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Good Friday Morning! Except to the country of Japan. Readers of the American Almanac might like to know that the weird news section is my personal favorite to put together. Finding weird, off-the-call news is among my favorite things to read, especially when I’m going through the amount of normal items to cover a typical newsletter.
Sometimes, though, the weird news section will make you question an entire country. This week, I read about a new trend in Japan where people are “meditating” in coffins. The NYPost has the coverage:
What started as a quirky offering from a funeral home in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture has blossomed into a full-blown trend among Japan’s zen-seekers.
“Coffin-lying,” or the practice of meditating inside a coffin, is giving people a safe, if rather claustrophobic, space to contemplate their mortality — or just recharge.
There are times I joke about not being a normal person. But then I read things like this and think: I now feel like the most normal, average person on the earth (and Japan continues to be utterly bizarre).
Thankfully, the country has elected a strong conservative majority, which should help with U.S. relations and with containing China. I’ll take those small wins, while they meditate in coffins.
In other news, I’m going to dig into the State of the Union and cover how shocking it is that seemingly only two Democrats seem to understand Trump. We’re a decade in, and the rest just don’t seem to get it – links to follow.
Quick Hits:
- AI rattles markets more every week. A viral article by Citrini Research called “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” unsettled markets, wiping out billions after it exploded across the internet (markets have somewhat recovered since). Is it accurate? Likely not. Does it depict something that investors increasingly believe about AI? Yes. In short, this was a doom-and-gloom version of AI’s future. I don’t think it’s totally accurate in its predictions, but it does capture that zeitgeist well. We’re still profoundly early in AI’s time reshaping the U.S. economy. And you can tell because the people writing about it (and, in some cases, legislating about it) are just now using it, despite being 3 years in. The renowned investor Howard Marks wrote a piece about his first encounter withAnthropic’s Claude and being blown away. CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa summed it up, “[Marks] went from ‘is [AI] a bubble?’ in Dec to using Claude himself and being blown away … Now thinks AI’s potential is probably underestimated but still doesn’t know if the prices are right.” I continue to say: I think both the optimist and pessimist camps will be right. I see undeniable job losses coming. Whether AI can create new jobs fast enough, or adoption is slow enough to prevent those losses, remains the great question. What’s not a question is this: AI is an explosive economic engine that will create previously unfathomable forms of wealth.
- The American Almanac is growing! Hundreds of thousands of people now read us daily. I want to express my sincere gratitude to those of you who subscribe, share, and help us grow. You can subscribe here for free. Additionally, please check out Capital Digest (finance/economics), Conservative Legal News, and Real Talk Digest. There are more projects in the pipeline. If you don’t see anything in your inbox a day after signing up, check your spam folder.
Where you can find me this week
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What Happened When Cities Stopped Prosecuting: The Death Toll Is In – Conservative Institute
Sports Journalists Tried to Ruin the Best Winter Olympics Team USA Has Ever Had. – Conservative Institute
Team USA Hockey White House Visit: What the Media Got Completely Wrong – Conservative Institute
The Party That Keeps Taking The Bait
This was a State of the Union speech where I could almost hear the Liberal Patriot guys yelling at their television sets. Democrats are missing things before the moment, during the moment, and after. Let’s step back, though.
Thursday morning, Zohran Mamdani — democratic socialist, newly elected mayor of New York City, a man who has called Donald Trump a fascist — went to the White House. The subject was immigration and housing. Hours later, Trump called him. A Columbia University student ICE had grabbed that morning would be released.
The furthest-left mayor in America walked into the Oval Office, asked for something, and got it on the same day. No press conference. No protest. No inflatable frogs.
He’s not alone in getting things done with Trump. John Fetterman is right there with a similar history (and has good relations with GOP members of Congress).
Two Democrats have figured out something the rest of their party flatly refuses to learn: treat Trump as a transaction rather than a symbol, and you get things done. The State of the Union Tuesday night showed what everyone else is doing instead.
More than 75 Democrats skipped the address entirely. Those who showed up sat stone-faced. The moments they ignored had nothing to do with policy — a Medal of Honor presentation, a Gold Star mother in the gallery, the Olympic hockey team marching in with their medals and Ralph Lauren sweaters. Capitol Police ejected Al Green again — for the second year running — for holding a sign on the House floor. Others wore F-ICE pins. Others drove across town to watch Robert De Niro and inflatable frog costumes — at a counter-event they called the State of the Swamp (#DemocratsBeNormalFor5MinutesChallenge).
Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal, observers that ten years in, Democrats still don’t know how to handle Donald Trump. He used them as foils. They sat snarling and took the bait.
She challenged Democrat directly: if Trump manipulates you into doing the right thing, “you put aside that you’re being manipulated and stand.” Because looking better than Trump isn’t hard. You just have to try.
That wasn’t principled resistance from Democrats. Refusing to stand for a grieving mother or a war hero isn’t a strategy. It’s a performance for a base that’s already convinced. Everyone else just watched in abject horror.
Mamdani is not a moderate. He’s a democratic socialist who won the NYC mayoralty against a crowded field. Both parties were surprised. Trump got over it first. Mamdani has called Trump a fascist. When reporters pressed him on that at their first Oval Office meeting — November, right after the election — Trump stepped in: “That’s OK. You can just say yes.” The meeting continued. Trump told the press they shared priorities — housing, affordability, cost of living — and predicted Mamdani “is going to surprise some conservative people.”
