Opinion Today: Trump is the end of a 100-year experiment
Here’s what we’re focusing on.
Opinion Today
April 16, 2026
A photograph of Donald Trump, shaking hands with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, while the rest of the Supreme Court Justices look on — reproduced in a sepia-tinted photograph.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Notable

How the Supreme Court defeated Trump. “This is no way to run a railroad. We take one step forward, we take one step back, we take one step forward, we take one step back. We’re just dancing at this point.”

— Sarah Isgur, a conservative court watcher, in conversation with Ross Douthat, an Opinion columnist

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Talking about crime as if it’s 1994. “You’re offering a rational analysis of a subject that people tend not to be rational about.”

— Neil Barsky, the founder of The Marshall Project, in conversation with Nick Turner, the president of the Vera Institute of Justice

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What this immigration case is really about. “Decades of writing about the Supreme Court have taught me that it’s foolish to predict the outcome of cases, and I have rarely done so. My prediction here rests on one word: procedure.”

— Linda Greenhouse, a former Supreme Court reporter for The Times

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Spotlight

A photo of small placards with pictures of steak and bread that read “Eat Real Food.”
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

This Is How Kennedy Loses the MAHA Moms

Rachael Bedard, a contributing Opinion writer, asks if the movement will survive the revelation that Kennedy has been a regular, transactional politician all along.

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ICYMI

The end of the internet as we know it. “Now a powerful new capability has arrived — and as we’ve seen repeatedly in tech, there’s the risk that organizations with resources will receive it first and learn to protect themselves, while others are left vulnerable.”

— Raffi Krikorian, the chief technology officer at Mozilla

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Listen (or Watch)

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The Opinions

The Rise of the Sugar Mommy Economy

What a shift in the dating preferences of younger men reveals about our changing norms.

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32 MIN LISTEN

More in Opinion

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We Are Gambling Away Our Future

America’s view of liberty is upside down.

By David French

President Trump walking, partially concealed by a tree.

The Conversation

The Second Coming of Trump

Who doesn’t get the president mixed up with Jesus?

By Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens

David Wallace-Wells

Iran Is Teaching Us Something About the American War Machine

The future of war belongs to “flying lawn mowers”

By David Wallace-Wells

A group of women encircle a large, shadowy male figure.

Jessica Grose

The Women Behind the Whisper Network That Brought Down Eric Swalwell

Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales are now being held accountable thanks in part to the feminism of the 2010s.

By Jessica Grose

In Your Words

Re: “The Great American GLP-1 Experiment

I’m a GLP-1 user who struggled to manage the side effects (nausea, vomiting, gastritis) for months as I worked through the lifestyle changes required to mitigate them. The “gee, I use it with no problems” people are exhausting. Yes, it works, but this drug is not the easy-breezy solution it’s often portrayed as. — A comment posted by Cheryl from Pennsylvania

Read more comments on the story here and check out our Letters to the Editor.

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