EDITOR’S NOTE: 

Bluesky

New York, NY—february 13, 2025—The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture, today named three new monthly columnists: Zephyr Teachout (@ZephyrTeachout), John Ganz (@lionel_trolling), and David Klion (@DavidKlion). In our 160th anniversary year and in this unprecedented era of rising autocracy and oligarchy, our work to hold the powerful to account matters more than ever. Teachout, Ganz, and Klion join an award-winning cast of Nation columnists—Elie Mystal, Katha Pollitt, Jeet Heer, Kali Holloway, Chris Lehmann, Alexis Grenell, Kate Wagner, and Adolph Reed Jr.—tasked with speaking truth to power, driving visionary ideas into the mainstream, and lifting up progressive, democratic ideals.

Teachout’s column, “Anti-Monopolist,” will focus on corruption and monopoly power, corporate behemoths and the mercenary politicians beholden to them. Her first installment, out this morning, addresses Elon Musk’s machinations and Donald Trump’s daily outrages—and how to fight back effectively: “Pay Less Attention to That Man in Front of the Curtain.”

Ganz’s column, “The Last Days of Discourse,” whose title is a play on Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco, a movie “about what it means to live at the end of an era, and what we may hope for under decadent conditions,” will deal with the intersection of tech and right-wing politics in a fractured public square. His first piece assesses today’s tech oligarchs’ deeply elitist vision of society: “This Is What Government by Electronic Plebiscite Looks Like.”

Klion’s column, “Cultural Contradictions,” will address how our major cultural and intellectual institutions respond to the pressures of Trump and Musk’s war on liberalism. His first installment, “What the Neocons Do—and Don’t—Explain About Trump,” looks at the president’s unpredictable foreign policy agenda and deep-rooted war on liberal culture.

“Zephyr Teachout has been on our editorial board for a while now, but given our steep descent towards oligarchy, her focus on corruption and corporate power is too valuable not to share with our readers regularly,” said Nation editor D.D. Guttenplan. “The day I spent in 2016 riding around the Hudson Valley with Zephyr and her campaign manager remains one of the high points in my political education.”

“Like a lot of people, I first came to know John Ganz as a controversialist on the Internet,” he continued. “I liked what I read, and was delighted to discover that he’s also eager to bring his keen eye and analytical scalpel to our pages. David Klion first caught my eye with a piece in The New York Times arguing that the left should care more about Russiagate. I wasn’t convinced, but I was so impressed with the careful way he made his argument I thought that his voice, and his perspective, would be worth bringing to The Nation. I’m delighted to have him inside the tent, standing watch at the intersection of culture and politics.”

“I am so proud to be joining The Nation as columnist, where some of the most extraordinary writers in American history have championed free speech, spoken plainly about corruption, and challenged oligarchy,” said Teachout. “The Nation represents a commitment to the power of words, debate, ideas, and freethinking in a time when all are needed. I’ll do my best to do it proud.”

“I’m thrilled to be joining The Nation where so many of my intellectual heroes once wrote,” added Ganz. “I strongly believe in the importance of magazines in creating a responsible public discourse and a free, independent press has never felt more crucial. I’ll try to do my best to uphold the traditions that The Nation represents.”

“After years of working with practically every editor on this magazine’s masthead, it’s a thrill and an honor to see my name alongside theirs,” said Klion. “The Nation has been one of our core progressive institutions for more than a century and a half, and we need it more than ever right now.”

A distinguished academic and anti-corruption powerhouse, Zephyr Teachout has been at the forefront of advancing progressive reform for more than two decades and has contributed to The Nation for nearly as long. She was named to the editorial board in 2018. Teachout’s Nation articles have ranged from TikTok to 21st-century trust busting, tackling abuses of power and advocating for equitable economic policies along the way. A professor of law at Fordham Law School, where she focuses on the intersection of corporate and political power, she is a regular contributor to amicus briefs on key issues involving the First Amendment and big tech, a leader in the national antimonopoly movement, and an internationally recognized anti-corruption expert. She ran for office in New York in 2014 (for the Democratic Party nomination for governor), 2016 (for the US House of Representatives), and 2018 (as the New York Times–endorsed candidate for New York State attorney general). Teachout quite literally wrote the book on corruption in America—Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United—and, more recently, Break ’Em Up Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. She lives with her family in East Harlem, NY.

John Ganz is the New York Times best-selling author of When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s and writes the widely acclaimed Unpopular Front newsletter for Substack. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Artforum, the New Statesman, and other publications. He lives in New York City.

Longtime Nation contributor David Klion’s coverage has appeared in every section of the magazine, from the cover to the back of the book, covering a breadth of interests ranging from foreign policy to media criticism, the corruption of the Republican Party to the righteousness of Anthony Bourdain. (Indeed, worlds collide as he reviewed fellow new columnist John Ganz’s When the Clock Broke for The Nation last summer.) Klion has written for publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, n+1, Bookforum, The Baffler, and Jewish Currents, where he is a contributing editor. He is at work on his first book on the history and legacy of neoconservatism for Doubleday. A native of Washington, DC, he lives with his wife and daughter in Brooklyn, NY.

The Nation’s founding prospectus declared: “The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred.” That same mission informs our work today. The Nation’s columnists will offer nuanced insights into our broken political system—and how it can be fixed—while providing crucial context to the machinations and obfuscations of a second Trump administration.

For interview requests or further information, please see contact information above.

ABOUT: Zephyr Teachout, a Nation columnist and editorial board member, is a constitutional lawyer and law professor at Fordham University and the author of Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom From Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money.

Nation columnist John Ganz is the New York Times best-selling author of When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. He writes the Unpopular Front newsletter on Substack, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, Harper’s Magazine, Artforum, the New Statesman, and other publications.

David Klion is a columnist for The Nation and a contributor at various publications. He is working on a book about the legacy of neoconservatism.

Founded by abolitionists in 1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political and cultural life, from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in American journalism.