Editor’s Note: Panelists on Washington Week With The Atlantic joined to discuss growing opposition to President Trump’s attacks on Iran and what winning a war with unclear objectives could like.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump delivered his first national address since the war with Iran began more than a month ago. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists joined to discuss the president’s remarks, and more.

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The more popular something gets, the less appealing it can start to feel. Take The Pitt: Suddenly, everyone’s watching it and everyone’s talking about it. At a certain point, the excitement starts to make you feel like you should be into it—and just like that, you don’t want to watch it anymore.

In 1976, Karen Batchelor was a young mother desperate for mental stimulation. One day, she went to a library in Detroit to explore her family’s history and unexpectedly found an Irish ancestor who had served as a Revolutionary War soldier on the Pennsylvania frontier. Batchelor, who is Black, was even more surprised when a librarian told her that this discovery qualified her for membership in Daughters of the American Revolution.

At first, in the early days and weeks and even years of my dad’s struggle with dementia, he just seemed more deeply himself. Bruce Jay Parker had always been quirky, in ways that generally delighted his friends and acquaintances, and frequently embarrassed his wife and two daughters. Now he was, simply, more so.

The graduates of America’s most elite universities dominate our economy and culture so disproportionately that the statistics can seem like a mathematical glitch. Students at Ivy League schools and the similarly selective University of Chicago, Duke, Stanford, and MIT together comprise less than half a percent of America’s undergraduate population.