The Case for the Total Liberation of Ukraine

Russia must be expelled from all of Ukraine’s territory—including Crimea.
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Zelensky Has an Answer for DeSantis

Mar 20 2023

Zelensky Has an Answer for DeSantis

In an interview, the Ukrainian president makes a pragmatic case for continued American support.
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In His Fight Against Democracy, Mexico’s President Is a Heavy Favorite

Mar 1 2023

In His Fight Against Democracy, Mexico’s President Is a Heavy Favorite

How do you defend the rule of law from someone who talks about woodland elves?
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Biden’s Hope vs. Putin’s Lies

Feb 21 2023

Biden’s Hope vs. Putin’s Lies

The U.S. president’s optimism about Ukraine creates the expectation that everything is possible—and commits him to a Ukrainian victory.
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Biden Went to Kyiv Because There’s No Going Back

Feb 20 2023

Biden Went to Kyiv Because There’s No Going Back

The president’s surprise visit sent a message to Moscow—and to European leaders.
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Incompetence and Torture in Occupied Ukraine

Feb 14 2023

Incompetence and Torture in Occupied Ukraine

The logic of genocide led Russian invaders to target small-town mayors and local volunteers.
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The Slow-Motion Murder of Mikheil Saakashvili

Feb 3 2023

The Slow-Motion Murder of Mikheil Saakashvili

As the imprisoned former Georgian president’s health worsens, so do prospects for democracy in his country.
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Americans Set an Example for the Rioters in Brazil

Jan 8 2023

Americans Set an Example for the Rioters in Brazil

Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters shoed that anti-democratic revolutions can be contagious too.
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What If the U.S. Hadn’t Helped Ukraine

Dec 22 2022

What If the U.S. Hadn’t Helped Ukraine?

Ukrainian resistance and American support prevented a wide range of horrors.
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Taiwan Is Already Fighting Back

Dec 14 2022

Taiwan Is Already Fighting Back

How Beijing tries to make a democracy submit without putting up a fight
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Russia Deserves All the Blame

Nov 16 2022

Russia Deserves All the Blame

The disturbing incident in a Polish border village is the direct consequence of Russian aggression.
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The Russian Empire Must Die

Nov 14 2022

The Russian Empire Must Die

A better future requires Putin’s defeat—and the end to imperial aspirations.
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The West Is Enabling Putin’s Nuclear Threats

Nov 7 2022

The West Is Enabling Putin’s Nuclear Threats

Western leaders should deter Russia’s leader, not give in to him.
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Germany Is Arguing With Itself Over Ukraine

Oct 20 2022

Germany Is Arguing With Itself Over Ukraine

The fight over which weapons to give Ukraine is really a disagreement about Germany.
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Putin’s Newest Annexation Is Dire for Russia Too

Sep 30 2022

Putin’s Newest Annexation Is Dire for Russia Too

His baldly illegitimate claim to four Ukrainian provinces shows contempt for the global order—and his own subjects.
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The Kremlin Must Be in Crisis

Sep 21 2022

Putin’s Kremlin Is in Disarray

The Russian president’s erratic actions are not those of a secure leader.
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It’s Time to Prepare for a Ukrainian Victory

Sep 11 2022

It’s Time to Prepare for a Ukrainian Victory

The liberation of Russian-occupied territory might bring down Vladimir Putin.
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The Belarusian Fighters

Sep 7 2022

The Belarusian Fighters

The volunteers of the Kalinouski Regiment are taking up arms in Ukraine in the hopes of bringing change to their own country.
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Biden Gambles That “We the People” Still Exist

Sep 2 2022

Biden Gambles That “We the People” Still Exist

Countering Trump’s anti-democratic movement isn’t a normal political challenge.
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Gorbachev Never Realized What He Set in Motion

Aug 31 2022

Gorbachev Never Realized What He Set in Motion

Almost nobody has ever had such a profound impact on an era, while understanding so little about it.
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Aug 15 2022

