Fake nostalgia and skillful propaganda got us here — but there’s hope on the other side

The American people have made a clear choice: They elected Donald Trump as the next president, and have given control of the U.S. Senate, and probably the House of Representatives, to the MAGAfied Republicans as well.

One plausible way to read this election is as a protest vote against the Democrats as the incumbent party, reflecting a broad feeling that the country is headed in the wrong direction and something must change on a fundamental level. Ultimately, Donald Trump was able to channel the public’s grievances into his own personal grievances and ride a wave of populist rage into the White House for a second time.

Trump has promised to be a dictator on “day one.” He will most certainly rule as an autocrat who will seek revenge and retribution on his “enemies,” meaning anyone or any group who opposes him or the MAGA movement. The right-wing extremists on the U.S. Supreme Court have ruled that Trump and his successors are de facto monarchs who are, in every meaningful sense, above the law. There will be few, if any, institutional checks and balances on Trump's second term.

It sounds oxymoronic to call someone an “elected dictator,” but the American people are about to find out it is not. Trump's voters and supporters did this to themselves. Many of them will soon feel the negative consequences and painful results of their decision to turn their backs on democracy and freedom very soon. The United States is now an undiscovered country, in the darkest possible sense.

Now Democrats must face the future: What do liberals actually want?

Any public voice who suggests that everything is going to be fine and that panic or despair are unwarranted should not be taken seriously. That is projection and self-soothing behavior.

There are rumors and reports that senior military leaders are having informal discussions about what to do if President Trump issues illegal or unconstitutional orders regarding the suppression of dissent, the occupation of American cities, the execution of his plans for mass deportation or other efforts to crush “the enemy within.”

During his first term, Trump wanted to use the military to put down the nationwide protests of 2020 that erupted in response to the police murder of George Floyd. Thankfully, that never happened. Some reports suggest that military leaders put steps in place to limit Trump’s ability to order the use of nuclear weapons.

None of this, needless to say, is normal. American voters were repeatedly warned about the existential danger posed by Trump and his MAGA movement, and a majority of them chose to embrace it. What they will reap will likely be poisonous. In an attempt to make sense of Trump’s victory, our collective emotions in this time of trouble and dread, what this election reveals about American values and character, and what comes next when Trump takes power in January, I recently spoke with a range of experts.

Steven Beschloss is a journalist and author of several books, including "The Gunman and His Mother." His website is America, America.

It’s hard to overstate how much damage re-electing Trump will cause, not only to immigrants and other marginalized populations but also to governmental function, education, the environment, justice and more. I am doubtful that the majority who chose to reject America’s first female president and a woman of color fully grasped the scale of destruction that voting for Trump will unleash, but they soon will.

Many of his voters may have possessed false nostalgia about his first term and false assumptions that his policies would not primarily enrich the wealthiest among us. This is what happens when the right-wing media spreads propaganda, the mainstream media treated him like a legitimate candidate and concrete policies take the backseat to personality and feelings. I will never get over the fact that his criminal convictions, hateful rhetoric, blatant sexism, despicable demonizing of fellow humans and trashing of democracy failed to turn more Americans away from him, but this should permanently end the tired and wrong notion that “we” are better than this. The reckoning that needed to happen by the media in its normalizing of this man will now be replaced by the effort to hang on for dear life as the retribution begins. Yes, fellow Americans, it can happen here.

"This is what happens when the right-wing media spreads propaganda, the mainstream media treated [Trump] like a legitimate candidate and concrete policies take the backseat to personality and feelings."

The ugly future can be seen with Trump’s people making threats and promises of no empathy and “rough justice,” statements like “your body, my choice,” threats of imprisonment for political opponents and prosecutors, and his promise that “We’re not messing around this time.” This is masks-off, hate-emboldened, raw anger, mixed with utter glee. But I take some solace and optimism in the initial pushback from state and local officials who are preparing their resistance. “To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom and opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said. “You come for my people, you come through me.”

The acts of opposition to slow the deportation of undocumented immigrants and the demolition of our government will be important models for all of us who reject this authoritarian regime. I hope that this coming dark chapter will motivate good and decent people to build coalitions and do what they can to help individuals and communities in danger. Plenty will just want to disengage from the body politic, but that’s how Trump and his enablers succeed.

Jennifer Mercieca is a historian of American political rhetoric. She is a professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Texas A&M University and author of several books, including "Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump."

Like a lot of the people I've talked to, I'm feeling quite nervous about the future. I study authoritarian regimes, and I know enough to be worried. The best we can do is connect with others (friends, family, neighbors) and try to make plans to stay safe and keep others safe.

Political science fundamentals would tell us that this was a "change" election year — people think the nation is heading in the wrong direction, the incumbent president is unpopular, and people's personal economic situation is stressed — but it was hard to know whetherpeople would prefer to "stay the course" or "change," because Trump was also a deeply unpopular president. What people chose to do was to stay home, largely.

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We don't have the final vote count, but it looks like Trump got about 30% of the voting-eligible population, which is very similar to the 29% approval rating he had when he left office. In both 2020 and 2024, Trump got about 74 million votes — about 11 million Biden voters didn't vote for Harris. In short, it's not that Trump is more popular, it's that he's just as popular as he ever was. He has retained his base of support. Why? Largely because right-wing propaganda circulates so freely and is actually good, while factual information is locked behind paywalls. The Democratic Party doesn't have anything like the propaganda power that the Republican Party has. Trump has always used propaganda and rhetorical tricks effectively. This was the first "unreality" election — a lot of people couldn't figure out what was true or who to trust, and just gave up trying.

I'm not sure if the election and Trump’s victory were more of a referendum on the character of the American people or on the public's faith in government. I'm inclined to see the latter. People don't trust either political party, they don't trust mainstream media, they don't trust institutions, they don't trust corporations — they don't believe that anyone is looking out for them.

We are the leaders we are looking for. If ever there was a need for people who care about others, here it is. And while they think this is their time, it's actually ours. They will burn it down, but we will rebuild it based on democratic principles. Equality and justice will finally be ours. This nation was built on fascism, but with the promise of democracy. I've clung to the promise of democracy in the hope that small changes could nudge us there. But democracy carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. Voters chose to end democracy.

"The system was built on fascism. This will be our chance to rebuild a system based on democracy and equality. It's a gift, actually. A painful and stressful gift."

The fascists won temporarily, but fascism is for losers. They'll fail. They are con men and swindlers. And when they do lose, we make a real democracy. The kind they hate. Their "creative destruction" will be democracy rising. Just look at the opportunities! If you look into your heart, you know deep down that predatory capitalism has us all sick and has enabled a war and prison industry, that our society is configured in ways that divide and alienate us from what is our best nature, that the two-party system entrenches power. Let them break it. Let them defund it. It didn't protect us anyway. The system was built on fascism. This will be our chance to rebuild a system based on democracy and equality. It's a gift, actually. A painful and stressful gift. As things break, we have to be ready to swoop into the void to replace them with things we can control, things that work better and things built by the people on the principles of solidarity, equality and sharing. This is our time. We are the heroes that we need.

Jared Yates Sexton is a journalist and author of the book "The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis."

I am feeling sad, frustrated, angry and motivated. The way I work, in times like this, is to throw myself into the work and then work my way out. I don't have the privilege of being immobilized, so since Wednesday morning I've been working on what I can do to help the situation in any way that I possibly can.

Trump and MAGA present a novel problem to our media. To fully understand them would mean wrestling with the effects of capitalism, white supremacy and misogyny. Our media is tuned to telling a very conventional and predictable story about the United States of America, and that story does not allow for true examinations of those things lest the media actually engage in critical self-reflection and ask really hard questions about itself and its role in these great problems. So Trump gets laundered, and the analysis continues to get worse and worse.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

I'm not surprised by Trump winning the election and defeating Kamala Harris. I think there was a part of me that wanted to believe he would be defeated against all odds, but I knew there was a very real possibility this would happen. For the past couple of years, I've been observing the United States become more and more right-wing and authoritarian. These results just brought that into full focus for everyone willing to see it.

We are facing an authoritarian regime that will do everything in its power to destroy liberal democracy, turn the U.S. into a kleptocratic entity and burn down our economy and standard of living. My advice is to prepare. Reflect on who you are, what you believe and what your actual principles are. The time is coming when you will be tested. To reiterate: If we as a people are to somehow avoid the absolute worst-case scenario, you are going to be tested — and it will not be easy.

Justin Frank is a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and the author of "Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President."

I am feeling sad and shocked, ultimately devastated by this defeat. But I don’t blame the voters who chose Trump. The question is: What mistakes did we make? Thinking about our mistakes makes me angry at Kamala Harris' advisers.

Ultimately, I think Trump's second election was a referendum less on the American people than on the Democratic Party itself. I was surprised by the outcome because I was blinded by the great parts of her campaign, coupled with my own complete disgust with Trump. But the character of the American people — not counting rabid MAGA supporters — is still elusive to me, despite their choosing a convicted felon as president.

Moreover, Harris didn’t directly attack corporate greed enough. Ultimately, to point fingers at others is to evade self-examination about how we got here as a nation.

about the 2024 aftermath

Scientists propose “DNA of the universe” is gap in Einstein’s hunt for unified physics theory

When molecular biologist Francis Crick tripped on the psychedelic drug LSD in 1953, his mind famously pulled together all of his previous research on human DNA to conceive of the image of a double helix. More than seven decades later, mathematician Robert Monjo believes he has discovered a similarly significant double helix — but this time not as the structure of human DNA, but as the structure of spacetime itself.

“Our study completes the work of Albert Einstein in his attempt to relate gravity and electromagnetism forces in the same geometric theory,” Monjo, a professor of mathematics at Saint Louis University in Spain, told Salon. While it may seem like an odd coincidence for spacetime to follow an analogous engineering blueprint as the human body, Monjo argues this is perfectly logical.

Music of the spheres: Scientists uncover ancient particle hymn from the birth of the universe

“The actual connection between physics and molecular biology is that curvature and torsion are the most probable solutions (minimum energy when forces are acting) for particle paths and for designing stable structures,” Monjo said. “The simile with the DNA is more a metaphor but in some way, there exists the connection as mentioned for solving paths.”

Working with Dr. Rutwig Campoamor-Stursberg and mathematics colleague Álvaro Rodríguez Abella, Monjo performed extensive algebraic and other mathematical calculations — much of it drawing from existing research on theoretical physics — in order to arrive at their conclusions. Their study was published in the journal General Relativity and Gravitation in October.

"We can perform transformations of motion so that gravity and electromagnetism can be deduced from the same equation of spacetime."

Monjo’s theory helps unify scientific concepts of Newtonian gravity with our knowledge of electromagnetism. Einstein was convinced that such a unified theory exists, and during his own lifetime demonstrated that his theory of relativity applies to Newtonian mechanics as well as other important concepts involving electromagnetism, optics, electric and magnetic circuits.

“That was already a first unification of the transformations of mechanics, since until then physics were considered two different worlds,” Monjo explained, contrasting physicist Isaac Newton’s concepts of physics with those advanced by a similarly foundational physicist, James Clerk Maxwell. “Einstein then generalized his idea to the relativity of the gravitational force (General Relativity, in 1915-1916) and worked more than a decade to improve it, but he was unable to finish the work for the electromagnetic force. Our work addresses precisely that point: we can perform transformations of motion so that gravity and electromagnetism can be deduced from the same equation of spacetime.”

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Dr. Djordje Minic, a professor of physics and particle and string theory at the University of Texas at Austin, isn’t so sure about these conclusions. He noted that teleparallel gravity — the conceptual unified theory imagined by Einstein — has “various problems,” starting with local Lorentz symmetry, or the theory that in physics the laws are the same for all observers moving relative to each other.

