Inside the plot to take down Mike Lee. My story on the unusual coalition in Utah working to unseat the former Trump critic turned Trump acolyte: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Mike Lee has never been a favorite of the Utah establishment, but frustration with him spiked during the Trump years—especially as he picked fights that appeared to put him in conflict with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Evan McMullin—who ran for president in 2016 as an independent and got 21% of the vote in Utah—is running against Lee as an independent, and has already won a key endorsement from a prominent Utah Democrat who wants the party to coalesce behind him. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
McMullin, who told me he won’t caucus with either party if elected, on Mike Lee: “I like to believe he went [to DC] as a principled constitutional conservative but if you aid and abet an effort to overturn the republic, you can no longer claim to be that.” theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
When I asked Mike Lee about Evan McMullin, he said this: “If he wants to run for the United States Senate, it’s his prerogative to do so. He’s a citizen of this country, a resident of Utah apparently, and constitutionally eligible to run for that position” theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Did not realize the plot to take down Mike Lee already has merch.
Inside Alden Global Capital, the secretive hedge fund that's gutting local newspapers across the country—and could be coming to your town next. My cover story for the November issue of @TheAtlantic: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
You probably feel like you already know why local news is dying. Craigslist killed the classifieds, Google/Facebook swallowed the ad market, and hapless newspapers failed to adapt to the internet. There's truth to all that—but the Alden story is different. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Alden has figured out how to profit by driving its papers into the ground: Gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring as much cash as possible out of the enterprise until readers bolt and the paper shrivels or folds. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
The market for anti-Biden books is ice cold. My latest story, on the state of the conservative publishing industry: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
“In the past, it’s been like taking candy from a baby to write a book about the Democratic president,” one frustrated conservative editor told me. Now? “Nobody is trying.” theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
The popular right-wing caricature of Biden as an addled old man doesn't lend itself to book-length villainization. He has "a deeply nonthreatening persona,” says @benshapiro. “You kind of feel bad attacking him, honestly, because it feels like elder abuse" theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Conservatives want to weaponize his bitterness. Liberals are inviting him over for dinner. And a generation of jurisprudence could come down to an unnerving question: Is Brett Kavanaugh out for revenge?
Friends told me Kavanaugh still privately seethes over his confirmation: “I assume when he’s lying in bed at night, it’s hard not to think about it,” one told me. “He was really angry at Democrats for what they did to him and his family," another said. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
But Kavanaugh also desperately wants to gain readmission into polite society. “I don’t think Thomas or Alito gives a shit what The New York Times says about them,” one friend told me. “But I think Brett does.” theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
In the early weeks of the pandemic, I wrote about what then seemed like a strange new phenomenon: Conservatives turning COVID restrictions into a new front in the culture war. 1/ theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Today, with millions of Americans getting vaccinated daily, @emmaogreen expertly captures another phenomenon: Liberals signaling their own political identities with extreme COVID caution—in many cases going well beyond public health recommendations. 2/ theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
“I spent four years fighting Trump because he was so anti-science. I spent the last year fighting people who I normally would agree with … desperately trying to inject science into school reopening, and completely failed.” 3/ theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Early on in the pandemic, I started a new tradition with my kids where every Saturday morning we'd go out for donuts and hold a "music appreciation" class on the drive, focusing on a different band/artist each week.
My kids are pretty young so this was not like an intensive education. I tried to keep it fun, choosing just a few catchy/accessible songs for each artist. (My selfish motivation was that I desperately needed a break from Kidz Bop.)
After a couple months, I started keeping a playlist of all the songs we'd "learned." Every Saturday, I would play songs and let the kids guess the band/artist. Even as the playlist grew to 150+ songs, it got harder and harder to stump them.
More than a year into the pandemic, @TheAtlantic continues to produce the best, liveliest, most vital COVID coverage. Two more examples just from today...