America really has two national anthems, Jake Lundberg writes, and only one of them provokes us to ponder our identity as a nation. He considers why “Battle Hymn of the Republic” endures as a sacred song:

The Atlantic

Being alive at all is the most extraordinary stroke of good luck any of us will ever experience, the physicist Alan Lightman writes: “The question is: What are we to make of the fantastically improbable fact of our existence, our moment of life?”

The Atlantic

The white identitarians have more cultural and political power today than they did at any point in the past half century—and now that DEI and anti-racism are in retreat, they're moving on to a more ambitious goal, @thomaschattwill argues.

The Atlantic

As our nation turns 250, it’s worth asking what form patriotism should take, @GalBeckerman argues. A new book about American pride prompted him to ponder what it means to love an unfinished country:

The Atlantic

.@petridishes imagines a very not-panicked note from the Graham Platner campaign: : The Atlantic. Source: Joe Raedle / Getty.

The Atlantic

Finding a common history of the U.S. that is both unsparing and unifying has proved all but impossible in recent years. But some Americans are trying, @YAppelbaum writes.

The Atlantic

Lawyers for the Kennedy Center have ordered staff to remove all references to Trump from the institution’s signs, documents, and more, according to a memo obtained by Janay Kingsberry.

The Atlantic

The triumphal arch that Donald Trump wants to build across from the Lincoln Memorial would pervert the significance of a uniquely meaningful place, Sebastian Smee argues.

The Atlantic

The left has abandoned its long tradition of patriotism—and will need to rediscover it if it hopes to win over the country, @mkazin argues:

The Atlantic

The Founders could never have imagined America’s modern information environment—and the “question for our democracy is whether a system designed for the communications technologies of the 18th century can survive those of the 21st,” @JeffreyRosen argues.

The Atlantic

“Battle Hymn of the Republic” was first published in The Atlantic in 1862. We have featured the poem on our July cover to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America's founding. Read more from @JeffreyGoldberg about the cover and the ambitions of the issue:

The Atlantic

The 100-year-old D-Day veteran Joe Picard is one of few people left with a memory of the greatest military operation of the 20th century—and his stories are a marker against which to measure how much he, and the country, has changed, Kevin Maurer writes:

The Atlantic

Joyce Beatty, the lawmaker fighting Donald Trump’s control of the Kennedy Center, says she feels vindicated with recent rulings in her favor—but saving the center legally may be easier than restoring it institutionally, @janaykingsberry reports: