the atlantic’s considered take on how trump’s grafting wrong.

Berlusconi’s shortcomings helped fuel his success, but he wasn’t proud of them. Trump wears his flaws like medals, and is appointing people to his coming administration who have the same attitude. Berlusconi would never have allowed the equivalent of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. near Italy’s department of health. An Italian Matt Gaetz would have been considered for a reality show on one of Berlusconi’s TV channels, at most.

  • Who Would Support Deploying the Military to Domestic Protests?

    this was one of the most interesting reads i’ve run across in recent memory. i’m not sure how much stock to put in it, but the survey results were really not where i was expecting them to land. to wit…

    The U.S. public was overwhelmingly supportive of deploying the military to contain protests that might turn violent. In our hypothetical scenarios, between 60 and 75 percent of the public approved of deploying the military, while just 15 to 25 percent disapproved. This support, moreover, was consistent across party—similarly large majorities of Democrats and Republicans supported deploying the military. This result is consistent with trends in institutional trust; while trust has declined in nearly every major social and political institution in the United States, bipartisan majorities still say they trust the U.S. military.

    …

    Our surveys, however, show that military officers are overwhelmingly opposed to deploying military forces into domestic unrest. In our scenarios, just 25 percent of the military approved of military deployments while 72 percent disapproved. The majority of these officers favored aggressive responses to protests—for example, sending in riot police armed with assault rifles and body armor—but felt it was inappropriate to deploy the military.

    stepping back from things a bit, it does seem like broadly there’s a larger gulf between the public and the military on a number of fronts. the nomination of pete hegseth for secretary of defense doesn’t seem to be received positively in any but the most MAGA of quarters. but there does seem to be widespread frustration at the apparent lack of accountability at upper levels in the military for america’s recent military endeavors.

  • API Agreement Update & How Data Appears on 3rd Party Apps

    sigh … it really feels like we’re watching the enshittification of strava underway here.

    also worth a watch is DC rainmaker’s youtube video on the topic.