Adam Serwer+

Pope Leo’s July 4 Message to America Was Unmistakable

By spending the semiquincentennial mourning the plight of migrants, Leo sent a clear challenge to his native country. President Trump is set to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States today with an elaborate celebration in Washington, D.C., featuring military flyovers and a fireworks display …

How to Find Joy on a Quiet Day In

Home can be a place of adventure, not just stasis. In his 2022 essay on how to want less, Arthur C. Brooks recalls a line from Ralph Waldo Emerson about the dangers of thinking that a new place or shiny thing will fix life’s problems. “At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated …

America’s Most Enduring Belief Is Also One of Its Most Dangerous

How the simultaneous deaths of two Founding Fathers entrenched the idea that the United States was chosen by God Two hundred years ago, on July 4, 1826, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within hours of each other. Today, this is usually recalled, when it’s recalled at all, as trivia. But it was …

How to Define America in 30 Objects

What artifacts capture 250 years of work to attain the dreams of the Declaration? George Washington, this nation’s first general, its inaugural president, the eponym of its capital city, left one of his most indelible marks on America from afar. Not one for a grand speech, Washington printed his …

Trump Is Getting Tired of Losing Election Cases

Even the judges he appointed aren’t buying the arguments. Earlier this year, President Trump claimed a new area of expertise: election law. “I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject,” Trump wrote on social media, and found an “irrefutable one” that …

What J. D. Vance Once Knew

Ten years ago, the vice president wrote that one day, voters would realize the truth about Donald Trump. That day has now arrived. TEN YEARS AGO TODAY, in the middle of the presidential campaign, an essay in The Atlantic set out to explain the appeal of Donald Trump. Its author traced that appeal to …

Hell Arrives in Washington

My day of extreme heat in the nation’s capital On the eve of the United States’ 250th birthday, in the nation’s capital, people were sweating through their shirts, and tourists were pressing electric fans directly to their foreheads. The record-breaking heat wave that roasted the Midwest earlier …

I Went to the Great American State Fair and I May Never Sleep Again

With the help of a very strong energy drink, Alexandra Petri takes you inside the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., where a “freedom wheel,” a hologram Abraham Lincoln, and … potatoes helped commemorate America’s 250th birthday. Read more from Petri’s surreal day on the National Mall: https://theatln.tc/aZEMkkXT Subscribe to The Atlantic on YouTube: http://bit.ly/subAtlanticYT

How Elon Musk Became More Powerful Than Ever

The authors of Muskism break down the beliefs, business strategy, and political influence behind the world’s richest man. Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube Elon Musk isn’t just the world’s richest man—he’s one of the most influential people alive. His companies have transformed …

It Wasn’t Just the Founders

The conventional telling of America’s origin story leaves out perhaps its greatest heroes. Who is responsible for American independence? The most common answer invokes a short list of familiar names: Washington, Jefferson, Adams. Despite their mistakes and biases, these men deserve the credit …

The ‘Have It Both Ways’ Theory of Great Books

Many literary classics have a way of appealing to our lizard brains while questioning why we're so compelled by them. This week in The Atlantic, Michael O’Donnell took aim at a film critic who is himself notorious for takedowns. Point by point, O’Donnell debunks the arguments in A Sudden Flicker of …

All Men Are Created Equal, but What Does "Equal" Mean?

The expansiveness of the concept helps explain its endurance. “Heaven created all persons in the same rut.” This is how one early Japanese translation of the Declaration of Independence rendered the self-evident truth mentioned in its most celebrated sentence. To many Americans, this may sound like …

The Elon Musk Myth: Genius, Fraud, or Something Else

Elon Musk isn’t just the world’s richest man—he’s one of the most influential people alive. His companies have transformed industries, his wealth has shattered records, and his politics now shape governments and public debate. But how did he become this powerful? And is his dominance really inevitable? This week on “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel talks with historian Quinn Slobodian and technology writer Ben Tarnoff, authors of “Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed,” about the ideas driving Musk’s rise. They unpack the mythology of the billionaire genius, the ideology behind his politics, and wh

