I Should Have Seen This Coming
When I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, there were two types of people: those who cared earnestly about ideas, and those who wanted only to shock the left. The reactionary fringe has won.
May 2025
In This Issue
On fighting autocracy: The hollow men, the Hungarian model, the dual legal state, and how the reactionary fringe won. Plus Ringo Starr at 84, Dwyane Wade, Leonard Bernstein, how to define classical music, the world porn made, R. Crumb, biblical miracles, Nvidia's king of tech, and more.
It's Later Than You Think
The Hollow Men
It takes a special talent to betray an entire worldview without missing a beat.
America’s Future Is Hungary
MAGA conservatives love Viktor Orbán. But he’s left his country corrupt, stagnant, and impoverished.
America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State
For most people, the courts will continue to operate as usual—until they don’t.
Get the digital edition of this issue.
Subscribers can access PDF versions of every issue in The Atlantic archive. When you subscribe, you’ll not only enjoy all of The Atlantic’s writing, past and present; you’ll also be supporting a bright future for our journalism.Features
Photo-illustration by Paul Spella* What Porn Taught a Generation of Women
It colored our ambitions, our sense of self, our relationships, our bodies, our work, and our art.
Dina Litovsky for The Atlantic When I’m 84
The world still needs Ringo Starr.
Arielle Bobb-Willis for The Atlantic Dwyane Wade’s Greatest Challenge
The Hall of Famer reached the highest heights of the basketball world. Now he’s figuring out the type of man and father he wants to be.
Brandstaetter / Getty How Leonard Bernstein Changed the Canon
In 1966, the conductor arrived in Vienna with a mission: to restore Gustav Mahler’s place in 20th-century music.
Dispatches
Bruce Davidson A New Force of Indian Country
In 1969, my father gave voice to an activist generation of Native Americans.
Culture & Critics
Composite of Robert Crumb comics by The Atlantic* The Dark Weirdness of R. Crumb
The illustrator dredged the depths of his own subconscious—and tapped into something collectively screwy in America.
Illustration by Pierre Buttin Do You Actually Know What Classical Music Is? Does Anyone?
The term is applied to radically different compositions across more than 1,000 years of history. We need a better definition.
Illustration by Isabella Cotier Who Needs Intimacy?
Influential novelists are imagining what women’s lives might look like without the demands of partners and children.
Illustration by Ricardo Santos. Source: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP / Getty; USGS Publications Warehouse; Rawpixel. The New King of Tech
How Jensen Huang built Nvidia into a nearly $3 trillion business
Illustration by Liz Hart. Source: Alamy. What to Make of Miracles
In a new book, Elaine Pagels searches for the narrative origins of Jesus’s most wondrous acts.
Departments
The Atlantic The Commons: Who’s to Blame for America’s Housing Crisis?
Readers respond to our March 2025 cover story and more.
The Atlantic Caleb's Inferno: May 2025
A devilish crossword puzzle
Poetry
Illustration by Liz Hart 
Illustration by Liz Hart
