Today’s Lineup
Donald Trump continues with the dictator theme, the retail lobby’s $45 billion shoplifting lie, crime is actually down this year, the MAGA plan to attack birth control, 40 elections in 2024 will shape the planet’s future, exposing the radical right’s new Jack Smith conspiracy theory, supporting Ukraine remains essential to the fight against authoritarianism, Elon Musk’s dumbest X/Twitter decisions, Tim Whitwell’s annual 52 things list, and the Ship of Theseus achieves peak meta.
#1
Trump shares cryptic ‘dictatorship’ word cloud on Truth Social (Eric Bazail-Eimil, Politico)
Voters surveyed by the Daily Mail described former President Donald Trump’s political goals as “corruption,” “revenge” and “dictatorship.”
On Tuesday, Trump appeared to voice his agreement with their assessments.
In a cryptic post on Truth Social, Trump shared a word cloud with the results of a Daily Mail survey released Tuesday that prominently displayed the words “corruption,” “revenge,” “dictatorship” and “power,” indicating that those answers were provided by a large number of participants asked about Trump’s plans for a second term in office.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The former president is not being subtle. How many times does Donald Trump need to mention a dictatorship before reporters and voters take the threat seriously? As historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in November: “In all of my research, every time these people come to power, or before they come to power, when they come on the scene, they tell us who they are and what they’re going to do. And people don’t want to listen. Perhaps it’s too upsetting, they don’t want to take them seriously.” Trump is telling us who he plans to be. It’s not a joke. It’s not entertainment. It’s a promise—and a warning. These are the stakes.
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#2
How the retail lobby sold a $45-billion whopper about organized shoplifting (Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times)
If you’re making a list of big news stories of 2023, here’s one you might want to check twice: The surge in “organized retail crime,” or gang shoplifting.
I’ve written before about the news media’s fixation on this phenomenon despite the unreliability of retailers’ claims about it, and especially when compared with the much more prevalent crime of employer wage theft, which gets almost no coverage.
But there’s been a recent development on the topic, which demands your attention. Put simply, the retail lobby has admitted that its most eye-catching and widely publicized statistic about it is a lie.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
It is hard to overstate this lie’s impact on our politics this past year. As Hiltzik recaps, we saw legislation enacted, editorials written, criminal reform efforts discredited, companies closing stores using this excuse, and a former president calling for shoplifters to be “shot on sight” in response to this lie. The mob rules again—evidence be damned. We should be outraged by this manipulation. We need to understand how this kind of lie is injected into our national discourse. We need to stop trusting organizations that tell these kinds of lies. Let’s not make this mistake again in 2024.
#3
Most people think the U.S. crime rate is rising. They’re wrong. (Ken Dilanian, NBC News)
The FBI data, which compares crime rates in the third quarter of 2023 to the same period last year, found that violent crime dropped 8%, while property crime fell 6.3% to what would be its lowest level since 1961, according to criminologist Jeff Asher, who analyzed the FBI numbers.
Murder plummeted in the United States in 2023 at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded, Asher found, and every category of major crime except auto theft declined.
Yet 92% of Republicans, 78% of independents and 58% of Democrats believe crime is rising, the Gallup survey shows.
“I think we’ve been conditioned, and we have no way of countering the idea” that crime is rising,” Asher said. “It’s just an overwhelming number of news media stories and viral videos — I have to believe that social media is playing a role.”
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Perhaps reporters and editors should pause for a moment on the last paragraph I quoted above. There has been an overwhelming number of stories—but the stories media outlets publish don’t match the data. Corporations took advantage of this dynamic to cover up the real reason they were closing stores (as this Popular Information investigation about Target explored). A variety of factors—like newsroom layoffs and local newspaper closures—have contributed to a similar disconnect on several issues (like the state of the economy). The 2024 election season will also feature a significant increase in disinformation from sources worldwide. So we need to do more to correct misconceptions with our neighbors and online.
#4
Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill (Tessa Stuart, Rolling Stone)
But it may not matter how the high court rules if Republicans win the presidency next November. That’s because GOP operatives have already crafted an expansive blueprint, 887 pages long, laying out in painstaking detail how they intend to govern, including plans to leverage virtually every arm, tool and agency of the federal government to attack abortion access. The document explicitly names their intention not just to rescind FDA approval for the abortion pill if they regain control of the White House in 2024, but to revive a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending or receiving through the mail any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” that could be used to facilitate an abortion. That law, the Comstock Act, is viewed as a de facto federal abortion ban by reproductive rights advocates and anti-abortion activists alike.
