Burning world, loyal opposition, how to live: Weekend reads for January 11, 2025

What we're reading this week

Happy Saturday, readers! And we hope you’ve made it through a week that felt downright apocalyptic.

On Monday, Congress certified Donald Trump’s electoral victory, in an unremarkable ceremony that bore no resemblance to January 6, 2021, if only because the party that supports democracy lost. Record windstorms kicked off wildfires that are consuming large swathes of suburban Los Angeles, as the new oligarchs and the incoming president blamed DEI instead of climate change. Marc Zuckerberg broke under pressure, or revealed his true allegiances, putting Meta’s vast networks on a MAGA-friendly path and upending countless users’ faith in social media. And the country said goodbye to Jimmy Carter, the last exponent of the New Deal Democratic coalition, whose humble post-presidency of service seems a relic of a forgotten age. We did see a glimmer of accountability as Donald Trump was sentenced in New York, concluding the proceedings in the hush-money trial, though the sentence was largely symbolic. It’s been…a lot.

As we do each week for our supporting subscribers, we’ve pulled together some of the most intriguing and challenging writing we’ve found as we researched our posts. Today, we bring you reflections on the impact of January 6, thoughts on what we’ve learned — and what we haven’t — after five years of the Covid pandemic, a look at what Democratic Party behavior in this interim period portends for the future, and pieces on the global and local challenges of climate change and more. We hope you’ll keep on reading with us.

But first off, in case you missed it this week we’ve been thinking a lot about what it means for people who believe in democracy and fought so hard for it to prepare for the second Trump administration — and to do it without much direction from Democratic leaders. What posture will you adopt to face the future?

What I see and hear around me is a lot of people, in all walks of life, who are looking up at the national scene and then down at their watches, starting to think about their time on this planet. How much of your life can you spend yelling in opposition to something? Yelling in fury about something that most voters seemed to want? I was 33 when Trump rode down the golden escalator. I am 43 now. I am as devoted as anyone I know to democracy and freedom and the American constitutional order. But it occurs to me from time to time that I do not wish to spend the better part of my adult life in a posture of opposition to a vulgar demagogue. I wish to be and live about other, richer, bigger things.

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Readings

What we lost when the insurrectionists won

For nearly four years, I’ve said that January 6 would be a near-miss or a prelude. To the extent I have a voice, I stressed that we should make it the former. Others did too, including people with bigger platforms and more influence.

It didn’t work. Events went the other way. [Arc Digital]