“Saying that matter interactions all come from the metric of classical spacetime means, at least naïvely, that quantum spacetime — whatever that means empirically — does not really have any role, or that the foundational questions in quantum theory are simply irrelevant in quantum theory of gravity and matter,” Minic said. Matter is quantum as we know, and if matter comes from the spacetime metric then, what happens to the observed distinction between quantum and classical correlations – for example quantum probabilities interfere, classical do not.”

“Now, the authors say that spacetime coordinates are matrices, but what does that mean for the experimentally tested Standard Model whose quantum fields live in classical spacetime?” Minic went on. “What is the consequence of this approach for the observed vacuum energy (cosmological constant) and the observed masses of elementary particles?” The term “vacuum energy” refers to the energy background that permeates the entire universe, within or outside of a vacuum. A cosmological constant is a famous part of Einstein's General Relativity theory, and refers to an arbitrary constant that is present in all related field equations. Finally elementary particles are protons, electrons, neutrons and all other particles that are smaller than an atom.

While the authors argue that spacetime coordinates are matrices, Minic said “I do not see any deep consequences of that statement! What happens to quantum correlations in that matrix valued spacetime? Do they satisfy the quantum Bell bound? How is the quantum probability computed? Is the Born rule still valid? Are there any new testable predictions?”

The Bell theorem refers to how entangled electrons are predicted by quantum mechanics, making them non-local — often referred to as “spooky action at a distance.” The Born rule bridges the math of quantum theory to the outcomes of experiments, which makes the field a legitimate scientific discipline in the first place. It seems this new theory of the universe still has a lot to explain. Minic instead argued that the quantum theory behind Einstein's gravity and standard model for matter is gravitized quantum theory.

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“In this approach the currently fixed geometry of quantum theory, tied to the Born rule for quantum probabilities, becomes dynamical, in analogy with dynamical spacetime metric of general relativity,” Minic said. “This ultimately connects to metastring theory, an intrinsically non-commutative and phase-space-like formulation of string theory.” Their approach attempts to illuminate a cosmological constant as well as the properties of leptons and quarks.

“There is a new prediction that has to do with intrinsic triple (and higher order) quantum interference and a dynamical Born rule that can be experimentally tested,” Minic said. “In general, we need experiments in quantum gravity, not just theories. With experiments, we will have real science, which is what we all want in our quest to understand the universe a bit better and a bit more completely.”

In contrast to Minic, Dr. Avi Loeb, a theoretical physics professor at Harvard University, praised the paper as “highly technical and offers a novel mathematical way to describe interactions among particles in a unified geometric way, including gravity and electromagnetism.” Adding that its results can be used to create a new unification scheme of quantum mechanics and gravity, Loeb said the deeper significance of the double helix structure isthat it “is simply a mathematical result that has nothing to do with biology. The fact that it appears here and in the human DNA is a remarkable coincidence.”

about physics

Trump appoints new EPA head Lee Zeldin, who has abysmal environmental record

President-elect Donald Trump tapped New York Republican Lee Zeldin Monday to be his new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, further signaling his intention to oppose government action to address climate change.

Zeldin, who served as a United States Representative from 2015 to 2023 and ran against Gov. Kathy Hochul in the 2022 New York gubernatorial election, is being touted by Trump for policies that will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses.” Trump also promises that Zeldin will protect the environment.

“We will restore U.S. energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the U.S. the global leader of AI,” Zeldin said in his statement accepting the job, later adding he will also protect "access to clean air and water."

Even Republicans like Richard Nixon were once champions of the environment. What happened?

Zeldin has a 14 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters, with the organization finding he opposed 51 out of 53 climate change bills on which he voted from 2015 to 2023. Because Zeldin represented a Long Island district, he has supported conservation measures that focus on Long Island coastlines. At the same time, he opposed clean water legislation at least 12 times and clean air legislation at least six times.

Prior to the selection of Zeldin, scientists analyzing Trump’s rhetoric, policy proposals and record expressed alarm at the prospect of his returning to power.

“As I stated before the election, a second Trump term, which includes implementation of Project 2025, is the end of climate action as we know it, this decade,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann told Salon at the time, alluding to Trump’s policy guide that includes a goal of gutting the EPA. “And if Trump dismantles our democracy, as many fear will be the case, and the world’s greatest power, the U.S., becomes — in essence — a petrostate, it’s game over for climate action full stop for the foreseeable future, unless the rest of the world unites and takes bold action, including potentially the most punitive possible sanctions against the United States.”

about the environment

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head Department of Government Efficiency under Trump

"Guys, the fact DOGE is a real thing, and that it's called DOGE, proves that we are in a simulation."

The above, posted to X by user @farzyness, was one of many similar takes on Tuesday night, following the announcement that Donald Trump plans to fold in Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the new "Department of Government Efficiency" once he's positioned in the White House.

Playing off the reference to the Shiba Inu meme associated with the cryptocurrency of the same name, Musk took to his platform shortly after the announcement to boast his key to the kingdom, writing, "The merch will be fire."

"People who don’t think that they know better": Trump eyes loyalists for key cabinet positions

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement, which quoted Musk as saying “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people!”

Jumping in on the excitement with his own contribution to social media, Ramaswamy wrote in a post to X, "We will not go gently, @elonmusk."

We will not go gently, @elonmusk. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/sbVka2vTiW

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 13, 2024

According to Cryptoglobe, "the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Dogecoin ($DOGE) has seen its price surge more than 140% over the past week to trade above the $0.4 mark amid a wider cryptocurrency market rally," and with Trump's announcement, that's expected to go up and up.

"So umm good time to buy $DOGE ??" One person wrote to X, with an image of its Shiba Inu mascot taking off in a rocket.

So umm good time to buy $DOGE ?? pic.twitter.com/GcFanNc371

— ⚾️ BrewCrewDad ⚾️ (@BrewCrewDadd) November 13, 2024

"Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!" Musk wrote in a later post, further celebrating his big win.

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Trump picks John Ratcliffe for CIA director role

On the heels of the announcement that Donald Trump plans to hand the role of Homeland Security lead over to South Dakota Governor and family dog annihilator Kristi Noem, he dropped another controversial nomination on Tuesday evening, tapping his former head of intelligence, John Ratcliffe, to lead the CIA.

In a statement posted to Truth Social, Trump sings Ratcliffe's praises, writing, "From exposing fake Russian collusion to be a Clinton campaign operation, to catching the FBl's abuse of Civil Liberties at the FISA Court, John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public. When 51 intelligence officials were lying about Hunter Biden's laptop, there was one, John Ratcliffe, telling the truth to the American People."

Is John Ratcliffe another Trump distraction or a terrifying sign of an authoritarian purge? Yes

In 2019, Ratcliffe was the center of controversy and withdrew his name from consideration as Trump's pick to lead the nation's intelligence community over accusations that he padded his résumé, pivoting to accept the role months later and serve as the director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021 during Trump’s first term. He currently serves as co-chair at the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-linked think tank, as described by CNN.

Credited by Trump supporters on social media as "uncovering the Russian collusion hoax" and tracing it back to Hillary Clinton, in addition to being the "only intelligence dude to say Hunter's laptop was real," others outside of the MAGA-sphere are reminding of his prior statements on UFOs.

"John Ratcliffe was just on Fox News talking about UFO Disclosure," writes one person in a post to X, sharing a clip from 2021. "Look at him smiling. Look [at] the clips playing in the background. He's talking about Pleiadians and Galactic Federation."

John Ratcliffe was just on Fox News talking about UFO Disclosure.

Look at him smiling. Look the clips playing in the background. He's talking about Pleiadians and Galactic Federation. pic.twitter.com/2yo4sF7ald

— Kab (@Kabamur_Taygeta) March 20, 2021

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The funky mold turning food waste into culinary delights

Making oncom is almost magical. It starts with a pile of soy pulp, which is wrapped in banana leaves and sprinkled with the spores of a fungus called Neurospora intermedia. The bundle is left to ferment in a warm, humid place for about a day and a half. As the mold digests the proteins and starch within the fibrous pulp, it also breaks down the cellulose, turning what remains into a dish beloved by many across western Indonesia.

"It's pretty astonishing," said chef-turned-bioengineer Vayu Hill-Maini. "In just 36 hours, this fungal growth is really kind of transforming what otherwise is pretty inedible."

He hopes others see it that way, too. In a recently published paper in Nature Microbiology, the Stanford University assistant professor made a convincing argument that fungal fermentation of food waste and agricultural byproducts could be the next culinary frontier.

For Hill-Maini, this is about more than making trendy dishes. It's about improving food sustainability and reducing hunger worldwide. The process he is so excited about has been doing exactly that for centuries in parts of Indonesia, where oncom, a traditional staple, is an affordable and nutritious alternative to animal protein.

Stir-fried; used as a stuffing, filling, or basis of sauce; and even served as a fried snack, oncom is traditionally made by combining a bit of old oncom with something like soybean pulp and leaving it to ferment. It's much like making miso, and results in a protein similar to tempeh. Its prevalence in Southeast Asian cuisine inspired Hill-Maini, who once worked as a chef, to investigate the spore-bearing organisms behind the dish and figure out how the fungus that creates it could be embraced worldwide.

Fermentation has been around for thousands of years. It is what makes beer and wine possible, and has long been used to whip up kitchen-table fixtures such as kimchi, sauerkraut, and yogurt. It's even behind kombucha and sourdough bread. But it turns out this chemical process, in which bacteria, molds or yeasts break down sugar to create simpler compounds, could help alleviate the mounting crisis of food waste. Hill-Maini thinks it could do that, in theory, by turning waste generated during the production of plant-based milks into inexpensive and highly nutritious dishes, helping rein in a key source of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the world's food system.

"We've known for many years that fungi are nature's degraders," said Hill-Maini, noting that fungi used to reduce streams of food waste could be the "most efficient way to convert waste into human food."

Hill-Maini's paper is the result of three years of investigating just where N. intermedia could grow, and whether it could turn the cast-offs and refuse of industrial food processing into something people would want to eat. After analyzing everything from coffee grounds to orange peels — some 30 things in all — he and his team discovered that the strain of fungus grows on most everything they tried. They also found it didn't produce mycotoxins, the potentially deadly substances associated with some fungi.

And, perhaps most notably, it resulted in the creation of foods that repurpose what might otherwise end up in the garbage without sacrificing taste in the interest of altruism. Equally important, he wanted the process widely accessible.

"This is industrial-scale. It's not compost bins and home kitchens. It's massive industries that generate food-waste-grade products every single day," said Hill-Maini.

The research focused particular attention on what's left behind during the production of plant-based dairy, produce, and brewing. Interestingly enough, Hill-Maini discovered many of these inedible items could be transformed into something with appetizing colors, textures, and flavors.

This could be a boon for the climate, because evidence suggests every metric ton of wet waste that is upcycled through fermentation — in this case, turned into dinner instead of landing into methane-spewing landfills — prevents the release of about 600 kilograms of CO2. Before long, Hill-Maini would like to see fungal fermentation incorporated into food manufacturing facilities and any emerging refuse immediately transformed by mold.

But what really fascinates him are the climate benefits N. intermedia could provide. "What we're thinking is we can convert this waste into protein, and then that protein can reduce animal consumption," said Hill-Maini. "We might be able to have a massive impact."

Drumming up enough U.S. consumer interest in food made from waste will require a pitch that goes beyond the increasingly futile message "this is better for the planet." But that kind of branding may not be necessary. Rick von Hagn, who has spent the last few years experimenting with N. intermedia at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, says the taste and texture of this ancient way of cooking may do the trick on its own. The farm-to-table restaurant in Tarrytown, New York, has begun serving fungus-fermented foods in a handful of dishes.

His journey with the spore started in 2022, when he and colleague Andrew Luzmore began collaborating with Hill-Maini, identifying various kitchen waste streams that might be good candidates for fermentation. They'd ship something to the bioengineer, who would send back a fermented food, the first of which began as "the press-cake that's left when you make flaxseed oil," said Luzmore. "I remember taking out what looked like a burger patty and placing it in a hot pan. As it cooked it started looking like a well-seared steak."

They've since discovered that combining the fungus with a wide range of ingredients provides a texture and flavor additive that can transform even the trickiest alt-protein dishes into a culinary star. The two chefs have used N. intermedia to improve the texture of sausages made with a mixture of meat and grains or vegetables, and brought rock-hard bread "back to life" by fermenting it with the fungus and keeping it out of local landfills. The rejuvenated bread "has the texture of French toast and the flavor of grilled cheese." As it ferments, N. intermedia takes on an "earthy, floral quality," von Hagn noted, and cooking it provides "a cheesy, deeply savory, mushroom-y flavor and aroma."

Using the fungus in dishes has been such a hit with customers that the team at Blue Hill has built its own microbiology lab to evaluate the potential of fermenting various things and developing recipes with them. It is, as Luzmore described it, "a key to a whole new set of possibilities that have largely remained unexplored beyond its traditional use in Indonesia."

Matthew Kammerer, executive chef at The Harbor House Inn in Elk, California, loves that idea. "Any cooking that's done with byproducts or turned into something unique to limit food waste is something I'll always definitely support," said Kammerer, who has not been involved with the research project.

For the last seven years, Kammerer has been working with koji mold, or Aspergillus oryzae, which is widely used in Japanese cuisine to ferment soybeans and make things like soy sauce and miso. In the last decade, "koji's kind of been the star of the show, but it seems like a very similar process and technique," said Kammerer. He's interested in learning more about N. intermedia's gastronomic potential, which he dubs "far less mainstream."

All told, it's not just fine-dining restaurants in the U.S. that can be found embracing the culinary novelty of this Indonesian technique. Hill-Maini is now collaborating with San Sebastián, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Spain, with the aim to develop alcoholic beverages using N. intermedia. Chefs at Alchemist, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Denmark, have created a dessert in which its fungal enzymes enhance the sweetness and flavor of a sugarless rice custard.

The biggest barrier to the adoption of this strain of fungus is the dearth of places to buy the spores needed to grow it in the U.S. In Java, the Indonesian birthplace of oncom, oncom leftovers are used much like seeds to grow a new batch of the alternative protein — a process similar to using sourdough starter to make bread. In California, Hill-Maini's team used a lab sample of N. intermedia to carry out its research. That limited availability is one reason Luzmore and von Hagn went all-in on a microbiology lab, while Hill-Maini is building a kitchen alongside his laboratory at Stanford.

Of course, the steeper hurdle is getting people to eat something that many view as garbage.

"There's a few things working against us. We're talking about waste, we're talking about mold. If you say 'mold-fermented waste,' I think people will be really turned off and disgusted," he said. That's where having fine-dining chefs can help flip people's aversion to inclination.

The irony is fermented food products, like sourdough, and those rife with fungi, such as blue cheese, have long reigned over the food scene in the U.S. Kombucha — the beloved moldy, fermented drink that hit astronomical popularity in recent years but was first brewed millennia ago — is one such success story. Hill-Maini hopes to see a similar kind of rocket-like trajectory for N. intermedia.

Embracing a food-waste-fighting fungus on kitchen tables and restaurant plates across the world is not the future of food, said Hill-Maini, but the present. "Look, this is happening in Indonesia. It's happening in the U.S. in various ways," he said. "This is just a new way to look at it, towards planetary health."

He and his team aren't re-inventing the wheel, but rolling it into a new part of the world as a force for planetary good. One discarded pile of oat pulp or moldy loaf of bread, at a time.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/oncom-fermented-fungus-food-waste-solution-study/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

Pistachios continue to be a lucrative crop in California, making the U.S. a top exporter of the nut

California farmers are allocating more land to grow pistachios, which are proving to be a lucrative crop that can withstand the state’s drought conditions, the Associated Press reported Sunday.

Approximately 99% of U.S. pistachios are produced in California, per the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. Last year, the nuts generated nearly $3 billion in the state. And in the past decade, the United States has become the world’s top exporter of the crop, besting both Iran and Turkey.

“There has been an explosion over the last 10 or 15 years of plantings and those trees are coming online,” Zachary Fraser, president and chief executive of American Pistachio Growers, told the AP. “You are starting to see the fruit of people’s vision from 40 years ago.”

How pistachio became the new "it flavor" of early winter

Pistachios are currently California’s “sixth-biggest agricultural commodity in value” compared to other longtime crops grown in the state, like strawberries and tomatoes, per agriculture statistics. Most of the pistachios will be sent to China, where the crop is dubbed the “happy nut” and commonly eaten during Lunar New Year. But the nuts have also grown to be a popular snack throughout the States. Pistachios are sold with or without their shells and are available in a range of savory or sweet flavors.

As explained by the AP, pistachio orchards “can be sustained with minimal water during drought” and their trees “rely on wind instead of bees for pollination and can produce nuts for decades longer.” Because of the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) — which limits the amount of groundwater farmers can use — pistachios have been hailed as the perfect crop to cultivate while satisfying sustainability initiatives.

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The White Stripes drop copyright lawsuit against Donald Trump for “Seven Nation Army” song use

The White Stripes have dropped their lawsuit against President-elect Donald Trump and his campaign after the musical duo sued him for the unauthorized use of their song "Seven Nation Army" two months ago.

According to a filing reported by USA Today, the pair, Jack and Meg White, dismissed their copyright infringement lawsuit against Trump. Jack and Meg did not provide a reason why they decided to drop the lawsuit. The former married couple and band members stopped performing as the White Stripes in 2011.

A spokesperson for Jack and Meg declined to comment to USA Today about the lawsuit.

"This machine sues fascists": Jack and Meg White sue Donald Trump for use of White Stripes song

In August, in the midst of Trump's campaigning for president, Jack threated legal action when Trump's deputy director of communications posted a video of him boarding a plane to the White Stripes' hit 2003 song "Seven Nation Army."

Swiftly after the video was posted, Jack responded in an Instagram post, "Oh . . .Don't even think about using my music, you fascists. Lawsuit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others.) Have a great day at work today, Margo Martin."

Following Jack's comments, the White Stripes sued Trump and his campaign for his "flagrant misappropriation of the musical composition and sound recording 'Seven Nation Army.'"

Both Jack and Meg have long voiced their opposition to Trump, even issuing a statement saying they were "disgusted by that association." Jack also followed the debacle with new merch with the phrase "Icky Trump." A play on the White Stripes 2007 album, "Icky Thump."

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“Saturday Night Live”: Chloe Fineman reveals Elon Musk made her “burst into tears” when he hosted

Chloe Fineman called out Elon Musk, alleging that she had a tearful experience with the businessman.

The "Saturday Night Live" cast member and writer slammed Musk following his comments on the sketch comedy show's impersonation of himself and president-elect Donald Trump on Saturday, The Hollywood Reporter reported.

In a now-deleted TikTok, Fineman said, “OK, I just saw some news article about Elon Musk being like butt-hurt over 'SNL' and his impression. But I’m like you’re clearly watching the show, like what are you talking about?” The comedian continued, “And I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna come out and say at long last that I’m the cast member that he made cry. And he’s the host that made someone cry.”

"Hail Trump": "Saturday Night Live" cast and Dana Carvey as Elon Musk pledge allegiance to the king

Fineman is referring to the story co-star Bowen Yang previously shared on Andy Cohen's "Watch What Happens Live." During a game, Yang revealed the worst "SNL" host behavior he’d experienced during his tenure. The comedian didn't share Musk's name but he said, “This man — this person — this host made multiple cast members cry on Wednesday before the table read because he hated the ideas.”

Following Yang's comments, people online speculated about the person's identity. Fineman confirmed it, initially saying she was "not gonna say anything. But I’m like, no, if you’re gonna go on your platform and be rude, guess what? You made I, Chloe Fineman burst into tears because I stayed up late writing a sketch."

She continued, "I was so excited, I came in, I asked if you had any questions and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like, ‘It’s not funny.'”

Musk responded to a repost of Fineman's video on his platform, X, stating "Frankly, it was only on the Thursday before the Saturday that ANY of the sketches generated laughs. I was worried. I was like d**n my 'SNL' appearance is going to be so f***ing unfunny. But then it worked out in the end."

Chloe Fineman deleted the video after it was up for a few hours. Luckily I saved it…in it she says Elon Musk did not like her sketch: “You made I, Chloe Fineman burst into tears because I stayed up late writing a sketch. I was so excited, I came in, I asked if you had any… https://t.co/y4BxNSab8j pic.twitter.com/p2RVHQMYuC

— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) November 12, 2024

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Whoopi Goldberg reveals what it would take to leave “The View”: A bigger bank account

Whoopi Goldberg has been a co-host of "The View" for nearly 20 years, but in a recent episode, she joked that she’s not just sticking around for the fun of it—she needs the cash.

On the brink of turning 69, Goldberg spoke of her financial situation during Tuesday's live show — which touched upon the struggles of the working class — saying, "I appreciate that people are having a hard time. Me, too. I work for a living."

Whoopi Goldberg has taken flight from Twitter. But how much does her departure matter?

"If I had all the money in the world, I would not be here, okay? So, I'm a working person, you know?" Goldberg furthered. "My kid has to feed her family. My great-granddaughter has to be fed by her family. I know it's hard out there."

That said, Goldberg is not exactly strapped for funds in the same way many other Americans are. With an estimated worth of $60 million, Goldberg said in a spring episode that she plans to bequeath it all to her daughter, Alexandrea Martin.

"One of the great answers is children learn by what they see," Goldberg explained on the May 2 episode. "My mother worked her behind off and so that's why I feel the way I feel and I'm leaving my kid everything that I have."

A breakdown of "The View" co-host's salaries reported on by OK! Magazine in 2022 ranks Goldberg at the top, pulling in $8 million a year, with Joy Behar banking $7 million, Sunny Hostin banking $1.6 million and Alyssa Farah Griffin estimated at $250k.

"For Alyssa, who is coming from the White House, 'The View' salary would be a step up!" The insider who provided these figures to the publication said.

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“They acted like Republicans”: Jon Stewart on why the Democrats were “shellacked” by the election

In the wake of Donald Trump's 2024 election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Jon Stewart is getting serious with "The Daily Show" audience.

"Welcome to the resistance," he joked. "I promise you, for the remainder of the next four years, I will only speak to you in this tone of voice, this close to the camera. I will be relentless."

But in all seriousness, Stewart is back on his Monday post just one week from the election, grappling with why the Democrats lost a race that many predicted would be a close margin that would eventually favor Harris. Despite the record billion dollars raised in support of Harris, the thousands of doorknockers and volunteers and a robust voter protection plan, Stewart pointed out, "Nobody brought the voters? Where the f**k are the voters?"

"This isn't the end": Jon Stewart reassures viewers as Donald Trump clinches win

Stewart continued, "It turns out the election was stolen . . . by more people voting for Donald Trump."

After playing several clips highlighting what pundits believe went wrong for the Democrats, Stewart said, "It's a delight to hear why it happened from so many people who were wrong about what was going to happen."

But there was one theory that Stewart took issue with: pundits stating that the Democrats lost because they had become “too woke.”

“I only have one problem with the ‘woke’ theory,” Stewart replied. “I just didn’t recall seeing any Democrats running on woke s**t.”

Stewart then played a montage of Democrat ad campaigns that showcased quite conservative politics and policies on immigration even in places like liberal New York state.

“Those are the Democrats,” Stewart expressed. “I gave the police more money than they wanted! I gave them planes and tanks! They didn’t talk about pronouns. They didn’t say ‘Latinx.’ It was the opposite.”

The comedian played another barrage of clips from Democrats. This time, the ads stated their policy including inflammatory language about China stealing American jobs, no benefits for illegal immigrants, funding and standing with law enforcement and openly rejecting gender-affirming surgery.

Harris wasn't exempt from the centrist Democrat conversation either. The show highlighted the "60 Minutes" interview where she said, "I have a glock."

Stewart said, “They didn’t do the woke thing. They acted like Republicans for the last four months. They wore camo hats and went to Cheney family reunions. Do you know how dangerous it is to wear a hunting hat around the Cheneys?”

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“Democrats were mostly running against an identity that was defined for them based on a couple of months of post-George Floyd Defund the Police #MeToo Instagram posts from four years ago,” Stewart emphasized.

“The country felt like government wasn’t working for them, and the Democrats in particular were taking their hard-earned money and giving it to people who didn’t deserve it as much as them. And so the Democrats got shellacked,” he explained.

Since last week's results, Stewart has remained hopeful for the future. He shared, “I just want to please assure people this isn’t forever. This is the map in 1984 when Ronald Reagan won.” The comedian showed an overwhelmingly Republican electoral map, where Reagan won every state but Minnesota.

“Everyone thought, ‘That’s the end of the Democrats,’” Stewart said. “But eight years later there was a Democrat back in office. We don’t know what’s going to happen in four years at all.”

"The Daily Show" airs Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central and streams on Paramount+.

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The FDA is urging these brands of ground cinnamon products to issue voluntary recalls

The U.S. Food and Drug Association (FDA) has announced more brands of ground cinnamon that contain elevated levels of lead and may be unsafe to consume. The specific products are sold at chain retailers, including Dollar Tree, Save-A-Lot Food Stores and Patel Brothers.

Per the agency, the at-risk products were flagged for possible lead contamination following product testing by state programs confirmed by the FDA. Brands include Super Brand, Asli, El Chilar, Marcum, SWAD, Supreme Tradition, Compania Indillor Orientale, ALB Flavor, Shahzada, Spice Class and La Frontera. The FDA has recommended that the individual companies voluntarily recall their products. The agency added that it will update its notice "with the communications from firms that voluntarily agree to recall as we receive them.”

Brie, camembert and other soft ripened cheeses recalled over potential listeria contamination

The latest announcement comes after the FDA issued a public health alert back in March on six brands of cinnamon products that had elevated levels of lead and chromium. In the wake of the alert, two of the companies formally announced recalls. Colonna Brothers of North Bergen, N.J., recalled 1.5-ounce Ground Cinnamon and 2.25-ounce Supreme Tradition Ground Cinnamon distributed nationwide and through mail order. Colonna said it also ceased production and distribution of all cinnamon.

Additionally, El Chilar Rodriguez of Apopka, Fla., recalled 127 cases of El Chilar Ground Cinnamon “Canela Molida” sold in 1.25-ounce bags, distributed by La Raza of Forestville, Md. and sold at retail stores throughout Maryland.

The FDA has advised consumers to throw away or not purchase the at-risk ground cinnamon products. The agency is “continuing to analyze cinnamon and review sample results received from state partners who have been continuously sampling ground cinnamon at retail for elevated levels of lead,” according to its most recent notice.

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This fiery “Arcane” romance illuminates why so many people won’t date or befriend Trump supporters

On Election Day, millions of Americans elected a Republican national ticket whose vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, regularly denounced women who avoid traditional lifestyles as “childless cat ladies.” At the top of that ticket, President-elect Donald Trump is notorious for pandering to prejudices against women, racial minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Trump prevailed despite a significant gender gap between female and male voters, with Trump’s opponents expressing deep distress over his victory while his supporters publicly gloated about those same people's pain.

You can't separate the political from the personal, at least when the political differences become so very stark.

Into this all-too-real context Netflix plunks the second season of “Arcane,” the vividly colorful and fast-moving adult animated steampunk adventure series based on Riot’s “League of Legends” video games. On the surface, nothing could seem less connected to Trump’s recent reelection than a TV series featuring a brilliant scientist who looks a bit like an upright walking cat, a blue-haired vigilante, a drug-dealing talking rodent and a seemingly all-powerful technology called Hextech.

Lessons from "League of Legends": Why I taught my son to play violent video games

By the end of the first season, however, the potential parallels between the world of “Arcane” and the one of Trump became increasingly clear. Series antihero Jinx (Ella Purnell), devastated at a terrible personal loss and traumatized by the injustices she has suffered as the resident of the oppressed community of Zaun, launches a terrorist attack against the governing council of the ruling community, Piltover. In so doing, she drastically alters the relationships of all the show’s major characters — and forces two characters’ budding relationship into an unexpectedly political place.

Ella Purnell as Jinx in "Arcane" (Netflix)This is why, beneath the pulse-pounding action sequences and deep-dish fantasy worldbuilding, “Arcane” is also a surprisingly vulnerable exploration of how reactionary politics wreak havoc on interpersonal connections. In this case, that theme is brought to the fore in the subplot involving Jinx’s estranged sister Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and her close friend from the first season, Caitlyn (Katie Leung).

At the close of last season, many fans wanted to know if these two would ever hook up. The answer to that question is a resounding “Yes,” but comes with a twist — the romance does not last, as the latter’s privileged background and thirst for revenge combine to make her a more-than-willing instrument for totalitarianism.

In a key scene it is established that once Caitlyn’s politics became monstrous, her personal life would inevitably follow. In her zeal to bring Jinx to justice and end the Zaun uprising, Caitlyn tries to shoot Jinx even though doing so would needlessly endanger a child. Without knowing any details, Caitlyn disregards that a young girl throws herself upon Jinx to protect her when she senses that she is in danger. Before the moment has passed, the once-admirable warrior we were emotionally trained to root for has actually taken a shot near the kid, and shortly thereafter assaults Vi with the butt of her gun when the latter has the temerity to challenge her.

In this respect, “Arcane” in its second season is the perfect show to complement the actual universe’s biggest ongoing battle against fascism, the 2024 presidential election. It demonstrates that love, though perhaps the world’s most beautiful emotion, is not necessarily the most important one, at least not when oppressive politics become involved.

The American Survey Center in 2020 learned that 55% of young women would be less likely to date a Donald Trump supporter, with 39% saying the same thing about dating a Republican. The gap is even larger among educated women, as more than three-fourths of those with a college degree (76%) likewise say they would not date anyone who backs our once and now future president. Overall 75% of unmarried young women have a “very unfavorable” view of Trump himself, with that hostility naturally spilling over to his supporters.

While mainstream media outlets like “The Washington Post” denounce women who spurn pro-Trump men (with CNN getting in on the action by criticizing a somewhat-rarer but still prevalent phenomenon, men spurning pro-Trump women), Salon’s Amanda Marcotte observed last year that there are logical personal as well as political reasons to not date a Trump supporter. If you are either a woman or genuinely care about women, backing Trump is a lot different from supporting your run-of-the-mill Republican. It speaks to how you are likely to behave in a relationship.

“For women, in particular, it's about being able to be safe and respected inside your own home, which is a very minimum standard all people deserve,” Marcotte wrote. “Voting for Trump means backing a man who has been accused of sexual assault by two dozen women, and who a judge and jury deemed responsible for rape. It means backing the man who repeatedly brags that he got Roe v. Wade overturned.”

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"Arcane" strips away any illusions of selflessness . . . in the process also holding a mirror up to fascist America circa 2024.

Marcotte supplies examples about how people who back these things when they cast their ballot tend to also do so outside the voting booth. Pro-Trump thought leaders like Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and the Proud Boys are explicitly sexist. Online men fetishize subjugating women and making them like it through their “trad wife” fantasies, while Trump-world heroes like Twitter CEO Elon Musk joke about impregnating liberal women like pop star Taylor Swift. If they fall too far down the rabbit hole, such as by believing in Trump’s Big Lie that he won the 2020 election or the QAnon claims of Jewish world control, they often alienate themselves from loved ones who do not share those extreme views.

With this context, it is unsurprising that 1 out of 8 women say they have voted differently from their husbands without telling them, with Trump supporters responding with characteristic rage. Yet for authentic fascists to understand why people shy away from close relationships with them — romantic and otherwise — they need look no further than “Arcane” Season 2.

Katie Leung as Caitlyn and Hailee Steinfeld as Vi in "Arcane" (Netflix)The series works as an ideal analogue for this because, to the credit of a writing team led by Christian Linke and Alex Yee, we are made to understand both sides of this world’s fascistic conflict. The residents of Piltover enjoy the privileges of life in an affluent and powerful society, one that casually oppresses the impoverished inhabitants of Zaun. On the surface, it appears that Piltover is simply villainous and Zaun simply victimized, but the truth is more complicated. Most people in both regions are innocent, and when violence breaks out because of Zaun criminals and/or militants, these civilians rely on “blue bellies” (Piltover law enforcement) to protect them. The gender divide in our real world is underplayed in the “Arcane” universe, but relationships between individuals are contaminated by a similarly vicious strain of the x-word itself, xenophobia — in the “Arcane” universe, between residents of the symbiotic communities of Piltover and Zaun.

As such, when Jinx commits her terrorist attack, both the immediate victims and Piltover citizens overall are aggressively dismissive of arguments about Zaunian social justice. Caitlyn embodies this point of view both because of her social status and because of her immense personal loss during Jinx’s attack. At one point, she reflects, “I understand now how easy it is to hate them. One vicious act.” And that is before Zaun radicals violently attack a memorial service honoring the survivors of Jinx’s atrocity. After that, she calls residents of Zaun “animals” because of those terrorists, right in front of a now-empathetic Vi.

Initially Vi is at the other end of the extreme from Caitlyn. Born and bred in Zaun with a long criminal background, Vi is as rugged and misanthropic as Caitlyn is sleek and chic. Passionately hating law enforcement for murdering her parents, Vi at first rejects the badge Caitlyn offers her early in their burgeoning romance. It is perhaps not a coincidence that when Vi and Caitlyn finally consummate their relationship, the literal seduction is linked to Vi’s figurative succumbing to Caitlyn’s politics: She accepts the badge, with all of the raw emotion of a zealous new recruit to a supposedly noble cause. (Tangentially, “Arcane” Season 2 deserves credit for its matter-of-fact depiction of this lesbian relationship.)

Yet as Vi and the audience quickly sees, Caitlyn’s cause is not noble. By its very nature, it cannot be noble; it depends on lies that vilify an entire population and maintaining an inherently oppressive status quo. Even worse, the leaders’ valid grievances are mixed with malice, their contempt for Zaun dripping from every syllable uttered by Piltover elites like Salo (Josh Keaton) and Ambessa (Ellen Thomas). While they speak of things like “justice,” the Piltover politicians and police do so with an incomplete understanding of the word because they regard Zaun life as cheap. Caitlyn makes this clear during a pivotal scene when she follows the literal letter of Vi’s advice to “take the shot” if she sees an opening by endangering the aforementioned Zaun child.

When Vi stands up to Caitlyn for making this immoral decision, Caitlyn shows that the prejudice she feels for other Zaun natives can be extended even to the one she claims to love. Instead of simply disagreeing, Caitlyn assaults Vi by striking her in the abdomen with the butt of her rifle. In the context of this scene and their relationship, Caitlyn's act of violence reads more as an attempted depiction of domestic assault than standard action TV show fare. Soon thereafter Vi is abandoned by yet another trusted loved one, while Caitlyn is rewarded for her hardened attitude against Zaun with raucous applause and a promotion.

Katie Leung as Caitlyn in "Arcane" (Netflix)Caitlyn abandons the benevolent disposition that marked her character previously, becoming fixated on revenge and fulfilling her professional vanity. In so doing, “Arcane” strips away any illusions of selflessness even as it acknowledges her valid pain, in the process also holding a mirror up to fascist America circa 2024. There are millions of Trump supporters who struggle due to economic injustice or personal tragedies, and therefore legitimately deserve sympathy. Yet they have also had their fears and prejudices manipulated by reactionary social forces or believe they will somehow benefit from the maintenance of an oppressive status quo, to say nothing of the creation of an even more oppressive alternative under the pro-plutocracy, pro-white nationalist, pro-patriarchy Trump. Even those who do not share Trump’s prejudices are, at best, prioritizing partisanship over supporting democracy (which America’s first president, George Washington, feared would lead to democracy’s downfall), as they valued voting against Democrats so much that they supported a Republican nominee who attempted a coup on Jan. 6, 2021.

In other words, while millions of Trump supporters are still decent human beings, the parts of them that support Trump’s fascistic policies and practices — the contempt for democracy, the appeals to hate against women and minorities and poor people, the opposition to democracy, the disregard for facts that contradict their narrative — are most definitely not decent.

Reactionary politics wreak havoc on interpersonal connections.

You can't separate the political from the personal, at least when the political differences become so very stark. Regardless of the moral questions involved in associating with fascists, in practice there are consequences to holding a philosophy based on hate. Once you believe that your group is inherently socially superior to a designed “out group,” and that they have the right to enforce this superiority through force, that belief warps and distorts the rest of your character.

No matter how hard you try, it cannot stay out of the realm of your relationships. It doesn’t just impact your political decisions, such as Caitlyn deeming a potential child casualty as an acceptable sacrifice for her agenda. It also impacts your personal choices, such as when Caitlyn strikes Vi, then quickly abandons her.

Unlike something ineffable — such as a person’s place of birth, race, sex or gender — political ideology is a choice. Because we are all capable of making political choices that harm others, it is reasonable to hold people accountable for those decisions. For them to be forgiven, those who have embraced hate and cruelty need to admit that their political choices were wrong. Just as importantly, they need to change their political views. Without such a reckoning, Caitlyn will never be able to be a good partner to a woman from Zaun like Vi, no matter how much she may also love her.

The same, alas, is also true for the people who back Trump over the humanity over their supposed real-world loved ones.

The first three episodes of "Arcane" Season 2 are streaming, with additional episodes to be released Nov. 16 and Nov. 23.

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Judge temporarily blocks Louisiana law requiring classrooms to display the Ten Commandments

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a Louisiana law that would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in school classrooms by Jan. 1.

U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles, who heard arguments for the case on Oct. 21, ruled that the law violates the free exercise of religion and is “unconstitutional on its face." He granted a temporary injunction to the plaintiffs in the case, who are a coalition of parents with children in Louisiana’s public schools.

“H.B. 71 is a direct infringement of our religious-freedom rights, and we’re pleased and relieved that the court ruled in our favor,” plaintiff Rev. Darcy Roake said in a statement following the ruling. “As an interfaith family, we expect our children to receive their secular education in public school and their religious education at home and within our faith communities, not from government officials.”

Ten Commandments gone wild! The Christian Right's latest toxic distraction

The judge also ordered the state attorney general’s office to notify all schools that the law “has been found unconstitutional,” and that planning to implement it cannot begin until litigation is completed.

The legislation has been touted by President-elect Donald Trump and was signed into law in June by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry. It’s just one of many culturally-conservative bills backed by Landry in his attempt to shift Louisiana further to the right. Landry has also made it legal to use nitrogen as a form of capital punishment, added medication to induce abortion on the state’s list of controlled dangerous substances and made it so judges can order surgical castration for child sex offenders.

Louisiana would become the first state to require the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms since the requirement was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court nearly four decades ago.

“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” Landry said at the bill signing ceremony in June.

Following the bill signing, nine Louisiana families of various religions filed a lawsuit arguing that the law interferes with their rights to raise their children under the religion of their choosing.

“Permanently posting the Ten Commandments in every Louisiana public-school classroom—rendering them unavoidable—unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture,” the parents wrote in their court filing. They added that displaying the Ten Commandments implies to students of other religions that they “do not belong in their own school community.”

The lasuit is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

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How tipping fared on the ballot this election — and what it means for diners and workers

Most Americans feel like they’re being asked to tip now more than ever, studies show. Everywhere they go, from salons to dispensaries to coffee shops, customers are greeted with digital point-of-sale systems (often accompanied by the now-common phrase, “It’s just going to ask you a question…”) that prompt tips ranging up to 30%. There’s even a phrase for the phenomenon: “Tipflation.”

According to credit card processor Square, and as reported by CBS, nearly 75% of remote transactions in food and beverage now ask for a tip, including online orders and at self-service kiosks. At the same time, there’s also a wave of restaurants nationwide slowly shifting away from tipping, opting instead to raise menu prices to support higher hourly employee wages.

Should you tip your kid's camp counselors? The answer is tricky

Due to its prevalence in our everyday lives, it wasn’t surprising that tipping showed up on the ballot during this election, both literally — with a Massachusetts proposal to eliminate the tip wage that could serve as a model for other states — and more figuratively, as both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris signaled in their campaigns that they might support eliminating taxes on tips.

Both these suggested shifts to tipping culture are incredibly controversial, and the way voters responded to them also reveals just how complex and divided public opinion on the practice is — among both workers and customers.

A short history of tipping

Tipping in the United States has roots in the post-Civil War era, when wealthy Americans traveling to Europe returned with the habit of giving gratuities to workers in service positions. The practice was initially met with resistance because of its feudal undertones, but eventually it gained traction by the late 19th century, particularly in the hospitality and restaurant industries. However, tipping practices also sparked debates about fairness and inequality as employers increasingly relied on tips to supplement low wages, leaving workers dependent on unpredictable gratuities.

Then in 1938, the first federal minimum wage law was established in American history as part of the New Deal, though restaurant workers weren’t included in the reform.

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“They excluded them from the minimum wage,” journalist Nina Martyris, who has covered the history of tipping, told NPR in 2021. “And that kind of codified the fact that you're paying your workers only through tips. And then tips became legal. The law had taken them into account in 1938 by excluding restaurant workers. That's sort of the nail in the coffin for ever getting a fair wage.”

Over the years, tipping practices have evolved alongside changes in labor laws and consumer expectations, but questions about its fairness and the role of employers in compensating workers remain central to the ongoing conversation. “You've created a two-tier system among your workforce,” Martyris continued. “And I think that was the beginning of the rot, which we are paying a price for till today.”

Massachusetts: Eliminating the tip wage?

In Massachusetts, voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure to raise minimum pay for tipped workers.

Currently, tipped employees like bartenders and servers make $6.75 an hour in the state, as long as their total earnings with tips reach $15 an hour, with employers covering the gap if needed. This proposed legislation would have increased the hourly wage for tipped workers over a five-year period, until it reached $15 an hour by 2029.

According to CBS News, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey — who once worked as a server — voted "no" on the ballot measure, saying it was "a well-intentioned effort brought by out-of-state interests." Healy was likely referring to the fact that the organization One Fair Wage, which is based out of New York City but has a chapter in Massachusetts, pushed to get the measure on this year's ballot.

Numerous members of the hospitality industry came out against the measure, as did the National Restaurant Association. One main concern was that raising the minimum wage would cause expenses to skyrocket, leading to either a necessary reduction in quality or staff, while another is that many patrons would stop tipping altogether if the wage went into effect. However, Mitch Gayns, a former Massachusetts bartender who now works with One Fair Wage, told Boston.com prior to the election that the measure was meant to protect service workers.

“The beauty of working in this industry is that your income is variable, so it allows you to think you have an opportunity to not be poor if you work hard enough,” Gayns said. “Your management has been telling you a lie that if you work hard enough, you’ll make more money, even though you don’t control the cost of food, the marketing, your hours. This idea that you have total control over how much money you make is a myth sold to us by ownership.”

Regardless, 64% of Massachusetts voters rejected the proposed wage increase. Currently, only seven states have eliminated the subminimum wage for tipped employees: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

"The decisive vote in Massachusetts continues an unbroken streak for tipped employees and restaurant operators who have fought for their tipped wage."

The day after the election, Michelle Korsmo, President and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, released a statement regarding the decision.

“As individuals across the country were awaiting results of the headline races last night, we were focused on what voters had to say about issues like inflation, the price of goods – including restaurant meals – and preserving tips for employees,” Korsmo said. “The message in the election was clear that voters shared those concerns.”

Korsmo continued: “In Massachusetts, voters overwhelmingly supported tipped employees and restaurant owners by rejecting a misguided proposal to eliminate the tip credit. The decisive vote in Massachusetts continues an unbroken streak for tipped employees and restaurant operators who have fought for their tipped wage."

Trump and Harris: Eliminating taxes on tips?

In a rare moment of bipartisan alignment, Vice President Kamala Harris and President-elect Donald Trump both voiced interest during their campaigns in supporting proposals to eliminate taxes on tips, a controversial policy largely aimed at benefiting America’s service workers.

Advocates for the tax exemption have said it could provide significant relief to tipped employees, whose income can be unpredictable, though the proposal has sparked a heated debate among economists, labor advocates and policymakers.

Critics warn that removing taxes on tips could inadvertently reduce transparency and make it harder to track fair wage practices, potentially leading to an increase in wage theft — a problem that already disproportionately affects tipped workers. Additionally, opponents question whether the policy would create revenue shortfalls for state and federal budgets, potentially triggering a wider tax burden on other groups.

Both Harris and Trump’s interest in this policy change was largely symbolic during this election as both campaigns had other, larger legislative priorities. However, the fact that it was brought up at all highlights the evolving conversation around the precarity of the gig and service economy — and potentially signals a shift to tipping culture in the years to come.

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Donald Trump versus the “woke” military: More proof he hates America

While Memorial Day honors those who have died in our foreign wars, Veterans Day honors the service of all those who have served this country in uniform. Bone spurs sufferers are not included.

Usually, Veterans Day is an occasion for the Pentagon and the U.S. military to strut their stuff. I recall marching down Fifth Avenue in 1968 in a Veterans Day parade wearing my cadet dress uniform. Even though it was yet another grim year in the war in Vietnam, people lined the street and waved as we marched by. This year, Veterans Day falls on the one-week anniversary of Donald Trump’s election, once again, to the presidency. Trust me, they’re not celebrating across the Potomac at the Pentagon. Here are just two headlines from the days immediately following Trump’s victory last week: From the Washington Post: “Pentagon anticipates major upheaval with Trump’s return to the White House.” From Politico: “Pentagon officials anxious Trump might fire military’s top general.”

That would be Gen. C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whom congressional Republicans have accused of being the Pentagon’s top “woke” general.

“Easily handled by the military": Trump reveals plans to squash dissent

Let’s stop right here in our celebration of Veterans Day and discuss this wholly invented and utterly bogus issue of the “woke” military. First of all, among the veterans whose service is being honored today are hundreds of thousands of people who are not white straight males. About 16 percent of those serving across all branches of the military are Black; about 17 percent are female. A 2015 report by the Rand Corporation, put out four years after Barack Obama signed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act, found that about 6 percent, or 120,000 service members, identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Until then, identifying as any one of those sexual persuasions was illegal and punishable by expulsion from the service with a less than honorable discharge.

The numbers of those serving today who would come under the umbrella of what might be described as a "diverse" military are so enormous that we wouldn’t have a military without those patriotic volunteers.

