Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

I think the countries you singled out, along with others in Western Europe, are confronting two enormous, overarching problems that largely explain what’s going on. One is that the extended era of affluence following World War II created standard-of-living and quality-of-life expectations that aren’t fiscally sustainable in many cases. The other is a velocity of religious, racial and ethnic diversification over the past quarter century that has exceeded what many longtime residents could easily make sense of and comfortably adapt to. Combine those dynamics, add the frustrations of young people who rightly feel that they have fewer opportunities than their parents did, and you wind up with a critical mass of Europeans of various ideological stripes who feel destabilized, dissatisfied — threatened, even — and who are demanding that their elected leaders answer for that. But those leaders lack answers, and that’s true whether they belong to the political left, right or center. France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Germany — they have different governments failing at the same challenge. Which speaks to how daunting that challenge is.

— Frank Bruni & Bret Stephens in Conversation / “The Only Thing We Can All Agree On Is That the World Is on Fire” / The New York Times

The core of the problem is that Trump turned the federal government against American democracy in a relentless effort to challenge, subvert and undermine the nation’s election infrastructure. All in an effort to disrupt the conduct of free and fair elections and hold onto power in the face of popular discontent.

— Jamelle Bouie / “Trump Has Been Thumped. That Doesn’t Make Him Any Less Dangerous.” / The New Tork Times

your god chews sky,
can’t count the promises
he’s broken.
he’s laid down love.
his religion:
land & aching.
turns his head
leaving us trapped
in a coward’s image
or his in ours.

— W.J. Lofton / “Biting Iron”

One of the reports said overshooting the 1.5C target “will bring large-scale and in many cases irreversible impacts” for the cryosphere — Earth’s ice in all its forms.

Melting of glaciers and sea ice, the thawing of permafrost and the accelerating rise in sea levels, will have widespread repercussions, from flooding to water shortages.

Some of the effects of the rise in temperature are already visible, such as the 20-percent loss in glacial mass in Switzerland.

— Delphine Paysant / “UN reports warn of large-scale damage to Earth’s ice from climate change” / AFP News

“I’m calling this the Trump hangover election,” David said. “It’s as if voters woke up, it’s the morning after. They made a bad decision the night before, and now they’re correcting that. This is buyer’s remorse.”

— Mother Jones Editorial / “America to Trump: You’re a Loser” / Mother Jones

There was an incredible sense of optimism then about what the European Union could become. Now it’s falling apart for the reasons you mention, plus a third. Europeans at the time often thought that the end of the Cold War meant the end of traditional geopolitics and an inexhaustible peace dividend. They didn’t really reckon with the possibilities that Russia would again become a military threat, China an economic threat, Africa and the Middle East sources of unchecked migration, and the United States an isolationist, fickle, even belligerent power.

In other words, the continent really thought it had reached the End of History, capital E and H. A fatal miscalculation. I’m not sure there’s the political wherewithal in Europe to get its economic and strategic houses in order before these problems get much worse.

— Frank Bruni & Bret Stephens in Conversation / “The Only Thing We Can All Agree On Is That the World Is on Fire” / The New York Times

The days of the House of Representatives functioning like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over.

— Hakim Jeffries / “Democrats vow to use their power to check Trump” / The New York Times 

What I’m Listening To:

She’s my black market baby
She’s my black market baby
She’s a diamond who wants to stay coal
Wants to stay coal

— Tom Waits / “Black Market Baby”