Ben Rhodes
@rhodesben.bsky.social
Pod Save the World. NYT opinion. MSNBC. Author: After the Fall and The World As It Is
"we tend to experience politics as a contest taking place in the present, but each nation’s identity is shaped by currents that reach back into our shared past. A strongman taps into those currents to make their ascendancy the inevitable outcome of the story" open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...
Why I Wrote All We Say
The Backstory of a Book
open.substack.com
"Trump simply could not do the destructive things that he has done without the collaboration, consent, or capitulation of countless people." open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...
How People Reacted to the Nazis (Part 2)
A Warning for Americans
open.substack.com
"We will not recover our democracy without ending the Forever War and detoxifying our country of the fury that is consuming it." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/enduring-f...
Enduring Freedom to Epic Fury
What We Can Learn from how America Names Its Wars
benrhodes1.substack.com
"Can you explain this to a child? If the answer is no, then perhaps we should reconsider whether the thing is worth doing in the first place." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/can-you-ex...
Can You Explain this to a Child?
A different way of looking at war
benrhodes1.substack.com
Donald Trump keeps doing things that help Vladimir Putin. benrhodes1.substack.com/p/how-putin-...
How Putin Wins the War in Iran
Russia could be a beneficiary of Trump's war on Iran.
benrhodes1.substack.com
"Imagine, for a moment, being a parent who sent your child to that girls’ school that got bombed in Iran. Can you?" benrhodes1.substack.com/p/on-trump-a...
On Trump and Netanyahu's War on Iran
False Pretexts, No Endgame, Chaos in the Region, and the Obligation of Opposition
benrhodes1.substack.com
Talked to Ezra Klein about the war in Iran - how we got here, where we're going, and what I'm worried about. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/o...
Opinion | The Great Lie of War
nytimes.com
"Authoritarian politics and military aggression are a dangerous mix." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/o...
Opinion | Trump May Come to Regret This
nytimes.com
Trump Wants You to Get Used to This. Don’t. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/o...
Opinion | Trump Wants You to Get Used to This. Don’t.
nytimes.com
"What does it say about the United States that there was far more debate about a diplomatic agreement with Iran than there has been about a potential war with Iran?" benrhodes1.substack.com/p/trump-and-...
Trump and Iran, War and Authoritarianism
Do you know why we seem to be on the precipice of war with Iran?
benrhodes1.substack.com
This is why people don't trust institutions and elites. If you ignore the views of your own voters over and over and over again people give up on politics.
Claire Valdez@claireforny.bsky.social · 5mo agoSchumer is supposed to represent the majority of New Yorkers, Democrats and all Americans who oppose war on Iran. Instead the leader of the opposition says Trump should “make his case.” Who will actually stand up to this administration?
Democratic leaders have been feckless and wildly out of touch with their own voters who don't want another pointless war in the Middle East.
Claire Valdez@claireforny.bsky.social · 5mo agoSchumer is supposed to represent the majority of New Yorkers, Democrats and all Americans who oppose war on Iran. Instead the leader of the opposition says Trump should “make his case.” Who will actually stand up to this administration?
"Just because people have legitimate grievances against a failed establishment does not mean they are justified in turning to fascism." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/how-people...
How People Reacted to the Nazis
A Warning from History
benrhodes1.substack.com
"If we want to find a way out of our mess, we would do well to look back to Jesse Jackson’s words." open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...
Remembering Jesse Jackson through his words
“I was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me,” Jesse Jackson declared defiantly.
open.substack.com
"What happens to a conference dedicated to security cooperation when America has become, to many Europeans, a threat?" substack.com/home/post/p-...
Reflections on the Munich Security Conference
There was something unsettling about the Munich Security Conference.
substack.com
"What’s disturbing about Trump is not his occasionally overt racism, particularly directed at the first Black President – it’s that his ascent to the presidency is unthinkable without it." substack.com/home/post/p-...
MAGA and the Lost Cause
On Trump, the Obamas, Race, and the Lost Cause
substack.com
On McNamara, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Gaza, and finally Trump. "Once you allow yourself to play by a set of rules that’s different from everyone else’s, the rules themselves are made brittle and ultimately break." www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
An American Reckoning | Ben Rhodes
Robert McNamara’s failure to reckon with the exceptionalism that led the United States into the Vietnam War contributed to fifty years of foreign policy failures. It can help us understand the crisis ...
nybooks.com
"MAGA die-hards have deceived themselves for so long that Trump was somehow one of them when he has always been more comfortable with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein than the vast majority of his own voters." benrhodes1.substack.com/p/on-the-eps...
On the Epstein Files and Power
Consider the picture of a smiling man next to a girl with her face blacked out, or the dashed off email with poor punctuation referencing a victim of human trafficking with a life in front of her like...
benrhodes1.substack.com
"I was struck by how much the Epstein files resemble an autopsy for what’s gone wrong in the 21st century." open.substack.com/pub/benrhode...
On the Epstein Files and Power
Consider the picture of a smiling man next to a girl with her face blacked out, or the dashed off email with poor punctuation referencing a victim of human trafficking with a life in front of her like...
open.substack.com
"For Trump, there is just a group of people – some in uniform – who stand when he enters the Situation Room, and a different group of sycophants who will tell him in the Oval Office that whatever decision he made was the right one" substack.com/home/post/p-...
Why Trump is getting more comfortable with war
Why is Donald Trump getting more comfortable with war?
substack.com
"Yes, Americans want a secure border. But most of us are also tired of war, wary of an intrusive militarized government, welcoming of immigrants, and protective of our core freedoms." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/o...
Opinion | The Rot Goes Deeper Than ICE
nytimes.com
"The war on terror has become a war against ourselves. That forever war must come to an end. Enough with the military gear. Enough with the mass surveillance. Enough with the constant fear of an ever-shifting Other." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/o...
Opinion | The Rot Goes Deeper Than ICE
nytimes.com
"If you are 18 today, Donald Trump has dominated your experience of American political leadership for a decade. What have you absorbed, through cultural osmosis, because of that experience?" benrhodes1.substack.com/p/the-normal...
Living Under Lies
What if there was no video?
benrhodes1.substack.com
"If you can’t trust a single word that the Department of Homeland Security says, how can we have any idea what is going on out of sight?" benrhodes1.substack.com/p/the-normal...
The Normalization of Lies
What if there was no video?
benrhodes1.substack.com