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Pity poor Tucker Carlson. Watching Donald Trump’s war in Iran—which Carlson has branded “the single biggest mistake” by a U.S. president in his lifetime—he is ruing his strong support for Trump in the 2024 election.

In 1785, Immanuel Kant introduced his famous “categorical imperative.” Put simply: Act the way you want others to behave. This dictate, a version of the Golden Rule, has been a bedrock of moral philosophy for centuries. But for the New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino, Kant’s “categorical-imperative-type thing” no longer applies. Moral rectitude, in some left-wing corners of the commentariat, is out; flagrant disregard of the social contract is in.

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
The closest thing the United States has to a national monument to the end of slavery is in a park in the capital, a little more than half a mile from the National Mall. It depicts two figures: Abraham Lincoln, tall and stately, holding out his left arm and looking down at a barely clothed Black man with broken shackles kneeling at his feet.

Parallel to the shaky truce between the United States and Iran, a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah has temporarily stopped the fighting in Lebanon, but without settling any of the important questions behind it. That’s a shame, because prospects for a lasting resolution in Lebanon are better than ever—if only Israel would embrace the Lebanese government as the indispensable partner it could be.

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In a recent story, the Atlantic staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick writes about how FBI Director Kash Patel’s colleagues are alarmed by what they describe as erratic behavior and excessive drinking. Sources told Fitzpatrick that, on multiple occasions, members of his security detail had trouble waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated.