The Atlantic

Trump’s Missing A-Game

Helsinki may be the extraordinary moment when Donald Trump’s worst traits were so blatantly self-exposed that even some of his own partisans were forced to say, “Enough.”
Source: Grigory Dukor / Reuters

It’s often hard to parse a historic marker, to pluck one from the velocity of events, but Helsinki may truly be the extraordinary moment when Donald Trump’s worst traits were so blatantly self-exposed that even some of his own partisans, in Congress and the conservative media, were compelled to confront the truth.

Presidents typically succeed by controlling the narratives around them. Trump has long understood that concept, dating back to his ’80s social swirl, when he spun his way through the New York tabloids with leaked tidbits about himself. But Helsinki proved that when

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