When Russia Schemes, Moldova Suffers

A tiny country has democratic ambitions. Putin has other ideas.
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Aug 10 2022

The Other Ukrainian Army

Imperiled by Russian invaders, private citizens are stepping forward to do what Ukraine’s government cannot.
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Russia War Crimes

Jul 13 2022

Russia’s War Against Ukraine Has Turned Into Terrorism

The Russian military isn’t just bombing civilians. It’s also targeting the laws and values that protect human rights.
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Boris Johnson’s Fake Populism Reaches Its Logical End

Jul 7 2022

Boris Johnson’s Fake Populism Reaches Its Logical End

A prime minister’s absurd posturing led to his undoing—and will keep haunting his country.
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If the January 6 Hearings Don’t Change Minds, Nothing Will

Jun 29 2022

If the January 6 Hearings Don’t Change Minds, Nothing Will

The committee is laying out the facts in a way optimally designed to cultivate trust.
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Defeating Putin Is the Only Route to Peace in Ukraine

May 23 2022

Defeating Putin Is the Only Route to Peace in Ukraine

Offering the Russian president a face-saving compromise will only enable future aggression.
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World War II Is All That Putin Has Left

May 11 2022

World War II Is All That Putin Has Left

The regime offers Russians little more than selective memories of Soviet-era military triumph.
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Ukraine and the Words That Lead to Mass Murder

Apr 25 2022

Ukraine and the Words That Lead to Mass Murder

First comes the dehumanization. Then comes the killing.
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Liberation Without Victory

Apr 15 2022

Liberation Without Victory

In a wide-ranging conversation at his compound in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tells The Atlantic what Ukraine needs to survive—and describes the price it has paid.
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There Is No Liberal World Order

Mar 31 2022

There Is No Liberal World Order

Unless democracies defend themselves, the forces of autocracy will destroy them.
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A Ukrainian Victory Is the Only Acceptable Endgame

Mar 22 2022

A Ukrainian Victory Is the Only Acceptable Endgame

The Ukrainians and the world’s democratic powers must work toward a goal.
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Why We Should Read Hannah Arendt Now

Mar 17 2022

Why We Should Read Hannah Arendt Now

The Origins of Totalitarianism has much to say about a world of rising authoritarianism.
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The West Should Stop Doing Global Kleptocrats So Many Favors

Mar 15 2022

The West Should Stop Doing Global Kleptocrats So Many Favors

By enabling corrupt oligarchs, we undermined democracy. We need a new strategy.
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The Impossible Suddenly Became Possible

Mar 1 2022

The Impossible Suddenly Became Possible

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the West’s assumptions about the world became unsustainable.
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Calamity Again

Feb 23 2022

Calamity Again

No nation is forced to repeat its past. But something familiar is taking place in Ukraine.
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There Are No Chamberlains in this Story

Feb 20 2022

There Are No Chamberlains in This Story

Everyone present at the Munich security conference agreed that a Russian invasion of Ukraine will trigger severe sanctions.
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Why the West’s Diplomacy With Russia Keeps Failing

Feb 12 2022

Why the West’s Diplomacy With Russia Keeps Failing

A profound failure of the Western imagination has brought Europe to the brink of war.
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The Reason Putin Would Risk War

Feb 3 2022

The Reason Putin Would Risk War

He is threatening to invade Ukraine because he wants democracy to fail—and not just in that country.
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The US is naive about Russia

Jan 3 2022

No One in Kyiv Knows Whether Russia Is Bluffing

Putin is right about one thing: A free, prosperous Ukraine is a threat to his autocratic regime.
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Public Life Can’t Survive Without a Center

Dec 10 2021

Public Life Can’t Survive Without a Center

The loudest, most prominent voices in public life are not always the most influential. Some of the people who leave the most profound impact—the ones who actually shape the thinking of a generation—do so quietly. Fred Hiatt, who died earlier this week, was one of those people. Hiatt was not exactly silent. You may have …

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The Kleptocrats Next Door

Dec 8 2021

The Kleptocrats Next Door

Illustration by Javier Jaén   In 2010, things started going wrong at the steel plant in Warren, Ohio, a Rust Belt town that went on to cast its votes twice for Donald Trump. A cooling panel started leaking, and the furnace operator didn’t see the leak in time; the water hit molten steel, leading to …

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The Attack on Russia’s Past Is Also an Attack on the Future

Dec 8 2021

The Attack on Russia’s Past Is Also an Attack on the Future

One night in October, a group of masked men burst into the Moscow offices of Memorial, the celebrated Russian historical society and civil-rights organization, and disrupted a screening of Mr. Jones, a film about the Ukrainian famine of 1932–33. They shouted, gesticulated, and chanted “fascists” and “foreign agents” at the audience. Police were called, but …

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The Bad Guys Are Winning

Nov 15 2021

The Bad Guys Are Winning

Illustrations by Michael Houtz     The future of democracy may well be decided in a drab office building on the outskirts of Vilnius, alongside a highway crammed with impatient drivers heading out of town. I met Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya there this spring, in a room that held a conference table, a whiteboard, and not much …

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The Manufactured Migrant Crisis on Europe’s Doorstep

Nov 13 2021

The Manufactured Migrant Crisis on Europe’s Doorstep

Wojtek Radwanski / AFP / Getty A small Kurdish boy is sitting on the ground in a damp Polish forest, a few miles from the eastern border with Belarus. The air is heavy with cold and fog. The boy is crying. Around the boy, sitting in a circle, are his parents, uncles, and cousins, all …

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Tucker Carlson Is Stirring Up Hatred of America

Nov 2 2021

Tucker Carlson’s Sinister New Documentary

Selcuk Acar / NurPhoto / Getty; Chip Somodevilla / Getty; The Atlantic All around you are swirling scenes of violence-explosions in Baghdad, ISIS operatives slitting the throat of an infidel, the chaos around the U.S. Capitol on January 6. You see jarring images of blood and brutality; you hear the grating sound of screaming; you …

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Bernard-Henri Lévy Doesn’t Care If You Snicker at Him

Oct 25 2021

Bernard-Henri Lévy Doesn’t Care If You Snicker at Him

Marc Roussel Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French philosopher who wears elegant suits, cites Hegel, and visits war zones. The first part of his new book, The Will to See, references conversations with Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze, among other French postmodernists; the latter part describes horrific scenes of violence in Somalia, …

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The Return of the Scarlet Letter

Aug 31 2021

The Return of the Scarlet Letter

Illustrations by Nicolas Ortega   “It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner’s experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length.” So begins the tale of Hester Prynne, as recounted in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter. As readers of …

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Liberal Democracy Is Worth a Fight

Aug 20 2021

Liberal Democracy Is Worth a Fight

Afghan National Army at the border of Pakistan. / Moises Saman / Magnum Of all the empty, pointless statements that are periodically repeated by Western politicians, none is more empty and pointless than this one: “There can be no military solution to this conflict.” That was what Ban Ki-moon, then the UN secretary-general, said back …

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Tucker Carlson’s Self-Loathing International Tourism

Aug 6 2021

Tucker Carlson’s Self-Loathing International Tourism

Tucker Carlson is spending a week in Budapest in order to annoy Americans and everybody else who believes in the ideals of America: the rule of law, a free press, free elections, the conviction that democracy is preferable to autocracy. Showing how much he despises the United States, its Constitution, and its heritage, the Fox …

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The MyPillow Guy Really Could Destroy Democracy

Jul 29 2021

The MyPillow Guy Really Could Destroy Democracy

When you contemplate the end of democracy in America, what kind of person do you think will bring it about? Maybe you picture a sinister billionaire in a bespoke suit, slipping brown envelopes to politicians. Maybe your nightmare is a rogue general, hijacking the nuclear football. Maybe you think of a jackbooted thug leading a …

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What Marxism and 'Critical Race Theory' Have in Common

Jun 28 2021

What Marxism and ‘Critical Race Theory’ Have in Common

“I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a Communist.” – General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking to the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday “He’s not just a pig-he’s stupid.” – Tucker Carlson, Fox News television host, describing Milley Back in the 1980s, comparative-literature majors at …

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‘Stop the Steal’ Goes Global

Jun 17 2021

‘Stop the Steal’ Goes Global

Here’s a quiz: Which world leader made the following statements? “We are witnessing the greatest election fraud in the history of the country, in my opinion in the history of any democracy.” “This may be the most important speech I’ve ever made. I want to provide an update on our ongoing efforts to expose … …

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The Oligarchs Who Turn Democracy Into Something Else

Jun 9 2021

The Oligarchs Who Turn Democracy Into Something Else

In 2015, Daniel Obajtek was the county commissioner of Pcim, a tiny district south of Kraków and north of the Polish-Slovak border. “County commissioner” is perhaps a grand-sounding title, but I can’t find a better one. In Polish, the term for the job he held is wójt, an old-fashioned word that means something like “village …

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If Belarus Gets Away With It, Other Dictators Will Follow

May 24 2021

If Belarus Gets Away With It, Other Dictators Will Follow

Even when our most basic civilizational values are in dispute, there are a few sets of rules and regulations that we nevertheless manage to share. The laws of the sea, for example, or the norms governing the conduct of air-traffic controllers. Pilots of any nationality, even when flying to Caracas, Havana, or Pyongyang, have no …

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Navalny Is Showing Russia What Courage Is

Apr 22 2021

Navalny Is Showing Russia What Courage Is

When Alexei Navalny boarded a plane to Moscow on January 17, he turned his life into a metaphor. He knew it, his wife knew it, and everybody else on the plane knew it. So did the millions of people who had watched his documentary videos, who had seen the witty interviews he did on the …

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What America’s Vaccination Campaign Proves to the World

Apr 10 2021

Mass Vaccination Is a Show of American Might

Every so often, an emerging technology changes the global balance of power, alters alliances, and shifts the relationships among nations. After World War II, nuclear weapons overthrew all of the existing geopolitical paradigms. The countries that got the bomb were considered global powers; countries that did not have it sought it, so that they could …

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The Science of Making Americans Hurt Their Own Country

Mar 19 2021

How Russia Got Americans to Do Its Dirty Work

The National Intelligence Council has released an unclassified report assessing, retrospectively, foreign threats to the 2020 election. It has a few twists and turns: The Iranian government attempted to run some kind of online influence campaign; the Chinese government considered doing the same but then dropped the idea. But most of the report is about …

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How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire

Mar 8 2021

The Internet Doesn’t Have to Be Awful

Illustrations by Yoshi Sodeoka This article was published online on March 8, 2021. To read the diary of Gustave de Beaumont, the traveling companion of Alexis de Tocqueville, is to understand just how primitive the American wilderness once seemed to visiting Frenchmen. In a single month, December 1831, Tocqueville and Beaumont were on a steamship …

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A Real Place Deserves Real Rights

Feb 21 2021

D.C. Statehood Is a Matter of Justice

A couple of years ago, in the halcyon days before the pandemic, I went with a small group of friends to visit Cedar Hill, Frederick Douglass’s house in the southeastern corner of Washington, D.C. On the way there, we drove past the rowhouses of what used to be called Uniontown, the city’s first suburb, constructed …

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Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

Feb 5 2021

America’s Soviet-Style Vaccine Rollout

If you are the child of elderly parents in parts of the United States right now, and if you are trying to get them a COVID-19 vaccine, you are living in a shortage economy, a world of queues and rumors, a shadowy land of favoritism and incompetence—a world not unlike the world of the very …

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Coexistence Is the Only Option

