Introducing My New Political Magazine, Zippererstrasse

One blustery fall day in 1983, the Soviet Union saw fit to shoot down a Korean passenger plane, KAL 007. That created an international crisis, and it was the talk of pretty much every news media organization, including a think weekly political magazine called The New Republic. I remember it well, because the KAL incident was the cover story of the very first issue of TNR that I ever received after a friend of the family gave me — a high school sophomore — a subscription because she knew my interest in politics.

She also got my political persuasion correct. She herself said she used to like TNR, but she had moved leftward and was more of a Progressive magazine person at that point. But TNR had me right from the start. It was waging a smart and feisty battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, arguing with Democrats, Republicans, and even its own editors and writers about the right policies. Hooked, I read TNR like scripture all the way through college.

The TNR of today is not the TNR of then. Sadly, there is a dearth of that feisty liberalism that believes it should be critiquing liberals as well as conservatives, subjecting every idea and claim to cross examination as the only way to ensure we come up with the best ideas, the best policies, the best proposals.

So my latest free digital magazine, the self-referentially named Zippererstrasse, is my experiment to try to revive that brand of liberalism. Please take a look. It's free (though you can of course throw tons of money my way should you be so inclined.)