"Intense Politicisation, with Neither Institutional Roots nor Ambitions"

"'On the surface,' Jäger writes, 'the Black Lives Matter protests would seem to have little in common with the mob that stormed the Capitol in January 2021. Morally, they are worlds apart … Organisationally, however, these movements exhibit a striking set of similarities: fleeting in duration, they maintain no membership rolls and struggle to impose any real discipline on their adherents.' As a consequence, everything explodes and nothing changes; movements surge suddenly forward and yet no territory is taken. He quotes political theorist Paolo Gerbaudo’s evocative phrase 'bodies without organs'. Modern political movements, he writes, are 'concentrated and muscular, yet without an internal metabolism'."

Zoe Williams at The Guardian talks with Anton Jäger, author of Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences.

Now or Never

"Having staged a remarkably successful coup within Britain’s ruling Labour Party in response to outgoing leader Keir Starmer's chronic irresolution on virtually all issues, Burnham has calculated that he needs to appear decisive and pragmatic straight out of the box. The former Manchester mayor comes off as a gregarious, upbeat fellow with an admittedly nerdy overlay. If he's not exactly John F. Kennedy, he clearly outdoes Starmer on charisma (not a high bar). He begins with a considerable reservoir of goodwill, but whether improved vibes can correct the Labour government's toxic drift remains to be seen."

Andrew O'Hehir at Salon reacts to Andy Burnham becoming the latest UK prime minister.

As does Larry Elliot at The Guardian.

"PBS-ification"

"But it is noticeable that as the folk memory of punk and of the mid-Sixties and rock'n'roll, has faded,  so too is that distrust of art that Marcus wrote about approvingly, that Drummond enacted, that Bangs took for granted...

Gradually there has been a growing resignation towards the very thing that Nik Cohn found intolerable–the division between industrialised chartpop, brainless if entertaining trash, and a separate zone of 'fine music', which is totally comfortable with seeing itself as art."

Simon Reynolds presents a transcript of a talk he made at Harvard University in 2012.

Let's Dance

"That's what birthed punk rock. Not anarchy but ennui. The energy had to go somewhere. It went into a fast, urgent 'One, two, three, four…'"

Jonathan Eig at AudioPhix marks the fiftieth anniversary of Ramones.

And Simon Price at The Quietus discusses the Ramones' impact in Britain.

"The Old Order Is Not Coming Back"

"For a while, the US's allies comforted themselves with the belief that Trump was an aberration who would one day be gone, allowing the old ways to resume. That delusion has also been shattered. When Trump still seemed determined to make good on his Greenland threats, there was no sign of anyone or anything inside the US that would stop him. Over these last 12 months, Trump has demonstrated that the formal restraints designed to hold a US president in check are easily swept away. And if it can happen once, it can happen again. Which means it is not just Trump who is an unreliable ally. Sadly, it is the US itself."

Jonathan Freedland at The Guardian proposes "a new constellation of the European Union plus the UK plus Canada."

"This New Age of Nationalism"

"For more than a decade, leaders have not only been slow to respond to the millions who feel left out and left behind, but also to the changing balance of global economic power, moving us from a unipolar world once dominated by the US to a multipolar world of competing superpowers, and from a rules-based order to a power-based one. The ethnic nationalism that this has incited means free trade is giving way to protectionism. Where economics used to drive politics, the politics of nationalism is now driving economic decisions, and already more than 100 countries are running mercantilist policies marked out by reshoring and friend-shoring and by bans on cross-border trade, investment and technology transfer, sinking international cooperation to its lowest ebb since 1945." 

At The Guardian, Gordon Brown argues that "the hard right can be stopped in their tracks."

"A Signifier of Something Beyond Music"

"If you buy the idea that what the Britpop brand represents is optimism, positivity and youth culture winning without compromise then you can see its appeal to a 17-year-old in 2025. Who wouldn't hanker after the notion of a prelapsarian world before the scrutiny of social media, 9/11, the rise of the 'alt-right' et al? And the era’s 'fuck you, we're gonna have a good time' excesses look alluring in an age of wellness influencers and constant cameraphone surveillance."

Alexis Petridis at The Guardian attempts to "explain why we're all still in thrall to the ​m​ad-fer-it 90s."

And Chris DeVille at Stereogum writes after a Chicago concert that, "at long last, Oasis have conquered America."

While Steven Zeitchik at The Hollywood Reporter says that "Oasis Just Glitched the Algorithm."

And Alex Edelman at Rolling Stone describes an Oasis reunion concert as a "religious experience, if the religion was 'football hooligan.'"

"A Liberty That Would Be Easily Understood by the Scots-Irish of Appalachia but Would Perplex the Puritans of New England"

"California's convoluted policies toward drugs and mental illness have combined to exacerbate its colossal homelessness problem, setting it apart, once again, from progressive Yankee states. California has the highest rate of unsheltered homelessness, followed by Oregon, whose settlement history and politics are very similar to those of Northern California. By contrast, New York City, whose upstate region was settled by Yankees, has the third lowest rate of unsheltered homelessness in America. Its success in bringing its homeless population indoors is thanks to its 'right to shelter' law—a classic top-down Yankee solution to an urgent social problem. Neither California nor Oregon has such a law."

Leighton Woodhouse at UnHerd claims that California's political problems stem from the influence of two groups from back East.

"Can We Still Hear the 'Shot Heard Round the World'?"

"Within minutes, the British commander, Major John Pitcairn had reasserted control over his forces and ordered them to resume their march to Concord, where they destroyed three large cannon and threw 500 pounds of musket balls into a local pond. A handful of militia companies, totaling a few hundred men, advanced on the British troops and, after being fired upon, fired back at the redcoats—who then beat a retreat. But word of the troops' movements had spread through the countryside and armed locals took up positions behind fences, walls, and trees flanking the return route to Boston along Old Concord Road. As the British soldiers began the lengthy march back to their base, they were met with gunfire from invisible enemies hiding in the forest. The march turned into a mad dash to safety. The war for American independence had begun, even if independence would not be declared for another fifteen months."

Lindsay M. Chervinsky at The Bulwark marks the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

"How Do We Get Rid of You?"

"'A historical perspective is the key to democratic politics, which if denied can bury the real issues and confine news coverage to high-level gossip about the rich and the powerful, reducing us to the role of spectators of our fate, rather than active participants,' he argued. 'The obliteration of the past strengthens the short-term calculations that pass for political thought, and for me the real heroes are those few who try to explain the world in order to help us to understand what we can best do to improve our lot.'"

John Nichols at The Nation marks the one-hundredth anniversary of Tony Benn's birth.

"The Conduit for Everything"

"Hamilton also dished out news, gossip and tips from across Britain, encouraging DJs to send in lists of their biggest records that he compiled into the first ever UK dance chart: in an era when, as Cook puts it, DJs 'very rarely played outside their own local catchment area', it was as if he was trying to singlehandedly forge a country-wide dance scene. 'I mean, it's impossible for kids with the internet to believe, but there were all these little scenes going on in different places, and unless you went to visit a mate for a weekend, you'd never know what was going on in the next town, there was no cross-pollination between different cities–if you lived in Brighton, you would have no idea what the Wild Bunch were playing in Bristol,' says Cook."

Alexis Petridis at The Guardian discusses the life of British music journalist and DJ James Hamilton "the 'eccentric aristo' who catalysed British club culture."

"A Concept Highly Malleable in Meaning"

"As the firewall between the far right and the moderate right has eroded in recent years, many of these ideas have seeped into the mainstream. Racialised ideas of belonging and identity have become accepted even by many of those formally opposed to racism."

Kenan Malik at The Guardian discusses ideas of race and ethnicity.

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic argues that "the DEI debate is defined by Americans talking past one another."

"Focused on Protecting Blue-Collar Communities from the Depredations of Free-Market Capitalism"

"A post-industrial cleavage both cultural and economic was never just about the case for and against leaving the European Union. At its most basic, the blue-collar leave vote expressed a desire for rupture with a globalised capitalism that had undermined the power and agency of the western working class. It also reflected a latent perception that compassionate 'one world' social liberalism coexisted happily with a callous economic version; one that had stripped people and places of dignity, status and self-esteem."

Julian Coman at The Guardian calls for British politics to turn toward Blue Labour.

