The Atlantic

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has turned a mirror on America. How did we get here? Anne Applebaum and Adrienne LaFrance speak with Adam Harris about political violence in America and abroad:

The deaths of Dr. Ruth and Richard Simmons are a reminder that our world needs more joyful weirdos, Gal Beckerman writes:

The new documentary “Sorry/Not Sorry” explores Louis C.K.’s return, Sophie Gilbert writes—and asks the potent question of who really commands power in the comedy world. https://lnkd.in/eEvh7TXU “Of all the men accused of sexual misconduct during the febrile late 2010s, Louis C.K. came closest to modeling a pathway for redemption,” Gilbert writes. “At the most basic level, he admitted that the allegations against him—that he’d exposed himself to and masturbated in front of younger women in the comedy scene—were true.” C.K. seemed able to comprehend the loaded power dynamics of the industry and said he would “step back and take a long time to listen.” Yet that didn’t seem to happen. In his self-released 2020 stand-up special, C.K. reframed himself as a victim. He kept doing so in the following year, on a special that was “trollishly titled ‘Sorry,’ in which he seemed anything but,” Gilbert writes. “This discrepancy is what ‘Sorry/Not Sorry’ tries to probe, while expanding on the [New York Times’] original reporting to lay out the details of behavior that was, for many people in the industry, an open secret.” “What ends up feeling more vital, if less examined, is the way in which #MeToo divided people into two camps: the ones who wanted things to change, and the ones who were adamant that nothing should,” Gilbert writes. But the documentary skates over much of this recent history without really analyzing it, Gilbert notes: The directors could have “focused on the particular risk-taking that comedy rewards—and the paradox of trying to impose boundaries within an industry that thrives on provocation and excess. Or they could have considered the tragedy of a brilliant comedian (the vulnerable ‘philosopher king’ of comedy, as, ahem, Charlie Rose once billed him) who’s been left pandering.” “What’s so frustrating is that you can easily imagine how things could be different. C.K. could have pushed his art of introspection deeper,” Gilbert continues on the link in our bio. “Instead, he opted for the much easier and less interesting role of victim, his second act underscoring all the ways in which nothing in comedy, or within him, has actually changed for the better.” 🎨:TIFF

Extinction is a destructive force, but it also increases biodiversity. Humans need to acknowledge that awkward truth if we want to survive, Leigh Phillips writes.

The X owner’s response to the attack on Trump shows the danger of absolute power, Helen Lewis writes. https://lnkd.in/e2tbsajM “In the minutes after the shooting in Pennsylvania, news outlets did what they should do: They scrambled to sort fact from speculation,” Lewis writes. “None of that mattered to Elon Musk,” who drew attention instead to early headlines reporting that Trump had been removed from the stage following “popping noises” or “loud noises.” In most cases the headlines were updated within minutes, but the initial headlines read that way because the situation was chaotic, and traditional media institutions know being wrong has consequences. “News organizations had to make the same kind of high-pressure, irrevocable judgment as the sniper on the roof who took down the shooter,” Lewis argues. “A wrong call really matters.” Even legacy outlets are now flawless or unbiased, and the flood of early headlines reflects the pressure those outlets face to fill the information void that can open within seconds of an incident. “But the old brands—crucially—have mechanisms to update provisional or faulty information,” Lewis writes. “They don’t have to be shamed by a Community Note on X; they generally correct themselves.“ But Musk “just says whatever he likes, safe in the knowledge that an army of greasers desperate for attention (and revenue) from Daddy Musk will boost his half-baked opinions,” Lewis continues. “Power corrupts, the saying goes, and absolute power corrupts absolutely … Musk loves posting so much, he spent billions to ensure unimpeded access to the ability to reply ‘lol’ to terrible memes and ‘!!’ under the kind of grim stuff that used to be confined to Breitbart’s ‘Black Crime’ vertical.” “Now, if Elon Musk wants to suppress his basic common sense about how the world works so he can better indulge his most paranoid fantasies, that’s his own business,” Lewis writes at the link in our bio. “But, as his reaction to the terrible shooting of Donald Trump shows, he has turned X into a machine for validating his prejudices. And that, unfortunately, is making the rest of us dumber, too.” 📸: Marc Piasecki / Getty

