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      Key takeaways: RFK Jr’s ‘Maha’ report on chronic disease in children

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      Donald Trump’s health secretary and long-time vaccine skeptic, Robert F Kennedy Jr, presented a highly anticipated report on children’s health this week.The “Maha commission” report, referring to the “Make America healthy again” movement, was required by a presidential executive order in February. The report focuses on chronic disease among children.The 68-page report broadly summarizes five areas affecting children’s health, with a focus on ultra-processed foods, environmental chemical exposure, lack of physical activity, “overmedicalization”, and “capture” of regulatory agencies.It notably omits some of the most common causes of chronic disease and death in children, insinuates there could be harms where there is lack of evidence, and avoids discussing how Republicans have already changed the health system in ways researchers believe are harmful.Art Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, told the Guardian that the report has “interesting ideas about health and children’s health and crackpot fringe tin-hat-wearing nonsense – it’s got it all”.Here are five of the key takeaways from the report.1. The report ignores some common dangers to childrenThe most common causes of death among children are car crashes and firearm accidents. The report ignores these issues, as well as behaviors that often start in adolescence and lead to chronic disease in adulthood, such as smoking and alcohol use. It also criticizes water fluoridation, without mentioning its protective effects against cavities.Also, absent from the report is a discussion of how the administration has already changed the health department in ways that advocates argue will benefit industry and could exacerbate chronic disease.For instance, Kennedy eliminated two smoking prevention offices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in what one former regulator told Stat was “the greatest gift to the tobacco industry in the last half century”. He also eliminated a world-leading sexually transmitted infection laboratory.In another example, one of the nation’s leading researchers of ultra-processed foods quit his “dream job” after facing what he described as censorship from the administration (the health department reportedly asked him to return). In a similar vein, the Trump administration cut a program that delivered local whole foods to schools soon after taking office, in spite of Kennedy calling for healthier school meals.2. The report focuses on issues key to Kennedy’s view of healthThe report is roughly broken up into five sections focusing on ultra-processed foods, environmental chemical exposures, children’s mental health, “overmedicalization” and “corporate capture” of regulators by the industries they are supposed to oversee.Kennedy has harped on many of the issues listed in the report for months in public appearances and even though his defunct presidential campaign – especially including ultra-processed foods and obesity. Although some of these concerns may find bipartisan support – such as the focus on “forever chemicals” such as Pfas – it also pushes into areas where the science is unsettled.For instance, the report mentions that high levels of fluoride are potentially associated with reduced IQ, but does not mention its well-established protective effects against cavities – the most common chronic condition in children, according to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.Similarly, the report argues that the childhood vaccine schedule is causing concern among parents for,“their possible role in the growing childhood chronic disease crisis” – without citing evidence that vaccines are linked to any specific chronic disease.3. It’s likely to face diverse pushback – and create new alliancesEven before the report was published, congressional lawmakers were being bombarded by calls from agricultural and chemical lobbyists wary of how the report would criticize their products – and indeed it did.One of the report’s sections questions whether “crop protection tools” including “pesticides, herbicides and insecticides” could harm human health. It then specifically name-drops glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, and atrazine, a common herbicide. That is sure to make for strange political bedfellows and consternation within the Republican party. Similarly, the report cites synthetic dyes and ultra-processed foods are potentially harmful.Chemicals and food additives have been issues of concern for decades on the left. However, the Maha movement has also catalyzed opposition to them on the right.4. The report’s authors are not namedThe commission’s members are made up of the heads of intersecting agencies, including Kennedy at the Department of Health and Human Services, and the heads of the departments of agriculture, housing, education, veterans affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others.However, the exact authors of the report are unknown. This contrasts with Kennedy’s repeated promise at his confirmation hearing that his health department would practice “radical transparency”.The work of the “Maha” commission was reportedly spearheaded by senior Kennedy adviser Calley Means, a former food lobbyist and healthcare entrepreneur who rose to prominence as a Maha truth-teller. Means co-wrote a bestselling book with his sister, current US surgeon general nominee Casey Means, which blames many of America’s ills on sedentary lifestyle and poor diet.5. Changing any of the issues identified is likely to be toughOne of the key issues the report identifies is the influence of food, pharmaceutical and chemical companies on American policy. They are monied and powerful.As a result, getting real change through Congress is certain to be tough – especially in an administration devoted to reducing regulations. More

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      Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’

