The Mess at Airports Is Part of a Larger Pattern
What’s behind the Newark-airport fiasco
The Wrong Way to Motivate Your Kid
When children fall short, many parents’ instinct is to take away something they love. That’s the wrong impulse.
The Default-Parent Problem
Why do so many people assume that Mom knows what’s going on with the kids, and that Dad does not?
A Week of Manufactured Trump Victories
Shashi Tharoor and the Trump grift machine
Silicon Valley Braces for Chaos
The center of the tech universe seems to believe that Trump’s tariff whiplash is nothing compared with what they see coming from AI.
The Cynical Republican Plan to Cut Medicaid
Work requirements set up a thicket of paperwork that leads eligible Medicaid recipients to lose their insurance. That’s the point.
Maybe Star Wars Is Better Without Lightsabers
The TV series Andor achieved greatness by challenging the franchise’s good-and-evil dichotomy.
The Myth of the Poverty Trap
We know how to end extreme poverty. Why haven’t we done it?
Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?
An emerging critical consensus argues that we’ve entered a cultural dark age. I’m not so sure.
The Sociopaths Among Us—And How to Avoid Them
You’re bound to come across the “Dark Triad” type of malignant narcissists in life—and they can be superficially appealing. Better to look for their exact opposite.
How the Ivy League Broke America
The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.
The 2025 Summer Reading Guide
The Atlantic’s writers and editors have chosen fiction and nonfiction to match all sorts of moods.
The Retired J.P. Morgan Executive Tracking Trump’s Deportation Flights
A CFO turned activist has become a go-to source for understanding the administration’s immigration crackdown.
Read The Atlantic’s Interview With Donald Trump
A conversation with the president about executive power, Signalgate, and 24-karat gold
Trump’s Third-Term Ambitions Are Very Revealing
The president sees the Constitution as an obstacle to be surmounted, not a repository of values that he must respect.
Just Let Your Kids Play With Makeup
Many people consider it a red flag. It doesn’t have to be.
The Roman Way to Trash a Republic
When you’re the emperor Augustus, they let you do it.
Trump’s Legal Strategy Has a Name
And it has been deployed by would-be autocrats around the world.
History Will Judge the Complicit
Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?
Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid
It’s not just a phase.
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