This Must Be the Place

All Politics is National

What if the only lesson of the NYC mayoral race is who will be the mayor of NYC? Because of the media saturation, it wouldn’t be the first time that a local New York City story was covered as if it represented and impacted the entire nation. I know more about Manhattan’s traffic congestion pricing than I know about my own commute (and I work from home). But these days, maybe a NYC mayoral election really does represent something more. We’ve certainly been told for months that it will shake everything from the five boroughs to Washington DC to the West Bank. Even Elon Musk has chimed in, so maybe this city election’s reach actually extends all the way to Mars. One thing is for sure. A famous adage of American elections is no longer accurate. As David Graham explains in The Atlantic (Gift Article): No Politics Is Local. “The nationalization of politics is a familiar story, especially in Congress. As the parties have become more polarized in recent years, voters have become less willing to cross the aisle or split their ballot between Democrats and Republicans—especially because animosity toward the other party is a central part of the polarization. The weakening of local media outlets, especially newspapers, has also left citizens far more informed and invested in national political dynamics than matters closer to home. In the recent past, the idea that a New York mayoral candidate’s stance on Palestinian rights might affect his prospects would have appeared peculiar. And the idea that his platform on rent control could sway U.S. House votes in Texas or Nevada—as Republicans hope and centrist Democrats worry—would have seemed downright preposterous. Today, dismissing either of those isn’t so easy.” In my neck of the woods, the most controversial measure on the ballot will determine whether or not a portion of a local park will be converted to make way for affordable housing. I’m just praying Trump posts his preference about this measure on Truth Social so I’ll know for sure how not to vote.

+ In some ways, politics are less local than ever. But, inside your head, they’re as local as you can get. The New Yorker: The N.Y.C. Mayoral Election, as Processed in Therapy. “Before voters go to the ballot box, they’re sitting on their therapist’s couch—where they’re unpacking their Mamdani-induced fears and their Cuomo-fuelled stress. Or, as usual, they’re talking about Trump.” At this point, our brains could all use some local anesthesia.

2

Places Everyone

Politics isn’t the only thing that is simultaneously local and global. AI is driving our economy from the public markets to the public square. WSJ (Gift Article): What Happened When Small-Town America Became Data Center, USA. “Yesenia Leon-Tejeda, like many people on the frontier of America’s tech boom, is basking in newfound prosperity. Her hometown in northeast Oregon was not long ago known for a former chemical-weapons depot nearby, a state prison on the city’s outskirts and the strip clubs once dotting its main drag. But a growing fleet of Amazon data centers has turned the region around Umatilla into an unlikely nerve center for one of the most expensive infrastructure build-outs in U.S. history. The tech giant has pumped jobs, people and money into the community of roughly 8,000, doubling many home prices and enticing builders to etch new neighborhoods into surrounding hillsides.”

+ “In the 2020s, AI is already transforming America in a similar fashion, driving overall economic growth and powering the stock market to all-time highs. As a share of US GDP, the AI build-out is on track to exceed every major technology since—you guessed it—the railroads.” Derek Thompson: AI Could Be the Railroad of the 21st Century. Brace Yourself.

3

Like He Owned the Place

“Dick Cheney, widely regarded as the most powerful vice president in American history, who was George W. Bush’s running mate in two successful campaigns for the presidency and his most influential White House adviser in an era of terrorism, war and economic change, died Monday. He was 84.” Dick Cheney, Powerful Vice President and Washington Insider, Dies at 84. Cheney’s contentious time in office has long been debated. Perhaps what’s most notable at this particular moment in American history is that the last political act of the guy who was once the most powerful person in the GOP was to announce that he was voting for Kamala Harris because “we have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution.” And almost no officials in his party listened.

+ The Times: “Cheney was revered by hardline Republicans, but loathed by more moderate Americans. A taciturn, secretive man with a crooked and enigmatic half-grin, he came to be seen as a somewhat sinister éminence grise, a powerful but malign influence on the president. He left office with the lowest approval ratings of any modern vice-president. Yet Cheney was unabashed. He cared nothing about popularity, only about history’s verdict. He left office with no regrets about the course he had taken, even though Iraq was in turmoil, America’s economy and international standing were in dire shape, and the so-called War on Terror had succeeded only in making the world seem less secure.” Dick Cheney obituary: powerful and controversial US vice-president.

