Keen On America

Should America go soft on China? According to the Toronto based foreign affairs writer Diane Francis, the United States ought to consider Xi Jinping’s China a competitor, rather than a enemy. In contrast, Francis views Vladimir Putin’s Russia as not just an enemy, but an existential threat to Europe, North America and free world. Putin Won’t Stop, Francis’ latest Substack post argues. Unless, perhaps, he’s locked in a room with the redoubtable Diane Francis.

1. Francis Views American "Isolationism" as Reasonable and Justified

"Isolationism is reasonable, I think it is. I mean, traipsing all over the world, thinking you're the policeman and you have the answer and you pick the right side all the time and you're gonna squander the wealth and the tax dollars of your population is to me an ego trip to a certain extent." Francis sees Trump's America First approach as a logical response to failed interventions like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

2. She Distinguishes China as Competitor, Russia as Malevolent Enemy

"I see Russia as an enemy, as a malevolent force that wants to recreate the Soviet Union, imprison people, ignore rights and then take over other countries and commit genocide when necessary... China, on the other hand, is not an imperial power. It's never been a conquering country... China to me is not an enemy. China is a competitor, and it can be a ruthless competitor." This forms the core of her geopolitical framework.

3. Francis Sees Trump as Effective but Lacks Statesmanlike Qualities

"There is some logic to what he's doing, but he's really not, in my opinion, he's not capable of really statesman-like leadership. He just isn't. He's a fish out of water. He's are a developer of slum apartment buildings in Queens. This guy looks at everything as though it was just about dollars and cents." She appreciates his tough negotiating approach while criticizing his limitations.

4. She Takes Canada's Merger Threat from Trump Seriously

"Absolutely. I'll just give you a quick background. In 2013, my 10th book... was Merger of the Century, Why Canada and the United States Should Become One Country, and I wasn't endorsing the merger, but I was warning Canadians that if they didn't get their acts together... America will get fed up and gobble them up." Francis views Trump's threats as realistic given Canada's economic and military dependence.

5. Francis Makes Controversial Claims About Russia's Global Reach

"They started the war in Sudan. And they were behind the October 7th attack of Israel... according to Ukrainian intelligence, first of all, October 7th is Putin's birthday. Secondly, the Hamas terrorists were trained in Syria on Russian bases by Russian mercenaries called the Wagner troop." She presents Russia as orchestrating conflicts worldwide, though these claims are highly disputed and lack mainstream corroboration.

I’ve always considered my friend Keith Teare a bit weird. Maybe it’s living in Palo Alto amidst the tech plutocracy. But I wonder if the That Was The Week weekly tech news publisher has finally lost his mind. In this week’s conversation, he speculates that OpenAI will soon be worth $10 trillion while its closest competitor Anthropic, will be valued at $5 trillion. Has he finally gone totally bonkers? Or is it really possible that these two still private companies will be collectively worth $15 trillion (more than the GDP of every country except the U.S. and China) in a few years?

1. AI Valuations Have Entered Fantasy Territory OpenAI at $10 trillion and Anthropic at $5 trillion would make these two private companies worth more than the GDP of every country except the U.S. and China. Even tech insiders are now seriously discussing valuations that would have been laughed out of the room during the dot-com bubble.

2. We've Hit the AI Search Tipping Point Traditional Google search is rapidly being replaced by AI-powered alternatives like Perplexity's Comet browser and specialized AI tools. About 25% of internet users now regularly use AI instead of search engines, fundamentally threatening Google's advertising-based business model.

3. San Francisco's Tech Boom Is Back (Again) The AI revolution has revitalized San Francisco as the undisputed center of tech innovation. Real estate prices are soaring, rentals are impossible to find, and the talent war has reached late-90s intensity levels as AI companies compete for engineers and office space.

4. The AI Race Isn't Winner-Take-All Unlike previous tech cycles where one company dominated (Google in search, Amazon in e-commerce), the AI market appears big enough for multiple giants. Anthropic has emerged as OpenAI's strongest competitor, with Chinese AI models also becoming serious contenders on the global stage.

5. Big Tech's AI Panic Is Real Facebook is paying billions in bonuses to attract AI talent after their latest model failed to impress. Apple is sitting out the expensive AI infrastructure race, betting they can integrate others' AI into their devices. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has decided to avoid regulating AI development entirely.

