THE ATLANTIC – Politics | Politics & Government

After campaigning on promises to end American entanglements overseas, Donald Trump announced a mere month after winning the 2024 presidential election that the United States’ “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for “National Security and Freedom throughout the World.” In his inaugural address, weeks later, he delivered a casus belli against Panama, accusing the country of mistreating the United States: “China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”Now, as the first year of his second term draws to a close, President Trump is mobilizing for war against … Venezuela?The buildup to a possible conflict with Venezuela, which has included attacks on boats and a gathering of forces in the Caribbean, is unusual, even surreal, in its lack of a coherent public rationale. Not only has the administration failed to seek authorization for… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

In 1982, when the Voting Rights Act was up for reauthorization, the Reagan Justice Department had a goal: preserve the VRA in name only, while rendering it unenforceable in practice. A young John Roberts was the architect of that campaign. He may soon get to finish what he started.Last month, at the oral argument in Louisiana v. Callais, a majority of the conservative justices seemed to signal their willingness to forbid any use of race data in redistricting. That could lead to the end of the VRA’s Section 2 protections for minority voters, and allow states across the South to redraw congressional districts currently represented by Black Democrats into whiter, more rural, and more conservative seats, potentially before the 2026 midterms.A central question of the case, hotly debated during oral arguments, is whether Section 2 should prohibit election laws and procedures that have a racially discriminatory effect, or just those… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

If the U.S. Agency for International Development is a front for the CIA, we’re about to find out all about it. A new official inside the agency is prepared to blow the lid off the whole conspiracy.That official is Mike Benz, a right-wing influencer who popularized the notion that Taylor Swift is a secret NATO asset and once wrote, under a pseudonym, “I want white identity politics to grow like wildfire.” Benz rose to prominence last year by spreading fantastical claims about USAID, portraying the agency as a terrorist organization or a spy operation—or both. His comments caught the attention of Elon Musk, setting into motion the dramatic dismantling of the agency. USAID, Benz argued earlier this year, “is notorious for funding the darkest, most controversial, most horrifying projects known to all of mankind.”So it was somewhat surprising for staff remaining at the decimated agency when Benz strode into their… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

Yesterday, Alina Habba turned—where else?—to X, the Trump administration’s second-favorite social-media app, to announce her resignation from a job she did not legally hold. She had “decided to step down” as the top prosecutor in New Jersey, she wrote, after an appeals court ruled last week that she had lacked authority to serve in the role since mid-July. “But do not mistake compliance for surrender,” she warned. “You can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you cannot take New Jersey out of the girl.”Habba’s resignation announcement was as baffling as the legal questions that booted her out of the office. At first, it seemed like the administration was giving up the fight to keep her in the job—until Attorney General Pam Bondi published a companion X post, several minutes later, clarifying that the Justice Department would be appealing the disqualification ruling. (Perhaps you can’t take the girl out… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

What comes after Donald Trump? What compelling social vision can replace MAGA’s offerings and reverse the tide of global populism? In considering these questions, I find myself returning to an unlikely group of 20th-century thinkers: the neoconservatives.These days, when people hear the word neocons, they tend to think of Republicans who supported the Iraq War. But the notoriety the neocons attained for supporting that war has obscured their origins as a dissident faction within the American left, one that was staunchly anti-communist but mostly preoccupied with domestic policy.Here’s why the original neocon thinkers—people such as Irving Kristol, James Q. Wilson, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan—can be so helpful right now: They focused their attention on the bloody crossroads where morality and politics intersect. They saw politics through the lens of not only polling and social-science data, but also literature, philosophy, psychology, and theology. They asked the big questions—not just… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.