Jan 20 2021

The Rebels Are Still Among Us

They could be realtors or police officers, bakers or firefighters, veterans of American wars or CEOs of American companies. They might live in Boise or Dallas, College Park or College Station, Sacramento or Delray Beach. Some are wealthy. Some are not. Relatively few of them were at the United States Capitol on January 6, determined …

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Europeans Recognize Trumpism for What It Is

Jan 13 2021

Luxembourg Has Had Enough of Trump

Lucky are the foreign ministers of very small, very consensus-driven countries, for those who play their cards right sometimes get to hold office for many years. One of the luckiest card players out there is Jean Asselborn, the amusing polyglot who has been the foreign minister of Luxembourg since 2004. Although his country is tiny …

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What Trump and His Mob Taught the World About America

Jan 7 2021

What Trump and His Mob Taught the World About America

We have promoted democracy in our movies and books. We speak of democracy in our speeches and lectures. We even sing about democracy, from sea to shining sea, in our national songs. We have entire government bureaus devoted to thinking about how we can help other countries become and remain democratic. We fund institutions that …

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Trump and His Heirs Dream of Endless Victory

Jan 5 2021

Trump’s Fantasies Are the GOP’s Future

If you can spare an hour, do listen to the full tape of the conversation between the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. Whichever adjective you use to describe Trump—delusional, demented, narcissistic—this recording shows that he is unwell. His grip on reality is loose. He is by …

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Why Won’t Emily Murphy Just Do Her Job?

Nov 23 2020

Why Won’t Emily Murphy Just Do Her Job?

I don’t know for certain that Emily Murphy gets up in the morning, looks in the mirror and says to herself, “You are a good person.” But I am willing to bet that she does. Most people in her position—most people who are undermining the rules of their group, destroying their institution, harming their society—are …

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The World Is Never Going Back to Normal

Nov 18 2020

The World Is Never Going Back to Normal

In the hours and days after American news networks declared him the victor on November 7, President-elect Joe Biden received congratulatory tweets and statements from American allies around the world. Even Fox News sounded excited by the list of well-wishers, who, the channel noted, included “British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian …

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Trump Won’t Accept Defeat. Ever.

Nov 6 2020

Trump’s Forever Campaign Is Just Getting Started

While you watch Donald Trump’s presidency stagger to what appears to be its ugly end, always keep in mind how it began: Trump entered the political world on the back of the birther conspiracy theory, a movement whose importance was massively underestimated at the time. Aside from its racist undertones, think about what a belief …

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The Answer to Extremism Isn’t More Extremism

Oct 30 2020

The Radicalization Is Mutual

As one of the ugliest and most divisive American presidential campaigns in our history coasts to its finish, President Donald Trump’s defenders are making their closing arguments. Some of them assert that they like Trump’s policies; his ethical violations or his abuses of his office for personal gain don’t bother them. These views come from …

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You’re Not Supposed to Understand the Rumors About Biden

Oct 23 2020

The Smears Against Biden Don’t Need to Make Any Sense

On Tuesday, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham broke some news: An “investigative journalist” named Matthew Tyrmand had uncovered a cache of 26,000 emails belonging to Hunter Biden’s disgraced business partner Bevan Cooney, who is now in jail. Tyrmand claimed that he had gotten hold of the emails via a person in the same facility as Cooney …

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The U.S. Shouldn’t Be a ‘Sleazy Offshore Principality’

Oct 14 2020

The U.S. Shouldn’t Be a ‘Sleazy Offshore Principality’

Instead of asking questions of Amy Coney Barrett at the first meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave a brief lecture—with charts—on dark money, political-influence campaigns, and the unknown millionaires who have long sought to shape America’s courts. Anyone surprised by this performance shouldn’t have been. Whitehouse, a Democrat, previously served as …

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How China Outsmarted the Trump Administration

Oct 8 2020

The U.S. Used to Write the Rules—Now China Does

Back in May, when President Donald Trump called for America to stop funding the World Health Organization, he presented a list of the WHO’s recent failures: the organization’s initial failure to flag the spread of the novel coronavirus; its initial failure to follow up when Taiwan—a country excluded from the WHO because of Chinese objections—inquired …

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Il Donald

Oct 6 2020

Il Donald

For reasons that need no elucidation, I spent a few hours this morning watching Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1945, performing in the old newsreel clips that now float around the internet. It wasn’t the verbal content I was after, just the imagery. The staged entrances. The gesticulation, the posturing, the …

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A citizen’s guide to defending democracy

Oct 6 2020

A Citizen’s Guide to Defending the Election

In normal times, Americans don’t think much about democracy. Our Constitution, with its guarantees of free press, speech, and assembly, was written more than two centuries ago. Our electoral system has never failed, not during two world wars, not even during the Civil War. Citizenship requires very little of us, only that we show up …

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Trump is the Super-Spreader of Disinformation

Oct 3 2020

Trump Is a Super-Spreader of Disinformation

A super-spreader—a term we didn’t much use nine months ago—is a person with a contagious disease who gives it to a lot of other people. In the coronavirus pandemic, super-spreaders have played an outsize role. Scientists have identified super-spreaders who have infected dozens of people with the virus, while others with the illness haven’t infected …

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Lying for Trump Comes at a Cost

Sep 25 2020

Lying for Trump Comes With a Cost

I glanced at the story, read it, and then moved on to something else. But the story of William B. Crews kept bothering me, because it might be a harbinger of things to come. Crews is—or was—an employee of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the federal agency run by Anthony Fauci. While …

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Don't Make the Election About Court

Sep 20 2020

Don’t Make the Election About the Court

I know that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s empty Supreme Court seat has provoked an epic, long-awaited clash between Democrats and Republicans, that the very principle of judicial independence hangs dangerously in the balance. I realize that the social-media wave cannot be stopped, that the talking heads cannot be silenced, and that Democrats in Congress must fight …

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In Trump’s Virtual World, Real Catastrophes Do Not Compute

Sep 13 2020

In Trump’s Virtual World, Real Catastrophes Do Not Compute

Oregon is on fire. Throughout the state, tens of thousands of people have been forced to take refuge. They are sleeping in their cars, in a convention center, on the floors of packed prisons. Several towns have been destroyed. Cities have been evacuated. Hundreds of homes have burned. The suburbs of Portland are threatened, and …

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Trump’s True Relationship With Russia Has Never Been Revealed

Sep 4 2020

Trump’s True Relationship With Russia Has Never Been Revealed

Getty / Arsh Raziuddin / The Atlantic Fate offered Peter Strzok a place in history that he never sought. The son of an Army officer, Strzok also served in the United States military before joining the FBI’s counterintelligence operation in 1996. He excelled at his job: In 2001, he was part of the team that …

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The 22-Year-Old Blogger Behind Protests in Belarus

Aug 21 2020

The 22-Year-Old Blogger Behind Protests in Belarus

In the videos posted last Sunday from Belarus, thousands of people can be seen streaming into the center of Minsk, walking up the broad avenues, gathering in a park. In smaller cities and even little towns—Brest, Gomel, Khotsimsk, Molodechno, Shklov—they are walking down main streets, meeting in squares, singing pop songs and folk songs. They …

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How to Beat Populists When the Facts Don’t Matter

Aug 9 2020

How to Beat Populists When the Facts Don’t Matter

A few weeks ago, I went to a political rally in a farmyard. The Polish presidential candidate Rafał Trzaskowski was speaking; in the background, a golden wheat field shimmered in the late-afternoon sun. The audience was enthusiastic—the host, a local farmer, had spread news of the candidate’s visit only the day before—but the juxtaposition of …

