Last month, Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzenzinski made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to hold court with our incoming oligarchic president. Last week at ABC, corporate bosses announced that they would pay $15 million to settle a bogus defamation suit by Trump, which the network almost certainly would have won in a trial. Much of the mainstream media, it seems, is determined not only to proclaim but also to actively embrace a new deference and accommodation of the GOP.

But not at The Nation, where we continue to believe that telling our readers that the truth is the only justification for the work we do—and the most secure basis for building a more just future. For the cover story of our latest issue, Tarence Ray, cohost of the Trillbilly Worker’s Party podcast, exposes the big lie behind television’s election coverage and the political assumptions embedded in the notion of “red states” and “blue states.” Meanwhile, Chris Lehmann and Eli Valley offer a graphic rogues gallery of the powers behind the presidential throne, while John Nichols salutes the visionaries who carry on the struggle with his annual Honor Roll.

To keep with the spirit of inspiration, in this issue we also have cartoonist Peter Kuper in conversation with the master Jules Feiffer as he reaches age 95, Kim Phillips-Fein on the great labor historian David Montgomery, Abdelrahman Elgendy on the uncompromising vision of the novelist Isabella Hammad and her new book of criticism, and Kate Wagner on Brady Corbet’s movie about the work of architecture, The Brutalist.

Don’t miss our dispatches from Charles Glass on the ceasefire in Lebanon, Bryce Covert on how red tape can save lives, Jerome Sessini on Springfield, Ohio behind the headlines, and the usual collection of columns.

Thanks for reading the issue. I wish you all Happy Holidays—and a New Year of truth, justice, solidarity, and courage.

-D.D. Guttenplan,

Editor, The Nation

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