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.Fox News will likely never face any real consequences for the biggest scandal in the history of American media. But will Republican voters finally understand who really looks down on them?First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Elon Musk is spiraling.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave Fox News access to thousands of hours of video from the events of January 6, and Tucker Carlson’s effort to rewrite history isn’t just laughably incompetent; it’s already falling flat.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Barton Gellman: A troubling sign for 2024
“I teach international relations. I think we’re making a mistake in Ukraine.

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.Former President Donald Trump gave a long and deranged speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend.

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.American intelligence officials are concerned that China is considering sending lethal aid to Russia. The West must increase the speed and scale of aid to Ukraine, to remind Beijing that it should stay out of a war Moscow is going to lose.

The war in Ukraine is the final shovel of dirt on the grave of any optimism about the world order that was born with the fall of Soviet Communism. Now we are faced with the long grind of defeating Moscow’s armies and eventually rebuilding a better world.Before we turn to Ukraine, here are a few of today’s stories from The Atlantic.

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.Vladimir Putin gave his annual address to the Russian Federal Assembly today, and it was a farrago of paranoia and lies; meanwhile President Joe Biden humiliated the Kremlin by walking the streets of Kyiv in broad daylight. The Russian president knows he is losing.

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.Right-wing political and media figures regularly level the accusation of “elitism” at other Americans.

During the Cold War, NATO had nightmares of hundreds of thousands of Moscow’s troops pouring across international borders and igniting a major ground war with a democracy in Europe. Western governments feared that such a move by the Kremlin would lead to escalation—first to a world war and perhaps even to a nuclear conflict.That was then; this is now.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is nearly a year old, and the Ukrainians are holding on.

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.Nikki Haley, one of the many Republicans who swore to stop Donald Trump in 2016 and then became a loyal supporter, is now running against Trump.

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.Updated at 8:05 p.m. ET on February 13, 2023Over the past few weeks, U.S. military aircraft have shot down four “objects” over North America, one of which U.S. officials claim was a Chinese surveillance balloon. This is unusual but not a cause for panic.

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.Computer games, like movies, music, and television, are part of our culture and often reflect our fears and worries—especially about the end of the world. And I’ve been playing them for years. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
This is not 1943.

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.Computer games, like movies, music, and television, are part of our culture and often reflect our fears and worries—especially about the end of the world. And I’ve been playing them for years. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
This is not 1943.

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.Only a few years ago, democracies around the world seemed to be turning toward the pluto-populists, the wealthy men and women who convinced millions of ordinary voters that liberal democracy had run its course. They’re still out there—but their star may be dimming.

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.Elections have consequences. Florida’s governor has decided to root out wrong-think at one of Florida’s public colleges, and his harebrained meddling will likely harm the school, but he has every right to do it.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

Some years ago, I got a call from an analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center. After yet another gruesome mass shooting (this time, it was Dylann Roof’s attack on a Bible-study group at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine and wounded one), I had written an article about the young men who perpetrate such crimes.

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.A recent Jeopardy contestant lit into the show, claiming that it isn’t really all that good a measure of a player’s intelligence. He’s got a point—but not the one he thinks he’s making.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

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.Kevin McCarthy has begun his job as speaker by servicing the demands of the most extreme—and weirdest—members who supported him, thus handing the People’s House to the Clown Caucus.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

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 NATO nations are wavering about sending tanks and other advanced weapons to Ukraine. I understand fears of escalation, but if Russia wins in Ukraine, the world will lose.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

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 declining to renew the contract of an adjunct professor, the president of Hamline University issued a statement that underscores the need to defend academic freedom in American universities.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

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.Amid the fight for the House speaker’s gavel, it was easy to forget that George Santos is now actually a member of Congress.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

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.If you were hoping that a razor-thin majority in the House was going to moderate the behavior of congressional Republicans and create some sort of platform for governing, you are about to be disappointed. GOP House leaders have told us what to expect, and we should take them at their word.

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.On the second anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, Joe Biden decorated Americans for courage during the unrest, while on Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives remained in limbo as many of the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election bickered over electing a speaker.

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.On the second anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, Joe Biden decorated Americans for courage during the unrest, while on Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives remained in limbo as many of the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election bickered over electing a speaker.

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.If you think the crisis of American democracy is over, the circus in the House should remind you that a significant portion of the Republican Party has no interest in governing, policy, or democracy itself. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

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.Over the holiday weekend, the Russians fired a wave of missiles at Ukraine—all of which Ukraine claims to have stopped in the first complete defeat of such an attack in this war. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian strike killed scores of Russians at a makeshift military headquarters.

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.This week I asked you all to send in your New Year’s resolutions for 2023, and you answered the call: We had hundreds of responses. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The IRS really, really should have audited Donald Trump.

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.I indulged in my share of gloom in 2022, and I have plenty more where that came from. But I want to make the case for a certain amount of optimism in 2023—and to offer my gratitude to readers of the Daily. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

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.Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote some Twitter fan fiction over the weekend in which he hallucinated the fall of the West and the rise of the Fourth Reich. Elon Musk thought the thread was “epic.” But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

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 president came to Washington not only to seek aid in the fight against Russia but to remind Americans that there is still a “free world,” and only the United States can unite it.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

When Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in Washington—his first time leaving Ukraine since the Russian invasion last winter—he will find a city that is even more obsessed with itself than usual. The Republicans are about to take over the House with a tiny majority and a passel of empowered kooks, and a congressional committee has recommended that a former president of the United States be prosecuted for an attempt to defeat the constitutional transfer of power.