Trump’s US is spiralling into tyranny – but ways to stop it do exist. The fallout from the Trump-Zelensky debacle: a sense of profound shame. How Covid 19 re-shaped American society – and not for the better. What does a post-Churchill-Zelensky look like? Can those pushing back against harmful wellness advice succeed?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Larry Diamond, Trump’s America is in a Free Fall—Not a Slippery Slope—to Tyranny
(The UnPopulist, 20 February 2025)
We’ll have been warned – no need to beat around the bush. The author of “Ill Winds; The Spirit of Democracy” puts it in no uncertain terms: Trump “is instilling fear not just among lawmakers but every sector of society that dares to criticize him or hold him accountable.” There is no more doubt that “a mere month into his second term as president, Donald Trump and his loyalists in government are already posing grave risks to the legal, constitutional, and normative foundations of American democracy.” To sum up: “The threats to American democracy are now immediate, serious, and mounting by the day. However, it is possible to contain them.” Read on to get a sense of how (to contain them) (metered paywall, 5-7 min).
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Brooks and Capehart on the implications of Trump’s altercation with Zelenskyy
(PBS News, 28 February 2025)
A 9 min video (with its transcript) to help make sense of the dark moments through which Trump is taking the US. This is a conversation between the NYT columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for the Washington Post. They not only discuss Trump’s public spat with Zelenskyy, but also whether Europe can still depend on the US, and new restrictions on the White House press corps. It doesn’t make for happy listening – reading. David Brooks sums it up: “Am I feeling shock, like I’m in a hallucination? But I just think shame, moral shame. It’s a moral injury to see the country you love behave in this way” (free access).
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David Wallace Wells, How COVID remade America
(The New York Times, 4 March 2025)
The core argument: Covid changed everything around America (and the rest of the world as well, but maybe not to the same extent). This article explains how. A few insights: (1) it made US society hyper-individualistic, (2) it inaugurated a new age of social Darwinism, (3) it broke faith in public health, (4) it marked the apex and the end of a decade of protest, (5) it shattered cities and disordered societies, (6) it made world powers more mercenary, and many more! (gifted article, reads in 7-9 min).
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Christian Esch, The Churchill of Ukraine seeks a new role
(Spiegel International, 3 March 2025)
Since the Munich Security Conference, Zelenskyy has been through the most difficult weeks of his life, having absorbed one blow after another from the US government. He now faces the task of having to forge a peace deal which he doesn’t trust, and must prepare for ugly, painful compromises. Having consciously played the role of Churchill, he must now find a new role. What could it look like when there is no role left to play? (free access, 10 min+).
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Jude Joffe-Block, Bad wellness advice is all over social media. These creators are pushing back
(NPR, 20 February 2025)
Since wellness as an ‘industry’ is unregulated, much of its space on social media is devoted to fear-based, conspiratorial, anti-science illusory solutions that take advantage of people’s fears to sell them whatever they’ll buy. This article describes the work of the growing group of content creators/wellness influencers trying to counteract misleading and false wellness claims online. Will they succeed? (Free access, 4-5 min).
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