Phoenix is "the most American city," The Atlantic proclaims
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The Atlantic's July/August issue cover. Photo: Courtesy The Atlantic
Phoenix is "the most American city," legendary journalist and author George Packer declares — and cautions — in his Atlantic cover story, released online this week.
The big picture: After eight months of reporting in Arizona, Packer paints a picture of a city chock-full of progress, partisanship and potential peril.
- He explores the state's impending (but sometimes locally ignored) water crisis, embrace of extremism, explosive population growth and the "sheer hubris" of its existence.
Stunning stat: Clocking in at about 25,000 words (a 94-minute read), it's the second-longest story The Atlantic has published in its 40-year history, according to the news magazine.
State of play: Packer's account of modern-day Phoenix is presented against the area's centuries-long fight over water and the fall of its first civilization — the Hohokam Indians, whose disappearance in the middle of the 15th century still eludes historians.
- "And because a vision of vanishing now haunts the whole country, Phoenix is a guide to our future," Packer wrote.
Zoom in: The article — "a dispatch from the near future," as the magazine's cover remarks — includes commentary from the who's who of Arizona.
- Sun Devils will appreciate Packer's mention of ASU president Michael Crow's love of the word "innovative."
Former House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who famously refused former President Trump and Rudy Giuliani's asks to overturn Arizona's 2020 presidential election results, reflected on his Mormon faith and dramatic thrust into the national election-denial spotlight.
- Packer included a snippet from Bowers' Dec. 4, 2020, diary entry, in which he wrote that he could not face God as a "coward" who cheated to allow Trump to win.
The QAnon Shaman (aka Jacob Chansley), who donned a horned headdress and face paint as he invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, met with Packer at a northwest Phoenix Chipotle. Packer barely recognized him.
- "For a second, he disappeared into that chasm between the on-screen performance and the ordinary reality of American life," Packer wrote.
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who moved his pro-Trump student organization's headquarters to the Valley in 2018 and just listed his Scottsdale mansion for $6.5 million, spoke of a "bottom-up resistance" against "the powerful, the rich, the wealthy" during the group's annual conference.
- Packer attended the event in Phoenix last December, when Kirk encouraged young men to become "strong, alpha, godly, high‑T, high-achieving, confident, well-armed and disruptive men."
Between the lines: He spoke with a west Phoenix family caught in the crosshairs of broken immigration, health care and education systems, and with residents of Valley outskirts whose wells have dried up.
- He showed the irony of how the hyperbolic rhetoric and culture wars that dominate political discourse — and drive many voters' decisions — are lightyears away from the actual issues threatening everyday Arizonans.
The bottom line: Packer ended his piece recalling a drive he took with Bowers to a ranch in Gila County, where the Sierra Ancha mountains blocked the Valley from sight.
- It was a relief to spend a whole day away from "the strip malls, the air-conditioned traffic, the swimming pool subdivisions … the endless fights in empty language over elections and migrants and schools and everything else."
- "But now I realized that I was ready to go back. That was our civilization down in the Valley, the only one we had. Better for it to be there than gone."