsky.social.

Gets way, way past the usual media shorthand about him.

(I respect what Newsom has done as mayor, lt gov, and now two-term gov of America's best state.)

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

2 months ago 137 30 26 9

Yes. Every time you disrupt, revolve, start from scratch, etc., you give yourself a fresh slate of problems and knock-on effects to notice, track, guard against, and solve. Most institutions highly imperfect, but have that behind them. They let you pick up the thread of improvement at a later point.

2 months ago 3 0 0 0

It will never happen. It would have already if it could have. This has baffled me for years.

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

"The Governor, who has not changed his cellphone number since becoming mayor of San Francisco, in 2004, has nine thousand twenty-two personal contacts on his phone" www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

2 months ago 2 1 0 0

This is a great assessment, and seems nearly exact.

2 months ago 5 0 0 0
Preview
Gavin Newsom Is Playing the Long Game California’s governor has been touted as the Democrats’ best shot in 2028. But first he’ll need to convince voters that he’s not just a slick establishment politician.

When Gavin Newsom first entered public office, at the age of 28, there was a feeling that he would flourish without ascending to the top—too slick, too swank, too smug. Three decades later, the criticisms are the same, but his prospects have transformed. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/KV6N0q

2 months ago 50 11 13 1
Post image

The US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023.

The Cato study provides the first-ever 30-year analysis of the fiscal effects of immigration on government budgets.

https://ow.ly/jy8a50Y8kM3

2 months ago 4392 2265 80 318
Advertisement
Preview
DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Who Criticized Them in Email The Department of Homeland Security is using a little-known tool to go after its critics.

Floored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.

2 months ago 10007 5124 276 484
Preview
Gavin Newsom Is Playing the Long Game

"Gavin Newsom Is Playing the Long Game" by Nathan Heller (@nathanheller.bsky.social) is our pick from the February 9, 2026 issue of The New Yorker. newyorkerest.com/issue/2026/02/09

2 months ago 3 1 0 0

It is astonishing how uncool this "really cool" club sounds.

2 months ago 1 0 0 0
Post image

I profiled Gavin Newsom, on whom hopes are being pinned, at length in this week's @newyorker.com. I report closely on the way he thinks, operates, builds coalitions, and on. And, yes, the hair. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

2 months ago 8 2 2 0

"Thank you for your attention to this matter!" is such an oddly self-minimizing sign-off from a Commander in Chief. It is how you end your note to the shampoo company's corporate e-mail address that may never be checked, letting them know that their new bottle leaks in a suitcase.

2 months ago 10 0 0 0

Such bad news about the tariffs, but at least there are so many other enticements to keep people here in the United States, such as our affordable health care, stable economy, vibrant cultural institutions, and freedom to walk the streets without being asked for papers!

3 months ago 9 2 0 0

A thing like that could get you past the front gate.

3 months ago 1 0 1 0
Advertisement

Thinking today of a Christmas Eve, years ago, when I got to the register at City Lights Books just ahead of Tom Stoppard. He wore a tweed suit and a big silk scarf and carried an enormous stack of books with the merry air of someone who'd found just the thing, just in time. Sic perpetuum sit.

3 months ago 12 0 0 0

Regarding "60 Minutes," useful to remember that most people have no idea how the standards, norms, and protocols of journalism work (and why should they?), so when someone claims that a story didn't meet standards, she might be trying less to seek industry accord than to seed the idea with public.

3 months ago 4 0 0 0

I always say that the MOST special thing about The New Yorker is that you can read something from fifteen years ago, thirty years ago, seventy years ago, and find it to be as fresh and engrossing and worth your time as a piece published on Monday. This is the best periodical archive in the world.

4 months ago 12 1 0 0

As I think a few people have pointed out, it's a textbook example of the Kinsley gaffe.

4 months ago 0 0 0 0

Fascinating. Would the "merry" adverb-adjective ambiguity have existed even in period, or would it have been widely understood as intended?

4 months ago 1 0 1 0