2026-01-31 21:00:00
今天，《Explained》将每周六发布音频和视频形式的视频节目，内容包括对政界和文化界重要人物的深入访谈——订阅Vox的YouTube频道即可获取这些节目，或在您常用的播客平台收听。每位优秀的政治记者都需要一个可靠的MAGA支持者，以便在特朗普所在的共和党阵营出现问题时提供帮助。我的MAGA支持者是约翰·弗雷德里克斯（John Fredericks）。他是广受欢迎的保守派电台主持人，也是我最喜欢的媒体人物之一，被称为“真相巨无霸”。我们在上一次总统选举周期中相识。我立刻被他从基层理解特朗普运动的方式所吸引，他能够理解特朗普选民及其政治诉求，而不是去分析政治建制派的共识。因此，弗雷德里克斯是了解特朗普MAGA基础现状的最佳人选。
在特朗普的第二个任期开始一年后，他的支持率在民调历史上创下最低纪录。他在独立选民中的好感度也大幅下降。同时，似乎他的2024年选情也出现了一些裂痕，因为经济、埃普斯坦文件（Epstein files）以及他在明尼阿波利斯部署移民与海关执法局（ICE）等问题上引发了不满。与约翰交谈，我想要核实我们几个月来看到的数据。特朗普所谓的反弹是否真实？公众意见的转变是否会导致他改变议程？以下是我们的对话节选，已根据长度和清晰度进行编辑。完整播客中还有更多内容，因此请在您常用的播客平台收听《Explained》，包括Apple Podcasts、Pandora和Spotify。
我们从你开始吧。如果你能用1到10分来评价特朗普的第二个任期，你会给多少分？我会给10分。他几乎兑现了所有承诺。现在经济正在蓬勃发展，退税金额将创下历史新高。他关闭了边境，不再有非法移民进入美国。这是他的一项重大承诺，现在已经实现。那项重大法案也已通过。他安排了合适的人选，没有出现人事更替的问题。白宫也没有像第一任期那样出现那么多丑闻和泄密，那些问题曾严重阻碍了整个工作。因此，我给10分，我想不到他有什么没做到的。
关键要点：
你最惊讶的是什么？有没有什么特别的事情？最让我惊讶的是他对外交政策的专注。我没想到他会如此关注。这可能成为他在中期选举中的一个风险：他花太多时间在外交政策上。这很好，因为可以停止战争。但风险在于：人们选举他并不是为了他的外交政策观点，而是为了经济实惠、降低物价、改善经济、解决住房问题、降低利率，从而提升他们的生活质量。这些尚未实现，而且时间窗口正在关闭。数据告诉我们，特朗普的受欢迎程度正在下降。他的支持率创下新低，仅一年时间，他在独立选民中的支持率就下降了20个百分点。之前在选举年中，美国有色人种和年轻人的支持率有所上升，但这些趋势似乎在民调中逆转了。
如果你认为情况正如你所想的那样好，为什么我们看不到这些数据的反映？经济尚未体现出成功。因此，人们并没有感受到经济实惠。他们还没有感受到那种乐观情绪，这种情绪可能在春季和夏季随着一些政策的实施而出现。共和党的宣传一如既往地糟糕。他们连从纸袋中逃出来的能力都没有。但美国人是否真的相信这个说法？因为大多数美国人并不是把经济问题归咎于乔·拜登，而是归咎于唐纳德·特朗普。看来你认为特朗普在第一任期或重返白宫的第一年中，至少做了一件你不喜欢的事情？我最不喜欢的是明尼阿波利斯发生的事情。我认为，如果你说要派军队并执行叛乱法（Insurrection Act），就应该采取行动。如果他一个月前就派这1500名士兵进入明尼阿波利斯，那么这两个年轻人今天可能还活着。因为士兵的目的是设立检查站，将ICE特工与抗议者隔离开。如果他当时采取行动，他们就不会有机会与ICE特工正面冲突。他们会被隔离在检查站的另一边。因此，美国民众看到明尼阿波利斯发生的暴力场面后，感觉这并不是他们支持特朗普时所期待的政策。人们可能没想到，会有人在Target商店里因为口音而被逮捕。显然，期望与现实之间存在差距。
你提到的这个观点非常准确，确实揭示了当前的脱节现象。你说到点上了。我们投票支持驱逐非法移民，但当我们在电视上看到他们被驱逐的方式时，却并不喜欢。这让人感到不安。我们确实尝试了驱逐非法移民，我们提供了1000美元的补偿，鼓励他们自愿离开。一些人离开了，大概有几百万吧。但现在，你承诺要驱逐他们，他们却仍然非法滞留。你不能给予他们赦免，必须将他们驱逐。这让人感到不安，而且这种不安将持续下去。到了11月，人们必须做出决定。
为什么共和党似乎在中期选举中对这些问题表现出担忧？是否应该更加关注？我正在敲响警钟，就像保罗·里维尔（Paul Revere）一样。如果我们不采取行动，我们将遭遇惨败。目前，一切都在反对你。而民主党非常强硬，他们一旦赢得选举，特朗普可能在第三或第四天就会被弹劾，如果他再休个假。他现在已经完了，政府也无法再做任何事情。那么，必须发生什么？经济必须立即改善。重点必须立即转向国内议程。共和党必须立即采取强硬立场。你不能退缩，因为一旦退缩，你就输了。因此，你必须站出来应对这些问题。但你不能以牺牲无辜生命为代价。我认为我们都同意这一点。
Today, Explained will now be publishing video episodes every Saturday in audio and video, featuring compelling interviews with key figures in politics and culture — subscribe to Vox’s YouTube channel to get them or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Every good political journalist needs a good MAGA guy in their back pocket — someone you can call when things are looking messy in President Donald Trump’s GOP orbit. And my MAGA guy is John Fredericks.
Fredericks is a popular conservative radio host who goes by one of my favorite nicknames in media: the “Godzilla of Truth.” We met during the last presidential election cycle. I was immediately struck by how he seems to understand Trump’s movement from the bottom up, making sense of Trump voters and their political desires, rather than unpacking the consensus of the political establishment.
So, Fredericks is the perfect person to go to for a pulse check on Trump’s MAGA base. One year into his second term, Trump has some of the lowest recorded approval ratings in polling history. He’s collapsed in favorability among independents. And there seems to be some cracks growing in his 2024 coalition as discontent rises on issues like the economy, the Epstein files, and his deployment of ICE in Minneapolis.
Talking to John, I wanted to gut check the numbers we’ve been seeing for months. How real is the alleged backlash against Trump? And will shifting in public opinion force a change in his agenda?
Below is an excerpt of our 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.
Let’s start with you. If you could rate the Trump second term on a scale of one to 10, what would you give it?
Ten; he’s delivered on virtually every promise he’s made. The economy is booming right now. The number of refunds you’re going to get back on to be off the charts. He closed the border. We’re not getting any more illegals in. That has been done. That was a major promise. That’s been done. The one big, beautiful bill got passed. He’s put the right people in place. He hasn’t had the turnover. You haven’t had anywhere near the ridiculous leaks and backbiting in the White House that you had in Trump 1, which hampered the whole effort, etc. So, 10. I can’t think of anything it didn’t do.
What surprised you most? Did anything?
Yes, his focus on foreign policy. I really didn’t see that coming. And that therein lies one of his risks now going into the midterms: He’s spending an inordinate amount of time on it. That’s great. Stop wars.
But the risk of this is: People elected him not for foreign policy views. They elected him for affordability, getting prices down, fixing the economy, getting housing, getting interest rates down, doing the things they need to do to improve their quality of life. That hasn’t come yet. And the window is closing going to the midterms.
The numbers tell us that Trump is growing more unpopular. He’s hit a new low in approval ratings. He’s fallen 20 points with independents in just one year. The gains we saw in the election year among Americans of color and among young people have seemed to reverse in the polling.
If things are going as well as you believe they are, why aren’t we seeing the numbers reflect that?
The economy has not reflected the success that’s coming. So, people aren’t feeling the affordability. They’re not feeling the optimism [that] I think we’re going to feel going into the spring and summer when some of these things take hold.
The messaging of the Republicans, as usual, sucks. They couldn’t message their way out of a paper bag if their life depended on it.
