Patrick Blanchfield
As seen in:
Ordinary Unhappiness,
Medium,
The New York Times,
Business Insider,
The Washington Post,
New York Daily News,
Substack,
The Daily Beast,
Esquire,
Foreign Policy Magazine,
The Intercept
and
Covers:
gun violence, gun control, policing, psychoanalysis
Associate Faculty @BklynInstitute | Fellow @rooseveltinst | cohost @unhappinesspod | columnist @nplusonemag | patblanchfield @ bluesky
Articles by Patrick Blanchfield
Short Film: Diviso | Backstage
EXPIRES: Seeking talent from West Palm Beach, FL; Jupiter, FL; Miami, FL; Fort Lauderdale, FL COMPANY DETAILS Palm Beach Atlantic University Antonio Zarro, Producer Member since Jan 27, 2021 PROJECT DESCRIPTION A conflicted man must confront the consequences of his actions as he debates with two strangers who seem to know him very well. ACTORS & PERFORMERS Jason Blanchfield Lead. Male. 18-35 Patrick Blanchfield Supporting. Male. 18-35 Caylee Supporting. Female. 18-35 Delilah Lead. Female.
You Can Just Do Things
In the summer of 2002, the United States put together a military exercise with a name that broadcast the nation’s ambitions for projecting force not just into a New American Century, but beyond. Years in the planning, and costing around $250 million ($435 million today), the “Millennium Challenge” was the single most expensive simulation the military had ever mounted.
You Can Just Do Things | Patrick Blanchfield
In the summer of 2002, the United States put together a military exercise with a name that broadcast the nation’s ambitions for projecting force not just into a New American Century, but beyond. Years in the planning, and costing around $250 million ($435 million today), the “Millennium Challenge” was the single most expensive simulation the military had ever mounted.
The Last Taboo - Truthdig
What are we to make of the scandal that has so preoccupied American media? In any sober calculus, the group chat read around the world is hardly the most urgent, dramatic, or appalling story of the past week.
The Last Taboo | Online Only | n+1 | Patrick Blanchfield
What are we to make of the scandal that has so preoccupied American media? In any sober calculus, the group chat read around the world is hardly the most urgent, dramatic, or appalling story of the past week.
The Public We Need
The Public We Need It is hard to call people into a political project that is deeply incompatible with their sense of what it means to act morally in the world. ▪ Winter 2025 Working on the foreign policy advisory group for the Bernie Sanders primary campaign in 2019 and 2020 changed the way that I process and think about politics. I saw up close the challenges that candidates face in channeling popular frustrations and demonstrating that they have the ability to address them.
Knowing, Not Knowing, Knowing Better
“Well, you’ve certainly been busy,” says the detective, ominously dropping a binder the size of a phone book onto the table in front of you. “So this is all you do here,” says the consultant, half to themselves, half to you, or at least in your general direction, looking over your cubicle with an air of distaste. “Interesting that you of all people would say that,” replies the infuriating stranger online. “Interesting … but not surprising.” There is something familiar in each of these scenes.
Definitive Guide
Knowing, Not Knowing, Knowing Better The Man's Definitive Guide to the Female Orgasm Absolute Beginners: On Re-Skilling Music Instruction Books Way-Finding: Guidebooks For Survival The Evolution of the Androgynous Trephine
What’s the Point of Pundits?
“Reading the morning newspaper is the morning prayer of the modern man,” proclaimed Hegel in the early 1800s. “One orients one's attitude toward the world either by God or by what the world is. The former gives as much security as the latter, in that one knows how one stands.” More earthily, a guy I knew in high school back in the late 90s once observed that the best cigarette – and the hardest one to give up – was the one you’d light first thing in the morning, while on the toilet.
Freud Goes to the Big Game
“There is no doubt that something exists in us which, when we become aware of signs of an emotion in someone else, tends to make us fall into the same emotion; but how often do we not successfully oppose it, resist the emotion, and react in quite an opposite way?
The Time Trotsky Got Owned by a Door
So I’m about two thirds of the way through the first volume of Stephen Kotkin’s enormous recent biography of Stalin. I don’t have any global takeaways about the book yet, but there’s definitely some interesting stuff going on in it.
2023 Vibe Check: Lugging Books
Subscribe to Apocalypse Vibe Check to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
The Anality of Evil
“The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource [sic] is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel.
It’s Me. Hi. I’m the Pope(s), It’s Me
“Imagine the amazing good fortune of the generation that gets to see the end of the world. This is as marvelous as being there in the beginning. How could one not wish for that with all one's heart? How could one not lend one's feeble resources to bringing it about?” - Jean Baudrillard, Fragments I have a confession to make. Yesterday morning, I fathered several Popes. I’m talking about this tweet, which perhaps you’ve seen.
The Last Days of Sigmund Freud
The Last Days of Sigmund Freud Danger surrounded Freud in Nazi-occupied Austria. Why did it take him so long to see it? Read Full Article »
Why Didn't Freud Flee Austria Sooner?
Although he lived more than a century ago, Sigmund Freud abides. Despite the magazine features and nonfiction bestsellers that regularly proclaim him a charlatan, a reactionary, an intellectual dead end, or simply “dead,” we live in a world fundamentally shaped by his legacy.
The Last Days of Sigmund Freud
Although he lived more than a century ago, Sigmund Freud abides. Despite the magazine features and nonfiction bestsellers that regularly proclaim him a charlatan, a reactionary, an intellectual dead end, or simply “dead,” we live in a world fundamentally shaped by his legacy.
Review: What Took Freud So Long to See the Danger of Remaining in Occupied Austria?
SOURCE: The New Republic 9/1/2022 Historians in the News tags: Nazism, European history, psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, World War 2 by Patrick Blanchfield Patrick Blanchfield’s first book, Gunpower, is forthcoming from Verso. Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom by Andrew Nagorski Although he lived more than a century ago, Sigmund Freud abides.
Death Drive Nation
In the busy holiday rush of December 2019, a 27-year-old UPS driver named Frank Ordóñez, who had the day off, volunteered to cover a shift for his friend. On his route delivering packages through the suburbs of Miramar, Florida, Ordóñez was carjacked and held at gunpoint by two men who had just robbed and shot up a nearby jewelry store. The police were hot on their heels, and a car chase ensued.
Gun Control Alone Won’t Suppress the US’s Death Drive
Interview by Daniel Denvir The United States was built on guns — and on the power to control them. During the colonial period, settlers banned indigenous and enslaved people from owning weaponry while distributing guns to marginalized groups who allied and traded with them.
Why good guys with guns flunk out (In schools near you) | Black Agenda Report
They were the bullies—taunting and mocking creative kids—or creatives Bullied to tears. They were animal torturers; rotten, dirty tricksters least Liked— least likely legally laid.
Black Agenda Report
Two mass shootings in quick succession brought out the worst in Americans. The anger and grief were followed by the usual lies and pretense that violence here is somehow mysterious. Political leaders advocate state violence all the time, calling for new victims to be created here and around the world. A settler colonial state founded on indigenous genocide and African enslavement that is still addicted to the doctrine of racial domination will be violent. How could it be otherwise?
Black Agenda Report
Surveillance is an integral part of policing in this country. The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition report, Automating Banishment: the Surveillance and Policing of Looted Land, details the history of these abuses in Los Angeles. The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition is a community group rooted in the Skid Row community on Tongva/Gabrielino land, stolen territory known as Los Angeles. Over the past decade, we have been working to build power to abolish LAPD surveillance.
Late Light - Current Issue
On Promised Lands and Lands of Promise In which Barack Obama sees Providence in property
The Professor Who Became a Cop
For as long as there have been police, there have been bestselling police biographies and autobiographies. In nineteenth-century Britain and France, bourgeois readers devoured police “memoirs” that peddled lurid glimpses into high-profile murders and tawdry street crimes alike.
The Professor Who Became a Cop
For as long as there have been police, there have been bestselling police biographies and autobiographies. In nineteenth-century Britain and France, bourgeois readers devoured police “memoirs” that peddled lurid glimpses into high-profile murders and tawdry street crimes alike.
How Real Is "Nomadland"?
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackThe New Republic TNR_brand wordmark_black The director Chloé Zhao’s films have been described as poetic. That could mean that her work seems always to be seeking the sublime: in the wide, luminous stretches of South Dakota’s Badlands, where her first two features, Songs My Brothers Taught Me and The Rider, take place; in the dancing motions of an injured rodeo rider taming a horse.
