The newsletter aggregation before us captures what Antonio Gramsci (1971) might have recognized as a quintessential interregnum: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” (p. 276). Across The Economist, The New York Times, Semafor, Bloomberg, Newsweek, CNBC and Geopolitical Monitor newsletters from December 18-24. 2025, these dispatches document an inflection point where multiple established orders—geopolitical, technological, economic, and cultural—simultaneously destabilize while their successors remain inchoate and contested. The “morbid symptoms” Gramsci identified manifest here as volatile markets, contradictory policy signals, technological disruption outpacing institutional adaptation, and a pervasive sense of uncertainty that characterizes decision-making from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables.

This commentary examines five interrelated dimensions of this historical moment: (1) the reconfiguration of global power relations through economic statecraft; (2) the speculative mania surrounding artificial intelligence and its material infrastructure; (3) the fragmentation of consensus realities through media consolidation and attention capitalism; (4) the affordability crisis as a crisis of social reproduction; and (5) the collision between technological acceleration and democratic deliberation. Throughout, I draw connections to relevant scholarship that illuminates both the particular and the systemic nature of these transformations.

President Trump’s tariff regime, particularly the April “Liberation Day” announcement with its sweeping duties across trading partners, represents more than conventional protectionism. As political economist Kathleen McNamara (2018) argues in The Politics of Everyday Europe, economic policy instruments increasingly serve as vehicles for identity politics and sovereignty assertion rather than purely efficiency-maximizing objectives (pp. 112-135). The newsletters document how tariffs became simultaneously a revenue mechanism, an industrial policy tool, a diplomatic bargaining chip, and a symbolic assertion of national will—what we might term “omnibus economic statecraft.”

The volatility in tariff rates by country—what one newsletter characterizes as “almost randomly assigned”—suggests not rational economic optimization but rather what Dani Rodrik (2011) identifies as the inevitable tension between “hyperglobalization, national sovereignty, and democracy” forming an impossible trinity where only two can coexist (p. 200). Trump’s approach attempts to reassert national sovereignty and claim democratic mandate while managing, not dismantling, economic integration—hence the constant recalibrations that so unnerved markets.

The material consequences ripple through multiple accounts: supply chain disruptions requiring pre-tariff inventory rushing; retailers exploring “buy now, pay later” financing to mask price increases; commodity traders adjusting to new arbitrage opportunities; and manufacturers reshoring or “friendshoring” operations. As Semafor’s coverage of Chinese solar manufacturers and Indian toy makers illustrates, the global production network that emerged from three decades of trade liberalization cannot be easily reconfigured—what economic geographers Jennifer Bair and Gary Gereffi (2001) termed the “stickiness” of global commodity chains reflects not just sunk capital but accumulated knowledge, relationships, and institutional complementarities (pp. 1885-1889).

The naval blockade of Venezuela, complete with the “largest Armada” in South American waters since the Cuban Missile Crisis, exemplifies what Nicholas Mulder (2022) in The Economic Weapon calls sanctions as “economic siege warfare”—the application of comprehensive economic pressure to compel political transformation (pp. 15-42). Yet the newsletters reveal the blockade’s contradictions: China’s dependence on Venezuelan crude creates cross-pressures on Beijing; Colombia refuses military support despite shared borders; and the humanitarian costs mount while Nicolás Maduro’s regime adapts through “shadow fleet” tankers and alternative payment systems.

The sanctions’ legal architecture—secondary sanctions threatening third parties who trade with Venezuela—recalls what legal scholar Dapo Akande (2021) terms “extraterritorial economic coercion,” where jurisdictional claims extend U.S. legal authority globally through control of financial infrastructure (pp. 312-340). This provokes backlash visible in the newsletters’ coverage of Chinese accusations of “bullying” and European criticism of “unilateralism”—sovereignty conflicts that accelerate the fragmentation of the post-1945 liberal international economic order.

Europe’s struggle to finance Ukrainian defense through frozen Russian assets illuminates what political scientist Ivan Krastev (2017) identifies as the European Union’s structural incapacity for decisive action: “The EU is a union of states that have renounced the use of force but have not yet accepted the pooling of sovereignty” (p. 48). The Belgium-led opposition to weaponizing Russian assets, despite the $246 billion available, reflects not just legal concerns but deeper anxiety about precedent-setting and potential Chinese or Gulf retaliation.

The eventual €90 billion loan package through jointly-issued EU debt represents a significant integration step—effectively mutualization of fiscal obligations for security purposes. Yet as economist Adam Tooze (2023) argues in Shutdown, such crisis-driven integration creates moral hazard and political resentment, storing up legitimacy problems while addressing immediate material needs (pp. 178-203). The newsletters capture European leaders’ recognition that “the EU will have to reinvent itself once again to chase its ambition of a global Europe,” acknowledging that their current institutional arrangements are inadequate to the geopolitical moment.

The broader pattern across these cases suggests a transition from what historian Quinn Slobodian (2018) terms the “neoliberal world order”—where global economic governance aimed to insulate markets from political interference—toward neo-mercantilist arrangements where economic policy serves explicitly political ends, including industrial strategy, alliance management, and coercive diplomacy (pp. 1-7, 271-286). This represents not deglobalization but rather politicized globalization, with attendant uncertainties that market actors find difficult to navigate.

The AI boom dominates these newsletters with almost obsessive intensity: Oracle’s data center debt concerns; OpenAI’s escalating valuations despite uncertain monetization; the $500 billion in tech giant commitments to data center leases; Nvidia’s $5 trillion market cap; the construction boom consuming projected electricity equivalent to entire national grids; and Meta’s data centers encroaching on Georgian homesteads. This frenzy recalls economist Carlota Perez’s (2002) analysis in Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital of how transformative technologies proceed through an “installation period” characterized by financial speculation, overcapacity, and infrastructural buildout before settling into a “deployment period” of productivity gains and market maturation (pp. 47-79).

Several newsletters explicitly grapple with the bubble question. DealBook’s analysis notes that 57% of asset managers identify “waning enthusiasm for A.I.” as the biggest market threat, while acknowledging that current spending may genuinely anticipate transformative productivity gains. The comparison to the dot-com bubble proves instructive: James van Geelen’s observation that “show me an instance over the past 300 years of a truly transformative technology that didn’t result in an asset bubble” reflects what economic historian Charles Kindleberger (1978) termed the inevitable “mania” phase when transformative technologies attract speculative capital before their ultimate applications become clear (pp. 15-38).

Yet crucial differences exist between current AI investment and previous bubbles. As Morningstar’s Brian Colello notes, the capital intensity of AI chips and their rapid obsolescence may impose natural constraints on overinvestment—companies cannot easily warehouse idle computational capacity like excess fiber-optic cable. Moreover, unlike dot-com firms that burned cash without revenue, major AI developers like Anthropic and OpenAI demonstrate genuine user traction and enterprise adoption, even if monetization models remain uncertain.

The newsletters reveal how AI development is inseparable from geopolitical competition. China’s “Manhattan Project” for semiconductor self-sufficiency, U.S. export controls on advanced chips, the prototyping of extreme ultraviolet lithography systems by Chinese scientists working under aliases, and the race for rare earth minerals that power data infrastructure—all indicate what digital political economists Julie Cohen (2019) and Shoshana Zuboff (2019) identify as computation becoming a domain of strategic competition comparable to nuclear weapons or aerospace in earlier eras (Cohen, pp. 23-47; Zuboff, pp. 93-129).

Trump’s designation of AI superiority as “a pillar of his business agenda,” the $100 billion Stargate Project announcement, and the Commerce Department pressure on states not to impede AI development reflect what philosopher Langdon Winner (1980) termed “technological politics”—the recognition that technological systems embody political arrangements and that controlling their development shapes available social possibilities (pp. 121-136). The administration’s simultaneous approval of Nvidia H200 chip exports to China while restricting other technology transfers illustrates the internal contradictions of trying to maintain technological dominance while permitting corporate profit-taking.

The material substrate of AI also deserves attention. Several newsletters note data centers’ voracious electricity consumption—projected to double by 2030—and water usage that stresses local communities. David Chambers’ photographs of Meta’s Georgia facility show it abutting residential homes, a spatial juxtaposition capturing what urban theorist Neil Brenner (2019) calls “operational landscapes”—infrastructure whose scale and resource demands transform surrounding environments while remaining opaque to those affected (pp. 89-112). The Xcel Energy preemptive shutoffs in Colorado to prevent wildfire risks from power lines illustrates how climate change intersects with energy-intensive computation to create new vulnerability cascades.

The newsletters document automation’s employment implications through multiple lenses: Amazon’s internal projections that robots could replace half a million workers; the rise of “vibe coding” that threatens software developer jobs; concerns about AI-driven productivity gains failing to translate into wage growth for displaced workers; and the emergence of humanoid robots for home assistance. These developments recall what economist Wassily Leontief (1983) presciently warned: workers may face the fate of horses after automobiles—technologically superseded with no alternative employment awaiting (pp. 403-404).

Yet the labor market data presents contradictory signals. November 2025’s unemployment rise to 4.6% coincides with continued job creation, particularly in healthcare, suggesting not mass unemployment but rather sectoral reallocation. Wage growth remains strongest for higher-skilled workers, consistent with skill-biased technological change. As economist David Autor (2015) argues, automation typically augments rather than replaces human labor, with new tasks emerging that require human judgment even as routine tasks automate (pp. 3-30). The question becomes whether institutional arrangements—including education, social insurance, and wage-setting mechanisms—can manage transitions quickly enough to prevent immiseration of displaced workers.

The DealBook Summit interview with Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) provides an extraordinary window into attention capitalism’s logic. His explanation of content strategy reveals sophisticated algorithmic reasoning: “2 percent of all humans’ time is spent on YouTube... the more you study social media algorithms, the more you realize it’s just a reflection of what people want to watch.” His 450 million subscribers and $5 billion Beast Industries valuation represent what media scholar Mark Andrejevic (2013) terms “the work of watching work”—where content creators optimize for metrics that platforms optimize for engagement (pp. 47-69).

MrBeast’s deliberately culturally-neutral content strategy (”no matter where you are in the world, you understand love”) reflects what cultural critic Fredric Jameson (1991) identified as postmodernism’s “waning of affect”—the reduction of cultural expression to universally legible signs evacuated of specific historical or political content (pp. 10-16). Videos featuring couples chained together for $300,000 prizes or counting to 100,000 for 40 hours straight represent what media theorist Douglas Rushkoff (2013) terms “present shock”—culture organized around immediate viral impact rather than narrative or meaning (pp. 25-48).

Yet MrBeast’s philanthropic emphasis—his assertion that Beast Industries aims “to make kindness viral”—complicates dismissive readings. Philosopher Peter Singer (1972) might recognize effective altruism’s logic: if viral content can direct attention and resources toward poverty alleviation or environmental restoration, traditional narrative sophistication becomes less important than instrumental effectiveness (pp. 229-243). The tension between spectacle and substance, between algorithmic optimization and human flourishing, remains unresolved.

