Today's Liberal News

What I Learned Retracing the Footsteps of the Capitol Rioters

Standing on the Ellipse, between the White House and the Washington Monument, I heard President Donald Trump deliver his fiery address. “You’re never going to take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong,” he said to the crowd, claiming that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him.

Hope and Resistance: Voices of a People’s History of the United States in the 21st Century

In a special broadcast, we look at voices of a people’s history inspired by the late great historian Howard Zinn’s groundbreaking book, A People’s History of the United States, which helped reshape how history is taught in classrooms. Twenty years ago, Zinn and Anthony Arnove began organizing public readings of historical texts referenced in A People’s History of the United States.

“What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?”: James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass’s Historic Speech

We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.

A New Explanation for One of Ecology’s Most Debated Ideas

This article was originally published by Quanta.More than four decades ago, field ecologists set out to quantify the diversity of trees on a forested plot on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, one of the most intensively studied tracts of tropical forest on the planet. They began counting every tree that had a trunk wider than a centimeter. They identified the species, measured the trunks, and calculated the biomass of each individual.

Play a Game of (Atlantic-Themed) Trivia for the Fourth

Today we’re offering a brief history lesson (and a brief themed diversion). But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Tom Nichols: Reclaiming real American patriotism
The indispensable bureaucrat looking out for Ukraine
The hypocrisy of mandatory diversity statements
What Should the Fourth of July Be?With the Fourth of July comes all the complexities of collective observance—patriotism, fireworks, picnics, apathy, resistance.

Who Really Wrote ‘the Pursuit of Happiness’?

In a playful moment a century ago, the historian Carl Becker pondered this counterfactual: What if Benjamin Franklin, not Thomas Jefferson, had drafted the Declaration of Independence? A scholar of the American Revolution, Becker knew that such a thing was plausible. Franklin was, after all, on the Committee of Five in Philadelphia, which was allotted the job of drawing up the text in June 1776.

“What Arrogance Looks Like”: Supreme Court Justice Alito’s Ruling vs. EPA Allegedly Violates Ethics

On the final day of the Supreme Court’s term, we speak with David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, about recent revelations detailing many of the Supreme Court conservative justices’ close relationships to Republican megadonors, and how allegations of financial impropriety further delegitimize the court’s standing as an objective legal authority. “These are lifetime appointments,” says Dayen. “This is what arrogance looks like.

Short Novels to Dip Into This Summer

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.Reading short novels and encountering a range of characters’ worlds in quick succession can be a singular pleasure, especially in the summertime.First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
Elon Musk really broke Twitter this time.

The Hypocrisy of Mandatory Diversity Statements

John D. Haltigan sued the University of California at Santa Cruz in May. He wants to work there as a professor of psychology. But he alleges that its hiring practices violate the First Amendment by imposing an ideological litmus test on prospective hires: To be considered, an applicant must submit a statement detailing their contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Elon Musk Really Broke Twitter This Time

Twitter may have just had its worst weekend ever, technically speaking. In response to a series of server emergencies, Elon Musk, the Twitter owner and self-professed free-speech “absolutist,” decided to limit how many tweets people can view, and how they can view them. This was not your average fail whale. It was the social-media equivalent of Costco implementing a 10-items-or-fewer rule, or a 24-hour diner closing at 7 p.m.

A Slow Descent Into Devilish Difficulty

Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get Caleb’s writing in your inbox.The ancient Greeks called it katabasis: a test of heroism by descent into the underworld. The deeper you go, the more difficult the journey becomes. But if you can withstand the heat as you approach eternal damnation, you return to Earth’s surface with the wisdom to transcend mortal fear. This mythic quest has long captured the cultural imagination, from Orpheus to Barbarian.