June 2025 was the most eventful month in a long time, with the following big events having transpired:
-Iran strikes
-LA riots (remember that?)
-The rise of Zohan Mamdani
-Vance Boelter
-Peter Thiel interview (not really newsworthy, but a major meme-worthy event online)
-‘Big Beautiful Bill’ (which despite the protestations of Elon Musk, passed)
-Elon-Trump feud, and Elon attempting to blackmail Trump with the Epstein files
This is part of the ‘crisis-fi-cation of America’. We’re living in a state of constant crisis. I have tried to figure out why this is. It can be explained by a combination of social media, an increasingly polarized political environment, rapid technological and demographic change (e.g. AI), a clash of big egos, high stakes, and a nation divided in values. Each of these individually is insufficient as a catalyst. It would be fruitful to expand on this in a subsequent post.
It’s remarkable how fast the LA riots disappeared from the headlines despite how big of a deal it seemed at the time and all the social media coverage. The burned-out Waymo cars attracted more media coverage than the actual riots, which were small and brief. By comparison, the 2020 BLM riots lasted for months and resulted in significant property damage and some deaths. It’s interesting how Blacks and Hispanics differ in this regard. Black history and American history are one and the same, like pop culture, sports, and so on. Blacks are much more assimilated compared to Hispanics, who retain their flags and language, but Blacks harbor a level of resentment or antipathy directed towards the ‘American project’ not seen with other groups.
Zohan Mamdani is now a fixture of politics. It’s inconsequential that he misrepresented his race on his Columbia application and still failed to get in. These people are promoted for having charisma and putting a pretty face to politics, not for being exceptionally smart or possessing upstanding moral character. Despite framing itself as the intellectual-opposite to the hidebound right, charisma has always been a strong point for the Democratic party (e.g. Clinton, Obama, JFK ). Uncharismatic candidates (e.g. Gore, Dukakis, Hillary, Kamala) fare poorly in national elections. Of course, Mamdani is not in national politics, but look at Cory Booker, Eric Adams, AOC and others. These people appeared out of nowhere and have successful careers.