Calling All TFP Subscribers: Now Is the Time to Support Independent Journalism

TFP is entirely independent, and has the freedom to publish what we publish because we are not beholden to lucrative advertisers, corporate interests, or government largesse.

Mariana Vishegirskaya outside a maternity hospital destroyed by Russian shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022 — a photo that ran with TFP’s conversation with Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. Vishegirskaya survived the shelling and later gave birth to a girl in another Mariupol hospital. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

Dear TFP Subscriber, 

Six months ago today Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a misguided and murderous assault that serves as a cautionary tale for anyone who believes that autocracies can be trusted or that the cold calculation of authoritarianism is preferable — wherever it rears its ugly head — to the humane yet often disorderly determination of democratic liberalism.

Seven months ago I launched The First Person because I was tired of the conventional approach to the political divides that tear through the heart of our media and our societies: Left is left, and right is right, and never the twain shall meet. Real conversations …