The economic indicators point to looming catastrophe: the government has shut down, the private sector lost thirty-two thousand jobs in September, and more people are ordering hot dogs. Is this the vibe shift we were promised? Are these the new Roaring Twenties that were prophesied?
Times may be tough, but someone is having fun. Samuel Huneke writes on the “A-Gays” of Trump 2.0, who are living it up in Washington, D.C., unbothered by what the administration is doing to their LGBTQ peers—proof that they are loyal to their class above all. And Mary Turfah describes both a colonized elite willing to bend over backward for the occupying force, and a historian whose close proximity to power drove him to write its inner history.
Elsewhere, Ajay Singh Chaudhary speaks with Thea Riofrancos about extractive industries and the energy transition. Leo Kim explains why LLMs will not save democracy. And in our latest issue, Nicolás Medina Mora explains how the same economic forces that shaped Mexico’s economy also shaped its literature.
“What we encounter today as impenetrable reality is in fact a long series of decisions deliberated over time, none inevitable. What comes together can come apart.”
“Where are we going to mine for the input for technologies like publicly owned windfarms or community solar or electric buses? That stuff still has a supply chain.”
“Political consensus was never meant to be manufactured from aggregating averages or providing feedback through some seamless digital portal— as if it were another metric to be algorithmically generated like SEO rankings.”
“The NAFTA Novel—how else to call it?—gives voice to an antineoliberal cosmopolitanism born from the historical forces set in motion by neoliberalism.”
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