The Atlantic Politics & Policy Daily: Tired of Being Alone
The House voted to table Representative Al Green’s impeachment resolution. Plus: The economist Raj Chetty wants to “revive the American dream”—with an idea to change America itself.
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What We’re Following Today
It’s Wednesday, July 17.
‣ The House voted to table Representative Al Green’s impeachment resolution, killing the measure.
Here’s what else we’re watching:
There’s No Place Like Washington: Last night Democrats in the House passed a resolution condemning the president’s racist tweets about a group of progressive congresswomen. But the hours-long fight that preceded the vote was emblematic of Trump’s singular genius, writes Todd Purdum: “his ability, through his own relentless uncouth behavior, to goad others into actions that leave them subject to criticism as well.”
Remembering Justice Stevens: Appointed by President Gerald Ford, the late Justice John Paul Stevens served 35 years on the Supreme Court until his retirement in 2010, and as his tenure progressed, he was widely described as the Court’s leading liberal. But Stevens always hewed to neutrality and transparency as much as possible, Jeffrey Rosen argues, resisting the court’s rightward slide.
+ “District of Columbia v. Heller … is unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench,” Stevens wrote in The Atlantic in May.
The Noblest Profession: Teachers across the country are suing the federal government for failing to make good on their loan-forgiveness promises. Teachers have never been particularly well paid, but the new legal complaint implies that choosing teaching as a profession can be financially calamitous.
‘Today Is Our Independence Day’: Conservatives gathered in Washington today to declare war on the establishment and establish a new intellectual movement on the right. “It might have been the first-ever nationalist revolt launched from a Ritz-Carlton ballroom,” writes Emma Green, reporting from the two-day event.
(Carlos Chavarría)
Reviving the American Dream: Raj Chetty is widely considered to be one of the most influential economists of his generation, whose work has done much to complicate assumptions about social mobility. But now Chetty wants to do more than change our understanding of America, writes Gareth Cook. He wants to change the country itself.
Snapshot
Ideas From The Atlantic
The One Color the White House Sees Clearly (David A. Graham)
“The claim of color-blindness is politically useful, because it provides deniability to a range of policies that have obvious racial effects. When the administration tries to break the law to place a citizenship question on the census, that’s not about trying to intimidate Latinos—it’s just politics.” → Read on.
The Republican Party Needs Millennials to Survive (Kori Schake)
“Young Americans’ rejection of the Republican Party is not merely a short-term issue, perhaps even satisfying to conservatives who declined to vote or work for candidate and then President Donald Trump, because it will have longer-term effects.” → Read on.
What Else We’re Reading
‣ New York businesswoman and Jamaican immigrant Scherie Murray launches campaign to unseat Ocasio-Cortez (William Cummings, USA Today)
‣ Planned Parenthood has ousted its president, Leana Wen, amid a dispute over the organization’s direction (Ema O’Connor and Ruby Cramer, BuzzFeed News)
‣ Why Democrats’ oversight machine is moving so slowly against Trump (Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney, POLITICO)
About us: This newsletter is a daily effort from The Atlantic’s politics writer Elaine Godfrey, with help from Christian Paz. It’s edited by Shan Wang.
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