Time Magazine

IT HAS BEEN 16 YEARS SINCE ZADIE Smith published White Teeth, becoming, at 24 years old, a standard bearer for contemporary Anglophone fiction. Her fifth novel, Swing Time, comes out Nov. 15. My favorite remains her last one, NW, an ambitious chronicle of four characters from a London council estate, whose lives take dark and difficult turns. Where Smith’s debut was marked

“UNHINGED.” “CORRUPT.” “Egomaniacal.” “Puppet.” Those are just a few of the barbs Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have traded during what has undoubtedly been a nasty, negative campaign season. But how does this election’s rhetoric stack up against that of its historical predecessors? Perhaps nobody can answer that question better than Joseph Cummins. For his book Anythi

AS I WALKED OUT OF MY HOTEL EARLY THIS MORNING, THE SAME HOTEL WHERE Trump and his supporters reveled in their surprise victory, I stumbled a bit. Slight vertigo had set in. Trump had pulled off a historic victory, and even though I wasn’t a Clinton supporter, the result threw me off. It happened. White America (and a smattering of people of color) elected an ill-informed

IT TURNS OUT THAT DONALD TRUMP WAS QUALIFIED to be President, after all. He was credentialed by the American people on Election Day. I’m still not sure he’s fit for the job, and I’m certain he’s not prepared for it, and his demeanor remains profoundly unpresidential—but make no mistake, it was his demeanor that won him the presidency. Every time he said something that “ser

IT TURNS OUT THAT THE HIGHEST, HARDEST GLASS CEILING is reinforced with metal beams. The Javits Center in Manhattan, where Hillary Clinton had planned to give a victory speech under an actual glass ceiling, turned into a scene of despair on election night and into early Wednesday morning as Donald Trump won the presidency. Female supporters wearing white pantsuits and nast

DONALD TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY? STILL UP IN THE AIR at this point. With Hillary Clinton, we would have known exactly what we were getting. That was her biggest selling point—and a big part of the problem. But Trump is the ultimate black box. Much of this was by design—making America great again was always about America itself, allies and enemies be damned. That makes for an

“IT’S A WEIRD TIME TO BE PROMOTING a movie,” Amy Adams says, pointing toward the TV in the bar of the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, a few days before the election. It’s tuned to CNN and, even in deeply blue California, tensions are running high. “I’m not even that political,” Adams says, turning away from the television. “Part of my job is to be open to hearing side

AND NOW WE’RE ALL JUST TRYING TO RECOVER. It’s been a rough few months. Unless you were living on the International Space Station, you felt it—a rising sense of hysteria as our fine nation barreled toward an uncertain future. For weeks, we saw the troubling signs: Children wondering why grownups were acting strangely. Horrifying placards in the yards of neighbors, suggest

IT WAS ALMOST 3 A.M. when the President-elect finally took the stage, his blue suit, white shirt and red tie perfectly matched to the phalanx of flags arranged behind him. The polls and the experts and the data modelers predicted it would be a woman

AS THEY SAY IN THE MARKETS, PAST PERFORMANCE IS no guarantee of future returns. Donald Trump’s surprise presidential victory has turned the markets, which have run at record highs for the past few years, upside down, with precipitous drops on election night in global stocks and bonds, and a flight to safety assets like gold. That’s actually not surprising. Not only have in

EVEN BY THE OUT-THERE STANDARDS OF Basic Instinct and Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven’s latest, Elle, is a thing to behold. Part thriller, part obsidian-black comedy, part cerebral firebomb, it’s confrontational, terrible and glorious. You almost can’t believe such a picture exists. Elle opens with a savage, horrifying rape: Michèle (Isabelle Huppert), the successful co-owner o

THERE WAS MORE TO ELECTION DAY THAN A HISTORIC PRESIDENTIAL VOTE. Across the country, voters considered 162 ballot measures in 35 states, ushering in sweeping changes involving the legalization of marijuana, the future of the death penalty, the regulation of guns, the minimum wage, health care and even changes in how bail bonds are administered. MARIJUANA Legal marijuana

CHRIS REILLY, A COMMISSIONER IN YORK COUNTY, Pennsylvania, has lived in the heavily Republican area north of Baltimore for 28 years. On the day in September after Mike Pence spoke to some 800 folks in downtown York, Reilly scanned a panoramic picture

LONG BEFORE THE AGE OF OBAMA, WHEN Democratic candidates more routinely lost presidential campaigns, progressives typically went through three stages following an electoral defeat: shock, denial and then a lurch to the left. The party that has held t

STARS HOLLOW WAS A TOWN FROZEN IN TIME. The tiny Connecticut home of Gilmore Girls never changed, nor did its inhabitants: diner owner Luke was always grouchy, inn chef Sookie always bubbly, town jester Kirk always good for a pratfall. The Gilmores, young mom Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and her bright daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel), with just 16 years separating them, had an en

IT’S A FIRST-WORLD LUXURY TO LIVE in a country in which we can gripe about not having gotten to Mars yet. If we could land on the moon 47 years ago, why is Mars taking so long? The question is being asked more often lately, which makes it a good time for the National Geographic Channel’s new six-episode series, straightforwardly titled Mars, produced by Imagine Entertainme

