2025-12-25 21:21:07
编辑注：12月25日早上8点（东部时间）：本文是为了节日季重新发布的。它最初于2020年发表。尽管如今“圣诞节提前”（Christmas creep）现象已从万圣节开始，但真正的圣诞节季节实际上从圣诞节当天（12月25日）才开始。这是基督教传统中“12天圣诞节”的起始日，也是那首让人耳熟能详的圣诞颂歌的名称来源。以下是关于这首歌和这个节日的一些你可能不知道的事情。
“12天圣诞节”是基督教神学中一个时间段，标志着耶稣诞生与三博士到来之间的时期。它从12月25日（圣诞节）开始，到1月6日（显现节，有时也称为三王节）结束。在圣诞节前四周的星期日开始的四个星期被称为“将临期”（Advent），从圣诞节前四周的星期日开始，到12月24日结束。一些家庭选择通过庆祝不同圣人的节日（包括12月26日的圣施洗约翰）以及安排每天的圣诞活动来纪念这12天，但对许多人来说，圣诞节当天之后生活就恢复如常了。
“12天圣诞节”也是一首圣诞颂歌，歌词讲述了一位“真爱”在12天内送给歌手的各种礼物。每一节都建立在前一节的基础上，这使得它在长途旅行中成为一种非常有效的烦人工具。
如今大多数人熟悉的版本从以下歌词开始：
第一天圣诞节，
我的真爱送给我
一只在梨树上的鹧鸪。
随后，歌词每天增加一个礼物，直到第12天，所有礼物都被提及：
第2天：两只斑鸠
第3天：三只法国鸡
第4天：四只歌手鸟
第5天：五条金环
第6天：六只下蛋的鹅
第7天：七只游泳的天鹅
第8天：八位挤奶的女仆
第9天：九位跳舞的女士
第10天：十位跳跃的男爵
第11天：十一支吹笛的乐手
第12天：十二位敲鼓的鼓手
这首歌的历史并不清晰。最早已知的版本出现在1780年的一本儿童书籍《Mirth Without Mischief》中。2014年，该书的第一版在苏富比拍卖会上卖出了23,750美元，但你也可以在亚马逊上购买电子版。
一些历史学家认为这首歌可能起源于法国，但大多数人认为它最初是作为一种“记忆与惩罚”游戏，歌手通过背诵歌词来测试对方的记忆力，如果出错则要接受惩罚，比如亲吻或做某事。在不同的时期，歌词版本也有所不同。有些版本提到了“正在捕猎的熊”或“正在航行的船”，有些则将礼物的赠送者改为歌手的母亲，而不是“真爱”。早期版本中提到的“四只colly鸟”是一个古英语词汇，意思是黑色的鸟（即黑鸟）。一些人认为五条金环实际上指的是环颈雉的特征，这与早期歌词中的鸟类主题相呼应。
无论如何，我们今天所熟知的版本是由一位名叫弗雷德里克·奥斯特的英国作曲家于1909年创作的，他为这首歌谱了曲，并修改了歌词（将“colly”改为“calling”），还添加了“five go-old rings”这一拉长的发音。
网络上流传着一种流行理论，认为“12天圣诞节”的歌词是基督教的隐秘教义，旨在帮助基督徒在遭受迫害时学习和传播信仰。根据这一理论，歌词中的各种礼物分别代表了基督教的教义，如：
当然，鹧鸪代表耶稣基督。然而，这一理论在仔细分析后显得并不合理。事实证明，这首歌的礼物与基督教的“等价物”并无关联，因此它并不适合作为学习基督教教义的工具。此外，如果基督徒真的因为迫害而不得不隐藏信仰，他们也无法庆祝圣诞节，更不用说唱圣诞颂歌了。著名历史学家威廉·斯图德韦尔（William Studwell）也反驳了这一说法。他在2008年对《宗教新闻服务》表示：
这首歌最初并不是一首天主教歌曲，无论你在网上看到什么。……中立的参考书籍都指出这是无稽之谈。如果真的存在这样的教义工具，那它也是从最初的世俗歌曲演变而来的。它是衍生的，而不是源头。
抱歉，我打破了你期待的圣诞趣闻。顺便一提，“Ring Around the Rosie”也不一定与黑死病有关。
要计算“12天圣诞节”中所有礼物的费用，我们可以参考PNC金融服务集团自1984年以来每年发布的“圣诞价格指数”（Christmas Price Index），该指数根据当前市场价格计算歌曲中所有礼物的费用。考虑到当前的通货膨胀率，今年的礼物费用格外高昂：2022年的总费用高达45,523.27美元，比2021年的价格上涨了10.5%。如果你单独计算每项礼物的每一次出现（总共364次），费用则高达197,071.09美元，比去年上涨了9.8%。
随着黄金和肥料等物品价格的上涨，五条金环（价值1,245美元，上涨了39%）和那只著名的梨树上的鹧鸪（价值280.18美元，上涨了近26%）的费用也显著增加。不过，有些东西的价格一直没变，比如联邦最低工资自2009年以来没有上涨，因此八位挤奶的女仆的费用仍保持在相对低廉的58美元。
不过，无论费用如何，真的给某人送所有这些礼物可能并不是个好主意；想想那些鸟粪吧。
“12天圣诞节”的结构非常适合改编和恶搞，因此出现了许多版本。例如，杰夫·福克斯沃西（Jeff Foxworthy）的乡村版、Twisted Sister的重金属版，当然还有《芝麻街》（Muppets）的版本（由约翰·丹佛演唱）。
此外，有人尝试通过食物来诠释“12天圣诞节”，比如将魔鬼蛋（deviled eggs）与“下蛋的鹅”联系起来。还有“12天圣诞节饮食”计划，该计划由《大西洋》（The Atlantic）的奥尔加·哈扎恩（Olga Khazan）在2013年尝试过。她计算了歌曲中提到的每种鸟类的卡路里含量，并通过各种活动（如挤奶、跳舞、跳跃和敲鼓）消耗的卡路里来抵消。结果发现，尽管这些鸟类的卡路里含量很高，但与典型的美式节日大餐相比，反而更少一些。她总结道：
如果你一天内吃掉所有提到的鸟类，包括环颈雉派，但不包括其他菜肴的配菜，再减去挤奶、跳舞、跳跃和敲鼓所消耗的卡路里，你总共摄入的净热量是2,384卡路里。这比典型的美式感恩节晚餐（约4,500卡路里）要好得多。从相对角度来看，这似乎更合理，因为如果你想通过唱这首歌来消耗一顿饭的热量，你必须反复唱300遍，大约需要17.5小时的圣诞颂歌演唱。这显然是一个没人会欢迎的礼物。
更新：2022年12月1日，上午11:05
本文最初于2020年发表，现已更新为包含PNC 2022年的圣诞价格指数数据。
Editor’s note, December 25, 8 am ET: This story is being republished for the holiday season. It was originally published in 2020.
It might seem unbelievable given that the “Christmas creep” now begins before Halloween, but the true Christmas season actually starts on Christmas Day itself. That’s right: December 25 marks the official start of the 12 days of Christmas, the Christian tradition that shares its name with a relentlessly stick-in-your-head Christmas carol.
Here are a few things you may not know about the song and the season.
The 12 days of Christmas is the period in Christian theology that marks the span between the birth of Christ and the coming of the Magi, the three wise men. It begins on December 25 (Christmas) and runs through January 6 (the Epiphany, sometimes also called Three Kings’ Day). The four weeks preceding Christmas are collectively known as Advent, which begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on December 24.
Some families choose to mark the 12-day period by observing the feast days of various saints (including St. Stephen on December 26) and planning daily Christmas-related activities, but for many, things go back to business as usual after December 25.
“The 12 Days of Christmas” is also a Christmas carol in which the singer brags about all the cool gifts they received from their “true love” during the 12 days of Christmas. Each verse builds on the previous one, serving as a really effective way to annoy family members on road trips.
