One Story to Read Today highlights a single newly published—or newly relevant—Atlantic story that’s worth your time. “Every dictator who has ever cracked down on political opposition has done so by rendering them internal foreigners in rhetoric and deed, invaders of the body politic who can justly be crushed like insects,” Adam Serwer writes. |
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| | California Highway Patrol officers arrest a demonstrator in the overpass of the 101 Freeway as protests continue in response to federal immigration operations in Los Angeles on June 10, 2025. (Apu Gomes / AFP / Getty) | | | |
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| For as long as I’ve been alive, American presidents have defined tyrants by their willingness to use military force against their own people in reprisal for political opposition. This was a staple of Cold War presidential rhetoric, and it survived long into the War on Terror era … It would be absurd to say that American presidents have always been principled defenders of freedom and democracy, but their long-shared, bipartisan definition of tyrant is one who oppresses his own. So it’s striking that these warnings about tyrants in distant lands, who were supposedly the opposite of the kind of legitimate, democratic leaders elected the United States of America, now apply to the sitting U.S. president, Donald Trump. It is a simple but morally powerful formulation: A leader who uses military force to suppress their political opposition forfeits the right to govern. You could call this the “tyrant test,” and Trump is already failing it. | |
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