Today's Liberal News

“Gum Up the Works”: David Sirota’s Advice to Democrats on Reversing Trump’s Power Grab

We discuss the first month of President Donald Trump’s second term in office — and the response from the Democratic Party — with journalist David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever. He notes that despite Republicans holding all three branches of the federal government, Trump has mainly used executive orders and other decrees to impose his will instead of using legislation.

‘It’s a Psyop’

Shortly before 11 a.m. on Sunday, the 80,000 physicians, health scientists, disease detectives, and others tasked with safeguarding the nation’s health received instructions to respond to an email sent the day before asking them, “What did you do last week?”
The email arose from a Saturday dispatch issued by President Donald Trump on the social-media platform he owns, Truth Social. “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE,” he wrote.

What Would a Liberal Tea Party Look Like?

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 new president has taken office, elected in response to widespread economic dissatisfaction. Now he’s trying to make big changes to the government, and some voters are upset.

Six Older Books That Deserve to Be Popular Today

“To a true collector,” the German philosopher Walter Benjamin noted in his 1931 essay “Unpacking My Library,” “the acquisition of an old book is its rebirth.” This is an apt way to describe the many lives a single volume may live. On its initial printing, it may receive a flurry of attention from readers and reviewers—or none at all.

The Obvious Inefficiency of Elon Musk’s New Order

On Saturday, Elon Musk, the billionaire charged by President Donald Trump with cutting government waste, alerted the public to a massive inefficiency in the federal bureaucracy: Government employees would soon be distracted from their actual work by a request from on high. In aggregate, hundreds of thousands of man-hours would be squandered. But Musk wasn’t putting a stop to this wasteful time suck of a requirement. He was the one imposing it.

How America Wasted Its Most Powerful Economic Weapon

In the months leading up to February 24, 2022, the day Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden warned that such an action would trigger “the most severe sanctions that have ever been imposed”—a threat that many European leaders echoed.
To Daleep Singh, the White House’s top international economic adviser at the time, Biden’s threat could mean only one thing: freezing Russia’s central-bank reserves.

The Injustice of Justice: Keith LaMar Speaks from Ohio Death Row as Movement Grows to Save His Life

We speak with death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his case that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. “I had to find out the hard way that in order for my life to be mine, that I had to stand up and claim it,” says LaMar, who has always maintained his innocence.

Conservatives Win German Election, But Far-Right “Nazi-Curious” AfD Places Second in Historic Rise

Friedrich Merz is poised to become the next German chancellor after his conservative Christian Democratic Union placed first in Sunday’s key election. Social scientist David Bebnowski, speaking from Berlin, tells Democracy Now! that Merz is likely to join with the diminished SPD of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz for another “grand coalition” of establishment parties, which has ruled Germany for much of the last couple decades.