The version most people are familiar with today begins with this verse:
On the first day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
a partridge in a pear tree.
The song then adds a gift for each day, building on the verse before it, until you’re reciting all 12 gifts together:
Day 2: two turtle doves
Day 3: three French hens
Day 4: four calling birds
Day 5: five gold rings
Day 6: six geese a-laying
Day 7: seven swans a-swimming
Day 8: eight maids a-milking
Day 9: nine ladies dancing
Day 10: 10 lords a-leaping
Day 11: 11 pipers piping
Day 12: 12 drummers drumming
The history of the carol is somewhat murky. The earliest known version first appeared in a 1780 children’s book called Mirth With-out Mischief. (A first edition of that book sold for $23,750 at a Sotheby’s auction in 2014, but you can also buy a digital copy on Amazon.) Some historians think the song could be French in origin, but most agree it was designed as a “memory and forfeits” game, in which singers tested their recall of the lyrics and had to award their opponents a “forfeit” — a kiss or a favor of some kind — if they made a mistake.
Many variations of the lyrics have existed at different points. Some mention “bears a-baiting” or “ships a-sailing”; some name the singer’s mother as the gift giver instead of their true love. Early versions list four “colly” birds, an archaic term meaning black as coal (blackbirds, in other words). And some people theorize that the five gold rings actually refer to the markings of a ring-necked pheasant, which would align with the bird motif of the early verses.
In any case, the song most of us are familiar with today comes from an English composer named Frederic Austin; in 1909, he set the melody and lyrics (including changing “colly” to “calling”) and added as his own flourish, the drawn-out cadence of “five go-old rings.”
A popular theory that’s made the internet rounds is that the lyrics to “The 12 Days of Christmas” are coded references to Christianity; it posits that the song was written to help Christians learn and pass on the tenets of their faith while avoiding persecution. Under that theory, the various gifts break down as follows, as the myth-debunking website Snopes explained:
2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch,” which gives the history of man’s fall from grace
6 Geese A-laying = the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping = the Ten Commandments
11 Pipers Piping = the 11 faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming = the 12 points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed
The partridge in the pear tree, naturally, represents Jesus Christ.
This theory seems tailor-made for circulation via chain emails, but it actually makes little sense once you examine it. Snopes has a great explanation of the many, many holes in its logic. The most egregious: First, the song’s gifts have nothing to do with their Christian “equivalents,” so the song is basically useless as a way to remember key pillars of the faith. And second, if Christians were so restricted from practicing their faith that they had to conceal messages in a song, they also wouldn’t be able to celebrate Christmas in the first place — much less sing Christmas carols.
The late historian William Studwell, known for his Christmas carol expertise, also refuted the coded message idea. As he told the Religion News Service in 2008:
This was not originally a Catholic song, no matter what you hear on the Internet. … Neutral reference books say this is nonsense. If there was such a catechism device, a secret code, it was derived from the original secular song. It’s a derivative, not the source.
Sorry to spoil your dinner party fun fact; while I’m at it, I might as well tell you “Ring Around the Rosie” isn’t about the Black Plague, either.
To calculate the cost of all the gifts in “The 12 Days of Christmas,” I’ll turn to the PNC financial services group’s annual Christmas Price Index, which PNC has been putting out since 1984; it calculates the cost of all the gifts in the song based on current market rates. Given the current pace of inflation, this smorgasbord of gift-giving is extra-costly this year: The total for 2022 comes to a whopping $45,523.27, up 10.5 percent from 2021 prices, or $197,071.09 if you count each mention of an item separately (which would amount to 364 gifts in all) — a 9.8 percent increase from last year.
The rising price of items like gold and fertilizer means those five rings ($1,245, a 39 percent increase) and the infamous partridge in a pear tree ($280.18, up nearly 26 percent) are costlier than ever. Some things haven’t changed at all, though — as the index points out, the federal minimum wage hasn’t increased since 2009, meaning the rate for eight maids a-milking is holding steady at a relative steal of $58.
No matter the cost, though, actually giving someone all this stuff is probably not a great idea; just think of all the bird poo.
The structure of “The 12 Days of Christmas” lends itself easily to parodies, of which there have been many. There’s Jeff Foxworthy’s redneck version, Twisted Sister’s heavy metal take, and, of course, a Muppets version (featuring John Denver):
Others have attempted to interpret the 12 Days of Christmas via food, with dishes like deviled eggs representing geese a-laying and so on. Then there’s the “12 Days of Christmas diet,” which the Atlantic’s Olga Khazan attempted in 2013. She calculated the calories in a serving of each bird mentioned in the song and offset them with the calories burned by the various activities (milking, leaping, etc.). Turns out all that poultry is somehow less indulgent than the typical American holiday meal. She sums up:
If you ate all of the birds in one day, including the pheasant pie, but not including all the trimmings for the other dishes, and subtracted the energy you expended milking, dancing, leaping, and drumming, you’d have consumed 2,384 net calories. That’s really not bad, considering the average American Thanksgiving dinner adds up to about 4,500 calories.
It seems even more reasonable, relatively speaking, when you consider that if you wanted to burn off your meal by just singing its namesake tune, you’d have to make it all the way through the song roughly 300 times — about 17.5 hours of caroling. And that’s a gift I doubt anyone would welcome.
Update, December 1, 2022, 11:05 am: This story, originally published in 2020, has been updated with the 2022 numbers from PNC’s Christmas Price Index.
2025-12-25 21:20:45
今年最后几天感觉有些奇怪。编辑注：12月25日早上8点东部时间，这篇文章因节日季重新发布。原文最初发表于2024年。大约在我7岁那年，洛杉矶的公立学校实行了“全年制”课程安排。对我所在的公立小学来说，这意味着暑假变短了（真扫兴），而寒假则变得特别长（同样扫兴）。那年，我的父母让我参加了一个名为“冬季营”的活动，这类似于夏令营，但乐趣少很多。那一年是厄尔尼诺年，持续的降雨让游泳池变成了令人不适的绿色。我实在不记得我们大多数日子都做了些什么，可能就是做了很多手链，还互相争吵。为了改变一下日常，营地组织了一次观鲸之旅（1月是加利福尼亚南部灰鲸的季节）。但刚一出海，就遇到了一场巨大的风暴，船摇晃得非常厉害，几乎所有人都吐了，唯独我没有。别以为我幸免于难：雨下得很大，我的衣服被淋湿得透透的，结果裤子在大家面前掉下来了。我们根本没有看到鲸鱼。总之，这些日子说明了寒假对孩子们来说可能很奇怪：虽然有家庭聚会和节日庆祝，但同时也可能因为学校放假、天气不好、活动不多而显得无聊。在很多地方，现在积雪已经不足以支持传统的冬季活动了——你真的无法用“冬日混合”来堆雪人。有一年，我带着大孩子在零下气温中艰难地前往便利店，只为逃离家门。情况确实可能很糟糕。对于这一年最后这些短暂而奇怪的日子，我唯一能给的建议就是以你所能想到的方式好好珍惜它们。我们家庆祝圣诞节，所以我的孩子们这周会打开礼物，然后可能把礼物的碎片到处乱扔。我两岁的孩子总是不停地喊：“万圣节！”然后在被纠正后，默默地感叹：“万圣节已经结束了。”我理解，我其实也喜欢圣诞节，但说实话，我也不得不承认自己也喜欢万圣节。无论你是否庆祝节日，记住，这些是日历上最黑暗的日子，无论天气如何，日子已经一天天变长了。如果你还能睡得着，那就去睡吧。带孩子们去看夜空，这个月金星非常明亮，而且不是无人机。如果他们比较安静，可以带他们去观鸟。我会在1月2日跳过周四，但1月9日我会回来和你们一起。感谢过去几个月一直阅读这篇文章的各位读者（以及寄来问题、推荐播客和讲述孩子们在玩具堆里冬眠的故事的朋友们），我将在新的一年再见！## 我在读什么 学区正在为应对特朗普政府可能的移民政策收紧，组织家庭法律权利研讨会，并培训教职员工如何应对ICE特工到校的情况。《74》杂志整理了2024年教育领域的图表，包括有关疫情学习损失和儿童智能手机使用的数据。Ulta Beauty公司开始销售装有玩具版美容产品的神秘球，这可能是为了吸引备受追捧的Sephora青少年群体。根据合同，我们允许继续阅读圣诞书籍直到12月31日，之后我的丈夫会把它们收起来，保存11个月。我小儿子特别喜欢《选一棵圣诞树》这本温馨的押韵故事，讲述如何装饰圣诞树，以及《圣诞老人是怎么从烟囱爬进来的？》这本书（剧透：它并没有回答这个古老的问题）。## 读者来信 我收到了很多关于澳大利亚禁止儿童使用社交媒体的提问，新年我将探讨这种禁令的利与弊。在报道这一话题时，我非常期待听到你的看法：你身边的孩子是否从社交媒体中受益？我们总是听到很多关于社交媒体的负面影响，我非常好奇它的正面效果。欢迎通过[email protected]与我联系。
Editor’s note, December 25, 8 am ET: This story is being republished for the holiday season. It was originally published in 2024.
