Dear Weekend Jolter,
In the run-up to Independence Day, yet another poll came out showing American pride hitting a new low, and it doesn't take a special kind of spectacles to see how presidential politics played a role.
Democrats' pride in country (defined by Gallup as being "extremely" or "very" proud) plummeted as soon as Donald Trump re-took office. Independents have been steadily, if more gradually, losing faith for about a decade. And Republicans are more or less sanguine about the U.S. of A. no matter how much they loathe or love the president.
Noah Rothman offers a rational theory here for why the left is so progressively gloomy. I’ll just say this: While Democrats have plenty of legitimate beefs with the Trump administration (so do some Republicans!), it is more than a little odd that many of the same folks who insist their anti-Israel activism is aimed at its government and not the Jewish people don’t even pretend at such delineations when writing off their own country and countrymen.
That said, I'm not trying to fashion a partisan argument within a brief appeal to be less partisan. Hate or love Trump, he's gone from office in three and a half years. America endures. To anyone experiencing a crisis of faith about the U.S.A., may I humbly suggest, as a salve, reconnecting with it.
It's Fourth of July weekend, and the dusk of summer is safely distant. That leaves plenty of time to seek out a new place, or a cherished and familiar one, to explore. My colleague Jessica Hornik recently posted a plug for the magazine's newish monthly series "Our Spacious Skies," a "tribute to America and all things Americana, from the grand to the goofy." A fine place to start for anyone looking for quirky ideas for where to go.
This is not a AAA-sponsored "native" advertisement, I promise, or a road-tripping guide to restaurants organized by a tire company with an adorable mascot. Just a timely appreciation for the land we call home. I was Slack-chatting the other day with Charlie Cooke, who made the observation that this nation, yes, has renowned big cities, but what truly sets it apart is its outstanding second-tier cities. Amen. I'd add to that its third, fourth, and further tiers — Tennessee Williams was profoundly wrong, and needlessly insulting toward Ohio, when he quipped that "America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland."
Is anywhere else in the world quite like New Mexico's Santa Fe, with its adobe architecture and red-hot ristras adorning doorways? Or South Carolina's Charleston, with its Lowcountry cuisine and charm? Or California's dreamy Santa Barbara? Denver? Nashville? Williams's favored New Orleans?
Philadelphia, dammit?
And all the spaces in between. My family and I recently visited Lancaster, Pa., and surrounding Amish country, which we'd somehow never done. We've been dreaming of our rental house, by a babbling creek across from a farm where the horses and cows would come to graze and drink whenever the sun was low, ever since. (Inspired by one of the aforementioned "Our Spacious Skies" articles, we also made a swing over to Hersheypark.)
That's not even touching on the national parks, the envy of the world and for good reason.
Anxious? Dyspeptic? Cross with our politicians? Understandable sentiments, all. But it takes true effort to be tired of, or blasé about, the United States — to be, somehow, over it. Granted, pride in country must draw from more than affection for its physical places, nourished as well by faith in institutions and confidence about the future. But it can't be the case that people and places count for nothing in one's measure of a country.
Properly considered, those eternal assets, among others, keep America's stock soaringly high, political fluctuations and all. Happy Fourth, compatriots. We are extremely proud to call you that.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
On the OBBB: Trump's New Budget Law: Very Big, Sometimes Beautiful
On UPenn: A Blow to Trans Insanity, a Victory for Common Sense
California provides an example worth emulating, seriously: Newsom Sees the Light on the Harms of Environmental Regulation
Notes for Zohran Mamdani: A Real Affordability Agenda
Happy birthday: Independence Day on the Eve of the Semiquincentennial
ARTICLES
Jeffrey Blehar: The Media Are in Denial About Zohran Mamdani
Noah Rothman: A Catastrophic Media Failure
Christian Schneider: Like Government? Hug a Billionaire
Benjamin Rothove: City-Run Grocery Stores Have Failed Elsewhere. Zohran Mamdani Still Wants Them in NYC
Rich Lowry: Zohran Mamdani's Class Enemies
Rich Lowry: Trump's Undiplomatic Diplomacy
Yuval Levin: Congress Doesn't Have to Work This Way
Michael F. Cannon: The Senate Budget Offers 'Dessert First, Spinach Later'
Jim Geraghty: IAEA: Iran's Nuclear Capabilities 'Have Been Destroyed to an Important Degree'
Jim Geraghty: Even Presidents Have to Obey the Law
Vilda Westh Blanc & Tim Rosenberger: Watering Down the SAT Weakens Meritocracy
Nina Shea: Christians Are Being Massacred Globally. The U.S. Must Act
Mark Antonio Wright: The Threat of a Drone-Swarm Pearl Harbor Is Here
Haley Strack: Teachers' Union Contracts Filled with DEI Policies, Race-Based Programs, Investigation Reveals
Moira Gleason: UPenn Agrees to Ban Transgender Athletes in Women's Sports, Correct Records
CAPITAL MATTERS
Sean Higgins, on Senator Hawley's misread of the working class: Josh Hawley, Friend of a Friend of the Working Man
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Armond White does not feel the need for this kind of speed: Brad Pitt's Hazardous Marketing Scheme
ICYMI, Brian Allen cuts through to the Fogg and finds another side of Edvard Munch: Harvard's Fogg Art Museum Is the University at Its Best
THESE EXCERPTS, AND AMERICA, ARE STILL FREE
Zooming out a bit from the "Big Beautiful Bill" drama, Yuval Levin offers a better way of doing legislative business:
We live in an intensely polarized time, and the core message each party now advances to the country is that the other party is dangerously anti-American and totally impossible to work with. But we also live in a deadlocked time, when support for the two parties has stood at roughly 50–50 for many years, congressional majorities and presidential electoral majorities are tiny, and neither party can really hope to get anywhere without significantly expanding its appeal. The logic of polarization makes expanding that appeal more difficult for both parties, because it causes each to lean into its least attractive facets rather than its most broadly appealing priorities, and to serve its most reliable voters rather than try to win over voters who could go either way.