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Can Democrats pull a Ronald Reagan? That's the provocative question at the heart of Peter Wehner and Jonathan Rauch's New York Times intriguing piece about how the Democrats can win back the presidency in 2028. Just as the neo-liberal Reagan crushed the cardigan-wearing Carter by promising economic vitality over malaise, Democrats now have a chance to flip the script—if only they can drop their annoying cultural politics and reclaim the mantle of middle-class prosperity. By owning the American Dream, Rauch and Wehner suggest, you also own American politics. Given the Republican abandonment of growth politics, they argue, the seeds of a Democratic revival have already been sown. Now all the party needs is somebody with Reagan’s messaging genius. Mark Cuban, perhaps?

1. Democrats Are Abandoning Anti-Trump Strategy for Positive Messaging

The 19 Democrats interviewed for the article were explicitly asked not to mention Trump—a "disciplining exercise" that revealed the party's recognition that pure opposition isn't enough. They need an affirmative agenda focused on prosperity and the American dream rather than just being the anti-Trump party.

2. Republicans Have Abandoned Growth Politics, Creating an Opening

Trump's GOP now runs on "scarcity" and "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies—tariffs that raise prices, fewer immigrants despite labor shortages, telling Americans to "make do with less." This abandons Reagan's successful abundance message and gives Democrats a chance to become the "party of prosperity."

3. Cultural Issues Are Democrats' Biggest Barrier to Economic Credibility

Every Democrat interviewed acknowledged they must move to the center on cultural issues before voters will listen to their economic message. As Rahm Emanuel put it: "If you don't get through that cultural barrier, people aren't going to listen to you on kitchen table issues." Early signs include Gavin Newsom's shifts on transgender policies and Wes Moore rejecting reparations.

4. The "Abundance Agenda" Could Unite Progressive and Centrist Wings

Democrats see potential common ground: progressives can focus on breaking up monopolies and corporate price manipulation, while centrists tackle zoning reform and regulatory barriers. Both approaches aim to reduce artificial scarcity and boost middle-class prosperity.

5. 2028 May Require an Outsider, Not a Traditional Politician

With Trump at 37% approval and voters seeking authenticity, energy, and change, Democrats may need someone like Mark Cuban rather than a typical governor or senator. The party is looking for someone who can challenge the status quo without sounding like a conventional politician—much like Reagan did in 1980.

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How to write about the kaleidoscopic Sixties in the gloom of 2025? According to James Grady, author of the classic Six Days of the Condor and the new mid-century novel American Sky, the key is calibrating nostalgia with unflinching honesty about the past's complexities. "You can't just write about the past and not have a focus also on current times and really the future," Grady explains. The novelist’s approach involves fictionalizing personal experiences while ensuring memories of traumatic events like the JFK or MLK assassinations connect with the painful realities of MAGA America. Rather than romanticizing the Sixties, Grady emphasizes the civil rights violence, the generational divide, and the "silent majority's" anxieties alongside the era's optimism. Grady’s goal isn't to escape into nostalgia but to help readers understand how past dreams and failures shaped our present moment, making history a lens for understanding America’s current challenges.

1. Historical Fiction Must Connect Past to Present "You can't just write about the past and not have a focus also on current times and really the future. Otherwise it's like you're looking back at an old photograph of a horse and buggy. It's lovely, but it doesn't really speak to you."

2. The Danger of Elite Liberal Condescension "Starting in about 1975 and 1976, I saw a new kind of, quote, liberal or left-winger come into the power circles of Washington, D.C. They were elite-educated, Ivy League, and they did their best to ignore any working class roots that they had. They started to look down on the labor unions."

3. Fiction Can Reveal Truth Better Than Facts "So we can change the facts, but the facts are not necessarily necessary to reveal the truths... this is not a memoir where you have to be factual. This is fiction. And yet there's an echo of all of us."

4. True Rebellion Requires Positive Vision "I always think of the great French philosopher Albert Camus who said a true rebel says yes to something better instead of just saying no and rejecting and fighting. You've got to have something to fight for."

5. Literature Should Focus on Ordinary Americans "I think that a good author has to write about us, and you, almost more than they write about me... I want to know what's going on with someone in, you know, there's a town called Beaver Crossing, Nebraska, or, you know, Sonoma, California... Where real people are leading their lives and we learn from each other."

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Both the American left and right are revolted by elites. But whereas the right has channeled its distaste for the powers-that-be into Trump and MAGA, the left has mostly failed to capitalize on populist hatred of American elites. So what to do? According to the influential Turkish political theorist Soli Ozel, progressives need to reread Christopher Lasch, author of the 1995 classic, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. In an essay entitled “Lasching Out,” Ozel observes that Lasch's critique of meritocratic elites who abandoned their sense of social responsibility—what he calls their noblesse oblige—offers a progressive roadmap for understanding why figures like Kamala Harris failed to connect with working-class voters, and how the left might forge a new populist coalition that prioritizes material interests over cultural absolutism.

1. Lasch predicted Trump decades before 2016 - Writing between the 1970s & 90s, Christopher Lasch warned that American elites had abandoned their sense of social responsibility (noblesse oblige), creating conditions for populist backlash that would eventually manifest as Trumpism.

2. The new meritocratic elite looks down on ordinary Americans - Unlike traditional elites who felt obligated to society, today's managerial class views working people as "uncouth, racist, xenophobic" and prefers to ignore them rather than engage or convince them of better ways of living.

3. Kamala Harris epitomized elite denial - Harris couldn't acknowledge her elite status or explain why she wanted to be president, representing exactly the kind of disconnected leader Lasch criticized—one who presents herself as embodying the "American dream" while being fundamentally out of touch.

4. The left needs "left conservatism" - Progressives should be economically leftist but culturally conservative, supporting incremental change that maintains social institutions like family while prioritizing working-class material conditions over cultural absolutism.

5. Leadership and coalition-building matter more than ideology - Like FDR's New Deal coalition, the left needs charismatic leaders who can forge alliances across different constituencies, avoiding the absolutism that has alienated educated elites from the broader population.

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Dubbed the Meme Queen of Depression by Mashable, Aiden Arata's real goal on Instagram was to build a big enough following to convince traditional publishers to let her write a book. Thus her new collection of essays, You Have a New Memory, in which Arata reveals the chillingly empty realities about her millennial "Doom" generation's relationship with social media. There really isn't much of an influencer economy, Arata confesses, acknowledging that most social media "stars" are, in fact, grifters. So the only way to monetize one's influencer status is by writing a traditional book which, Arata argues, also offers a refuge from what she calls the "flattened" language of digital media.

1. Arata Became an Influencer to Enable Her Real Dream

"I think that I created an internet following to trick people into letting me write a book. I've always wanted to write a book... I've always been a writer."

Arata reveals her Instagram success was strategic - a means to literary credibility rather than an end goal.

2. Social Media Has "AI'd" Us Before AI Arrived

"I think it's interesting because just sort of the way that algorithms train us to use certain language... we kind of have AI'd ourselves by mimicking certain phrases and just flattening... the field of interpretation for words."

She argues we've already been conditioned to communicate like machines, making actual AI less of a leap.

3. Digital Content Creates an Existential Crisis

"I call it plastic bag theory. And it's this idea that... the internet is like a plastic bag, it's disposable, but it's also forever. It's sort of on its trash island swirling out there somewhere. And then when we use the internet, we kind of become that as well."

Her metaphor captures how online content - and creators - exist in a liminal state between temporary and permanent.

4. The "Doom Generation" Faces Unprecedented Awareness

"We've never been so aware of all of the atrocities that happen around us and to us. And we've sort of also never been so aware of our own powerlessness to affect change."

She explains why her generation feels particularly anxious about the future.

5. Books Offer Refuge from Digital Language Flattening

"A book is a really beautiful response to that. It's reclaiming language as something that can go on these sort of philosophical eddies and can have a metaphor that's a little bit complicated... that is like just perfect in its weird slanty little way."

Despite her digital success, she sees traditional publishing as essential for preserving nuanced human expression.

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The troubling thing about William F. Buckley, the media savvy founder of modern American conservatism, isn’t so much his politics, but his likability. How could such an overtly reactionary racist and homophobe (even if he was himself gay), be such a charming fellow beloved by all who knew him? That’s one of the central questions which Sam Tanenhaus addresses in his massive new biography Buckley. Tanenhaus reveals shocking new details about the Buckley family's secret funding of segregationist newspapers and White Citizens Councils—information that even appalled Buckley's own son Christopher. Buckley explores how someone could be genuinely charitable and philanthropic in his personal affairs while promoting such corrosive politics. Tanenhaus argues we live in a moment when it seems "almost impossible to disentangle those personas," yet Buckley embodied both simultaneously. This wasn't just genteel bigotry—it was a foundational contradiction that changed the United States and now helps define the theatrical toxicity of Trump’s America.

1. Buckley's Family Secretly Funded Segregationists

"Buckley's family actually sponsored the publication of a newspaper that supported the White Citizens Council... Buckley had kept it secret. He never told anyone."

Tanenhaus reveals that the Buckley family funded segregationist publications in the South—a bombshell that "appalled" even Buckley's own son Christopher.

2. The Paradox of Personal Charm vs. Political Toxicity

"Gary Wills... said Buckley was simply the most charitable man you would meet that he had ever known. And he said, I love everything about Bill Buckley, but his crazy reactionary politics."

The central mystery: How could someone be genuinely kind in person while promoting destructive ideologies? Tanenhaus argues this contradiction is what made Buckley so complex and influential.

3. Questions About Buckley's Sexuality Haunted His Public Life

"Vidal called Buckley a crypto-Nazi and Buckley said, don't call me a Nazi, you queer or I'll sock you in the goddamn face."

The famous 1968 debate with Gore Vidal exposed underlying tensions about Buckley's identity, with suggestions he was a "closeted gay man" himself while using homophobic language.

4. Buckley Invented Modern Political Theater

"Buckley's innovation... was to see that media itself could become the instrument for a kind of theatrical presentation of history. And that proved to be really precious. And that's what we're living with now is politics is a kind of theater and even entertainment."

Through "Firing Line" and his seemingly ubiquitous media presence, Buckley pioneered the performative politics we see today.

5. His American Dream Was Reactionary Restoration

"It was a dream of restoration... what he wanted to do was to create an America his own parents would have been comfortable in."

Buckley sought to return to the "late 19th and early 20th centuries of entrepreneurialism, of laissez-faire economics"—a world Tanenhaus calls "a powerful delusion."

Yesterday, we focused on the death of the American way of work. But today the news on the AI front isn’t quite as dire. According to the New York based economic historian Dror Poleg, AI will be too busy to take your job. That’s the provocative thesis of Poleg’s upcoming book focused on the radical opportunities in our AI age. He argues that AI's massive energy consumption will actually preserve human employment, as society redirects computing power toward critical tasks rather than simply replacing human labor with algorithms. Unlike Yuval Noah Harari's pessimistic "useless class" prediction, Poleg cheerfully envisions a future where everyone becomes valuable through constant experimentation and human connectivity. He believes we're entering an era where work becomes indistinguishable from leisure, interpersonal skills command premium value, and the economy depends on widespread human creativity and feedback to determine what's truly valuable in an increasingly unpredictable world. That’s the electrifying truth about our AI era. For Poleg, AI represents something even more transformative than electrification itself—a utility that will flow like water and affect everything, reshaping not just how we work but the very nature of economic value and human purpose.

1. AI's Energy Demands Will Preserve Human Jobs

"Energy is too valuable to waste on tasks humans can do... we as an economy, as a society, will basically want to throw as much electricity as possible at the things that matter up to the point that maybe automating different tasks that human can do... we'll decide to take electricity away from today's computer, even from people using Excel today and saying, Okay, that electricity is more valuable somewhere else."

2. AI Is More Transformative Than Electrification

"I would say it's more significant... I think it's at least as significant as electricity and electrification. And in many ways... it is more of a utility than anything else for better or worse. So it will flow like water and it will affect everything."

3. Everyone Will Become Valuable Through Experimentation

"My view of the future is actually exactly the opposite [of Harari's useless class]. I think that in the future everyone will be valuable and almost any activity would be valuable because we will not have any idea what is or who is valuable... as a society we will need as many people as possible to constantly do whatever they feel like, create whatever they want to create."

4. Work Will Merge With Leisure and Human Connection

"The general trend that I see is that work will become increasingly indistinguishable from leisure if we're looking long-term... we'll see more of these types of jobs, basically giving each other attention, helping each other know that we exist and sharing with each other more and more specialized and granular types of... service that only we can give to each other."

5. Physical, In-Person Interactions Will Become Premium

"If you wanna know if something is true, the only way to know that is to be there or to know someone who was there... I think that also pushes us back towards offline. In-person physical interactions that will be at a premium."

In 1963, Jessica Mitford published her remarkable account of the American funeral industry, An American Way of Death. Over sixty years later, another distinguished Englishwoman, the workplace futurist Julia Hobsbawm, is announcing the death of the American way of work. Whereas Mitford exposed the predatory practices of funeral directors, Hobsbawn reveals how corporate America has become equally disconnected from reality—clinging to outdated workplace models while other nations innovate. From Thomas Edison's countless inventions to Henry Ford's revolutionary assembly line, Hobsbawm notes, America dominated innovative 20th century work practices. But as countries like the UAE introduce more flexible policies than Silicon Valley, and demographic shifts reshape global labor markets, American corporations are "sleepwalking into disaster” by failing to adapt to both generational changes and to the post-pandemic workplace revolution.

1. America's Century of Workplace Dominance Is Ending

"I've always thought that America has dominated a century of the way the world works. I mean, everything we live and work on from, you know, the computer or the credit card or the communications industry, the car, it's all been American."

Hobsbawm argues that while America invented modern work culture—from Edison's innovations to Ford's assembly lines—its grip on workplace leadership is slipping as other nations pioneer new approaches.

2. Corporate America Is in Denial About Post-Pandemic Reality

"There is a desire on behalf of boards, corporate leaders, large corporates to, quote unquote, go back, to be quite rosy tinted in their spectacle view of what the past of work looked like."

She warns that American executives are refusing to acknowledge how fundamentally the pandemic changed worker expectations, instead clinging to outdated models while demanding returns to traditional office structures.

3. Other Countries Are Now Leading Workplace Innovation

"On the 1st of April this year the UAE introduced pretty much the most flexible working policies anywhere in the world, outside of the Nordics and the UK... America is weaker in the culture of work and the workplace policies around flexibility."

Nations once considered less progressive are now outpacing Silicon Valley on workplace flexibility, while American companies retreat from forward-thinking policies.

4. The One-Size-Fits-All Model Is Dead

"There is now a complete disaggregation of what norm is. And that is what is so difficult for businesses and corporations... you cannot impose a one-size-fits-all."

Hobsbawm identifies this as "the Achilles heel of the American way of work"—the inability to adapt to diverse, individualized worker needs across different generations and cultures.

5. Work Change Is the Defining Challenge of Our Time

"Work change is the new climate change. Every single workplace, every single worker, every single workforce, every single city product is going to be changed continuously."

She positions workplace transformation as the most critical issue facing society, requiring the same urgency and comprehensive response as climate change.

It’s an old thesis - that capitalism has created a religion out of money. But nobody, not even Marx, has been quite as theologically explicit as Paul Vigna, author of The Almightier: How Money Became God, Greed Became Virtue, and Debt Became Sin. The former Wall Street Journal reporter argues that money literally functions as our modern deity, complete with faith-based belief systems, sacred rituals of accumulation, and moral frameworks that equate wealth with divine favor. Tracing money's origins back 5,500 years to — surprise surprise — Mesopotamian temples, he reveals how what began as a practical accounting tool has evolved into humanity's central organizing principle. Unlike Marx's revolutionary critique of capitalist exchange, Vigna argues in favor of recalibration rather than outright destruction. Imagining money as a useful hammer rather than an almighty god, he questions why we chase dollars instead of human welfare, especially in a digital age when innovative new technologies could provide basic needs for everyone.

1. Money literally originated in religious temples 5,500 years ago: "Money shows up first time about 5,500 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, it is a product of temples. The temple in Uruk is where we find it and the temple scribes developed this system to keep track of the temple's possessions, which is called money."

2. Money isn't "real" - it's a collective belief system based entirely on trust: "Money isn't real. Money is an agreement among people. When you talk about trust, we're all trusting in this system. It's a system that we all buy into."

3. The Protestant Reformation transformed greed from sin into virtue: "Calvin says, God controls everything... So if you have money, you have it because God want you to have it. Therefore, if you become rich, God wanted you to become rich... you should work hard to make a lot of money because that's what God wants."

4. We've confused the tool with the goal: "We could provide the basic needs for every single human being on the earth... And what I say is, we don't do that... because we still have this deeply embedded belief that money... we are chasing money, we are not chasing the thing that society is supposed to be set up to do."

5. Bitcoin perfectly illustrates money-as-religion: "Bitcoin is absolutely a religion. It's got its own god in Satoshi Nakamoto... it is the most fascinating thing to watch because it really is, you saw a religion grow up around a monetary system."

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