When I was about 7, Los Angeles public schools shifted to a “year-round” schedule. The effect, for my elementary school, was a shorter summer break (boo), and an extra-long winter break (also, it turned out, boo).
That year, my parents enrolled me in “winter camp,” which was like summer camp but less fun. It was an El Niño year, and the constant rain turned the swimming pools into an unwholesome shade of green. I honestly don’t remember what we did with most of our days; probably we made a lot of lanyards and argued with one another.
In an effort to mix things up, the camp arranged a whale-watching trip for us (January is gray whale season in Southern California). But as soon as we got out to sea, an enormous storm kicked up, buffeting our boat to such a degree that every camper except for me threw up. Lest you think I was spared: My clothes became so waterlogged in the rain that my pants fell down in front of everyone. We did not see any whales.
All of this is to say that winter break can be weird for kids: There are often family visits and holiday celebrations, but it’s also a time when school is out, the weather is bad, and there’s not always much to do. In a lot of places, there’s no longer enough snow for the winter activities of yore — you really cannot build a snowman out of wintry mix. One year, I took my older kid on a desperate trudge to the dollar store in subfreezing temperatures just to get out of the house. Things can get rough.
I have no advice for the short, strange days at the end of the year other than to honor them in whatever way you can. We celebrate Christmas in my family, so my kids will be opening presents this week, and then probably strewing pieces of them liberally about the house. My 2-year-old keeps exclaiming, “It’s Halloween!” and then, when corrected, quietly lamenting, “Halloween all done.” I get it — I like Christmas fine, but I kind of prefer Halloween, too.
Whether you’re celebrating anything or not, remember that these are the darkest days of the calendar, and whatever happens with the weather or everything else, the days are already getting longer. Maybe get some sleep, if you can. Take your kids out to look at the night sky — Venus is really good this month and is not a drone. If they are reasonably quiet, take them birdwatching.
I’ll be skipping Thursday, January 2, but I’ll be back with you on January 9. A big thank you to everyone who’s been reading (and sending in questions, podcast recommendations, and stories about kids hibernating in nests of toys) these last few months, and I’ll see you in the new year!
School districts are preparing for potential immigration crackdowns from the Trump administration, by hosting seminars for families on their legal rights and training staff on how to respond if ICE agents show up at school.
The 74 has a roundup of charts that defined education in 2024, including data on pandemic learning loss and kids’ smartphone use.
Ulta Beauty has started selling mystery balls with toy versions of beauty products inside, possibly as a way of courting the coveted Sephora tween demographic.
We are contractually allowed to continue reading our Christmas books until December 31, at which point my husband will sequester them for the next 11 months. My little kid especially enjoys Pick a Pine Tree, a sweet rhyming story about tree decorating, and How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney?, which (spoiler) fails to answer that age-old question.
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about Australia’s move to ban kids from social media, and in the new year, I’ll be looking into the pros and cons of such bans. As I report on that, I’d love to hear from you: Have the kids in your life experienced any positive effects from social media? We hear so much about the negatives that I’m very curious about the flip side. Get in touch at [email protected].
2025-12-25 20:00:00
2025年10月30日，副总统JD·范斯在华盛顿特区白宫西翼外举行新闻发布会。在2024年大选成功之后，范斯进入白宫，准备推动变革，全力支持唐纳德·特朗普，并在社交媒体上发布自己想要的内容。然而，范斯作为曾经的“反特朗普”保守派，如今却成为MAGA（特朗普主义）的潜在继承人，他真正希望美国变成什么样？随着中期选举的临近，他是否会开始疏远特朗普？主持人诺埃尔·金采访了 Politico 记者伊恩·沃德，探讨了范斯上任一年来的表现，以及这对我们理解特朗普政府之后共和党可能走向的启示。以下是采访内容的节选，已进行删减和润色。完整播客内容更丰富，可在Apple Podcasts、Pandora和Spotify等平台收听。
从2024年底开始，范斯的网络形象开始出现各种恶搞，比如“大头”、“跳舞”、“戴小帽子吃棒棒糖”等。起初这些是对他的一种嘲讽，但范斯却欣然接受。一个著名的例子是，他在万圣节装扮成一个恶搞形象，戴着大眼睛的帽子，与人合影并上传网络。范斯是千禧一代的一员，成长于博客和早期社交媒体的高峰期，他深刻理解当前保守派政治的主流来自网络。因此，他通过参与这些网络文化，表明自己是右翼核心圈的一员，并且比老一辈政治家更懂网络政治。
范斯于2025年1月20日就职。他上任初期的成就包括协助特朗普推动一些颇具争议的提名，如彼得·赫格赛特、罗伯特·弗兰克尔和图尔西·加巴德。这些提名的通过被视为他的重大胜利。此外，他在欧洲的行程也颇具影响力，例如在慕尼黑安全会议上的演讲，他几乎摧毁了五十年来的美欧合作传统；在巴黎的演讲则阐述了政府对人工智能的立场。这些举动显示了他愿意进入这些领域并打破现状。
2025年2月，特朗普与乌克兰总统泽连斯基在椭圆形办公室会面，尽管这本身可能不是大新闻，但范斯在其中扮演了重要角色。当时，泽连斯基前来签署一项关键矿产协议，但会面迅速演变为特朗普和范斯对泽连斯基的批评。范斯认为欧洲受益于美国主导的国际秩序，但同时他也认为这种秩序损害了美国蓝领阶层的利益。他将欧洲和乌克兰视为“寄生者”，没有对美国工人阶级表示感激。
6月，以色列与伊朗爆发了为期12天的冲突，范斯支持特朗普使用“ bunker buster”（ bunker buster 是一种穿透力极强的炸弹）对伊朗进行打击。尽管范斯公开表示支持，但据称他在幕后反对美国直接介入该冲突。他随后提出了所谓的“特朗普主义”理论，为这些行动提供正当性。
9月，保守派人物查理·克里克被暗杀。范斯与克里克关系密切，克里克曾是最早发现范斯作为保守派新星的人之一，并将其介绍给特朗普的团队。克里克去世后，范斯主持了他的节目，坐在旧行政办公室大楼的办公桌前，面对镜头发表讲话，背景是美国国旗，场面非常有总统气派。他还将克里克的死亡归咎于左翼政治暴力，认为这是比右翼暴力更大的问题。
10月，一个年轻共和党人小组聊天记录被泄露，其中包含大量种族主义和反犹言论。范斯对此事有所介入，他淡化了这些言论的严重性。同时，右翼认为过去五年到十年，共和党在“取消文化”面前退缩了，而范斯等人则试图推动一种文化转变，即无论言论多么冒犯，都不会放弃自己的人，同时积极对抗媒体中的“敌人”。然而，几周后，当 Tucker Carlson 采访了对纳粹感兴趣的尼克·弗兰克时，范斯却保持沉默。尽管如此，他仍在进行联盟管理，认为弗兰克虽然观点极端，但拥有大量年轻男性支持者，这对MAGA的选民联盟至关重要。他虽然批评了弗兰克，但并未真正将其排除在保守派联盟之外。
范斯在中期选举中将扮演什么角色？我认为他会外出宣传一些经济成就，尤其是移民问题。目前，移民问题似乎是将MAGA联盟维持在一起的关键议题。他们将重点强调非法越境人数的大幅下降，以及在大规模驱逐方面取得的进展，尽管这些措施引发了争议。
范斯是否计划在2028年竞选总统？按照惯例，人们不会在成为总统候选人之前谈论自己的总统野心。范斯清楚这一点，并表示目前他的重点不是总统竞选，也否认自己在寻求这一职位。但显然，所有人都认为他是2028年总统竞选的潜在继承人，他将是该党提名的候选人。
人们是否喜欢范斯？目前民调并不乐观，因此很难了解选民的真实想法。我经常想到社会学家马克斯·韦伯，他研究过“魅力型运动”的结构，以及魅力型领袖如何选择继任者。这一过程对魅力是否能传递给继任者至关重要。我认为范斯能否巩固MAGA基础，取决于他如何获得提名。是特朗普的背书，还是让党内不同派系竞争，如范斯与鲁比奥、德克·克鲁兹之间的较量？如果后者发生，范斯将面临更大的挑战。
After a successful 2024 election, Vice President JD Vance came into the White House ready to shake things up, support President Donald Trump at all costs, and post whatever he wanted online.
