"The draining of U.S. missile stockpiles poses a serious problem for national security. In choosing this conflict with Iran, the United States privileged likely ephemeral gains against an adversary that was a marginal threat over deterrence of peer adversaries"
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"Other wars were bad because they were led by dumb presidents, but a Trump war would be good because Donald Trump is smart.
Yet after the administration’s second wave of air attacks on Iran, the president’s strategy seems more sundown than Sun Tzu."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"Trump's hubris resembles that of the neocons—like them, he believes in American supremacy and is fascinated by the overwhelming power of the U.S. military—but he shares none of their idealism. His only commitment is to himself."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"Trump has created a substantial moral hazard for the United States of a kind not seen since the Hungarian Revolution, in 1956."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"Khamenei and his close advisers behaved, as Robert Conquest used to say, as if controlled secretly by their enemies. They made blunders, such as the decision to sit in a room together for a secret meeting, where they could conveniently be killed in one go"
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Sociopaths are terrific at spotting other sociopaths.
{gift link} www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
"The essence of editing is ethics; it’s the act of caring for the expression of the thoughts of another as if they were your own."
www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...
“Oh yeah, they’re still fucking.”
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
"President Trump’s State of the Union address last night was very like the man who delivered it: divisive, abusive, and childish."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"Beset by scandal, facing multiple defeats in America’s courts, and hitting levels of unpopularity that would make President Richard Nixon nod with empathy, Trump turned the State of the Union into a vulgar, populist carnival."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Donald Trump’s plans to throw the 2026 midterms into chaos are already under way. @dgraham.bsky.social reported on the coming election mayhem in our December issue:
25.02.2026 03:36 — 👍 66 🔁 34 💬 2 📌 3
"If wannabe Nazis now confidently roam the halls of power—and the streets of American cities—it is because Republican leaders have made them feel at home"--longtime (& now former) Republican @radiofreetom.bsky.social.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
History check.
Hitler eyed Greenland during WWII for its North Atlantic strategic value.
Fast forward.
In 2019, Trump, sitting in the Oval Office, floated buying Greenland for its military positioning in the Arctic.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"Greenland appears to have been a lifelong preoccupation of Adolf Hitler’s."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"If AI quickly eliminates white-collar work, the country is going to end up in something much stranger than a downturn, and something much harder to recover from too."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"'That man is the future of America,' Dreher wrote of JD Vance in April. If Trump represents Armageddon, Vance for Dreher may be something like the Rapture."
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
If you know anyone not vaccinating their kids, make sure they read this story. Effective and nauseating use of the second person.
13.02.2026 11:14 — 👍 85 🔁 26 💬 4 📌 0
"Certain critics, such as John Leonard and Elizabeth Hardwick, were usually better stylists than the writers they were reviewing."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
The Democrats Aren't Built for This ... ken martin has one of those resting dread faces ... (Mark Leibovich/The Atlantic)
Main Link | memeorandum Permalink
Trump "'is so fragile that he builds this simulacrum of strength...It looks strong, and it’s enforced by other people thinking it’s strong. But if you actually got in a physical fight with Donald Trump, you’d kick his ass.'”
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
"'If I was bullied as much as these Republicans are by President Trump and his followers, I would be so ashamed to see my family.'”--Senator Ruben Gallego
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
“'You cannot credibly tell the American people that democracy is in danger and the world is ending, and the people that you are putting up on the front lines of fighting back against that genuinely belong in a nursing home.'”
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
“'Republicans are over here being straight-up mercenaries,” Longwell said. “Democrats give everybody Fridays off and talk about work-life balance.” She apologized for yelling into the phone. Democrats “are not built for when the fascists come.'”
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
"Mainframes are like Christopher Walken: They’ve been going nonstop since the 1960s, they’re fantastic at performing peculiar roles (processing payments, safeguarding data), and nobody alive really understands how they work."
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
"Trump doesn’t do 'policy.' Or philosophy. Or grand strategy. He does Donald Trump," his former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes. "His incoherence on regime change is only one piece of evidence in the larger picture of his unfitness to be president."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"We’re witnessing a murder.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special."
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
"Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism."--Carl Jung
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
Why, yet thy scandal were not wip’d away
31.01.2026 15:44 — 👍 411 🔁 88 💬 2 📌 4
Governor Tim Walz: “I mean, is this a Fort Sumter? It’s a physical assault. It’s an armed force that’s assaulting, that’s killing my constituents, my citizens.”
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
"Trump is taking the country on a path to tyranny. The first obligation for each of us is to see it and name it. The next is to figure out what to do about it."
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