"Blame Jane Jacobs"

"Federal guidelines can make the environment more amenable, but the solutions by and large cannot come from central planning; states and cities and towns will need to reform their rules and processes to allow the housing supply to grow where people want to build. The goal of policy makers, in any case, shouldn't be to move Americans to any particular place, or to any particular style of living. They should instead aim to make it easier for Americans to move wherever they would like—to make it equally easy to build wherever Americans' hopes and desires alight."

At The Atlantic, Yoni Appelbaum asks, "Who Killed American Mobility?"

And Derek Thompson points to similar problems in Britain.

Nice Work

"He graduated with a first from University College London before entering national service for two years. 'After about three weeks of basic training… I was quite sure that I wanted to go back to the academic life,' he said."

Ella Creamer at The Guardian writes an obit for author David Lodge.

"2024's Pop Was All About Sharing the Moment"

"And you could see it in the commotion caused by the return of Oasis. Whatever else you make of it, Oasis's oeuvre is absolutely predicated on collective experience: their songs sound like songs written specifically for vast crowds of people to bellow along to en masse; they're probably best experienced in the middle of said crowd, drunk, with your arms around your friends. Indeed, collective experience is so entrenched in Oasis's appeal that their music has literally become a signifier of it. In recent years, advertisers have reached for Stand By Me and Round Are Way in commercials tagged, respectively 'it's a people thing' and 'we can all do our bit for our community'."

Alex Petridis at The Guardian writes that "there remains an innate desire for collective experience, for music to provide a sense of community."

"A Section of the Elite That Want to Keep Climbing the Ladder of Privilege but Don't Want to See Themselves as Part of the Elite"

"These works are important in helping make sense of the absurdities of contemporary politics. They explain, for instance, why the Democratic party in the US (and many social democratic parties in Europe) is increasingly a club for the rich and educated, while many working-class voters have abandoned it. They illuminate, too, our culture's obsession with the minutiae of symbolic representation and the policing of language but disregard for real material inequalities."

Kenan Malik at The Guardian discusses Musa al-Gharbi's We Have Never Been Woke.

"Amphetamines, Jean-Paul Sartre and John Lee Hooker"

"Early Mods could 'pass' between work and play without changing their suits, which is perhaps one of the reasons they were never sent up in the culture at large. Think back to 1960s and 1970s low comedy: no TV sketch show or sitcom or kitschy horror film was complete without its parade of subcult Aunt Sallies–hippies, ton-up boys, skinheads, punks. Rockers had shivs, skinheads had bovver boots, hippies might dose you–what was a Mod going to do? Make you listen to Otis Redding? Force you to buy a decent pair of trousers?"

In a 2013 London Review of Books article, Ian Penman reviews Richard Weight's Mod: A Very British Style.

"Democrats Must Offer Material Improvements to the Lives of Working-Class Americans, not Just Ironic Camouflage Trucker Hats"

"But the subjects of Shenk's narrative aren't the not-so-great men at the end of history. Rather, they are the insiders, standing behind those men, out of the spotlight: strategists Stan Greenberg and Douglas Schoen, 'political Zeligs' who emerge, again and again, on the scene of left-liberal parties' fabulous failures across the globe, hopping from ship to sinking ship over the past 30 years. But Greenberg and Schoen were no chameleons. They brought with them dueling ideas on how to reverse the losses wrought by dealignment. And through their rivalry, Shenk contends, we can understand the real story of dealignment, and how we might reverse it."

Ben Metzner at The New Republic reviews Timothy Shenk's Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics.

"To Create the Sound of a Council Estate Singing Its Heart Out"

"Beyond all the noise about chart battles, sibling rivalry and Cool Britannia, the Oasis narrative was such a powerful one because it pointed to how a valuable new form of 'oceanic feeling'–Sigmund Freud's term for an all-embracing mass consciousness–might emerge in Britain in the dying days of the 20th century. For all its broadness and frequent crudeness, the collective mood that Oasis inspired was at heart an inclusive one, based on the desire to advocate a more demotic, more democratic way of national being, rooted in the lived reality of working-class experience."

Alex Niven at The Guardian reacts to the Oasis reunion.