And as a practical matter, this logic of polarization leaves both parties underestimating their potential to pressure each other, particularly in Congress. If Republicans had started the process of writing this year's tax bill by seeking a bill that could gain the votes of around 25 House Democrats and a few Senate Democrats, they might have found the room to write a more ambitious bill that could also have had more to offer Republicans. By giving more, they might have gotten more.
The concessions they would have needed to make in such a scenario would have been more painful than those they are now making to themselves, but they would also have been easier to justify because they would have resulted in some real policy gains, which the bill they are now voting on will not. They could have afforded to let some of their own members vote against the bill, which could have served those members well at home, while also making it harder for some Democrats to oppose it.
It might not have worked, of course. But trying it first would have created some room for making the bill more attractive to more members and their constituents. There could have been a bit more of a legislative process in which members could have put forward things they wanted, rather than a process that has felt to congressional Republicans like it has consisted entirely of concessions.
If you have a narrow majority, and you pursue legislation on a party-line vote, then you are by definition advancing a bill with narrow appeal. . . . If they really can't imagine a tax bill that 25 House Democrats and a few Senate Democrats might have felt compelled to vote for and Donald Trump would have been willing to sign then congressional Republicans deserve what they're getting — which is an ugly, messy, incoherent deficit-ballooning bill that many of them detest but nearly all of them will have to vote for.
Congress doesn't have to work this way. But for it to work differently, each party will need to admit to itself that the other isn't going away, and that the existence of the other might actually offer some opportunities for more ambitious policymaking, more effective coalition-building, and more successful electoral politics.
Zohran Mamdani and his fans would do well to learn what prices actually are. Our editorial explains how affordability can be achieved, and it's not by mandates:
Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani says his agenda is about lower costs and affordability. It's going to be hard to reduce prices without knowing what prices are.
Prices are not arbitrary numbers made up by rich people or greedy corporations. If they were, then Mamdani's promises to change them by government fiat might make sense. He wants rent control, a $30 minimum wage, government-priced groceries, free buses, free child care, free baby supplies, and publicly funded challenges to utility pricing decisions.
The true path to affordability is not to mandate affordability. If it were that easy, everyone would do it. Experience has shown how price controls work: They backfire and cause shortages.
Understanding what prices are is the first step to lowering them. They are signals that communicate information about the relative scarcity of a good or service. And they encourage or discourage behavior by the people who buy and sell those goods or services.
Lowering prices by government directive is like taking mercury out of a thermometer to lower the temperature of a room. It won't lower the temperature, and it breaks the thermometer. As the temperature continues to be uncomfortable, people won't even know what it is anymore.
That's what happens in housing markets with strict rent control. Nobody knows how much housing is even available as apartments are taken off the market and hoarded by people with good rates. The price signals are useless because the government prohibited them from being useful.
Vilda Westh Blanc and Tim Rosenberger question the "digital SAT":
Generations of Americans have sat for the SAT, long the surest social escalator for talented, but overlooked, kids to win seats at the nation's most elite universities. The SAT has been woven into the fabric of the American educational experience, serving as a common benchmark that allowed students to compete on a, relatively level, playing field to show their academic promise. Sadly, misguided DEI changes to the SAT threaten to unravel this legacy, eroding both the principle of meritocracy and what few shreds of intellectual rigor remain in our educational system.
For decades, the SAT has served as a great equalizer and standardized measure that allows students, regardless of background, to showcase their abilities and earn a place at top institutions. For elite universities, studies in 2024 show that SAT scores were 3.9 times more predictive of a student's success than high school GPA. Admissions offices from Harvard, Yale, and Brown have even publicly acknowledged this fact, with Yale stating, "Test scores are the single largest predictor of a student's academic performance." Even as universities experimented with test-optional policies during the Covid-19 pandemic, the return to mandatory testing at prestigious schools signaled a recognition of the SAT's value as a fair and objective benchmark.
The new digital SAT, now shorter, remote, and adaptive, reduces the pressure and challenge that once made it a meaningful test of academic readiness and resilience. If a student struggles in the first section, the test adjusts to become easier; if they excel, it becomes harder. This adaptive model penalizes preparedness and effort, effectively punishing those who rise to the challenge while coddling those less prepared. Such a system abandons the meritocratic ideal and rewards mediocrity over excellence, erasing the incentive to strive.
The College Board claims that 80 percent of students feel less stressed taking the new digital SAT, but isn't the whole point of the SAT to see how students perform under pressure? The aim of the SAT is to predict "college readiness," and handling stress is a crucial skill for success in college and beyond. By making the test easier and less stressful, we risk removing an important measure of resilience and readiness. Shielding students from challenge may feel good in the short term, but it ultimately undermines the SAT's purpose as a true test of merit and preparation for real-world demands.
CODA
Explosions in the Sky seems like a holiday-appropriate band to mention here. So give this a whirl.
Looking ahead, I'll be out for a couple Jolts, handing the controls to the trusted Audrey Fahlberg. Catch you later this month.
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