Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Impunity Is Triumphing Over Integrity
Three months ago, a group of obscure diplomatic professionals walked into a public spotlight that none of them ever sought. Called to testify in the congressional impeachment inquiry, they upheld their constitutional oath and told the truth, at considerable risk to themselves and their career. They displayed no signs of partisanship. They showed...
Impeachment Gave Trump Exactly What He Wanted
The impeachment struggle is now over. Historians may one day vindicate Democrats for exposing Donald Trump’s abuse of power. But as of now, they have lost. Not only will Trump remain president, and not only does he appear stronger politically than before the impeachment battle began, but he has succeeded in doing precisely what he wanted in...
The 2020 Disinformation War
One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked “Like” on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook’s algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like “In...
The Next Phase of Donald Trump
President Donald Trump has survived the latest and most serious crisis of his own making. As ever, he seems to have learned nothing from the ordeal.The Republican-controlled Senate voted today to keep Trump in office. Breaking with his party, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah cast the lone Republican vote convicting Trump of one of the two impeachment...
23 Dangerous Propositions the Senate Just Ratified
The Senate today voted largely along party lines to acquit President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment. The acquittal, in the simplest sense, is a declaration that the House of Representatives failed to prove its case. But it is also a statement of values by the Senate—an embrace of certain basic propositions about the president’s...
Boredom Is Winning
Late on Monday, following the chaos of the Iowa caucus, Pete Buttigieg did the same thing several of his fellow Democratic-primary candidates did that evening: He gave a rousing speech to his supporters. The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor talked about optimism, and about change. But he talked about something else as well—something his fellow...
Why the Iowa Caucus Birthed a Thousand Conspiracy Theories
Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of results from the Iowa caucus, a range of conspiracy theories have sprouted.As of this morning, results from last night’s caucus are still outstanding. The Iowa Democratic Party blames that on the failures of a new application it rolled out to gather results from across the state....
The Checks and Balances That Trump Has Swept Away
If the nation’s Founders didn’t want to constrain the president’s power, they wouldn’t have put impeachment in the Constitution. “They gave us the tools to do the job,” Representative Adam Schiff declared yesterday in his closing argument in Donald Trump’s trial. The president’s camp, meanwhile, insists that...
Will Lamar Alexander’s Warning Restrain Trump?
“Hopefully he won’t do that again.”That’s what Senator Lamar Alexander told me on Friday, discussing President Donald Trump’s push to have political rivals investigated in Ukraine. A lot of weight rests on those six words, especially the first. The veteran lawmaker would like the president not to abuse his power, and is relying...
The White House Counsel Succumbs to Partisanship
On the first full day of the impeachment proceedings, which tipped into the early morning hours of the next, Chief Justice John Roberts admonished the parties to display more civility. He disliked the bandying about of “treacherous,” “lies,” and “cover-up.” It was not the sort of argument appropriately made to the world’s “greatest...
