Phoenix is "the most American city," The Atlantic proclaims

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."