The Climate Fight Needs Both Technocrats and Firebrands
Climate campaigners on Tuesday received a rarity amid president-elect Joe Biden’s appointmentannouncements: good news. Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and current National Resources Defense Council head Gina McCarthy will become the next administration’s climate czar, a cabinet-level position organizers in the Sunrise Movement and elsewhere had long pushed for, in addition to the internationally-oriented climate role soon to be occupied by John Kerry.
The Tangled Legacy of James Beard
The quest for authenticity is perhaps the central obsession of modern food culture. Food today is a vehicle not only for sustenance or pleasure, but for a certain type of truth—for tastes and sensations that are true to their place and the experience of their creators. It would be a mistake to regard this quest as novel.
The Future of Staying Home
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackCritical Mass_wordmark_blackCritical Mass_wordmark alternate_black A life lived indoors has long been viewed as the height of economic attainment: Elites relax in palatial compounds while couriers fetch packages and convey news of the dangerous world beyond the gates. Even the restaurant is a relatively recent invention, a stop for harried travelers looking for a quick bite before it became a place people would go to voluntarily.
The Global Temptation to Keep Building Pipelines
There’s a fundamental tension at the heart of a lot of climate policy these days: Supporting renewable energy is good, but not enough. Merely increasing renewables won’t enable the world to meet climate targets unless governments also stop greenlighting new fossil fuel projects.
Wong Kar-wai’s Masterpieces of Political Uncertainty
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackThe New Republic TNR_brand wordmark_black A green young tailor’s assistant is summoned to see a high-flying prostitute. Their encounter lasts a few minutes, but his ensuing fixation on her is permanent. That’s a good investment on her part: He makes her exquisite dresses and is so devoted that he eventually stops charging for them.
How Trees Made Us Human
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackThe New Republic TNR_brand wordmark_black Chicago, in 1871, was alive to the giddy possibilities of modernity. The city had shot up from a flat expanse of grasses and wild garlic plants nearly overnight. In 1830, it had possessed a population of less than 100. Four decades later, its 330,000 inhabitants thronged the crowded streets, filling the vast lumber piles, grain silos, and stockyards to the brim.
The U.S. Is Addicted to Bad Middle East Policy
Last Friday, Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated, likely by agents of Israel’s Mossad and with the approval or assistance of the United States. Ostensibly a government official and university lecturer, Fakhrizadeh was also believed to have been the head of an Iranian nuclear weapons program that most western intelligence services agreed was shut down in 2003.
The Elderly Trapped in Bronxwood
|
When someone in the building died, a notice was often taped to a window in the lobby: WE REGRET TO ANNOUNCE THE PASSING OF OUR FRIEND. The signs did not say how or where the friend had died, and because they were eventually removed, they could be easy to miss. In March, as these names began to appear more frequently at Bronxwood, an assisted living facility in New York, Varahn Chamblee tried to keep track. Varahn, who had lived at Bronxwood for almost a year, was president of its resident council.
By Jonathan V. Last Verified, Patrick Blanchfield, Bruce Bartlett, Alexander Clapp, Ava Kofman Verified
|
The New Republic
Verified
How Weird Was Frank Zappa?
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackCritical Mass_wordmark_blackCritical Mass_wordmark alternate_black In October 1978, in what remains one of the worst episodes in the program’s history, Frank Zappa appeared on Saturday Night Live. The rock musician and controversialist worked through a trio of musical numbers, delivered a flat monologue, and hammed his way through a Coneheads sketch.
It’s a Perfect Year for a Non-Thanksgiving
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackCritical Mass_wordmark_blackCritical Mass_wordmark alternate_black It seems fitting that Thanksgiving would be canceled on this, the four-hundredth anniversary of the Mayflower’s voyage. It’s historic disease event piled on top of historic disease event.
The Mysteries of "Emily in Paris"
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackCritical Mass_wordmark_blackCritical Mass_wordmark alternate_black The ruinous effect contracting Covid-19 has had on my short-term memory is, happily, not a problem when it comes to remembering the key plot points of Netflix’s soapy, flimsy sitcom Emily in Paris, each new episode being more or less a carbon copy of its predecessor.
