Our weekly round-up of the news, some trends, and our thoughts — plus a reading list for the weekend.
Election News: Trump, who declined to participate in any of the Republican primary debates, released a statement this week via his campaign managers that he is ready to debate Biden “anytime, anyplace and anywhere,” starting “now.” Earlier this week, five major broadcast and cable news networks were prepared to release a joint open letter urging the candidates to participate in the debates, amidst speculation that neither Biden nor Trump would. Republicans are struggling to figure out how to talk about abortion since it has become clear that the issue energizes the Democratic voting base. Trump, after months of equivocating, came out with an ostensibly moderate statement this week saying that abortion rights should be left up to the states. One day later, abortion became almost completely illegal in Arizona when the state’s Supreme Court issued a ruling that upheld a law from 1864; the law bans abortion from the moment of conception, carries a prison sentence of two to five years for providers, and does not include exceptions for rape or incest. Providers are expected to continue procedures until late May while lower courts debate its constitutionality. In a 2022 poll, 91 percent of Arizonans said abortion should be legal in all or some circumstances. Trump is starting to promote RFK, hoping that he will act as a spoiler candidate and take votes away from Biden. In his Truth Social video, Trump said, “If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden, because he’s frankly more in line with Democrats.”
NPR: Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at NPR released a letter in Bari Weiss’ Free Press, lamenting the lack of viewpoint diversity. He writes, "An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America." Though Berliner insisted defunding isn’t the answer, and that the answer must “come from within”, on Wednesday, a banner on Fox News declared, “WOKE NPR EXPOSED.”
College: Colleges are in trouble. Enrollment numbers are declining, faith in educational institutions is falling, FAFSA is even more broken than normal, and small liberal arts schools are already starting to close their doors. Vox wrote a piece on the impact of this trend, stating: “Colleges won’t just be going along with the strengthening alignment of the higher education experience with the labor market. They will be actively promoting it, jettisoning “unprofitable” majors that used to be sheltered inside universities with more than enough students. The next generation of higher education leaders will take scarcity as a given and “return on investment” as both sales pitch and state of mind.”
Recommended Reading (mostly internet-themed this week to usher in our new month):
An essay by artist Norman Wilson in The Baffler: “I’ve found what I was looking for on this island. Something that feels like the opposite of scrutinizing a nondescript object in a white room and then having to read a citation-heavy press release to find out that the object is the product of prison labor, and prison labor is bad.”
This piece by Kyle Chayka in The New Yorker on dumb phones: “After almost two decades with iPhones, the public seems to be experiencing a collective ennui with digital life. So many hours of each day are lived through our portable, glowing screens, but the Internet isn’t even fun anymore.”
Rihanna’s conversation with Mel Ottenberg in Interview Magazine: “Do you miss being on the internet, like really on the internet? Like, “Good luck booking that stage you speak of ” internet? Because you were so good at it.”