President’s Police State – The Atlantic
The Daily Read: Spark’s faith, Snediker’s Verse, and Trump’s Billions
Read. “Surface Support,” a poem by Michael D. Snediker:
“Meniscus augur & hour of errors as the mercury rag spills its rings / from his last good pore, his teeth shaped in greenhouse suet or little / expectant pots of orchid balm in snow.”
You can find the full poem here: https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2025/08/poem-michael-snediker-surface-support/683798/
Play. Sharpen your mind with our daily crossword puzzle: https://www.theatlantic.com/free-daily-crossword-puzzle/
P.S.
Today’s recommended reading comes from The New Yorker. David D. Kirkpatrick tackles a question that feels both obvious and impossibly complex: how much has Donald Trump profited from his presidency?
it’s easy to assume the answer is “a lot.” But quantifying that profit, especially given Trump’s unprecedented lack of transparency, is a monumental task. kirkpatrick painstakingly attempts to do just that, arriving at a conservative estimate of $3.4 billion.
But the number itself almost feels secondary to his concluding observation: “By the time I finished adding up the Trump family’s profits, I was almost inured to it all.” That’s a chilling thought. If even those actively investigating can become numb to the scale of the financial benefit, what does that mean for the broader public’s perception? Are we overlooking something massive, simply as it’s become too overwhelming to fully grasp?
You can read Kirkpatrick’s full investigation here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/18/the-number
– David
Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.
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