George Packer

3 weeks ago | theatlantic.com | George Packer

Every month or so I get a desperate message from a 25-year-old Afghan refugee in Pakistan. Another came just last week. I’ve written about Saman in the past. Because my intent today is to write about her place in the moral universe of Elon Musk and Vice President J. D. Vance, I’ll compress her story to its basic details: During the Afghan War, Saman and her husband, Farhad (they requested pseudonyms for their own safety), served in the Afghan special forces alongside American troops.

3 weeks ago | flipboard.com | George Packer

12 hours agoJoni Ernst spins "we're all going to die" as Christian compassionSen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, certainly has absorbed the first rule of MAGA: You're never in the wrong as long as you're "triggering" the liberals.

1 month ago | sueddeutsche.de | George Packer

J. D. Vance poses a problem, and at its core is a question about character. In the years after the 2016 election, he transformed himself from a center-right memoirist and public speaker, offering a complex analysis of America’s social ills and a sharp critique of Donald Trump, into a right-wing populist politician whose illiberal ideas and vitriolic rhetoric frequently out-Trump the original.

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | George Packer

Listen1.0x0:0043:25Listen to more stories on harkJ. D. Vance poses a problem, and at its core is a question about character. In the years after the 2016 election, he transformed himself from a center-right memoirist and public speaker, offering a complex analysis of America’s social ills and a sharp critique of Donald Trump, into a right-wing populist politician whose illiberal ideas and vitriolic rhetoric frequently out-Trump the original.

2 months ago | theatlantic.com | George Packer

Professors Timothy Snyder, Marci Shore, and Jason Stanley are leaving Yale for the University of Toronto. Some of their reasons might be personal and professional, but these well-known academics—two historians and a philosopher—aren’t just changing jobs. They’re fleeing America as they see it falling under an authoritarian regime.