New York Magazine June 20-July 3, 2022

1 For New York’s latest cover story, Rebecca Traister chronicled America’s oldest sitting senator’s five decades in public office (“Dianne Feinstein Is American Politics,” June 6–19). Stephen A. Rhodes called it “an outstanding piece of journalism. It both details Feinstein’s unpredictable rise to power—and helps to explain the current dysfunction of the Senate.” David Roberts of Volts newsletter wrote, “There’s so much compassion in @rtraister’s elegiac piece on Feinstein that it dulled my rage at the senescent senator & the broken system that props her up. At least for a few minutes.” @CollinsWatch wrote, “Lotta great stuff in this Feinstein profile but one thing sticks out to me: It feels honest in a way that’s rare in U.S. politics coverage … not tiptoeing round key sources, calibrating to appease powerful…

THE JANUARY 6 HEARINGS are about the events of a single day, but they implicate a much broader phenomenon: the Republican Party’s faltering commitment to democracy. The mob attack on Congress a year and a half ago was merely the most grotesque manifestation of Donald Trump’s rejection of democracy, and Trump himself merely the most grotesque manifestation of his party’s authoritarian impulses. “Parties that are committed to democracy must, at minimum, do two things: accept defeat and reject violence,” wrote the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way earlier this year. Trump has built a movement that does neither. And while he is justifiably known for his petty egocentrism, he has finally and genuinely infused this movement with beliefs that are greater than his self-interest and whose power will outlast…

THEY CAME TO NEW YORK, as fashion strivers often do, from the less fashionable provinces (Grand Rapids and Baltimore and Orange County and the Jersey shore) to take on the industry and make their mark. But they started out as fashion-obsessed teenagers in the aughts poring over Balenciaga ads and Vogue Italia scans online. Their styles were cooked in the blogging platform Tumblr’s mix-and-match, endlessly referential crucible. The most devoted spent hours a day posting and commenting. “After midnight was the time to be on there,” says Devan Díaz, a writer who spent her teens in Tennessee. “If you stayed up really late, then you could catch the European crowd waking up.” Their Tumblr pals encouraged them to flock to the city. Dara Allen, now the fashion director of Interview,…

IN THE HALLS of film producer Jane Rosenthal’s Greenwich Street office hang massive, rare framed movie posters. There’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Night and the City with Gene Tierney, and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up. She even has one of my all-time-favorite film noirs, The Big Clock, which never seems to be in stock at Posteritati. Where does she find them? “Marty’s got a guy,” she said with a nod, referring to Martin Scorsese. It was June 2, a week before the opening of the Tribeca Festival (née the Tribeca Film Festival), and Rosenthal had meetings with her ticketing team as well as with the director Kathryn Bigelow, who would arrive just as our interview wrapped up. Rosenthal launched the festival 21 years ago with Robert De Niro and her financier now-ex-husband, Craig Hatkoff.…

“I’M THE MAYOR” is a phrase Eric Adams says frequently, usually as a way to end an argument against adversaries seen and unseen. “I don’t know if you’ve been picking up on what’s been happening,” Adams recently told the Brooklyn Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, an organization that supports Black schoolchildren, referring to attempts to limit his control over the Rikers Island jail complex and the city’s schools. “They want to take away everything when Eric becomes the mayor. And I say you’re not getting a darn thing—I’m controlling the city.” And then the punch line, delivered with a big grin. “One thing they must understand: I’m the mayor.” The crowd of Black middle-class homeowners and professionals—Adams’s political base—cheered. It’s as if Hizzoner senses a need to make…

TWENTY MONTHS after he developed a crush, 18 months after he’d fallen in love, Diego, who is enormously appealing but also very canceled, boarded the bus with Jenni and Dave. They were going to the beach, and it wasn’t a big deal—except for the fact that pretty much all of Diego’s friends had dropped him, so, yeah, it was. The three, all 17, sat in a row of orange seats that ran the length of the bus, Diego’s eyes dark, goofy, and sad; his body freshly stretched to almost six feet; his oversize Carhartts ripped on skateboard ramps. This could have been in any American city this past January, on any bus. (First names in this article are pseudonyms.) Jenni kept her face tilted down toward her lap, hidden by…