Today's Liberal News

America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State

On September 20, 1938, a man who had witnessed the rise of fascism packed his suitcases and fled his home in Berlin. He arranged to have smuggled separately a manuscript that he had drafted in secret over the previous two years. This book was a remarkable one. It clarified what was unfolding in Berlin at the time, the catalyst for its author’s flight.
The man fleeing that day was a Jewish labor lawyer named Ernst Fraenkel.

When the KKK Came to D.C.

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 century ago, in 1925, the Ku Klux Klan came to Washington, D.C. The Klansmen had arrived in early August: the Kleagles and Dragons and Exalted Cyclopes, regalia folded and packed, families in tow. Loyal men came from the South, as expected, but that was not where the group’s true strength lay.

Elon Musk’s Soap Operas for Conspiracy Buffs

Ever since he bought Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk has been titillating his fans with wild conspiracy theories from supposedly secret files. Now that Donald Trump is back in office—and has granted the world’s wealthiest private citizen free rein to dismantle federal agencies—Musk’s conspiratorial musings are no longer just entertainment for the extremely online. Internet fantasies have become a sufficient pretext for crippling the government.

“Catch and Revoke”: AI-Driven State Dept. Program Targets Pro-Palestinian Students & Visa Holders

We speak with the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel, who warns the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to target international students and other visitors and immigrants to the United States over pro-Palestinian speech. The State Department has reportedly launched a new effort using artificial intelligence to help identify and revoke visas for people the government deems to be supporting U.S.-designated terrorist groups, based primarily on the individuals’ social media accounts.

Mahmoud Khalil Update: From ICE Jail, Khalil Warns of Trump’s War on Dissent & Targeting Palestinians

We get an update on legal efforts to stop the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained for two weeks despite being a legal resident with a green card. The Trump administration has explicitly said it is targeting Khalil because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy during protests at Columbia University last year, invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law to claim he could undermine U.S. foreign policy.

What the JFK File Dump Actually Revealed

In 1962, the CIA had a driver’s license made for one of its officers, James P. O’Connell. It gave him an alias: James Paul Olds. We know this because the document containing the information was released to the public in 2017—part of an effort to declassify information related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But now, thanks to an executive order from President Donald Trump calling for the release of all the classified information pertaining to the incident, we know a bit more.

What Does ‘Constitutional Crisis’ Mean?

Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings, watch full episodes here, or listen to the weekly podcast here.
Fears of a possible constitutional crisis are on the rise following an apparent standoff between Donald Trump and a federal judge after the president was ordered to stop deportation flights traveling to El Salvador.

The Careless People Won

Perhaps the biggest surprise of Careless People, the new tell-all memoir by the former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams, is that a book chronicling the social network’s missteps and moral bankruptcy can still make news in 2025.
The tech giant—now named Meta—seems determined to make this happen itself.