The Election That Could Break America
If the vote is close, Donald Trump could easily throw the election into chaos and subvert the result. Who will stop him?
November 2020
In This Issue
The election that could break America, pro-Trump militant groups, niche sports and Ivy League admissions, and how China is rewriting global rules. Plus the last exit before autocracy, the making of Malcolm X, agony aunts, pandemic nesting, the Jefferson Bible, Kamala Harris’s ambition, British police shows, and more.
Cover Story
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The Midnight Message
Preserving American democracy in a moment of peril
Features
Philip Montgomery A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans
An Atlantic investigation reveals who they are and what they might do on Election Day.
Pelle Cass The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League–Obsessed Parents
Where the desperation of late-stage meritocracy is so strong, you can smell it
Lan Truong How China Outsmarted the Trump Administration
While the U.S. is distracted, China is rewriting the rules of the global order.
O'Neal L. Abel / Courtesy of W. W. Norton & Company Beyond the Myth of Malcolm X
Understanding the humanity, and the communities, that shaped the brilliant, troubled, selfish, generous, sincere radical
Dispatches
Photo rendering by Patrick White Last Exit From Autocracy
America survived one Trump term. It wouldn’t survive a second.
Moises Saman / Magnum American Caudillo
Donald Trump is slowly making the U.S. into a likeness of the countries Latino refugees have been fleeing.
Jonathan Twingley Trump’s Troop
An illustrated guide to 14 of the president’s associates
Asia Pietrzyk Why Americans Have Turned to Nesting
If we’re going to be inside, it might as well be the inside we want.
Illustration by Alexandria McLin; photograph by Howard University Kamala Harris’s Ambition Trap
By talking plainly about her qualifications, Harris embodies progress. Will it work?
Illustration by Matthieu Bourel; Photographs from AF Archive; Alamy; Everett Collection; Ronald Grant Archive Why Americans Fall for Grifters
A warning from a 1957 film
Endia Beal Am I What You’re Looking For?
Photographs at the intersection of race, gender, and work
Culture & Critics
Illustration by Katie Martin; images from Kean Collection / Getty; National Museum of American History Reading Thomas Jefferson’s Bible
The president preferred Jesus’s teachings to his supernatural acts—and edited his copy of the New Testament accordingly.
Erik Carter How to Get Rich By Losing Lots of Money
Adam Neumann is out of his WeWork job, but entrepreneurs will surely imitate him.
Illustration by Mark Harris; images from AF Archive; Alamy; Allstar Picture Library; BBC; Des Willie / PBS / Masterpiece Theater / Everett Collection Why British Police Shows Are Better
When you take away guns and shootings, you have more time to explore grief, guilt, and the psychological complexity of crime.
Matt Huynh Why We’re Afraid of Bats
On how we know—and how we learn—what to fear
Departments
Katie Martin The Commons: Anatomy of an American Failure
Readers respond to our September 2020 cover story and more.
Tim Lahan An Ode to Agony Aunts
Taking pleasure in others’ pain as a reader of the advice column
Poetry
Paul Spella / The Atlantic