But what does Vance — the former “never Trump” conservative who has maneuvered, at least for now, into the position of MAGA heir apparent — really want the country to look like? And with a potentially difficult midterm season approaching, will the vice president begin to distance himself from Trump?
Host Noel King spoke with Ian Ward, a reporter at Politico, who covers conservatives and the American right. They discussed the highs and lows of Vance’s first year and what it tells us about what the Republican party could look like after the Trump administration.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
From late 2024 onward, you see memes of Vance: huge head, dancing, little boy hat, lollipop. It starts as a way to mock the VP. But he doesn’t treat it like that. What does he do instead?
He’s embraced it. One notable example: there’s this famous meme of the vice president, overweight with long curly hair and big bulging eyes, that started circulating around the election. And for Halloween this year, Vance dressed up as that meme and took a picture with big bulgy eyes and posted it online.
He’s part of the millennial generation that grew up at the peak era of online blogging and sort of early social media. I think he understands really innately that conservative politics are flowing upwards from the internet at this point. So by engaging with some of those memes, he’s signaling that he’s in the engine room of the right and that he gets it in a way that an older generation of politicians didn’t.
He comes into office January 20. What do some of his early wins look like?
He was deputized very early on to shepherd some of Trump’s more controversial nominees through the Senate —people like Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr., or Tulsi Gabbard. So that was a big win for him.
“I think everyone understands that he’s the heir apparent and that it’s his nomination to lose in 2028.”
A second one was his trip to Europe. He gave two very notable speeches there, one at the Munich Security Conference where he basically torpedoed 50 years of transatlantic collaboration, and one in Paris where he laid out the administration’s view on AI. And those both showed that he was willing to enter into these spaces and disrupt a status quo that in his mind wasn’t working.
In February, President Trump met Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Might have been not a big story, but it became a big story in part because of the role that JD Vance played. Remind us what happened.
Zelenskyy was in town to finalize a critical-mineral deal. The meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and Zelenskyy and Vance and a couple other Cabinet members very quickly devolved into Trump and Vance berating Zelenskyy. Vance has an idea that Europe has benefited tremendously from the international order governed by American military and economic hegemony.
At the same time, I think he thinks that that international order has harmed the type of working-class blue-collar American that he grew up with in Ohio. These are the people who actually fight the wars. They’re the people who’ve borne the brunt of the de-industrialization that’s accompanied economic globalization.
So I think, in his mind, Europe — and Ukraine by extension — are sort of freeloaders who are leeching off working-class Americans and not thanking them for it
And then in June, we have this “12-day war” between Israel and Iran, and JD Vance defends Trump when he drops the bunker buster bomb. How does Vance navigate his clear and obvious disdain for foreign wars with President Trump?
All signs indicate that behind the scenes he was advocating against direct US intervention in that conflict. But once it became apparent that Trump was going to intervene, Vance publicly fell in line. After the strikes in Iran, Vance articulated what he called the “Trump Doctrine” to justify these strikes.
It all goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, about him as not just a defender but a kind of explainer and justifier. It’s not really sufficient in his mind to defend these things; he wants to offer a kind of intellectual rationalization or justification for them.
In September, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. What was Vance’s relationship with Charlie Kirk, and what did you see him doing in the aftermath of the killing?
Kirk and Vance were very close. Some reporting came out after Kirk’s death that Kirk was actually one of the first conservatives to identify Vance as a rising star, that he eventually introduced him to Donald Trump Jr.’s team and vouched for him as a legitimate convert to the MAGA movement.
He hosted Charlie Kirk’s show a couple days after his death, sitting behind his desk in the old Executive Office Building, delivering a straight-to-camera monologue with an American flag behind him. It looked extremely presidential. He sort of led the charge in positioning Kirk’s death as a consequence of rising political violence on the left, which he said is a much larger issue than right-wing political violence.
In October, some messages from a Young Republican group chat were leaked and there was lots of racism. There was open antisemitism. JD Vance involved himself in that story. How so?
He downplayed the nature of those statements. More broadly, there’s a sense on the right that, for the past five or 10 years, Republicans have sort of laid down and let what they call “cancel culture” take over. Vance and others are trying to effectuate a kind of broader cultural shift where they’re going to say, No matter how offensive a comment was, we’re not going to give up one of our own, and we fight back against our enemies and our perceived enemies in the media.
Does that extend to the next skirmish? Because a few weeks later, Tucker Carlson interviews Nazi-curious Nick Fuentes and doesn’t ask him any hard questions.
Yeah, he stayed sort of conspicuously quiet in that whole controversy.
At the same time, he is doing some coalitional management here. I think he rightly recognizes that Fuentes, despite his very odious views, has a very real and very mobilized following of young men that MAGA desperately needs to keep in its electoral coalition. He’s called Fuentes some names, but he’s made no real effort to actually banish him from the conservative coalition.
What role do you think the vice president is going to play in the midterms?
I think you’ll see him out on the trail selling some of these economic accomplishments. Definitely talking a lot about immigration. I think immigration is at this point really the issue that’s holding the otherwise somewhat fractious MAGA coalition together.
And I think they will run, very prominently, on the very precipitous drop in illegal border crossings. And also whatever progress they’ve made on the mass deportations, despite the controversy that’s kicked up.
What has JD Vance said about whether or not he plans to run for president in 2028?
The decorum, of course, is not to talk about your presidential ambitions until you’re actually a candidate for president. Vance clearly understands that and has said it’s not my focus right now and denied that he’s angling for it. But I think everyone understands that he’s the heir apparent and that it’s his nomination to lose in 2028.
Do people like JD Vance?
The polling is not very good on this, so it’s hard to peer into the electorate.
I think a lot these days about the sociologist Max Weber, actually, who wrote about the “structure of charismatic movements” and the way that charismatic leaders end up anointing successors. The process of anointment matters a lot for whether the charisma rubs off on a successor. I think a lot of that question hinges on how exactly Vance ends up securing the nomination.
Is it an endorsement from Trump? Does Trump throw it open to a factional fight in which someone like a Vance and someone like a Rubio and Ted Cruz have to duke it out, where some of the dirty laundry coalitionally is aired out? Then it’s a much harder task for Vance to consolidate the MAGA base behind him.
2025-12-24 21:00:00
正如往年一样，我们在假期期间整理了2025年最受欢迎的文章，这为读者提供了一个快速了解在拥有整个互联网选择权的情况下，哪些内容真正引起共鸣的机会。回顾这份清单，有两个主题占据主导地位。一个是日常生活的主题：我们吃什么、喝什么，我们如何使用大脑，以及我们身体的变化。另一个是宏观层面的主题：科技行业日益增长的影响力，以及作为拥有CRISPR技术的聪明灵长类动物所面临的风险。这些文章的共同主线是怀疑与好奇的结合。你可能会被可爱的狼吸引，但你真正留下的，是对激励机制、伦理问题和意外后果的深刻思考。以下是2025年最受欢迎的10篇文章。
1）《这些毛茸茸的白狼揭示了复活灭绝动物的种种问题》——Marina Bolotnikova
这篇文章通过Colossal Biosciences基因编辑的犬科动物（如Romulus、Remus和Khaleesi，这些是灰狼与恐狼特征结合的幼狼）来质疑“复活灭绝物种”的热潮。实际上，“复活”并非真正的复活，而是工程化的过程，伴随着各种复杂问题。复活物种的伦理成本和生态逻辑都存在争议，如果人们相信可以“复活物种”，就更容易接受它们的灭绝，也更容易让政策制定者将灭绝视为公关问题而非道德问题。
2）《关于蛋白质，你被误导了》——Marina Bolotnikova
在2025年，蛋白质不再仅仅是一种营养素，更成为了一种个性特征。Marina指出，成年人每日推荐蛋白质摄入量约为每磅体重0.36克，而肌肉增长的益处通常在每磅0.73克左右达到顶峰。超过这个量，你只是在为“高蛋白”品牌买单。科学证据比网红的计算更可靠。
3）《一张图表揭示饮酒习惯的下降》——Bryan Walsh
Bryan的文章指出，美国54%的人表示他们饮酒，这是自1939年以来的最低水平，青少年饮酒比例下降更为明显。2024年，12年级学生中有42%表示过去一年饮酒，而1997年这一比例高达75%。酗酒率也在下降。健康问题显然是一个因素，尤其是随着越来越多的证据表明，即使是“适度”饮酒也可能并不有益。不过，社交因素仍然是一个挑战：减少饮酒是好的，但减少社交则不是。
4）《“布罗贵族”对特朗普新任期有其愿景，比你想象的更黑暗》——Sigal Samuel
Sigal认为，科技界与特朗普的联盟不仅仅是关于税收或放松监管，更是一种世界观的契合。这种世界观强调“赢家通吃”的理念，推崇支配、与反民主思想若即若离，并将社会视为可以重建或退出的“应用程序”。她追溯了“布罗贵族”现象背后的意识形态，从彼得·蒂尔式的权力政治到网络国家梦想，即由私人企业主导的治理模式。令人不安的不是他们拥有影响力，而是他们打算如何使用这种影响力。
5）《冥想如何解构你的思维》——Oshan Jarow
冥想类文章通常受欢迎，因为每个人都感到压力。但Oshan的文章超越了常见的“正念降低皮质醇”主题。他探讨了一种新的科学框架，认为大脑是一种预测机器，不断构建现实模型并进行更新。在这种观点下，专注冥想和开放监控不仅能够让你平静，还能削弱你对固有思维模式（包括你对自己的认知）的执着，从而减少痛苦，即使有时会让人感到不安，这也是一种诚实的表现。
6）《这家鲜为人知的公司是右翼政治的重要资助者，你可能已经吃过他们的鸡》——Kenny Torrella
Kenny指出，当供应链隐藏在幕后时，“用钱包投票”就变得困难。Mountaire Farms生产了美国消费鸡肉的约1/13，但大多数人从未听说过这个品牌。Mountaire的CEO Ronald Cameron已成为右翼政治的重要推手，自2014年以来，他向特朗普支持团体和极右翼组织捐赠了数千万美元。
7）《Ozempic效应终于在肥胖数据中显现》——Bryan Walsh
多年来，美国的肥胖率一直呈单向上升趋势。但在2025年，出现了首次持续下降的迹象。盖洛普调查显示，自报肥胖率下降了近3个百分点，降至37%。这可能与GLP-1类药物（如Ozempic和Wegovy）的使用有关，2025年中期，超过12%的成年人表示使用过这类药物，而2024年初这一比例不足6%。尽管存在各种限制（如自我报告、成本、不平等的获取、依从性、长期影响），但这一趋势仍被视为我们看待体重问题的新时代开端。
8）《美国增长最快的乳制品品牌背后的可怕现实》——Kenny Torrella
Fairlife是一家超滤乳制品品牌，主打高蛋白牛奶和伦理承诺。但Kenny指出，这种承诺多次被调查和诉讼挑战，指控其供应商农场存在严重虐待行为，并且其“人道”宣传存在误导。更深层次的问题在于工业农业的结构：它擅长制造距离感，使消费者与动物、品牌承诺与生产条件之间产生隔阂。
9）《一种可能终结世界的新事物》——Kelsey Piper
Kelsey的文章指出，镜像细菌——由“右旋”分子构成的生物——理论上可能成为最可怕的入侵物种。它们可能难以被其他生物消化，免疫系统难以识别，且能无限制传播。她强调，尽管风险真实存在，但人类并非注定毁灭。镜像生命仍处于遥远的未来，这意味着我们还有时间建立规范和保障措施，防止实验室研究超越监管。
10）《2025年我们预测的25件事》——Future Perfect团队
我们的年度预测文章是将编辑会议变成一种“观赛”体验的尝试。2025年的预测涵盖关税、乌克兰、伊朗、H5N1禽流感以及一些文化现象。今年我们与在线预测平台Metaculus合作，因此我们的预测必须与外部预测者共享，也减少了我们过度自信的空间。是的，我们每年都会回顾这些预测。12月31日查看结果，1月1日查看我们对2026年的预测。
特别推荐：《如何做出你一生中最艰难的决定》——Sigal Samuel
正如你所知，Vox今年推出了会员计划。（现在加入，我们将赠送一份会员资格给一位无法负担的读者。）在推动人们成为Vox会员的Future Perfect文章中，Sigal的这篇文章脱颖而出。这是她“Your Mileage May Vary”专栏中的一篇精彩文章，设想了一位由地球上最聪明的伦理学家团队撰写的建议专栏。这篇文章提供了一个简单的问题来帮助你做出一生中最艰难的决定：你想成为怎样的人？在进入新的一年时，我无法想象有比这更好的文章来回顾。如果你有想提交给Sigal的问题，请发送给我们。本文最初发表于Future Perfect通讯，欢迎订阅！
As Future Perfect has in past years, we’re spending this holiday season rounding up our most-read stories of 2025 — a quick way to see what landed with you when you had the whole internet to choose from.
Looking over the list, two themes dominated. One is intensely everyday: what we eat and drink, what we do with our minds, and what’s happening to our bodies. The other is big-picture: the growing power of the tech industry, and the risks that come with being clever primates with CRISPR.
If there’s a throughline to the stories below, it’s skepticism cut with curiosity. You’ll click for fluffy wolves, sure — and did you ever click — but you’ll stay for the uncomfortable questions about incentives, ethics, and unintended consequences. Here are the 10 stories you read the most in 2025.
What can I say? Cute, fluffy wolves, especially those with a Games of Thrones genealogy, will always win the algorithm. Marina used Colossal Biosciences’ gene-edited canids — the pups Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, basically gray wolves with a handful of dire-wolf traits — to puncture the hype around “de-extinction,” skeptical quotes very much intended.
“De-extinction,” it turns out, isn’t resurrection; it’s engineering, with all the messiness that implies. The welfare costs are real (failed embryos and surrogate animals), and the conservation logic can get twisted. If we convince ourselves we can “bring species back,” it gets easier to tolerate losing them — and easier for policymakers to treat extinction as a PR problem instead of a moral one.
In 2025 protein became less a nutrient than a personality characteristic, which is why it was satisfying to see a story grounded in physiology crack the top of the list. Marina walks through what the evidence suggests: the recommended daily allowance is about 0.36 grams per pound of body weight per day for most adults, while muscle-building benefits tend to top out around 0.73 grams per pound. Beyond that, you’re mostly paying for “high protein” branding. Evidence beats influencer math.
Hey, I know that guy. This story comes from the Good News newsletter, which I launched this year, and it’s the perfect example of the kind of optimistic trend news I’m always looking for. Gallup reports that 54 percent of Americans say they drink, the lowest level since the poll began in 1939, while teen declines are even steeper. In 2024, 42 percent of 12th graders reported drinking in the past year, down from 75 percent in 1997. Binge drinking has fallen too. Health concerns are clearly part of it, especially as evidence mounts that even “moderate” drinking isn’t protective. The only catch is social: less alcohol is great; less socializing isn’t. Still, your liver is probably grateful.
Sigal’s argument, made in the immediate wake of January’s presidential inauguration, is that the tech-to-Trump alignment extends beyond just taxes or deregulation. It’s really about worldview: a winner-take-all ideology that valorizes domination, flirts with anti-democratic ideas, and treats society as something you can rebuild — or exit — like an app. She traces the intellectual ecosystem behind the “broligarch” moment, from Peter Thiel-style power politics to the network-state dream of private, corporate-run governance. The unsettling part isn’t that they have influence; it’s what they want to do with it.
Meditation stories tend to do well for one big reason: everyone’s stressed. But Oshan’s piece goes beyond the usual “mindfulness lowers cortisol” genre. He explores a newer scientific framework that treats the brain as a prediction machine — constantly generating models of reality, then updating them. In that view, practices like focused attention and open monitoring don’t just calm you down; they can loosen your grip on rigid mental “priors,” including the story you tell about who you are. That can reduce suffering, even if in some cases, it can feel destabilizing. Which, in a sense, is also a kind of honesty.
Kenny’s piece is a reminder that “vote with your wallet” is hard when the supply chain bringing dinner to your table is invisible. Mountaire Farms produces roughly 1 out of every 13 chickens eaten in the US, yet most consumers have never heard the name. The story follows how Mountaire CEO Ronald Cameron has become a major force in right-wing politics, donating around tens of millions since 2014 — much of it to Trump-aligned groups and hard-right causes.
For decades, US obesity rates have been a grim one-way chart. In 2025, there was finally a hint of reversal. Gallup found self-reported obesity falling by nearly 3 percentage points, to 37 percent — the first sustained drop since the index began. The obvious suspect is GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy: more than 12 percent of adults told Gallup they’d taken a GLP-1 in mid-2025, up from under 6 percent in early 2024. Caveats matter (self-report, cost, unequal access, adherence, long-term effects). But it’s hard not to see this as the start of a better new era in how we think about weight.
The ultra-filtered dairy brand Fairlife sells a protein-boosted version of milk — and a sheen of ethical reassurance. Kenny lays out why that reassurance has repeatedly been challenged by undercover investigations alleging severe abuse at supplier farms, plus lawsuits accusing Fairlife of misleading humane-treatment claims. The larger point is structural: industrial agriculture is extremely good at producing distance — between consumers and animals, and between brand promises and the conditions that make products cheap.
Well, this was quite the way to start off 2025. Mirror bacteria — organisms built from “right-handed” versions of the molecules life uses — could, in theory, behave like the worst invasive species imaginable. They could be hard for other life to digest, difficult for immune systems to recognize, able to spread unchecked. The five-alarm warning that Kelsey writes about was so striking partly because many of the scientists sounding the alarm are close to the research itself. Kelsey’s key move is holding two ideas at once: the risk is real, and we’re not doomed by default. Mirror life is still far off — which means we have time to build norms and safeguards before the lab work gets ahead of the guardrails.
Our annual predictions package is the closest we come to turning an editorial meeting into a spectator sport. The format for 2025 was simple: 25 forecasts, each with an explicit probability, spanning tariffs, Ukraine, Iran, H5N1, and a few cultural curveballs. This year we partnered with the online forecasting platform Metaculus, so our guesses had to share oxygen with outside forecasters — and our overconfidence had fewer places to hide. And yes: we make ourselves revisit it at the end of the year. Check out the results on December 31, and our 2026 predictions on the first of the year.
As you may know, Vox launched a membership program this year. (Join now, and we’ll gift a membership to a reader who can’t afford one.) And when it came to the Future Perfect stories that motivated people to become Vox members, this piece from Sigal was far and away the winner. A selection from her brilliant Your Mileage May Vary column — which imagines what an advice column might be like if it was written by a team of the smartest ethicists on Earth — this story provides a simple question for making the most difficult choices you’ll ever face: who do you want to be? I can’t imagine a better story to revisit as we enter a new year — and if you have a question you want to submit to Sigal, send it here.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!
2025-12-24 20:15:00
2025年12月22日，丹麦哥本哈根的格陵兰代表处内展示了一张包含格陵兰、冰岛、法罗群岛和丹麦的地图。这一时间点恰逢美国总统唐纳德·特朗普再次谈及兼并格陵兰。上周日，特朗普任命路易斯安那州州长杰夫·兰德里为格陵兰特别大使，目标是“让格陵兰成为美国的一部分”。尽管格陵兰正逐步走向更大的自治，但自18世纪以来一直受丹麦统治。特朗普周一表示：“我们需要格陵兰以确保国家安全。”此举引发了丹麦和格陵兰首相的强烈反对，他们强调国家边界和主权是国际法的基本原则，并指出“不能兼并其他国家”。此外，其他欧洲领导人也对此作出回应，法国总统马克龙重申法国坚定支持丹麦和格陵兰的主权和领土完整。
自2019年特朗普首次任期以来，他就一直在谈论购买或兼并格陵兰。去年1月，他甚至警告称，如果有必要，不排除使用军事手段。然而，尽管他一度将控制格陵兰视为“国家安全的绝对必要”，但今年大部分时间该议题都未被重视，只有在涉及美国对格陵兰的影响力操作时才会偶尔被提及。起初，特朗普对格陵兰的兴趣似乎有些随意，丹麦官员曾认为这只是玩笑。但随着特朗普第二任期外交政策的展开，特别是最近发布的国家安全战略（NSS），格陵兰问题似乎更符合其整体目标。这与特朗普出人意料的积极全球角色愿景相契合。
NSS强调美国应加强在西半球的影响力，并提出“特朗普对门罗主义的修正案”，即“阻止非美洲国家在我们的半球部署军事力量或其他威胁性能力，或控制战略关键资产”。特朗普周一表示：“如果你看看格陵兰海岸线，你会发现俄罗斯和中国船只到处都是。”虽然北极地区因冰层融化而日益成为战略竞争热点，且中国和俄罗斯在该地区加强了军事和商业存在，但它们并未特别靠近格陵兰。
然而，对于白宫而言，格陵兰由友好的欧洲政府控制并不令人放心。批评者指出，格陵兰的战略重要性并不意味着美国必须控制它。美国已经在格陵兰设有军事基地，丹麦也明确表示不反对扩大美军存在。过去，丹麦政府曾阻止中国在格陵兰的商业活动，部分原因是为了维持与华盛顿的良好关系。但根据NSS所描绘的世界观，自由欧洲政府被视为对美国利益的威胁，甚至比中国和俄罗斯更严重。副总统JD·万斯在最近的采访中甚至质疑，是否可以信任那些拥有“破坏性道德理念”的欧洲政府保管核武器。
NSS还呼吁支持欧洲的“爱国”（即右翼）政党，并有报道指出，早期版本曾建议推动欧洲国家脱离欧盟。特朗普试图从欧洲手中夺回靠近北美的重要领土，这与上述政策方向一致。政治学家亚伯拉罕·纽曼在最近对《vox》的采访中指出，特朗普对格陵兰及其他美国邻国（如加拿大）的领土威胁，体现了其“新君主主义”世界观，即反对所有国家主权平等的理念。
兰德里的任命也符合特朗普的外交风格，即更多依赖非正式的盟友和忠诚支持者网络，而非传统的美国外交体系。特朗普的老朋友、化妆品继承人罗纳德·劳德可能最初在他脑海中种下了控制格陵兰的念头。尽管特朗普本周表示美国对格陵兰的兴趣“并非出于其矿产”，但有报道称劳德和其他特朗普盟友一直在说服他，格陵兰地下蕴藏的丰富资源可能带来巨大利益。格陵兰被认为拥有大量石油和多种矿物，包括中国目前几乎垄断的稀土元素。即便格陵兰不成为美国的一部分，美国公司仍可利用这些资源（事实上，它们已经在一定程度上这样做）。然而，在特朗普政府下，商业利益与安全目标之间的界限变得模糊。
尽管美国实际控制格陵兰的可能性仍然渺茫，且几乎没有迹象表明格陵兰人希望加入美国或被兰德里的魅力攻势所打动，但这一行动作为一项由其商业伙伴推动、由其意识形态盟友执行的计划，旨在加强美国在西半球的主导地位并削弱欧洲的主权，如今看来更像是特朗普外交政策的典型体现，而非离经叛道之举。
2025 is ending much as it began: with President Donald Trump talking about annexing Greenland.
On Sunday, Trump appointed Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as a special envoy to Greenland with the goal, as Landry put it, “to make Greenland a part of the US.” Though the territory has been moving gradually toward greater independence, Greenland has been under Danish rule since the 18th century. “We need Greenland for national protection,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
The move provoked a sharp response from the prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland, who said in a joint statement: “National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law. … You cannot annex other countries.” Other European leaders have weighed in, as well, with French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirming that “France’s unwavering support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Denmark and Greenland.”
Trump has been talking about either buying or annexing the world’s largest island since 2019, during his first term. He brought up the issue again last January, when he raised alarm in European capitals by refusing to rule out using military force to take the territory if necessary. But, while he once described control of Greenland as an “absolute necessity” for US national security, the issue had been on the back burner for most of this year until Landry’s appointment, with the exception of occasional flare-ups over alleged US influence operations targeting the island.
Trump’s Greenland fixation had once seemed somewhat random. Danish leaders initially hoped it was a joke. But after a year of seeing Trump’s second term foreign policy in action — particularly the recent release of his administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) — the Greenland gambit now seems to actually serve his broader goals. It makes a lot more sense in the context of the president’s surprisingly activist vision of America’s role in the world.
Greenland fits into the administration’s heavy focus on the Western Hemisphere and what the NSS calls the “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” to “deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.”
Explaining Greenland’s security importance on Monday, Trump said, “If you look up and down the coast of Greenland, you can see Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.” It’s true that the Arctic is increasingly becoming an area of strategic competition, as melting ice makes it more accessible, and that China and Russia have been building up military and commercial assets in the region, though neither has done so particularly close to Greenland.
But having Greenland under the control of a friendly European government is no comfort to this White House.
Critics routinely point out that Greenland’s strategic importance is not an argument for actually controlling it. The US already has a military base in Greenland, and the Danes have made clear they’re not opposed to an expanded US military presence. The Danish government has, in the past, blocked Chinese commercial interests in Greenland, in part out of a desire to maintain good relations with Washington.
But having Greenland under the control of a friendly European government is no comfort to this White House. In the worldview laid out in the NSS, liberal European governments are viewed as a threat to American interests on par with if not greater than China and Russia. In a recent interview, Vice President JD Vance even questioned whether European governments with “destructive moral ideas” could be trusted with nuclear weapons.
The NSS calls for promoting “patriotic” (i.e., right-wing) parties in Europe, and an earlier draft reportedly called for urging countries to pull away from the European Union. An effort to peel away strategically important territory close to North America from European control is very much in keeping with this effort.
As political scientist Abraham Newman recently told Vox, Trump’s territorial threats against Greenland and other US neighbors like Canada are very much in keeping with a “neo-royalist” worldview, which rejects the notion that all countries have equal sovereignty. “It’s about dominance, about saying [to Canada and Denmark], ‘You are not equal to us,’” Newman said.
The seemingly unusual appointment of Landry — who has little foreign policy experience and is staying in office as governor of Louisiana as he takes on this new role — is also in keeping with a Trump diplomatic approach that is more often conducted through a semi-formal network of allies and loyalists, rather than through the traditional US foreign policy bureaucracy. An old friend of Trump’s, the cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, may have been the one who initially planted the idea of controlling Greenland in his head.
Finally, Trump may have said this week that US interest in Greenland is “not for its minerals,” but it’s been widely reported that Lauder and other Trump associates have been working to sell him on the potential riches beneath Greenland’s soil. Greenland is believed to have large deposits of oil, as well as a variety of minerals, including the rare earth elements that China currently has a near monopoly over. If nothing else, the events of this year have driven home the fact that US options on China policy are limited as long as that monopoly continues.
Again, US companies can exploit these resources (and to some extent, they already are) without Greenland actually being part of the US. But under Trump, the US has taken a stake in foreign chip sales, tied diplomacy in Ukraine to minerals concessions, and made retaking Venezuelan oil fields an explicit aim of the US military build-up targeting that country. The line between commercial interests and security goals is far more porous under this administration than it has been in the past.
The US actually taking control of Greenland still seems like an extreme long shot. There’s little indication that Greenlanders want to join this US or will be swayed by Landry’s charm offensive.
But, as a campaign to take control of a mineral rich region pushed by his business partners and carried out by his ideological allies while cementing American dominance in the Western Hemisphere and undermining European sovereignty in the process, it feels today less like an eccentric deviation for Trump’s foreign policy than a neat distillation of it.
2025-12-24 20:00:00
在寒假前的最后一天，艾登和他的八年级同学正在玩“黑帮”游戏。然而，在第一轮之后，他的一个朋友感到无聊而退出了游戏。另一个朋友则称他为“屏幕一代”，说他的注意力时间太短。艾登告诉我，这只是一个更大趋势的例子：“人们越来越不愿意享受与他人相处的乐趣，而是更倾向于与科技互动。”五年前，关于年轻人和社交媒体的全国性讨论主要集中在网络欺凌、在线骚扰和身体形象问题上。而如今，青少年和成年人最担心的，可能是“脑雾”（brainrot）——即社交媒体，尤其是短视频平台如TikTok，正在削弱年轻人集中注意力的能力。
尽管用户普遍认为短视频的兴起对年轻人和社会带来了问题，但很少有人就解决方案达成一致。例如，澳大利亚本月实施的新法律禁止16岁以下用户使用某些社交媒体平台，这一举措在一些人看来是乐观的，但许多人对此持怀疑态度。该法律的共同制定者萨梅尔·欣杜贾（Sameer Hinduja）表示：“青少年会找到绕过这些限制的方法。”事实上，这种转变提醒我们，家长和政策制定者很难跟上年轻人数字生活的变化，也很难识别和解决由此产生的问题。
短视频的革命并非人们的想象，而是现实。根据“常识媒体”（Common Sense Media）的数据，0至8岁的儿童在2020年平均每天花1分钟观看短视频，而到2024年已增加到14分钟。年龄较大的孩子则可能花更多时间在平台上。这些视频的质量参差不齐，但它们引发了家长和研究人员的特别关注。一项关于短视频的研究发现，这类内容的消费与较差的认知表现有关，尤其是在注意力和抑制控制方面。加州大学欧文分校的格洛丽亚·马克（Gloria Mark）教授指出：“快速切换的短视频让年轻人习惯了短内容，他们缺乏长时间专注的能力。”
教育工作者经常抱怨，学生现在无法长时间阅读一本书或听一堂课。欣杜贾表示：“我不得不调整教学方式，比如在一个三小时的课程中分段进行。”这些抱怨大多来自个人经验，但也被年轻人自己所认同。13岁的艾维（Evy）告诉我：“短视频内容让我们的注意力时间大大缩短。如果你不喜欢某个视频，你就会一直滑动屏幕，直到找到下一个。”
虽然大多数人同意短视频泛滥是问题，但对解决方案却意见不一。澳大利亚的新法律旨在减少注意力下降和欺凌等问题，要求YouTube和TikTok等平台屏蔽16岁以下用户。然而，青少年迅速转向未被禁的平台，如Yope和Lemon8，这让一些人担心这将陷入“打地鼠”式的循环。在美国，学校禁止使用手机的政策受到广泛好评，但年轻人告诉我，这也带来了类似的问题。艾登所在的洛杉矶学校去年实施了手机禁令，现在他注意到更多学生在午餐时间参加体育活动。但当手机被禁止时，孩子们开始更多地使用笔记本电脑，艾登说：“他们最终还是会回到科技上。”
专家还担心，像澳大利亚这样的禁令可能会让边缘群体，如LGBTQ+青少年，难以互相联系或获取资源。欣杜贾表示：“这会阻止青少年获取对他们有益的信息。”
因此，解决手机对人们的影响，可能需要更广泛的改革，而不仅仅是针对青少年或儿童。一些专家建议，应加强社交媒体平台上的骚扰举报机制，或限制定向广告。12岁的莱雅（Leyla）提出了一个更激进的解决方案：禁止无限滚动功能。她说：“如果取消滚动功能，我确实会不喜欢，因为我也喜欢滚动。但这样肯定能减少人们对手机的依赖。”
事实上，类似禁令曾由共和党参议员乔什·霍利（Josh Hawley）提出。这种普遍性的改革比年龄限制更难被青少年绕过，同时也能惠及所有人。毕竟，短视频对我们的大脑也有影响。
在缺乏立法的情况下，孩子们像成年人一样尝试各种方法减少手机使用。当艾登和另一位小记者萨拉（Sara）询问同学们如何减少手机使用时，一位同学说：“我每天在YouTube和Instagram上设置15分钟的使用限制。”另一位则说：“以前我在做作业时会看YouTube，现在我把手机交给父母。”13岁的桑德（Xander）给出了心理学家都会赞同的建议：“出去散步、去健身房、去图书馆，做些有意义的事情。大多数人拿起手机是因为他们没事可做。”
当被问及父母如何帮助孩子时，艾登给出了一个现实的建议：“父母自己也要少用社交媒体，不要总是拿着手机，这样才能为孩子树立榜样。”
It was the last day of school before winter break, and Aiden and his eighth-grade classmates were playing a game of Mafia. After the first round, though, one of Aiden’s friends got bored and quit playing.
Another friend called him a “screenager,” Aiden recalled — “like, your attention span is so short.”
The incident was an example of a larger trend, Aiden, one of several Scholastic Kid Reporters I talked to for this story, told me: “People are less likely to have fun and enjoy being around other people, and they prefer being around technology.”
Five years ago, the national conversation about young people and social media was dominated by worries about cyberbullying, online harassment, and body image. Today, the biggest fear among teens and adults alike is, arguably, brainrot: the idea that social media sites, especially short-form video platforms like TikTok, have eroded young people’s ability to pay attention to anything for longer than a few seconds.
But as much as users of all ages seem to agree that the rise of short-form video creates problems for young people and for society, few agree on a solution. Social media bans like the one that took effect in Australia earlier this month have been met with optimism in some quarters, but many are skeptical.
“It’s not going to work,” said Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and a professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University. “Youth are going to circumvent them.”
If anything, the shift to short-form video is a reminder of how difficult it is for parents and policymakers to keep up with shifts in young people’s digital lives, and how hard it can be to solve or even identify problems arising from a technology as ubiquitous and ever-changing as social media.
It’s not your imagination: Young people today are spending an increasing amount of time watching short videos on their phones. Among kids ages 0 to 8, viewing on platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts jumped from an average of 1 minute in 2020 to 14 minutes in 2024, according to Common Sense Media, with older kids likely posting higher numbers.
Like any media, these videos vary in quality, but they have elicited special concern from parents and researchers alike. One recent review of research on short-form video found an association between consumption of such content and poorer cognitive performance, especially in the areas of attention and inhibitory control.
Rapid-fire videos get young people “habituated to short content,” said Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at University of California Irvine and author of the book Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity. “They don’t have the cognitive stamina to be able to spend longer time on material.”
Educators routinely complain that students no longer have the attention span to read a book or listen to a lecture. “I’ve had to adjust how I cover material across, let’s say, a three-hour class,” Hinduja said.
These complaints are largely anecdotal, but they’re echoed by young people themselves. “Attention span has decreased so much with the short-form content,” Evy, 13, told me. “If you don’t like the video, then you just scroll until you get another one.”
While most people agree that the proliferation of little videos is a problem, few agree on a solution. Australia’s new law, which supporters hope will combat loss of attention span as well as bullying and other issues, requires platforms like YouTube and TikTok to screen out users under 16. But teens quickly fled to platforms like Yope and Lemon8 that weren’t covered by the initial ban, leading some to fear an endless game of “whack-a-mole” as new options pop up to replace banned ones.
School cellphone bans, which have gotten a lot of positive press in the US, have generated their own version of whack-a-mole, young people told me. Aiden’s school in Los Angeles instituted a ban last year, and now he notices more students playing sports at lunch, he said.
But when deprived of their phones, kids also started spending more time on their laptops, Aiden said. “They would find their way back to technology.”
Experts are also concerned that bans like the one in Australia will keep kids from marginalized groups, like LGBTQ+ youth, from connecting with one another or finding resources. “It’s going to keep youth from access to certain information that could benefit them,” Hinduja said.
Every adult with a smartphone knows that scrolling often feels bad — but translating that feeling into clear and actionable policy, and especially targeting that policy at young people, has proved extraordinarily difficult. There’s not even conclusive research showing that social media is bad for mental health, Mark said, in part because it’s so hard to separate social media’s effects from the impacts of every other aspect of modern life.
But talking to kids about their phones did drive one point home to me: Their relationships with social media aren’t all that different from ours. They derive some pleasure from watching videos they like; Aiden mentioned sports highlights, for example. But they spend more time on their phones than they want to, and they’re looking for ways to cut down.
“When you first start out, you’re happy,” Xander, 13, told me. “But when you get off, you’re, like, drained, because you think, I could have been doing so many better things than scrolling on my phone.”
The most effective reforms, then, might be those that apply to us all of us — not just teens or children. Instead of age-based bans, some experts recommend more across-the-board reforms of social media platforms, like stronger harassment-reporting mechanisms or restrictions on targeted ads.
Leyla, 12, offered an even more radical solution: banning infinite scroll. “I would definitely hate if scrolling got taken away, because I do like to scroll, but it’s definitely going to get people less addicted,” she said. In fact, just such a ban has been proposed in the past, by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley.
Such across-the-board changes would be harder for teens to circumvent than age restrictions, and would also benefit all of us. After all, little videos mess with our brains too.
In the absence of legislation, kids, like adults, have tried various tricks to wean themselves off their phones. When Aiden and fellow Kid Reporter Sara asked their classmates about strategies for curbing phone use, one said, “I set a 15-minute restraint on YouTube and Instagram each day to keep me in check.” Another added, “Before I watched YouTube while doing homework. Now I give my phone to my parents while I do my work.”
Xander had advice any psychologist would approve of: “Take a walk, go to the gym, go to the library, do something productive,” he said. “The main reason why most people get on their phones is because they have nothing to do.”
And when asked how parents could help, Aiden offered a hard truth: “It’s important for them to not use social media as much. For them to not always be on their phone to set an example for their kids.”
