At The New Republic this week, they have a series of essays on America in 2050. “Will the United States still be one nation? Should it be?” they ask. Matthew Sitman uses his essay (“Why Our Country is Too Big Not to Fail”) to delve into some hardcore political theory, including Rousseau’s The Government of Poland, the Federalist Papers, and Willmoore Kendall (who translated Rousseau). All the entries deserve to be read, though. TNR did not invite Samuel Goldman, associate professor in political science at George Washington University, even though his 2021 book After Nationalism dealt with this exact question. Religion, of course, plays a huge role in both social fragmentation and in nationalist self-conceptions, which is why we asked Goldman to review David Hollinger’s new book on American Christianity a couple weeks ago.
Of course, most of the world’s attention is not on the democratic deficit in the United States. Their attention is instead on the World Cup (New Yorker). With France and Morocco playing in the semi-final on Wednesday, there are some great storylines. In a cutting edge scoop on Friday, Le Figaro proud announced to the world that Brad Pitt is supporting Les bleus in the World Cup. One story that is unlikely to get a lot of attention is the self-imposed visa crisis in France, which affects north African workers, including those from Morocco.
In more serious news, Peru’s President Pedro Castillo attempted to dissolve Congress and was then removed by the Congress that refused to be dissolved. Le monde diplomatique republished their report on Castillo’s election just last year. Also, in Germany they arrested dozens of individuals, including an obscure noble named Heinrich XIII of Reuss, involved in an alleged attempt to kill the chancellor and overthrow the government of Germany (New York Times). They seem to come from the Reichsbürger movement, which believes that the current German constitution is not a government at all but just a limited liability corporation. It raises the question of the line between the real world and the digital world where conspiracy theories flourish. Absurd ramblings and inane theories online can take on a life of their own, which political theories based on rational actor theory are ill-equipped to comprehend.