Trump might end up being right. Mamdani, for all his failures in his short tenure so far, at least understands these dynamics.
Mamdani came back Thursday without a scheduled slot. He gifted Trump some newspapers to hang in his office. Then, he raised the case of Columbia student Elaina Aghayeva — ICE had detained her that morning — and left. Hours later, Trump called him. She’d be released.
Trump doesn’t need you to love him. He doesn’t need you to agree with him. He needs you to show up, make the ask, and treat the conversation like it might go somewhere. The rules haven’t changed in ten years. Show up. Be useful, thoughtful, or generous. Get something.
One Democrat shook Trump’s hand Tuesday night. John Fetterman. He said it wasn’t complicated: “I shook his hand, of course. He walked in, and I’m always going to do that.”
Fetterman called the Democratic side of the aisle “disappointing.” He found it sad that so many colleagues skipped entirely. On showing up: “You don’t have to clap for everything. You don’t have to agree with anything.” His deadpanned verdict on the frog convention downtown: “Dancing frogs really moves the ball for us as a party.”
Fetterman holds a Senate seat in a purple state. Engaging Trump has cost him inside his own party — Democrats are turning on him for it. And yet he’s the one with a viable political future in Pennsylvania. That’s the Democratic Party’s trade right now: performance for results.
Trump built the speech to trap Democrats, and he wasn’t shy about it. He structured it around moments of American heroism — Medal of Honor recipients, crime victims’ families, championship athletes — knowing what the camera would catch if Democrats refused to engage. He asked the chamber to stand if they believed the first duty of American government is to protect American citizens. Democrats sat. “You should be ashamed,” Trump said. They walked straight into a trap so obvious even Wile E. Coyote was shocked.
The voters who matter most to Democrats — working-class, non-college, purple-state — weren’t there to evaluate tactical resistance. They saw their party refuse to stand for a Gold Star mother. They saw it refuse to stand for Iryna Zarutska — 23 years old, Ukrainian, murdered on a train in Charlotte. Her killer had been arrested more than a dozen times before that night. Democrats sat for that one too.
Fetterman and Mamdani both operate from unusual ground — Fetterman holds a statewide seat; Mamdani runs the most Democratic city in America. Most House Democrats don’t have that cover.
But the base demanding stone-faced resistance is pure pandering for a base that is going to vote for you no matter what. Trump won the popular vote in 2024. The working-class voters Democrats have lost over a decade — in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia — aren’t cheering the F-ICE pins. They’re watching a party that couldn’t stand for Iryna Zarutska’s mother.
Holding firm on policy is principle. Refusing to acknowledge American heroes in the gallery is theater. Fetterman put it plainly: you don’t have to clap for everything.
The man who once called Trump a fascist got a constituent out of ICE custody with a phone call. He did it by showing up, making the ask, and treating the president well.
The night before, his colleagues were wearing protest pins to a speech about American medal winners and skipping the address to watch Robert De Niro pal around with men in inflatable frog suits. One of these is a political strategy. The other is a hobby.
Noonan is right: ten years in, Democrats still haven’t figured Trump out. But Mamdani has. So has Fetterman. I don’t believe the rest of the Democratic Party will change. They’ve had a decade to learn.
Democrats are more animated by their own base, which terrifies them in its demands for blood, than they are getting anything done. That’s how you get a party full of people in inflatable frog costumers, sports journalists who hate the athletes of their own country, and who can’t applaud or acknowledge the heroes and stories of America.
I still think the midterms favor Democrats for structural reasons. But if they underperform in any way, we’ll be looking back at moments like the State of the Union as reasons why.
Links of the week
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria blasts Democrat-run cities – Mediaite
The Hockey Vibe Shift: Patriotic Optimism Is Back, Baby! – Batya Ungar-Sargon
No Populism without Cultural Populism: If you want your “populism” to be effective. – Liberal Patriot
The Supreme Court has ruled on tariffs, but who will ultimately pay? – Jonathan Turley
The Brits Spied on Me – Paul Thacker
To Confront Their Failures, Democrats Must Confront Obama – Sasha Stone
How Mexico hunted ‘El Mencho’ with help from his lover’s ‘trusted man’ and US intelligence – CNN
X/Twitter Thread(s) of the week
Private sector unions are collapsing.
Satire of the week
Olympians Showered With Mortadella Confetti During Milan Closing Ceremonies – Onion
Trump Reveals Plan To Secure Third Term By Speaking For 7 Straight Years – Babylon Bee
Bold Right-Wing Truth-Teller Very Carefully Chooses Words So As Not To Speak Truths That Would Anger Own Audience – Babylon Bee
Active military forced to watch ‘Melania’ documentary at SERE school – Duffel Blog
Unbiased? Woman’s Preferred Journalistic Source Just Googling the Word ‘News’ – Reductress
How To Determine Your Self-Worth by Checking How Many of Your Instagram Friends Are Tied to Semi-Well-Known Public Figures – The Hard Times
Ireland Support Removal Of Andrew From Succession, Loading Him Into Cannon & Firing At Nearest Wall – Waterford Whispers News