Today's Liberal News

Tom Nichols

The MAGA Memory Hole

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
For years, leading Republicans have chosen to let their memory lapse about things they once said about Donald Trump. It’s a disingenuous forgetting that has deepened since Trump went on trial in New York.

The Cat Who Saved Me

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
I have had cats since I was a boy, and all of them were wonderful, but one of them left a mark on my life forever.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
“What happened to Stormy Daniels is not salacious,” Quinta Jurecic writes.

Autocracies Are Winning the Information War

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
In The Atlantic’s newest cover story, Anne Applebaum details the onslaught of antidemocratic propaganda flooding the United States. If only Americans weren’t so ready to believe so much of it.

A Failure of Imagination About Trump

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Updated at 9:47 p.m. ET on May 2, 2024
In a recent interview with Time magazine, Donald Trump once again told Americans what he will do to their system of government.

The Wasteland Is Waiting for You

The first Fallout game was released in 1997. I was (and am) an avid gamer, and when I played the inaugural entry in what would become a decades-long series, I saw immediately that it was different from almost anything else I’d encountered on the market. Its subtitle labeled it “a post nuclear role playing game,” but this was not the typical, fast-paced, “Radioactive Rambo” shoot-’em-up with an indestructible protagonist roaming a ravaged world to a pulsing electronic soundtrack.

Don’t Let Trump Exhaust You

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
The Trump campaign is trying to turn the electoral process into a moral swamp. Voters are going to have to pace themselves to get to November.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Joe Biden lowered drug prices.

Supporting Trump Means Supporting a Culture of Violence

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Over the weekend, Donald Trump sent out a video with an image of Joe Biden bound like a hostage, and linked to an article with a photo of the daughter of the judge in his hush-money trial in New York. Voters need to confront the reality of what supporting Trump means.

Russia’s Tragedy, Putin’s Humiliation

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Terrorists struck deep inside Russia on Friday, and the conspiracy theories are already spinning.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Donald Trump’s nine lives
What was NBC even thinking?
Social media is not what killed the web.

Trump’s Dangerous January 6–Pardon Promise

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Donald Trump’s plan to pardon people in prison for their crimes on January 6—people he now calls “hostages”—is yet another dangerous and un-American attack on the rule of law.

Putin’s Nuclear Theatrics

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Last spring, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would station nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus. Evidence suggests that this move is imminent, but it is strategically meaningless.

The TV Shows That Don’t Solve Their Mysteries

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
It’s Friday, and we’ve probably all had enough of political news, so instead I’m going to gripe about the decline of my favorite kind of television: “mystery box” shows that center on a secret or a conspiracy. The conceit has gotten out of control.

The TV Shows That Don’t Solve Their Mysteries

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
It’s Friday, and we’ve probably all had enough of political news, so instead I’m going to gripe about the decline of my favorite kind of television: “mystery box” shows that center on a secret or a conspiracy. The conceit has gotten out of control.

Donald Trump Is a National-Security Risk

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Since 1952, the White House has allowed major-party candidates access to classified intelligence briefings so that they will be current on important issues if they win the election. Trump should be denied this courtesy.

The Republican Coping Goes into Overdrive

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Americans claim to dread a Trump-Biden rematch, but some Republicans seem more stunned than anyone else that Trump is back on the ballot. Now they are desperately trying to rationalize supporting their nominee.

It’s Time to End the Election Wishcasting

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After Super Tuesday, all of the pointless wishing for a lightning strike to change the 2024 race should end: The contest is once again an existential test of American democracy.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The Houthis are very, very pleased.

Democracy’s Dark Winter

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Freedom and democracy have endured a long winter of setbacks. Spring will bring its own challenges both overseas and in the United States.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
With Trump’s SCOTUS appeal, justice delayed is justice denied.

Trump Delivers Another Autocratic Tirade

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Donald Trump unleashed a flood of delusions and fascistic threats at CPAC this weekend in a speech to an audience that included actual neo-Nazis, a story overshadowed by the South Carolina GOP primary and his completely predictable defeat of the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley.

Don’t Panic About Russian Space Weapons

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
A brief hubbub erupted in Washington this week over an unspecified “national security threat” that some sources now believe is related to a Russian plan to use nuclear weapons in space. The prospect is cause for concern but not panic.

Trump’s Contempt for Military Service

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The presumptive Republican nominee showed yet again this weekend how little he thinks of America’s men and women in uniform.

Trump Encourages Putin to Attack NATO Members

Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the presumptive Republican nominee, said earlier today that he would side with Russia against NATO and encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to brutalize our allies. Not so long ago, many Americans—and especially most Republicans—would have considered anyone supporting such a view to be little more than a deranged and hateful anti-American fanatic.

If Russia Wins

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Ukrainian defenses are in danger of being destroyed and overrun because House Republicans refuse to provide ammunition and aid. If Russia wins this war, the consequences could be catastrophic.

The Weirdest Presidential Election in History

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
We are heading into a rematch that promises to be weirder than any presidential election we’ve ever experienced. Let’s review where things stand.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
What Joni Mitchell proved at the Grammys
Silicon Valley’s new start-ups are city-states.

Ukraine Needs American Weapons, Not More GOP Drama

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Republicans need to recover their senses about the dire moral and strategic tests Ukraine and the West face in Europe.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The nonsensical impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas
“What I found in San Francisco”
Chicken Littles are ruining America.

The GOP’s Ongoing Moral Surrender to Trump

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The elected officials who quietly defend Donald Trump’s immorality even though they know better are just as bad as the comically devoted Trump courtiers.

The DeSantis-Campaign Implosion Was Inevitable

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign. His loss was inevitable, because Republican voters want Donald Trump.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Pour one out for Ron DeSantis.
Why rich people don’t cover their windows
Gummy vitamins are just candy.

The Age of Incoherent Partisanship

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
The GOP has collapsed as a party, but voters in general don’t seem to care about what parties once represented.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Bill Ackman is a brilliant fictional character.

Trump Wants Revenge—And So Does His Base

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, and he has vowed revenge on his political enemies. His voters want revenge as well—on their fellow citizens.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The ruin that a Trump presidency would mean
You should go to a Trump rally.

Biden Had the Power to Strike the Houthis

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Some of President Joe Biden’s critics argue that he did not have the authority to launch yesterday’s strikes in Yemen, but America’s presidents have significant constitutional powers regarding the use of military force.

Lloyd Austin Owes Americans an Explanation

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized this week, and apparently, the president of the United States didn’t know about it—for days.Austin was admitted to Walter Reed Hospital following complications from an “elective procedure” on New Year’s Day, according to a statement from the Pentagon.

Extremism in the Military Is a Problem

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The United States has long been blessed with a civil-military relationship that is a model of democratic and civic stability. Extremism in the ranks, however, is growing—and dangerous.