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The Divorce Heard Around Washington

The Trump administration made strange bedfellows of the left, the media, the permanent political class, and the foreign policy establishment known as The Blob. Amid the fallout from Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, the political knives are out.

Joe Biden
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Julia Ioffe
September 17, 2021

Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he had a clarifying effect on the body politic. During his ascent and years in the White House, the country was cleaved neatly into two opposing teams. For once, things became clear and stark, like in a war. Nuance and subtlety became unaffordable luxuries. Politics became a packaged deal, and you had to pick one of the two on offer. And so, if you opposed Trump, you loved journalists. And in part because Trump and his supporters constantly attacked them, liberals valorized them, thanked them for their service, and turned them into mini-celebrities.