THE ATLANTIC – Politics | Politics & Government

Illustrations by Tyler ComrieOn a July afternoon in 2019, I found myself in a large, sun-dappled room within one of America’s great estates. An assemblage of distinguished jurists, Ivy League professors, nonprofit leaders, journalists, and theologians sat around me in a half circle. I was trying to be on my best behavior, but I blurted out a word dirty enough to make them blanch.In my defense, I thought it was what I had been summoned there to do. An independent commission had spent the previous year contemplating the dismal state of American democracy. In dozens of focus groups that it had convened around the country, participants from across the political spectrum had been quick to identify sources of division—but requests to name the things that united them as Americans were generally met with nervous laughter. The commissioners themselves were convinced that the country needed a shared narrative, but were at odds with one another as to what it should be. And so they called in a handful of outsiders, myself among them, to help inject some fresh thinking into how to find one. The topic was so fraught that we all agreed, before attending, not to be quoted by name.Our first exercise, the facilitator explained, was intended to build trust—listing words or concepts that all Americans could endorse, even if our definitions might vary. He uncapped his marker and looked around expectantly. I sat there, surrounded by an uncomfortable silence, searching for a word so anodyne that no one could possibly object. I thought about the acute improbability of my own existence. One of my grandfathers was born to Greek immigrants from a village in the mountains above Sparta, the other to Jewish immigrants from what is now Belarus. Other ancestors had fled aboard the Mayflower from the persecution of Puritans in England, aboard a steamship from pogroms in Ukraine, aboard a schooner from Spanish repression in Cuba. Where else would a life like mine even be possible?[America at 250: The unfinished revolution]But my loyalty to this country is not merely biographical. I’ve traveled widely enough abroad to acquire real gratitude for the liberties that Americans enjoy, and for what its ideals have meant to those in other lands. I’ve also seen enough of the United States to be painfully aware of how often we fail to live up to those ideals at home. I knew that we were there… [TheTopNews] Read More.

As Democratic heretics go, Representative Dan Goldman isn’t guilty of many crimes against his party. He initially won election to the House after prosecuting the first impeachment of President Trump (whom he now calls a “fascist”), and during two terms, he has voted overwhelmingly with Democratic leaders—even swinging to their left by backing Medicare for All and the abolition of ICE. Goldman isn’t tainted by scandal, nor is he on death’s doorstep; at 50, he’s pretty young for Congress.Yet if the polls in New York’s Tenth Congressional District are anywhere near correct, Goldman will lose his bid for reelection in a primary later this month to another middle-aged Jewish guy aligned with progressive causes. Brad Lander, a former New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate, is challenging Goldman from the left, seeking to parlay an endorsement from the city’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, into a House seat.Lander’s case against Goldman spans from the parochial to the global. Goldman refused to endorse Mamdani’s mayoral bid last year even after the former state legislator captured the Democratic nomination, and he was slow to turn against Israel’s war in Gaza, which Lander (like Mamdani) calls a genocide. “He’s fundamentally out of step with the core progressive values of the district,” Lander told me.Goldman says Lander is exaggerating the gulf between them. “I am a progressive, I have a very progressive agenda, and I am very aligned with the district,” he told me. “I think 95 percent of the time we would vote the same way.” A few Goldman allies I interviewed seemed perplexed that the liberal wing of the party would want to defeat him. After all, he’s no Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema, the centrist Democrats who stood in the way of some of former President Biden’s top priorities. Nor is he like John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat and onetime darling of the left who has become the party’s most ardent defender of Israel. “I don’t think he’s done anything wrong,” Mario Cilento, a New York State labor leader backing Goldman, told me. “Every Congress member gets one vote. If that individual votes the right way, I’m really not sure what else they can do.” To mock attacks on his record, Goldman is running a commercial designed as a scare ad that points out all the “radical progressives” who are supporting him, including Planned Parenthood, teachers’ unions, and public-housing advocates.Goldman’s progressive critics… [TheTopNews] Read More.

The World Cup is nearly here! But so far, at least, no one seems all that excited.It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The biggest sporting event in the world is on the verge of returning to the United States for the first time in more than 30 years. Starting next week, teams from 48 nations will play 104 matches in 16 cities across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Some of the most famous people on Earth will be playing, each recognizable by a single name: Messi, Mbappé, Ronaldo, Salah. After years of buildup, soccer lovers were convinced that Americans were finally—finally!—ready to fully embrace the sport played and watched by far more people than any other around the globe.Yet a tournament that should be hotly anticipated—providing a joyful backdrop to America’s 250th-birthday celebrations—is instead surrounded by angst and even dread. Ticket prices are astronomical, demand for them has slumped, and hotels are half-booked. There is little buzz. The New York City area, which will be home to the World Cup Final next month, is far more focused on the Knicks. There is anxiety about fans traveling from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in light of the Ebola outbreak there. Some international visitors are barred by travel bans, and others are nervous about making the trip. Fans are anxious about the potential for ICE raids outside stadiums or terror attacks targeting gatherings of supporters. Hopes for a strong showing for the U.S. team have mostly faded. President Trump has, to the shock of no one, inserted himself into the proceedings. Hanging over it all is the war in Iran, particularly because it was started by the guy to whom the tournament’s organizers recently awarded a peace prize. The United States’ relations with its co-host countries have grown strained—as have its relations with just about every country that is slated to participate.Perhaps the situation can still be salvaged. Ahead of the previous World Cup, four years ago, there was extraordinary consternation about that tournament’s host, Qatar. Migrant laborers had died in building the nation’s stadiums and infrastructure. Accusations of corruption were rampant. The host country seemed to be an unlikely choice, and its summers were so hot that the tournament had to move to the fall. Plus, the Qataris didn’t even serve beer. All of those concerns were largely forgotten after the transcendent final, when Lionel Messi, of Argentina, triumphed… [TheTopNews] Read More.

