Radio Atlantic

The MAGA movement has fully embraced masculinism, which The Atlantic’s staff writer Helen Lewis defines in her cover story this month as “a movement to fight back against the advances of feminism and reassert the primacy of men.” Democrats have a more complicated relationship with it. After the last presidential election, when Donald Trump made inroads with young men, even those of color, some Democrats began wondering whether their party did indeed have a man problem. This campaign season, one Democrat who seems to have answered that call is Graham Platner, who won the primary in Maine this week and may be key to the party’s chances of winning the Senate. But several women described “toxic” relationships with Platner, including one who said he “could be rough with her.” Platner’s campaign disputed any claims of physical intimidation or altercations. In Texas’s U.S. Senate race, manliness has become even more explicit. Republican attacks on the Democratic nominee James Talarico rely on all manner of terms that effectively mean “unmanly”: low-T, transgender, secretly a woman, gay, man-child, and—God forbid—vegan. Democrats responded to these attacks with a photo of Talarico eating a turkey leg. This week, Lewis discusses how masculinism is playing out in American politics. - - - Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not long after U.S. commandos swiftly extracted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him to the United States, Donald Trump set his sights on the next target: Cuba. Some administration officials seem interested in Cuba’s nickel and cobalt deposits. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shares the dream of many Cuban exiles for regime change on the island. Although, from the Cuban perspective, the prospect of the U.S. bringing regime change is fraught, coming after centuries of conflict and colonial extraction. On this week’s Radio Atlantic: Host Hanna Rosin speaks with the Atlantic staff writer Vivian Salama and the historian Ada Ferrer, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Cuba: An American History, as well as the new book Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter. - - -Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is an ongoing battle for House seats. And it’s playing out not so much in elections but in congressional maps. The Atlantic staff writers Russell Berman, who’s been covering the redistricting wars for the past several months, and Vann R. Newkirk II, who’s long followed the Voting Rights Act (and now its demise), explain how this new era of tit-for-tat gerrymandering is different than ever before. --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump administration is trying to sanitize U.S. history by removing mentions of slavery on historic monuments, scrubbing words such as “oppression” from government websites, and obscuring the legacy of Black American heroes. Last summer, the president personally criticized the Smithsonian for focusing too much on “how bad slavery was.” The Atlantic’s Clint Smith and Adam Harris argue that if the federal government won’t reckon with the nation’s past, it might be time for a different approach to understanding Black history. --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Melania movie is pitched as a documentary following the first lady of the United States in the lead-up to her husband’s second inauguration. But it’s missing all the hallmarks of a journalistic, biographical film. What you get instead is a series of aphorisms that clang loudly against the reality being shaped by Donald Trump. And of course, shot after shot of $1,000 shoes, gold decorations, and private planes. The Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert describes the film as a “two-hour perfume commercial." Gilbert joins the show to talk about the movie, about the real Melania, and about President Trump’s efforts to shape culture. - - - Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Minnesota governor warns of a national unraveling and shares the view from his state. “ The way you win this is through nonviolence, that you cannot do violence,” Governor Tim Walz told the Atlantic staff writer Isaac Stanley-Becker in Minneapolis on Wednesday. “And I know my constituents are mad at me for saying that. They’re shooting us. They’re killing us. They’re beating us. They’re taking our children. But you see what’s happening now. For all that power and all that cruelty, they are retreating massively. Now, I believe they’ll only retreat far enough to get to the next day or the next news cycle. But again, they underestimated this state, and I think they’re underestimating the American people. I’m still baffled—if you were gonna pick two states to mess with, Maine and Minnesota, especially in the middle of winter, not smart.” - - - Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at theAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last year, there was a mass exodus of federal workers: Some were pushed out, while others left on their own. All in all, more than 300,000 Americans left government jobs. The Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer spent months talking to dozens of them, finding out who they were, what they did, and ultimately what, as a country, we may have lost. Read Foer’s full story: “The Purged.” --- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices