Donald Trump’s Plan to Subvert the Midterms Is Already Under Way
Our election system is reaching a breaking point.
December 2025
In This Issue
The coming election mayhem, president for life, a missing kayaker, and America's climate dead zones. Plus Thomas McGuane, anti-social media, Patti Smith, a runner's memoir, Philip Pullman, Questlove on Sammy Davis Jr., new fiction by George Packer, and more.
Cover Stories
President for Life
Donald Trump is trying to amass the powers of a king.
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What Climate Change Will Do to America by Mid-Century
Many places may become uninhabitable. Many people may be on their own.
The Missing Kayaker
What happened to Ryan Borgwardt?
Why I Run
I took up the sport to be like my father. I kept going because he stopped.
Thomas McGuane Is the Last of His Kind
What will we lose when we lose the “literary outdoorsman”?
Fiction
Illustration by Lauren Peters-Collaer* We Are Not One
A short story
Dispatches
Illustration by Ben Hickey The Age of Anti-Social Media Is Here
The social-media era is over. What’s coming will be much worse.
Edward Burtynsky / Howard Greenberg Gallery NY Edward Burtynsky’s Warning
What the photographer found in a tire pile in Modesto, California, and on the shores of Western Australia
Culture & Critics
Illustration by Lauren Tamaki. Source: Evening Standard / Getty. What I Learned From Sammy Davis Jr.
The showman never stopped pleasing audiences—and confounding expectations.
Illustration by Mark Harris* The Man Who Rescued Faulkner
How the critic Malcolm Cowley made American literature into its own great tradition
Illustration by Daniele Castellano Philip Pullman’s Anti-Escapist Fantasy
In his fiction, the author of The Golden Compass tells us how to love this world. It isn’t easy.
Richard McCaffrey / Getty Patti Smith’s Family Secrets
Nearing 80, the punk poet reflects on the twists in her story that have surprised even her.
Departments
The Atlantic The Commons: Can a Person Decide to Die?
Readers respond to our September issue and more.
The Atlantic Caleb's Inferno: December 2025
A devilish crossword puzzle
Poetry
Illustration by Liz Hart Coyote
A poem