Are Americans buying that story though? Because, most Americans are not blaming Joe Biden for this economic state; they’re blaming Donald Trump.
It seems as if you were saying that there is at least some form of concession you’ll make here, that maybe the economy has not turned around in the way that Donald Trump had promised in this first year.
Yes, exactly. All that the electorate needs to know as far as economic statistics is their grocery bill. That’s all you need. If that continues to go up — as it is for all of us — if the price of cars go up, [and] everything is going up, then Trump’s economy has failed, no matter whose fault it is.
He’s there. He’s got to fix that. If you can’t buy a home, you can’t get a mortgage; interest rates are too high, you can’t pay it. Trump’s fault, as it should be — because he’s now going to be accountable. He’s got a very short period of time to turn this around. I’m optimistic that he’s going to do that. But, right now, when you go to the store, and you fill your cart up, you’re feeling the pinch, you’re feeling the pain, and that’s why his numbers are down.
The Epstein files have unleashed a wave of anger even among some Republicans. I’m thinking about folks, like former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and one of your callers who wondered if justice would come to the victims.
Do you think that Trump’s handling of the files has caused him some issues even among some conservatives?
They should have released all the files on the same day immediately. It’s the biggest mistake he’s made. I really don’t know what the hell Pam Bondi is doing in there.
We got this thing going on in Minneapolis, and she’s making speeches at the Israeli American Conference. Like, get your tail to Minneapolis. Find out what’s going on with that fraud.
There is a perception among some liberals who have described Trump support as cult-like — that whatever he says, folks will follow.
I don’t think that that’s always necessarily true for you, but can you tell me something that Trump has done in his first term, or in his first year returning to office, that you haven’t liked?
I didn’t like what just happened in Minneapolis. I think if you say you’re going to send in the troops and do the Insurrection Act, you back it up. Had he done that, and he sent those 1,500 troops in a month ago, both of these young people would be alive today, because the purpose of sending the troops in was to have checkpoints and to separate ICE agents from the protesters.
But had he sent those troops in originally, both those people would be alive today, because they wouldn’t have been able to confront ICE agents. They would have been cordoned off with a checkpoint. “You guys stay there; ICE is there. ICE goes over there; you guys can come here.”
It does feel as if America is reacting to the dramatic scenes they see in Minneapolis and feeling as if that’s not necessarily the Trump policy they signed up for. I don’t know if people thought that folks would be walking through Target rounding up anyone who has an accent. There seems to be a gap between the expectation and the reality.
You know, Astead, you make a great point, and you really sum this up, the disconnect that’s going on here. You nailed it.
Yeah, we voted to get the illegals out. But then, when we see on TV the way they’re getting them out, they don’t like it. It’s uncomfortable to people. Well, we tried to get them out. We offered them $1,000. We offered self-deportation. Some of them went — a couple of million, right?
But now…you said you were going to get them out. They’re here illegally. You’re not getting amnesty. You got to get them out. And it’s uncomfortable. And it’s going to continue to be uncomfortable. And come November, people are going to have to make their mind up.
Why are Republicans seeming to sound the alarm about some of this when it comes to the midterms? Should there be even a little more concern?
I’m ringing the bell. I’m like Paul Revere. If we don’t get this thing going, we’re going to get wiped out.
You’ve got everything working against you right now to save Congress. And the thing is, Democrats are tough. They win, and Trump’s getting impeached on probably day three, maybe four, if they have another vacation day. He’s done. So the administration’s over. They won’t be able to do anything.
What has to happen? The economy has to get better immediately. The focus has to be on the domestic agenda immediately. Republicans have to get tough immediately. You can’t back down, because if you back down, you lose. So, you got to stand up to this stuff.
Do you think the scenes out of Minneapolis helped or hurt Republican efforts to win elections in November?
Well, obviously, it hurt. I mean, nobody likes seeing innocent people killed, regardless of the circumstance, by law enforcement — period. Nobody likes it. So, of course it hurt.
Is there time to turn the narrative around, fix things? Do this in a way that isn’t as severe that you’re seeing on TV? Nobody wants to see people die. So, we got to find a way. The MAGA movement — President Trump’s got to find a way to get the illegals out without what the scene you’re seeing in Minneapolis. On the flip side of it, if you let the mobs win, you’re done. So, that’s why you have to stand up to it. But, you can’t do it in a way that causes innocent people to die. And I think we can all agree on that.