TAF25: Annette Gordon-Reed on the American Revolution

In a conversation at last year’s Atlantic Festival, Jeffrey Goldberg asked the historian Annette Gordon-Reed if the American Revolution had worked. The Founders “understood that republics are fragile and you have to work at it,” she said. Revisit the full conversation: http://bit.ly/46AaAoO

Photos of the Week: World Cup, Wine Battle, White Kimono

A scorching heat wave in Europe, a bonfire celebration in Argentina, a Pride parade in Seattle, semiquincentennial celebrations across America, and much more

A Twist in This Year’s Strangest Literary AI Scandal

Jamir Nazir, the controversial winner of the Commonwealth award, tells his side of the story. Jamir Nazir has become the face of the AI-writing crisis. In May, the largely unknown 62-year-old Trinidadian writer was named a regional winner of the prestigious Commonwealth Prize for his short story …

American Brands Seem Lukewarm on America’s Birthday

Does patriotism still sell in 2026? July 1976 wasn’t exactly a moment of unity in America, coming just after Roe v. Wade, Watergate, and the end of the Vietnam War. Nonetheless, the nation’s bicentennial was a display of patriotic capitalism. IBM released a bicentennial punch card. 7-Up had a series …

What This Fourth of July Is Really About

An unfinished ode from 1876 offers a lesson for America’s 250th. To mark the occasion of America’s centennial, the people of Taunton, Massachusetts, invited James Russell Lowell—distinguished poet, founding editor of The Atlantic—to compose and read an ode for the Fourth of July. Lowell didn’t much …

These Justices Are Not Impartial

Why such a slim Supreme Court majority upheld birthright citizenship In 1898, the same Supreme Court that upheld Jim Crow segregation as constitutional also upheld the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, by a 6–2 vote. This was a profoundly racist Court in a profoundly racist …

Washington Is Turning Into a Fortress for the Fourth

Trump’s Independence Day blowout will bring a security blitz. This year’s Fourth of July fireworks show on the National Mall is the first such event to be designated a “National Special Security Event,” which requires the kind of screening procedures and police presence usually reserved for …

When France Plays Soccer, You Can’t Look Away

On the joys of watching Les Bleus at the World Cup This week, I am French. I’m as French as a deposed dauphine, as French as a film plot of perfumed deceit. During the World Cup, there is just no profit in being American. Yes, I’m shamelessly bandwagoning, and deserting my nation on its 250th …

The Hispanic Founder

Bernardo de Gálvez helped win the Revolution. Can he win over 21st-century America? One of the biggest Independence Day celebrations outside of North America takes place in Macharaviaya, Spain, a mountain town, population 500, in the southern province of Málaga. Thousands of people attend the …

The Fourth of July That Saved My Family

My parents’ rescue at Entebbe taught me that freedom survives only because people choose to defend it. On July 4, 1976, as America celebrated its bicentennial, four C-130 aircraft flew blind over the dark waters of the Red Sea and across the Horn of Africa. The pilots took their planes beneath the …

Why Trump’s ‘Freedom 250’ Logo Is Everywhere

A White House–affiliated group wrested control of the trademark. As the United States neared its 250th birthday in recent months, a new spin on the Stars and Stripes appeared outside homes and on banners dangling from government buildings. A twist on what’s known as the “Betsy Ross flag,” with 250 …

What I Learned From ROTC

Military experience is, sooner or later, humbling. My military career was part-time, uneventful, and inglorious. I leveled out as a captain in the Army (a courtesy, really, because I got the promotion as I went on inactive status), and other than training stints, my only duty was as a reservist, …

The Father of American Pop Music Turns 200

Stephen Foster wrote some of the most enduring American songs, invented the role of songwriter, and served as a cautionary tale for his successors. Two-hundred years ago, on July 4, 1826, the United States celebrated its 50th birthday. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died. And another enduring voice …

The Other Case for Birthright Citizenship

The legal arguments are clear. Now proponents need to start defending the practice on policy grounds. “We’re in a new world now,” Solicitor General John Sauer told the U.S. Supreme Court during oral argument this April in the birthright-citizenship case Trump v. Barbara, “where 8 billion people are …

Even Trump Can’t Believe How Well This Book Has Sold

What the wild success of Regime Change, after a long slump in newsy nonfiction, might say about the state of the presidency. Literary agents and book editors are in the business of selling stories, so drama comes easily to them. Even temporary sales slumps breed alarmist pronouncements; book parties …

The $10,000 MacBook Pro Is Here

Apple is charging you an AI tax. There are many things you can buy for $10,000: A nose job. With luck, a used car. A middling ticket to the World Cup final. Or you could purchase a MacBook Pro. That’s how much the highest-end, fully loaded version of Apple’s laptop now costs—$3,000 more than it did …

Movies Are Good, Actually

A film critic’s new book attacks the medium for diminishing culture. Rarely has David Thomson been more wrong. Are movies bad for us? Do they waste our time, dumb down the culture, even harm society? On-screen, stars depict unspeakable acts of violence and cruelty. More subtly, movies make bad …

At Least You’re Not Playing in the World Cup Right Now

The athletes train for this heat, but even elite-level acclimation only goes so far. Last June, England’s men’s national soccer team went to Spain for a training camp. Next to the pitch were tents artificially heated to a minimum of 95 degrees Fahrenheit, where players completed fitness tests on …

Pete Buttigieg’s Ordeal Is a Frightening New Form of Political Harassment

Even in these unimaginative days, Americans are still capable of innovations in cruelty. The news that former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was investigated by Child Protective Services for a false allegation of child abuse was surprising. Not that an accuser would attempt such a cruel …

The Capital Is a Mess

Chain-link fences, construction cranes, armed guards, and portable toilets everywhere The capital city is an absolute mess. The White House is an active construction site, with cement trucks going through the same gates typically used by the president’s armored limousine. There’s a gaping hole where …

American History as Rorschach Test

The Florida Department of Education recently announced an alternative to the Advanced Placement history course that it described in a press release as “free from ideological bias or indoctrination.” For its new curriculum, Florida recommends one textbook: Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, by Wilfred McClay. As American patriotism plummets, McClay partly blames history class, which he thinks isn’t teaching students a “love of country.” Ahead of July 4 and America’s 250th, Hanna talks with McClay about whether teaching should background or foreground the sins of a count

Will America Undergo Another Post-Watergate Reform Era?

Watergate was followed by an era of reform—but the forces that spurred it are no longer functioning in America, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, tells David Frum.

What We Learned Filming "The American Revolution"

Asked what the Founding Fathers would make of the political moment in America in 2025, the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns told The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, that, in drafting the Constitution, they were “reverse engineering against a tyrant … the balance of powers, the three-legislative stuff. They’re always worried about somebody.” Read more from Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt about how the PBS series “The American Revolution,” which tells the nation’s founding story, was made: https://theatln.tc/vyC1zmUD

The American Experiment Is Worth Believing In | The David Frum Show

In this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum discusses the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. David discusses how he hopes Americans can find a future where we rediscover how much there is to be proud of in the American experience and offers a comparison to another turbulent time in American history: the Compromise of 1850. Then, David is joined by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss the impending celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of independence and whether the id

How the Birthright Decision Could Affect Trump’s Immigration Agenda

The Supreme Court’s decision upholding birthright citizenship is a blow to Trump’s immigration agenda, the law professor Amanda Frost tells Hanna Rosin: “He was trying to change our nation’s understanding of who belongs.”

Supreme Court Delivers Blow to Trump’s Immigration Agenda

In one of its final moves of the term, the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship. Radio Atlantic host Hanna Rosin sits down with University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost to discuss the ruling, the dissents, and what it all means for Trump’s immigration agenda. Frost is also the author of “You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping From Dred Scott to the Dreamers.” Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and i

What Abraham Lincoln Can Teach Us About The American Revolution

To Abraham Lincoln, the American Revolution was “a living legacy to which we are bound,” one that Lincoln used to build a popular antislavery politics, our staff writer Jake Lundberg said last year. As part of our special issue marking 250 years since the nation’s founding, Lundberg explored why Lincoln “might be the figure best suited to teach us how to tell the story of the Revolution and live the story of the Revolution.”

