Fear and Loathing in America
Fear Factors, All Bags are Bad?
The only thing to fear is fear itself. FDR spoke that line nearly a century ago, but it holds up as key tenet of this American moment. Fear is scary because making opponents afraid is a core ingredient of authoritarian-leaning leadership. Are we seeing rising levels of fear across American institutions and businesses? I'm afraid so. We've seen law firms get cold feet. We've seen business leaders clam up. We've seen universities offer teachable moments about how to knuckle under. We've seen some media outlets change tone. Democracy dies in darkness is a nice slogan until someone scares the living daylights out of you. Fear is contagious, so if big institutions are buckling, how will smaller entities and individuals keep their spines stiff? Isaac Stanley-Becker in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The United States of Fear. "The pressures boil down to fear—fear of adverse executive action, fear of associations disfavored by a vengeful president, and fear of a government bent on retribution. Two months into Trump’s second term, fear is taking hold across broad cross sections of American society. Business executives are privately speculating that the U.S. president could be a foreign asset, his actions a 'gift to China,' but biting their tongues in public. University administrators and the lobbyists they’ve retained are quietly expressing relief that Columbia is the government’s 'whipping boy,' keeping their heads down to avoid a lashing of their own. Government scientists, apprehensive that their research will be scrapped, are scrubbing their work of anything that might smack of diversity efforts ... The consequences are severe: hiring freezes, loss of clients, abandoned clinical trials. So fear of confronting the president spreads, quieting those who might otherwise be motivated to speak out." (It's worth remembering that courage can be as contagious as fear.)
+ If it makes you feel any better, the fear is pretty clearly bipartisan. Many Republican leaders know that things like threatening Canada, siding with Putin, issuing seesawing tariff proclamations, enabling unelected Elon's chainsawing of government, and flouting laws and judicial rulings are wrong. They're even more afraid to speak up than the opposition. And we're seeing that once again when it comes to the Signal war plan sharing screw-up that literally every single person in office knows represents a terrible breach of trust, confidence, and security. But, as you'd expect, there were early signs Tuesday of Republicans coalescing around a defiant message. (Maybe they should share that defiant message on Signal. It might go as viral as the war plans.)
+ Want something to be afraid of? Be afraid that these guys are running our national defense. If you missed it yesterday, here's my coverage of a security failure so embarrassing, one has to wonder whether our NatSec is already FUBAR.
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Palava Flow
"The wind ruffled Aun Abdullah’s hair as he strolled along a path paved through lush grasses circled by apartments more than 20 stories high. Large gaps between the towering buildings channeled the winds, providing relief from the muggy heat." Channeling winds is just one of innovations in Palava, a 5,000-acre experimental community northeast of Mumbai that hopes to provide a model for adapting to a climate-transformed world. WaPo (Gift Article): This muggy city keeps cool with minimal AC. Here’s how.
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Fight or Flight
As I mentioned yesterday, I'm pretty worried about a potentially massive drop in international tourism to the US. For the nation that has long been our top visitor, that drop-off is already happening, bigly. WSJ (Gift Article): Canadians Are Boycotting American Vacations. "A boycott by the top international visitor threatens to upend local economies across the U.S. Canadians made about 20.2 million visits to the U.S. in 2024. Even a 10% reduction in Canadian travel could mean $2 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses." How is the Trump administration responding? Here's White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly: "Canadians will no longer have to worry about the inconveniences of international travel when they become American citizens as residents of our cherished 51st state."
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Bagging is Not My Bag
"With more cities, states and countries banning single-use plastic bags, paper has become a popular alternative at the grocery checkout. At first glance, this seems like an obvious win for the environment. Plastic bags, after all, are made from fossil fuels and a major source of pollution. Paper bags, however, are not necessarily a better choice. They come with their own list of environmental caveats, as do reusable totes." NYT (Gift Article): What Shopping Bags Should I Use? "All bags are not created equal when it comes to the environment. And paper might not be as green as you think." (I've given up. I now just eat all my groceries right there in the store.)
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Extra, Extra
Warning Signal: We're all using Signal to hide from them only to find that they're all using Signal to hide from us. Why government workers and military planners all love Signal now. (Too bad someone didn't tell the brothers from White Lotus about these private sharing apps before it was too late.)
+ Euro Trashing: Stunning Signal leak reveals depths of Trump administration’s loathing of Europe. (European leaders now realize there's something worse than Trump. Vance.)
+ Inside Job: "The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants and legal immigrants who need Social Security cards with less access or shut out of the system altogether, according to those familiar with the problems." WaPo (Gift Article): Long waits, waves of calls, website crashes: Social Security is breaking down. "What’s going on is the destruction of the agency from the inside out, and it’s accelerating."
+ Make Expectations Great Again: Americans' expectations for the economy hit their lowest level in 12 years. (From it's the economy, stupid, to the stupid economy in a few weeks...)
+ Film Clip: "Israeli authorities released an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was detained by the army after being attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. He said they beat him in front of his home while filming the assault."
+ Not a Pretty Portrait: Trump bemoans a portrait of him - but gets a new one from Putin. Putin actually gave Trump a portrait ... of Trump. Could the psych ops on this guy be any more obvious? Meanwhile, the same tactics are being used by Trump supporters in the US. An airport, Mount Rushmore and the $100 bill: Inside the GOP effort to venerate Trump while he’s still in office.
+ JuJu Out: "She’s Picasso with the transition Euro-step, a cardinal-and-gold blur in the open court. It’s her signature move, defense turned into offense with force and creativity, skill and fearlessness. Everything JuJu Watkins did before she crumpled to the floor Monday night was ordinary for her and extraordinary for any other player." A torn ACL tears at the heart of Women's March Madness. The Painful Ripple Effects of JuJu Watkins’s Injury.
+ Weight Watch: Even as a diehard Giants, I'm pretty worried about Mookie Bett's mystery illness. "Star Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts' body is 'just kind of eating itself,' he said this week, as a mystery illness has cost him more than 20 pounds and kept him out of action this young 2025 season."
+ Passing the Sniff Test: "We have all kinds of detection dogs: drug-detection, bomb-detection, termite-detection. Why don’t we have cat-detection dogs? Why aren’t we training dogs to follow the scent trail of lost dogs?" NYT (Gift Article): Lessons From a Lost-Pet Detective Named Kat. (That's one benefit of owning howling beagles. They're always pretty easy to find.)
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Bottom of the News
"To this day I think that no one has turned in a first draft of an episode better than 'Diversity Day.' Now, as a successful comedy writer, I can look back and feel nothing but excitement for my very dear friend B.J. At the time when that episode came out in 2005, I was so angry, and it like filled me with anxiety how good that draft was. I remember it because B.J. turned in like a 30-page draft. It was just so lean and funny. Besides just being a funny episode of TV, because it was the second episode, it was very good for the rest of us, because it sort of was like, 'Here’s the bar.'" That's Mindy Kaling looking back at the early days of a show that's still my happy place (maybe now more than ever). ‘The Office’ Turns 20: An Oral History of Season 1 From the Writers Who Shaped It.