Could 2025 give Democrats a do-over for how they misplayed the results of Donald Trump’s first election? Early signs point to yes — and that could come at the consternation of some conservatives.
Let’s consider some political alternative history for a moment. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, it’s easy to forget how many Democrats started sounding a note of reconciliation with the incoming president. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were all open about their willingness to find common ground with the new White House on infrastructure and other policy areas, hoping their views would be closer to Trump’s than more fiscally conservative Republicans. The possibility discussed at the time was one of real concern from conservatives that, if Democrats were willing to shift on a few points and slap “Trumpcare” on a healthcare bill, the new less ideological president would gladly go along.
Of course, we know this never happened: the deep state went into full swing against Trump, the harsh online resistance got platformed by media and demonstrations like the Women’s March put too much fear into congressional Democrats about working with the new president. You can go back and watch these remarks from then-Representative Ruben Gallego to see the shift in tone. Now-Senator Gallego is talking up bipartisanship again, representing a state that went solidly for Trump, as is John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and they could soon be joined by other senators representing red states, after an unusually high number of partisan Senate-president splits.
Democrats may be about to get a real opportunity to try and influence a Trump administration that is already signaling that it’s closer to them on several policy fronts, and is going to include a number of people in senior positions who spent most of their careers in the Democratic Party. Should they successfully influence Trump in their direction, the test will be how much his clear mandate keeps members from his right flank in the Republican coalition in line. Last time around, the Russiagate hoax and the resistance made bipartisanship impossible. This time, Democrats may find that working with Trump instead of engaging in knee-jerk opposition gets them more out of an ideologically malleable administration.
Poll: Young Americans Support Shooter
A staggering poll from Emerson College suggests that more young Americans believe that Luigi Mangione’s assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was acceptable than don’t.
According to the survey of 1,000 registered voters, 41% of 18 t0 29-year-olds believe that the murder of Thompson was either somewhat or completely acceptable, with 24% falling into the former and 17% falling into the latter categories. Thirty-three percent of that same cohort believes that the murder was completely unacceptable, and an additional 7% believes it was somewhat unacceptable.
Nineteen percent professed to be “neutral” on the question.
The 18-29 grouping was the only age demographic in which a plurality deemed the assassination acceptable. In every other one, a majority said that it was unacceptable.
Another Shooting Gun Control Wouldn’t Stop
A horrendous school shooting by a teenage girl in Wisconsin, and the normal calls are being made by Joe Biden and others. Charles Cooke explains why they are truly irrelevant to the issue.
First, Biden demanded “universal background checks.” But the shooter was 15, and so didn’t — and, under federal law, was not permitted to — buy or transfer a gun. Congress could pass a “universal background check” law that required every American to be followed by drones before, during, and after the purchase of a gun, and it still wouldn’t apply to this case. We do not know definitively how the shooter acquired her gun, but we do know that it was not in a manner that could have been altered by federal laws that aim to superintend the purchase or transfer of firearms. To be affected by those, one has to be 18 and above. The shooter was not.
Second, Biden demanded “a national red flag law.” This, too, is irrelevant. Red flag laws permit the government to temporarily remove firearms from people who are deemed to be a threat to themselves or to others. But the shooter did not — and could not — own any firearms, so such a law would not have applied. There is no indication that the shooter had been identified as a problem in the first instance, but, even if she had, the remedy would not been a red flag law, but a bog-standard intervention from the local authorities of the sort that already happens in every state. The police do not need a “red flag” law to deal with people who issue threats to cause harm. “Red flag” laws pertain only to firearms. The shooter was 15. She didn’t have any.
Third, Biden demanded “a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.” Again, this is irrelevant. The shooter did not use a so-called “assault weapon” to commit her murders; she used a handgun with a standard-issue magazine. The federal government could have confiscated every AR-15 in the country over the last four years — and, indeed, confiscated every firearm that looks like an AR-15 — and the effort would have had no bearing on this case.
What about other ideas? If Biden had offered those, would any of those have made more sense? The clear answer is “No.” It is already illegal under federal (and Wisconsin) law for a 15-year-old to possess — or carry — a handgun. It is already illegal under federal law for a person to carry a gun into a school. And, of course, it is already illegal under the laws of all 50 states to murder and injure people. Gun-control advocates grow irritated when this is pointed out because they mistake it for demagoguery, but it is an indisputable, self-evident, stone-cold fact that the only government policy that could have prevented an incident such as this one is the prohibition and confiscation of all firearms — ruthlessly and repeatedly enforced. It is telling, I think, that the only action I can come up with that would intersect with the facts here is prosecuting the parents for negligence, and that (a) does not apply to the perpetrator, and (b) is, by definition, only available post hoc. As ever, Biden’s words are cynical and hollow, and represent a frivolous abdication of his responsibility to his office.
What Professional Organizers Know About Us
Jennifer Wilson reviews Carrie Lane’s new book in The New Yorker.