How Social Media Could Reveal the Perils of Being Too Informed

Using social media to figure out what’s happening can feel productive—but being informed only goes so far, the writer John Paul Brammer tells Charlie Warzel: “It can start to make you feel like the world is this terrible place.”

Why Trump's Attempts to Change Washington, D.C., Could Backfire

Trump's attempts to change Washington, D.C., without seeking permission or funding grate on many people, David A. Graham argues. “But the other problem is he does it poorly,” he tells Adam Harris.

Why the Reflecting Pool Matters

The drama around the algal bloom in the Reflecting Pool may seem like a shallow issue. But it’s part of a much broader pattern as President Trump tries to “beautify” Washington, D.C., and cement his legacy. Host Adam Harris talks to the Atlantic staff writer David Graham about Trump’s attempts to remake the city physically, culturally, and politically. Subscribe to the “Radio Atlantic” podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radio-atlantic/id1258635512 Subscribe to the “Radio Atlantic” podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4vlgAVfHGyzoHYVmY67yFL Follow T

The Key to Building Good Reading Habits

If there is a book out there calling to you, you just need to go grab it, the writer John Paul Brammer tells Charlie Warzel: “You just need to get accustomed to scratching the itch when it shows up.”

What Trump’s Efforts to Change D.C. Reveal

Panelists joined to discuss the president’s ongoing projects in the nation’s capital. Donald Trump’s efforts to change the architecture of Washington, D.C. have included projects such as repainting the Reflecting Pool, tearing down the East Wing of the White House, and proposing the construction of …

Tom Hanks on the enduring message of The American Revolution

“I don’t think there’s anything that I have found, in the course of human storytelling, that is more profound than an individual not giving into fear and then holding on through the entire endeavor,” Tom Hanks said on a panel in 2025 following a screening of Ken Burns’s PBS documentary series “The American Revolution.” Revisit the full conversation at the link: http://bit.ly/46AaAoO

What Darwin Saw in the Galápagos, by Helen Lewis

On the Galápagos Islands, Helen Lewis spotted a lizard polycule, learned what penguins are really capable of—and explored the surprising reality of Charles Darwin’s adventure. Read more about her journey at the link: https://theatln.tc/W7NmyDEb 📷: Will Matsuda, Helen Lewis Subscribe to The Atlantic on YouTube: http://bit.ly/subAtlanticYT

France Is Too Hot for Shutters and Ceiling Fans

Millions of people are suffering through the hottest days of their lives with few options. On a recent morning partway through France’s historic heat wave, Dhafer Kahri, an air-conditioning technician, let me join him on a house call to an apartment in Paris’s 16th arrondissement, where he was …

The Lost Art of Leisure

Why doing nothing can feel surprisingly difficult For something that sounds so simple, leisure can be surprisingly difficult. Give people an hour with nothing scheduled, and many fill it with thoughts of to-dos: the unanswered email, the errand that’s been put off, the project due next week. Free …

‘The Bear’ Bids a Profoundly Warm Farewell

The series finale is a moving hour of much-needed stress relief. This article contains spoilers through the series finale of The Bear. If an episode of The Bear were a dish being served at the show’s titular restaurant, the recipe would probably go something like this: In a saucepan, combine …

The Court That Will Believe Absolutely Anything Is ‘Race-Neutral’

The majority gives Trump yet more license to discriminate. Trump-administration officials have made no secret of their desire to purge the United States of nonwhite immigrants. Donald Trump has declared, “If you import The Third World, you become The Third World,” a common refrain repeated by his …

The Great American State Fair Isn’t Very Great

A dizzying showcase on the National Mall has Abraham Lincoln holograms, free Frosties, and a lot of Donald Trump. The U.S. capital has been outfitted of late with visual trappings that many associate with authoritarianism, such as banners depicting Donald Trump’s face and featuring his slogans. So …

Vance vs. Rubio: Iran Edition

The two are pursuing different approaches to one of the world’s most intractable diplomatic issues. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has for months been working to seal an agreement between the Israeli and Lebanese governments to clamp down on Hezbollah and allow Israel to withdraw its forces from …

Higher Ed Is Very Sorry

Universities are studying how they lost the public’s trust. Just 10 years ago, almost 60 percent of Americans said they had a lot of confidence in higher education. By last year, that number had fallen to 42 percent. Seventy percent of Americans told Pew last fall that higher education is moving in …

The Housing Solution Trump Is Avoiding

He’s applying a real-estate developer’s mindset to the nation’s highest office. But who is he building for? If there’s one thing Donald Trump wants Americans to understand, it’s that he knows how to build. At a Pennsylvania petrochemical plant in 2019, he told workers, “I was a good builder. I built …

William Barr’s Dangerous Endorsement of Todd Blanche

Trump’s former attorney general proposes a Senate blessing of Trump’s threats to the rule of law. Donald Trump cares deeply about the Justice Department, and he appears to care about exactly one thing: an attorney general who will do whatever he says, specifically in the realm of trying to lock up …

Vanilla Ice Knows When America Was Great

Lots of musicians dropped out of America’s 250th-anniversary celebration—but Vanilla Ice stayed in. Spencer Kornhaber visited the rapper at his home in Florida to understand why. Read the full story: https://theatln.tc/QdPgoKMK 📷: Ysa Pérez. YouTube / Vanilla Ice / SBK Records.

The 13 Steps of a Trump Fiasco

The Reflecting Pool drama says everything about how the administration operates. If you wanted to make an argument that we are all living in some cruel simulation, a key piece of evidence might be that the news keeps providing us with absurd, occasionally quite alarming metaphors for what it’s like …

The Supreme Court’s Era of Meaningless Rights

The Supreme Court is not saying people don’t have certain rights, just that no courts can help them when those rights are violated. The six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have made one thing clear: People may have rights, but in many cases they have no way to enforce them. Four decisions …

Europe’s Come-to-AC Moment

The heat is changing the continent’s interest in cooling technologies of all kinds. In stifling apartments and sweaty row houses in England, Germany, and even Scandinavia, some Europeans are considering a very American idea: They really need an air conditioner. One of their most accessible options, …

Supergirl Crashes and Burns

The newest installment in the DC Universe is forgettable filler. The success of last year’s Superman proved that there was still some interest in comic-book movies, all of these years into their Hollywood-blockbuster dominance. The director James Gunn reintroduced viewers to the aw-shucks costumed …

Smaller Nations Find Their Footing in the World Cup

Formerly colonized nations have been “able to play at a much higher level than anybody anticipated because they’ve leveraged their diasporas,” Franklin Foer argues. He discusses how smaller countries have surprised audiences in the World Cup.

A Writer Learns How to Read Again

Rewiring your attention in the age of the feed Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube Do you wish you could read more books? You’re not alone. These days, fewer people are reading for pleasure, and even those who do tend to struggle with distractions. Is this a literacy crisis, or has our …

'Rush Project at Request of POTUS': Trump Is Draining the National Parks to Pay for His Projects

Money once used for crucial national park repairs is now financing Trump’s redecorating projects. The pathway that connects the White House residence to the Oval Office has long been paved in Tennessee flagstone. Every president since Harry Truman made the 45-second commute, and made it without …

How to Make Yourself Want to Read Again

Do you wish you could read more books? You’re not alone. These days, fewer people are reading for pleasure, and even those who do tend to struggle with distractions. Is this a literacy crisis, or has our attention just been warped? And what can we do? In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” John Paul Brammer joins Charlie Warzel to talk about how he managed to ditch the allure of his screens and social media and rewild his attention. This is a conversation about how to reignite your curiosity, what deep reading does to your mind, and how anyone can learn to love to read again. This episode of “Ga

Darwin’s Story Isn’t as Simple as It Seems

The best writing leads us to a more complex and more honest understanding of the past. This week, I learned that Charles Darwin didn’t exactly come up with the theory of evolution by cataloging the finches of the Galápagos Islands. Contrary to the simplified version I’d grown up believing, Darwin …

