Recommended Reading: The Age of Confidence Men
This Week's Recommended Reading on Substack: J. P. Hill, Melissa Ryan, Jared Yates Sexton, Joyce Vance, Don Moynihan, Kahlil Greene, Jim Wallis, and Chrissy Stroop
This Week's Recommended Reading on Substack:
writes that “Today’s biggest cons happen on a scale infinitely larger than taking the occasional watch. Our era is marked by how common mass swindling is, and how these schemes still rely on confidence and trust given willingly to people who don’t deserve it. In fact, some might say that our economy is increasingly defined by cons that essentially steal from millions of people, and often do so legally.”
writes that “it’s CPAC week. Generally, CPAC is when the MAGA Right lets their freak flag fly. This year has been no exception. Highlights so far include MAGA OG Steve Bannon ending his speech by copying Elon Musk with his own Nazi salute. While American media hemmed and hawed once again over whether to call a literal Nazi salute a Nazi salute, Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, canceled his planned appearance over it.”
writes that “This is the extremely weird part of authoritarianism. The diseased pomp and circumstance. The displays of aggressive and decaying delusion. To seek this kind of power and throw yourself into it, as Elon Musk has, is to welcome and lean into the accompanying lunacy. Megalomania is never a good look. It corrodes. It repels. It repulses.”
writes that “if FBI agents who are just doing their jobs aren’t free of the risk of political prosecution, then who is? In a country run by a president who has accumulated all power into his own hands, you never know who might run afoul of the leader’s good graces. It could be the chef whose meal Trump doesn’t like. It could be the teacher who gives one of his grandchildren a B. It could be a Republican senator who votes against Trump’s budget plan, or his efforts to fire federal employees in their state, or efforts to end Medicare for their citizens. Really, it could be anyone.”
writes that the “Trump administration has created a toxic work environment. I’ve spent 25 years studying public administration and have never seen anything like the deep sense of dread that federal employees are now experiencing. I spoke with workers who feared reprisal if their names were published. One told me that there’s an ‘eerie’ mood in the Census Bureau office: ‘No one can openly discuss anything.’ Another civil servant said that people who’ve worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for decades are afraid and ‘can’t believe what’s happening.’”
writes that “the Smithsonian is not alone in reckoning with its legacy of human remains collections. Many museums and research institutions are confronting how science was historically tied to racism and colonialism. The DEI office’s closure raises questions about the institution’s commitment to equity, especially as it continues to hold remains acquired through exploitation.”
writes that “Jesus did not preach, nor practice, xenophobia. Rather, he modeled xenophilia: the love of the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee. This lawsuit is about the people Jesus was describing in his final judgement and test of discipleship; the same people we care for in our sacred spaces. It’s fitting that a legal battle seeking to protect the teachings of Matthew 25 originated in a conversation at church, the same places where refugees and immigrants gather for sustenance for their souls and bodies.”
writes that “Nostalgia is narrative, and, to the extent that nostalgia is narrative, nostalgia is fiction. It beckons us to immerse ourselves in an imagined past where we feel good, safe, unchallenged. In this imagined past, we don’t have to adapt to changes that make us uncomfortable or afraid. We don’t have to work to be better people, learn about different people, or see anything that makes us uncomfortable. We do not experience identity loss or ego threat in our idealized imagined past.”
Herman Melville.
We are all in a period of highly elevated emotions. Fear, mostly, as pointed to by Dan Moynihan. Buy I think the ‘nostalgia’ that Chrissy Stroop discusses is another type of emotional response. Perhaps these are precursors to the next phase: building an effective fight to defenestrate these fascists.