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The World Putin Made

Jul 27 2020

The World Putin Made

ILLUSTRATION BY CELINA PEREIRA; BSTU; ULRICH HÄSSLER / ULLSTEIN BILD / GETTY It was December 1989, the Berlin Wall had fallen, and in Dresden, crowds were gathering outside the headquarters of the Stasi, the East German secret police, shouting insults and demanding access. Nearby, frantic KGB officers—the Soviet advisers whom the Stasi had long referred …

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Trump Is Putting On a Show in Portland

Jul 23 2020

Trump Is Putting On a Show in Portland

The very idea seems, on the face of it, sheer madness. In Portland, Oregon, federal security officers dressed for combat—wearing jungle-camouflage uniforms with unclear markings, carrying heavy weapons, using batons and tear gas—are patrolling the streets, making random arrests, throwing people into unmarked vans. The officers do not come from institutions that specialize in political …

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Laura Ingraham’s Descent Into Despair

Jul 16 2020

Laura Ingraham’s Descent Into Despair

“It was cocktail hour on the opening day of the new, Republican-dominated Congress, and the long, chandelier-lighted parlor of David Brock’s town house in Georgetown was filling up with exuberant young conservatives fresh from events on the Hill.” That was the opening sentence, in 1995, of a New York Times Magazine cover story called “The …

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Poland’s Rulers Made Up a ‘Rainbow Plague’

Jul 13 2020

Poland’s Rulers Made Up a ‘Rainbow Plague’

Rare is the election campaign that truly hinges on a single issue. But in the run-up to Sunday’s presidential election in Poland, “LGBT”—an English acronym that sounds strange and foreign in Polish—was unquestionably the dominant theme. The coronavirus pandemic is still ravaging the world, an economic crisis looms, and international politics are in turmoil. Yet …

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Trump Is Turning America Into the ‘Shithole Country’ He Fears

Jul 3 2020

Trump Is Turning America into the ‘Shithole Country’ He Fears

There is a lot of learned material written about nationalism—scholarly books and papers, histories of it, theories of it—but most of us understand that nationalism, at its heart, at its very deepest roots, is about a feeling of superiority: We are better than you. Our country is better than your country. Or even—and apologies, but …

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The Voice of America Will Sound Like Trump

Jun 22 2020

The Voice of America Will Sound Like Trump

Of all the myriad Washington bureaucrats, diplomats, congressional staffers, and politicians who spend their time thinking about U.S.-China policy, probably no one has actually triggered the Chinese more than Libby Liu. For 14 years, Liu was the president of Radio Free Asia, an independent but congressionally funded broadcaster that transmits news and information in Mandarin, …

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Resist the Urge to Simplify the Story

Jun 3 2020

Resist the Urge to Simplify the Story

Like most Americans, I am nowhere near any violence right now. Nevertheless, I am hearing and seeing violence on a series of screens: television screens, smartphone screens, computer screens. Even in a room as quiet as mine—outside the window I can see grass and trees—the cacophony is almost unbearable. It’s as if different choruses are …

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History Will Judge the Complicit

Jun 1 2020

History Will Judge the Complicit

On a cold March afternoon in 1949, Wolfgang Leonhard slipped out of the East German Communist Party Secretariat, hurried home, packed what few warm clothes he could fit into a small briefcase, and then walked to a telephone box to call his mother. “My article will be finished this evening,” he told her. That was …

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A Study in Leadership

May 15 2020

A Study in Leadership

One knows, of course, that Donald Trump behaves differently from the leaders of other countries, especially the leaders of other Western democracies. One knows that he disdains facts; that he does not read briefing papers; that he has no organizational talents; that he does not know how to make use of militaries, bureaucracies, or diplomatic …

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NICK LEVENESQUE Picture

May 3 2020

This Time, Americans Are Doing Nothing

It looks, at first, like one of a zillion unfunny video clips that now circulate on the internet: “Once Upon a Virus” features cheap animation, cheesy music, and sarcastic dialogue between China—represented by a Lego terra-cotta warrior with a low, masculine voice—and the United States, represented by a Lego Statue of Liberty with a high, …