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      Federal authorities have arrested people at US immigration courts from New York to Arizona to Washington state in what appears to be a coordinated operation, as the Trump administration ramps up the president’s mass deportation campaign.On Tuesday, agents who identified themselves only as federal officers arrested multiple people at an immigration court in Phoenix, taking people into custody outside the facility, according to immigrant advocates.In Miami on Wednesday, Juan Serrano, a 28-year-old who immigrated from Colombia, went to court for a quick check-in where a judge soon told him he was free to go. When he left the courtroom, federal agents waiting outside cuffed him and placed him in a van with several other immigrants detained that day.Journalists, advocates and attorneys reported seeing Ice agents poised to make arrests this week at immigration courthouses in Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York, Seattle, Chicago and Texas.Arrests near or in the immigration courts, which are part of the US Department of Justice, are typically rare – in part due to concerns that the fear of being detained by Ice officers could discourage people from appearing. “It’s bad policy,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “By putting immigration officers in the courtrooms, they’re discouraging people from following the processes, punishing people for following the rules.”Toczylowski noted several Ice officers both inside and outside an immigration courtroom in Los Angles this week, but said she did not see any arrests made there. She said that immigrants without lawyers are especially vulnerable, as they may not understand the exact information and context they need to provide in order to advance their case for asylum or other pathways to permanent residency in the US.ImmDef and other legal groups are sending attorneys to courtrooms they believe may be targeted by Ice officials, to try to provide basic legal education and aid to people appearing at required appointments. The presence of agents is stirring panic, she said.“People are being detained and handcuffed in the hallway,” she said. “Can you imagine what you would be thinking, if you’re waiting there with your family and children, about to see a judge? It’s terrifying.”The agents’ targeting of immigrants at court comes as the Trump administration faces multiple lawsuits and the president attempts to enact the large-scale deportations he promised during his campaign.“All this is to accelerate detentions and expedite removals,” said Wilfredo Allen, an immigration attorney with decades of experience representing immigrants at the Miami immigration court.The Trump administration has revived a 2019 policy that allows for “expedited removals” – fast-tracked deportation proceedings for people who have been in the US for less than two years.Immigrants who cannot prove that they have been in the US for longer than two years are subject to having their cases dismissed and being immediately expelled from the country.Under the Biden administration, expedited removals were limited to people apprehended within 100 miles (160km) of the US border, and who had been in the US for less than two weeks.In Phoenix, immigrant advocates gathered outside immigration court to protest the presence of Ice agents. “We witnessed parents and children being detained and abducted into unmarked vans immediately after attending their scheduled immigration proceedings,” said Monica Sandschafer, the Arizona state director for the advocacy group Mi Familia Vota. “We demand an immediate stop to these hateful tactics.”Three US immigration officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that government attorneys were given the order to start dismissing cases when they showed up for work Monday, and were aware that federal agents would then be able to arrest those individuals when they left the courtroom.In the case of Serrano in Miami, the request for dismissal was delivered by a government attorney who spoke without identifying herself on the record, the Associated Press reported. She refused to provide her name to the AP and quickly exited the courtroom.US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement this week that it was detaining people who are subject to fast-track deportation authority.Advocates and lawyers are advising immigrants with upcoming hearings or court appearances to bring a trusted family member or friend who is a US citizen and ideally, a lawyer, to their appointments.The Associated Press contributed More

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      Trump administration halts Harvard’s ability to enroll international students