The Byzantine machinations surrounding Warner Bros. Discovery—Netflix’s initial bid, Paramount’s hostile counteroffer backed by Larry Ellison’s $40 billion personal guarantee, President Trump’s promise to “be involved” in regulatory review—exemplify what legal scholar Tim Wu (2016) calls “the attention merchants,” where consolidated media platforms compete for audience capture while navigating political patronage (pp. 6-18, 341-358). The newsletters document how David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance struggled to convince Warner Bros. of financing credibility despite Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s vast wealth, suggesting that perceived political alignment may matter more than financial capacity in M&A success.

Bari Weiss’s controversial editorial decisions at CBS News—pulling the “60 Minutes” segment on Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s CECOT prison pending White House comment—demonstrates what media scholars Robert McChesney and John Nichols (2016) term the “corporate media problem”: when media ownership concentrates and depends on government licensing or regulatory forbearance, editorial independence becomes structurally compromised (pp. 89-124). The internal criticism from “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi that the decision was “political” captures newsroom professionals’ recognition that commercial imperatives and access journalism corrode investigative independence.

The broader consolidation trend—with streaming platforms absorbing studios, podcast networks, and now eyeing bookstore chains—reflects what media economist Robert Picard (2011) identifies as the imperative of “platform convergence”: companies seek to control entire user experiences from content creation through distribution to monetization (pp. 67-89). Yet as legal scholar Lina Khan (2017) argues, such integration creates conflicts of interest where platforms favor their own content, distorting competition and reducing cultural diversity (pp. 710-805).

The newsletters document TikTok’s ownership restructuring throughout 2025, culminating in ByteDance’s deal creating a U.S. joint venture with Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX controlling operations while ByteDance retains equity stakes and licenses its algorithm. This arrangement exemplifies what political scientist Henry Farrell and international relations scholar Abraham Newman (2019) term “weaponized interdependence”—how network structures create chokepoints that governments can exploit for coercive purposes (pp. 42-79).

The arrangement’s viability remains uncertain because it addresses only partially the concerns that motivated the ban attempt. As cybersecurity expert Susan Ariel Aaronson (2021) notes, data sovereignty conflicts ultimately stem from incompatible governance models: authoritarian states’ information control imperatives conflict with liberal democracies’ market openness, creating irresolvable tensions in cross-border data flows (pp. 567-593). The solution of having Oracle monitor TikTok’s algorithm for manipulation attempts presumes technical fixes for what are fundamentally political problems—the worry that foreign adversaries can shape domestic information environments.

Multiple newsletters document Americans’ persistent economic pessimism despite growth statistics: inflation cooling to 2.7% but essentials like healthcare and groceries up significantly; wage growth strongest for high earners while low-wage workers’ purchasing power stagnates; the “vibecession” where consumer sentiment remains depressed despite unemployment near historic lows; and retailers relying on “buy now, pay later” services to mask price pressures. This disconnect between macro statistics and lived experience reflects what economist Gabriel Zucman (2019) terms distributive invisibility: aggregate measures can show improvement while most households experience deterioration if gains concentrate at the top (pp. 48-79).

The housing affordability crisis—with mortgage rates elevated and home prices near peaks—particularly strains household budgets. As housing scholar Matthew Desmond (2016) documents in Evicted, housing costs exceeding 30% of income trigger cascading hardships: foregone healthcare, nutritional compromise, educational sacrifice, and social isolation (pp. 295-310). The newsletters’ coverage of “K-shaped recovery”—where affluent households thrive while lower-income ones struggle—indicates bifurcating life chances that threaten social cohesion.

Sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s (2016) analysis in Strangers in Their Own Land helps explain the political salience of economic grievances even when unemployment remains low: people evaluate their circumstances not just by absolute standards but by comparison to perceived peers and expectations of progress (pp. 135-151). When media celebrates stock market records and billionaire wealth while households strain to afford groceries, the juxtaposition generates resentment that politicians can exploit.

The expiration of Obamacare subsidies, threatening premium spikes for millions, illustrates what health economist Uwe Reinhardt (2019) termed the U.S. healthcare system’s fundamental irrationality: enormous spending producing mediocre outcomes through fragmented, profit-driven delivery (pp. 23-56). The Brian Thompson assassination by Luigi Mangione in response to insurance claim denials—an event referenced in the newsletters—sparked brief public debate about healthcare access before dissipating, exemplifying what sociologist Sharon Dolovich (2011) identifies as individual crises rarely translating into sustained policy reform absent organizational vehicles (pp. 889-938).

The Trump administration’s pharmaceutical pricing negotiations, while promising relief for some medications, don’t address structural drivers: patent protections that enable monopoly pricing, pharmacy benefit manager intermediation that obscures cost structures, and fee-for-service incentives that reward overtreatment. As healthcare economist Gerard Anderson (2019) documents, the U.S. pays 2-3 times more than comparable nations for identical treatments without better outcomes, representing a massive extraction from patients to providers and shareholders (pp. 112-156).

Semafor’s coverage of “buy now, pay later” services expanding during the 2025 holiday season warrants careful attention. These services—Klarna, Affirm, and others—allow consumers to split purchases into installments, often without traditional credit checks. Retailers embrace BNPL because it increases conversion rates and average purchase sizes. Yet consumer advocates worry about overextension, particularly when users juggle multiple BNPL accounts across platforms.

Sociologist Martha Poon (2007) argues that novel credit instruments typically emerge when traditional lending becomes unprofitable or too risky for established players, shifting risk to borrowers through complex terms that obscure true costs (pp. 167-189). BNPL’s rise reflects both constrained household budgets (necessitating financing for routine purchases) and fintech innovation that bypasses banking regulations. When retailers note that “inflation accounts for most if not all revenue gains” during holiday shopping, BNPL functions as the mechanism enabling consumption that wouldn’t otherwise occur—a short-term fix storing up potential payment crises.

Cultural critic Annie Lowrey (2020) frames such developments within “The Time Tax”: how poverty imposes temporal burdens through navigating complex systems, managing cash flow across paychecks, and responding to emergencies without buffers (pp. 47-72). BNPL adds another temporal management task—tracking multiple payment schedules across platforms—while appearing to offer flexibility. The attention demanded by financial precarity itself becomes exhausting.

Elon Musk’s brief tenure leading the Department of Government Efficiency provides a case study in what political scientist James Scott (1998) termed “high modernism”—the conviction that rational-technical expertise can rationally reorganize complex social systems (pp. 4-6, 87-102). Musk’s promise to cut $2 trillion from federal spending, his “Fork in the Road” email to 2 million workers, and the livestreamed chainsaw-waving at CPAC embodied what Scott identifies as high modernism’s core elements: supreme confidence in scientific progress, rational planning unconstrained by local knowledge, and authoritarian social engineering.

The initiative’s failure—disbanded after eight months having cut $214 billion rather than the promised trillions—illustrates Scott’s central argument: complex systems like federal government contain embedded knowledge (”mētis”) that outsiders lack. Federal procurement regulations that seem bureaucratic encode hard-won lessons about fraud prevention; employment protections reflect political compromises between efficiency and other values like veterans’ preference. Musk’s approach treated government as analogous to managing a private company where executives possess unconstrained authority, ignoring that democratic institutions distribute power to constrain executive prerogative.

Public administration scholar Donald Moynihan (2018) emphasizes that much “government waste” reflects not inefficiency but conflicting values and constituencies (pp. 23-47). Programs that appear duplicative may serve different populations or employ different approaches hedging against uncertainty. Musk’s dismissal of such considerations as excuses for incompetence reveals what political theorist Hannah Arendt (1971) warned about: technical rationality’s imperialism over political judgment (pp. 177-204).

President Trump’s relentless pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell—demanding interest rate cuts, threatening not to reappoint him, conducting the bizarre construction site tour—represents sustained assault on central bank independence. As economist Alan Blinder (2013) argues, Fed independence serves crucial functions: it enables difficult decisions (raising rates amid inflation) that elected politicians can’t afford politically; it provides continuity across administrations; and it credibly commits to price stability, anchoring expectations (pp. 56-89).

The newsletters document Trump’s preference for political loyalists as next Fed chair, considering candidates like Kevin Warsh or Christopher Waller who might prove more accommodating. Economist Paul Tucker (2018) warns that politicized central banking creates time-inconsistency problems: without credible commitment to fighting inflation, price expectations become unanchored, requiring harsher eventual tightening (pp. 134-178). Markets’ current Fed rate cut expectations reflect gambles on political pressure overwhelming policy discipline—a dynamic that could prove self-defeating.

The Trump administration’s decision to shutter the National Center for Atmospheric Research, cutting off climate modeling capabilities precisely when climate disruption intensifies, exemplifies what political scientist Steve Rayner (2012) terms “climate governance gridlock”: institutional arrangements that prevent effective collective action even when the problem’s urgency is acknowledged (pp. 121-144). The closure combines ideological hostility to climate science with government efficiency rhetoric and resentment of expert consensus.

Philosopher Sheila Jasanoff (2004) emphasizes that scientific institutions don’t simply discover objective facts but co-produce knowledge alongside social and political orders (pp. 2-18, 274-306). Attacking climate science represents not anti-intellectualism per se but rather contestation over whose expertise counts and what questions are legitimate. Conservative climate skepticism often accepts scientific method while disputing specific conclusions, policy implications, or institutional authority to determine societal priorities.

The irony, as environmental historian Naomi Oreskes (2019) documents, is that climate modeling’s origins lie in Cold War military applications—the same computational capabilities developed for nuclear weapons effects became tools for understanding atmospheric dynamics (pp. 34-68). Discarding this capacity in the name of national security while investing hundreds of billions in AI data centers represents a peculiar prioritization: betting on speculative technological transformation while defunding infrastructure for managing known existential risks.

The cumulative picture emerging from these newsletters is of radical uncertainty—not mere risk that can be probabilistically modeled, but fundamental ambiguity about causal relationships and future states. Economist Frank Knight (1921) distinguished risk (known probabilities) from uncertainty (unknown probabilities), arguing that genuine uncertainty characterizes actually existing capitalism and explains profit opportunities (pp. 19-20, 232-235). The current moment features Knightian uncertainty across multiple dimensions simultaneously: technological trajectory, geopolitical configuration, monetary policy credibility, supply chain resilience, social cohesion, and climate dynamics.

Several patterns deserve highlighting:

Acceleration and Institutional Lag: Across domains—AI development, geopolitical realignments, media consolidation, climate change—change velocity exceeds institutions’ adaptive capacity. Political scientist Paul Pierson’s (2004) “politics in time” framework emphasizes that institutions exhibit path dependence and face difficulty responding to rapidly changing environments (pp. 17-53, 134-177). The newsletters document repeated instances of governance structures designed for previous eras proving inadequate: international trade law ill-suited to digital trade and tech transfer; Congressional procedures too slow for AI regulation; media ownership rules designed for broadcast scarcity applied to digital abundance.

Financialization and Speculation: From AI infrastructure debt to Trump’s crypto ventures to BNPL consumer credit, multiple newsletters highlight how finance mediates material processes. Sociologist Greta Krippner (2011) defines financialization as “accumulation via financial channels rather than trade and commodity production” (p. 27), but notes that finance remains tethered to underlying production. The speculative excess visible in some AI valuations or crypto volatility represents what Hyman Minsky (1986) termed “Ponzi finance”: asset purchases funded by expectations of price appreciation rather than productive cash flows (pp. 230-234). Whether AI’s infrastructural buildout proves productive investment or malinvestment depends on whether transformative productivity gains materialize—a question that may not resolve for years.

The Fragmentation of Authority: Multiple newsletters reference declining trust in institutions: media fragmentation undermining shared narrative frames; political polarization preventing collective action; international organizations losing enforcement capacity; expertise under siege from populist movements. Political theorist Michael Walzer (2015) suggests pluralist societies require “shared meanings” to function—common understandings that enable coordination despite disagreement (pp. 28-31, 312-316). When Facebook algorithms, cable news segmentation, and international law’s erosion fracture shared meanings, governance capacity atrophies.

The Return of Geopolitics: For a generation after the Cold War, neoliberal triumphalism suggested economics could transcend politics—markets would integrate societies regardless of regime type, creating interdependence that prevented conflict. The newsletters document that assumption’s comprehensive collapse: tariffs as sovereignty assertion, sanctions as siege warfare, technology transfer controls, rare earth competition, and military confrontation risks across Eurasia. This recalls what political economist Robert Gilpin (1987) termed hegemonic transition: when rising powers challenge established ones, economic and security competition intensify together (pp. 72-103, 344-388).

Consumption as Identity: From MrBeast’s viral spectacles to “buy now, pay later” shopping to attention metrics governing media, the newsletters reveal how consumption practices constitute identity and social belonging. Sociologist Colin Campbell (1987) argued that modern consumption satisfies not needs but desires for novel experiences and identity expression (pp. 77-95). When economic constraints tighten but cultural expectations for consumption remain elevated, the gap generates either debt-funded consumption (BNPL, credit cards) or frustrated aspirations (declining consumer sentiment). Either outcome proves socially destabilizing.

Returning to Gramsci’s interregnum concept with which we began, the newsletters document multiple orders simultaneously dying: the post-1945 international system, neoliberal globalization, media gatekeepers’ authority, workplace arrangements premised on human cognitive advantages, consumer capitalism fueled by middle-class purchasing power, climate stability, and technocratic expertise’s political legitimacy. The “new” struggling to be born—whether authoritarian nationalism, techno-corporatism, multipolar geopolitics, or some other configuration—remains contested and unclear.

Philosopher Bruno Latour (2018) suggests that climate disruption fundamentally disoriented political categories: the promised land of Progress has disappeared ahead, the past cannot be returned to, and the present ground proves unstable (pp. 6-11). This produces what Latour terms political “disorientation”—actors’ uncertainty about which direction to move and which forces to align with. The newsletters’ cacophony of contradictory signals—growth statistics vs. pessimism, AI enthusiasm vs. bubble fears, consolidation vs. fragmentation—reflects such disorientation.

Yet Gramsci’s formulation also implies possibility: interregnums eventually end; new orders eventually consolidate; morbid symptoms eventually resolve through transformation or reaction. The newsletters provide glimpses of potential futures: a multipolar world with regional hegemons; neo-mercantilist great power competition; technological transformation reshaping production and work; climate disruption forcing institutional adaptation or collapse; authoritarian movements capturing democratic states; bottom-up resistance reconstituting solidarity.

Historian Reinhart Koselleck (2004) emphasized that historical transformation accelerates when “spaces of experience” (inherited meanings and practices) decouple from “horizons of expectation” (imagined futures) (pp. 255-275). The resulting temporal disorientation demands what Koselleck called the “historian’s task”—making sense of conjunctures by identifying both continuities and ruptures, both structural constraints and agentic possibilities. These newsletters, read carefully, provide rich material for that task, documenting a pivotal moment when multiple futures remain possible and present choices matter enormously for determining which future materializes.

Share

Aaronson, S. A. (2021). Data sovereignty: What is it, and how can countries navigate it? Columbia FDI Perspectives, 293, 567-593.

Akande, D. (2021). Extraterritorial economic measures and the law of international law. European Journal of International Law, 32(2), 312-340.

Andrejevic, M. (2013). Infoglut: How too much information is changing the way we think and know. Routledge.

Arendt, H. (1971). The life of the mind. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Anderson, G. F. (2019). Health economics and policy (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Autor, D. H. (2015). Why are there still so many jobs? The history and future of workplace automation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3), 3-30.

Bair, J., & Gereffi, G. (2001). Local clusters in global chains: The causes and consequences of export dynamism in Torreon’s blue jeans industry. World Development, 29(11), 1885-1903.

Blinder, A. S. (2013). After the music stopped: The financial crisis, the response, and the work ahead. Penguin Books.

Brenner, N. (2019). New urban spaces: Urban theory and the scale question. Oxford University Press.

Campbell, C. (1987). The romantic ethic and the spirit of modern consumerism. Basil Blackwell.

Cohen, J. E. (2019). Between truth and power: The legal constructions of informational capitalism. Oxford University Press.

Desmond, M. (2016). Evicted: Poverty and profit in the American city. Crown Publishers.

Dolovich, S. (2011). Exclusion and control in the carceral state. Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, 16(2), 889-938.

Farrell, H., & Newman, A. L. (2019). Weaponized interdependence: How global economic networks shape state coercion. International Security, 44(1), 42-79.

Gilpin, R. (1987). The political economy of international relations. Princeton University Press.

Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks (Q. Hoare & G. Nowell Smith, Trans.). International Publishers.

Hochschild, A. R. (2016). Strangers in their own land: Anger and mourning on the American right. The New Press.

Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Duke University Press.

Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of knowledge: The co-production of science and social order. Routledge.

Khan, L. M. (2017). Amazon’s antitrust paradox. Yale Law Journal, 126(3), 710-805.

Kindleberger, C. P. (1978). Manias, panics, and crashes: A history of financial crises. Basic Books.

Knight, F. H. (1921). Risk, uncertainty, and profit. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Koselleck, R. (2004). Futures past: On the semantics of historical time (K. Tribe, Trans.). Columbia University Press.

Krastev, I. (2017). After Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Krippner, G. R. (2011). Capitalizing on crisis: The political origins of the rise of finance. Harvard University Press.

Latour, B. (2018). Down to earth: Politics in the new climatic regime (C. Porter, Trans.). Polity Press.

Leontief, W. (1983). National perspective: The definition of problems and opportunities. In The long-term impact of technology on employment and unemployment. National Academy of Sciences.

Lowrey, A. (2020). Give people money: How a universal basic income would end poverty, revolutionize work, and remake the world. Crown.

McChesney, R. W., & Nichols, J. (2016). People get ready: The fight against a jobless economy and a citizenless democracy. Nation Books.

McNamara, K. R. (2018). The politics of everyday Europe: Constructing authority in the European Union. Oxford University Press.

Minsky, H. P. (1986). Stabilizing an unstable economy. Yale University Press.

Moynihan, D. P. (2018). The dynamics of performance management: Constructing information and reform. Georgetown University Press.

Mulder, N. (2022). The economic weapon: The rise of sanctions as a tool of modern war. Yale University Press.

Oreskes, N. (2019). Why trust science? Princeton University Press.

Perez, C. (2002). Technological revolutions and financial capital: The dynamics of bubbles and golden ages. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Picard, R. G. (2011). The economics and financing of media companies (2nd ed.). Fordham University Press.

Pierson, P. (2004). Politics in time: History, institutions, and social analysis. Princeton University Press.

Poon, M. (2007). Scorecards as devices for consumer credit: The case of Fair, Isaac & Company Incorporated. The Sociological Review, 55(2), 167-189.

Rayner, S. (2012). Uncomfortable knowledge: The social construction of ignorance in science and environmental policy discourses. Economy and Society, 41(1), 107-125.

Reinhardt, U. E. (2019). Priced out: The economic and ethical costs of American health care. Princeton University Press.

Rodrik, D. (2011). The globalization paradox: Democracy and the future of the world economy. W. W. Norton & Company.

Rushkoff, D. (2013). Present shock: When everything happens now. Current.

Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. Yale University Press.

Singer, P. (1972). Famine, affluence, and morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1(3), 229-243.

Slobodian, Q. (2018). Globalists: The end of empire and the birth of neoliberalism. Harvard University Press.

Tooze, A. (2023). Shutdown: How Covid shook the world’s economy. Viking.

Tucker, P. (2018). Unelected power: The quest for legitimacy in central banking and the regulatory state. Princeton University Press.

Walzer, M. (2015). Spheres of justice: A defense of pluralism and equality. Basic Books.

Winner, L. (1980). Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus, 109(1), 121-136.

Wu, T. (2016). The attention merchants: The epic scramble to get inside our heads. Alfred A. Knopf.

Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.

Zucman, G. (2019). The triumph of injustice: How the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay. W. W. Norton & Company.

[Written, Researched, and Edited by Pablo Markin. Some parts of the text have been produced with the aid of Claude, Anthropic, and NotebookLM, Google, tools (December 26, 2025). The featured image has been generated in Canva (December 26, 2025).]

This briefing synthesizes critical global developments from December 2025, highlighting a period of significant geopolitical friction, rapid technological transformation, and domestic political turbulence. The second term of the Trump administration is characterized by an assertive “America First” foreign policy, manifesting in a naval blockade of Venezuela and escalating tensions with China and South Africa, while domestically governing through executive orders that challenge judicial and bureaucratic norms. The MAGA movement faces internal fractures following the death of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, particularly over conspiracy theories and the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Economically, the world grapples with the immense capital demands of the artificial intelligence boom, sparking fears of a bubble fueled by circular funding and massive data center investments. This tech race is a central theater for US-China competition, with Beijing pursuing a “Manhattan Project” for semiconductor self-sufficiency against Western export controls. Geopolitically, Europe confronts a dual crisis of sovereignty and competitiveness, particularly in its space sector, while struggling to unify on long-term aid for Ukraine as Russia makes tactical gains on the battlefield.

In key regional developments, international powers are pragmatically engaging with the Taliban in Afghanistan, prioritizing stability over political reform. Thailand exemplifies the strategic ambiguity adopted by emerging nations navigating the US-China rivalry. Major global incidents, including a significant terrorist attack in Sydney, Australia, have prompted immediate national policy responses on gun control and hate speech. The period is defined by the interconnectedness of these themes: technological competition driving economic policy, domestic politics shaping international relations, and regional conflicts having global repercussions.

The Trump administration in 2025 is marked by a strategy of governing by executive decree, seeking to reshape the federal bureaucracy and challenge the judiciary. President Trump has asserted presidential power to withhold congressionally allocated funds, fire independent regulators, and deploy the National Guard over gubernatorial objections. A key example is an executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship, which appears to contradict the 14th Amendment, signaling a potential trial of strength with the courts. The President’s approach is encapsulated by his social media post quoting Napoleon: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

On the economic front, the administration is confronting an “affordability crunch” that has dented the President’s approval ratings. In a prime-time address, President Trump blamed his predecessor for the economic situation and announced initiatives such as sending $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” checks to U.S. soldiers, to be funded by tariffs. The administration has also imposed some of the highest tariff increases ever seen.

Key Administrative and Policy Actions:

• Transgender Care: Proposed rules from the health department would make it nearly impossible for transgender adolescents to receive gender-related care by threatening to pull federal funding from hospitals participating in Medicaid and Medicare if they provide such services to minors.

• Climate Research: The administration plans to dismantle the Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a major climate and weather lab, labeling it a hub for “climate alarmism.” Scientists have warned this would decimate decades of progress in weather, wildfire, and disaster research.

• Jeffrey Epstein Files: The administration’s handling of records related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has created significant political controversy. The Department of Justice (DoJ) initially released a trove of documents but deleted at least 16 photos, including one featuring President Trump, without explanation. After pressure from a bipartisan congressional coalition and MAGA conspiracy theorists, the DoJ released a further 30,000 pages, some heavily redacted, which contained an email alleging President Trump “travelled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported.” The DoJ stated the files “contain untrue and sensationalist claims” about the president.

The conservative youth organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is navigating a period of turmoil following the murder of its founder, Charlie Kirk, in September 2025. The annual “AmericaFest” conference in Phoenix, the first since his death, highlighted deepening fractures within the MAGA movement.

• Leadership and Infighting: Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow and the new CEO of TPUSA, has been actively pushing back against conspiracy theories surrounding her husband’s death, some of which are being spread by former allies.

• Ideological Rifts: Major conservative influencers are publicly feuding. At AmericaFest, Ben Shapiro heavily criticized figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Megyn Kelly for engaging with extremists like Nick Fuentes, who is reportedly gaining ground within the movement. Vice President JD Vance has attempted to mediate, urging unity.

The controversy over the Epstein files has also exposed rifts, with MAGA supporters infuriated by the administration’s initial refusal to release all records.

While out of power in the White House and Congress, the Democratic Party has begun coalescing around a new core message: “affordability.” This theme proved successful in key 2025 electoral victories.

• Electoral Success: Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won New York’s mayoral race by promising to make the city less expensive. Centrists Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, by pledging to bring down costs.

• Policy Debate: The method for achieving affordability is still debated. Some Democrats are embracing “abundance liberalism,” a view holding that excessive regulation harms the economy by blocking housing, infrastructure, and innovation.

The conflict in Ukraine continues with significant developments on both the battlefield and the diplomatic front.

• EU Funding: After marathon talks, EU leaders agreed to a €90 billion ($106 billion) loan for Ukraine over the next two years, to be raised via joint debt backed by the EU budget. Ukraine is expected to repay the funds only after Russia pays reparations. The deal was reached amid urgency, as a separate proposal to use returns from frozen Russian assets stalled due to opposition from Belgium, where most of the assets are held.

• Military Situation: Russian troops have advanced, capturing the strategic eastern town of Siversk, which had previously blocked a Russian advance towards the larger cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Russia has also launched massive bombardments targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with over 600 drones, causing power cuts amid freezing weather.

• Force Levels: Ukraine’s armed forces currently number 800,000. Russia added an average of 8,000–9,000 soldiers to its army each month during the first half of 2025.

• Diplomacy: President Vladimir Putin has stated that peace will not be achieved until the “root causes” of the conflict are addressed, demanding Ukraine cede eastern territory. He also praised President Trump’s attempts to end the war.

The Trump administration’s foreign policy is guided by a transactional, “America First” doctrine that prioritizes dealmaking over traditional diplomacy.

• Venezuela Blockade: The administration has deployed a significant naval presence to the Caribbean, including the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, described as the largest flotilla since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The U.S. has ordered naval vessels to the region and is intercepting and seizing oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, escalating its campaign against President Nicolás Maduro. This action has drawn condemnation from China and raised concerns about its impact on Cuba, which relies on Venezuelan oil.

• Taiwan: The U.S. approved an $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan, including missiles, drones, and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). The move prompted an angry response from Beijing, which warned that using Taiwan “to contain China will absolutely fail.”

• South Africa: Tensions have escalated as President Trump accuses South Africa of a “genocide” against its white population, an allegation rejected by experts. The administration has imposed heavy tariffs and the appointment of Leo Brent Bozell III, a conservative media critic with no diplomatic background, as ambassador is expected to worsen the rift.

• Middle East: The administration brokered a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2025. It also facilitated a $35 billion deal for Israel to export gas to Egypt, a deal lobbied for by American oil giant Chevron.

Europe is facing what is described as a dual “competitiveness crisis” and “sovereignty crisis,” most acutely demonstrated in its space sector.

• The “Launcher Crisis” (2022-2024): Europe’s independent access to space was severely compromised by the retirement of the Ariane 5 rocket, failures of the Vega and Vega C rockets, and the end of cooperation with Russia on Soyuz launches. In 2023, Europe conducted only three launches, compared to 107 by the United States.

• Critical Dependencies: European institutions acknowledge critical dependencies on foreign technology along space value chains, particularly in electronic components and power technologies. A program on “critical space technologies for European non-dependence” has been initiated.

• Strategic Constellations: Projects like BROMO and IRIS² are intended to bolster European competitiveness and secure civil/military telecommunications. However, they are not designed to compete with US mega-constellations like Starlink in terms of volume. The IRIS² constellation of around 300 satellites, originally slated for 2027, has been postponed to 2030, a deadline considered unrealistic by some observers, leaving Europe without a strategic constellation for at least five years.

Afghanistan

Taliban rule appears durable due to regional powers (Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, etc.) prioritizing stability over political change. External pressure is limited by the Taliban’s ideological foundations and the lack of a credible alternative authority. Regional actors are engaging pragmatically with the de facto government.

Thailand

The nation is pursuing “strategic ambiguity,” balancing its traditional military alliance with the U.S. (e.g., Cobra Gold exercises) against deepening economic integration with China (e.g., Belt and Road Initiative, tech investments). While parts of the Thai military remain US-oriented, the economic reality increasingly favors China.

Canada

In an April 2025 election, Mark Carney led the Liberals to a fourth straight term, overcoming a 24-point deficit. Carney successfully cast himself as a defender of Canadian sovereignty against threats and insults from President Trump.

Poland

The June 2025 presidential election saw nationalist Karol Nawrocki narrowly defeat liberal Rafal Trzaskowski. Nawrocki’s victory tilts Poland back towards nationalism and Euroscepticism, creating a political standoff with the pro-European government of Donald Tusk.

2025 was dominated by a massive, debt-fueled spending boom on AI infrastructure, leading to widespread fears of an economic bubble.

• Data Center Investment: Cloud-computing firms like Oracle, Microsoft, and Meta have amassed a combined $500 billion in obligations for data center leases. This has invited investor scrutiny, as exemplified by Oracle’s stock falling after a report that its primary backer, Blue Owl Capital, pulled out of a $10 billion data center project over debt concerns.

• Circular Funding: The financing of the AI boom is characterized by interconnected, circular deals. For example, OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise $10 billion from Amazon and use its chips, while Google is working with Meta to hasten adoption of its AI chips. This circularity has fueled stock-price slides for firms like CoreWeave and Oracle.

• Market Performance: Despite bubble fears, the Morningstar Global Next Generation Artificial Intelligence index was up approximately 40% in 2025 through mid-December. Global corporate debt sales neared record levels at $1.7 trillion, with 30% related to AI.

The race for AI supremacy has intensified the geopolitical competition over advanced semiconductors.

• China’s Push for Self-Sufficiency: A Reuters investigation revealed that Chinese scientists have prototyped an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine, a critical tool for producing powerful AI chips. The project, described as China’s “Manhattan Project,” was reportedly built by former engineers from Dutch giant ASML and aims to produce working chips by 2028. Chinese AI chip startups like MetaX and Moore Threads have seen their shares soar in market debuts.

• Nvidia’s Dominance Challenged: While Nvidia remains the dominant force in AI chips, major tech players are forming alliances to reduce their dependence. Google, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI are collaborating on initiatives to promote and adopt alternative processors.

AI’s integration into society and business is accelerating, raising new regulatory and ethical questions.

• Data Privacy: Research from the University of New South Wales demonstrated that AI models can infer users’ private traits (gender, education, political leanings) with high accuracy simply by analyzing the ads they are shown. This undermines safeguards that prevent advertisers from explicitly targeting sensitive categories.

• AI in Business and Daily Life:

  • UPS is using AI to detect fraudulent returns by analyzing photos of returned items.

  • New York-based Everbloom uses an AI model to transform waste materials like poultry feathers into new fabrics, including polyester and cashmere.

  • Palantir provides customized software to intelligence agencies to identify threats in advance, highlighting the debate over surveillance technology.

  • The podcast “Flesh and Code” explores the world of AI relationships, telling the story of a man smitten with a chatbot.

On a Sunday in December 2025, two gunmen, believed to be a father and son inspired by the Islamic State, attacked a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and wounding 42. One of the shooters had previously been investigated for ties to ISIS.

Australian Government Response:

• Gun Control: The leader of New South Wales announced that parliament would be recalled to pass sweeping gun reforms. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later pledged the largest gun buyback in nearly 30 years.

• Hate Speech Laws: The government unveiled plans to tighten hate speech laws, creating new criminal offenses and allowing for the cancellation of visas for individuals spreading “hate and division.”

• Security Review: A review of police and intelligence agencies was announced a week after the attack.

• 2025 “Best Of” Recommendations:

  • Books: “What We Can Know” by Ian McEwan, “Chokepoints” by Edward Fishman.

  • Films: “One Battle After Another” (action), “Wake Up Dead Man” (murder mystery), “Flow” (animated eco-fable, winner of Best Animated Feature).

  • TV: “Andor” (Star Wars series on authoritarianism), “King of the Hill” (revived sitcom), “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” (historical epic).

  • Podcasts: “Flesh and Code” (AI relationships), “The Wargame” (geopolitical thriller), “Acquired” (corporate histories).

• Social Trends: The office holiday party is reportedly “dying,” with the number of US companies hosting one falling from 90% in 2007 to 64% in 2024. Conversely, Christmas markets are rising in popularity globally, with cities like Zagreb, Croatia, now competing to host the world’s best.

• Media Transformation: The Academy Awards (Oscars) will move from ABC to air on YouTube starting in 2029, signaling a major shift in broadcasting power to online platforms.

The newsletter aggregation before us captures what Antonio Gramsci (1971) might have recognized as a quintessential interregnum: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” (p. 276). Across The Economist, The New York Times, Semafor, Bloomberg, Newsweek, CNBC and Geopolitical Monitor newsletters from December 18-24. 2025, these dispatches document an inflection point where multiple established orders—geopolitical, technological, economic, and cultural—simultaneously destabilize while their successors remain inchoate and contested. The “morbid symptoms” Gramsci identified manifest here as volatile markets, contradictory policy signals, technological disruption outpacing institutional adaptation, and a pervasive sense of uncertainty that characterizes decision-making from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables.

This commentary examines five interrelated dimensions of this historical moment: (1) the reconfiguration of global power relations through economic statecraft; (2) the speculative mania surrounding artificial intelligence and its material infrastructure; (3) the fragmentation of consensus realities through media consolidation and attention capitalism; (4) the affordability crisis as a crisis of social reproduction; and (5) the collision between technological acceleration and democratic deliberation. Throughout, I draw connections to relevant scholarship that illuminates both the particular and the systemic nature of these transformations.

President Trump’s tariff regime, particularly the April “Liberation Day” announcement with its sweeping duties across trading partners, represents more than conventional protectionism. As political economist Kathleen McNamara (2018) argues in The Politics of Everyday Europe, economic policy instruments increasingly serve as vehicles for identity politics and sovereignty assertion rather than purely efficiency-maximizing objectives (pp. 112-135). The newsletters document how tariffs became simultaneously a revenue mechanism, an industrial policy tool, a diplomatic bargaining chip, and a symbolic assertion of national will—what we might term “omnibus economic statecraft.”

The volatility in tariff rates by country—what one newsletter characterizes as “almost randomly assigned”—suggests not rational economic optimization but rather what Dani Rodrik (2011) identifies as the inevitable tension between “hyperglobalization, national sovereignty, and democracy” forming an impossible trinity where only two can coexist (p. 200). Trump’s approach attempts to reassert national sovereignty and claim democratic mandate while managing, not dismantling, economic integration—hence the constant recalibrations that so unnerved markets.

The material consequences ripple through multiple accounts: supply chain disruptions requiring pre-tariff inventory rushing; retailers exploring “buy now, pay later” financing to mask price increases; commodity traders adjusting to new arbitrage opportunities; and manufacturers reshoring or “friendshoring” operations. As Semafor’s coverage of Chinese solar manufacturers and Indian toy makers illustrates, the global production network that emerged from three decades of trade liberalization cannot be easily reconfigured—what economic geographers Jennifer Bair and Gary Gereffi (2001) termed the “stickiness” of global commodity chains reflects not just sunk capital but accumulated knowledge, relationships, and institutional complementarities (pp. 1885-1889).

The naval blockade of Venezuela, complete with the “largest Armada” in South American waters since the Cuban Missile Crisis, exemplifies what Nicholas Mulder (2022) in The Economic Weapon calls sanctions as “economic siege warfare”—the application of comprehensive economic pressure to compel political transformation (pp. 15-42). Yet the newsletters reveal the blockade’s contradictions: China’s dependence on Venezuelan crude creates cross-pressures on Beijing; Colombia refuses military support despite shared borders; and the humanitarian costs mount while Nicolás Maduro’s regime adapts through “shadow fleet” tankers and alternative payment systems.

The sanctions’ legal architecture—secondary sanctions threatening third parties who trade with Venezuela—recalls what legal scholar Dapo Akande (2021) terms “extraterritorial economic coercion,” where jurisdictional claims extend U.S. legal authority globally through control of financial infrastructure (pp. 312-340). This provokes backlash visible in the newsletters’ coverage of Chinese accusations of “bullying” and European criticism of “unilateralism”—sovereignty conflicts that accelerate the fragmentation of the post-1945 liberal international economic order.

Europe’s struggle to finance Ukrainian defense through frozen Russian assets illuminates what political scientist Ivan Krastev (2017) identifies as the European Union’s structural incapacity for decisive action: “The EU is a union of states that have renounced the use of force but have not yet accepted the pooling of sovereignty” (p. 48). The Belgium-led opposition to weaponizing Russian assets, despite the $246 billion available, reflects not just legal concerns but deeper anxiety about precedent-setting and potential Chinese or Gulf retaliation.

The eventual €90 billion loan package through jointly-issued EU debt represents a significant integration step—effectively mutualization of fiscal obligations for security purposes. Yet as economist Adam Tooze (2023) argues in Shutdown, such crisis-driven integration creates moral hazard and political resentment, storing up legitimacy problems while addressing immediate material needs (pp. 178-203). The newsletters capture European leaders’ recognition that “the EU will have to reinvent itself once again to chase its ambition of a global Europe,” acknowledging that their current institutional arrangements are inadequate to the geopolitical moment.

The broader pattern across these cases suggests a transition from what historian Quinn Slobodian (2018) terms the “neoliberal world order”—where global economic governance aimed to insulate markets from political interference—toward neo-mercantilist arrangements where economic policy serves explicitly political ends, including industrial strategy, alliance management, and coercive diplomacy (pp. 1-7, 271-286). This represents not deglobalization but rather politicized globalization, with attendant uncertainties that market actors find difficult to navigate.

The AI boom dominates these newsletters with almost obsessive intensity: Oracle’s data center debt concerns; OpenAI’s escalating valuations despite uncertain monetization; the $500 billion in tech giant commitments to data center leases; Nvidia’s $5 trillion market cap; the construction boom consuming projected electricity equivalent to entire national grids; and Meta’s data centers encroaching on Georgian homesteads. This frenzy recalls economist Carlota Perez’s (2002) analysis in Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital of how transformative technologies proceed through an “installation period” characterized by financial speculation, overcapacity, and infrastructural buildout before settling into a “deployment period” of productivity gains and market maturation (pp. 47-79).

Several newsletters explicitly grapple with the bubble question. DealBook’s analysis notes that 57% of asset managers identify “waning enthusiasm for A.I.” as the biggest market threat, while acknowledging that current spending may genuinely anticipate transformative productivity gains. The comparison to the dot-com bubble proves instructive: James van Geelen’s observation that “show me an instance over the past 300 years of a truly transformative technology that didn’t result in an asset bubble” reflects what economic historian Charles Kindleberger (1978) termed the inevitable “mania” phase when transformative technologies attract speculative capital before their ultimate applications become clear (pp. 15-38).

Yet crucial differences exist between current AI investment and previous bubbles. As Morningstar’s Brian Colello notes, the capital intensity of AI chips and their rapid obsolescence may impose natural constraints on overinvestment—companies cannot easily warehouse idle computational capacity like excess fiber-optic cable. Moreover, unlike dot-com firms that burned cash without revenue, major AI developers like Anthropic and OpenAI demonstrate genuine user traction and enterprise adoption, even if monetization models remain uncertain.

The newsletters reveal how AI development is inseparable from geopolitical competition. China’s “Manhattan Project” for semiconductor self-sufficiency, U.S. export controls on advanced chips, the prototyping of extreme ultraviolet lithography systems by Chinese scientists working under aliases, and the race for rare earth minerals that power data infrastructure—all indicate what digital political economists Julie Cohen (2019) and Shoshana Zuboff (2019) identify as computation becoming a domain of strategic competition comparable to nuclear weapons or aerospace in earlier eras (Cohen, pp. 23-47; Zuboff, pp. 93-129).

Trump’s designation of AI superiority as “a pillar of his business agenda,” the $100 billion Stargate Project announcement, and the Commerce Department pressure on states not to impede AI development reflect what philosopher Langdon Winner (1980) termed “technological politics”—the recognition that technological systems embody political arrangements and that controlling their development shapes available social possibilities (pp. 121-136). The administration’s simultaneous approval of Nvidia H200 chip exports to China while restricting other technology transfers illustrates the internal contradictions of trying to maintain technological dominance while permitting corporate profit-taking.

The material substrate of AI also deserves attention. Several newsletters note data centers’ voracious electricity consumption—projected to double by 2030—and water usage that stresses local communities. David Chambers’ photographs of Meta’s Georgia facility show it abutting residential homes, a spatial juxtaposition capturing what urban theorist Neil Brenner (2019) calls “operational landscapes”—infrastructure whose scale and resource demands transform surrounding environments while remaining opaque to those affected (pp. 89-112). The Xcel Energy preemptive shutoffs in Colorado to prevent wildfire risks from power lines illustrates how climate change intersects with energy-intensive computation to create new vulnerability cascades.

The newsletters document automation’s employment implications through multiple lenses: Amazon’s internal projections that robots could replace half a million workers; the rise of “vibe coding” that threatens software developer jobs; concerns about AI-driven productivity gains failing to translate into wage growth for displaced workers; and the emergence of humanoid robots for home assistance. These developments recall what economist Wassily Leontief (1983) presciently warned: workers may face the fate of horses after automobiles—technologically superseded with no alternative employment awaiting (pp. 403-404).

Yet the labor market data presents contradictory signals. November 2025’s unemployment rise to 4.6% coincides with continued job creation, particularly in healthcare, suggesting not mass unemployment but rather sectoral reallocation. Wage growth remains strongest for higher-skilled workers, consistent with skill-biased technological change. As economist David Autor (2015) argues, automation typically augments rather than replaces human labor, with new tasks emerging that require human judgment even as routine tasks automate (pp. 3-30). The question becomes whether institutional arrangements—including education, social insurance, and wage-setting mechanisms—can manage transitions quickly enough to prevent immiseration of displaced workers.

The DealBook Summit interview with Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) provides an extraordinary window into attention capitalism’s logic. His explanation of content strategy reveals sophisticated algorithmic reasoning: “2 percent of all humans’ time is spent on YouTube... the more you study social media algorithms, the more you realize it’s just a reflection of what people want to watch.” His 450 million subscribers and $5 billion Beast Industries valuation represent what media scholar Mark Andrejevic (2013) terms “the work of watching work”—where content creators optimize for metrics that platforms optimize for engagement (pp. 47-69).

MrBeast’s deliberately culturally-neutral content strategy (”no matter where you are in the world, you understand love”) reflects what cultural critic Fredric Jameson (1991) identified as postmodernism’s “waning of affect”—the reduction of cultural expression to universally legible signs evacuated of specific historical or political content (pp. 10-16). Videos featuring couples chained together for $300,000 prizes or counting to 100,000 for 40 hours straight represent what media theorist Douglas Rushkoff (2013) terms “present shock”—culture organized around immediate viral impact rather than narrative or meaning (pp. 25-48).

Yet MrBeast’s philanthropic emphasis—his assertion that Beast Industries aims “to make kindness viral”—complicates dismissive readings. Philosopher Peter Singer (1972) might recognize effective altruism’s logic: if viral content can direct attention and resources toward poverty alleviation or environmental restoration, traditional narrative sophistication becomes less important than instrumental effectiveness (pp. 229-243). The tension between spectacle and substance, between algorithmic optimization and human flourishing, remains unresolved.

