This week also saw House Republicans jamming through Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” in a feverish overnight session. It won’t shock you to learn that, though it is indeed big, the bill is the opposite of beautiful. From deep cuts, to Medicaid, to what Chris Lehmann called “the largest upward redistribution of wealth under any piece of legislation in American history,” we’re talking Dorian-Gray-in-the-attic gross here.

Yes, it’s been another fun few days in Trump’s America. But don’t despair. The world is also full of lively ideas (see the philosopher FT’s piece on the history of the polis), awesome communities (Alexandra Adelina Nita on the “queerest anti-imperialist chess club on Earth”), and incredible human beings (Mohamad Saleh, an 18-year-old amputee and survivor of the Gaza genocide whose story is the subject of Jen Marlowe’s extraordinary short film Severed, which premiered on our site this week). Onward!

-Jack Mirkinson

Senior Editor, The Nation

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