- How to Build an Autocracy (Atlantic) "A British prime minister can lose power in minutes if he or she forfeits the confidence of the majority in Parliament. The president of the United States, on the other hand, is restrained first and foremost by his own ethics and public spirit. What happens if somebody comes to the high office lacking those qualities? Donald Trump represents something much more radical. A president who plausibly owes his office at least in part to a clandestine intervention by a hostile foreign intelligence service. Who uses the bully pulpit to target individual critics. Who creates blind trusts that are not blind, invites his children to commingle private and public business, and somehow gets the unhappy members of his own political party either to endorse his choices or shrug them off. If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it. It’s happening here instead, and so we are baffled. As politics has become polarized, Congress has increasingly become a check only on presidents of the opposite party. Recent presidents enjoying a same-party majority in Congress—Barack Obama in 2009 and 2010, George W. Bush from 2003 through 2006—usually got their way. And congressional oversight might well be performed even less diligently during the Trump administration. Construction of an apparatus of impunity and revenge will begin haphazardly and opportunistically. But it will accelerate. It will have to. Trump is poised to mingle business and government with an audacity and on a scale more reminiscent of a leader in a post-Soviet republic than anything ever before seen in the United States. It is essential to recognize that Trump will use his position not only to enrich himself; he will enrich plenty of other people too, both the powerful and—sometimes, for public consumption—the relatively powerless. Venezuela, a stable democracy from the late 1950s through the 1990s, was corrupted by a politics of personal favoritism, as Hugo Chávez used state resources to bestow gifts on supporters. Venezuelan state TV even aired a regular program to showcase weeping recipients of new houses and free appliances. Americans recently got a preview of their own version of that show as grateful Carrier employees thanked then-President-elect Trump for keeping their jobs in Indiana. He will want to associate economic benefit with personal favor. He will create personal constituencies, and implicate other people in his corruption. That, over time, is what truly subverts the institutions of democracy and the rule of law. If the public cannot be induced to care, the power of the investigators serving at Trump’s pleasure will be diminished all the more. Polarization, not persecution, enables the modern illiberal regime. By guile or by instinct, Trump understands this. Whenever Trump stumbles into some kind of trouble, he reacts by picking a divisive fight. The morning after The Wall Street Journal published a story about the extraordinary conflicts of interest surrounding Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Trump tweeted that flag burners should be imprisoned or stripped of their citizenship. Calculated outrage is an old political trick, but nobody in the history of American politics has deployed it as aggressively, as repeatedly, or with such success as Donald Trump. The rulers of backsliding democracies resent an independent press, but cannot extinguish it. Mostly, however, modern strongmen seek merely to discredit journalism as an institution, by denying that such a thing as independent judgment can exist. 'The basic idea is simple: to delegitimize accountability journalism by framing it as partisan.' One story, still supremely disturbing, exemplifies the falsifying method. During November and December, the slow-moving California vote count gradually pushed Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump in the national popular vote further and further: past 1 million, past 1.5 million, past 2 million, past 2.5 million. Trump’s share of the vote would ultimately clock in below Richard Nixon’s in 1960, Al Gore’s in 2000, John Kerry’s in 2004, Gerald Ford’s in 1976, and Mitt Romney’s in 2012—and barely ahead of Michael Dukakis’s in 1988. This outcome evidently gnawed at the president-elect. On November 27, Trump tweeted that he had in fact 'won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.' He followed up that astonishing, and unsubstantiated, statement with an escalating series of tweets and retweets. It’s hard to do justice to the breathtaking audacity of such a claim. Many of the worst and most subversive things Trump will do will be highly popular. Trump and his team count on one thing above all others: public indifference. Public opinion, public scrutiny, and public pressure still matter greatly in the U.S. political system."
- Authoritarian Leaders Greet Trump as One of Their Own (NYT) "Some of the enthusiasm by authoritarian leaders for Mr. Trump’s presidency seems to be linked to his stated inclination to overturn the world order. That may include rethinking alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or tackling long-running issues such as North Korea and its nuclear arms program."
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Why Hollywood as We Know It Is Already Over (Vanity Fair) "Show business, in many ways, has entered a vicious cycle set off by larger economic forces. Some 70 percent of box office comes from abroad, which means that studios must traffic in the sort of blow-’em-up action films and comic-book thrillers that translate easily enough to Mandarin. But the real threat isn’t China. These days, however, all the major tech companies are competing viciously for the same thing: your attention. Four years after the debut of House of Cards, Netflix, which earned an astounding 54 Emmy nominations in 2016, is spending $6 billion a year on original content. Amazon isn’t far behind. Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat are all experimenting with original content of their own."
NEWS:
- Trump’s Grand Strategic Train Wreck (Foreign Policy) "The fundamental grand strategic interest of the United States today is precisely the same as it has been for the past 240 years: to ensure the country’s physical security, economic well-being, and way of life. Three dangers dominate the new president’s worldview. The first is the threat from 'radical Islam' — which, for the president and many of his closest advisors, poses an existential and 'civilizational' threat to the United States that must be 'eradicated' from the face of the Earth. Second, Trump portrays unfair trade deals and the trade practices of key competitors as grave threats to the U.S. economy and therefore a national security priority. Third, and finally, Trump has consistently railed against illegal immigration, arguing that the pace and scale of migration has cost American jobs, lowered wages, and put unsustainable strains on housing, schools, tax bills, and general living conditions. To address these perceived threats, Trump has put forward an 'America First' grand strategy with four key pillars. The first is what White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon proudly calls 'economic nationalism.' Trump has signaled a willingness to embrace a protectionist and mercantilist foreign policy more familiar to the 19th and early 20th centuries than to the 21st. A second key pillar is what might be called 'extreme' homeland security. This includes the infamous wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and other investments in stepped-up border security. What we call 'amoral transactionalism' represents the third, and perhaps most central, feature of Trump’s grand strategy. In Trump’s view, the United States should be willing to cut deals with any actors that share American interests, regardless of how transactional that relationship is, and regardless of whether they share — or act in accordance with — American values. Trump’s grand strategy is transactional in another sense as well. It contends that those allies and partners that gain from U.S. assistance should 'pay up' — and, if they don’t, that the United States ought to cut them loose. The final pillar of Trump’s grand strategy is a muscular but aloof militarism. Trump’s stated purpose is to deter potential adversaries and defeat those who attack the United States. Trump’s grand strategy is plagued by internal tensions and dilemmas that will make it difficult to achieve the president’s stated objectives. There are many problems, but here we emphasize six. First, it will be difficult for Trump to reconcile his policies toward Russia and Iran on the one hand with his desire to defeat the Islamic State on the other. A second dilemma is that Trump’s extreme measures to protect the homeland could further complicate the fight against the Islamic State. Third, Trump’s approach to Europe and Russia — at least as he has outlined it so far — is equally self-defeating and contradictory. Fourth, Trump is likely to have difficulty taking punitive action against China while also contending with the growing threat from North Korea. Fifth, in a bid to supposedly help American workers by withdrawing from the TPP (a pact creating a free-trade zone among a dozen countries representing 40 percent of global GDP), Trump is in fact helping China by ceding the economic battlefield in Asia to Beijing. Finally, Trump’s proposal to 'build a wall' and somehow force Mexico to pay for it (perhaps through a 20 percent border tax), his threat to deport millions of illegal immigrants, and his pledge to renegotiate or even withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, could create a train wreck in the U.S.-Mexico relationship — as evidenced by the abrupt cancellation of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s planned visit to Washington."
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Why Hollywood as We Know It Is Already Over (Vanity Fair) "Show business, in many ways, has entered a vicious cycle set off by larger economic forces. Some 70 percent of box office comes from abroad, which means that studios must traffic in the sort of blow-’em-up action films and comic-book thrillers that translate easily enough to Mandarin. But the real threat isn’t China. These days, however, all the major tech companies are competing viciously for the same thing: your attention. Four years after the debut of House of Cards, Netflix, which earned an astounding 54 Emmy nominations in 2016, is spending $6 billion a year on original content. Amazon isn’t far behind. Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat are all experimenting with original content of their own."