The Byzantine machinations surrounding Warner Bros. Discovery—Netflix’s initial bid, Paramount’s hostile counteroffer backed by Larry Ellison’s $40 billion personal guarantee, President Trump’s promise to “be involved” in regulatory review—exemplify what legal scholar Tim Wu (2016) calls “the attention merchants,” where consolidated media platforms compete for audience capture while navigating political patronage (pp. 6-18, 341-358). The newsletters document how David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance struggled to convince Warner Bros. of financing credibility despite Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s vast wealth, suggesting that perceived political alignment may matter more than financial capacity in M&A success.

Bari Weiss’s controversial editorial decisions at CBS News—pulling the “60 Minutes” segment on Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s CECOT prison pending White House comment—demonstrates what media scholars Robert McChesney and John Nichols (2016) term the “corporate media problem”: when media ownership concentrates and depends on government licensing or regulatory forbearance, editorial independence becomes structurally compromised (pp. 89-124). The internal criticism from “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi that the decision was “political” captures newsroom professionals’ recognition that commercial imperatives and access journalism corrode investigative independence.

The broader consolidation trend—with streaming platforms absorbing studios, podcast networks, and now eyeing bookstore chains—reflects what media economist Robert Picard (2011) identifies as the imperative of “platform convergence”: companies seek to control entire user experiences from content creation through distribution to monetization (pp. 67-89). Yet as legal scholar Lina Khan (2017) argues, such integration creates conflicts of interest where platforms favor their own content, distorting competition and reducing cultural diversity (pp. 710-805).

The newsletters document TikTok’s ownership restructuring throughout 2025, culminating in ByteDance’s deal creating a U.S. joint venture with Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX controlling operations while ByteDance retains equity stakes and licenses its algorithm. This arrangement exemplifies what political scientist Henry Farrell and international relations scholar Abraham Newman (2019) term “weaponized interdependence”—how network structures create chokepoints that governments can exploit for coercive purposes (pp. 42-79).

The arrangement’s viability remains uncertain because it addresses only partially the concerns that motivated the ban attempt. As cybersecurity expert Susan Ariel Aaronson (2021) notes, data sovereignty conflicts ultimately stem from incompatible governance models: authoritarian states’ information control imperatives conflict with liberal democracies’ market openness, creating irresolvable tensions in cross-border data flows (pp. 567-593). The solution of having Oracle monitor TikTok’s algorithm for manipulation attempts presumes technical fixes for what are fundamentally political problems—the worry that foreign adversaries can shape domestic information environments.

Multiple newsletters document Americans’ persistent economic pessimism despite growth statistics: inflation cooling to 2.7% but essentials like healthcare and groceries up significantly; wage growth strongest for high earners while low-wage workers’ purchasing power stagnates; the “vibecession” where consumer sentiment remains depressed despite unemployment near historic lows; and retailers relying on “buy now, pay later” services to mask price pressures. This disconnect between macro statistics and lived experience reflects what economist Gabriel Zucman (2019) terms distributive invisibility: aggregate measures can show improvement while most households experience deterioration if gains concentrate at the top (pp. 48-79).

The housing affordability crisis—with mortgage rates elevated and home prices near peaks—particularly strains household budgets. As housing scholar Matthew Desmond (2016) documents in Evicted, housing costs exceeding 30% of income trigger cascading hardships: foregone healthcare, nutritional compromise, educational sacrifice, and social isolation (pp. 295-310). The newsletters’ coverage of “K-shaped recovery”—where affluent households thrive while lower-income ones struggle—indicates bifurcating life chances that threaten social cohesion.

Sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s (2016) analysis in Strangers in Their Own Land helps explain the political salience of economic grievances even when unemployment remains low: people evaluate their circumstances not just by absolute standards but by comparison to perceived peers and expectations of progress (pp. 135-151). When media celebrates stock market records and billionaire wealth while households strain to afford groceries, the juxtaposition generates resentment that politicians can exploit.

The expiration of Obamacare subsidies, threatening premium spikes for millions, illustrates what health economist Uwe Reinhardt (2019) termed the U.S. healthcare system’s fundamental irrationality: enormous spending producing mediocre outcomes through fragmented, profit-driven delivery (pp. 23-56). The Brian Thompson assassination by Luigi Mangione in response to insurance claim denials—an event referenced in the newsletters—sparked brief public debate about healthcare access before dissipating, exemplifying what sociologist Sharon Dolovich (2011) identifies as individual crises rarely translating into sustained policy reform absent organizational vehicles (pp. 889-938).

The Trump administration’s pharmaceutical pricing negotiations, while promising relief for some medications, don’t address structural drivers: patent protections that enable monopoly pricing, pharmacy benefit manager intermediation that obscures cost structures, and fee-for-service incentives that reward overtreatment. As healthcare economist Gerard Anderson (2019) documents, the U.S. pays 2-3 times more than comparable nations for identical treatments without better outcomes, representing a massive extraction from patients to providers and shareholders (pp. 112-156).

Semafor’s coverage of “buy now, pay later” services expanding during the 2025 holiday season warrants careful attention. These services—Klarna, Affirm, and others—allow consumers to split purchases into installments, often without traditional credit checks. Retailers embrace BNPL because it increases conversion rates and average purchase sizes. Yet consumer advocates worry about overextension, particularly when users juggle multiple BNPL accounts across platforms.

Sociologist Martha Poon (2007) argues that novel credit instruments typically emerge when traditional lending becomes unprofitable or too risky for established players, shifting risk to borrowers through complex terms that obscure true costs (pp. 167-189). BNPL’s rise reflects both constrained household budgets (necessitating financing for routine purchases) and fintech innovation that bypasses banking regulations. When retailers note that “inflation accounts for most if not all revenue gains” during holiday shopping, BNPL functions as the mechanism enabling consumption that wouldn’t otherwise occur—a short-term fix storing up potential payment crises.

Cultural critic Annie Lowrey (2020) frames such developments within “The Time Tax”: how poverty imposes temporal burdens through navigating complex systems, managing cash flow across paychecks, and responding to emergencies without buffers (pp. 47-72). BNPL adds another temporal management task—tracking multiple payment schedules across platforms—while appearing to offer flexibility. The attention demanded by financial precarity itself becomes exhausting.

Elon Musk’s brief tenure leading the Department of Government Efficiency provides a case study in what political scientist James Scott (1998) termed “high modernism”—the conviction that rational-technical expertise can rationally reorganize complex social systems (pp. 4-6, 87-102). Musk’s promise to cut $2 trillion from federal spending, his “Fork in the Road” email to 2 million workers, and the livestreamed chainsaw-waving at CPAC embodied what Scott identifies as high modernism’s core elements: supreme confidence in scientific progress, rational planning unconstrained by local knowledge, and authoritarian social engineering.

The initiative’s failure—disbanded after eight months having cut $214 billion rather than the promised trillions—illustrates Scott’s central argument: complex systems like federal government contain embedded knowledge (”mētis”) that outsiders lack. Federal procurement regulations that seem bureaucratic encode hard-won lessons about fraud prevention; employment protections reflect political compromises between efficiency and other values like veterans’ preference. Musk’s approach treated government as analogous to managing a private company where executives possess unconstrained authority, ignoring that democratic institutions distribute power to constrain executive prerogative.

Public administration scholar Donald Moynihan (2018) emphasizes that much “government waste” reflects not inefficiency but conflicting values and constituencies (pp. 23-47). Programs that appear duplicative may serve different populations or employ different approaches hedging against uncertainty. Musk’s dismissal of such considerations as excuses for incompetence reveals what political theorist Hannah Arendt (1971) warned about: technical rationality’s imperialism over political judgment (pp. 177-204).

President Trump’s relentless pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell—demanding interest rate cuts, threatening not to reappoint him, conducting the bizarre construction site tour—represents sustained assault on central bank independence. As economist Alan Blinder (2013) argues, Fed independence serves crucial functions: it enables difficult decisions (raising rates amid inflation) that elected politicians can’t afford politically; it provides continuity across administrations; and it credibly commits to price stability, anchoring expectations (pp. 56-89).

The newsletters document Trump’s preference for political loyalists as next Fed chair, considering candidates like Kevin Warsh or Christopher Waller who might prove more accommodating. Economist Paul Tucker (2018) warns that politicized central banking creates time-inconsistency problems: without credible commitment to fighting inflation, price expectations become unanchored, requiring harsher eventual tightening (pp. 134-178). Markets’ current Fed rate cut expectations reflect gambles on political pressure overwhelming policy discipline—a dynamic that could prove self-defeating.

The Trump administration’s decision to shutter the National Center for Atmospheric Research, cutting off climate modeling capabilities precisely when climate disruption intensifies, exemplifies what political scientist Steve Rayner (2012) terms “climate governance gridlock”: institutional arrangements that prevent effective collective action even when the problem’s urgency is acknowledged (pp. 121-144). The closure combines ideological hostility to climate science with government efficiency rhetoric and resentment of expert consensus.

Philosopher Sheila Jasanoff (2004) emphasizes that scientific institutions don’t simply discover objective facts but co-produce knowledge alongside social and political orders (pp. 2-18, 274-306). Attacking climate science represents not anti-intellectualism per se but rather contestation over whose expertise counts and what questions are legitimate. Conservative climate skepticism often accepts scientific method while disputing specific conclusions, policy implications, or institutional authority to determine societal priorities.

The irony, as environmental historian Naomi Oreskes (2019) documents, is that climate modeling’s origins lie in Cold War military applications—the same computational capabilities developed for nuclear weapons effects became tools for understanding atmospheric dynamics (pp. 34-68). Discarding this capacity in the name of national security while investing hundreds of billions in AI data centers represents a peculiar prioritization: betting on speculative technological transformation while defunding infrastructure for managing known existential risks.

The cumulative picture emerging from these newsletters is of radical uncertainty—not mere risk that can be probabilistically modeled, but fundamental ambiguity about causal relationships and future states. Economist Frank Knight (1921) distinguished risk (known probabilities) from uncertainty (unknown probabilities), arguing that genuine uncertainty characterizes actually existing capitalism and explains profit opportunities (pp. 19-20, 232-235). The current moment features Knightian uncertainty across multiple dimensions simultaneously: technological trajectory, geopolitical configuration, monetary policy credibility, supply chain resilience, social cohesion, and climate dynamics.

Several patterns deserve highlighting:

Acceleration and Institutional Lag: Across domains—AI development, geopolitical realignments, media consolidation, climate change—change velocity exceeds institutions’ adaptive capacity. Political scientist Paul Pierson’s (2004) “politics in time” framework emphasizes that institutions exhibit path dependence and face difficulty responding to rapidly changing environments (pp. 17-53, 134-177). The newsletters document repeated instances of governance structures designed for previous eras proving inadequate: international trade law ill-suited to digital trade and tech transfer; Congressional procedures too slow for AI regulation; media ownership rules designed for broadcast scarcity applied to digital abundance.

Financialization and Speculation: From AI infrastructure debt to Trump’s crypto ventures to BNPL consumer credit, multiple newsletters highlight how finance mediates material processes. Sociologist Greta Krippner (2011) defines financialization as “accumulation via financial channels rather than trade and commodity production” (p. 27), but notes that finance remains tethered to underlying production. The speculative excess visible in some AI valuations or crypto volatility represents what Hyman Minsky (1986) termed “Ponzi finance”: asset purchases funded by expectations of price appreciation rather than productive cash flows (pp. 230-234). Whether AI’s infrastructural buildout proves productive investment or malinvestment depends on whether transformative productivity gains materialize—a question that may not resolve for years.

The Fragmentation of Authority: Multiple newsletters reference declining trust in institutions: media fragmentation undermining shared narrative frames; political polarization preventing collective action; international organizations losing enforcement capacity; expertise under siege from populist movements. Political theorist Michael Walzer (2015) suggests pluralist societies require “shared meanings” to function—common understandings that enable coordination despite disagreement (pp. 28-31, 312-316). When Facebook algorithms, cable news segmentation, and international law’s erosion fracture shared meanings, governance capacity atrophies.

The Return of Geopolitics: For a generation after the Cold War, neoliberal triumphalism suggested economics could transcend politics—markets would integrate societies regardless of regime type, creating interdependence that prevented conflict. The newsletters document that assumption’s comprehensive collapse: tariffs as sovereignty assertion, sanctions as siege warfare, technology transfer controls, rare earth competition, and military confrontation risks across Eurasia. This recalls what political economist Robert Gilpin (1987) termed hegemonic transition: when rising powers challenge established ones, economic and security competition intensify together (pp. 72-103, 344-388).

Consumption as Identity: From MrBeast’s viral spectacles to “buy now, pay later” shopping to attention metrics governing media, the newsletters reveal how consumption practices constitute identity and social belonging. Sociologist Colin Campbell (1987) argued that modern consumption satisfies not needs but desires for novel experiences and identity expression (pp. 77-95). When economic constraints tighten but cultural expectations for consumption remain elevated, the gap generates either debt-funded consumption (BNPL, credit cards) or frustrated aspirations (declining consumer sentiment). Either outcome proves socially destabilizing.

Returning to Gramsci’s interregnum concept with which we began, the newsletters document multiple orders simultaneously dying: the post-1945 international system, neoliberal globalization, media gatekeepers’ authority, workplace arrangements premised on human cognitive advantages, consumer capitalism fueled by middle-class purchasing power, climate stability, and technocratic expertise’s political legitimacy. The “new” struggling to be born—whether authoritarian nationalism, techno-corporatism, multipolar geopolitics, or some other configuration—remains contested and unclear.

Philosopher Bruno Latour (2018) suggests that climate disruption fundamentally disoriented political categories: the promised land of Progress has disappeared ahead, the past cannot be returned to, and the present ground proves unstable (pp. 6-11). This produces what Latour terms political “disorientation”—actors’ uncertainty about which direction to move and which forces to align with. The newsletters’ cacophony of contradictory signals—growth statistics vs. pessimism, AI enthusiasm vs. bubble fears, consolidation vs. fragmentation—reflects such disorientation.

Yet Gramsci’s formulation also implies possibility: interregnums eventually end; new orders eventually consolidate; morbid symptoms eventually resolve through transformation or reaction. The newsletters provide glimpses of potential futures: a multipolar world with regional hegemons; neo-mercantilist great power competition; technological transformation reshaping production and work; climate disruption forcing institutional adaptation or collapse; authoritarian movements capturing democratic states; bottom-up resistance reconstituting solidarity.

Historian Reinhart Koselleck (2004) emphasized that historical transformation accelerates when “spaces of experience” (inherited meanings and practices) decouple from “horizons of expectation” (imagined futures) (pp. 255-275). The resulting temporal disorientation demands what Koselleck called the “historian’s task”—making sense of conjunctures by identifying both continuities and ruptures, both structural constraints and agentic possibilities. These newsletters, read carefully, provide rich material for that task, documenting a pivotal moment when multiple futures remain possible and present choices matter enormously for determining which future materializes.

Share

Aaronson, S. A. (2021). Data sovereignty: What is it, and how can countries navigate it? Columbia FDI Perspectives, 293, 567-593.

Akande, D. (2021). Extraterritorial economic measures and the law of international law. European Journal of International Law, 32(2), 312-340.

Andrejevic, M. (2013). Infoglut: How too much information is changing the way we think and know. Routledge.

Arendt, H. (1971). The life of the mind. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Anderson, G. F. (2019). Health economics and policy (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Autor, D. H. (2015). Why are there still so many jobs? The history and future of workplace automation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3), 3-30.

Bair, J., & Gereffi, G. (2001). Local clusters in global chains: The causes and consequences of export dynamism in Torreon’s blue jeans industry. World Development, 29(11), 1885-1903.

Blinder, A. S. (2013). After the music stopped: The financial crisis, the response, and the work ahead. Penguin Books.

Brenner, N. (2019). New urban spaces: Urban theory and the scale question. Oxford University Press.

Campbell, C. (1987). The romantic ethic and the spirit of modern consumerism. Basil Blackwell.

Cohen, J. E. (2019). Between truth and power: The legal constructions of informational capitalism. Oxford University Press.

Desmond, M. (2016). Evicted: Poverty and profit in the American city. Crown Publishers.

Dolovich, S. (2011). Exclusion and control in the carceral state. Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, 16(2), 889-938.

Farrell, H., & Newman, A. L. (2019). Weaponized interdependence: How global economic networks shape state coercion. International Security, 44(1), 42-79.

Gilpin, R. (1987). The political economy of international relations. Princeton University Press.

Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks (Q. Hoare & G. Nowell Smith, Trans.). International Publishers.

Hochschild, A. R. (2016). Strangers in their own land: Anger and mourning on the American right. The New Press.

Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Duke University Press.

Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of knowledge: The co-production of science and social order. Routledge.

Khan, L. M. (2017). Amazon’s antitrust paradox. Yale Law Journal, 126(3), 710-805.

Kindleberger, C. P. (1978). Manias, panics, and crashes: A history of financial crises. Basic Books.

Knight, F. H. (1921). Risk, uncertainty, and profit. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Koselleck, R. (2004). Futures past: On the semantics of historical time (K. Tribe, Trans.). Columbia University Press.

Krastev, I. (2017). After Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Krippner, G. R. (2011). Capitalizing on crisis: The political origins of the rise of finance. Harvard University Press.

Latour, B. (2018). Down to earth: Politics in the new climatic regime (C. Porter, Trans.). Polity Press.

Leontief, W. (1983). National perspective: The definition of problems and opportunities. In The long-term impact of technology on employment and unemployment. National Academy of Sciences.

Lowrey, A. (2020). Give people money: How a universal basic income would end poverty, revolutionize work, and remake the world. Crown.

McChesney, R. W., & Nichols, J. (2016). People get ready: The fight against a jobless economy and a citizenless democracy. Nation Books.

McNamara, K. R. (2018). The politics of everyday Europe: Constructing authority in the European Union. Oxford University Press.

Minsky, H. P. (1986). Stabilizing an unstable economy. Yale University Press.

Moynihan, D. P. (2018). The dynamics of performance management: Constructing information and reform. Georgetown University Press.

Mulder, N. (2022). The economic weapon: The rise of sanctions as a tool of modern war. Yale University Press.

Oreskes, N. (2019). Why trust science? Princeton University Press.

Perez, C. (2002). Technological revolutions and financial capital: The dynamics of bubbles and golden ages. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Picard, R. G. (2011). The economics and financing of media companies (2nd ed.). Fordham University Press.

Pierson, P. (2004). Politics in time: History, institutions, and social analysis. Princeton University Press.

Poon, M. (2007). Scorecards as devices for consumer credit: The case of Fair, Isaac & Company Incorporated. The Sociological Review, 55(2), 167-189.

Rayner, S. (2012). Uncomfortable knowledge: The social construction of ignorance in science and environmental policy discourses. Economy and Society, 41(1), 107-125.

Reinhardt, U. E. (2019). Priced out: The economic and ethical costs of American health care. Princeton University Press.

Rodrik, D. (2011). The globalization paradox: Democracy and the future of the world economy. W. W. Norton & Company.

Rushkoff, D. (2013). Present shock: When everything happens now. Current.

Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. Yale University Press.

Singer, P. (1972). Famine, affluence, and morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1(3), 229-243.

Slobodian, Q. (2018). Globalists: The end of empire and the birth of neoliberalism. Harvard University Press.

Tooze, A. (2023). Shutdown: How Covid shook the world’s economy. Viking.

Tucker, P. (2018). Unelected power: The quest for legitimacy in central banking and the regulatory state. Princeton University Press.

Walzer, M. (2015). Spheres of justice: A defense of pluralism and equality. Basic Books.

Winner, L. (1980). Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus, 109(1), 121-136.

Wu, T. (2016). The attention merchants: The epic scramble to get inside our heads. Alfred A. Knopf.

Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.

Zucman, G. (2019). The triumph of injustice: How the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay. W. W. Norton & Company.

[Written, Researched, and Edited by Pablo Markin. Some parts of the text have been produced with the aid of Claude, Anthropic, and NotebookLM, Google, tools (December 26, 2025). The featured image has been generated in Canva (December 26, 2025).]

This briefing synthesizes critical global developments from December 2025, highlighting a period of significant geopolitical friction, rapid technological transformation, and domestic political turbulence. The second term of the Trump administration is characterized by an assertive “America First” foreign policy, manifesting in a naval blockade of Venezuela and escalating tensions with China and South Africa, while domestically governing through executive orders that challenge judicial and bureaucratic norms. The MAGA movement faces internal fractures following the death of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, particularly over conspiracy theories and the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Economically, the world grapples with the immense capital demands of the artificial intelligence boom, sparking fears of a bubble fueled by circular funding and massive data center investments. This tech race is a central theater for US-China competition, with Beijing pursuing a “Manhattan Project” for semiconductor self-sufficiency against Western export controls. Geopolitically, Europe confronts a dual crisis of sovereignty and competitiveness, particularly in its space sector, while struggling to unify on long-term aid for Ukraine as Russia makes tactical gains on the battlefield.

In key regional developments, international powers are pragmatically engaging with the Taliban in Afghanistan, prioritizing stability over political reform. Thailand exemplifies the strategic ambiguity adopted by emerging nations navigating the US-China rivalry. Major global incidents, including a significant terrorist attack in Sydney, Australia, have prompted immediate national policy responses on gun control and hate speech. The period is defined by the interconnectedness of these themes: technological competition driving economic policy, domestic politics shaping international relations, and regional conflicts having global repercussions.

The Trump administration in 2025 is marked by a strategy of governing by executive decree, seeking to reshape the federal bureaucracy and challenge the judiciary. President Trump has asserted presidential power to withhold congressionally allocated funds, fire independent regulators, and deploy the National Guard over gubernatorial objections. A key example is an executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship, which appears to contradict the 14th Amendment, signaling a potential trial of strength with the courts. The President’s approach is encapsulated by his social media post quoting Napoleon: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

On the economic front, the administration is confronting an “affordability crunch” that has dented the President’s approval ratings. In a prime-time address, President Trump blamed his predecessor for the economic situation and announced initiatives such as sending $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” checks to U.S. soldiers, to be funded by tariffs. The administration has also imposed some of the highest tariff increases ever seen.

Key Administrative and Policy Actions:

• Transgender Care: Proposed rules from the health department would make it nearly impossible for transgender adolescents to receive gender-related care by threatening to pull federal funding from hospitals participating in Medicaid and Medicare if they provide such services to minors.

• Climate Research: The administration plans to dismantle the Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a major climate and weather lab, labeling it a hub for “climate alarmism.” Scientists have warned this would decimate decades of progress in weather, wildfire, and disaster research.

• Jeffrey Epstein Files: The administration’s handling of records related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has created significant political controversy. The Department of Justice (DoJ) initially released a trove of documents but deleted at least 16 photos, including one featuring President Trump, without explanation. After pressure from a bipartisan congressional coalition and MAGA conspiracy theorists, the DoJ released a further 30,000 pages, some heavily redacted, which contained an email alleging President Trump “travelled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported.” The DoJ stated the files “contain untrue and sensationalist claims” about the president.

The conservative youth organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is navigating a period of turmoil following the murder of its founder, Charlie Kirk, in September 2025. The annual “AmericaFest” conference in Phoenix, the first since his death, highlighted deepening fractures within the MAGA movement.

• Leadership and Infighting: Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow and the new CEO of TPUSA, has been actively pushing back against conspiracy theories surrounding her husband’s death, some of which are being spread by former allies.

• Ideological Rifts: Major conservative influencers are publicly feuding. At AmericaFest, Ben Shapiro heavily criticized figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Megyn Kelly for engaging with extremists like Nick Fuentes, who is reportedly gaining ground within the movement. Vice President JD Vance has attempted to mediate, urging unity.

The controversy over the Epstein files has also exposed rifts, with MAGA supporters infuriated by the administration’s initial refusal to release all records.

While out of power in the White House and Congress, the Democratic Party has begun coalescing around a new core message: “affordability.” This theme proved successful in key 2025 electoral victories.

• Electoral Success: Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won New York’s mayoral race by promising to make the city less expensive. Centrists Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, by pledging to bring down costs.

• Policy Debate: The method for achieving affordability is still debated. Some Democrats are embracing “abundance liberalism,” a view holding that excessive regulation harms the economy by blocking housing, infrastructure, and innovation.

The conflict in Ukraine continues with significant developments on both the battlefield and the diplomatic front.

• EU Funding: After marathon talks, EU leaders agreed to a €90 billion ($106 billion) loan for Ukraine over the next two years, to be raised via joint debt backed by the EU budget. Ukraine is expected to repay the funds only after Russia pays reparations. The deal was reached amid urgency, as a separate proposal to use returns from frozen Russian assets stalled due to opposition from Belgium, where most of the assets are held.

• Military Situation: Russian troops have advanced, capturing the strategic eastern town of Siversk, which had previously blocked a Russian advance towards the larger cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Russia has also launched massive bombardments targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with over 600 drones, causing power cuts amid freezing weather.

• Force Levels: Ukraine’s armed forces currently number 800,000. Russia added an average of 8,000–9,000 soldiers to its army each month during the first half of 2025.

• Diplomacy: President Vladimir Putin has stated that peace will not be achieved until the “root causes” of the conflict are addressed, demanding Ukraine cede eastern territory. He also praised President Trump’s attempts to end the war.

The Trump administration’s foreign policy is guided by a transactional, “America First” doctrine that prioritizes dealmaking over traditional diplomacy.

• Venezuela Blockade: The administration has deployed a significant naval presence to the Caribbean, including the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, described as the largest flotilla since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The U.S. has ordered naval vessels to the region and is intercepting and seizing oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, escalating its campaign against President Nicolás Maduro. This action has drawn condemnation from China and raised concerns about its impact on Cuba, which relies on Venezuelan oil.

• Taiwan: The U.S. approved an $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan, including missiles, drones, and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). The move prompted an angry response from Beijing, which warned that using Taiwan “to contain China will absolutely fail.”

• South Africa: Tensions have escalated as President Trump accuses South Africa of a “genocide” against its white population, an allegation rejected by experts. The administration has imposed heavy tariffs and the appointment of Leo Brent Bozell III, a conservative media critic with no diplomatic background, as ambassador is expected to worsen the rift.

• Middle East: The administration brokered a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2025. It also facilitated a $35 billion deal for Israel to export gas to Egypt, a deal lobbied for by American oil giant Chevron.

Europe is facing what is described as a dual “competitiveness crisis” and “sovereignty crisis,” most acutely demonstrated in its space sector.

• The “Launcher Crisis” (2022-2024): Europe’s independent access to space was severely compromised by the retirement of the Ariane 5 rocket, failures of the Vega and Vega C rockets, and the end of cooperation with Russia on Soyuz launches. In 2023, Europe conducted only three launches, compared to 107 by the United States.

• Critical Dependencies: European institutions acknowledge critical dependencies on foreign technology along space value chains, particularly in electronic components and power technologies. A program on “critical space technologies for European non-dependence” has been initiated.

• Strategic Constellations: Projects like BROMO and IRIS² are intended to bolster European competitiveness and secure civil/military telecommunications. However, they are not designed to compete with US mega-constellations like Starlink in terms of volume. The IRIS² constellation of around 300 satellites, originally slated for 2027, has been postponed to 2030, a deadline considered unrealistic by some observers, leaving Europe without a strategic constellation for at least five years.

Afghanistan

Taliban rule appears durable due to regional powers (Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, etc.) prioritizing stability over political change. External pressure is limited by the Taliban’s ideological foundations and the lack of a credible alternative authority. Regional actors are engaging pragmatically with the de facto government.

Thailand

The nation is pursuing “strategic ambiguity,” balancing its traditional military alliance with the U.S. (e.g., Cobra Gold exercises) against deepening economic integration with China (e.g., Belt and Road Initiative, tech investments). While parts of the Thai military remain US-oriented, the economic reality increasingly favors China.

Canada

In an April 2025 election, Mark Carney led the Liberals to a fourth straight term, overcoming a 24-point deficit. Carney successfully cast himself as a defender of Canadian sovereignty against threats and insults from President Trump.

Poland

The June 2025 presidential election saw nationalist Karol Nawrocki narrowly defeat liberal Rafal Trzaskowski. Nawrocki’s victory tilts Poland back towards nationalism and Euroscepticism, creating a political standoff with the pro-European government of Donald Tusk.

2025 was dominated by a massive, debt-fueled spending boom on AI infrastructure, leading to widespread fears of an economic bubble.

• Data Center Investment: Cloud-computing firms like Oracle, Microsoft, and Meta have amassed a combined $500 billion in obligations for data center leases. This has invited investor scrutiny, as exemplified by Oracle’s stock falling after a report that its primary backer, Blue Owl Capital, pulled out of a $10 billion data center project over debt concerns.

• Circular Funding: The financing of the AI boom is characterized by interconnected, circular deals. For example, OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise $10 billion from Amazon and use its chips, while Google is working with Meta to hasten adoption of its AI chips. This circularity has fueled stock-price slides for firms like CoreWeave and Oracle.

• Market Performance: Despite bubble fears, the Morningstar Global Next Generation Artificial Intelligence index was up approximately 40% in 2025 through mid-December. Global corporate debt sales neared record levels at $1.7 trillion, with 30% related to AI.

The race for AI supremacy has intensified the geopolitical competition over advanced semiconductors.

• China’s Push for Self-Sufficiency: A Reuters investigation revealed that Chinese scientists have prototyped an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine, a critical tool for producing powerful AI chips. The project, described as China’s “Manhattan Project,” was reportedly built by former engineers from Dutch giant ASML and aims to produce working chips by 2028. Chinese AI chip startups like MetaX and Moore Threads have seen their shares soar in market debuts.

• Nvidia’s Dominance Challenged: While Nvidia remains the dominant force in AI chips, major tech players are forming alliances to reduce their dependence. Google, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI are collaborating on initiatives to promote and adopt alternative processors.

AI’s integration into society and business is accelerating, raising new regulatory and ethical questions.

• Data Privacy: Research from the University of New South Wales demonstrated that AI models can infer users’ private traits (gender, education, political leanings) with high accuracy simply by analyzing the ads they are shown. This undermines safeguards that prevent advertisers from explicitly targeting sensitive categories.

• AI in Business and Daily Life:

  • UPS is using AI to detect fraudulent returns by analyzing photos of returned items.

  • New York-based Everbloom uses an AI model to transform waste materials like poultry feathers into new fabrics, including polyester and cashmere.

  • Palantir provides customized software to intelligence agencies to identify threats in advance, highlighting the debate over surveillance technology.

  • The podcast “Flesh and Code” explores the world of AI relationships, telling the story of a man smitten with a chatbot.

On a Sunday in December 2025, two gunmen, believed to be a father and son inspired by the Islamic State, attacked a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and wounding 42. One of the shooters had previously been investigated for ties to ISIS.

Australian Government Response:

• Gun Control: The leader of New South Wales announced that parliament would be recalled to pass sweeping gun reforms. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later pledged the largest gun buyback in nearly 30 years.

• Hate Speech Laws: The government unveiled plans to tighten hate speech laws, creating new criminal offenses and allowing for the cancellation of visas for individuals spreading “hate and division.”

• Security Review: A review of police and intelligence agencies was announced a week after the attack.

• 2025 “Best Of” Recommendations:

  • Books: “What We Can Know” by Ian McEwan, “Chokepoints” by Edward Fishman.

  • Films: “One Battle After Another” (action), “Wake Up Dead Man” (murder mystery), “Flow” (animated eco-fable, winner of Best Animated Feature).

  • TV: “Andor” (Star Wars series on authoritarianism), “King of the Hill” (revived sitcom), “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” (historical epic).

  • Podcasts: “Flesh and Code” (AI relationships), “The Wargame” (geopolitical thriller), “Acquired” (corporate histories).

• Social Trends: The office holiday party is reportedly “dying,” with the number of US companies hosting one falling from 90% in 2007 to 64% in 2024. Conversely, Christmas markets are rising in popularity globally, with cities like Zagreb, Croatia, now competing to host the world’s best.

• Media Transformation: The Academy Awards (Oscars) will move from ABC to air on YouTube starting in 2029, signaling a major shift in broadcasting power to online platforms.