Serwer was raised in
Washington, D.C. His father,
Daniel Serwer, was in the
Foreign Service, which resulted in Serwer spending part of his childhood overseas. His mother,
Jacquelyn Serwer, is the chief curator of the
Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of African American History and Culture. His father is of
Polish Jewish descent, and his mother is
African-American. Serwer received his bachelor's degree from
Vassar College and his master's degree from the
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Following graduate school, he was a writing fellow at
The American Prospect. He later worked at
Mother Jones,
MSNBC,
The Washington Post, Jack and Jill Politics,
Salon, and
The Atlantic as a guest blogger for
Ta-Nehisi Coates. He began work at
BuzzFeed News as the national editor in August 2014. Serwer was hired as a senior editor at
The Atlantic on August 15, 2016. His work there has focused on
white supremacy,
race in America, and the
Trump administration. Essays such as "The Nationalist's Delusion", "White Nationalism's Deep American Roots", and "The Cruelty Is the Point" have been cited by other journalists in various outlets. He has also appeared on other media outlets such as
All Things Considered,
The Opposition with Jordan Klepper,
In the Thick, and
On My Mind with
Diane Rehm to discuss his writing. In his best known essay, "The Cruelty Is the Point", published in 2018, Serwer argued that the Trump administration’s policies were not only cruel, but cruel by design. Serwer received a fellowship from the
Shorenstein Center in 2019, for which he researched the historical role of
African Americans and voting. He received the 2019
Hillman Prize for his work on the rise of Trump,
Trumpism and America's history of racism. His first book, '''''The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump's America'''
, is a collection of essays that was released June 29, 2021 by One World/Penguin Random House. The book was named to the New York Times Best Seller list. Kirkus'' reviewed it as "a strong contribution to conversations about racism, injustice, and violence, all of which continue to plague this country." == Personal life ==