Those plans — and many more, including proposals to attack contraception access, use the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to increase “abortion surveillance” and data collection, rescind a Department of Defense policy to “prohibit abortion travel funding,” punish states that require health insurance plans to cover abortion, and retool a law that is currently protecting pregnant women with life-threatening conditions — are outlined in Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership.”
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
MAGA supporters are not being subtle about their plans to use the federal bureaucracy to abolish abortion rights nationwide and restrict the ability of people to access contraception. Since the Trump supporters are being so open about it, Democrats should make every effort to explain that there are no moderates among Republican leaders. We should note how the Republican position on abortion rejects the humanity of people who can become pregnant and has turned some states into Atwoodian dystopias. Trump botched his first transition by not preparing for it and appointing people unwilling to embrace his policy positions. He will not make similar mistakes if he wins a second term. There are plans in place. There are people ready to implement extreme ideas on the first day of a second Trump term. There won’t be any so-called adults in the room this time.
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#5
Democracy’s Super Bowl: 40 elections that will shape global politics in 2024 (Simon Tisdall, The Guardian)
President Joe Biden divides the world crudely into rival democratic and autocratic camps. He says this is the defining struggle of the age. So if he fails to beat his likely Republican challenger, Donald Trump – a man who says he will not act as a dictator if elected but evidently cannot wait to do so – then many around the world, starting with Putin and Xi, may conclude it’s all up with democracy.
A Trump victory – and the ensuing chaotic Jacobean-style revenge tragedy it will inevitably trigger –could permanently upend the international order, tipping the balance towards authoritarianism and dictatorship. If the US, “the city upon a hill”, ceases to fight for it, democracy will surely wither and die.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Tisdall runs through a sampling of the more than 40 countries scheduled to hold national elections in 2024. The list includes countries where largely free and fair elections are expected—like the United States, India, South Africa, and the European Union. It also includes countries that will hold sham elections—like Russia, Iran, and Belarus. What happens in Taiwan and Ukraine could have significant geopolitical impacts. I think Biden is correct to argue that an active conflict is underway between the world’s democratic and authoritarian camps. I hope he speaks about it more often. We will see attempts to disrupt elections through the spread of disinformation and other means. The stakes are high—and the prospect for success is uncertain.
#6
The Far-Right Pushes a New Conspiracy Theory to Discredit Jack Smith (David Corn and Dan Friedman, Mother Jones)
A new conspiracy theory rising on the right is being deployed to help Donald Trump.
It claims that Jack Smith, the special counsel who is prosecuting Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and for his alleged swiping of classified documents, was part of a multimillion dollar extortion scheme when he was the chief prosecutor investigating and prosecuting war crimes in Kosovo. In the past two weeks, this unsubstantiated narrative has started popping up on fringe right-wing sites and social media posts. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser and QAnonish MAGA champion, has promoted this tale. These allegations appear to be in the early phase of the right-wing transmission belt that propels false stories and conspiracy theories from less prominent platforms to more established conservative media and toward the mainstream—often facilitated by Republican members of Congress.
The participants in this current effort include a former DEA official who not long ago claimed to have evidence showing the Clinton Foundation was a criminal enterprise, a lawyer who represents the computer repair shop owner who obtained and passed along Hunter Biden’s laptop, and one of the most prominent election deniers of 2020. And this allegation is mostly based on a wild account provided by a Kosovo businessman who was twice arrested in Spain for extortion, who has disputed rumors that he was tied to Russian intelligence, and who has been linked to a Russian mobster.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Here we go again. It’s an absurd story. The sources include ridiculous people. But as Corn and Friedman explain, the process of laundering and hyping this conspiracy theory is underway in conservative media circles. Given our experience over the past few decades, we should not be surprised when it ends up featured on Fox News and then in a series of New York Times stories with misleading headlines. When will a MAGA House of Representatives Committee Chair schedule a hearing? Perhaps it will coincide with one of the many potential trials of Donald Trump? Corn and Friedman explain the dubious evidence behind the story and the people pushing it. Consider this an early warning.
#7
Inside Kyiv’s long, dark winter (Aaron Rupar, Public Notice)
Ukraine’s counteroffensive ended up being a disappointment, and as 2023 draws to a close, the war has settled into something approximating a stalemate. But perhaps just as worrisome for Ukraine is the fact that in the US, Republicans have so far blocked Democratic efforts to provide forces there with the aid necessary to sustain the war effort. And with the notoriously pro-Putin Donald Trump firmly entrenched as the GOP’s leader and presumptive 2024 nominee, the medium- and long-term prospects for more US help are uncertain.
The Israel-Hamas war has mostly pushed Ukraine off the front pages here, but the war remains a very big deal. Not only is it the frontline in the global fight between democracy and authoritarianism, but as President Biden likes to say, if Putin succeeds in gobbling up the country, it will set the stage for future Russian aggression, including a possible hot war with NATO. There’s a lot riding on Ukraine staying in the fight and ultimately winning it.
But as Mak details day in and day out in The Counteroffensive, the war is exacting a huge and morale-crushing human toll. Ukrainians continue to endure regular missile strikes, cyberattacks, and efforts to destroy the energy infrastructure that keeps them from freezing. And the country is starting to run dangerously short of manpower and weaponry. It wouldn’t be an easy situation under any circumstances, but it’s especially tough as hopes fade for ending the war on favorable terms anytime soon.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I thought this was a meaningful conversation at a critical time for our nation’s support of the Ukrainian battle against Putin’s invasion. If Ukraine falls, other European countries will be at risk. If Ukraine falls, China may be emboldened to invade Taiwan (especially if Beijing doesn’t like the results of the upcoming elections on the island). I would like to see reporters ask Congressional Republicans to explain how they can claim to be so concerned about protecting Taiwan at the same time they are selling out Ukraine. Regardless, if House Republicans refuse to support Ukraine, then creative alternatives must be considered early in the year. For example, it may be time to let Ukraine have access to the $300 billion in Russian central bank assets that were seized in the aftermath of the invasion. A democracy under attack needs our help. Putin is hoping we forget.
#8
Elon Musk’s 6 dumbest X / Twitter decisions of 2023 (Matt Binder, Mashable)
It sounds like an impossible task, but Mashable has done it. In a year filled with ill-advised moves and screw-ups, we’ve put together a list of…Well, there’s no other way to put it, the absolute dumbest decisions made by Elon Musk when it comes to his social media platform, X.
Musk acquired the platform in late October of last year and immediately appeared set to roll out some of the worst changes to the platform once known as Twitter (And, yes, we’ll get to that.) So, some really bad decisions — the Twitter Blue overhaul or the suspending of journalists over Elon’s Jet account — won’t make the cut, as they happened last year. But, as there were so many Musk ideas to choose from this year, that made our life a bit easier.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The user experience on X, the social media network I will call Twitter, has deteriorated significantly since Elon Musk took over. Binder goes through the six decisions that have had the worst impact on Twitter’s users. I still engage with Twitter because I can find useful information using the lists I’ve curated over the years. But the algorithm provides a lot of noise now, and the advertisers who remain after Musk’s latest anti-Semitic controversy are very low quality. I have found Bluesky and Post useful, although neither is a complete replacement for the pre-Elon Twitter experience. Bluesky remains invitation-only, so if you’d like to check it out, here are some invite codes you can use to sign up here.
- bsky-social-gz5ad-m32jx
- bsky-social-v22ag-4bqpr
- bsky-social-ukugb-iqv2z
- bsky-social-yyfb7-vmfzp
- bsky-social-cdaog-ouj6i
#9
52 things I learned in 2023 (Tim Whitwell, Medium)
This year I worked on fascinating projects in food, media, storytelling, AI and health at Magnetic, and learned many learnings.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Starting in 2014, Tim Whitwell has shared a list of 52 things he learned that year. It is always a fascinating list (and sometimes helpful information for my pub trivia team). And he includes links so you can take a deeper dive. Here are three of my favorites from this year’s edition:
3. There’s been a colony of 15,000 wild scorpions living in the walls of Sheerness Dockyard, Kent, for over 200 years. [John Nurden]
16. In the 19th Century, champagne was sweetened depending on local tastes. Russians had 300 grams of sugar added, the British just 50 grams. In 1842 Perrier-Jouët introduced unsweetened champagne. It failed and people called it ‘Brut’, but that’s how all champagne tastes today. [Chris Mercer & Karen MacNeil]
46. Scientists in Singapore have developed a tiny flexible battery, powered by the salt in human tears, designed for smart contact lenses. [Yun Jeonghun]
The Closer
Oh, it doesn’t get more meta than this.
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:
“Internet users have created many humorous laws and corollaries to describe discussion in the electronic world. The tendency to bring up Nazi Germany in any argument inspired Godwin’s Law and the related reductio ad Hiterlum. The deeply entrenched and usually immutable views of Internet users are the foundation of Pommer’s Law, in which the Internet can only change a person’s mind from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion. There are many others, including my personal favorite, Skitt’s Law: “Any Internet message correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself.” (Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise)
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