What Did Carlos Lozada Learn From Reading 150 Trump Books?
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackCritical Mass_wordmark_blackCritical Mass_wordmark alternate_black Over the past four years, there have been dozens of books published about Donald Trump. Some have recorded his numerous failures and general incompetence, others his Churchillian magnificence and world-historical accomplishments.
The Case Against Packing the Court
One Saturday evening in late December 1936, Homer Cummings, the attorney general, arrived at the White House bearing memos and briefing books and, over the next hour, proceeded to convince Franklin Roosevelt to pack the Supreme Court. The idea had been in the air throughout FDR’s first term, which was just ending; it had obvious appeal at a time when the court’s conservative majority had knocked down much of the New Deal, overturning acts of Congress at 10 times its previous rate.
The Town That Went Feral
Jennifer Hauck/The Valley News via AP, File In its public education campaigns, the U.S. National Park Service : If you find yourself being attacked by a brown or grizzly bear, YES, DO PLAY DEAD. Spread your arms and legs and cling to the ground with all your might, facing downward; after a few attempts to flip you over (no one said this would be easy), the bear will, most likely, leave. By contrast, if you find yourself being attacked by a black bear, NO, DO NOT PLAY DEAD.
The Town That Went Feral (review)
In its public education campaigns, the U.S. National Park Service : If you find yourself being attacked by a brown or grizzly bear, YES, DO PLAY DEAD. Spread your arms and legs and cling to the ground with all your might, facing downward; after a few attempts to flip you over (no one said this would be easy), the bear will, most likely, leave. By contrast, if you find yourself being attacked by a black bear, NO, DO NOT PLAY DEAD.
A white man waving an AR-15 around in front of his mansion says much more about America than you’d think Original
Mark and Patricia McCloskey confront protesters outside their home in the Central West End of St. Louis, June 28, 2020. Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP Business Insider Images of Mark and Patricia McCloskey's armed appearance before their St. Louis home were immediately striking and quickly swept around the country and the world.
The Political Power of Protests
After three weeks of protests against police violence, the energy of the demonstrations remains undiminished. Episode 10 of The Politics of Everything explores what is motivating the actions, the political effects they’ve already had, and what’s to come.
White Women Prospered on the Brutality of the Slave Economy
White women and the economy of slavery. fb tw mail Print msg wa sms Bookmark February 26, 2019 A slave market in Atlanta, Georgia, 1864. (Photo by George N.
Policing and the English Language
Just before dawn on a cold April Saturday, Officers Thomas Shea and Walter Scott were patrolling the neighborhood of South Jamaica, Queens, where a rash of parked cars had recently been broken into and stripped for parts. But after a graveyard shift cruising the 103rd Precinct on plainclothes “anti-crime” patrol, Shea and Scott had little to show for their efforts, beyond their discovery of yet another burgled vehicle.
How the NRA became one of the most powerful institutions in America
“There are no ‘good guns,’” Charlton Heston once told Meet the Press. “There are no ‘bad guns.’ Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody, except bad people.” The merits of Heston’s argument notwithstanding, the dramatic force of his delivery was undeniable, affirming the actor’s status as one of Hollywood’s iconic heroes.
Death Drive Nation - Patrick Blanchfield
In the busy holiday rush of December 2019, a 27-year-old UPS driver named Frank Ordóñez, who had the day off, volunteered to cover a shift for his friend. On his route delivering packages through the suburbs of Miramar, Florida, Ordóñez was carjacked and held at gunpoint by two men who had just robbed and shot up a nearby jewelry store. The police were hot on their heels, and a car chase ensued.
Where’s the Savior?
In Jokes and their Relationship to the Unconscious (1905), his three-hundred page book on humor, Sigmund Freud shares his favorite yuks, none of which are funny to begin with, and then proceeds to slowly murder them by explaining their punchlines. The book is so turgid that modern interpreters sometimes argue that the whole enterprise is itself a kind of meta-joke, which may be true, but still doesn’t make it funny. Reading the book in the election year of 2020, however, one bit stands out.
Verso
Don't have an account? Sign up here for discounts and quicker purchasing.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Patrick
Contact Patrick, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack