Opinion Today: It’s not just Trump driving global disorder
Here’s what we’re focusing on.
Opinion Today
January 27, 2026
People in heavy coats carry an upside-down American flag.
Mark Peterson for The New York Times

Notable

There is a way forward after Minneapolis. “Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection are conducting forceful operations in American communities. They should reassess their current tactics.”

— Mike Lawler, a Republican, represents New York’s 17th Congressional District

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The Trump fantasy is killing us. “Yes, hotness is a fantasy and, decades later, Trump is still selling it.”

— Carlos Lozada, Opinion columnist

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U.S. intervention in Iran will stop the regime from killing us. “Iranians are not asking for foreign tanks to roll down the streets of Tehran. They are asking for the world to stop acting as if the only options are occupation or indifference.”

— Masih Alinejad, the author of “The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran”

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Spotlight

An illustration of faceless individuals using sticks to draw lines in pavement in the midst of an oil drilling site.
Félix Decombat

We Were Headed Back to a Great Powers Conflict Anyway

“What we are in part seeing now is that the great power states with export capacity in at least one area — the United States in natural gas and China in rare earths — are willing to use resources as a geopolitical weapon. That is also destabilizing.”

— Helen Thompson, a professor of political economy at Cambridge, in an interview

ICYMI

It’s time to fight for our right to bear witness. “Now that our phones are the primary weapons of today’s information war, we should be as zealous about our right to bear phones as we are about our right to bear arms. To adopt the language of Second Amendment enthusiasts, perhaps the only thing that can eventually stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a camera.”

— Julia Angwin, a contributing Opinion writer

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Listen

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The Opinions

Tom Friedman: Minneapolis, Alex Pretti and a Democracy at Risk

Watching the response to ICE in his hometown has the columnist Thomas L. Friedman navigating “a mixture of pride and anguish.”

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27 MIN LISTEN

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The New York Times

The Ezra Klein Show

The Week the World Admitted the Truth About America

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada’s speech at Davos last week sent shock waves through the international community. The international-affairs scholar Henry Farrell explains why.

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1 HR 14 MIN LISTEN

More in Opinion

Red, white and blue balloons lying on the floor of a stadium.

Guest Essay

Democrats Have to Be More Than the Anti-Trump Party

The moment is ripe to deal a debilitating blow to Trumpism and the MAGA movement. But who can deliver it?

By Thomas B. Edsall

Flowers and candles are laid out on the ground. People wearing winter coats are gathered.

letters

A Crisis of Truth and Trust in Minneapolis

Readers react to the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents and the constitutional dangers it signals.

A small child, seen from behind, watching an animated program on a TV screen.

Guest Essay

Just Let Your Kids Watch TV Already

Yes, I feel guilty when I plop my kid in front of the TV. That’s why I plop myself down beside him.

By JoAnna Novak

In Your Words

Re: “The End of NATO Is Coming, and That’s No Disaster

Americans are going to find themselves, once again, pariahs in Europe. The Ugly American is uglier than ever before, and rightfully so. I couldn’t be more ashamed and embarrassed by Trump and his acolytes and I wouldn’t expect to be treated with anything other than disdain by our once close NATO allies. The Winter Olympics might turn out to be a foreshadowing of what’s coming for Americans traveling across the pond.— A comment posted by Gina from Denver

Read more comments on the story here and check out our Letters to the Editor.

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