Adam Gopnik examines the ways in which the institutions of liberal democracy that superintend all political arguments are this year threatened in ways they have never been before. He asks, how unique in human history are the institutions we take for granted? Looking closely at the practices that guarantee everything from free debate (including debate that questions the foundations of liberalism) to the protection of sexual minorities, Gopnik reflects on how utterly fragile they are to assault.

A New Yorker writer since 1986, Adam Gopnik has served as the magazine’s art critic and Paris correspondent. His numerous books include Paris to the Moon and, most recently, The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery. He has won three National Magazine Awards and the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting.