Spin Class Weekend Reads 6/13/25
#NoKings and staying on message, Ehud Olmert's press tour, and a feast for theater kids
It may yet still thunderstorm during Trump’s Big Dumb North Korean Birthday Military Parade tomorrow, which - wouldn’t that be great?
Regardless of weather, please stay active and peaceful. If you’re able, I hope you’ll join a peaceful No Kings demonstration tomorrow. For those in DC, there are several options right over the borders in Maryland and Virginia. Wisely, organizers decided not to hold any protests in DC proper, in hopes of denying the administration any pretext for retaliation or mobilizing federal forces in our streets.
This is a dangerous moment. The Trump Administration set a new precedent with the National Guard and Marine deployments to Los Angeles, and there’s no reason to expect they will stop there. DC Pride experienced both a shooting and two stabbings last Saturday night. Had that happened even a few days later, I suspect the Trump Administration would have gladly used that violence unrelated to ICE/LA protests as a pretext for deploying the DC National Guard or other federal law enforcement here. I also would not be surprised if they try a similar play in NYC in the coming weeks, especially in the aftermath of the mayoral primary.
Sadly, it’s time to get out the playbook the U.S. and our allies used to prebut Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Anticipate more deployments. Identify likely pretexts and BS justifications, and call them out ahead of time. Create media moments on our terms, not in response to theirs. Build and maintain coalitions, even among those with whom we disagree on other matters. And above all, be disciplined, nonviolent, and strategic.
Garry Kasparov (who knows a thing or two about protesting autocrats) agrees:
This administration will exploit any opening. Successive policy failures from tariffs to Ukraine sank Trump’s approval ratings. Now, he desperately needs any favorable spin he can get. The president, not typically known for his restraint, will be especially unmoored with his political survival on the line. Committing to peaceful action and clearly rebuking violent behavior is not “when they go low, we go high.” It’s a strategic choice designed to protect protesters and give them the highest chance of success.
Kasparov’s point on Trump’s unpopularity and weakness, both at home and abroad, is incredibly important. Strong, secure leaders don’t throw themselves military-sponsored birthday parades. Trump’s approval numbers are dropping. As Dan Pfeiffer pointed out today, a YouGov poll found that only 34% of Americans approve of Trump sending Marines to L.A. Only 38% support the National Guard deployment. And on the global front, world leaders are laughing at Trumps’s chaos and doing whatever the hell they want regardless:
Nope!
Links:
ICYMI, our “So You Want to Hang a Shingle (Part One)” newsletter yesterday featured great advice from several successful solo entrepreneurs on how they started their business. Part 2 next week will be mostly paywalled, but Spin Class costs only $5/month. Isn’t it worth that to find out how people actually price their consulting work?
JD Vance rightly got dragged for a lot this week, but especially for pretending he’d never heard of Les Miserables because he is Manly and Cool. JD, it’s OK. We all know you’ve watched that international Valjean compilation video and argued with Usha about your favorites.1 [Buzzfeed]
I’ve been fascinated with former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert’s PR tour this week, including stops with Erza Klein and Isaac Chotiner. It’s not clear to me who Olmert was trying to reach with this, and to what end. Personally, if I were advising Olmert I’d say make his case on Steve Bannon’s podcast/not in the New York Times, but it all depends on whose opinion he’s trying to influence.
More broadly, there’s no way to separate Israel’s preemptive strikes on Iran this week from Netanyahu’s domestic political woes, including narrowly surviving a no-confidence vote yesterday that was arguably his most serious political threat since October 7. As others have pointed out, Netanyahu is wildly unpopular in Israel and needs to keep wagging the dog in order to maintain his coalition. It’s hard to see any quick resolution, and likely that Netanyahu will keep escalating. But figures like Olmert publicly saying that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza is a bell that can’t be un-rung.
Two must-listen journalism podcasts this week: Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson on Anchor Change on their business model, journalists going independent (Pirate Era!) and AI in journalism, and Washington Post DOGE reporter Hannah Natanson on Fresh Air, including how she uses Reddit in her reporting and how over 900 federal workers have reached out to her since January.
A devastating story on people driven mad in part by their engagements with GenAI: “What does a human slowly going insane look like to a corporation?” Mr. Yudkowsky asked in an interview. “It looks like an additional monthly user.” [NYT, gift link]
The Trump administration pulled funding for a nationwide high school National History Day competition of 500,000 students, but organizers managed to hold it in College Park, MD this week and welcome 3,000 finalists. [USA Today]
Scientists are studying traits for influencers; unsurprisingly, they’re correlated those those of theater kids. [Futurism via Open Tabs]
Between protests this week I’ll mentally be at Barbara Kingsolver’s Appalachian farm [Big Salad]
Colm Wilkinson is the classic for a reason (somewhere in my closet is a signed headshot 8 year old Emily received after writing to his fan club) but Japanese Valjean Takeshi Kaga is a dark horse runner-up.