Is It Time for Californians to Vote in Florida and Texas?

People Need Representation Not Just Where They Live—But Also Where They Have Interests

Should Floridians get to vote in California elections? Should Californians get to cast ballots in Florida?

These questions might seem strange, but they’re not. Gov. Gavin Newsom broadcast his first re-election TV ad not in California but in Florida, appealing to Floridians to either join California’s fight against the policies of Florida Republicans, or move to California. In response, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blasted California policies and accused Newsom of treating Californians “like peasants.”

The tussle has been dismissed as partisan trolling, and evidence of both governors’ presidential ambitions. But its import …

America Should Lower Its Expectations | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

America Should Lower Its Expectations

Triumphalism Has Made Us Reckless. Can Making Peace With Our Shortcomings Save Us?

I get how hard it is to admit defeat, to lower expectations. Even when things are breaking down in every part of the national machine, from public health to education …

Good Riddance, Elon Musk, and Good Luck, Texas | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Good Riddance, Elon Musk, and Good Luck, Texas

California Is All the Richer for Losing the World’s Fourth Wealthiest Person

Thank you, Texas, for taking Elon Musk off of California’s hands.

Perhaps that reaction surprises you. After all, your state leaders declared victory when Musk, chief of Tesla and SpaceX, announced …

How Three Texas Newspapers Manufactured Three Competing Images of Immigrants | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

How Three Texas Newspapers Manufactured Three Competing Images of Immigrants

In Depression-Era San Antonio, Polarized Portraits of Mexicans Appealed to the Biases of Readers

In August 1930, an editorial writer for the largest newspaper chain on Earth proclaimed: “THE FARMER rids his barn of rats, his hen-house of weasels … the government of the …

Are Horses ‘God’s Most Perfect Design’?

Keith Carter’s Enigmatic Photographs Reveal the Invisible Bonds Between Humans and Animals

Keith Carter began to take his own pictures after he happened upon one of his mother’s color prints when he was 19. His mother made her living as a studio …

PARKED, TEXAS

Yes—alone, I could stop for anything.
Fossil bed at a river’s wrist. Hello

aoudad on Blue Mountain, javelina
gnawing cactus. Stinky the cat hiding

in a closet. Every bee takes an …