DONALD TRUMP WILL SOON FACE THE consequences of a familiar admonition: be careful what you wish for. The President-elect is poised to help the new Republican Congress finally repeal the Affordable Care Act. Most health care experts expect Obamacare to be expunged from the books by February. But Trump’s next steps are trickier. How does his Administration replace a law that

The performance artist, 69, has won fame and respectability, but her new memoir details how difficult and unlikely that ascent has been

IT DOESN’T EXACTLY ROLL OFF THE TONGUE, does it? President-elect Donald J. Trump. A campaign that began with him blithely riding down an escalator ends with him boldly ascending to the highest office in the land. Polls missed it. Pundits dismissed it. Prognosticators blew it. For decades, millions upon millions of Americans have felt looked down upon and left behind. The

IN THE BEST OF TIMES, A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ACTS as a quadrennial checkup for the body politic, a series of tests that measure our health and national well-being. In the worst of times, we discover we’re sicker than we knew. Donald Trump has triumphed after a historic and bruising campaign, to face a historic challenge: to be as astute in uniting the country as he was i

What checks will there be on a Donald Trump presidency? The potential checks are many, including Congress and the courts, the free press and many internal Executive Branch watchdogs like inspectors general, lawyers and the permanent bureaucracy. And of course the people in the next election. Will they work? It depends on what Trump tries to do. If he tries to follow thr

DONALD TRUMP STOOD BEFORE DOZENS OF TV cameras at his new Washington, D.C., hotel for what was billed as a mid-September news conference. “Nice hotel,” Trump began, with an exaggerated nod toward the cameras, which were broadcasting live on three cab

FROM THE START, THERE WERE THINGS THAT WERE under Hillary Clinton’s control, and many, many things that never would be. She was a technocrat facing an America demanding revolution. She was a scarred but stalwart fighter in her third decade of battle,

Why did so many people not see the white working class coming in this election? I think so many people were blinded to it because they didn’t know a Trump supporter, so they didn’t realize how passionate a lot of people were but also how durable his support would be in the face of a lot of political setbacks. I think it’s just a consequence of this incredible geographic a

THERE’S A MOMENT HALFWAY THROUGH The Edge of Seventeen that sums up just how messy life has gotten for Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld). She has stolen her mom’s car and parked it at an elementary-school playground. She is seated on a slide crafting a desperate message to a classmate who barely knows her name, offering to hook up with him in the back room of the pet store where h

MY LOVELY WIFE CASSANDRA AND I HAD VERY DIFFERENT emotional reactions on election night. Her fight-or-flight response leans heavily toward fight, whereas mine takes a third option wherein it gets sleepy and avoids talking. So when I got in bed at 10 p.m., I was surprised when Cassandra walked into our bedroom in full flight mode. “I know I’m being crazy, but just for me to

One of the high marks of Islam that the Prophet Muhammad taught is that loyalty to your country is part of your faith. I can sympathize with the anger and fear that many have: I’m a person of color; I’m a Muslim; I have young children. But these are the cards we’ve been dealt, and we need to find ways to continue working to build bridges of understanding and peace, because

In his victory speech, Trump repeated a campaign pledge to fix the nation’s crumbling roads, buckling bridges and dilapidated airports. The President-elect has proposed $150 billion in tax credits, which could spur a new construction boom he says will create “millions” of jobs. He has not identified a way to pay for the projects, beyond arguing that increased economic acti

THE HEADSET LEADING A VIRTUAL REVOLUTION PLAYSTATION VR / $400 In order to access the most cutting-edge virtual reality, people typically have to shell out thousands of dollars—not just for a headset (like the $800 HTC Vive), but for a computer tha

PEOPLE TEND TO EXTERNALIZE WHEN THEY encounter problems—to look beyond themselves and find fault with others when things go wrong. Society’s mantra is “There’s plenty of blame to go around!” You can hear it echo in the reactions to the election. But when we choose to hold ourselves accountable, we’re more likely to be happier and successful in work and in our relationships

Boxing movies work because they’re so literal: the boxer gets knocked down, he gets back up again, he knocks the other guy down. Everyone doubted him—now they love him. Of course, the best boxing films aren’t really about boxing. The newest addition to the genre, Bleed for This (Nov. 18), follows Vinny Pazienza’s return to the ring 13 months after a 1991 car wreck that br

SHOES THAT TIE THEMSELVES NIKE HYPERADAPT 1.0 / $720 Almost everyone who sees Back to the Future wants three things: a time-traveling DeLorean, a working hoverboard and a pair of self-lacing shoes. Now, thanks to Nike, the shoe dream is a reality.

THERE WAS PROBABLY NO WAY THE insurgent campaign that propelled Donald Trump to his upset victory was simply going to stop the day after the election. It had too big a head of steam. But instead of morphing into a cable channel after a loss, as many observers expected, it has careened into the postelection space where, by tradition and necessity, healing usually occurs. Th

This December, Matthew McConaughey has two movies coming out within four days, and both pivot on a conniving salesman who, as he puts it, “wills his way into pulling off what he pulls off.” But where his character in the R-rated Gold is a money-hungry gold prospector, the other hustler is a smidge more innocuous: an animated koala with a crisp red bow tie. “I don’t think t

DISHES THAT WORK AROUND COGNITIVE DECLINE EATWELL ASSISTIVE TABLEWARE / $60+ After her late grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Sha Yao felt helpless. It was especially frustrating, she recalls, to sit with her during meals while she strugg