2026-01-31 20:45:00
为什么我们如此怀念2016年？ | Wundervisuals/Getty Images
今年年初，似乎每个人都开始回忆2016年。仅1月份，Spotify上以2016为主题的播放列表就增长了790%。人们宣称2026年的氛围会与2016年那种让人感到愉悦的氛围相似。但问题在于，亲身经历2016年的人，尤其是Z世代，对那一年的记忆却大相径庭。
Daysia Tolentino是Yap Year通讯的记者，她已经持续记录了过去一年人们对2010年代的在线情感。Z世代倾向于将这些年份混为一谈，他们更关注其中有趣的文化元素，却忽略了2016年所经历的国际和政治动荡。Tolentino认为，对2016年的怀旧可能实际上表明年轻人准备摆脱这种怀旧循环，去追求新的东西。
Tolentino与Today, Explained的主持人Astead Herndon讨论了2016年为何如此持久地留在人们的记忆中，以及我们对那个时代的怀旧可能揭示了什么。完整播客内容更丰富，可以在Apple Podcasts、Pandora和Spotify等平台收听。
2016年的这种趋势是从哪里开始的？它从去年开始逐渐升温，尤其是在TikTok上。人们开始重新拾起2016年的潮流，比如“试衣间挑战”配上《Black Beatles》的歌曲，粉色墙面风格，以及那些温暖朦胧的Instagram滤镜。当我们在2026年迈入新年时，很多TikTok用户表示2026年会像2016年一样。我对此感到好奇，这种说法到底意味着什么？我认为人们其实并不清楚它的含义。几周前，Instagram上尤其是那些顶级网红，纷纷发布自己在2016年的巅峰时刻，这激发了大家纷纷上传自己的2016年照片。在你的通讯中，你尝试定义2016年的“氛围板”，可以为我解释一下吗？
当我们想到2016年的氛围时，我们指的是什么？在我看来，2016年是YouTube上美妆达人迅速崛起的一年，当时的妆容非常夸张，充满华丽、浓重、哑光和色彩，甚至还有霓虹色的假发。Kylie Jenner可以说是这一年的代表人物。2016年是互联网文化的一个关键转折点。我认为正是从那一年开始，我们真正进入了网红时代。在此之前，我们有内容创作者，但还没有完善的变现机制，使得所有在线内容都变成广告。人们可以自由地发布他们想发布的内容。2016年，社交媒体公司开始将新闻动态推送基于互动算法，而不是仅限于朋友的按时间顺序排列的动态。因此，2016年见证了从传统文化向网红文化转变的契机，这种趋势也影响了Instagram的文化氛围，使得人们开始像网红一样发布内容。即使你当时只是个青少年，比如我，回顾自己的Instagram也会发现自己的帖子越来越像网红风格，越来越精致和有美感。我认为人们忽略了这一点，尽管他们对2016年充满浪漫想象，却忘记了那一年的真实情况。
你认为这对我们理解2026年有什么意义？整个2020年代，尤其是在TikTok上，年轻人一直在怀念2010年代。我认为，总体而言，人们将2010年代与一种乐观情绪联系在一起，尤其是在2012年之后。而Z世代成长于一个动荡的时代，经历了疫情、经济问题、政治动荡和世界局势的不稳定。有时会感到非常绝望，因此他们渴望回到那个阳光明媚、积极向上、充满美好和低风险的年代。尽管2016年发生了许多变化和动荡，比如唐纳德·特朗普当选、英国脱欧，甚至伯尼·桑德斯的崛起，但当时有很多人对此感到兴奋。我认为当时那种变革带来的感觉可能被误认为是一种普遍的乐观情绪。然而，2016年那种对改变的期待并没有以人们所希望的方式实现。但我想，很多人还记得那种感觉，以及我们曾经共享的文化。而如今，这种共享的文化已经很难再被体验到了。
我今年32岁，很难想象十年前的我，会认为最好的时光已经过去，而不是即将到来。我是不是太老了？还是说，这代人成长于不断翻拍和续集的时代，更倾向于回顾过去而不是展望未来？是的，这正是我经常担心的问题。我27岁，不应该觉得17岁是最美好的时光。这种过度沉迷于回顾过去的现象，是因为人们无法想象一个更美好的未来。这总是令人担忧，也总是意味着希望的丧失。但我觉得，今年人们在线上的能量似乎更倾向于创造新事物，引入一些摩擦，摆脱过去十年互联网带来的持续逃避现实的需要。我看到这种趋势与广泛传播的怀旧情绪同时出现。我认为人们已经准备好迎接新的事物，也准备好摆脱互联网和社交媒体带来的持续怀旧。
At the start of this year, it seemed like everybody was reminiscing about the year 2016. In January alone, Spotify saw a 790 percent increase in 2016 themed playlists. People were declaring that the 2026 vibe would match the feel good vibes of the year 2016.