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      The Trump administration has said it is halting Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students and has ordered existing international students at the university to transfer or lose their legal status.On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration notified Harvard about its decision following ongoing correspondence regarding the “legality of a sprawling records request”, according to three people familiar with the matter.The records request comes as part of an investigation by the homeland security department in which federal officials are threatening the university’s international student admissions.The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, posted a copy of the letter on X, formerly known as Twitter. In it Noem said: “I am writing to inform you that effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked.”“The revocation of your Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification means that Harvard is prohibited from having any aliens on F- or J-nonimmigrant status for the 2025-2026 academic school year. This decertification also means that existing aliens on F- or J- nonimmigrant status must transfer to another university in order to maintain their nonimmigrant status,” Noem continued.Noem justified the decision by saying: “This action should not surprise you and is the unfortunate result of Harvard’s failure to comply with simple reporting requirements … Consequences must follow to send a clear signal to Harvard and all universities that want to enjoy the privilege of enrolling foreign students, that the Trump administration will enforce the law and root out the evils of anti-Americanism and antisemitism in society and campuses.”The former governor of South Dakota also accused Harvard of “fostering violence, antisemitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist party on its campus”.In a separate press release, the homeland security department said: “Secretary Noem is following through on her promise to protect students and prohibit terrorist sympathizers from receiving benefits from the US government.”A Harvard spokesperson called the government’s action “unlawful” in a statement to the Guardian on Thursday.“We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the university – and this nation – immeasurably,” the spokesperson said.“We are working quickly to provide guidance and support to members of our community. This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”Pippa Norris, an author and Paul F McGuire lecturer in comparative politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, told the Guardian on Thursday that Trump “is basically cutting off international knowledge to American students, he is reducing soft power, and therefore weakening America … And for me personally, it’s going to mean tremendous problems in terms of teaching.”Norris said “about 90%” of her students are international, so if she “can no longer recruit international students, then the demand and participants, etc, is going to go down”.She continued: “Imagine that you’ve come, you’ve spent a lot of money and resources to come to Harvard, and you’ve got in, and your second or third year of the undergraduate degree, or the second year of your master’s degree, and [they] say: ‘Well, I’m sorry, you know, you’re not going to be able to study here next year.’ I mean, it’s devastating.”Leo Gerdén, an international student from Sweden, called the announcement “devastating” in the university newspaper Harvard Crimson.“Every tool available they should use to try and change this. It could be all the legal resources suing the Trump administration, whatever they can use the endowment to, whatever they can use their political network in Congress,” Gerdén said, adding: “This should be, by far, priority number one.”The university currently hosts nearly 6,800 international students, with many being on F-1 or J-1 visas, according to university records. International students make up about 27% of the university’s population.The latest decision from the homeland security department comes amid growing tensions between federal officials and Harvard over the Trump administration’s claims that the university has implemented inadequate responses to antisemitism on its campus.The Trump administration terminated a further $450m in grants to the university in May, following an earlier cancellation of $2.2bn in federal funding.A Trump-appointed antisemitism taskforce has pointed to “just how radical Harvard has become” as nationwide anti-war protesters – including students – demonstrated against Israel’s deadly onslaught on Gaza, which has killed at least 53,000 Palestinians in the last year and a half.The Trump administration has also ordered the university to dismantle its diversity, equity and inclusion programming, restrict student protests, and disclose admission details to federal officials.In response to the federal cuts, the university – with an endowment of more than $53bn – filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration.Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, said in April that “no government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”.Garber also said: “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights … The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard’s first amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production and dissemination of knowledge.”Of how this will impact Harvard’s future, Norris said: “Why would any further international students apply to America, not just Harvard, if they can’t know that they’ve got a guaranteed place?“[This halt is] going to benefit Oxford and Cambridge and many other academic institutions, because of course, the best of the brightest could apply wherever they would. America, again, is going to have problems as a result.”Jenna Amatulli contributed reporting More

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      Number of US white nationalist groups falls as extremist views go mainstream

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      The number of white nationalist, hate and anti-government extremist groups in the US has dropped not because of their declining influence, but because many of their proponents feel their beliefs have become normalized in government and mainstream society, according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).The SPLC’s annual Year in Hate and Extremism report, published on Thursday, said it documented 1,371 hate and extremist groups across the country in 2024, down from 1,430 groups in 2023.These groups use “political, communication, violent, and online tactics to build strategies and training infrastructure to divide the country, demoralize people, and dismantle democracy”, the non-profit group said.The 5% drop in hate and extremist groups in 2024 can be attributed to the fact that many feel a lesser sense of urgency to organize, because their beliefs have infiltrated politics, education and society in general, according to the report.In 2024, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives became “ground zero” for many of these groups, the report said, some using threats of violence and “creating chaos that opened the door for political strongmen and authoritarian measures”.These efforts built a foundation for nationwide policy actions to follow by Donald Trump, including legislative measures to restrict discussions of race and gender in classrooms, and cutting funding for programs that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.The SPLC said there were 533 active hate groups in 2024, including ones that express views that are anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant, antisemitic and anti-Muslim. Last year’s report saw “record numbers” of white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ+ groups, as well as an increase in direct actions such as hate crimes, flyering, protests and intimidation campaigns.The groups featured in this year’s report make up the “hard-right movement that has long been behind rhetoric and actions that target Black people, women, immigrants, Jewish people, Muslims, and low-income, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ people”, according to the SPLC Intelligence Project’s interim director, Rachel Carroll Rivas.“Their power comes from the use of force, the capture of political parties and government, and infesting the mainstream discourse with conspiracy theories.”The report’s release comes as a Japanese American college professor is scheduled to make his first public appearance after he was brutally attacked in Los Angeles last month in a possible hate crime.Aki Maehara, 71, was struck by a vehicle and called a racial slur while riding his bike in Montebello, 10 miles (16km) east of downtown Los Angeles. He suffered serious injuries to his elbow, neck, cheekbones, jaw, hips and lower back, according to the Los Angeles Times.Maehara teaches a course on the history of racism in the US at East Los Angeles Community College. “There’s a long history,” he told the paper.“They’ve picketed my classroom at East LA College. Chicano Republicans came after me and picketed me at Cal State Long Beach. The KKK came to my classroom at Cal State Long Beach when I was teaching a course on the US-Vietnam war. This is not the first time I’ve been targeted.” More

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      The Guardian view on the US and South Africa: Trump looks to his base and partners look elsewhere | Editorial

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      The most telling moment of Donald Trump’s meeting with Cyril Ramaphosa was not the cynical screening of footage promoting false claims of “white genocide” in South Africa. It was when a reporter asked the US president what he wanted his counterpart to do about it. Mr Trump replied: “I don’t know.”Leaders enter the Oval Office uneasily, especially since the kicking administered to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The South African president came armed with gratitude, two golf stars, a billionaire and compliments on the decor – and kept a cool head and a straight face as he was ambushed. Mr Ramaphosa later described it as “robust engagement”. But, in truth, it was a clash of two worlds rather than an interaction.On one side sat a political heavyweight who calmly asserted the facts; on the other, Mr Trump, espousing wild and inflammatory myths. One side wanted to do bilateral business; the other to pander to the grievances of his domestic base, many of whom doubtless relished the public scolding of an anti-apartheid veteran. No solution was proffered to the imaginary problem.The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has fallen far short in too many regards. Violent crime is rife. But the administration’s accusations invert reality. White South Africans are 7% of the population but still own 72% of the land. Experts say that it is poor black people, not wealthier whites, who are disproportionately likely to be victims of violence. Yet as the scholar Nicky Falkof has written, white South Africans have become a “cautionary tale for the White far right [internationally] … central to the landscape and language of White supremacy”. Look where DEI gets you.Mr Trump aired complaints about the “large-scale killing” of white farmers in his first term, amplifying conspiracy theories that originated in far-right forums. Since then, he has grown closer to the South African-born Elon Musk, who has accused politicians there of “promoting white genocide”. The US has now cut aid to South Africa, accusing the government of “unjust racial discrimination” and attacking its genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice. Washington has expelled the South African ambassador and given white Afrikaners asylum even as it turns away those fleeing wars.Mr Trump’s divisive conspiracy theories and failed attempt to humiliate Mr Ramaphosa appear, ironically, to be fostering unity on foreign affairs within South African politics, where the ANC and its (white-led) coalition partner, the Democratic Alliance, have had very different histories and priorities. The US still accounts for a tenth of the country’s trade. South Africa must shore up its auto sector and agriculture, given its sky-high unemployment rate. But like other governments, Pretoria is salvaging what it can in US relations now, while looking ahead to diversifying its ties. Few expect Washington to renew duty-free trade arrangements for African states this autumn.Warming relations with other western countries is one option. But increasing closeness to China, already South Africa’s top trading partner, looks like an inevitability. Members of the Brics grouping see an opportunity to strengthen ties, though South Africa is discovering that expansion does not always mean greater influence for its dominant players. Mr Trump is looking for kudos, free planes and red meat to throw to his base. Washington’s partners are increasingly looking elsewhere. It’s in US interests to show them respect and nurture longstanding relationships.

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      ‘Pro-worker priorities’? Trump’s budget offers the exact opposite | Steven Greenhouse

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      With Donald Trump pushing hard to give big tax cuts to the rich and do huge favors for crypto billionaires, it was jarring to see a photo of a Trump aide carrying a sign that said: “President Trump’s Pro-Worker Priorities”. The aide was about to place the sign on Trump’s lectern; it mentioned such “pro-worker priorities” as ending federal taxes on tips and overtime pay: catchy, but scattershot policies that will help only a fraction of the nation’s workers.Not surprisingly, that sign made no mention of Trump’s many anti-worker policies that will do serious harm to millions of workers and their families. Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, which is advancing in the House, includes the biggest cuts ever to Medicaid, a nearly 30% reduction in food assistance, and a $350bn cut in aid that helps working-class kids afford college. Trump has also pushed to end home-heating assistance and to make it harder for millions of Americans to afford Obamacare. If that isn’t painful enough, GOP deficit hawks have vowed to torpedo the budget bill unless it includes even more cuts. Under the current Trump House bill, at least 13.7 million people would lose health coverage – and the deficit hawks’ demands would increase that number.Even some prominent Republicans acknowledge that the Republican bill contains policies that will screw workers. Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, slammed the Trump-GOP push to chop hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid. “These are working people and their children who need healthcare, and it’s just wrong to go and cut their healthcare when they’re trying to make ends meet, trying to help their kids,” Hawley said. He added: “No Republican should be supporting Medicaid benefit cuts.”To give a truer picture of what Trump is all about, that Trump aide should have also been carrying a sign that said: “President Trump’s Pro-Billionaire Priorities”. Those priorities are more ambitious and will cost far more than Trump’s “pro-worker priorities” – they include over a trillion dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy, stratagems to help crypto billionaires grow ever richer, and big cuts to the IRS budget to reduce the chances that the ultra-wealthy will get audited. To please his billionaire finance buddies, Trump has sought to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created to protect typical families from financial scams and extortionate banking practices. And let’s not forget the many ways Trump is helping to steer more business to Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and Trump’s biggest campaign contributor (to the tune of $270m backing the president and other Republicans).The Center for American Progress points out that the Trump/Republican budget bill would, if implemented, “be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in US history”. Another progressive thinktank, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, notes that the budget bill would cut $1.1tn from food aid, Medicaid and other health programs while lavishing $1.1tn in tax cuts upon those earning over $500,000. Not only that, the 1m households earning over $1m a year would receive $105bn in tax cuts in 2027 – that’s more than the tax cuts going to the 127m households earning under $100,000.Republicans defend their painful program cuts as healthy, saying they will hold down the budget deficit. But there is of course a far less painful and more worker-friendly way to reduce the budget deficit: don’t extend the trillions in Trump tax cuts that overwhelmingly favor the rich.When Trump boasts about the “big, beautiful” bill, he talks only about the tax cuts, but never about how the cuts in Medicaid and Snap (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) will hurt millions of families. The Republican party consistently fails to note that one in four small-business owners and one in four veterans live in households that receive help from Snap, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Under the planned cuts to Snap, 42 million people – including one in five children in the US – could see their food assistance reduced.According to the Penn Wharton Budget model, when one factors in the Medicaid and Snap cuts along with the tax cuts, the Trump-House bill would cause Americans earning less than $17,000 a year to lose $1,030 on average in after-tax income starting in 2026. Households earning between $17,000 and $51,000 a year would lose around $700 on average. The very wealthy do far better. For those in the richest 0.1% – that is, households earning at least $4.3m a year – their after-tax income would jump by over $388,000.That doesn’t sound very pro-worker to me. It’s a perversion of the truth for Trump to boast of his pro-worker bona fides when he steadfastly refuses to push for the two things that would do most to lift workers’ living standards: push to raise workers’ pay and push to strengthen labor unions and worker bargaining power. Not only has Trump done nothing to increase the paltry $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, but he killed a Biden-era regulation that required federal contractors to pay their workers at least $17.75 an hour. Now many of those workers will see their pay sink to $13.30 an hour. What’s more, Trump has sought to sabotage unions, not strengthen them. He has moved to strip 1 million federal employees of their right to bargain while also seeking to cripple the National Labor Relations Board, which protects workers’ ability to bargain for better pay and conditions.As for Trump’s call to end the tax on tips, that will help many restaurant servers and hotel housekeepers, but the Yale Budget Lab says that provision has a narrow scope and will help less than 3% of all workers.Last year, candidate Trump said: “As soon as I get to office, we will make housing much more affordable.” But second-term Trump is doing just the opposite. His budget calls for a devastating 40% cut in rental assistance that millions of Americans rely on to pay their monthly rent. Candidate Trump also said: “Your heating and air conditioning, electricity, gasoline – all can be cut down in half.” But for millions of Americans he is increasing that burden by pushing to end a program that helps six million struggling households afford to heat and cool their homes.Many blue-collar Americans are eager to send their kids to college, but Trump and House Republicans would make that harder. Around one in eight Americans have federal student loans, which have been key to enabling millions of people to afford college. But Republicans want to eliminate subsidized loans for undergraduates and increase the minimum monthly payments that low-income borrowers already have a hard time paying.Trump boasts he is pro-worker, but he is doing absolutely nothing to help with what many workers say are their biggest priorities: making housing more affordable, reducing the cost of childcare and healthcare, making it easier to send one’s kids to college, and bringing down prices. Billionaires can rejoice that Trump is capitulating to them and their priorities, but American workers shouldn’t be fooled into believing that Trump is addressing their needs.

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

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      Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real

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      View image in fullscreenIn January, the comedian Ashley Bez posted an Instagram video of herself, trying to describe a heavy mood in the air. “How come everything feels all …?” she says, trailing off and grimacing exaggeratedly into the camera.Digital anthropologist Rahaf Harfoush saw the video, and got it immediately.“Welcome to the hypernormalization club,” Harfoush said in a response video. “I’m so sorry that you’re here.”“Hypernormalization” is a heady, $10 word, but it captures the weird, dire atmosphere of the US in 2025.First articulated in 2005 by scholar Alexei Yurchak to describe the civilian experience in Soviet Russia, hypernormalization describes life in a society where two main things are happening.The first is people seeing that governing systems and institutions are broken. And the second is that, for reasons including a lack of effective leadership and an inability to imagine how to disrupt the status quo, people carry on with their lives as normal despite systemic dysfunction – give or take a heavy load of fear, dread, denial and dissociation.“What you are feeling is the disconnect between seeing that systems are failing, that things aren’t working … and yet the institutions and the people in power just are, like, ignoring it and pretending everything is going to go on the way that it has,” Harfoush says in her video.Within 48 hours, Harfoush’s video accrued millions of views. (It currently has slightly fewer than 9m.) It spread in “mom groups, friend chat circles, political subreddits, coupon communities, and even dog-walking groups”, Harfoush tells me, along with variations of: “Oh, so that’s what I’ve been feeling!” and “people tagging their friends with notes like: ‘We were just talking about this!’”View image in fullscreenWhy hypernormalization is relevant in the USThe increasing instability of the US’s democratic norms has prompted these references to hypernormalization.Donald Trump is dismantling government checks and balances in an apparent advance toward a “unitary executive” doctrine that would grant him near-unlimited authority, driving the US toward autocracy. Billionaire tech moguls like Elon Musk are helping the government consolidate power and aggressively reduce the federal workforce. Institutions like the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, which help keep Americans healthy and informed, are being haphazardly diminished.Globally, once-in-a-lifetime climate disasters, war and the lingering trauma of Covid continue to unfold, while an explosion of generative AI threatens to destabilize how people think, make a living and relate to each other.For many in the US, Trump 2.0 is having a devastating effect on daily life. For others, the routines of life continue, albeit threaded with mind-altering horrors: scrolling past an AI-generated cartoon of Ice officers arresting immigrants before dinner, or hearing about starving Palestinian families while on a school run.Hypernormalization captures this juxtaposition of the dysfunctional and mundane.It’s “the visceral sense of waking up in an alternate timeline with a deep, bodily knowing that something isn’t right – but having no clear idea how to fix it”, Harfoush tells me. “It’s reading an article about childhood hunger and genocide, only to scroll down to a carefree listicle highlighting the best-dressed celebrities or a whimsical quiz about: ‘What Pop-Tart are you?’”In his 2016 documentary HyperNormalisation, the British film-maker Adam Curtis argued that Yurchak’s critique of late-Soviet life applies neatly to the west’s decades-long slide into authoritarianism, something more Americans are now confronting head-on.“Donald Trump is not something new,” Curtis tells me, calling him “the final pantomime product” of the US government, where the powerful are abandoning any pretense of common, inclusive ideals and instead using their positions to settle scores, reward loyalty and hollow out institutions for personal or political gains.Trump’s US is “just like Yeltsin in Russia in the 1990s – promising a new kind of democracy, but in reality allowing the oligarchs to loot and distort the society”, says Curtis.Why the concept of hypernormalization is usefulWitnessing large-scale systems slowly unravel in real time can be profoundly surreal and frightening. The hypernormalization framework offers a way to understand what we’re feeling and why.Harfoush created her video “to reassure others that they’re not alone” and that “they aren’t misinterpreting the situation or imagining things”. Understanding hypernormalization “made me feel less isolated”, she says. “It’s difficult to act when you’re uncertain if you’re perceiving reality clearly, but once you know the truth, you can channel that clarity into meaningful action and, ideally, drive positive change.”Naming an experience can be a form of psychological relief. “The worst thing in the world is to feel that you’re the only one who feels this way and that you are going quietly mad and everyone else is in denial,” says Caroline Hickman, a psychotherapist and instructor at the University of Bath specializing in climate anxiety. “That terrifies people. It traumatizes people.”People who feel the “wrongness” of current conditions acutely may be experiencing some depression and anxiety, but those feelings can be quite rational – not a symptom of poor mental health, alarmism or a lack of proper perspective, Hickman says.“What we’re really scared of is that the people in power have not got our back and they don’t give a shit about whether we survive or not,” she says.View image in fullscreenMarielle Greguski, 32, a New York City-based retail worker and content creator, posted about everyday life feeling “inconsequential” in the face of political crisis. Greguski says the outcome of the 2024 election reminded her that she lives in a “bubble” of progressive values, and that “there’s the other half of people that are not feeling the same energy and frustration and fear”.To Greguski, the US’s failings are not only partisan but moral – like the racism and bigotry that Trump’s second term has brought out of the shadows and into policy.Greguski is currently planning a wedding. It’s hard to compartmentalize “constant cruelty, things that don’t make sense”, she says. “Sometimes I’ll be like: ‘I have to put aside X amount of money for the wedding next year,’ and then I’m like: ‘Will this country exist as we know it next year?’ It really is crazy.”The effects of hypernormalizationConfronting systemic collapse can be so disorienting, overwhelming and even humiliating, that many tune it out or find themselves in a state of freeze.Greguski likens this feeling to sleep paralysis: “basically a waking nightmare where you’re like: ‘I’m here, I’m aware, but I’m so scared and I can’t move.’”In his 1955 book They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45, journalist Milton Mayer described a similar state of freeze in German citizens during the rise of the Nazi party: “You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not? – Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.”“People don’t shut down because they don’t feel anything,” says Hickman. “They shut down because they feel too much.” Understanding this overwhelm is an important first step in resisting inaction – it helps us see fear as a trap.Curtis points out that governments may intentionally keep their citizens in a vulnerable state of dread and confusion as “a brilliant way of managing a highly febrile and anxious society”, he says.When we feel powerless in the face of bigger problems, we “turn to the only thing that we do have the power over, to try and change for the better”, says Curtis – meaning, typically, ourselves. Anxiety and fear can trap us, leading us to spend more time trying to feel better in small, personal ways, like entertainment and self-care, and less time on activism and community engagement.View image in fullscreenHow to overcome hypernormalizationProgressive commentators have urgently called for moral clarity and mobilization in response to changes like the cuts to USAID funding, which has resulted in an estimated 103 deaths per hour across the globe; the dismantling of the CDC; and Robert F Kennedy’s campaign against vaccine science.“Where is the outrage?” asks the Nation’s Gregg Gonsalves. “Too many lives are at stake to rest in this bizarre moment of frozen agitation.”“I don’t know if there’s a massive shift toward racism as much as an expanded indifference toward it,” the historian Robin DG Kelley said in a February interview with New York Magazine. “People are just kind of like: ‘Well, what can we do?’”Experts say action can break the spell. “Being active politically, in whatever way, I think helps reduce apocalyptic gloom,” says Betsy Hartmann, an activist, scholar and author of The America Syndrome, which explores the importance of resisting apocalyptic thinking.Greguski and a co-worker have been helping distribute multilingual information about legal rights and helpline numbers, to be used in the event of Ice raids.“It’s easy to feel like: ‘Oh, I’m in community because I’m on TikTok,’” she says. But genuine community is about “getting outside and talking to your neighbor and knowing that there’s someone out there that can help you if something really bad goes down,” she says.“You’re actually out there talking to people, working with people and realizing there are so many good people in the world, too, and maybe feeling less isolated than before,” says Hartmann.“But I also think we need a broader vision,” Hartmann notes. She suggests looking to resistance efforts against authoritarianism in countries like Turkey, Hungary and India. “How might we be in international solidarity? What lessons can we learn in terms of rebuilding sophisticated, complex government infrastructure that’s been hacked away at by people like Elon Musk and his minions in a more socially just and sustainable way?”“We are in a period now when it’s absolutely essential to protest,” says Hartmann, citing the Harvard professor Erica Chenoweth, who argues that just 3.5% of a population engaging in peaceful protest can hold back authoritarian movements.What makes dysfunction so dangerous is that we might simply learn to live with it. But understanding hypernormalization gives us language – and permission – to recognize when systems are failing, and clarifies the risk of not taking action when we can.In 2014, Ursula Le Guin accepted the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, saying: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”Harfoush reflects on this quote often. It underscores the fact that “this world we’ve created is ultimately a choice”, she says. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”We have the research, technologies and wisdom to create better, more sustainable systems.“But meaningful change requires collective awakening and decisive action,” says Harfoush. “And we need to start now.” More

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      in US Politics

      Fury as Republicans go ‘nuclear’ in fight over California car emissions

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      California has long been one of the nation’s preeminent eco-warriors, enacting landmark environmental standards for cars and trucks that go much further than those mandated by the federal government. Vehicles across the country are cleaner, more efficient and electric in greater numbers because of it.But that could all change if Donald Trump and his Republican allies manage to revoke the state’s ability to set its own, stricter emissions standards amid a White House crusade to combat climate-friendly policies.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets and updates its own federal standards for all states on smog and emissions from cars and trucks, which the Biden administration made even stricter last year, saying they will save American drivers thousands in fuel costs and maintenance over the life of a vehicle.But for decades, California has been granted the ability to make those rules even stricter to help address some of the worst smog and air quality issues in the nation, which are linked to a host of health effects that disproportionately affect people of color.On Wednesday, the Senate voted to reverse the waivers, in move that prompted fury from Democrats who call it a “nuclear” option, calling it an unprecedented, and illegal, use of the statute. The Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian have agreed, saying EPA waivers are not subject to the review law.The House approved similar resolutions earlier this month. The resolutions now go to the White House, where Trump is expected to sign them.“This move will harm public health and deteriorate air quality for millions of children and people across the country,” said senators Alex Padilla, Sheldon Whitehouse and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a statement.“This Senate vote is illegal. Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won’t stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again,” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement on Thursday. “We’re going to fight this unconstitutional attack on California in court.”Kathy Harris, the director of clean vehicles at the Natural Resources Defense Council, emphasized California’s ability to mandate strict emissions standards for cars, trucks and buses had existed for nearly 60 years, noting the state had been granted more than 75 waivers under Republican and Democratic presidents.Among the waivers include rules to increase the share of electric vehicles each year among all new car and truck sales, as well as mandates that auto companies introduce progressively cleaner vehicles.She described the waivers as a “quadruple win”, benefiting public health, air quality, drivers’ pockets and the economy as a whole.“These waivers are not new or novel,” Harris said in an interview. “California has historically been innovators in systems to help produce cleaner air and stymying California’s ability is a direct attack on our ability to limit pollution and health harming pollutants in the air.”View image in fullscreenShe added revoking the waivers would immediately lead to an increase in pollution on the nation’s roadways.More than a dozen states follow California’s lead on emissions standards, according to the California air resources board. The standards now cover nearly 40% of new light-duty vehicle registrations and more than a quarter of heavy-duty vehicles like trucks across the entire US.Automakers have largely followed California’s emissions standards as well so they can continue to sell cars there, as the state equates to the fourth-largest economy on the planet.Newsom upped the ante in the nation’s environmental future in 2020, declaring his state would ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Eleven states have also joined California’s plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by the 2035 deadline, a reality that has spooked major car companies.Joe Biden’s administration approved the plan at the end of his term. Trump, however – a vehement opponent to many of the nation’s climate efforts – has vowed to see them reversed.“California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Trump said during his campaign last year. “I will terminate that.”Newsom on Wednesday cast the battle as a nail in the coffin for the American car industry and decades of public health advancements.“The United States Senate has a choice: cede American car-industry dominance to China and clog the lungs of our children, or follow decades of precedent and uphold the clean-air policies that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon fought so hard for,” he challenged Republicans in a statement. “Will you side with China or America?”The Senate’s decision may have sweeping effects far beyond the state’s borders.Harris said she recently pulled up pictures of what air quality looked like in cities around the country in the 1960s before the Clean Air Act, the seminal environmental law that regulates the nation’s air quality, was in effect. She described normal levels of smog in California as blanketing the state similar to the apocalyptic clouds of wildfire smoke that have descended during recent fire seasons.The American Lung Association also found last month that Los Angeles remained the country’s smoggiest city for the 25th time in 26 years of tracking, despite decades of improvements in air quality.“I think we have forgotten about what our air used to look like,” Harris said. “We take it for granted because it’s a policy that’s been around for so long we don’t really recognize those direct benefits.“There is still a long way to go, we have not succeeded in fully cleaning up our air yet,” she added. “These types of policies help ensure we are moving in a positive direction.” More