As with pretty much everything involving California governance, discerning the state’s election results can devolve into a big, unruly mess. To wit, Tuesday’s primary—particularly the free-for-all campaign for governor to succeed Gavin Newsom—remains too muddled to call, with millions of outstanding ballots likely yet to be counted.At minimum, though, we can speak with some preliminary clarity, let’s call it, on the contest. California elections are consolidated via a “jungle primary” system, in which the top-two finishers, regardless of party, advance to November. As of today, the Trump-endorsed Republican Steve Hilton, a British transplant and former Fox News host, is the leading vote-getter. Two Democrats—the former California attorney general and Joe Biden Cabinet secretary Xavier Becerra and the billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer—are currently sitting in second and third place, respectively. And there’s still a chance both could come from behind to squeeze out Hilton.Democrats appear to have skirted a dreaded “Blue Armageddon” scenario in which their crowded field of middling-or-worse candidates cancel one another out, while the two middling-or-worse Republicans (Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco) advance to the final two. “Bullet dodged” seems to be the prevailing takeaway among Democrats. If Becerra or Steyer winds up facing Hilton, they will clearly be favored to win, given the state’s heavily Democratic makeup and what looks to be an overwhelmingly Democratic-friendly electoral environment across the country.Still, even if Team Blue will likely win in the end, the California governor’s race has been a fiasco for Democrats from the start—and in ways that reflect an ongoing dysfunction that has become a feature of the party in recent years. Even worse, California in 2026 could portend a larger and more destructive performance from the party in 2028.[Mark Leibovich: California’s Blue Armageddon]For starters, Democrats won’t have Donald Trump to save them in the future, as he seems to be doing this year. The president’s unhinged behavior, bungled policies, cartoonish overreach, and GOP-undermining impulses have pretty much been the single best asset that Democrats have had going for them since the end of 2024—rather than them having any actual popularity of their own. For all the hand-wringing, blame-tossing, and “autopsy” reports that followed their 2024 election disaster, the Democratic Party remains a deeply broken brand, lacking in ideological coherence, unifying figures, and a compelling message beyond “Billionaires are bad” and “Trump is terrible.”It’s also worth pointing out that Trump might have sabotaged his own… [TheTopNews] Read More.

We don't know what Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, wrote in his sexually explicit texts with women other than his wife—six, according to his campaign; a dozen, according to an ex-aide—but do we need to? The glaring question that the texts pose to voters about the presumptive Democratic nominee at this point in a pivotal midterm race is: Are we really going to do this again?In 2016, voters were asked to choose between a populist candidate dogged by questions about his integrity, judgment, decency, civility, empathy, and respect for everyone from complete strangers to his own wife, and an overqualified, glass-ceiling-smashing woman. When voters opted for Donald Trump, Democrats were outraged. Now, faced with the choice between Platner and Governor Janet Mills, Maine Democrats have largely backed the populist themselves.Mills suspended her primary bid in April amid a cash shortfall and concerns that she’s too old and old-school to win. At age 78, she understandably gives pause to many Democrats still suffering from Joe Biden–related PTSD. But she’s also one of the few political leaders who have stood up to Trump. A former state attorney general and district attorney, she did it to defend the rule of law.[Mike Nelson: Condemning a Nazi tattoo shouldn’t be this hard]Mills, though, is an endangered species of American politician—one whose playbook the Democrats ought to be following, instead of the one they seem to have stolen from the GOP. In her first term as Maine’s first woman governor, she made a succession of unpopular decisions as she led the state through COVID. “It takes real guts to make decisions that have an overt negative political implication on the abstract proposition that it will save lives,” Angus King, Maine’s independent U.S. Senator and a former governor, told me in 2023. (I wrote a book that year about Mills and her COVID correspondence with a constituent, who sent her a weekly letter of support throughout the first year of the pandemic.) The governor’s tough choices paid off, and Maine emerged with some of the most successful health and economic metrics in the country. Mills won reelection by a historic margin.I was astonished that she allowed me to incorporate her unedited and candid journals from that time into my narrative. She is unusually at ease with herself in public and private, and has cultivated a relatable image, memorably wearing L.L. Bean duck… [TheTopNews] Read More.