<em>The Atlantic</em> Politics Daily: There’s an App for That

As news about the tallying problems unfolded, a procession of conspiracy theories took hold online, amplified by everyone from the president’s campaign manager to at least one Democratic member of Congress to an opinion writer at The New York Times.

My colleague David A. Graham has this to say about why Americans seem so primed to fall for this kind of misinformation.

We’ll leave you with this final note, since we don’t have a final winners list for you: Sometimes, you just don’t really need an app for that. For the political world, the Iowa caucus chaos a reminder that new tech isn’t the panacea it’s sometimes touted to be. At five months old, Shadow was tasked with one of the biggest jobs in politics. Alexis Madrigal on our technology desk explores how such an unproven company ended up building such an important app.

As my colleague Andy Ferguson, writing for our Ideas section, puts it: “How’s this for quirky?”

—Saahil Desai

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« SNAPSHOT »

(Bryan Snyder / Reuters)

A caucus goer in Iowa looks at a hand-written formula for viability at her caucus site in Des Moines on Monday’s caucus night.

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« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »

(MATT ROURKE / AP)

1. “Hopefully he won’t do that again.”

That’s what Republican Senator Lamar Alexander told NPR’s Steve Inskeep while explaining his decision to oppose Trump’s removal. But Trump is likely to read acquittal as “complete and total exoneration,” just as he did the Special Counsel’s investigation, Inskeep argues. So what’s the point of a mild, congressional censure?

2. “What does it take to ‘keep a republic’?”

There’s a difference between civility and civic virtue—one asks for mere politeness while the other calls for self-restraint, truthfulness, and “disinterested concern” for the American experiment, Adam J. White argues: Holding up the republic relies on virtuous public leaders, not well-written laws.

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« EVENING READ »

(THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION / GETTY / THE ATLANTIC)

How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class

The law professor Daniel Markovits has this deep dive on the socioeconomic impact of the company central to some of fiercest scrutiny the 2020 Democratic contender Pete Buttigieg has faced in his recent campaign.

Running a company on a concentrated model requires a cadre of managers who possess the capacity and taste to work with the intensity demanded of top executives today. At the same time, corporate reorganizations have deprived companies of an internal supply of managerial workers. When restructurings eradicated workplace training and purged the middle rungs of the corporate ladder, they also forced companies to look beyond their walls for managerial talent—to elite colleges, business schools, and (of course) to management-consulting firms. That is to say: The administrative techniques that management consultants invented created a huge demand for precisely the services that the consultants supply.

This is where the recent history of American management intersects with Pete Buttigieg’s life story.

Read the full accounting.

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Today’s newsletter was written by Saahil Desai, an associate editor on the Politics desk and Christian Paz, a Politics fellow. It was edited by Shan Wang, who oversees newsletters.

You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments, or send a note to politicsdaily@theatlantic.com.

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Saahil Desai is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he covers politics and policy.