To be “woke” in the military, according to Donald Trump and his MAGA adherents, is to support DEI programs and the enormously diverse military I have just described. The fact of the matter is this: Since the end of the draft under Richard Nixon, the U.S. military has been a wholly volunteer organization from top to bottom. That means, people walk into recruiting offices and sign on the dotted line to potentially serve in combat, risking their lives in the service of the country.

There have been gay, lesbian and bisexual people serving in all the branches of the military for as long as we have had soldiers and sailors in uniform. Today the numbers of those serving who would come under the umbrella of what might be described as a "diverse" military are so enormous that we wouldn’t have a military without those patriotic volunteers. So, if Gen. Brown is described as “woke,” it’s because he is the senior general in a military that demands officers and senior enlisted service members who can command a broad spectrum of troops who serve.

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Donald Trump and the Republicans’ concept of “wokeness” when it comes to the military is a fantasy born of ignorance and prejudice. The fact is, we wouldn’t have an army, a navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps or the Coast Guard if we didn’t have brave men and women of all races and sexual persuasions who are willing to serve to defend this country. They deserve to be led by commanders who are not bigots and misogynists. That is what being “woke” in the military means. If Donald Trump thinks he’s going to fire all the “woke” commanders in the military and replace them with Republican loyalists who hew to the discriminatory party line of Trumpism, he’s going to end up with a hollow military.

Maybe that’s what Cadet Bone Spurs wants. He is said to have hated the generals who worked for him in his first administration, from Jim Mattis, the retired Marine general he first appointed as secretary of defense because he liked his nickname, “Mad Dog,” to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley to retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, who was White House chief of staff, to retired Army Gen. H.R. McMaster, who was national security adviser. Trump was famously dismissive of those who served and died in this nation’s wars, calling the fallen in a cemetery in France “losers” and once asking Kelly, whose son is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, “What’s in it for them?”

Who knows what lies behind Trump’s disdain for our nation’s military? Guilt that he dodged service? A secret knowledge that those in uniform are truly “macho” in a way that he will never be?

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We’ll probably never know, even when he becomes, once again, commander in chief and appoints his hand-picked loyalists to positions of power in the Pentagon and across the armed forces. And I guess we’ll have to wait and see how his “non-woke” generals lead the most diverse organization in this country and the world, for that matter.

There is probably only one thing that’s for sure. If next year Trump has a Veterans Day parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, it will bristle with tanks and armored personnel carriers and missiles and cannons and machine guns, driven by service members who he thinks are losers, a good percentage of whom will be Black, female, gay, lesbian and bisexual. It will take a parade of irony to honor Commander Bone Spurs.

from Lucian K. Truscott IV

Democrat Ruben Gallego beats Trump-loyalist Kari Lake in Arizona Senate race

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego defeated Republican Kari Lake in Arizona’s Senate race on Monday and will make history as the state's first Latino U.S. Senator.

The Associated Press called Gallego’s win on Monday night, marking the fourth consecutive Senate election win for Democrats in Arizona. He will replace outgoing Sen. Krysten Sinema, who was elected as a Democrat but declared herself an independent in 2022 and chose not to run for re-election.

Gallego led Lake in most polls throughout the year. “Gracias, Arizona!” he wrote on X after the race was called.

The congressman's election is a boost for Democrats, who lost control of the Senate last week. The GOP will now hold 53 of the 100 Senate seats.

Donald Trump and Kari Lake are hypocrites on abortion: Will evangelicals even notice?

Most of Arizona’s registered voters are Republican, which influenced Gallego’s campaign strategy.

“What I have found since ever running for office is the best thing you can do is just talk to somebody and treat them like an American, that they deserve the time to talk to you,” he told NBC News on Monday.

An Iraq war veteran and the son of immigrants, Gallego rose to prominence in the Democratic Party as a steadfast progressive. But in his run for Senate, Gallego cast himself as a moderate and used his identity to shape his message around border security, immigration reform and veteran services.

Lake, meanwhile, followed the approach of President-elect Donald Trump in her Senate run, often referring to Gallego as a “swamp-rat” and attacking personal details of his romantic life. A devoted MAGA loyalist, Lake has previously called herself “Trump in heels” and has yet to concede her previous, 2022 gubernatorial loss.

Speaking to supporters after the race was called, Gallego said his win was a dream come true that he once thought impossible. He hopes his role as senator will be the representation for young Latinos that he never had growing up.

"And I feel like at least now there is going to be an opportunity that some young kids are going to be able to say, like, I can do that. Not necessarily run for Senate, but I can just go to college. I can go get a career. I can leave poverty," Gallego said.

about Arizona politics

Trump selects Kristi Noem, governor who shot and killed her dog, to lead Homeland Security

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), CNN reported Tuesday.

Noem, who was at one point up for consideration to be Trump’s running mate, will head the agency responsible for everything from deportations to natural disaster relief efforts. The DHS has a $60.4 billion budget and oversees thousands of employees, including those with the U.S. Secret Service.

"People who don’t think that they know better": Trump eyes loyalists for key cabinet positions

Trump, who ran his campaign on the promise of “mass deportation,” also selected Stephen Miller and Tom Homan to serve in his administration. Both men are unapologetic defenders of Trump’s hardline border policies and along with Noem, show that Trump is filling his cabinet with loyalists.

The South Dakota governor has long been an immigration hardliner. Throughout President Joe Biden’s term, Noem maintained that her state “won’t be taking any illegal immigrants.”

“My message to illegal immigrants… call me when you’re an American,” she wrote in a post on X in 2021.

Noem has had a tumultuous year, facing immense amount of backlash for revealing in her memoir that she killed her 14-month-old puppy, later claiming it was a danger to her children. The admission horrified the media and politicians on both sides of the spectrum, spurring Noem’s unpopularity and likely damaging her standing as a vice presidential candidate.

In Trump’s last term, the DHS saw five different leaders, only two of whom were approved by the Senate.

about Trump World

Experts warn of “chilling” effect of Texas attorney general suing doctors over gender-affirming care

In late October, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a second doctor for providing gender-affirming medical care to minors in the state, where Senate Bill 14 prohibits the prescribing of treatments like puberty blockers and hormones. It’s the latest punitive action taken to restrict access to trans health care in Texas, which has become a battleground for LGBTQ rights. As such, many are concerned about the message Paxton’s lawsuits sends to health care providers and trans people in the state and across the country.

Any form of restricting access to gender-affirming care will have a “chilling” effect on health care for transgender and gender-diverse people, said Dr. Alex Keuroghlian, the director of the Division of Public and Community Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“It’s a violation of people’s right to autonomy and is an example of the government interfering in careful discussions and decisions made involving patients, their families, and their clinicians,” Keuroghlian told Salon in a phone interview.

Bomb threats and violence: Pediatric gender-affirming care providers fear for their lives

Just before Senate Bill 14 took effect in September 2023, Paxton opened an investigation into a prominent children’s hospital to probe around for “potentially illegal” activity that was happening there. Afterward, the center stopped providing gender-affirming care. In February, Paxton also ordered the LGBTQ nonprofit PFLAG National to hand over any records of Texas youth who were receiving gender-affirming care, although his request was blocked by a judge and the organization also sued to object against his request.

The lawsuits, filed against Dr. Hector Granados and Dr. May Lau, call both doctors “radical gender activists,” and seek to revoke their medical licenses. Neither Granados or Lau responded to a request for comment before this story's publication. Paxton didn't either, though he has been criticized for having an evasive relationship with the press.

“Texas is cracking down on doctors illegally prescribing dangerous ‘gender transition’ drugs to children,” Paxton said in a statement. “Any physician found doing so will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

"Trans people are left with nowhere to go."

As a result of punitive policies like Senate Bill 14, doctors providing gender-affirming care are leaving Texas in droves, not unlike the exodus of reproductive health care workers leaving Texas because of abortion bans. One report issued by the Campaign for Southern Equality estimated families in Houston, Texas, would have to drive over 1,000 miles to access care due to various bans passed in Southern states. Some patients have even reported struggling to access routine healthcare from doctors who are afraid that treating trans patients could lead to consequences, said Andrea Segovia, the policy director of Transgender Education Network of Texas.

“Transgender youth who deserve access to care cannot receive it,” Segovia told Salon in a phone interview. “Trans people are left with nowhere to go.”

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Research shows gender-affirming care improves the mental health and well-being of youth who are transgender, gender diverse, or nonbinary. This treatment through social transitioning, puberty blockers, or hormone therapy can be lifesaving for children, and more than 30 medical associations have issued policy statements that support its use.

With the second-largest transgender population in the country, Texas often leads the way in passing or reversing anti-trans initiatives. Many states also blocked bills restricting transgender individuals’ right to use bathrooms that match their gender identity around the time advocates in Texas were fighting to kill the bathroom bill in 2017. A similar story played out when Texas lawmakers killed a bill intended to restrict transgender athletes’ participation in sports in 2021. (However, a more recent wave of anti-trans legislation has reenacted bathroom bills and legislation restricting transgender people’s access to sports in several states.)

“When we have something that stops in Texas, it stops in the country,” Segovia said. “When we can’t stop it in Texas, then it kind of spreads like wildfire.”

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Restrictions on access to gender-affirming care fall under a larger movement to limit transgender rights, with more than 400 anti-LGBTQ bills launched in state legislatures in 2023. This election, Donald Trump spent $38 million on anti-trans campaign ads and promised to ban transgender women from sports and minors from having gender-affirming surgeries on his first day of office should he win the election.

As of this writing, Texas was one of 26 states to have enacted partial or total bans on youth gender-transition care, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Moreover, half of states do not have any safeguards in place to protect transgender patients’ health data from probes by law enforcement, according to a study published last month in JAMA. This essentially makes it legal for authorities in states with gender-affirming care bans to investigate medical records for things like testosterone use without the need for a warrant.

“We talk a lot in Texas about how we care about … the government not interfering with your everyday life,” Segovia said. “But how much more big government can you be that your government is suing doctors and telling them to not provide care to their patients?”

about gender-affirming care

Biden wants Americans to “bring down the temperature” — but MAGA will not let that happen

In the wake of Donald Trump's devastating win last week, Democrats have fallen back on an old habit and are now trying to coax better behavior out of Republicans. In his Rose Garden speech acknowledging the loss, President Joe Biden begged, "Something I hope we can do no matter who you voted for is see each other not as adversaries but as fellow Americans, bring down the temperature." Striking a similar note in their statement, Barack and Michelle Obama asked people to "listen to each other," adding that "progress requires us to extend good faith and grace—even to people with whom we deeply disagree." There are no limits to the faith that modeling good behavior will cause Republicans to shape up, apparently.

You cannot turn down the temperature when one side keeps setting the furniture on fire.

Even prominent Trump supporters were making these "unity" and "peace" noises in the aftermath. Podcast host Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump, appeared not to understand the character of the man he sat with for a three-hour interview. "He’s got to unite people. He’s got to not attack the left, not attack everybody," Rogan said of Trump, reminding listeners that he is uniquely incapable of learning from experience.

I don't blame Democrats for Vice President Kamala Harris's loss, but this rhetoric is frustrating. The underlying sentiment that people should debate in good faith sounds nice but is ultimately empty. Only liberals are interested in listening to this "tone it down" advice, but when your opposition is coming at you with the fury of a deranged chimpanzee, turning the other cheek only gets you killed. You cannot turn down the temperature when one side keeps setting the furniture on fire.

