The Opinions Essay
Latest Essays
(Tom McCorkle for The Washington Post/Food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post)
America forgot how to make proper pie. Can we remember before it’s too late?
Americans invented the dessert we call pie. Why are they letting it die?
In Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s clerics have groomed and promoted their ruthless enforcer
The dilemma for the Biden administration may not be the potential for arms control but how to deal with a mass murderer facing a mass uprising.
Germany faced its horrible past. Can we do the same?
For too long, we've ignored our real history. We must face where truth can take us.
How Nancy Reagan helped end the Cold War
Behind the scenes, the first lady curbed her husband's worst instincts.
How covid hastened the decline and fall of the U.S.-China relationship
Trump tried to make friends with Xi. Then came covid.
The reach of authoritarian repression is growing. Now, not even exile is safe.
In the age of interconnected technology, living abroad is no guarantee of freedom to dissent.
Trump’s new reality: Ex-president, private citizen and, perhaps, criminal defendant
The stark lesson of the last four years is that the failure to hold a president to account only leads to more conduct for which the president should be held to account.
Trump didn’t build his border wall with steel. He built it out of paper.
The country’s immigration infrastructure may remain crippled long after Trump leaves office.
More Opinions Features
(Ann Telnaes/The Washington Post)
We’re all in this together — unless you’re a Republican
If today’s Republicans had lived through World War II, it’d be hard to picture them banding together for the common good, as Americans did then.
Police reform is not enough. We need to rethink public safety.
We should think about public safety the way we think about public health.
Trump lost, but he won millions of new voters. Where did they come from?
Despite losing to Joe Biden, the president found votes in some surprising places. Future Republican candidates should pay attention.
Washington Post Opinions: 2020 in review
The year according to the Opinions staff: Best cartoons, opinion videos, op-eds and letters to the editor; culture picks; and good news.
Our favorite Washington Post video op-eds of 2020
The coronavirus took away our shared public spaces where we might have met someone whose life we could only imagine. Here are some of the perspectives we needed to see and hear to understand.
Our favorite Opinions visual essays and projects of 2020
These are some of our favorites of the past year.
The fable of Trumpocchio: How Trump won the election that he lost
Trump actually won the election. Here's how.
Biden’s voter margin in key states wouldn’t fill the Rose Bowl. That will affect how he governs.
Biden scored a decent popular vote win — but his margins in the key states were narrow. That should come as no surprise in our era of close elections.
Trump’s lame-duck temper tantrums, illustrated
A behind-the-scenes look at the moments after President Trump declared himself the winner of the 2020 election.
From the Archives
How our democracy has made dependency a right
Progressives want to dilute the concept of individualism, but that’s antithetical to America’s premise.
Want to build a far-right movement? Spain’s Vox party shows how.
Vox blazed across the Internet, dividing its country. Now it’s in parliament.
The strongmen strike back
Authoritarianism has reemerged as the greatest threat to the liberal democratic world — a profound ideological, as well as strategic, challenge. And we have no idea how to confront it.
Iran has reinvented the hostage crisis, 40 years later
Taking hostages has become a tool of diplomacy.
Jamal Khashoggi: A missing voice, a growing chorus
The quests that animated the Saudi journalist’s life cannot be so easily defeated.
China tried to erase the memory of Tiananmen Square. But its legacy lives on.
Three decades after the crackdown, Beijing is still terrified of the movement and what it stood for.
As brands keep wading in, it’s time to ask: Is Pride for sale?
Pride celebrations and the corporations that sponsor them are deeply intertwined, with far-reaching consequences.
Voices of the Movement podcast: Stories from civil rights leaders who changed America
A collection of memories from the past and lessons for the future from the people who lived through the movement, as told through a nine-episode podcast series.
‘If you don’t get at that rot, you just get more officers like Josh Hastings’
The shooting of 15-year-old Bobby Moore revealed a horror show of misconduct, cover-up and cascading institutional failure at the Little Rock Police Department.
She reported her rape. Her hometown turned against her. Can justice ever be served?
Twelve years later, past and present residents of Arlington, Tex., are still reckoning with Amber Wyatt’s story.
Trump’s travel ban is tearing couples apart: ‘My entire life has been put on hold’
One is American. The other is Iranian. This short film shows what happens when the U.S. government keeps you from your spouse.
Gun reforms can save lives. Science proves it.
Those who oppose reforms say nothing can be done. That’s demonstrably wrong.
The tweets, statements and speeches that defined Trump’s first year as president
We present the highlights: Year One of the Trump administration, as told by those who are (or were) part of it.
The one best idea for ending sexual harassment
We asked 16 leaders what one change could help stop sexual harassment in their fields.
Ken Burns wants ‘The Vietnam War’ to unite America. Can anyone do that under Trump?
When the filmmaker started his new series, he had no idea it would coincide with the most divisive era since Vietnam.
How police censorship shaped Hollywood
The police story is one of the elemental dramas of American popular culture.