The only problem is that the experience of living through 2016 was far different from what Gen Z in particular remembers.
Daysia Tolentino is the journalist behind the newsletter Yap Year, where she’s been chronicling online affinity for the 2010s for almost a year now. Gen Z tends to blend all of the years together causing them to hype up the fun cultural parts and ignore the international and political turmoil that marked 2016. Tolentino says 2016 nostalgia might actually be a sign that young people are ready to break out of these cycles of nostalgia and reach for something new.
Tolentino spoke with Today, Explained host Astead Herndon about how 2016 has stuck with us and what our nostalgia for that time might reveal.
There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Where did this 2016 trend start?
It’s been building up since last year, especially on TikTok. People have been slowly bringing back 2016 trends, whether that’s the mannequin challenge with the Black Beatles song, or pink wall aesthetics, and these really warm hazy Instagram filters. When we entered the New Year in 2026, there were a lot of TikToks saying that 2026 was going to be like 2016.
I was curious about that. What does that even mean? I don’t actually think people know what that means at all. Then, a couple weeks ago, you see a lot of people on Instagram, especially peak Instagram influencers, posting themselves at their peak in 2016, which inspired everybody to post their own 2016 photos.
In your newsletter, you’ve tried to define what the 2016 mood board is. Can you explain that for me? When we’re thinking 2016 vibes, what do we mean?
When I look at 2016, I see makeup gurus on YouTube blow up at this time, and the makeup at the time is extremely maximalist. It’s very full glam, full beat, very matte, very colourful, some neon wigs at this time. You have the King Kylie of it all.
2016 was such a pivotal moment in internet culture. I think that is when we started to really enter this influencer era in full force. Prior to that, we had creators, but we didn’t have as much of this monetization infrastructure to make everything online an ad essentially. People were posting whatever they wanted to post.
It was the year that social media companies started pushing your news feed toward an engagement-based algorithm versus a friends-only chronological feed. In 2016, you see this flip toward influencer culture and this more put together easily consumable image and vibe to everything, and that trickles down into the culture of Instagram, so then people start posting as if they’re influencers themselves.
Even if you are a teenager like me at the time, if I look at my own Instagram, I could see my own posts mimicking influencers, becoming more polished, and becoming more aesthetic. I think people have missed that a lot, although I think people romanticise 2016 and forget a lot about what that year is actually like.
What do you think this says about 2026?
The entire 2020s so far, people on TikTok, especially young people, have been romanticising the 2010s. I think, in general, people associate the 2010s with a sense of optimism, especially post-2012. Young people have grown up in such a tumultuous time with the pandemic, the economy, with politics and the world in general. It feels really hopeless at times, so people are looking back to that time that literally looked so sunny, and positive, and wonderful, and low stakes. I think it’s really easy for people to become really fixated on this time period, even if that wasn’t the actual reality, right?
Why do you think people are only cherry picking the good parts of 2016?
It was one of the last years in which we engaged in a monoculture together, and we had shared pieces of culture that we could remember. We could all remember “Closer” being on the radio like 24/7 at the time. I think a lot of people romanticized 2016, because it is the last time they remember unification in any way. It feels like the last kind of moment of normalcy before this decade of turmoil.
