A Political Party Unhinged From Truth The Atlantic

Leo Migdal

-Dec 3, 2025, 11:46 PM

a political party unhinged from truth the atlantic

What I learned while I worked on a book about the state of the GOP In March of 2020, I sat in a federal courtroom in Utah and watched a man stand before the judge and murmur through sobs, “This wasn’t me. This wasn’t me.” The defendant, a 55-year-old health-insurance salesman named Scott Brian Haven, wasn’t protesting his innocence. He openly acknowledged that over the two-year period before his arrest in the summer of 2019, he had placed 3,950 calls to the Washington offices of various Democratic members of Congress, spewing profanities and... But as the prosecutor listed a sampling of Haven’s vile threats in the courtroom, the defendant—a devout Mormon who served meals to homeless people in downtown Salt Lake City—seemed unable to recognize those sentiments...

One of the objects of his harassment had been Jerrold Nadler, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. “I’m at his office,” Haven had said in one call to Nadler’s office. “I’m right behind him now. I’m going to shoot him in the head. I’m going to do it now. Are you ready?”

After his arrest, while languishing in a federal jail cell, Haven learned that the Democratic representative was a father and grandfather, just like he was. When he shared this revelation with the judge during his sentencing, he marveled, “There’s so much more to know about people than we hear about in the news.” What I learned while I worked on a book about the state of the GOP Who’s most to blame for our divisive politics? How about the gerrymanderers quietly deciding where your vote goes. Inside the dark art and modern science of making democracy a lot less democratic.

In March of 2020, I sat in a federal courtroom in Utah and watched a man stand before the judge and murmur through sobs, “This wasn’t me. This wasn’t me.” The defendant, a 55-year-old health-insurance salesman named Scott Brian Haven, wasn’t protesting his innocence. He openly acknowledged that over the two-year period before his arrest in the summer of 2019, he had placed 3,950 calls to the Washington offices of various Democratic members of Congress, spewing profanities and... This article is adapted from Draper’s recent book. But as the prosecutor listed a sampling of Haven’s vile threats in the courtroom, the defendant—a devout Mormon who served meals to homeless people in downtown Salt Lake City—seemed unable to recognize those sentiments...

After his arrest, while languishing in a federal jail cell, Haven learned that the Democratic representative was a father and grandfather, just like he was. When he shared this revelation with the judge during his sentencing, he marveled, “There’s so much more to know about people than we hear about in the news.” Josh Shapiro has spent his life preparing to lead an America that might no longer exist. His plays hold us in the moment outside of time. The Trump administration is spending millions to entice people to leave. The U.S.

justice and political systems have shown that they can’t hold the president and his allies to account for trying to steal the 2020 election. Can American Canto turn scandal into literature? Donald Trump’s outbursts on social media this week were different than usual. Presidents often lose control over their agenda, or the policy process, or pieces of legislation. Sometimes, they even lose control of their party. But Donald Trump seems to have lost control over the one thing every person, and especially those with immense power, should always maintain control over: himself.

Yesterday the president called for the arrest and execution of elected American officials for the crime—as he sees it—of fidelity to the Constitution. It would be easy merely to note, yet again, that the president is a depraved man and a menace to the American system of government. As remarkable as it is to say it, however, the outbursts of this past week are different, and were likely triggered by Trump’s panic over the release of files about his former friend, the... No one should treat this new phase in the president’s aggression against democracy as just another episode in the Trump reality show. A group of Democratic legislators—all of them either military veterans or former national-security officials—may have helped to push the president over the edge. On Tuesday, they issued a video reminding members of the U.S.

Armed Forces that their oath of service requires them to refuse illegal orders, and that their loyalty is owed not to any one president, but to the Constitution itself. Normally, legislators don’t feel the need to make such an obvious declaration, but the president is using the military—including deploying troops to U.S. cities and ordering the killing of people on the high seas—in ways that almost certainly involve illegal orders. Members of Congress have a right, even an obligation, to speak up. Read: What we lose by distorting the mission of the National Guard Across the democratic world, the postwar era’s dominant parties face a populist insurgency.

Sign up for Trump’s Return, a newsletter featuring coverage of the second Trump presidency. One paradox of American politics is that voters are both extremely polarized about politics and extremely disdainful of political parties. A record share, 43 percent, self-identify as political independents. Most of these are not true swing voters, but they hold both major parties in low regard. As of September, only 40 percent of voters approved of the ruling Republican Party. The Democrats’ favorability was an even more miserable 37 percent—barely above their July showing, their worst in more than 30 years.

The parties themselves look feeble and vulnerable to capture—by opportunistic candidates, attention-seeking infotainers, and parochial activists. Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican Party is nearly a decade old. More than 60 percent of Americans want a third major party to emerge, even if the structure of the country’s political system makes that prohibitively difficult. Reformers reason that by importing features of other democracies—a direct popular vote for president, tight limits on money in politics, voting by ranked choice—we could heal ourselves. From “A Political Party Unhinged From Truth” which is adapted from Robert Draper’s book “Weapons of Mass Delusion”. “What happens to a political party when it becomes unhinged from objective truth?

A couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call from a woman who until recently had served in a position of regional prominence in the Texas Republican Party. The woman had read something I’d written pertaining to the insurrection at the Capitol and found it to be thoroughly inaccurate. She wished to inform me that friends of hers had been there on January 6 and had seen nothing remotely riotous taking place. But, the woman added, whatever violence had occurred that day had been the work of antifa. She then said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s videotaped phone conversations that afternoon, in which she implored governors to deploy National Guard troops to the Capitol, had been entirely staged. The woman closed by declaring that those who remained in federal custody for January 6–related offenses were being ‘politically persecuted.’ When I asked her where she had gotten all this information, the woman replied...

A Political Party Unhinged From Truth The Atlantic

People Also Search

What I Learned While I Worked On A Book About

One Of The Objects Of His Harassment Had Been Jerrold

After His Arrest, While Languishing In A Federal Jail Cell,

In March Of 2020, I Sat In A Federal Courtroom

One Of The Objects Of His Harassment Had Been Jerrold