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    US voters want more action on global heating. Why are Democrats and Republicans staying silent?

    Polls show that Democrats and Republicans in battleground states want to hear more from candidates about the climate crisisMost Americans feel unease or alarm about the climate crisis and, in both red and blue states, want to know how political leaders are going to fix it. But in midterm election campaigns across the US, candidates have responded to this desire with near silence.People in the US have this year endured a record hot summer as well as soaring costs, equating to roughly $2,000 per household, in extra energy and mortgage payments, due to the country’s dependence on a fossil fuel supply scrambled by Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran. Continue reading… More

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    ‘Gaza is a moral tear in the universe’: Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor | Radical Thinking with Aditya Chakrabortty – podcast

    Are we really living through ‘end times fascism’? Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor think so.In a new series from the Guardian, the pair speak to Radical Thinking with Aditya Chakrabortty in an extended interview. From Trump 2.0 and the rise of the tech billionaire to Gaza and the climate emergency, Klein and Taylor argue we are not just lurching from crisis to crisis but are in a new and dangerous moment in history. But they haven’t given up hope of a fightbackRadical Thinking will be published every Saturday in the Politics Weekly feedYou can watch the full interview with Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor here.
    Aditya’s suggested reading:Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s End Times Fascism is out now and available here. It began life as a special essay in the Guardian, which you can read here.A different take on whether Trump 2.0 is fascist comes from the economist Branko Milanović on his brilliant Substack.Elon Musk gives Donald Trump millions, and Trump gives Musk vast access to power. To read more, look at Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Long Read for the Guardian and their recent book Muskism: a Guide for the Perplexed.For some sensational reporting on Trump’s second term, look at Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.How did the business class learn to love Trump and embrace chaos? Paul Heideman gives a lucid analysis in his recent book Rogue Elephant.If you want more on the new tech bros of Silicon Valley, here are four recommendations:- In their book, Klein and Taylor regularly cite Karen Hao’s Empire of AI.- There’s also The Nerd Reich, just out from Gil Durán. Continue reading… More

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    Is Trump to blame for Americans getting explosive diarrhea? | Arwa Mahdawi

    As the midterms approach, Americans’ digestive health has become a bizarre talking pointDonald Trump seems to spend an unusual amount of time thinking about toilets.Back in 2019, he bizarrely claimed: “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once.” He repeated this claim at a Michigan rally the following year. “Ten times, right, 10 times,” Trump complained. “Not me, of course not me, but you,” he added while pointing at an unfortunate audience member. Continue reading… More

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    Trump the environmentalist? How his Iran war exposed the fragility of dirty energy

    Gavin Newsom says Trump is a ‘gift’ to the climate cause for dispelling notions of fossil fuel energy securitySend us your questions about how the Iran war will affect US voters in the midtermsOf all the epithets hurled at Donald Trump since he became US president, perhaps the most unusual was delivered last week – that he is, in fact, some sort of environmentalist.Trump is the “greatest gift” to the environmental movement, argued Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, due to the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran. Continue reading… More