The GOP Is Just Obnoxious

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.       Let’s say you’re a politician in a close race and your opponent suffers a stroke. What do you do? If you are Mehmet Oz running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, what you do is mock your opponent’s affliction. In August, the Oz campaign released a list of “concessions” it would offer to the…

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The Radical Fringe That Just Went Mainstream in Arizona

It might be nice one day to wake up and feel serene—even hopeful—about the state of American politics. To know that all of those people who have been warning about the growing threat to democracy are way ahead of their skis. But today is not that day. Arizona Republicans are nominating an entire cast of characters who argue not only that Donald Trump won the election in 2020, but also that the state’s results should be decertified—a process for which there is no legal basis. These Trump-endorsed candidates—Kari Lake for…

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The Awful Year We Just Lived Through

As this is my last column of 2021, I thought it would be worthwhile to review some of the most important observations I made over the course of an awful year. I hope you agree, and wish you—and our country—a happier New Year. JAN. 5: These past few years have taught me not to so quickly judge the quiet Germans, Russians, etc. Of course, I still judge Germans who helped the Nazis and Germans who in any way hurt Jews. But the Germans who did nothing? Not so fast. What…

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Just Go Away, Brian Williams

Brian Williams, dismissed as “NBC Nightly News” anchor in 2015 for serial embellishment and lying, has decided to walk away from his MSNBC show “The 11th Hour.” CNN’s Brian Stelter, from a competing network, previewed the last show: “There’s no word on what the Thursday finale will entail, but here’s hoping for a sendoff befitting his position.” Williams should be sent off with a lump of coal. Stelter wasn’t quite as bad as one of his favorite Sunday-show guests, journalism professor and former Baltimore Sun reporter David Zurawik. “I have…

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At Age 25, She Was Just Elected Mayor of Her Tiny Hometown in Pennsylvania

Brianna Howard says she never thought she would run for public office, but when no one else was on the ballot for mayor in her hometown of Mount Jewett, Pennsylvania, she rose to the challenge.  Howard ran as a write-in candidate, won, and will serve as mayor of the town for the next four years, beginning in January. Mount Jewett, located about 140 miles north of Pittsburgh, has a population of fewer than 1,000 people. “Rural Americans are, in a lot of ways, at a disadvantage, just because of their…

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