NEWS:
- Trump’s Grand Strategic Train Wreck (Foreign Policy) "The fundamental grand strategic interest of the United States today is precisely the same as it has been for the past 240 years: to ensure the country’s physical security, economic well-being, and way of life. Three dangers dominate the new president’s worldview. The first is the threat from 'radical Islam' — which, for the president and many of his closest advisors, poses an existential and 'civilizational' threat to the United States that must be 'eradicated' from the face of the Earth. Second, Trump portrays unfair trade deals and the trade practices of key competitors as grave threats to the U.S. economy and therefore a national security priority. Third, and finally, Trump has consistently railed against illegal immigration, arguing that the pace and scale of migration has cost American jobs, lowered wages, and put unsustainable strains on housing, schools, tax bills, and general living conditions. To address these perceived threats, Trump has put forward an 'America First' grand strategy with four key pillars. The first is what White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon proudly calls 'economic nationalism.' Trump has signaled a willingness to embrace a protectionist and mercantilist foreign policy more familiar to the 19th and early 20th centuries than to the 21st. A second key pillar is what might be called 'extreme' homeland security. This includes the infamous wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and other investments in stepped-up border security. What we call 'amoral transactionalism' represents the third, and perhaps most central, feature of Trump’s grand strategy. In Trump’s view, the United States should be willing to cut deals with any actors that share American interests, regardless of how transactional that relationship is, and regardless of whether they share — or act in accordance with — American values. Trump’s grand strategy is transactional in another sense as well. It contends that those allies and partners that gain from U.S. assistance should 'pay up' — and, if they don’t, that the United States ought to cut them loose. The final pillar of Trump’s grand strategy is a muscular but aloof militarism. Trump’s stated purpose is to deter potential adversaries and defeat those who attack the United States. Trump’s grand strategy is plagued by internal tensions and dilemmas that will make it difficult to achieve the president’s stated objectives. There are many problems, but here we emphasize six. First, it will be difficult for Trump to reconcile his policies toward Russia and Iran on the one hand with his desire to defeat the Islamic State on the other. A second dilemma is that Trump’s extreme measures to protect the homeland could further complicate the fight against the Islamic State. Third, Trump’s approach to Europe and Russia — at least as he has outlined it so far — is equally self-defeating and contradictory. Fourth, Trump is likely to have difficulty taking punitive action against China while also contending with the growing threat from North Korea. Fifth, in a bid to supposedly help American workers by withdrawing from the TPP (a pact creating a free-trade zone among a dozen countries representing 40 percent of global GDP), Trump is in fact helping China by ceding the economic battlefield in Asia to Beijing. Finally, Trump’s proposal to 'build a wall' and somehow force Mexico to pay for it (perhaps through a 20 percent border tax), his threat to deport millions of illegal immigrants, and his pledge to renegotiate or even withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, could create a train wreck in the U.S.-Mexico relationship — as evidenced by the abrupt cancellation of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s planned visit to Washington."
- ‘Why let ’em in?’ Understanding Bannon’s worldview and the policies that follow (WaPo) "That world view, which Bannon laid out in interviews and speeches over the past several years, hinges largely on Bannon’s belief in American 'sovereignty.' Bannon said that countries should protect their citizens and their essence by reducing immigration, legal and illegal, and pulling back from multinational agreements. It is not yet clear how far Bannon will be able to go to enact his agenda. His early policy moves have been marred by administrative chaos. But his worldview calls for bigger changes than those already made." and The key figure behind Trump's #MuslimBan couldn't be clearer about his Islamophobia (Fusion) "Islam is worse than European fascism. Immigration is the 'beating heart' of American tech job scarcity. It’s not hard to suss out where Bannon, and by extension, Trump, is coming from—or where he wants to go. But beyond advisors with a long history of ultra-nationalism, there are the words of the president himself: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. Taken together, statements like these make the administration’s intent clear. There’s no need to read tea leaves, or gaze into crystal balls. To do so only succumbs to Trump’s manic efforts to overwhelm and overcome any opposition on his own terms."
- Donald Trump, Stephen Bannon and the Coming Crisis in American National Life (Time) "During the 1990s Neil Howe and the late William Strauss identified an 80-year cycle in American history, punctuated by great crises that destroyed an old order and created a new one. Stephen Bannon is very familiar with Strauss and Howe’s theory of crisis, and has been thinking about how to use it to achieve particular goals for quite a while."
- Democrats are in real danger of overplaying their hand right now (WaPo) "But the emotional and immediate temptation isn't always the more prudent political one."
- Where Is Jared Kushner? (NYT) "Maybe he didn’t register all the ugly swerves along the way. Maybe he convinced himself that they weren’t so ugly. Maybe he believed that he’d be able to grab the wheel and correct the course. Maybe he still tells himself that, despite all the evidence to the contrary."