By one estimate, the average American spends a total of two and a half days every year looking for misplaced household items. More than a third of homeowners say their garage is too cluttered to use for parking. Eleven per cent of us rent storage units. “There are now more self-storage facilities in the United States than Starbucks, McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Pizza Hut locations combined,” Lane writes. This has all happened as the size of the typical American home increased from fifteen hundred square feet in 1973 to twenty-two hundred in 2023: we somehow have more room and less space. One often quoted statistic is that the standard American household contains three hundred thousand items. It is hard to verify (the number comes from the organizer Regina Lark, who was interviewed in 2014 by the Los Angeles Times), but the fact that so many don’t question it speaks volumes—unalphabetized, poorly shelved volumes…
People hire organizers for all sorts of reasons, Lane notes. One organizer told Lane about a woman who summoned her to deal with the “paperwork chaos” from her family business. “But the minute I picked up one Post-it and moved it to this side,” the organizer recalled, “she lost it and she went into the kitchen and closed the door.” In such cases, the organizer said, she recommends that clients seek out a mental-health professional.
Lane is more interested in those clients for whom the hiring of an organizer feels symptomatic of larger social ills. She has found people across the class strata who are overworked, and underwhelmed with what they have to show for it. They are not just too busy to organize their things; they are too busy to live their lives. Instead of writing a novel, they buy a Moleskine. Instead of travelling, they accrue travel points. They acquire books on decluttering that collect dust—somewhere. (They’ll hire a professional organizer to find them.) In the early years of the profession, some organizers called themselves clutter therapists. Lane argues that professional organizers could be better described as “therapists of capitalism.” They provide, she writes, “a particular kind of therapeutic relationship suited to people trying to manage their copious belongings while also working through their feelings around their stuff and the labor it demands of them.”
Some of the most affecting material in “More Than Pretty Boxes” involves what Lane refers to as “wishful shopping”—in which people purchase “items that stand in for the activities they would like to do or the people they would like to be.” One organizer recalls a client who had an extensive collection of cassette tapes for learning Dutch. The organizer recommended he donate them, since he wasn’t using them, but he protested, “If I got hired by a multinational company based in Holland and I get transferred there, and I learn Dutch before I go, I’ll be way ahead of everyone.” This man had already retired.
In another story, an organizer Lane was working with was hired by a woman named Lauren who had recently quit a corporate job. When Lane entered Lauren’s home, she noticed shopping bags near the door filled with picture frames, most with their price tags still attached. As she made her way to Lauren’s bedroom, she struggled to squeeze past still more frames, some in more shopping bags, others leaning against the wall. In total, there were more than forty frames, some gilded, others with hand-painted flowers, and one with the words “Girlfriends Forever.” Lauren said that she was planning to get back into painting now that she had left her job, and these frames would hold the art work she’d eventually make. When the organizer told her she would not have space for forty frames on the walls of her apartment, Lauren protested that she would give some of the art away to friends. The organizer suggested that she write the names of those friends on sticky notes and attach them to the frames. Lauren then explained that these were friends who had “yet to come into her life” but would do so now that she had more free time.
Feature
Items of Interest
Foreign
Top Russian general killed in Moscow by Ukraine.
Giorgia Meloni makes nice with Donald Trump.
China’s slowdown is changing the trade war.
Ireland declares diplomatic war on Israel.
Trudeau’s government may fall.
Poilievre demands election before Trump’s inauguration.
Domestic
Year end funding deal still not quite there.
CR under wraps — time is running out.
Rufo: How to make sure DOGE delivers.
Gerry Connolly beats AOC in key vote for Oversight committee.
Senate prepares for divisive Hegseth hearing.
Senate Judiciary committee holds hearing on sports betting.
Senate races to approve Social Security expansion.
Fix the Court controversy over director’s salary.
Briefings from FBI and other agencies on drones.
Judge Merchan, as expected, denies Trump immunity claim.
Media
Carlos Watson of Ozy Media sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison.
Health
Public health leaders more hopeful about RFK.
Tech
Can AI cure humanity’s loneliness?
Walmart employees now wearing body cameras.
Religion
Pope Francis reveals he was almost assassinated in Iraq.
Ephemera
Rick Rubin interview: Judgment is the price of being creative.
Women are the lead consumers of new streaming series.
Yellowstone closes season with massive ratings number.
Bluey Movie announced — release in 2027.
Quote
How came we by this quantity of junk? A kind of shipwreck, washed up in the yard, Glittering cheaply in the sun, the marred, The obsolete, redundant. We are sunk Deep in things. That hermit crab, the soul, Crawled up tight into its borrowed shell, Grows attached to where it must dwell. The world is furnished with the physical. But one by one, the strangers lift away What we have touched and worn, to curse and bless Our things to a new life of usefulness, And we, the sunlight spent, call it a day, And rising up at last, feel rich and strange. It is the weight and weightlessness of change.
— A.E. Stallings, “Moving Sale”