The Secret Service had one job—to protect a major political figure from physical harm—and they failed, Juliette Kayyem writes. She outlines five questions that should guide a review of what happened at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. https://lnkd.in/eVg3DXav 📸: Brendan McDermid / Reuters 📸: Evan Vucci / AP

J. D. Vance’s rapid rise from obscurity to the vice-presidential nomination is an only-in-America tale—one that will shape what America is, for better or worse, for generations to come, David Graham writes. https://lnkd.in/eR2ZJC_C “Eight years ago, such a moment would have seemed impossible,” Graham writes. “In summer 2016, Vance’s memoir, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ hit shelves and best-seller lists, intertwining a potent personal narrative and an explanation of Donald Trump’s popularity in terms that non-Trump fans could understand. Vance was a scorching critic of the GOP nominee, but seemed able to articulate the cultural currents that had elevated him. Since then, Vance has moved toward Trump, and his selection is emblematic of Trump’s remaking of the GOP.” Vance brings youth to the ticket and could strengthen Trump in the upper Midwest, which Joe Biden needs to win to be reelected; he is a military veteran and a real product of the working class. He is also “relatively green,” Graham writes: “His 2022 Senate campaign was underwhelming, and his success was largely thanks to Trump.” Vance’s upbringing was chaotic, with his mother slipping into addiction. He later joined the Marines, graduated from Yale Law School, and worked in venture capital in the Bay Area, where he came into the orbit of Peter Thiel. He published his memoir, which could be scathing about the world he’d left behind, just as many were seeking to understand the rise of Trump. “Vance detested Trump,” Graham writes, “even as he called for compassion toward his supporters, whom Vance saw as victims of a demagogue.” In a 2016 piece for The Atlantic, Vance called Trump “cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.” “Vance’s transition from critic and exegete of Trumpism to its standard-bearer shows the ways that the Republican Party has changed in less than a decade,” Graham continues at the link in our bio. “The question is whether Vance is an agent of that change or a subject of it. Probably he is both.” 🎨: The Atlantic. Source: Drew Angerer / Getty.

"Trump has scored major wins in the two federal cases against him," David A. Graham writes. "These wins suggest a disheartening possibility: It doesn’t matter what the law is as long as you appointed the judges."

Violence stalks the president who has rejoiced in violence to others, David Frum writes. https://lnkd.in/ektGSW3r A shooting at a Trump rally on Saturday killed a person nearby, injured Donald Trump, and critically injured others. “It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence ‘has no place’ in American society,” Frum writes. “Assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history. That has remained true to the present day. In 2016, and even more in 2020, Trump supporters brought weapons to intimidate opponents and vote-counters. Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election.” “To date, Trump has led only a minority of U.S. voters, but that minority’s passion and audacity have offset what it lacks in numbers,” Frum continues. “After the shooting, Trump and his backers hope to use the iconography of a bloody ear and face, raised fist, and call to ‘Fight!’ to summon waverers to their cause of installing Trump as an anti-constitutional ruler, exempted from ordinary law by his allies on the Supreme Court … The appropriate expressions of dismay and condemnation from every prominent voice in American life have the additional effect of habituating Americans to Trump’s legitimacy.” But, Frum argues, Trump should have forfeited his legitimate place in American life beyond redemption on January 6, 2021. “All decent people welcome the sparing of his life. Trump’s reckoning should be with the orderly process of law, not with the bloodshed he rejoiced in when it befell others. He and his allies will exploit a gunman’s vicious criminality as their path to exonerate past crimes and empower new ones. Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable—and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.” 🎨: The Atlantic. Sources: Anna Moneymaker / Getty; Rebecca Droke / AFP / Getty.

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