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In Hungary the Coronavirus Is Just an Excuse

Apr 3 2020

In Hungary, the Coronavirus Is Just an Excuse

Viktor Orbán is the prime minister of Hungary. He has been in power since 2010. During that time, he has underinvested in hospitals. Instead, public money has gone to pet projects, many of them related to the sports he enjoys. In his home village, Felcsút, the government built an elaborate soccer stadium with a heated …

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when-disease-comes-rulers-grab-more-power

Mar 23 2020

When Disease Comes, Rulers Grab More Power

On March 13—Friday the 13th, as it happened—my husband was driving down a Polish highway when he turned on the news and learned that the country’s borders would shut down in 24 hours. He pulled over and called me. I bought a ticket from London to Warsaw minutes later. I don’t live there all of …

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corona-virus-called-americas-bluff

Mar 15 2020

The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff

On July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy sailed into Tokyo Bay with two steamships and two sailing vessels under his command. He landed a squadron of heavily armed sailors and marines; he moved one of the ships ostentatiously up the harbor, so that more people could see it. He delivered a …

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Mar 2 2020

Epidemics Reveal the Truth About the Societies They Hit

BOLOGNA, Italy—I am sitting in the middle of this northern Italian city, two hours’ drive from the Lombardian towns that have been quarantined. At this precise moment in time, Bologna has not produced a single instance of the new coronavirus. One or two people with the disease, known as COVID-19, have been moved into the …

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Venezuela Is the Eerie Endgame of Modern Politics

Feb 27 2020

Venezuela Is the Eerie Endgame of Modern Politics

Last month, Juan Guaidó appeared in Washington in the role of political totem. Venezuela’s main opposition leader—the man who is recognized by that country’s National Assembly, millions of his fellow citizens, and several dozen foreign countries as the rightful president of Venezuela—was one of the special guests at the State of the Union address. President …

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Reagan ED REINKE / AP

Feb 10 2020

This Is How Reaganism and Thatcherism End

This article was updated at 10:17 ET on February 10, 2020 In an Italian hotel ballroom of spectacular opulence—on red velvet chairs, beneath glittering crystal chandeliers and a stained-glass ceiling—the conservative movement that once inspired people across Europe, built bridges across the Iron Curtain and helped to win the Cold War came, finally, to an …

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Jan 29 2020

Brexit Reveals a Whole New Set of Political Wounds

FRANCISCO SECO / AP IMAGES One evening last week, I found myself dining in the House of Lords just as the “European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill”—the law that will finalize Brexit—was wending its way through the final stages of the British legislative process. When I arrived, the debate was paused; at suppertime, formally speaking, the …

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The Disturbing Campaign Against Poland’s Judges

Jan 28 2020

The Disturbing Campaign Against Poland’s Judges

Anek Skarzynski / AFP / Getty Last summer, a very unusual scandal unfolded in Poland—or rather, a very ordinary scandal, but with some unusual protagonists. A journalist at a Polish news website, Onet.pl, exposed the existence of an organized online trolling campaign designed to discredit public figures. An everyday occurrence, of course. Except that this …

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Putin - PETER ANDREWS / REUTERS

Jan 5 2020

Putin’s Big Lie

In the opening scene of the most famous Polish movie of the past two decades, a crowd of anxious, desperate people—on foot, riding bikes, leading horses, carrying bundles—walks onto a bridge. To their immense surprise, they see another group of anxious, desperate people heading toward them, walking from the opposite direction. “People, what are you …

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The False Romance of Russia - JERRY COOKE / CORBIS VIA GETTY

Dec 12 2019

The False Romance of Russia

JERRY COOKE / CORBIS VIA GETTY Sherwood Eddy was a prominent American missionary as well as that now rare thing, a Christian socialist. In the 1920s and ’30s, he made more than a dozen trips to the Soviet Union. He was not blind to the problems of the U.S.S.R., but he also found much to …

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