Photos of the Week: Stone Roofs, Football Fans, Soapbox Racers

An early harvest in Romania, a space-shuttle exhibit in Los Angeles, medieval armored combat in France, heavy rains in China, a soapbox derby in London, and much more

The Record Executive Who Understood the Power of Ego

Clive Davis, who died this week, was more than just the man with the golden ear. When Clive Davis sat down with Aretha Franklin in 1979 to discuss working together, Franklin already had her legacy secure: She was the undisputed Queen of Soul, whose late ’60s singles—“Respect,” “(You Make Me Feel …

Here Come Trump’s ‘Freedom Trucks’

A fleet of mobile museums is touring the country with a version of American history the administration can get behind. Right now, six AI-Generated George Washingtons are roaming around the country in semitrucks, stopping at sites as varied as the New Mexico desert and the National Mall and …

The Meltdown

One day that captures how Trump has gone from unpredictable to chaotic A desultory, grievance-filled speech on what should have been a joyous occasion. The last-minute cancellation of a rare bipartisan bill signing in favor of yet another push for doomed, unpopular legislation. A loud confrontation …

Americans Deserve Answers From Hegseth

The president and the secretary of defense have a right to remove officers, but also an obligation to explain their actions. In September 1862, General George B. McClellan, the general in chief of the Union Army, had just repelled the Confederate advance under Robert E. Lee at the Battle of …

What the Prairieland Prosecutions Reveal About Trump’s America

Harsh sentences raise uncomfortable questions about equal justice under the law. Last July, a group of activists staged what they called a “noise demonstration” at ICE’s Prairieland Detention Facility, near Dallas. They shot off fireworks, damaged a surveillance camera, and vandalized government …

The True Believers at the Great MAGA Fair

Falling approval ratings for the president haven’t dimmed their enthusiasm. For one night, in the heart of deep-blue Washington, D.C., a fenced-off section of the National Mall became an oasis for members of the MAGA base. They had believed in President Trump from the beginning and carried him …

One Metaphor to End Them All

The Reflecting Pool is an image so perfect, it feels as though symbolism as a whole gave up and decided to sign off. So long, metaphor. We had a good run. Goodbye, “All the world’s a stage.” Farewell, “She’s a brick house.” See you later, the swamp (drained or undrained). Now we have a symbolic …

Authoritarians Are Great at Propaganda—Until They’re Not

Their cultural campaigns reveal how brittle their art can be. According to George Orwell, there’s a simple reason authoritarian cultural campaigns can’t last: They assume that history can be “created rather than learned,” he wrote in a 1947 Atlantic essay, and this produces superficial literature, …

Atlantic Reads: The Housewives Underground with Kaitlyn Tiffany

On Thursday, June 25, the Atlantic staff writer Kaitlyn Tiffany will sit down with The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss Tiffany’s new book, The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery. Tiffany tells the story of three women—Maggie Field, Shirley Martin, and Sylvia Meagher—whose skepticism of the Warren Commission report on the assassination led them to conduct their own investigations into the president's death. Tiffany and Goldberg will discuss how these amateur investigators challenged the official

The Strange, Explicable Appeal of Train Dog

How a weird, awkwardly fused creature became the meme of the summer. It’s a dog! It’s a train! It’s the head of a dog superimposed on the body of a train! You may have recently seen a mutant creature chugging through your feed, a hybrid beast, like a centaur or sphinx, uniting the head of a dog and the …

The Final Message of 'The Bear'

In its final season, the FX show circles its end point. All things end, we know, and TV series are no exception. As viewers, we have to do the best we can with the time we get, and no show has been more compulsively, maddeningly obsessed with time than The Bear. EVERY SECOND COUNTS hangs on the wall …

The Truth About Steven Spielberg’s Alien Obsession

The director has spent decades telling stories about extraterrestrials, but his real focus lies on Earth. This article contains spoilers for the film Disclosure Day. As much as Steven Spielberg likes aliens, he seems to prefer holding them at arm’s length. The creatures in Close Encounters of the Third …

How the World Cup Explains the World

Do the games offer a lesson for politics? Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts In the past two decades, international soccer has gotten a glow-up of sorts. Venture capital and oil money have poured into clubs all around the world. The United Arab Emirates owns a dozen …

Perhaps France Should Reconsider AC

Europe cannot cope with this heat. A summer escape to Paris, at least in the American mind, evokes a certain set of images: quiet strolls along the canals, long hours in bookstores and museums, a pleasant park bench, a glass of wine. Those pleasures are now contending with one of the most brutal and …

AI Can’t Fix the Student-Motivation Problem

It turns out bots aren’t great teachers. In a 2023 TED Talk watched by millions of people, the American educator and entrepreneur Sal Khan declared that AI was about to deliver “probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen.” The founder and CEO of Khan Academy was …

Alan Greenspan Was ‘Not Quite God’

He built an independent central bank that withstood many crises. That independence may not last forever. On Monday, Alan Greenspan died at the age of 100. The Federal Reserve, which he led from 1987 until 2006, issued an encomium in characteristically modest and understated Fedspeak. Greenspan …

My New Life With the Palantir Chore Coat

I bought the most confusing jacket in America. Nothing about the Palantir chore coat makes any sense. Mine is a size small, though it’s so oversize that I look like a teen wearing a hand-me-down. Then there’s the color: a piercing blue that’s nearing the shade of an iMessage bubble. The jacket is …

The 10,000-Year Flood

The banks of the Guadalupe River were an idyllic spot to park an RV. Then, last summer, it started to rain harder and faster than anyone could imagine. David and Cheryl Chambers bought their property along the Guadalupe River in 2008, the day the for-sale sign went up. They kept it wild and green, a …

How the World Cup Explains the World

In his classic book How Soccer Explains the World, the Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer theorized that the sport was a mirror of the world, particularly in its shift from tribalism to interdependence. More than two decades after the book came out, the world is different in many ways, but he says the title still holds true.  Foer joins to discuss the World Cup. Who he’s excited to watch. How the global game has changed over the years. And how this year’s World Cup offers global audiences a gentler form of nationalism—one that we may not be used to lately, and may indeed learn from. - -

Trump Is Making the 250th Small

The State Fair rally was an empty celebration of a man instead of a country. Most Americans seem to understand that the Fourth of July is about something bigger than ourselves. It is about celebrating our democracy and our role as citizens—as equals—in it. George Washington understood what that …

Trump’s Other Paint Job

Before he botched the Reflecting Pool, the president wanted the border wall black. Halfway through President Trump’s first term, as construction crews were busy installing hundreds of miles of barriers along the southern border, a puzzling edict came down from America’s aesthete in chief. Trump …

The Whiplash of Trump’s Iran Capitulation

America’s foreign policy is about one man and little else. Almost everything in the Trump administration seems like an implausible pitch for a television show, containing so many oddball plot devices and weird twists that even the most creative showrunner would veto most of them. Wait, what? The …

Trump’s No-Limits Presidency

Most presidents become chastened about their power over time. Trump is doing the opposite. In an interview with The New York Times early this year, Donald Trump was asked, “Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to?” “Yeah, there is …

Trump Has a Bill Pulte Problem

The acting director of national intelligence appears to be legally ineligible for the job. Bill Pulte has spent his first days as the acting director of national intelligence firing senior personnel. But according to the law, he’s not even eligible for the job he occupies. On this matter, the act of …

Did Trump Surrender to Iran?

Inside the Trump-Iran negotiations, with Vivian Salama. Plus: Why do people no longer care about climate change? And Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube In this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on why American …

Would Claude Refuse an Illegal Military Order?

