The Atlantic

Trump’s genius has always been marketing: himself, his properties, his political campaigns, David A. Graham writes. But when it comes to the effects of his tariffs, he has either lost a step or is facing a challenge that he hasn’t figured out how to spin.

A secret experiment that turned Redditors into guinea pigs was an ethical disaster—and could undermine research that’s only getting more urgent, Tom Bartlett reports.

“When you mix politics and science, you just get politics.” The former director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, spoke about the 234,000 Americans who are estimated to have died because of misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine between June 2021 and March 2022. Watch his full conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg at the link and learn more at @atlanticlive. https://lnkd.in/eY8n5M2Z

When Adolf Hitler became chancellor, the German stock market had rallied on news of his coming to power—but soon, rumors of potential tariffs and the abrogation of international agreements, along with Hitler’s challenges to the constitutional order, “sent alarm bells clanging,” Timothy W. Ryback writes. https://lnkd.in/eJNkV7Xy Hitler insisted that tariffs would save Germany from the state its predecessors had left the nation in, despite the fact that Hitler had inherited a recovering economy. Hans Joachim von Rohr, who worked at the Reich’s nutrition ministry, went on national radio to explain the logic of Hitler’s tariff strategy. “The products that Germany lacks must be made more expensive; then farmers will produce them in sufficient quantities,” Rohr explained. “And if foreign competition is kept at bay by tariffs and the like, city residents will prefer domestic production.” Von Rohr and others reasoned that if Germany raised the import duty on ‘Schmalz,’ a staple of the German diet, German farmers would be motivated by the price increase to raise “three-hundred-pound pigs,” the main source of lard, instead of the more common “two-hundred-pound pigs,” the major source of bacon. But this switch, critics calculated, would in fact drive these farmers into bankruptcy: “Hitler’s proposed ‘national economy,’ with its self-defeating tariff policies, would plunge the country into a ‘severe crisis’ that could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Ryback writes. “And that was even before any damage wreaked by retaliatory tariffs.” Hitler announced his tariffs just two weeks into his chancellorship, taking particular aim at the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands. Countries such as Denmark faced substantial losses as its livestock was essentially banished from the German market. “Farmers panicked. The Danes and Swedes threatened ‘retaliatory measures,’ as did the Dutch, who warned the Germans that the countermeasures would be felt as ‘palpable blows’ to German industrial exports,” Ryback continues. “That proved to be true.” Read the full story: https://lnkd.in/eJNkV7Xy 📸: Ullstein Bild / Getty;

Before coming to Columbia, Anastasiia Vorozhtsova went to Smolny College, a liberal-arts school in St. Petersburg. “Russian authorities intervened, and my alma mater started unraveling. Smolny’s story offers a warning that Columbia must heed”:

Earlier this month, after it became clear that the Trump administration would not be facilitating the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a Salvadoran megaprison, Elaine Godfrey texted a close childhood friend who’d voted for Donald Trump in each of the past three presidential elections. “Trump might be taking it too far,” her friend replied. “But then again,” he added, “he’s a man of action and we wanted change.” https://lnkd.in/eKVmgWRB Even as Trump faces signs of eroding support, many of his voters are jubilant. “For these happy millions, the first 100 days of Trump’s second presidency have been a procession of fulfilled campaign promises—and have brought the country not to the precipice of economic ruin or democratic collapse, but to a golden age of greatness,” Godfrey reports. “Even if they don’t agree with everything he’s doing, he’s doing something,” Rich Thau, the president of the nonpartisan qualitative-research firm Engagious, told Godfrey. Thau, who conducts focus groups of swing voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024, told Godfrey that half of the participants in any given group cannot name a single thing that Biden achieved while in office. For many of them, the past 100 days have seemed like “an incredible flurry of activity by comparison to the guy who came before,” a sentiment Godfrey heard in her own interviews. Despite the stream of shocking deportation stories, “many Trump voters see the president’s handling of immigration as a highlight,” Godfrey continues. Some supporters view the president’s tariffs as another exciting shift, and worth any discomfort they might cause. “Of course, Trump and his Republican allies cannot afford to make appeals to only their most ardent supporters,” Godfrey continues—and overall, Americans are unhappy with the nation’s economy. “With roughly 1,300 days left in Trump’s presidency, many of his critics are hopeful that his recent dip in approval marks an inflection point,” Godfrey continues. And “many Americans probably haven’t paid much attention to the details of Trump’s first 100 days. But it’s also true that, if and when they eventually tune in, some of them are going to like what they hear.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/eKVmgWRB 📸: Richard Jopson / Camera Press / Redux

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The new film “Sinners” is a symphony of vampire bites, gunshot wounds, and people being staked in the heart and left to burn alive, Adam Serwer writes. But the true horror is the Jim Crow economy, which drives every event in the film.

A high-ranking member of the Trump administration is turning federal-government data into a political weapon against perceived ideological enemies—a move that deliberately mirrors Elon Musk's so-called “Twitter Files,” Charlie Warzel writes.

Today’s era of technologically mediated socializing lacks real-life human contact and love—without which, Arthur C. Brooks writes, no one can truly flourish. But understanding human connection is also the starting point for addressing young people’s unhappiness. https://lnkd.in/ex6iJYnh Scholars have found that “self-reported happiness declines gradually in young and middle adulthood, then turns upward later in life, starting around age 50,” Brooks explains. This would suggest “that adolescents and young adults were traditionally, on average, happier than people in middle age.” But, especially in the United States and other wealthy nations, young people’s happiness is falling. According to the Global Flourishing Survey, self-reported flourishing scores tend not to fall from early adulthood, because they now start low—and they stay low until they start to rise at the expected, older age. One explanation for the more pronounced happiness problem in wealthy Western countries is growing secularization. New research shows that people who attend a worship service at least weekly score higher in flourishing measures than nonattenders. What exactly, Brooks asks, is missing for so many people in wealthy countries when religion declines? “Community connection and social capital are two answers. But a deeper answer is meaning.” With this in mind, one way to increase your happiness is to put close relationships with family and friends before virtually everything else. “Avoid using technological platforms for interactions with these loved ones; focus on face-to-face contact,” Brooks writes. “Humans are made to relate to one another in person.” You should also consider how you might develop your inner life: “Define spirituality broadly as beliefs, practices, and experiences not confined to organized religion—even a philosophical journey that can help you transcend the daily grind and find purpose and meaning.” It’s also important to remember that although material comforts are great, “they’re no substitute for what your heart truly needs,” Brooks writes. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ex6iJYnh 🎨: Jan Buchczik