Responses to a column by Jamelle Bouie. Also: Trade with China; rising autism rates; in awe of Schubert; games as a common bond; Local Call’s work.

Companies’ use of foreign workers frequently leads to American layoffs.

It’s a culture not of success but of survival.

The problem we face is existential and spiritual, not situational.

A second-person narrative of social media.

Israeli accountability, a powerful protest movement and an emerging generation of leaders could bring a better future for Palestinians.

The Senate needs to ensure the next cabinet is full of real professionals.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, a hand surgeon in India and others share their expectations.

Homelessness is a crisis born of several compounded crises, a symptom of the varied ways our country is failing the most vulnerable.

Readers discuss for-profit health insurers and how to reform U.S. health care. Also: A police failure in New Orleans; making polluters pay.

Perception is everything in politics, and a lot of Americans perceive Democrats as not feeling their pain or caring too much about other things.

A dietitian on why “ultraprocessed” is not a helpful label.

Donald Trump’s foreign policy may not be as disastrous as that of George W. Bush, whose idealism and hubris led to calamity, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be corrosive.

Letting them take some responsibility for their choices is what prepares them for adult life.

Greed and self-delusion kept the money flowing, and hid the truth from the public.

Readers discuss the plummeting respect for the judicial system. Also: Syria sanctions; religion and Democrats; medical uses of psychedelics.

Being alone doesn’t mean you’re lonely.

I know many voters reject my party’s significant leftward shift. So do I. Democrats need to refocus on bipartisan solutions to America’s problems.

Whenever someone agrees wholeheartedly with something I write, I die a little inside.

Two extremely online people on how the internet became so strange.

The parts of my brain that make it hard for me to keep a tidy house are also responsible for much of what I love about my personality.

Climate change is causing drought conditions that are making the Panama Canal harder to operate and more expensive to pass through.

Some ways to lessen the world’s most deadly risk. Also: The debate over work visas; unreliable polls; cruelty and Christianity.

Americans think of our society as so divided. Might there be some upside to starting the new year knowing we aren’t as polarized as we thought?

Where Times Opinion — and listeners — found joy this year.

Eviscerating modern state institutions almost always clears a path for a different political order, built on loyalties and connections to the ruler.

The Biden administration’s approach to China has been full of contradictions.

The world’s next great cuisine isn’t hidden in some undiscovered corner of the globe. It’s in the spaces where cultures, traditions and technologies mingle.

Congress must prepare a plan now to avoid global meltdown.