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Get your free quote from GEICO today. geico.com | 1-800-947-AUTO | Local Offce Some discounts, coverages, payment plans and features are not available in all states or all GEICO companies. Customer satisfaction based on an independent study conducted by Alan Newman Research, 2015. GEICO is the second-largest private passenger auto insurer in the United States according to the 2014 A.M. Best market share report, published April 2015. GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance Company, Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. © 2016 GEICO OF NO PARTY OR CLIQUE CONTENTS | MARCH VOL . 3 1 9 – NO . 2 Features President Trump—shown here in Trump Tower in New York in 2015—will likely want not to repress civil unrest, but to publicize it. REDUX How to Build Containing The Black American an Autocracy Trump List Everyone Jihadi BY DAVID FRUM BY JONATHAN RAUCH Wants to Be on BY GRAEME WOOD The preconditions are The survival of BY ALEX WAGNER John Georgelas present. Here’s how democratic norms How Franklin Leonard was a military brat Donald Trump could set depends on how civil and a precocious THE NEW YORK TIMES is pushing Hollywood the country down a path society responds to his to think beyond sequels underachiever from toward illiberalism. administration. and action icks Texas. Now he’s a leader in the Islamic State. JOSH HANER THE ATLANTIC MARCH 3 CONTENTS | MARCH VOL . 3 1 9 – NO . 2 Dispatches BIG IN … BOLIVIA Zebras in the Streets A di erent sort of animal crossing BY ISABEL HENDERSON STUDY OF STUDIES Unsafe at Any Speed The case against GEOPOLITICS human drivers BY JAKE PELINI It’s Putin’s World How the Russian president became a hero for nationalists everywhere BY FRANKLIN FOER TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS Our Bots, Ourselves Siri’s spawn Wall Street BY MATTHEW HUTSON Diversifi es Itself Exchange-traded funds POLITICS are changing the face of investment management. Red State, Blue City BY BETHANY M C LEAN The escalating war between urban and rural America BY DAVID A. GRAHAM SKETCH WORKS IN PROGRESS Instamom A Resort for the Amber Fillerup Clark’s Apocalypse lucrative brand The booming market for of motherhood luxury bunkers BY BIANCA BOSKER BY BEN ROWEN Departments Poetry The Conversation Pencil BY A. E. STALLINGS The Big Question What was the most in uential lm in history? 4 MARCH THE ATLANTIC Slack is where work happens, for millions of people around the world, every day. CONTENTS | MARCH VOL . 3 1 9 – NO . 2 The Culture File THE OMNIVORE A Saint for Di icult People From bohemian to radical to Catholic activist, Dorothy Day devoted her life to the poor, however unlovable. BOOKS BY JAMES PARKER Before Straight and Gay The discreet, disorienting passions of the Victorian era BY DEBORAH COHEN BOOKS The Shine Comes O Silicon Valley Awestruck visions of the tech industry have BOOKS become less convincing than ever. BY ANNA WIENER The Sentimental Sadist Ghosts and schmaltz haunt George Saunders’s rst novel. BY CALEB CRAIN Essay On the Can Megyn Kelly Escape Her Past? Cover Charting a route into the mainstream media, Fox News’s former star has Illustration by downplayed her role in an ugly election. Je rey Smith BY CAITLIN FLANAGAN 6 MARCH THE ATLANTIC Texas A&M has a long and storied history, and oft en even makes history, such as the discovery of the most distant galaxy known to humans. Formally titled z8GND-5296, this galaxy was formed within 700 million years of the Big Bang, meaning Texas A&M scientists saw 13 billion years into the past — and closer than ever into the mysteries of the universe. THE CONVERSATION RESPONSES & REVERBERATIONS My President Was Black For the January/February cover story, Ta-Nehisi Coates interviewed Barack Obama and analyzed his legacy as America’s rst black president. “This is the best postmortem on the Obama presidency I’ve yet seen,” Cory Doctorow wrote at Boing Boing, “the cornerstone of the literature that will be written about the previous eight years.” Ta-Nehisi Coates compel- Obama’s presidency under- I know the advantages I have Coates tells the reader, lingly details the inexcusable, score that. But we should had in being male. “For most African Americans, racially charged rhetoric with remember—and take solace I know this is not my ght, white people exist either as a which many Americans have in the fact—that the many but I also know that my direct or an indirect force for described our rst black presi- inammatory words and president, too, was black. And bad in their lives.” I nd that dent. It pains me to consider racist acts Coates describes that made me proud. It gave troubling as well. Certainly the racial tension that festers certainly do not represent the me hope. there are white people who within our country. majority of white people, the Coates emphasizes that are both direct and indirect At what point, though, majority of conservatives, or whiteness in America is a forces for bad in the lives of do reports like this widen the majority of Americans. “badge of advantage”—a African Americans. But they the racial rifts by describ- Garrett Haley concept that no intelligent are that way because of their ing Americans’ views with LUBBOCK, TEXAS person could refute. But he character, not their skin color. too broad a brush? After all, also writes that in response to We need to change this narra- Coates fails to mention that I know the battle surround- a black president, “the badge- tive to focus on behavior and the white-supremacist-tinged ing race in this country does holders fumed. They wanted beliefs rather than pigmen- language and extreme anti- not belong to me the way it their country back. And … tation. If we fail to do that, Obama vitriol documented belongs to Ta-Nehisi Coates. they would have it.” His use we risk sliding further and in his article come from the I am a middle-aged white of they troubles me, because further away from our goal fringes of our society and do guy. Still, I have reread “My it blurs the lines between me of making progress. We risk not represent the views of President Was Black” twice as a white male and the insidi- sliding backwards to a time most Americans. Surely the now. I love reading what ous, hateful people coming when everything was judged number of people who would Coates writes, but am also out of the woodwork in the in terms of color. gleefully chuckle at things deeply troubled by much of wake of Donald Trump’s elec- Coates talks about trust like “Obama Bucks” and what the piece has to say. I tion. I don’t have my country a lot in the piece. He writes “Obama Waes” is terribly know the racism this country back; I have had it hijacked about Obama’s ability to trust small (not to mention the fact faces is not my ght the way by a man who rode to the white people because his that some individuals cited it is his. I know it is not my presidency on the backs of the childhood experience taught in the article have apologized ght the way it is the ght of worst monsters that humans him that white people were for their own remarks). the black students who sit in could conjure up. While I am to be trusted. Later he writes, We should not dismiss the disproportionate numbers white, I don’t think my race “What Obama was able to uncomfortable picture Coates in the lower-level academic makes me any less distraught oer white America is some- paints; yes, our country’s classes that I teach. I know at who will run this country, thing very few African Ameri- racial divides run deep, the advantages I have had how he got elected, or what cans could—trust. The vast and the hurtful reactions to because I am white, just like that says about this nation. majority of us are, necessarily, 8 MARCH THE ATLANTIC too crippled by our defenses themselves. It is seductive to THE BIG QUESTION to ever consider such a propo- believe Obama could shape On TheAtlantic.com, readers answered January/February’s Big Question sition.” That does not leave us that in some way, much less and voted on one another’s responses. Here are the top vote-getters. much room to move forward. control and direct it. But, as If in fact the transgressions Coates details in painful case of whites that came before after case of political obstruc- Q: Who is the worst leader me make it so that a great tionism among Democrats of all time? voice of contemporary black and Republicans during the America can’t even consider rst black president’s terms, 5.