The Atlantic

It’s Still the Trump Show

Donald Trump wasn’t onstage during the first Democratic debates, but he might as well have been.
Source: Paul Spella

Former Vice President Joe Biden called President Donald Trump a tool of Wall Street who has “ripped” out the nation’s soul. The author Marianne Williamson accused Trump of exploiting people’s fears. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont cast Trump as a “pathological liar” and a “racist.”

Trump might as well have been gripping a podium of his own last night, so prominently did he figure into the two-hour Democratic debate in Miami. And if a spot onstage had been offered to him, you had a sense he might have grabbed it. Trump was nearly 8,000 miles away from the 2020 Democrats invoking his name, starting a

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic5 min read
The Strangest Job in the World
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. The role of first lady couldn’t be stranger. You attain the position almost by accident, simply by virtue of being married to the president
The Atlantic6 min read
The Happy Way to Drop Your Grievances
Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. In 15th-century Germany, there was an expression for a chronic complainer: Greiner, Zanner, which can be translated as “whiner-grumbler.” It was no
The Atlantic6 min read
There’s Only One Way to Fix Air Pollution Now
It feels like a sin against the sanctitude of being alive to put a dollar value on one year of a human life. A year spent living instead of dead is obviously priceless, beyond the measure of something so unprofound as money. But it gets a price tag i

Related Books & Audiobooks