Amanda has spent her career trying to make sense of complicated human mysteries by following survivors of all kinds. In her writing, Amanda combines storytelling with data to help illuminate hard problems and solutions.
Writing
Selected Writing
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Staying Sane in a Hyperpolarized Country
How are you going to manage this election year differently—in you own head? I’ve been asking people across the political divide this question. And they have a lot of ideas.
Image by Michelle Kondrich for The Washington Post -
Why we split the world into good and evil — and make decisions we regret
The Washington Post
In times of high anxiety, each new conflict gets framed as a galactic struggle against a dark lord. Complexity is intolerable; ambivalence is cowardly.
Image by iStock for the Washington Post
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How to Survive 2024
Unraveled
As we face the risks that will define 2024, it is also worth asking ourselves: how do we want to be in those conflicts? Three rules for getting through 2024, from a Venezuelan journalist who has learned the hard way.
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We must give Tucker Carlson an exit ramp
The Washington Post
What if Tucker Carlson did the opposite of what everyone expects?
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This Element is Critical to Human Flourishing--Yet Missing from the News
The Washington Post
The word hope sounds gauzy and fey, like rainbows and sunsets. It feels like a gateway drug to delusion and denial. “I don’t want your hope,” climate activist Greta Thunberg said at the World Economic Forum in 2019. “I want you to panic.”
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The Radically Simple Changes that Helped Lawmakers Get Things Done
The Washington Post
We hear a lot about the shocking dysfunction in Congress. But what about stories of shocking function? Lately, I find those stories even more captivating.
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The Dignity Index
Politico
She was a Republican appointee, religious Mormon and grandmother of ten. Then she began to wonder: what if politicians got rewarded for resisting contempt?
Photograph by Kim Raff for Politico
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The Imagined Enemies
Washington Post
Americans are having a lot of the wrong fights about how to teach kids about our history. A new report reveals how wildly we misjudge one another.
Photograph by Eric Lee for The Washington Post
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An Ex-Gang Leader's Advice to Congress
Politico
Curtis Toler has spent years trying to curb gang violence in Chicago. Now he’s talking to Congress about how to prevent violence in politics.
Photograph by Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO
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America Must Step Out of this Self-destructive Zombie Dance
The Washington Post
For all the chaos of political violence, one thing is predictable. In highly polarized countries, it spikes right before and after an election, no matter the continent. So what now?
Photograph by Eric Risberg for AP
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I'm a Journalist Who Stopped Reading the News. Is the Problem Me—or the Product?
The Washington Post
I have a secret. I kept it hidden for longer than I care to admit. It felt unprofessional, vaguely shameful. It wasn’t who I wanted to be.
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The Untold Story of the Afghan Women Who Hunted the Taliban
Politico
Trained by the U.S. Army, a group of trailblazing Afghan women turned into a formidable force in their homeland. They now live quietly, scattered around the U.S., trying to reconcile their past with their present.
Photograph by Scott Goldsmith and Raymond McCrea Jones for Politico