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.
Spend time with nine great recent stories, selected by our editors. Then explore some presidential history from the Atlantic archives.
Your Reading List
Polyamory, the Ruling Class’s Latest Fad
By Tyler Austin Harper
Americans who most reap the benefits of marriage are the same class who get to declare monogamy passé and boring.
Read the article.
Why Parents Struggle So Much in the World’s Richest Country
By Stephanie H. Murray
Raising kids shouldn’t be this hard.
Read the article.
Why the Most Educated People in America Fall for Anti-Semitic Lies
By Dara Horn
At Harvard and elsewhere, an old falsehood is capturing new minds.
Read the article.
To Stop a Shooter
By Jamie Thompson
Why would an armed officer stand by as a school shooting unfolds? (Our March cover story)
Read the article.
Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out
By Derek Thompson
Too much aloneness is creating a crisis of social fitness.
Read the article.
You Should Go to a Trump Rally
By McKay Coppins
For many Americans, the former president has become an abstraction. They should see for themselves what his campaign is really about.
Read the article.
Nine New York Jurors Saw Trump for Who He Really Is
By George T. Conway III
I teared up as I watched news coverage of the Carroll verdict. Trump is not above the law.
Read the article.
Biden’s Age Is Now Unavoidable
By Helen Lewis
Joe Biden looks like he is turning into a statue of Joe Biden.
Read the article.
Caffeine’s Dirty Little Secret
By Yasmin Tayag
“How much is too much?” is an impossible question.
Read the article.
On President’s Day
This year, perhaps more than in many years past, Americans are thinking about the presidency: previous holders and present seekers of the office, qualifications and disqualifications, and the nature of executive power.
Below are some highlights from the Atlantic archives about Presidents’ Day and presidential history:
- How did Presidents’ Day—formalized as a federal holiday in 1885 to celebrate George Washington’s birthday—become the national moment for car sales that it is today? It all began with Bicycle Day. Yoni Appelbaum connects the dots.
- Many presidents wrote books. Were any of them any good? In 2020, James Parker scrutinized the genre, upon which “the heavy buttocks of history sit,” and singled out only three authentic writers from this rarefied club.
- Many presidents also wrote for The Atlantic; too many to list them all here. One even tried his hand at verse. We leave you today with a poem from a perhaps-unexpected source.
— Shan Wang, programming director
Culture Break
Read. “Anita’s Secrets,” an excerpt from the first chapter of Xochitl Gonzalez’s forthcoming novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last.
Watch. Check out one of these 30 movies that are unlike anything you’ve seen before, compiled by our writer David Sims in 2020.
Play our daily crossword.
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