As much as there was so much change and disruption happening in 2016, whether that’s Donald Trump, whether that’s Brexit, or even the rise of Bernie Sanders, there were so many people who were so excited about that. I think there was a feeling of disruption that could be mistaken for general optimism. Then, this hope for something different to come that began in 2016 did not materialize in maybe the ways that people wanted them to. But I think a lot of people can remember that feeling and the shared culture that we all had that nobody really is able to share in these days.
I’m 32. I can’t imagine me 10 years ago thinking that the best years were behind me and not in front of me. Am I just being old, or does some of this feel like a generation that’s been raised on remakes and sequels looking back instead of looking forward?
Yeah, that is something I’m concerned about frequently. I’m 27; I shouldn’t be like, “Being 17 was the best years of my life.” It is too obsessed with looking back, because you are unable to imagine a better future forward. That is always really concerning. That is always an indication that there’s a loss of hope,
But, I think that this year, it seems like the energy from people online is about creating something new, and introducing friction, and moving forward from this constant need for escapism that the internet has provided us for the past 10 years. I have seen that rise alongside this nostalgia that has been so widely publicized and widely talked about.
I think people are ready for new things. I think people are ready to move on from constant escapism that the internet and social media brings, including constant nostalgia.
2026-01-31 19:30:00
2026年1月25日，明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯市为亚历克斯·普雷蒂（Alex Pretti）举行纪念仪式，现场摆放着鲜花和蜡烛。| Scott Olson/Getty Images
上周三，一段视频在网络上流传，显示普雷蒂踢碎了一辆移民与海关执法局（ICE）车辆的尾灯，而这正是他被边境巡逻局（Border Patrol）射杀前11天发生的事件。右翼影响者迅速将这一事件解读为某种方式为普雷蒂的杀人者开脱。在梅根·凯利（Megyn Kelly）的叙述中，视频证明了这位反ICE抗议者“一直在欺负”边境巡逻局，而非被欺负，并建议“喜欢非法移民的左翼人士”应“寻找另一个替罪羊”。特朗普总统则称普雷蒂是“煽动者，也许还是叛乱者”，并表示他的“信誉已经一落千丈”。
当然，普雷蒂过去的行为与他被杀害的正当性毫无关系。在美国，踢政府的SUV并不会导致立即处决。边境巡逻局向普雷蒂背部开枪是错误的，原因并非他过去是否一直尊重他们，而是因为他是一个人。如果当时没有视频记录，普雷蒂过去的激进行为可能会影响公众对他是否构成致命威胁的判断。然而，在我们这个有视频证据的世界里，我们知道他并未如此。
然而，一些自由派人士却选择否认普雷蒂与边境巡逻局首次冲突的存在。在左翼社交媒体圈子中，很快便流传着“新视频是AI生成的”这一说法。但很少有有影响力的自由派人士传播这一阴谋论。而且，这一说法本身并不合理；如果右翼要散布深度伪造视频来抹黑普雷蒂，他们为何只选择展示他破坏ICE财产，而不是攻击其执法人员？
如今，叙事不再需要权威记者或官员的认可，就能产生巨大影响。尽管新闻机构确认了普雷蒂视频的真实性，但该视频在X、Bluesky和TikTok等平台上却迅速传播了“深度伪造”的说法。这种急于否认的倾向显然有失妥当：在缺乏确凿证据的情况下发表强烈声明，不仅不明智，而且容易出错。但自由派对普雷蒂过去冲突的阴谋论也具有更深层次的危险性。正如对普雷蒂遇害的反应所显示的，视频证据是目前唯一能对特朗普的谎言和不当行为形成制约的工具。因此，总统的反对者必须维护视频证据的权威性。然而，一些自由派却无根据地声称该视频是深度伪造，这反而削弱了这种制约。
从他进入政治舞台以来，特朗普一直在与客观现实进行消耗战。所有政客都会在一定程度上玩弄真相，但特朗普的谎言在数量和大胆程度上都显得格外突出。仅在第一个任期中，他就发表了超过30,000条虚假或误导性的言论，从夸大自己就职典礼规模的琐碎谎言，到关于2020年选举合法性的严重虚构。特朗普谎言的规模和无所顾忌，本身就是一种权力的宣言——他的言语凌驾于现实之上。
