The Bullying Pulpit

Meme Wars, Silicon Valley Birth Control

It's not exactly breaking news that social media can be a nasty place where cruelty and personal attacks carry more viral value than thoughtfulness and decency. And in the last few months, this trend is being led by example from the very top. "Since the Trump administration assumed power in January, the official White House social media accounts have taken on a sinister style of posting." DHS sharing a photo of alligators in ICE hats to promote a new detention center or the The White House posting a supposedly funny ASMR video of deportees being shackled represent a fetishizing of cruelty, as an administration supposedly driven by a sentimentality for the past is actually breaking new ground when it comes to political trolling. Nathan Taylor Pemberton in the NYT (Gift Article): Trolling Democracy. "The key ingredient to this online soup is extremism: from nativism to racial science to casual neo-Nazism and textbook misogyny. Presented to followers via livestreams, memes and X posts, this deluge of far-right content has been called 'slopulism' — a vibes-based politics designed for social media and born from social media. These vibes, of course, are harsh. They’re antidemocratic. And they’re increasingly being embodied in the presence of figures staffing the second Trump administration." What Lincoln called the better angels of our nature has been wholly replaced by the demonic bullying of our trolling.

+ This debasing of decency and celebration of bullying not only degrades our democracy, it's also out there as online representation of America for the whole world to see. This is who we are now. And sadly, the words are being matched by the sticks and stones. We're not just being desensitized to how we talk to one another. We're being desensitized to how we treat each other. The Atlantic (Gift Article): In Trump's Deportation Machine, Children Are Fair Game. "More systematically than in his first term, Trump’s administration is reaching into the federal immigration bureaucracy to roll back an array of protections for undocumented children, not only recent arrivals but also those who have only ever known life in this country. More and more, children are being picked up on family vacations, at traffic stops, and at worksites, and winding up in detention."

+ Scheduling Note: After tomorrow's edition, I'll be taking the last couple of weeks of July off from NextDraft (unless, of course, there's any really bigly news). I'm confident you can moan without me for a few days.

2

Birth Control

"Noor Siddiqui, the founder of an embryo-screening start-up and the guest of honor at the backyard event in Austin, offered a grand vision of custom-built algorithms and genome analysis that would help eradicate illness and disease ... Siddiqui is a rising star in the realm of fertility start-ups backed by tech investors. Her company, San Francisco-based Orchid Health, screens embryos for thousands of potential future illnesses, letting prospective parents plan their families with far more information about their progeny than ever before. For now, her approach has been taken up mostly in her moneyed social circle. But one day, maybe not far off, it could change the way many babies are made everywhere — posing new moral and political questions as reproduction could increasingly become an outcome not of sex but of genetic preselection and data-mining." WaPo (Gift Article): Inside the Silicon Valley push to breed super-babies. (Ironically, the biggest problem with today's Silicon Valley investors and influencers is that they can't stop acting like super babies.)

3

Ooh, Baby, I Love Your Whey

"As proud as he is of his cheese, Mr. Heiman knows that his company’s profitability these days is thanks less to Colby than it is to whey, the liquid byproduct of cheese making that helps to satisfy America’s seemingly insatiable appetite for added protein. Nasonville Dairy produces around 150,000 pounds of cheese a day, but just breaks even on most of it, especially the 40-pound blocks of Cheddar that are a cheesemaker’s stock in trade. What increasingly keeps the lights on is whey." No Whey! ... Whey... America’s Protein Obsession Is Transforming the Dairy Industry. "Whey, the liquid byproduct of cheese making, was once considered waste. Now it is a key ingredient in the protein powders that Ozempic users and weight lifters are downing in ever-greater amounts." (Spolier alert: In a few years, they'll tell us all this protein is killing us. It's just the whey these things go.)

4

Club Med

These days, the anti-tourism vibe in parts of Europe seems to rise with the summer heat. Nightclubs in Ibiza could be ground zero for the building frustration. And we're not talking about noise complaints from locals tired of hearing the thumping bass from all-night foam parties. Over-partying tourists are actually putting a strain on the Island's health system. "Drug-related calls from nightclubs are driving Ibiza’s ambulance services to collapse." NYT (Gift Article): Club Drugs Strain Health System on Ibiza, Spain’s Party Island.

5

Extra, Extra

He's Just Not That Into You: "My 'PAST supporters have bought into this 'bulls---' hook, line, and sinker.' Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!" (This is Trumpspeak for "I value the time we've spent together, but I don't think we should continue being friends.") Trump disavows supporters pushing Jeffrey Epstein 'bulls---. AP: With Epstein conspiracy theories, Trump faces a crisis of his own making.

+ Same Sh-t, Different Day: "Seemingly unfazed by President Donald Trump's 50-day ultimatum to end the fighting, Russia launched hundreds of drones and missile strikes on six Ukrainian regions overnight."

+ Deport in a Storm: "More than 1.4 million Afghans have fled or been deported from Iran since January during a government clampdown on undocumented refugees, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency. More than half a million have been forced into Afghanistan just since the war between Israel and Iran last month, returned to a homeland already grappling with a severe humanitarian crisis and draconian restrictions on women and girls, in one of the worst displacement crises of the past decade ... They are being dumped at an overcrowded border facility in western Afghanistan, where many expressed anger and confusion to New York Times journalists over how they could go on with few prospects in a country where some have never lived, or barely know anymore. 'I worked in Iran for 42 years, so hard that my knees are broken, and for what?' [said] Mohammad Akhundzada, a construction worker." A story that sounds a little too familiar about an action by government we used to consider our opposite. NYT (Gift Article): As Iran Deports a Million Afghans, ‘Where Do We Even Go?’

+ Mortgaging the Future: "President Donald Trump accused Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) of mortgage fraud Tuesday, and a senior administration official told The Washington Post that a criminal case had been referred to the Justice Department, in a sharp escalation of the White House’s attacks on vocal Trump critics." Not surprising. Also, not democracy. Also, at least so far, just a Truth Social post and not an actual investigation.

+ Senior High: "The military shooter game has a predominantly young male user base, but Statham’s Twitch handle is TacticalGramma – a nod to the 60-year-old’s two grandkids. Her lifelong gaming hobby has become an income stream (she prefers to keep her earnings private, but says she has raised 'thousands' for charity), as well as a way to have fun, stay sharp and connect socially." Gaming in their golden years: why millions of seniors are playing video games. (For the same reason everyone else does. To avoid reality.)

6

Bottom of the News

"Janudi Perera spent all spring looking for a retail job, but had no luck. So the college sophomore in Queens, N.Y., did what many around her do when a situation doesn’t go their way: She paid a witch on Etsy to cast a spell." Etsy Witches Charge for Jobs, Sunshine and Knicks Wins. Business Is Booming. (Of course it is...)

+ "One local Grand Teton fox who's embracing its inner sneakerhead has stolen nearly three dozen shoes in a Grand Teton campground, leading park officials to worry it's becoming alarmingly habituated to humans." A Fox Has Stolen 32 Shoes (and Counting) in Grand Teton. (Experts have theories, but we may not figure out why this is happening until we hear what does the fox say.)