Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Ukraine’s Quiet Depopulation Crisis
Ukraine’s president wanders the deserted streets of the capital, Kyiv, feasting in vacated supermarkets and ringing the bells of Saint Michael’s Monastery, in the forlorn hope of reaching someone left to hear them. Elsewhere, a few souls can still be found: A pro-Russian fighter stalks empty buildings in the country’s east; a...
Trump’s Dangerous Party Line
On the evening of June 21, 1941, American Communists went to bed subject to one party line. At the sun set, Britain was fighting an imperialist war against Germany, about which the United States must remain neutral.American Communists awoke on June 22, 1941, to discover the party line abruptly changed. Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union. Now the...
The Foreign Policy of 2021 Democrats
Joe Biden is running as a restorationist, offering a return to the Obama era. But he likely won’t govern as a restorationist, at least when it comes to foreign policy and America’s role in the world.The Biden campaign believes that the candidate’s connection to Barack Obama is an asset, and no political benefit exists in...
A White House Set Up to Fail
President Trump failed the defining test of his presidency in his Oval Office address on the coronavirus. He turned to a format meant to calm the nation, provide clarity, and offer a clear plan of action, but accomplished none of those things. On the contrary, he left Americans more anxious, more confused, and looking elsewhere for a plan.To...
The True Danger of the Trump Campaign’s Defamation Lawsuits
Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is launching a legal war against the free press. In the past two weeks, while Americans worried about the coronavirus, the Trump campaign has sued The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN. These suits are, legally speaking, frivolous. They pose no danger in court, where they’re all but...
Barack Obama Still Isn’t Ready to Step In
Barack Obama got exactly what he wanted out of the Democratic primary—and not just because Joe Biden has suddenly pulled ahead. His party managed to start sorting out its year-long mess without him.But Obama is still not going to speak out. He won’t push Sanders out of the race, though the Vermont senator acknowledged on Wednesday, “I have...
The Sanders and Biden Families Have Been Cashing In for Years
Donald Trump has set a new bar for presidential self-dealing. But two of the Democratic front-runners have their own, lower-level history of mixing family and politics.Since the 1970s, Senator Bernie Sanders, who has spent his entire career railing against the political establishment, and Joe Biden, who likes to point out that he was for years...
How to Destroy a Government
When Donald Trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited.The new president was impetuous, bottomlessly ignorant, almost chemically inattentive, while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay...
“How to Destroy a Government”—In The Atlantic’s April issue, George Packer reveals how President Trump is winning his war on American institutions, and argues that a second term will irrevocably harm what remains.
When Donald Trump took office, there was a sense among career bureaucrats that the new president would be outmatched by the vast United States government. Seasoned officials would serve as “the adults” in the room, deflecting the new president’s worst ideas, waiting out his impulses, and protecting the State and Justice Departments from...
Where Does Donald Trump’s Strange (And Dangerous) ‘Absolute Rights’ Idea Come From?
President Donald Trump’s theory of executive power starts and ends with his “absolute rights.”Trump invoked that catchphrase earlier this month, when, in apparent response to his angry tweets, the Justice Department undercut its own prosecutors and reduced their recommended prison sentence for Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime friend and...
