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.
Do Democrats need their own Stephen Miller? That’s what the Rolling Stone journalist Asawin Suebsaeng reports hearing from many people on the left. Imagining a progressive version of Donald Trump’s far-right-hand man is hard enough, much less justifying why this might be a good thing.

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Pocket Casts
On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum begins with reflections on how Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown has transformed America into what he calls a “society based on fear.” Frum warns that the president’s methods risk discrediting not just immigration enforcement, but also law, police, and the very idea of democratic legitimacy.

France, Britain, Canada, Australia, and Malta all say they are preparing to recognize a state of Palestine at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly in September. They would join another 147 UN countries that already do so. In some senses, the move is symbolic: It will not change the realities on the ground in the Middle East, at least not in the short term. But it is a major step nonetheless.

Donald Trump loves to speak extemporaneously, and usually, he makes very little sense. (Sharks? The Unabomber? What?) Trying to turn his ramblings into a coherent message is like trying, as an old European saying goes, to turn fish soup back into an aquarium. But he is the president of the United States and holds the codes to some 2,000 nuclear weapons. When he speaks, his statements are both policy and a peek into the worldview currently governing the planet’s sole superpower.

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.
On the surface, yesterday’s White House summit on Ukraine showed an impressively unified front among President Donald Trump, major European leaders, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The participants all smiled and expressed optimism.

Jade Gao / AFP / Getty
Italy’s team competes in the mixed aerobic group final during the 2025 World Games at the Dong’an Lake Sports Park Multi-Function Gymnasium in Chengdu, in China’s Sichuan province, on August 15, 2025.Jade Gao / AFP / Getty
Taiwan’s Chang Yu-Hsin (center) competes in the women’s 15,000-meter speed-skating-road elimination final during the 2025 World Games at Shuyue Park in Chengdu on August 13, 2025.

Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@theatlantic.com.
Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear James” in your inbox.
Dear James,
My late mother’s second husband was pretty mean and made no bones about disliking me in his heyday.

If Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has some notions about strategy, he has been reticent in sharing them. But he does trumpet his commitment to restoring Confederate names to bases and their statues to national military cemeteries, which is absurd and vile. And we know that he thinks civilian academics have little if any place in military education, which is wrong and even more damaging.