The burden of office, hoops dept. (updated)

Donald Trump's Invented History of the Iraq War

Alex Wagner

The Republican presidential nominee spun stories about the events surrounding September 11th to demonstrate his mettle. Does it matter that much of it was fiction?

On Monday afternoon, Donald Trump delivered one of his most extended and substantive speeches yet on the subject of foreign policy and national security. In it, he offered a variety of proposals. Some, like coalition-building and cyber security, were fairly old hat, if not decidedly redundant. Others, like the establishment of a Commission on Radical Islam and “extreme vetting” to screen would-be terrorists seeking to enter the country, were alarmingly creative, if not necessarily authorized under the Constitution.

As is very often the case on the stump these days, Trump made several mentions of the attacks on September 11th, which took place 15 years ago next month. Without question, the attacks of that day had a profoundly destructive effect on the United States, but less discussed is the fact that they had a remarkably constructive effect, too: September 11th has given rise to a multitude of narratives—about the event, about the country that withstood it, about the character of its people. The practical effect of a useful narrative on foreign policy can’t be overstated (just ask the Bush and Obama administrations), and Trump is a master storyteller, insofar as he is a compelling narrator (if not necessarily a truthful one), and is adept at creating villains and heroes, to the delight of large audiences across the country. Yesterday he, too, established another narrative about September 11th, this one to showcase his wisdom, instincts and fiscal savoir-faire.

Biting the Hand That Fed Him

Ron Fournier

The Republican nominee long used the media to project his fairy tale self-image but now blames the industry for his flailing campaign.

Long addicted to media attention, Donald Trump is like strung-out junkie, blaming heroin for his fall.

He will never recover, because he will never fault himself.

The self-professed billionaire and serial bankruptcy filer built his career on a singular strength: an ability to manipulate the media to project his fairy tale self-image. Never as rich or as smart or as powerful or as respected or (God forbid) as sexual as he projected himself to be, Trump now bashes the industry that made him rather than face the truth.

Like the hero of a Greek tragedy, his strength becomes his undoing.

"If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn't put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20%," Trump said Sunday in one of seven anti-media tweets.

The Exaggerated Claims of Media Bias Against Donald Trump

Conor Friedersdorf

The negative press the Republican nominee is receiving is mostly his own fault.

Is the news media biased against Donald Trump?

That charge has been aired in recent days not only by the billionaire candidate, who negs CNN, The New York Times, and the press generally at almost every opportunity, but by several thoughtful political commentators who don’t much like him.

These media critics all cited the same example: coverage of the Republican nominee’s controversial statement that President Obama was “the founder of ISIS.”

That coverage was hardly uniform.

Overgeneralizing in a way that obscured the diversity of approaches different journalists took to the story, Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist wrote, “The media immediately decided Trump was claiming that Obama had literally incorporated ISIS a few years back. And they treated this literal claim as a fact that needed to be debunked.”

Hollywood Has Ruined Method Acting

Angelica Jade Bastién

Jared Leto’s turn in Suicide Squad is the latest reminder that the technique has become more about ego and marketing than good performances.

Of all the stories surfacing about the new DC Comics film Suicide Squad—from the dismal reviews to the box-office reports—the most disconcerting are the ones that detail how Jared Leto got into his role as the Joker. Leto was reportedly so committed to the part that he gifted the cast and crew with a litany of horrible items: used condoms, a dead pig, a live rat. To get into the character’s twisted mindset, he also watched footage of brutal crimes online. “The Joker is incredibly comfortable with acts of violence,” he told Rolling Stone. “I was watching real violence, consuming that. There’s a lot you can learn from seeing it.”

Watching Leto tell one disturbing tale after another makes one thing abundantly clear: Method acting is over. Not the technique itself, which has fueled many of cinema’s greatest performances and can be a useful way of approaching difficult roles. But Leto’s stories show how going to great lengths to inhabit a character is now as much a marketing tool as it is an actual technique—one used to lend an air of legitimacy, verisimilitude, and importance to a performance no matter its quality. Leto’s Joker is the latest evidence that the prestige of method acting has dimmed—thanks to the technique’s overuse by those seeking award-season glory or a reputation boost, as well as its history of being shaped by destructive ideas of masculinity.

The Leak Prosecution That Lost the Space Race

Ian MacDougall

He was the first whistleblower charged under the Espionage Act—and his trial set the pattern for how the government treats unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

Jack Nickerson watched the papers burn. It was the afternoon of January 2, 1957, and an overnight cold snap had descended on northern Alabama, pushing daytime temperatures to near freezing. His neighbors would think nothing of the smoke wafting from the chimney of the large antebellum colonial he shared with his wife and four children. There weren’t all that many neighbors anyway. The house sat on an isolated corner of Redstone Arsenal, a sprawling Army base in Huntsville. A reservoir surrounded it on three sides.

Nickerson, a colonel, had good reason to avoid attention. For the past three hours, he had scoured his office and home for copies of the documents that now sat stacked next to the fireplace, growing shorter by the minute. The word “SECRET” crumpled and blackened before being consumed by the flames.

All Hollowed Out

Victor Tan Chen

The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

For the last several months, social scientists have been debating the striking findings of a study by the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton.* Between 1998 and 2013, Case and Deaton argue, white Americans across multiple age groups experienced large spikes in suicide and fatalities related to alcohol and drug abuse—spikes that were so large that, for whites aged 45 to 54, they overwhelmed the dependable modern trend of steadily improving life expectancy. While critics have challenged the magnitude and timing of the rise in middle-age deaths (particularly for men), they and the study’s authors alike seem to agree on some basic points: Problems of mental health and addiction have taken a terrible toll on whites in America—though seemingly not in other wealthy nations—and the least educated among them have fared the worst.

Does the First Amendment Protect Deliberate Lies?

Garrett Epps

Donald Trump says the press cannot lie. But the Supreme Court says otherwise: In fact, many falsehoods are protected speech.

“It is not ‘freedom of the press’ when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!” Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday.

I will refrain from belaboring the contradictions in his concern for the danger of false statements in public life, because the question he raised is an important one.

Does the First Amendment really protect false statements of fact? Does it really protect deliberate lies?

The idea that lies are part of “freedom of speech” or “of the press” seems wrong. Lies—even lazy falsehoods—make finding the truth harder, erode mutual trust, and harm individuals and groups. Some can even lead to private violence or public disorder.

Why would free speech protect them?

The Mind of Donald Trump

Dan P. McAdams

Narcissism, disagreeableness, grandiosity—a psychologist investigates how Trump’s extraordinary personality might shape his possible presidency.

In 2006, Donald Trump made plans to purchase the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen, Scotland, aiming to convert the dunes and grassland into a luxury golf resort. He and the estate’s owner, Tom Griffin, sat down to discuss the transaction at the Cock & Bull restaurant. Griffin recalls that Trump was a hard-nosed negotiator, reluctant to give in on even the tiniest details. But, as Michael D’Antonio writes in his recent biography of Trump, Never Enough, Griffin’s most vivid recollection of the evening pertains to the theatrics. It was as if the golden-haired guest sitting across the table were an actor playing a part on the London stage.

“It was Donald Trump playing Donald Trump,” Griffin observed. There was something unreal about it.

Will Donald Trump Permanently Alienate Republican Women?

Clare Foran

His campaign may fail because of its lack of appeal among female voters. That could affect the party long after 2016.

A clueless woman looking for attention. Prissy and confused little girl. Not pretty enough to be a Trump girl. Meghan Milloy has been called all of that because she’s a Republican woman who plans to vote for Hillary Clinton. For standing against Donald Trump, she’s faced an onslaught of criticism on social media—and a lot of it has been sexist. “People have been coming out of the woodwork, calling me every name in the book,” Milloy said in an interview.

Trump is famous for insulting women. He rates and ranks women based on the way they look, so much so that entire articles have been devoted to chronicling his sexist comments. As Milloy has discovered, some of his fans seem to act and talk in similar ways.

Slightly More Than 100 Exceptional Works of Journalism

Conor Friedersdorf

This fantastic nonfiction from 2015 is still worth discovering and pondering today.

Each year, I keep a running list of exceptional nonfiction that I encounter as I publish The Best of Journalism, an email newsletter that I curate weekly for its subscribers. This is my annual attempt to bring some of those stories to a wider audience. I could not read or note every worthy article that was published last calendar year and I haven't included any paywalled articles or anything published at The Atlantic. But everything that follows is worthy of wider attention and engagement. I hope it provides fodder for summer reading and inspiration for future writing. And thanks to all of the editors and journalists who made these gems possible.

The Art of Storytelling

TEXAS MONTHLY / Just Desserts by Katy Vine