I do not envy the mainstream press at this moment. With multiple unthinkable things happening on a weekly basis, the task of triaging and prioritizing stories which could each dominate multiple news cycles in calmer times cannot be easy. Though I don’t envy them, I will criticize them. They play a vital role in society, keeping us apprised of events which could impact our lives – and they are currently missing a big one.
I have long been skeptical of the merits of running around screaming that the sky is falling. If the sky were really falling – I assumed – everyone would notice and behave accordingly. The last two weeks have challenged that assumption, though. In a situation where the sky really does appear to be falling, millions of people are working desperately to convince themselves otherwise. Even now, when reading the daily headlines makes anyone sound like a conspiracy nut, many are beset by the impulse to believe that what we are seeing cannot possibly be as bad as it appears to be.
Flooding the zone with shit.” That’s the phrase that Steve Bannon, the right-wing Rasputin and former Trump strategist, coined years ago for the technique we have seen the Trump administration deploy in the last week. The idea, as Bannon conceived it, was to unleash a firehose of disinformation, scandal, and intrigue at such an astonishing rate that neither the public nor the media would be able to remain focused on a single topic or transgression for long. Unfortunately, the first week of the second Trump administration was a masterclass in it: the Nazi salute, the talk of annexing Greenland, the “Gulf of America.”
Elon Musk is a cretin. Let’s get that out of the way up front. The world’s richest man is a purveyor of racist conspiracism, has helped turn the internet into an extremist cesspool, and is, according to at least one of his children, a terrible father. But is he a Nazi? Sure! At least in the colloquial sense in which the term has been employed in the last few decades to mean a supporter or apparatchik of authoritarian far-right political movements.
On New Year’s Day, a Tesla Cybertruck pulled up to the entrance of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, where the driver triggered a device consisting of fuel canisters and fireworks, detonating the vehicle. He claimed no lives but his own, whether or not he intended to.
Politically conservative “pro-family” groups ended 2024 by calling to stamp out the “transgender cult,” opposing constitutional rights for Satanists, promoting Melania Trump’s parenting advice, warning against sympathy for immigrants, and celebrating Donald Trump’s second election as a source of spiritual revival.
I have never met a book I didn’t like. Although, I suppose that’s not quite true; I’ve thoroughly disliked most self-help books I have ever encountered, and I think the entire body of Victorian fiction is criminally overrated. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I have never encountered a book which didn’t impress me, which didn’t force me to think about the efforts involved in translating all of those thoughts into words, and putting all of those words onto the page. Even the worst novels – and I have read a few – leave me with the impression that the author has accomplished a Herculean task: externalizing what was once only internal.
Amid the unrelenting cavalcade of appalling Trump administration appointees announced in recent weeks, one pick slid past without nearly enough scrutiny: the selection of Mike Huckabee to serve as the United States’ ambassador to Israel. With no diplomatic experience whatsoever, Huckabee will take up the crucial posting in the middle of a war. But it’s not Huckabee’s lack of experience which makes the choice so eyebrow-raising, it’s his apocalyptic Christian Zionist notion of Israel.
The “least credible history book in print.” That’s the honor voters bestowed on David Barton’s 2012 book about Thomas Jefferson, which rewrote the third president as a modern God & Country evangelical and distanced him from that whole slavery mess. The book was ultimately withdrawn from publication by Christian publishing house Thomas Nelson, but neither the withdrawal nor the spate of scathing reviews slowed Barton down. If anything, his star has risen even further: today, Barton is constantly found onstage alongside the biggest names in the Christian nationalist movement.