Part of the problem, of course, is that Trump is in charge, and he cannot help but be the worst. He's always been hateful and erratic, and it's clearly getting worse as he approaches 80 years old. But even if his newly chosen chief of staff Susie Wiles is able to convince Trump to spend the next four years golfing and leave the governing to her and JD Vance, we can expect the next four years to be the same stream of unhinged vitriol and lies aimed at immigrants, journalists, independent women, LGBTQ people, racial minorities or anyone else belonging to Trump's "enemies within" category. That's because MAGA is a fascist movement, and fascism needs to offer up a constant stream of imaginary "enemies" to their supporters, to keep them paranoid and enthralled.

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At the Republican National Convention in July, right after a gunman had failed to kill Trump, the candidate and his campaign were pretending he was a changed man who was now all about peace and, yep, "unity." But it quickly became clear, listening to the speeches and talking to delegates, that their definition of "unity" mostly meant crushing everyone else under the boot. Crowds would burst into bloodthirsty "fight fight fight" chants at a moment's notice. Delegates might start with high-minded rhetoric about coming together and getting along, but they would swiftly pivot to attacking people for perceived differences, usually with weird conspiracy theories. Hulk Hogan was probably the best-received speaker of the convention, and his speech was focused on how you're not a real American unless you're a Trump voter.

In interviews with dozens of delegates and other attendees, one of the most telling examples was our conversation with a Republican from New Jersey. He spoke a big game about wanting Americans to take "down the heat a little bit" and focus on our commonalities instead of differences. I then asked him why he was wearing a "Women for Trump" T-shirt. "I'm a cis-attracted trans lesbian," he replied. "That's how I identify." He laughed, but my colleague and I sensed that he did have a moment of pause, realizing that he just proved to us how little he believed his own "unity" talk.

My favorite text regarding fascism is Umberto Eco's 1995 essay. He really captures how its appeal lies in the permission it gives followers to shut off their brains and instead wallow in their worst impulses. There are a few features of fascism that intersect in what we witnessed at the RNC. First, there's the fear of difference and the paranoid belief that those who are deemed "different" are plotting against the in-group. "The followers must feel besieged," he wrote. The fascist leader must construct scary enemies for the followers to fear because the only way he achieves power is to promise he alone can eradicate the threat.

Conversations with Republican voters and speeches at the RNC made it clear that their idea of "unity" is conformity. That the obstacle to "unity" was all these liberated women and queer people and minorities and academics and artists who keep insisting on being different than what MAGA wants everyone to be. Implicit in many discussions about "unity" was a hope that all those liberals would shut up, bend the knee, go back into the closet, or whatever else it takes to hide or eradicate difference.

This attitude isn't just immoral, but it shows they fail to understand how their leaders, especially Trump, manipulate them. Trump needs "enemies" that he is forever threatening to conquer. But he can't actually conquer them, because if he ever achieved the alleged paradise of conformity he promises, his followers wouldn't need him anymore. So there will always be a new made-up baddie that is supposedly threatening the good white straight Christians. As Eco noted, it's a central paradox of fascism: "No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament."

In our hour of need, Calm gave us puppies on election night

That's why Democrats lamely asking people to turn down the temperature won't work, though it can, unfortunately, give cover to fascist leaders by falsely seeding hope they could be coaxed to see reason. Trump and other MAGA leaders want power, full stop. The way they get power is to keep millions of people spun up on outrageous lies about Haitians, trans people, Taylor Swift or whoever gets assigned the Bogeyman of the Day.

Worse, it is a subtle form of victim-blaming, as it implies that the targets of defamation can make it stop by responding with gentleness instead of anger. This fallacy was amply disproved by the "cat-eating Haitians" lie. The people who were harmed by this lie — the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio — were too small and scared a group of people to respond. They largely kept their mouths shut or spoke only anonymously to reporters. Many of them literally hid in their houses for weeks, hoping it would all blow over. This quiet response did nothing to slow down the lies. That's because it was never about them. They were just a useful punching bag for fascist leaders, who needed a hate object to dangle in front of their deluded supporters.

The only thing that will stop this is if enough people get sick of all the hate-mongering and stop rewarding those who do it with power. Harris was right to focus on the word "exhausting" when she described Trump's firehose of vitriol. The hope was to get people to seriously ask if they are ready for another four years of endless paranoid bigotry. For whatever reason, the majority of voters decided they were okay with it. Or maybe, like Rogan, they are just deluded enough to think that Trump will shut up now that he got what he wanted. But it never ever works that way.

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Readjusting to Trump’s America

In both my head and my heart, I knew that Donald Trump and MAGA were going to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats. For the last few years, I have desperately tried to warn the public of this growing reality. I am not a “doomsayer” or “alarmist.” I am a realist committed to democracy and the hard work it takes to protect it. Black Americans, as a people, deeply understand and carry this history and lived experience and the knowledge and burden of democracy as contingent and imperiled in our collective bodies, psyches, and memories. For us, America has only been a democracy for sixty years. As I often remind myself, there are white people alive right now who personally watched (and participated in) the lynchings of Black people during the Jim and Jane Crow terror regime. Unfortunately, too few Americans listened.

The Age of Trump and his elevation back to the White House reflect a deep nihilism and despair.

Even worse, as seen last Tuesday, there are tens of millions of Americans, who want what Trump and his fascist MAGA movement are offering. A week later, the words do not exist yet to accurately describe such a national and global tragedy.

I was not going to watch the election results on Tuesday. My plan was to go somewhere far away from the television or any screen. I planned to read about the election that night or the next day. I relented. For reasons of “history” and professional responsibility, I decided to turn on the TV to confirm my worries in real time. I knew that this version of the United States of America was not going to elect a supremely qualified Black woman even if the alternative is an aspiring dictator who is a White man. And there it was, the creeping inevitability that became a torrent. The hosts and guests on the cable news networks — two in particular — looked sickened as 2016 repeated itself and they tried to convince themselves and the viewers that matters could not possibly be so dire and that somehow Harris was going to find a way to win.

America's political discordance: The Trump voters who want progressivism

At 9 pm I turned off the cable news programs and decided there was no need to watch the American people doom themselves in real time. I put on my old Army trench coat and boots and, as I have on many days, and especially in these monumental moments, I made my pilgrimage to Trump Tower in downtown Chicago. I would sit there and think and try to find some peace as I talked to myself and looked up at that horrible building. I asked several of my friends who are psychologists about my ritual. Is it healthy? They told me that my trips to Trump Tower are a reasonable and positive response to extreme danger and stress because, unlike others, I am making Trump and Trumpism into something tangible so I can manage my feelings and do my work properly. They both added that if I were not doing something like taking these long walks they would be very concerned about my state of mind because it would indicate, that like too many of their patients, I am in a state of deep denial and/or not finding a constructive way to work through my feelings.

So, I walked all over downtown Chicago in the rain at night. There were only a few people outside at first and I felt like I was in some type of bad film noir, a Black man wearing an old trench coat in the rain as his country succumbs to fascism is walking to one of the headquarters of the elected dictator. I walked by the emergency room of one of the big hospitals downtown. Sometimes I go to the emergency room late at night to gain some life perspective. So many people are experiencing hard times in this country.

The rain had stopped. There were more people outside. Some were drunk. Others were dressed up like they were going to a fancy party or a formal event. They appeared to be indifferent to the world-historical events that were happening that day and night.

I crossed over the bridge to Trump Tower. In the middle of the bridge, an attractive young woman was wearing a stylish dress. Of course, she was trying to take a picture of herself. A middle-aged man asked her if she needed some help. She said yes. He was German or Austrian. “Do you want the Trump Tower in the background on this very historic night?” His emphasis on “historic” did not have a tone of dread, pathos, or regret. He was almost gleeful or somehow found the situation humorous. I watched, disgusted at both of them.

On the street immediately next to Trump Tower, there were dozens of police and other security. One of the police was a Hispanic man. He took out his phone, smiled, and took a picture of himself with the huge “Trump” sign in the background, as he gave a big “thumbs up”. I murmured, “You did this to us all….” Such people are common across history; in prison, there are always snitches; on the chattel slavery plantations of the American South and elsewhere (what are more accurately described as slave labor camps) the driver (he served under the White overseer) was often a Black man.

A Black man walked by and dutifully played the role of sycophant. He was performing for the police and the security outside of Trump Tower, loudly proclaiming that “Trump is about to be president again, he is the boss, and we better respect him! Trump is back in the seat. We better respect him. This is Donald Trump’s building! Thank God he is back!” I said to myself, we are in hell. I again pleaded with the entity that is running this infernal simulation to please stop. We “the Americans” have suffered enough. The (mostly) white police and security guards laughed and generally showed their approval of him.

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I stood there outside of Trump Tower, watching more people walk by. Most of them, as before, did not appear to care what was happening that night with the election, or maybe they just wanted some respite or escape from it.

I heard more laughter and cheers. A large group of White Trumpists were coming out of the building, leaving what looked like an Election Night Watch Party. There were the obligatory Black and South Asian Trumpists scattered about in different groups or standing alone outside. It was almost like they were trying to get attention (and affirmation) from the White Trumpists for being the “good ones” who are “special” and “exceptional” and so very "articulate." Almost all of the Trumpists I saw were pleasantly drunk or appeared to be almost there. They had on their MAGA hats. Some wore the Trump uniform of tan khakis and a white dress shirt. Other Trumpists had on his signature red tie. They were a reminder that on this Election Day and night, and more generally, one group’s dystopia is another group’s utopia. These Trumpists, like the much larger mass of them in all parts of the United States, radiated entitlement and menace. They had won.

I was tired and spent. But I had one more place to go to confirm a nagging instinct. I walked several more blocks north to the casino. It is a temporary casino and very sad and desperate in its energy. I am unsure if that energy is from the building itself or the people who it attracts or the combination of the two.

There was a group of young red hat-wearing MAGA men inside. They were playing cheap hands of Blackjack (fifteen dollars) and poker. Many of the people at the casino that night were working-class (or working poor) Black and brown people. There is always a very large group of older Asian people from Chinatown at the casino too. There was also a smaller group of white men who were more serious gamblers, quiet and not very social, playing at one of the more high dollar tables. I surveyed this radically democratic space of people, all of them united in their gambling, in their own worlds, and the MAGA people there desperate for attention (and/or trouble). A few people looked askance at them, their eyes and facial expressions signaling annoyance or disgust mixed with curiosity, but they quickly went back to playing cards or craps.

Here is the enduring problem and fact that too many Americans, especially in the news media and political class, continue to ignore: Trump and Trumpism and American fascism are symptoms and not a cause of much deeper problems. These malign forces will not magically disappear if Harris or some other Democrat or even a responsible Republican and real “small c” conservative were to become president. The Age of Trump and his elevation back to the White House reflect a deep nihilism and despair. When people are made to feel like nothing really matters anymore, and the “system” and “the elites” and their society are broken and illegitimate, they will engage in behavior that is individually and collectively destructive. The election of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement (he won both the popular vote and the Electoral College) is a distillation of this collective malaise and nihilism.

In a comprehensive must-read new essay in Time Magazine, Eric Cortellessa describes the magnitude of Trump’s victory on Tuesday:

The scale of his success was stunning. Trump carried North Carolina, flipped Georgia back to his column, and smashed through the Blue Wall. His campaign outperformed its goal of turning out men and holding women. Exit polls showed Trump winning large numbers of Latino men in key battleground states, improving his numbers with that group in Pennsylvania from 27% to 42%. Nationally, Trump's support among Latino men leaped from 36% to 54%. Trump also increased his share of voters without a college degree, gained ground with Black voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and held steady nationally with white women, shocking Democrats who had expected a post-Dobbs uprising. Among first-time voters, Trump boosted his support from 32% four years ago to a 54% majority.

Here is an important qualifier: There were fewer votes in 2024 than in 2020. That so many Republicans and Democrats did not vote in one of the most important presidential elections in the country’s history, is an exclamation mark on a society in crisis. Authoritarians, fascists, autocrats, and demagogues actively encourage such malaise and surrender and related sentiments and behavior.

Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris and the Democrats will likely not be the last one for the MAGA movement and the American (and global) fascists and other enemies of democracy. America’s political culture and society may be irrevocably broken — at least in the near to mid-term. Cortellessa warns us that “Come Jan. 20, we will all be living in Trump’s America.” The American people did this to themselves. Trump and his agents are experts at political sadism, trauma, and cruelty. On Election Day 2024, the American people said “Yes! Please! Give us more!” They are soon going to regret giving that permission and invitation, but then it will be much too late.

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Why artists need to master the business of creativity

When my first viral piece hit, a story about what I called a "F**k Off Fund," a friend sent me a photo with a message: "Tell me they got your permission." It was a photo of a billboard at the Cannes film festival, part of a series imagining a better future, and it said, "In the future, every woman will have a f**k off fund."

My idea was traveling the world; I was home not sleeping well, worried about money. I had put something out in the world, for $40, that absolutely caught fire. Yet I was left in the cold.

Over the eight years that have passed since, with another million-reader viral essay but many zeros less in my bank account, I've abandoned a phrase I used to cling to: That the good you put out in the world will come back to you.

How artists can earn more than just appreciation

I want to believe that, but believing it is not going so well.

"You're growing up," says a 79-year-old woman who comes to my writing group.

"And getting all bitter," I joke. I don't want getting older to mean a closing down of what I believe to be possible. We artists are supposed to dream.

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The friend I split an apartment with in New York didn’t grow up with my American fairy tales. I tell her about being torn between living in the way I want the world to work, and the way the world is.

“I have always operated based on the way the world is,” she said. “I attribute a lot of my success to that.”

How can I hang on to dreams in my work, and make peace with the reality in my life? Look around. The world is not a fairy tale, not nearly a dream.

As an artist, you have to figure out a balance of giving and holding boundaries, saying, "Not one step closer until I get mine."

I’m often paid very little for the work that takes the most out of me: my personal essays. My art — my secrets, my traumas, rendered through the craft I've studied for decades — trades for the least, even when pieces go viral to millions of readers. The world clearly values my work, and yet, ironically, little of that value expressed ends up back with me.

To simply think the value will magically come back to you is to be woefully undereducated in the realities of our world

To simply think the value will magically come back to you is to be woefully undereducated in the realities of our world. Some of the mystical women whose YouTube videos help me fall asleep would disagree. My bank account would give a strong counter-argument. Would things have been different if I'd visualized being at Cannes myself, getting offers of tens of thousands, seeing the number a million in my bank account? Even at my most hopeful, I think I would have doubted that it would.

And so those of us who work in the magic of art, and I do believe in its magic, are tasked with living two lives at once, one where we do work that we would do anyway, the good work, putting it out there, but knowing there’s no guarantee that it will come back. If you want something, you have to do more than give. You have to go out and get.

I didn’t want to have to become a businessperson, but that is what — without a sugar daddy or a trust fund, and outside the confines of academia — being an artist does to you. You have to spend time you might otherwise spend on your craft learning the choreography of value, the narrative of negotiation, the rhythm of revenue.

This is why I named my company Powerhouse Writers. I'm obsessed with the idea of power because I have so often felt powerless, and I have so often felt powerful. The forms of power that art creates, and the ones it so often leaves us without, confound and obsess me. I can dent the world with words, but I can't seem to keep my bank account positive.

We have to pay attention to not just the craft on the page, the notes on the bars, the steps in the studio, we have to become craftsman of business, of how money is wrenched from the world. Wrenched? Does it have to be so confrontational? Perhaps. Conjured. It's a kind of magic we can't afford to ignore.

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Stephen Miller expected to be named Trump’s deputy chief of staff of policy, oversee deportations

Stephen Miller, a longtime adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, is expected to assume a central role in policy planning for the incoming administration, according to the New York Times. Sources close to the transition confirmed Miller, who served as a senior aide during Trump’s first term — and has since created the American First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit based on challenging policies of the Biden administration through litigation — is anticipated to be named deputy chief of staff.

“It remains to be seen how broad Mr. Miller’s portfolio will be, but it is expected to be vast and to far exceed what the eventual title will convey,” the publication reported.

"It's gonna be hysterical": Fox News' Watters can't wait for "Dad" Trump to begin mass deportation

Sources also anticipate Miller will work closely with Thomas D. Homan in overseeing immigration policy. Trump named Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as his “border czar” on Sunday.

Miller is also, as reported by Newsweek, one of the lead writers of Trump’s mass deportation plan, “Operation Aurora,” which aims to address what Trump and his allies have described as an immigration “invasion.” Miller has said a second Trump administration would aim to increase deportations tenfold, targeting more than one million per year.

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“What We Do in the Shadows” star Matt Berry is ready to say goodbye to Laszlo Cravensworth. Are we?

Although the troubles of our world never bled into “What We Do in the Shadows,” the story never shied away from politics within its own musty, rotten realm. In Season 3 Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak) and Nadja of Antipaxos (Natasia Demetriou) took over the Vampiric Council of the Eastern Seaboard, splitting their duties until Nadja proved herself more worthy and invested in wielding power.

The comedy’s most recent episode finds Nandor coming to grips with being fired from his janitor job at the venture capital vampire firm where his former familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) works by disappearing. The gang finds him holed up in a New Hampshire factory of a company Guillermo’s firm just finished gutting, babbling incoherently like Col. Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now.”

“Many of the humans left when the jobs did. Those that remained, they needed – they craved – a leader. A warrior. A commander. And they became my army,” he tells his roommates. His war council, and his concubine pit, consists of a crew of mannequins. When Guillermo appears, Nandor hisses, “You are the enemy.”

Tempted as we may be to view this episode as premonitory, keep in mind these episodes were written and filmed many months ago. Nandor is only doing what any thin-skinned former conqueror would do in a world that dismisses him, throwing wild swings in the dark.

Kayvan Novak in "What We Do in the Shadows" (FX)Energy vampire Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) soared closer to power in Season 5 when he campaigned for Staten Island comptroller primarily for the mass feeding opportunities, correctly surmising that there’s nothing duller than debating the policy planks of an elected position few people if anyone understand.

The only housemate who abstained from such contests is Laszlo Cravensworth, Matt Berry's comically pompous aristocrat who’d rather focus all his lust on his "lady wife" Nadja and other more noble hobbies. Like, say, maintaining his X-rated shrubbery or reanimating dead flesh into a lumbering errand boy.

It's a scientific fact: "What We Do in the Shadows" vampire Laszlo is the friend we need, in deed

“As a person, he's no different than he was in the pilot because he doesn't need to be,” Berry told Salon before Season 6 began. “He's like, hundreds of years old. He doesn't have to adapt to the times or change his way of thinking.”

In temperament Berry makes Laszlo sound like Archie Bunker. Far from it. Archie’s inclination is to look down on everyone else; Laszlo’s first reaction is always curiosity. Sometimes he's moved to care about them. Otherwise, he’s brazenly unconcerned about anything that doesn’t arouse that or the demon in his pants, which has made his character’s developmental journey, in Berry’s view, relatively limited.

"The worst thing you can do with a comedy is to outstay your welcome."

“Laszlo is not particularly interested in the modern world and doesn't really need to be as long as he and his wife aren't threatened in any way,” Berry observed. “He's happy to move at his own pace, so you've got to question why he's interested in science — why this character, Laszlo, is interested to make, to come with a monster.

“What's he want to use this monster for, other than to possibly have sex with? Do you know what I mean? So his reasons are completely dubious in the first place,” Berry continued. “The whole man and science thing, I think, is just like a bluster. He thinks it looks good.”

It’s also part of what makes Berry’s work as Laszlo dominant in the audience’s mind. Berry is a versatile actor whose earliest introduction to American audiences likely came via his series regular role in "The IT Crowd" and recurring appearances in "The Mighty Boosh." He's also a musician, having recorded nine studio albums.

But Laszlo earned the actor his first Emmy nomination and increased his demand stateside. So when we hear Berry's voice, whether in Prime Video’s “Fallout” or as a charismatic Beaver in “The Wild Robot,” it can’t be helped if the image of his vampire in Staten Island sparks a mild cognitive dissonance.

“The audience wasn't very familiar with other things that I'd done,” Berry said sympathetically. “So when they see something like Laszlo, which is a strong flavor, it’s difficult to imagine that person doing anything else.”

As for those who only watched him in “What We Do in the Shadows" and may have a tough time shaking the image of him in his vampire's dusty overcoat, “I imagine for them, there will be a bit of that until they see something different.”

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For all his purported devotion to sameness, at the top of this season Laszlo pompously announced that he forbade Nadja from getting a job and having regular contact with the world. This seemed like a significant switch from the third season, which closed with him sending her off to London to pursue a promotion within the Supreme Vampiric Council while he essentially became a stay-at-home dad to a newly regenerated infant version of Colin Robinson.

Could it be that Laszlo suddenly developed a resentment of his wife’s power? Hardly. “I don't think that's got anything necessarily to do with a woman's place, so to speak. It's more the fact is that she's going to be in and around normal people for a sort of dangerous amount of time, which could then lead to their downfall. Because that's the kind of cage of what this show's been,” he said. “Her going into a situation every day amongst normal people, ups the odds of them being busted. I think it has a lot to do with that.

"[Laszlo's] like, hundreds of years old. He doesn't have to adapt to the times."

“But, you know, obviously he's an old-fashioned British aristocrat,” Berry added. “He's going to be of the opinion that he should be the breadwinner, but he knows she's a strong woman. That's been one of the cool things about their sort of relationship, is that she barks back at him. When she's unhappy with something he says she's the first one to tell him where to go and how it's going to be.”

Painting Laszlo as some mascot for the self-involved petty bourgeoisie would be easy to do if Berry’s performance didn’t smash all expectations. Laszlo is pompous, set in his ways, and singularly focused on sex and drinking blood. But he’s also emerged as the quintet’s most caring figure.

Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou and Mark Proksch in "What We Do in the Shadows" (FX)Laszlo may prioritize a good time, timelessly demonstrated via his alter ego Jackie Daytona, regular human bartender. But Jackie remained in the small Pennsylvania town where he tried to hide from another fearsome vampire because he really liked the people who lived there. He might dismiss Guillermo, the household’s human companion, as worthless, but when old Gizmo needed to trust someone with a potentially deadly secret, Laszlo kept it for him.

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Since each “Shadows” season finds a way to relate the real demons we’re grappling with through its characters, the writers have tapped Laszlo to play out our Daddy issues. In the Nov. 11 episode, “Laszlo’s Father” he confronts the ghost of the man he spent his life and afterlife rebelling against (played by Steve Coogan). That includes marrying a much older, undead Greek peasant shunned by this social caste’s peers.

Watching the actors play off each other as father and son provides one of the final season’s high points, reminding us of how much we’ll miss Laszlo. Berry seems to appreciate that while expressing his readiness to let go of “Shadows” and his vampire while both remain dear to us.

“The worst thing you can do with a comedy is to outstay your welcome. Things can be ruined by hanging on too long because then people can get fed up with you, and that can make them look dimly at the work that you've done up until that point,” he said. “Whereas if you if you cut loose at the right time, then it's a decent legacy. You know what you’ve left behind is of good quality.

“Six seasons is a long time,” Berry added. “And hopefully, when people review the show and all the different seasons, they're not going to think, ‘Oh, God, this went downhill,’ or ‘This isn't as good as it used to be.’ The hope is that it's all of a fairly good quality standard throughout.” That part, so far, remains unchanged.

New episodes of "What We Do in the Shadows" air 10 p.m. Mondays on FX, streaming the next day on Hulu.

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