Nathan White 🇬🇧🇪🇺🌊

I get why people bemoan the polarisation of politics. But I think we misidentify the cause.

Politics is polarised mainly because those who are on the wrong side of an issue tend to be wrong on almost *every* issue. You can cleave people pretty neatly, so the middle ground would just be a mess.

Why does it always fall to liberals to conserve things? Isn't that the whole point of conservatives?

I remember laughing at my country post-Brexit for trying to boast about FTAs because they couldn't land any actual deals, and were getting internationally ghosted.

It's certainly come to something when the President of the World's Biggest Economy is reduced to doing the same.

Whenever I see Trump, or anyone who is proudly MAGA, or indeed any example of AI slop (which the right have embraced so eagerly), I am reminded that Nazism and kitsch were the closest of the allies.

Tastelessness might seem trivial, but it is the hallmark of fascism.

There is a non-zero chance that Trump is just a highly committed performance artist who has selflessly dedicated his life to viciously satirising American self-pride.

...But you know in your heart, better than anyone could, that it won't ease your loss one iota.

Putin could get everything he wants in his twilight years; and for you it would just multiply the guilt, the shame, the unspeakable horror of putting Putin's bragging rights before your own child's life.

...who fed your child into the mincer just to feel vigorous again.

Take Crimea. Take Ukraine. Take Lithuania. You can celebrate the day you oppressed a people, instead of celebrating your dead child's birthday...

My heart goes out to the bereaved in Russia, whose loss was just as pointless and needless as those in Ukraine, and doubtless just as painful - but without any salve of dying for a good cause, or for any better reason than to massage the ego of an old KGB goon...

I get your point... but banning motorbikes sounds amazing.

And the world would love to trade with you. You make the stuff we want.

Anne Frank :(

I choose pistachio ice cream because I like the taste.

Saying that there is a purely physical process behind that preference/decision/action seems irrelevant. I'm sure there is one - but that physical process manifests to *me* as liking the taste.

Watching JD Vance play international statesman is like watching Pee-wee Herman play Bond.

Someone says "I'm not really a cat person", and you have to act like you're still listening while you mentally cross their existence out of your universe.

Cat lovers and book lovers always find each other eventually :)

Liz Truss to launch ‘uncensored’ social network to counter mainstream media Former PM says she wants to protect free speech after being ‘cut off at the knees’ by ‘the elite’ while at No 10

Someone should synthesise Liz Truss' self-belief and sell it as a street drug.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I'll be honest. I feel like America always defaults to blaming liberals and progressives for everything.

"Why haven't they come to our rescue?"

I dunno, maybe because every time they tried in the past you killed them.

"Mate, don't ask. If the police are about, just say you haven't seen me."

The shame of Trump will long outlive Trump.

I made the mistake of stroking his sister.

Just to be clear, he was arguing that the consensus of experts was different to the opinion of the average American - so the experts must obviously be wrong.

Listening to Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation on the BBC was shocking. I am worldly-wise enough to know about US right-wing think tanks, but it was jolting nonetheless.

All I can say is: if you wanted a good predictor for the downfall of civilisations, it would be hostility to scholars.

When I look at what is happening to the academic credibility of the US, I can't help thinking that Trump is the Shih Huang Ti of the 21st Century.

Except Shih Huang Ti actually succeeded in building his great wall - as well as burning all the books, and burying the scholars alive.

I suppose I should wait to see the data on DOGE's activity.

But I'm pretty sure Elon's dad still doesn't love him.

This. Just draw a shit stick-man with a biro and add explanatory labels; hell, shamelessly plagiarise whole chapters from published authors for all I care; just don't outsource your talentless unoriginality to a homogenising robot as if that somehow absolves you.

I'm not at all confident, but I am hopeful.

Arguably, it was always a bit desperate to rely on the US as the guarantors of liberal democracy just because they had the money and firepower, when they wouldn't ever ratify anything or even recognise the jurisdiction of the Hague.

Trump has certainly shown us the fragility of liberal democracy, and the rules-based order, and fundamental principles like universal rights and rule of law.

But he has also shown us how precious they are; and how facile it was to sneer at them.

I suppose Starmer, like Carney and Macron and so on, is a bit of a lucky general.

Trump has lowered the bar so far that we are forced to recognise that we should be glad to live in functioning liberal democratic states.

Maybe we got complacent, and America sadly shows where complacency leads.

Are you scared of writing the news? You seem scared.

NEW 🧵

The number of people travelling from Europe to the US in recent weeks has plummeted by as much as 35%, as travellers have cancelled plans in response to Trump’s policies and rhetoric, and horror stories from the border.

Story: www.ft.com/content/6dc1...