The capitalism of fools: Trump’s mirror-world New Deal.
Cory Doctorow: Trump’s tariffs, demands of government stakes in companies and selective antitrust enforcement superficially echo left‑leaning industrial policy. But Trump’s policies aren’t thought out; they’re just performative chaos. Trump is part of a right-wing mirror world of imagined conspiracies that superficially resemble real problems. One danger is that when Trump is gone, America will desperately need robust state action, but Trump’s bad example will convince America that all state action is reckless.
The problem isn’t that tariffs are always bad, nor is it that demanding state ownership stakes in structurally important companies that depend on public funds is bad policy. The problem is that Trump’s version of these policies sucks, because everything Trump touches dies, and because he governs solely on vibes, half-remembered wisdom imparted by the last person who spoke to him, and the dying phantoms of old memories as they vanish beneath a thick bark of amyloid plaque.
Heather Cox Richardson shares a brief history of the Chicano movement of the 1960s. She uses the 1970 police killing of journalist Rubén Salazar as a launch point.
… in the 1960s, young Mexican Americans, most of whom had been born in the U.S., began to reimagine their community and its position in the United States. Calling themselves “Chicanos,” they called for a new identity based in the understanding that they were not outsiders at all, but rather natives of the northern region of old Mexico, a region that did not become part of the United States until long after the Chicano people–Indigenous Americans mixed with the descendents of Spanish invaders–had settled there.
Chicanos noted that they had not moved into the United States, but rather the United States border had moved over them. The U.S. had taken over the land on which they lived in 1848 after the U.S.-Mexico War. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which had established the new boundary between the two countries far to the south of where it had been before, was supposed to guarantee the land titles of those Mexican landowners over whom the border had moved. But U.S. courts had disregarded the terms of the treaty and refused to recognize the rights of Mexicans, most of whom lost their land.
I knew that the US took the land I live on from Mexico in 1848. We learned about that in public school in New York, where I grew up. But until now I did not make the connection that many of my Latino neighbors have ancestry in America far longer than my own.
Threads is testing a way to share long-form text on the platform.
I’d love to see Mastodon and Bluesky do the same. I am not a fan of microblogging with hard character limits, but I do it because that’s where people are.
Manton is concerned that Threads “would centralized blog-like content that should be on someone’s own site.” That ship is called Facebook and it has already sailed.
I resumed using Obsidian for note-taking and writing a few days ago. The two can be complementary. We’ll see how that goes.
Qualified people get fired or leave. Sycophants, stooges, frauds, charlatans, lackeys, lickspittles, bootlickers, and phonies take over. And this prescription is being filled across all of government, making the prognosis for the country’s health, both now and into the future, increasingly bleak.
The latest government cut made by the Trump administration is a single consonant. But it’s a pretty important one. At this point, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) might as well be renamed the CD, as RFK Jr’s quackery-based attacks on facts and science are squeezing out the experts who know something about the control and prevention part of the job.
I’m back to Obsidian after 10 months in the wilderness
I was an Obsidian addict for years until October 2024, when I decided to use DevonThink for a while. But this week I listened to the Verge’s interview with Obsidian CEO Steph “kepano” Ango and decided to take another look at Obsidian. And I like it. I think I’ll stick with it.
So what are the major advances in Obsidian since October? I know about Bases, and am looking forward to learning about that. What else?
What am I likely to have forgotten in my 10 months wandering in exile?
Yes, I know I can answer these questions by exploring the documentation, forums and various communities. And I plan to do that. But I also think it might be fun to have this discussion here. Those of you who are bothered by my request can feel free to ignore this topic and enjoy this video instead.
“‘I luxuriate in the weird details’: why Highlander is my feelgood movie” www.theguardian.com/film/2025…
How the head of Obsidian went from superfan to CEO. An interview with Steph “kepano” Ango. I am a recovering Obsidian addict, considering a relapse. www.theverge.com/decoder-p…
Publicity photos and a brief write-up on what to expect from Fallout Season 2 in December. I’m looking forward to it. www.theverge.com/games/760…
ICE Is Nothing Like the Brownshirts, Because the Brownshirts Actually Identified Themselves www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/…
A fascinating history of zippers, which were invented in 1892 and didn’t even work for almost 20 years. During all that time, zippers were a scam, a product in search of a solution. After all, buttons and snaps worked fine. articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/new-epi…
What Happens When an Entire Scientific Field Changes Its Mind www.scientificamerican.com/article/w…
I almost came home with another dog this morning, a sweet-faced chihuahua/German shepherd mix. (And isn’t that an unlikely romance?) The woman walking her said she was a foster, and available for adoption. But I resisted temptation.
The foster dog showed no interest in either me or Minnie, and the woman said the foster has a history of being hostile to men. Also, Julie definitely does not want another dog. So I see no reason why adopting that dog would have been a bad idea.
The scarcity of public toilets is a perfect example of American thinking in 2025. Americans would literally shit their pants to avoid the possibility of reducing a homeless person’s suffering.
A good day for our man Gavin
Some days, I hate Gavin Newsom. Some days I love him.
