![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static01.nyt.com/images/2024/07/18/multimedia/21moo-populism-art/18Moo-Vance-jtmc-thumbWide.png?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
What J.D. Vance’s Transformation Tells Us About the Future of Democracy
Can populist leaders actually fix the world’s unsolvable problems?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
I write about politics, culture, history and policy, mainly through the prism of nonfiction books or other texts, like Supreme Court opinions, congressional investigations or commission reports. I’m especially intrigued by how public figures reveal themselves, intentionally or unwittingly, through their writings. When I write about campaign books, political biographies or Washington memoirs, people often say to me, “You read those books so we don’t have to!” True, you don’t have to — but trust me that there is much to learn in them. This work has led to two books of my own: “What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era” (2020) and “The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians” (2024). I try to avoid armchair opinion mongering. Instead, I seek to give a fair hearing to a variety of ideas and arguments and then help readers draw their own conclusions, as I draw mine.
Before joining The Times in 2022, I spent 17 years at the Washington Post, where I was the nonfiction book critic, Outlook editor, national security editor and economics editor. Previously, I was the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. Early in my career, I was a consultant at the Inter American Development Bank and an analyst in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. I studied economics and political science at the University of Notre Dame and did graduate studies in public policy at Princeton University and in journalism at Columbia University. I was born in Lima, Peru, and became a U.S. citizen in 2014. I received the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2019 and currently serve on the Pulitzer Board.
I strive for fairness, honesty and depth. I believe that there is something called truth, and I do my best to approximate it. My overriding value is skepticism. Along with all Times journalists, I am committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook.
Email: carlos.lozada@nytimes.com
X: @CarlosNYT
Can populist leaders actually fix the world’s unsolvable problems?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Flags, financial disclosures and the fragility of SCOTUS.
By Michelle Cottle, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Three men of Opinion debate Trump’s appeal.
By Michelle Cottle and Carlos Lozada
The president has many problems this election. Is Kamala Harris one of them?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Governor Noem has an unusual way of demonstrating her decision-making skills.
By Carlos Lozada
What the former president’s V.P. shortlist tells us about his possible second term.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Jamelle Bouie on what America’s history tells us about this moment.
By Michelle Cottle and Carlos Lozada
Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is not a vision of what might happen in America but a collage of what already has happened, some here and much elsewhere.
By Carlos Lozada
“It’s the worst story I’ve ever covered.”
By Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Does God have to be Republican?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Why ditching phones won’t save the kids.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Trump’s allies want to harness government, not shrink it.
By Carlos Lozada and Derek Arthur
Decoding blood baths and Washington bluster.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
It’s the election of our discontent.
By Michelle Cottle, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
If re-elected, how far will Donald Trump and his supporters go in pursuit of the MAGA agenda?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
The hosts disagree on where America’s abortion debate is headed.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
The former president’s allies don’t want to destroy the “deep state.” They want to seize it.
By Carlos Lozada
He joins the hosts to talk inflation, bad vibes and how voters will respond in November.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat and Carlos Lozada
Even supposedly terrible books can be illuminating and essential.
By Carlos Lozada
What qualifies someone to be president, anyway?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
On the mass cultural events that unite us — and where we’d be without them.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
The hosts unpack the truism that voters don’t care about foreign policy.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Iowa didn’t reveal anything new. And here’s why the hosts aren’t holding their breath for New Hampshire.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
The road beyond Iowa is paved with potential running mates.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
New year, new problems. The hosts try to make sense of it.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
You asked. The hosts have opinions.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
If “Oath and Honor” is both “a memoir and a warning,” it delivers on only half of that promise.
By Carlos Lozada
Carlos Lozada and Katherine Miller on Jan. 6, Kevin McCarthy and political fear.
By Carlos Lozada, Katherine Miller and Vishakha Darbha
Politicians used to feel shame over their scandals. Not anymore.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
“Democracy is not what partisans want. It’s what they settle for.”
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
In Professor Lozada’s classroom, an argument over kids today and their formative political experiences.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
How else are we going to resolve the questions that hang over our democracy?
By Carlos Lozada
Which will matter more in 2024?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Our 2024 options are terrible. Can we hope for more than Biden or Trump?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
It’s a wretched time to be an institutionalist in the Republican Party.
By Carlos Lozada
Only if billionaire tech bros stay in their lanes.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
How America should be thinking about its role in this “wildly dangerous and unpredictable time.”
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Biden signaled he would be a ‘transition’ president. How’s that going?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Consistency seems irrelevant to his scattershot populism.
By Carlos Lozada
If it’s a rematch between the incumbent and the former president, their dueling visions for America come down to a specific lexicon.
By Carlos Lozada and Phoebe Lett
Is this season of strikes going to change the way we all work?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
The ‘border crisis’ has left the border — the political response has been chaotic.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
It’s time to start asking if the culture wars actually matter to voters.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
We’re past the “fairy tale stage” of the war in Ukraine. How does it end?
By Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
As the Republican candidates tap dance around the former president, the party proves it’s still stuck on Trump.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Four indictments and two impeachments tell one story.
By Carlos Lozada
Does Ron DeSantis stand a chance? Does Joe Biden?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat and Carlos Lozada
The contrast between Biden saying America is “still” a democracy and Trump vowing to make it great “again” is more than a quirk of speechwriting.
By Carlos Lozada
What’s up with America’s misguided obsession with Ivy League schools?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
The story is a warning. Will we heed it?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Whether you’re into mysteries or the making of mob movies, we’ve got something for you.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
In a spate of recent books on U.S.-China relations, war between the two superpowers is already raging.
By Carlos Lozada
Threads and the search for our next social media home.
By Michelle Cottle, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Move over, apple pie. We’re picking new American symbols.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
What to make of the latest allegations of a government cover-up.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Why Biden won’t be discussing India’s creep away from democracy during Modi’s visit to the U.S.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Times columnists chose the TV shows, movies, books and songs that capture the country as they see it.
By Carlos Lozada
Predictions from three Opinion writers on what comes next.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat and Carlos Lozada
Debating when Biden and Feinstein should retire — and when you should.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
The state of manhood has become one more front in our culture wars, a debate that keeps breaking down along political lines, even as men themselves just keep breaking down.
By Carlos Lozada
And other reflections on the fight over America’s debt ceiling.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
As HBO’s hit series comes to a close, was everything foretold in Episode 1?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
Men are struggling by most measures. What’s the solution?
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
What the emerging field of candidates says about the future of the Republican Party.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen
What to think about the scandal-prone justice and the Supreme Court? Our hosts talk it through.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada, Lydia Polgreen and Phoebe Lett
Sometimes sequels are written decades apart and by different authors.
By Carlos Lozada
Four Opinion writers discuss the indictment of President Donald Trump.
By Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Lydia Polgreen and Carlos Lozada
It’s buried in “The Courage to Be Free,” but it’s unmistakably there.
By Carlos Lozada
Read together, the three major investigations of his presidency tell a story.
By Carlos Lozada
The tension between myth and reality does not undermine the U.S. It defines it.
By Carlos Lozada