- In deadly Yemen raid, a lesson for Trump’s national security team (WaPo) "According to current and former officials with knowledge of the operation, military officials had proposed the operation weeks before under the Obama administration, part of an attempt to compensate for intelligence losses caused by Yemen’s extended civil conflict. After considering the operation for several weeks, officials concluded the raid would not be possible before Obama’s Jan. 20 departure, and they began to tee up a final decision for Trump’s top advisers. While seemingly indicative of a more aggressive stance by Trump, one official described the raid and new proposal as an outgrowth of earlier Obama-era operations that have pushed al-Qaeda militants from their sanctuaries into areas and provided more opportunities for U.S. strikes."
- A Diplomat’s Proper Channel of Dissent (NYT) "From my own experience I would say that if you want to change a policy, going public should be a last resort. You are much more likely to be listened to, even if you are a very senior official, if you make your concerns known privately." and Resistance from within: Federal workers push back against Trump (WaPo)
- New Zealand Is ‘the Future,’ Peter Thiel Said in His Push for Citizenship (NYT) "Six years ago, however, Mr. Thiel didn’t always consider America First, as Mr. Trump’s slogan goes. According to the application, Mr. Thiel saw the vast promise of New Zealand and set up a fund there to invest in its start-ups. He vowed to become an unofficial ambassador for the country if granted citizenship."
- The Politicization of Everything (Politico)
SCIENCE:
- Theory claims to offer the first 'evidence' our Universe is a hologram (Wired) "A holographic Universe means information that makes up what we perceive as a 3D reality is stored on a 2D surface, including time. This means, essentially, everything you see and experience is an illusion."
TECHNOLOGY:
- Here Is How to Fend Off a Hijacking of Home Devices (NYT) "The easiest way to create a second Wi-Fi network is to make a guest network. Quarantining your smart speakers, lights and TV onto a guest network will allow them all to interact with one another, while keeping your computing devices safer in the event that any of the smart accessories are hacked."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Pornhub just launched a surprising new site (Mashable) "They're hoping the free sub-site will become a go-to resource for some of their 70 million daily users on all manner of topics, including STIs, sexual safety and how to manage relationships."
Sign up for email distribution of the Day's Most Compelling News below or by visiting Top of the News
- Where Is Jared Kushner? (NYT) "Maybe he didn’t register all the ugly swerves along the way. Maybe he convinced himself that they weren’t so ugly. Maybe he believed that he’d be able to grab the wheel and correct the course. Maybe he still tells himself that, despite all the evidence to the contrary."
- In deadly Yemen raid, a lesson for Trump’s national security team (WaPo) "According to current and former officials with knowledge of the operation, military officials had proposed the operation weeks before under the Obama administration, part of an attempt to compensate for intelligence losses caused by Yemen’s extended civil conflict. After considering the operation for several weeks, officials concluded the raid would not be possible before Obama’s Jan. 20 departure, and they began to tee up a final decision for Trump’s top advisers. While seemingly indicative of a more aggressive stance by Trump, one official described the raid and new proposal as an outgrowth of earlier Obama-era operations that have pushed al-Qaeda militants from their sanctuaries into areas and provided more opportunities for U.S. strikes."
- A Diplomat’s Proper Channel of Dissent (NYT) "From my own experience I would say that if you want to change a policy, going public should be a last resort. You are much more likely to be listened to, even if you are a very senior official, if you make your concerns known privately." and Resistance from within: Federal workers push back against Trump (WaPo)
- New Zealand Is ‘the Future,’ Peter Thiel Said in His Push for Citizenship (NYT) "Six years ago, however, Mr. Thiel didn’t always consider America First, as Mr. Trump’s slogan goes. According to the application, Mr. Thiel saw the vast promise of New Zealand and set up a fund there to invest in its start-ups. He vowed to become an unofficial ambassador for the country if granted citizenship."
- The Politicization of Everything (Politico)
SCIENCE:
- Theory claims to offer the first 'evidence' our Universe is a hologram (Wired) "A holographic Universe means information that makes up what we perceive as a 3D reality is stored on a 2D surface, including time. This means, essentially, everything you see and experience is an illusion."
TECHNOLOGY:
- Here Is How to Fend Off a Hijacking of Home Devices (NYT) "The easiest way to create a second Wi-Fi network is to make a guest network. Quarantining your smart speakers, lights and TV onto a guest network will allow them all to interact with one another, while keeping your computing devices safer in the event that any of the smart accessories are hacked."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Pornhub just launched a surprising new site (Mashable) "They're hoping the free sub-site will become a go-to resource for some of their 70 million daily users on all manner of topics, including STIs, sexual safety and how to manage relationships."
Sign up for email distribution of the Day's Most Compelling News below or by visiting Top of the News
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