18 Minutes From Nuclear Annihilation

“We are a president-obsessed nation, so much so that we undermine the very idea of our constitutional democracy,” writes John Dickerson in his May cover story in The Atlantic. “No one man—or woman—can possibly represent the varied, competing interests of 327 million citizens.” Have we heaped so much upon the president that the job has become impossible? Is Trump testing the office in valuable ways? And if the presidency is broken, how do we fix it? Links - "The Hardest Job in the World" (John Dickerson, May 2018 Issue) - “Scott Pruitt Bypassed the White House to Give Big Raises to Favorite Aides” (Elaina Plott and Robinson Meyer, April 3, 2018) - "Letter to Joseph Hooker from Lincoln, January 26, 1863" (Library of Congress) - Educated (Tara Westover, 2018) - Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It (Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik, 2018) - Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders, 2017) - “There’s Something Funny About Tiffany Haddish” (Caity Weaver, GQ, March 26, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Apr 201851min

Long the crossroads of civilizations, Syria has now spent seven years as the proxy warzone of great powers. With over half a million dead and millions more displaced, the conflict is  now “arguably the world’s largest humanitarian disaster since World War II,” writes Andrew Tabler in The Atlantic. “The Syrian Civil War now threatens to morph into the Syria War—a regional conflagration which seems likely to burn for a generation. And civilians are cursed to live it, and die in it, every day.” How did we get here? And what comes next? Links - “How Syria Came to This” (Andrew Tabler, April 15, 2018) - “What If There Is No Ethical Way to Act in Syria Now?” (Sigal Samuel, April 13, 2018) - “The Obama Doctrine” (Jeffrey Goldberg, April 2016 Issue) - “The Syrian War Is Actually Many Wars” (Krishnadev Calamur, April 13, 2018) - “Trump's Selective Empathy for Syrian War Victims” (Krishnadev Calamur, April 18, 2018) - The Poems of Max Ehrmann (Max Ehrmann, 1906) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Apr 201850min

In her new book Futureface, Alex Wagner writes that “immigration raises into relief some of our most basic existential questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? And in that way, it’s inextricably tied to an exploration of American identity.” In the book, Alex explores her own American identity – daughter of a Burmese immigrant mother and a small-town Irish Catholic father – and asks how true the stories we grow up with really are. Along with co-hosts Matt and Jeff, Alex is joined by The Atlantic’s deputy politics editor Adam Serwer to discuss the tangled intersections of history, heritage, family, race, and nationality. Is America truly a melting pot? Can nationalism be liberal? And is that stalwart American immigrant story just a history written by the victors? Links - Futureface (Alex Wagner, 2018) - “The Nationalist's Delusion” (Adam Serwer, November 20, 2017) - “America Is Not a Democracy” (Yascha Mounk, March 2018 Issue) - ”The End of Identity Liberalism” (Mark Lilla, New York Times, November 18, 2016) - ”How Can Liberals Reclaim Nationalism?” (Yascha Mounk, New York Times, March 3, 2018) - “Why Are We Surprised When Buddhists Are Violent?” (Dan Arnold and Alicia Turner, New York Times, March 5, 2018) - “The Americans Our Government Won’t Count” (Alex Wagner, New York Times, March 30, 2018) - “Huapango” by José Pablo Moncayo (South West German Radio Kaiserslautern Orchestra, 2007) - Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South (Timothy Thomas Fortune, 1884) - Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History (Steven Zipperstein, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Apr 201852min

As Atlantic staff writer Robinson Meyer recently wrote, Facebook “is currently embroiled in the worst crisis of trust in its 14-year history.” This week, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. Congress for the first time. It’s not clear whether Congress will seek to exert more regulatory control over the company, even after revelations that as many as 87 million people unwittingly had their Facebook data given to the political firm Cambridge Analytica, which may have used some of that data to influence the 2016 U.S. election. And the questions senators asked of Zuckerberg suggest they may not yet understand Facebook well enough to regulate it effectively, even if they wanted to. In this Radio Atlantic news update, Rob shares what he learned from his exclusive interview with Zuckerberg, and from the CEO’s testimony before Congress. We discuss with Atlantic senior editor Gillian White whether Facebook can be regulated, and whether it will. Links - “Mark Zuckerberg Says He’s Not Resigning” (Robinson Meyer, April 9, 2018) - “The 3 Questions Mark Zuckerberg Hasn’t Answered” (Robinson Meyer, April 10, 2018) - “How Facebook’s Ad Tool Fails to Protect Civil Rights” (Gillian B. White, October 28, 2016) - “Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race” (Julia Angwin and Terry Parris Jr., ProPublica, October 28, 2016) - Sarah Jeong on Twitter - “The Most Important Exchange of the Zuckerberg Hearing” (Alexis C. Madrigal, April 11, 2018) - “Mark Zuckerberg Is Halfway to Scot-Free” (Alexis C. Madrigal, April 11, 2018) - “My Facebook Was Breached by Cambridge Analytica. Was Yours?” (Robinson Meyer, April 10, 2018) - “Can Anyone Unseat Mark Zuckerberg?” (Robinson Meyer, March 22, 2018) - “The Cambridge Analytica Scandal, in 3 Paragraphs” (Robinson Meyer, March 20, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Apr 201844min