4

Between a Stock and Hard Place

Wall Street CEOs seem pretty concerned that the market is getting overheated. So concerned that they explained why a downturn is to be expected and will be a healthy thing. Of course, they’re probably trying to move the market toward a healthy downturn to avoid a more dramatic one. The response from the market? Pretty dramatic. Goldman and Morgan Stanley CEOs predict corrections of up to 20%, sparking global selloff. Yesterday, my portfolio had my self-esteem at near highs. Today, once again, I’ve been put in my place.

5

Extra, Extra

The Discord Accord: “At 11:30 PM on Tuesday, September 9, Rakshya Bam stepped down from an army jeep outside military headquarters in a pitch-dark, locked-down Kathmandu. The 26-year-old hadn’t slept in more than a day. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, the whites threaded with thin lines of fatigue. A wave of youth-led protests had rocked Nepal, born on Discord servers, TikTok feeds, and encrypted messaging apps. In just a few days, Bam had seen friends gunned down, watched parliament buildings smolder, and witnessed the collapse of the Nepalese government. Prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli had resigned, and the army had stepped in to try to restore order. Now, Bam was one of 10 young activists who had been summoned to an unprecedented meeting.” Wired: The Inside Story of How Gen Z Toppled Nepal’s Leader and Chose a New One on Discord.

+ Fit for a King: “Their efforts are grounded in a controversial theory of social progress: That a select group of elites are exactly the right people to move the country forward, a position Buskirk argues is not in defiance of MAGA’s populism. Putting industry leaders in positions of power is a hallmark of Trump’s presidency — from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to tech titan Elon Musk — and Buskirk says the MAGA movement has energized a new generation of stewards for the country.” WaPo (Gift Article): The secretive donor circle that lifted JD Vance is now re-writing MAGA’s future.

+ Leak Detector: “Until last week, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was the Israeli army’s top lawyer. Now she is behind bars and at the center of a scandal rocking the country after a bizarre sequence of events that included her abrupt resignation, a brief disappearance and a frantic search that led authorities to find her on a Tel Aviv beach.” NPR: Israel rocked by scandal as top military lawyer is thrown into jail. “The soap opera-worthy saga was touched off last week by Tomer-Yerushalmi’s explosive admission that she approved the leak of a surveillance video at the center of a politically divisive investigation into allegations of severe abuse against a Palestinian at a notorious Israeli military prison.”

+ Drug War: “The murder of Mexico’s most vocal anti-crime mayor shows that, despite President Claudia Sheinbaum’s crackdown on drug cartels, the battle is just beginning.” NYT: Bold Assassinations Are ‘Reality Check’ in Mexico’s Cartel Fight.

+ Parasite Killing Host? “The web archive Common Crawl has been quietly funneling paywalled articles to AI companies—and lying to publishers about it.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Nonprofit Doing the AI Industry’s Dirty Work.

+ We Have a Problem: For Halloween, a group of Arizona high school teachers wore bloody shirts with the message “problem solved.” Of course, the Turning Point crowd outed these teachers as anti-Charlie Kirk radicals who should be made famous and fired. Soon, the teachers were receiving death threats. But here’s the thing. The teachers wore the shirts to make a joke about how hard some of their math problems are to solve. How do we know that? Well, for one thing, they explained as much. For another thing, they wore the same outfits last year.

6

Bottom of the News

“The museum advertises Langelinck’s tours, which cost €7, as ‘grumpy’ and ‘highly unpleasant,’ though that might still be an understatement. Over the course of the 70-minute walk, the ponytailed art historian points fingers into visitors’ faces, tells them off for checking their phones or sitting down, and berates them for their general ignorance.” German museum’s ‘grumpy guide’ is surprise hit.

+ Jonathan Bailey Is People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2025.

+ MaineHealth -- the state’s largest healthcare provider -- said more than 500 living patients received letters indicating that they were dead. (When I’m dead, please hold my mail.)