A look back at The Intercept’s must-read politics stories from 2019.
Pete Buttigieg Touted Three Major Supporters of His Douglass Plan for Black America. They Were Alarmed When They Saw It
By Ryan Grim
Joe Biden’s Family Has Been Cashing In on His Career for Decades. Democrats Need to Acknowledge That.
By Ryan Grim
The Day I Met Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
By Aída Chávez
As San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris’s Office Stopped Cooperating With Victims of Catholic Church Child Abuse
By Lee Fang, Video by Leighton Akio Woodhouse
In Three Touchstone Speeches, Elizabeth Warren Grounds Her Campaign in a History of American Protest and Movement Building
By Ryan Grim
Progressive Candidates Are Carving a Path to the Senate in 2020 — No Thanks to Chuck Schumer
By Ryan Grim, Akela Lacy, Aída Chávez
Elliott Abrams, Trump’s Pick to Bring “Democracy” to Venezuela, Has Spent His Life Crushing Democracy
By Jon Schwarz
How Bernie Sanders Accidentally Built a Groundbreaking Organizing Movement
By Ryan Grim
The Wax and Wane of J Street’s Influence Over U.S.-Israel Policy
By Maryam Saleh, Ryan Grim
How Lachlan Murdoch Went From Studying Philosophy at Princeton to Exploiting White Nationalism at Fox News
By Peter Maass
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
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