Tom Nichols

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Terrorism, like war, is a word we tend to use almost as a reflex to describe anything that horrifies us. But words can lead us to choose policies, and we should be aware of how we use them.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
“Why I own guns and why I’m part of the problem.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The MAGA movement has been infused with violence and threats of violence for years. Those threats—now aimed at Republican lawmakers—are the new normal in the GOP.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The ongoing drama over electing a speaker of the House is not about governance. It’s about giving Republican voters the drama-filled reality show they voted for and want to see—even at the expense of the country.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Democracies overseas are under siege, and some Americans think the United States should stay out of those struggles. But supporting our friends and allies against barbarism is both in our national interest and part of our identity as a people.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Most of America’s current political environment can be traced back to one moment: the election of Donald Trump. The bedlam continues—and, to understand the stakes in 2024, imagine how different the world would look if he’d lost.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The rest of the planet does not pause while Washington sorts out its internal food fights. Republicans—and other Americans—need to put aside their childish squabbles.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Republicans averted the self-inflicted wound of a government shutdown this weekend. The main casualty of the process was aid for Ukraine, but foreign aid was always a fig leaf—for both GOP dysfunction and the determination of a small group of Republicans to help Russia.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Barry Manilow is an American institution. It’s okay if you think so too: I won’t tell anyone.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Every nation needs parties of the left and the right, but America’s conservative party has collapsed—and its absence will undermine the recovery of American democracy even when Donald Trump is gone.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.In The Atlantic’s next cover story, editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg profiled General Mark Milley, who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the last 16 months of Donald Trump’s presidency.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The United States of America is facing a threat from a sometimes violent cult while a nuclear armed power wages war on the border of our closest allies. And yet, many Americans sleepwalk as if they are living in normal times instead of in an ongoing crisis.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Our excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Mitt Romney has many people talking about the Utah senator’s principles and character, but we should be deeply alarmed by Romney’s warning about the Republican Party.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Eminent legal scholars think the Constitution makes Donald Trump ineligible for office; critics of the idea worry that using the Fourteenth Amendment will create an uncontrollable political weapon.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Explore The Atlantic’s guide to privacy.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Like millions of other Americans, I enjoy many of Sylvester Stallone’s movies. But in recent years, I’ve come to think that Sly might have also been teaching me something.First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic.
Streaming has reached its sad, predictable fate.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Democracy is under attack around the world; in the United States, the summer brought good news and bad news. The institutions of democracy are still functioning, but not for long if enough Americans continue to support authoritarianism.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The first GOP primary debate confirmed the end of the old Republican Party and squelched any hope for a normal presidential election in 2024.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The mercenary always loses.

A plane carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary chief who led a short-lived mutiny two months ago, crashed today in a sparsely populated area northwest of Moscow. According to Russian media, Prigozhin and at least one of his top commanders are dead.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Donald Trump has decided to skip the Republican presidential debates. That’s just as well: Debating Trump is demeaning to everyone involved, and it serves no purpose.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Some Democrats, echoing GOP narratives about Joe Biden’s age, are invested in the idea of challenging the president’s renomination. But how would that actually work?First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Trump discovers that some things are actually illegal.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, indicted Donald Trump and 18 others on an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in her state.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, is the new moderator of the PBS program Washington Week, which will now be called Washington Week With The Atlantic. I talked with Jeff about this new partnership, which launches tomorrow night on PBS at 8 p.m. ET.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment was: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” This weekend, Mike Pence—like most of the GOP field—struggled mightily to criticize Donald Trump while barely mentioning Trump’s name.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The Ukrainian counteroffensive, under way since the spring, is slogging through miles of trenches and minefields. Progress will depend on the battlefield, not on Western impatience.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Donald Trump stands indicted for attempting to thwart the peaceful transfer of power and subvert the rights of American citizens. This is the moment that will decide our future as a democracy.

A short recap of the past 24 hours in Russia reads like the backstory for a fanciful episode of Madam Secretary or The West Wing. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the brutal convicted criminal who leads the Wagner mercenary group, declared war on the Russian Ministry of Defense and marched into the city of Rostov-on-Don. He then headed north for Moscow, carrying his demand for the ousting of Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. The city went on alert.

A simmering political feud in Russia has exploded into a crisis. The head of a Russian mercenary army fighting in Ukraine alongside Moscow’s official military forces has declared war against the Russian ministry of defense, claiming that Russia’s war in Ukraine was all the result of a giant plot by defense bureaucrats to mislead Russian President Vladimir Putin into a pointless conflict.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.The Ukrainians are making progress in their long-awaited counteroffensive. Meanwhile, the Russian president is talking like a gangster and rattling the nuclear saber—again.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.When J. D. Vance first ran for office, he impressed some observers as a bridge between red and blue America. I was less impressed, but as a senator, he’s worse than even I expected; he’s become part of a caucus of panderers who are betraying the people they claim to represent.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned today—without incident—and he has now pleaded not guilty to 37 charges tied to the alleged mishandling of classified documents.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.After the second indictment of Donald Trump, some extremists in the Republican Party have made barely veiled threats of violence against their fellow citizens.