“Trump gambled that Americans resent each other’s differences more than they cherish their shared democracy. So far that gamble has paid off,” writes David Frum in his new book Trumpocracy. Along with The Atlantic's Global Editor Kathy Gilsinan, David joins to explain how President Trump has undermined our most important institutions. What does democracy around the world look like when the leader of the free world is less interested in it himself? Links - Trumpocracy (David Frum, 2018) - “Saudi Crown Prince: Iran's Supreme Leader 'Makes Hitler Look Good'” (Jeffrey Goldberg, April 2, 2018) - “The Risks to Freedom in Hungary” (David Frum, April 5, 2018) - “How to Build an Autocracy” (David Frum, March 2017 Issue) - “Freedom Fights for Survival in Hungary” (David Frum, April 10, 2017) - “An Exit From Trumpocracy” (David Frum, January 18, 2018) - “Americans Can't Afford to Grow Used to This” (David Frum, January 9, 2018) - “Tracking the appearances of “rosy-fingered Dawn” in The Odyssey” (Jason Kottke, kottke.org, April 3, 2018) - “Strategies of Attainment” (C. Lee Shea, War on the Rocks, April 1, 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Apr 201850min

In his last speech, known to history as “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” Martin Luther King Jr. began by remarking on the introduction he’d been given by his friend, Ralph Abernathy. “As I listened to ... his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself,” King said modestly, “I wondered who he was talking about.” The facsimile of King that America would fashion after his assassination—saintly pacifist, stranger to controversy, beloved by all—might have provoked something well beyond wonder. To create a version of King that America could love, the nation sanded down the reality of the man, his ministry, and his activism. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, Vann Newkirk and Adrienne Green join our hosts, Jeffrey Goldberg and Matt Thompson, to discuss the truth of King in the last year of his life and after. Links - KING: Full coverage from The Atlantic of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy - “The Whitewashing of King’s Assassination” (Vann R. Newkirk, MLK Issue) - “The Chasm Between Racial Optimism and Reality” (Jeffrey Goldberg, MLK Issue) - King’s Three Evils (Martin Luther King Jr., May 10, 1967) - “The Civil-Rights Movement’s Generation Gap” (Bree Newsome, MLK Issue) - “Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Letter From Birmingham Jail'” (Martin Luther King Jr., August 1, 1963) - “How Much Had Schools Really Been Desegregated by 1964?” (Martin Luther King Jr., MLK Issue) - “Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War” (Martin Luther King Jr., MLK Issue) - “Generational Differences in Black Activism” (Conor Friedersdorf, June 30, 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Mar 201856min

The family is where the forces that are driving Americans farther apart—political polarization, generational divides, class stratification, Facebook fights—literally hit home. Economic, ideological, and technological shifts pose uncertain consequences for what Daniel Patrick Moynihan called “the basic social unit of American life.” And not even a burgeoning industry of experts can tell parents what to do. “Parents are now more anxious than ever about their children,” writes Paula Fass in The Atlantic, “while disputes about how to raise children the ‘right’ way to meet a darkening future are a commonplace of child-rearing advice.” On March 20, The Atlantic launched a new section on the family—looking not just at America, but around the world; focusing not just on today, but on yesterday and tomorrow. In this episode, two of the editors steering this coverage, Rebecca Rosen and Adrienne LaFrance, join our hosts to explore how families are faring amid massive change. Links -“Millennials: The Mobile and the Stuck” (Derek Thompson, August 24, 2016) - “The Perils of 'Sharenting'” (Adrienne LaFrance, October 6, 2016) - “It's Hard to Go to Church” (Emma Green, August 23, 2016) - “The Graying of Rural America” (Alana Semuels, June 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Mar 201847min

“Politicians from both parties publicly worship the solemn dignity of entrepreneurship and small businesses. But by the numbers, America has become the land of the big and the home of the consolidated,” writes The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson. In a time when Americans have lost faith in their institutions, the nation seems to now look to corporations for positive action. Can big business be a force for good or only a force for profit? Does their very size pose a threat? If corporations can be people, can they be good citizens? Links - “Is Big Business Really That Bad?” (Robert D. Atkinson and Michael Lind, April 2018 Issue) - “America’s Monopoly Problem” (Derek Thompson, October 2016 Issue) - “'Corporations Are People' Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century Lie” (Adam Winkler, March 5, 2018) - “How American Business Got So Big” (Gillian B. White, November 18, 2016) - “A Small Town Kept Walmart Out. Now It Faces Amazon.” (Alana Semuels, March 2, 2018) - “Why Amazon Pays Some of Its Workers to Quit” (Alana Semuels, February 14, 2018) - “The Internet Is Enabling a New Kind of Poorly Paid Hell” (Alana Semuels, January 23, 2018) - “Hitchens Talks to Goldblog About Cancer and God” (Jeffrey Goldberg, August 6, 2010) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Mar 201847min