A few months ago, I announced to a friend that if Gavin Newsom is the nominated candidate for President in 2028, I would quit the party. This was around the time that Newsom was hosting his MAGA-curious podcast and making anti-trans statements.
But other days, I have felt like if the Democrats don’t nominate Newsom, I’ll walk.
I was loving Newsom beginning August 14. That was a good day for our man Gavin.
Newsom held a firecracker of a press conference Thursday, announcing the launch of a statewide effort to fight back against Trump’s attempts to rig Texas' elections..
Trump and his cronies are nakedly and without pretense planning to gerrymander Texas, redrawing district lines to generate five additional Congressional seats for the Republican Party.
Newsom and his allies said, effectively, fine then. You gerrymander Texas, we’ll gerrymander California for the Democrats.
Perhaps equally important was the plain language Newsom used:
“California will not sit idle as Trump and his Republican lapdogs shred our country’s democracy before our very eyes," he said. “In just six months, Trump’s unchecked power has cost Americans billions and taken an ax to the greatest democracy we’ve ever known. This moment calls for urgency and action – that is what we are putting before voters this November, a chance to fight back against his anti-American ways.”
Unlike Trump’s naked power grab, the Election Rigging Response Act will be decided by California voters in November. And it will be a temporary change, through 2030, with redistricting returning to the state Citizens Redistricting Commission. And it keeps California’s current Congressional maps if Texas and other states also keep their original maps.
“The damage the Trump administration is causing to our country is clear: masked agents terrorizing communities, tax dollars wasted on military stunts, allies alienated, and loyalists hired to replace public servants,” said Senator Alex Padilla. “This administration is out of control—and the Election Rigging Response Act is how California defends our democracy and fights back.”
And there were a roster of other patriotic Democrats joining Newsom, including San Diego’s Lorena Gonzaez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO; and La Mesa’s State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, M.D., chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus.
Under the redistricting proposal, the 48th Congressional District, straddling Riverside and San Diego Counties and held by Rep. Darrell Issa, would move from “safe Republican” to a “lean Democratic” seat.
Newsom trolled Trump on social media:
DONALD IS FINISHED — HE IS NO LONGER “HOT.” FIRST THE HANDS (SO TINY) AND NOW ME — GAVIN C. NEWSOM — HAVE TAKEN AWAY HIS “STEP.” MANY ARE SAYING HE CAN’T EVEN DO THE “BIG STAIRS” ON AIR FORCE ONE ANYMORE — USES THE LITTLE BABY STAIRS NOW. SAD! TOMORROW HE’S GOT HIS “MEETING” WITH PUTIN IN “RUSSIA.” NOBODY CARES. ALL THE TELEVISION CAMERAS ARE ON ME, AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR. EVEN LOW-RATINGS LAURA INGRAM (EDITS THE TAPES!) CAN’T STOP TALKING ABOUT MY BEAUTIFUL MAPS. YOU’RE WELCOME FOR LIBERATION DAY, AMERICA! DONNIE J MISSED “THE DEADLINE” (WHOOPS!) AND NOW I RUN THE SHOW. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! — GCN
The specifics of Newsom’s proposal are important, but it’s also important what it represents: Democratic willingness to fight for America.
Newsom’s fighting spirit is a refreshing change for a party that has seemingly spent the last decade or more as the party that “would bring a pencil to the knife fight," as Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said.
During Newsom’s press conference, Trump demonstrated what’s at stake.. Trump sent more than a dozen Border Patrol agents, masked and armed, to stand outside the press venue. It was a show of force meant to intimidate California and force us to bend the knee.
The show of courage by Newsom, Democratic leaders and allies was great. It was a refreshing moment in a time when — as one person said on social media — “its just nothing but bad news these days. even the good news is just ‘federal judge temporarily pauses bad news’".
But it’s not enough. Newsom is still the man who loaned his platform to MAGA extremists and spoke out against trans people. The Democratic Party needs to decide firmly and definitively whether it represents all the American people — including trans people — or attempt to pander to Republican supporters who will never support us.
I wrote this for the newsletter of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club, where I am a board member at large.
I dislike Discord
I dislike it so much that I’ve decided to stop participating in all Discord forums.
Reddit and webforums (particularly those based on Discourse software) are great. Even mailing lists can be pretty good.
But Discord is a mess. Too many channels. Every time I visit one, it’s like I’m walking in on the middle of a conversation and have no idea what people are talking about.
Discord is meant for people who live on Discord and pop in a couple of times an hour to catch up. That’s not me.
I’m feeling a little the same way about timelines — Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and Facebook and of course X. In the case of timelines, it all seems to be people talking past each other. Tumblr is better, but mostly I’m on Tumblr for the memes and vintage illustrations and photos.
Venice floats on millions of tree trunks that workers pounded vertically into the mud over a thousand years to erect vast stone buildings on top of floating foundations. This is wild, and I had no idea. www.bbc.com/future/ar…
“We need shittable cities (actively maintained public restrooms).… A city without well-maintained restrooms is a city where many of the chronically ill cannot leave their homes, and where the homeless are criminalized for bodily functions.” www.tumblr.com/vautour-c…
President Trump’s War on “Woke AI” Is a Civil Liberties Nightmare www.eff.org/deeplinks…