What does the rest of the world think of the U.S. right now?
My worry pool runneth over. Plus, podcast recommendations, fun YouTube videos and a DIY before and after.
Well, hello there! If you’re reading this, thank you thank you thank you. It means you care enough about me and my silly little thoughts to want to follow me somewhere other than Instagram, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I decided to ditch Instagram on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, for my own mental health and, well, because I didn’t like being there these days. Though I love Instagram for sharing slices of my boring ol’ life and finding lots of recipe and design inspiration, I felt like I needed to reclaim some of my time and emotional energy back in other ways. Hence, why I’m resurrecting this newsletter from the dead! (Though is it really a resurrection if it was never really alive to begin with?)
I’m about to rant and ramble a bit ahead, but feel free to skip to the bottom for some non-news-related recommendations, a before and after of some DIY I’ve been up to, and a lil Miagram to hopefully spark some joy. xx
It’s been an exhaustive couple of weeks, to say the least. Big Brother Mark Zuckerberg saved free speech — or at least his ever-evolving definition of it. Trump’s administration is trying to rewrite the definition of American citizenship, among many other unquestionably unconstitutional things. TikTok was banned for half a day in the U.S. — and is now still technically illegal (which is the perfect segue to talk about my new side business where I record my screen as I scroll through TikTok and upload it to YouTube for my American audience, please like and subscribe!! jk) Oh, and Google has reclassified America as a “sensitive nation,” alongside countries like China, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. We love it here.
I don’t need to summarize Trump’s dizzying slew of executive orders from his first few days in office — you’re probably doing enough doomscrolling for the both of us on that front. But make no mistake: His blitz-like rollout of executive orders feels like a battleground tactic because, well, it is one. It’s a strategy that’s designed to emotionally and physically exhaust his opponents (and overwhelm the journalists who hold him accountable to the public) while making his voter base think he’s actually getting to work. Basically, it’s a big PR stunt, or, as Luke Broadwater for The New York Times puts it, “an intentional plan to knock his opponents off balance and dilute their response.” Should you worry about the scrubbing of vaccine information and LGBT references from federal websites including the CDC? Or should you focus your energies on the fact that the Trump administration is trying to dismantle the Education Department? Or what about the fact that thousands of E.P.A officials were told they could be fired immediately?
Your worry pool is only so big and can only hold so much. And I don’t know about you, but my pool runneth over.
Perhaps it’s all just a taste of the type of authoritarianism and censorship Americans can expect under a second Trump presidency, on everything from the social media they can use to the porn they can watch. It’s a level of political failing that’s practically unimaginable to me and my ‘90s public school upbringing. We used to be a Proper Country™️ where students were practically raised on old reruns of Schoolhouse Rock when the substitute teacher couldn’t find the lesson plan! And those three-minute episodes? They did more to shape my understanding of the American democratic experiment than 13 years in the American public school system ever did — but I’m beginning to think it was all just a load of — and pardon my French — B.S.
America isn’t the type of country that blocks entire parts of the internet from its citizens, other countries far away from here do that. America was founded on the ideas of separation of church and state! Other places, on the other hand, allow religious extremists to run their governments and dictate the rule of law. America could never be ruled by the whims of one dictatorial party, without regard for the rule of law and order — we have checks and balances in place for that because we’ve thought of everything! But, what happens when those checks and balances have been, quite publicly, chipped away at for decades? There’s a reason the founding of the U.S. government was called “the great experiment” by George Washington. And lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how many experiments just simply fail.
Ezra Klein put it best after Trump’s inauguration: “We talk about America’s system of government as if it is a solid thing, bound by the Constitution and institutions the way a belt cinches around a waist. But much of it is just a pile of norms in a trench coat: Knock down the norms, and everything changes.”
It’s weird to witness the U.S.’s not-so-slow slip into fascism from across the pond, where I feel simultaneously very, very grateful to be distanced from it but also distressed about the fact that I feel grateful to be distanced from it. Someone asked me recently to explain from my (limited, privileged) perspective how folks globally view the U.S. right now. I’m still sort of grappling with the question. I think the best way to sum it up is: disappointed, but not terribly surprised?
So many Americans live life confined to their little bubbles, colored through the artificial lens of American exceptionalism. I can’t remember my exact words to this friend, but I harped on for a bit about how Americans think of certain issues as happening in other places and to other people — but never here and never to them. But so many other parts of the world are far more connected internationally than America, and those people know just how quietly and quickly something can shift from not being your problem to very much being your problem.
As I said, I’m still grappling with my own feelings about everything going on, but I’ll leave you with this: Let this be the moment that the wool was pulled from your eyes. America is not exceptional. America is not special. America is not unique, and America is not immune. Don’t keep saying that those things never happen here — because they already are.
ANYWAY…
I used Instagram a lot to give small (and big!) house updates, so I guess I’ll do that here for now. We’ve been doing up our 100-year-old house in London room by room, mostly when we have the time and money. This weekend, we spent some time refreshing the sad looking wardrobe in our bedroom to make it look nicer until we can afford to have bigger, better wardrobes eventually rebuilt. I’m so pleased with the outcome! I will not disclose how long it took to replace the hinges (lesson learned — not as easy as it seems). Also: The outside does not reflect the absolute mess that is the inside of the wardrobe, but, well, one problem at a time.
For curious minds, the paint color is Farrow and Ball’s Raw Tomatillo in Modern Eggshell and the knobs and backplates are from the ever-decadent Matilda Goad.
Would Recommend…
💸 Ditching Instagram and TikTok and spending your time and money with independent media
10/10 recommend getting your news and analysis from people who are smarter than you. Might I recommend a few to start out, such as NPR, 404 Media, London Centric, Borderless Mag, Garbage Day, queering the burbs, and User Mag.
📺 This BBC Archives video from 1970 that interviews women who were Victorian teens
Victorians — they were just like us, just better dressed and a lot…muddier?
🍳 Cooking this recipe from the New York Times for Green Shakshuka
Is there anything that jalapeños, lime and cilantro don’t make tastier?
🎧 Search Engine, a thoughtfully-produced podcast that tackles life’s biggest and smallest questions
Like, “How sad are the monkeys in the zoo?” and “What does it feel like to believe in God?” Bonus: they just did a crossover episode with another of my favorite podcasts that’s all about weight and body image, Weight For It
🍰 Popping an edible and deep-diving on this Korean bakery’s relaxing AF YouTube channel
Fair warning: It’ll make you feel snacky
🛋 Rearranging a room layout
It can have significant impacts on your mental health. Bonus: You may find £20 worth of Swiss hand cream that you definitely forgot about. Or maybe that’s just me?
🦃 Grabbing a copy of “American Cookery” by Amelia Simmons — i.e. the very first American cookbook (from 1796!)
Before this book, all cookery books in the U.S. were published in the United Kingdom and then distributed in the colonies. It shows the origins of classic Americana recipes such as “To Roast And Stuff A Turkey,” and “Pompkin Pudding,” as well as the first published references to American culinary words like “cookie” and “slaw”
🍙 This queer Japanese YouTube couple who eat food and travel to super cool places across Japan
Their review of this ryokan inspired my husband and I to stay there during our Japanese honeymoon. I particularly love their street food tours and their convenience store taste tests
🌷Touching grass
Don’t forget what’s important
Miagram
Highly recommend putting a heated cat pad in a basket for very cute photo ops