The New Republic is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts.
Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in humanitarian and moral passion and one based in an ethos of scientific analysis". Through the 1980s and 1990s, the magazine incorporated elements of the Third Way and conservatism.
In 2014, two years after Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes purchased the magazine, he ousted its editor and attempted to remake its format, operations, and partisan stances, provoking the resignation of the majority of its editors and writers. In early 2016, citing the need for new vision and leadership, Hughes sold the magazine to Win McCormack, under whom the publication has returned to a more progressive stance. A weekly or near-weekly for most of its history, the magazine currently publishes ten issues per year. The editorial team returned to Washington, D.C. in 2021 with the hiring of Michael Tomasky as editor, who would continue to edit the academic journal Democracy.
The New Republic was founded by Herbert Croly, Walter Lippmann, and Walter Weyl. They gained the financial backing of heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney and of her husband, Willard Straight (1880-1918); and Willard Straight eventually became the majority owner. The magazine's first issue was published on November 7, 1914. The magazine's politics were liberal and progressive, and as such concerned with coping with the great changes brought about by middle-class reform efforts designed to remedy perceived weaknesses in America's changing economy and society. The magazine is widely considered important in changing the character of liberalism in the direction of governmental interventionism, both foreign and domestic. The most important of the perceived changes was the emergence of the U.S. as a great power on the international scene. In 1917, TNR urged America's entry into the Great War on the side of the Allies.
Even before the U.S.