The AI chatbot told me that it has misgivings about its role in modern warfare. Two months ago, I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Amsterdam, talking to a chatbot about killing people. “Claude, how do you feel about the U.S. military using you to select targets?” I asked Anthropic’s human-seeming …

The Reflecting Pool Water’s Fine

It’s easy being green. Never in my life have I rooted so hard for algae. In fact, I’ve never rooted for algae at all. Yet the sight of those tiny green organisms floating in the Reflecting Pool, absorbing sunlight, multiplying their little hearts out and living their best (presumably very short) …

War and Consequences

The damage will not be undone when the Trump administration is gone. The memorandum of understanding that the United States signed with Iran is, on first reading, a capitulation masquerading as an agreement. It opens the prospect of an Iran flush with money from the release of its assets, oil …

The AI Super PACs Trying to Influence the Midterms

The elections will be a test for the industry’s ability to translate money into political power. OpenAI’s CEO signed a letter in 2023 acknowledging that AI might cause human beings to go extinct. More recently, Anthropic’s CEO said that AI will “test us as a species.” Many Americans seem to believe …

Is It Warm Out There?

The planet is getting hotter. But America’s conversation about it has chilled. Summer has begun—which is to say, wildfires in the West are chasing residents from their homes, the snowpack has dwindled to near-record lows in several states, drought is spreading, and temperatures are regularly …

America Desperately Needs More Sterile Screwworms

Ranchers are waiting for hundreds of millions of sterile flies to be produced, or for a technological breakthrough. This time a year ago, experts were already predicting the return of flesh-eating screwworms to the United States: a matter of not if but when, Wayne Cockrell, a Texas rancher, lamented …

10 Years Later - Brexit is a Catastrophe

In June 10th's episode of The David Frum Show, David Frum looked back on 10 years of Brexit and explained why he believes the vote has been a political and economic catastrophe for Britain. Photo: Peter Nicholls / Getty Images Sign up for David Frum’s newsletter alert to find out when a new story is published: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-frum/?follow=true&utm_campaign=frum-yt Subscribe to “The David Frum Show” on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-david-frum-show/id1305908387 Subscribe to “The David Frum Show” on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/79

What Would a Post-Birthright-Citizenship Country Look Like?

Implementing Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship would be “total chaos,” the Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer tells Adam Harris. “After this, every baby born in the United States has to prove that it’s a citizen of the United States.” Listen to Radio Atlantic.

What Could Happen if the AI Bubble Pops?

The AI bubble needs to pop—and there is a choice between two paths that can be taken to recover from the potential financial fallout, the author Cory Doctorow tells Charlie Warzel.

What Will Happen to Birthright Citizenship?

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Trump administration’s executive order limiting who can be born an American is constitutional, and whether “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”—save for those who are here under unique circumstances, such as children of foreign dignitaries—are citizens of the union. This week on Radio Atlantic, Adam Harris is joined by Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer to explore birthright citizenship and what it means to be an American.  Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer

What the Birthright-Citizenship Case Is Really About

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Trump administration’s executive order limiting who can be born an American is constitutional, and whether “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”—save for those who are here under unique circumstances, such as children of foreign dignitaries—are citizens of the union. This week on Radio Atlantic, Adam Harris is joined by Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer to explore birthright citizenship and what it means to be an American. Subscribe to the “Radio Atlantic” podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radio-at

Will Americans Ever Lose Their Grip on the Handshake?

The handshake has been America’s default greeting for more than a century. Tom Bartlett explored the Atlantic archives to learn how it survived both decades of germ anxiety and pandemic-era distancing: https://theatln.tc/T40MKDV5 Subscribe to The Atlantic on YouTube: http://bit.ly/subAtlanticYT

Are MLB's Changes Making the Game Better?

MLB’s changes have sought to make the game faster and more accessible, Jimmy O’ Brien, the founder of Jomboy Media, tells Charlie Warzel: “It took a lot of courage to do that, especially a sport that’s so old and stuck in its times.”

How 'Masculinism' Could Be Shaping American Politics

“Masculinism” is turbocharging an argument that sees feminism as the root of declining birth rates, Helen Lewis argues. “So feminism is to them—and this sounds hyperbolic, but it’s the argument that’s essentially being made—destroying the world.”

Read These Books by the Time You Graduate

“I believe that the best way to find inspiration is to look to writers who don’t offer advice or edicts but give examples you might want to emulate,” Anna Holmes says. She recommends seven books for people in their 20s: https://theatln.tc/wPI0PNzt See the full list at the link.