Heather Cox Richardson, “January 10, 2026”
In the case of the murder of Renee Good, the shooter and his protectors are clearly so isolated in their own authoritarian bubble they cannot see how regular Americans would react to the video of a woman smiling at a masked agent and saying: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you,” only to have him shoot her in the face and then spit out “F*cking b*tch” after he killed her.
The thread that runs through both is the assumption that an American exercising their constitutional rights must submit, without question, to a white man holding a gun.
This is the larger meaning of federal agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol in U.S. cities. While they are attacking primarily people of color, the message they carry is directed at all Americans: you must do what the Trump administration and its loyalists demand.
Thomas Paine, in Common Sense (published 250 years ago, yesterday)
But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.
Rebecca Solnit, “Feminism vs. Trump and Epstein”
A man who rapes or otherwise brutalizes women and children gambles on the inequality of voice between him and his victims, and throughout most of history he has won. That is, these crimes take place in a society in which some are powerful, some are almost powerless, and that power consists in no small part of being treated as important, credible, having a voice in the arenas of power – the legal system, the media, the financial system – and having rights that need to be protected.
Powerlessness consists of being treated as insignificant, having no voice in those arenas, or being discredited, disbelieved, shamed, blamed, and dismissed if she does try to speak up. Of a thousand forms of not mattering. We already know this story. Some of us have lived it. A lot of us have lived it. We read all about how Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein and so many others like them used the power differential to silence victims with threats, discrediting, nondisclosure agreements, and more. We’ve seen campaigns of hate directed at women who speak up about their abuse by celebrity men. We have seen how there are systems in place to perpetuate and expand this system of silencing and protection. Now the federal government is a protection racket for an abuser who is tied to this criminal and these crimes.
David M. Perry, “The return of the r-word”
Although I loathe this word and detest the people who knowingly use it, basic issues of language were never my big issue. What I cared about was inclusion, representation, autonomy. Even without explicit use of slurs, an ableist subtext often remained in how people talked about my son, dehumanizing him often enough through kindness (I have a whole rant against the word “cute.” Don’t get me started). So I was pleased when, in 2019, the campaign expanded to focus more generally on inclusion.
But it turns out that banishing the slur from public discourse was, in fact, important. Because now it’s back and it turns out that it does matter when subtext becomes actual text, when terrible people enable open hatred and bigotry, encouraging others to emulate them, degrading us all.
Roald Dahl, Sandwell Health Authority pamphlet, 1988
It is not yet generally accepted that measles can be a dangerous illness. Believe me, it is. In my opinion, parents who now refuse to have their children immunized are putting the lives of those children at risk. In America, where measles immunization is compulsory, measles like smallpox, has been virtually wiped out.
Here in Britain, because so many parents refuse, either out of obstinacy or ignorance or fear, to allow their children to be immunized, we still have a hundred thousand cases of measles every year. Out of those, more than 10,000 will suffer side effects of one kind or another. At least 10,000 will develop ear or chest infections. About 20 will die.
Sarah Jeong, “Killing in the name of… nothing”
Kirk did not commit violence, not because he abhorred it, but because committing violence was someone else’s job. Last year, he called for using whips against migrants, saying, “Of course you should be able to use whips against foreigners that are coming into your country. Why is that controversial?” In early June of this year, as the president deployed troops to Los Angeles, Kirk publicly advocated for invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to crush the immigration protests. And in August, he called for “federalizing” the district of Columbia, saying, “Roll in the tanks, bring in the military.”
With his close relationship to the commander in chief of the United States of America, Charlie Kirk was no mere talker, idea-peddler, or purveyor of discourse. He built an empire on legitimizing violence and harvesting the enthusiasm and glee around it.
Elizabeth N. Saunders, “What happens now in Venezuela – and the world?”
Since the end of World War II, for better or (often) for worse, the U.S. has dominated the global order. To be sure, the rules the U.S. imposed were often self-serving, and the U.S. violated them many times. But the U.S.-led order was not a world of pure anarchy.
As Susan Hyde and I recently wrote, Trump didn’t start the attack on the U.S.-led order, but he dealt it mortal blows. Once countries feel there are few penalties for invading neighbors or seizing resources, all bets are off. As the IR scholar Paul Musgrave put it, “We are about to speedrun the rediscovery of why states stopped acting like this.” It is not so much falling dominoes, as the U.S. feared would happen during the Cold War if countries joined the communist camp, as smashing the domino table.
With the U.S. not just unwilling but unable to underwrite any order, it’s Trumpian anarchy. There is a sudden vacuum in the world order, while Trump wields diminished U.S. military and diplomatic power wildly, with no constraints.
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