How to Build an Autocracy
The preconditions are present in the U.S. today. Here’s the playbook Donald Trump could use to set the country down a path toward illiberalism. (Read this article in Chinese.)
March 2017
In This Issue
President Trump’s autocratic potential, a social-media mom’s empire, blue cities in red states, and luxury doomsday bunkers. Plus, what sexuality looked like in the Victorian era, how to fix Hollywood, and more.
Cover Story
Get the digital edition of this issue.
Subscribers can access PDF versions of every issue in The Atlantic archive. When you subscribe, you’ll not only enjoy all of The Atlantic’s writing, past and present; you’ll also be supporting a bright future for our journalism.Features
Containing Trump
He may well try to govern as an authoritarian. Whether he succeeds depends less on what he does than on how civil society responds.
The Hollywood List Everyone Wants to Be On
Franklin Leonard’s anonymous survey has launched careers, recognized four of the past eight Best Picture winners, and pushed movie studios to think beyond sequels and action flicks.
The American Climbing the Ranks of ISIS
John Georgelas was a military brat, a drug enthusiast, a precocious underachiever born in Texas. Now he is a prominent figure within the Islamic State. Here’s the story of his long and troubling journey.
Can Megyn Kelly Escape Her Past?
Fox News’s former star has downplayed her full role in an ugly election.
Dispatches
Edmon De Haro; Alexei Nikolsky / Getty It’s Putin’s World
How the Russian president became the ideological hero of nationalists everywhere
John Cuneo Instamom
The enviable, highly profitable life of Amber Fillerup Clark, perfect mother and social-media influencer
Doug Chayka Wall Street Diversifies Itself
Exchange-traded funds are challenging the status quo in investment management—including who’s in charge.
Christopher DeLorenzo Unsafe at Any Speed
The case against human drivers
Stephan Schmitz Red State, Blue City
The United States is coming to resemble two countries, one rural and one urban. What happens when they go to war?
In Pictures / Corbis / Getty Big in Bolivia: Zebras in the Streets
By all accounts, local drivers have become more cautious and mannerly since volunteer cebritas started directing traffic.
Alvaro Dominguez Our Bots, Ourselves
How the descendants of Siri and Alexa could change our daily lives, thoughts, and relationships
Chris Philpot A Resort for the Apocalypse
Texas’s Trident Lakes is the latest entry in a booming market for luxury bunkers.
Joe McKendry How Many Exclamation Points Do Great Writers Use?!
A very short book excerpt
The Culture File
Bettmann / Getty A Saint for Difficult People
From bohemian to radical to Catholic activist, Dorothy Day devoted her life to the poor, however unlovable.
Renaud Vigourt The Sentimental Sadist
Ghosts and schmaltz haunt George Saunders’s first novel.
Marc Burckhardt Before Straight and Gay
The discreet, disorienting passions of the Victorian era
Jack Hudson It’s Getting Harder to Believe in Silicon Valley
Awestruck visions of the tech industry have become less convincing than ever.
Random House A Writer’s Turmoil in The Rules Do Not Apply
The journalist Ariel Levy has the rare gift of seeing herself with fierce, unforgiving clarity, and deploys prose to match in her memoir.
Departments
Ian Allen The Conversation
Readers respond to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s analysis of Obama’s legacy and more.
Graham Roumieu What Was the Most Influential Film in History?
A big question
Poetry
Pencil
A poem