上周六，特朗普政府在明尼阿波利斯测试了这一主张，当时边境巡逻局的执法人员射杀了普雷蒂。手机视频显示，这位37岁的抗议者试图帮助另一位抗议者起身，却遭到执法人员喷雾、殴打、解除武装，最后被射杀10次。然而，当政府开始发布关于此次事件的声明时，却并未试图与这些公开证据保持一致。相反，国土安全部声称普雷蒂“手持9毫米半自动手枪走近执法人员”，意图“对个人造成最大伤害并杀害执法人员”——这些说法任何人都能通过眼睛和互联网轻易识别为虚假。而且，大多数人都意识到了这一点。对政府谎言的愤怒是广泛且跨党派的。为了平息这种愤怒，特朗普解除了边境巡逻局指挥官的职务，国土安全部长承认她最初的声明可能有误，而FBI则接管了对普雷蒂遇害事件的调查。
这些发展可能或可能不会恢复边境巡逻局对法律的问责。但它们至少暂时重申了白宫宣传室对可验证事实的服从。政府或许能够欺骗一半的民众，让他们相信无法通过感官直接验证的事情。例如，人们无法仅凭视觉和听觉判断2020年选举的合法性或疫苗的有效性。而曾经在这些议题上形成共识的主流媒体、学术界和文职机构，影响力也逐渐减弱。然而，对普雷蒂遇害的反应表明，视频仍能为美国人提供某种共享现实的基础，从而限制总统选择自己版本现实的能力。
在这样的背景下，自由派人士在缺乏有力证据的情况下，将令人不适的视频称为AI生成的，这是不负责任且适得其反的行为。当然，人工智能确实可以生成逼真的视频，这意味着录像的真实性不能被轻易接受。记者们寻求独立验证最新普雷蒂视频的做法是正确的，而不是盲目相信其真实性。但这一现实也强调了我们不能错误地声称视频是AI生成的。我们正面临失去最后一个制约党派自我欺骗和总统虚伪行为的工具的风险。因此，错误地质疑录像的真实性，实际上是在削弱这些制约，从而加速一个视频无法约束政府暴力行为的世界的到来。
在政治冲突的激烈氛围中，很难抗拒宣传的诱惑。我们渴望符合自己意识形态的事实和广受同情的叙述。我们渴望圣洁的殉道者和邪恶的对手。但自由派不能让这些欲望超越他们的智力诚实。右翼的独裁者可以肆意传播自我吹嘘的虚构故事，因为他们并不致力于维持基于现实的政治。而民主的支持者则没有这种奢侈。如果我们能够抑制自己的宣传冲动，我们就会获得另一个优势：事实将站在我们这边。
Last Wednesday, a video surfaced of Alex Pretti kicking out the taillight of an ICE vehicle, 11 days before Border Patrol agents shot him to death.
Right-wing influencers quickly cast the incident as somehow exonerating the 37-year-old’s killers. In Megyn Kelly’s telling, the footage proved that the anti-ICE protester “had been victimizing” Border Patrol — not the other way around — and advised “illegal-loving Leftists” to “find another poster boy.” President Donald Trump, for his part, declared Pretti an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist” whose “stock has gone way down.”
Of course, Pretti’s prior conduct has no actual bearing on the legitimacy of his killing. In the United States, the punishment for kicking a government SUV is not summary execution. The reason why it was wrong for Border Patrol to pump bullets into Pretti’s back is not that he had always been respectful toward them and their vehicles, but rather, that he was a human being.
Evidence of Pretti’s past aggression might have been relevant, had his fatal confrontation with Border Patrol not been recorded. In such a circumstance, the public would need to make an educated guess about whether Pretti gave agents cause for using lethal force, based in part on his prior behavior. In our universe, however, we know that he did not.
Instead of disputing the relevance of Pretti’s first encounter with Border Patrol, however, some liberals chose to deny its very existence.
In the left-wing corners of social media, it quickly became canon that the new video of Pretti was “AI.” Few liberals of any stature propagated that conspiracy theory. And it made little sense on its face; if the right were going to disseminate deepfakes to discredit Pretti, why would they choose to depict him merely damaging ICE’s property, rather than assaulting its officers?
Yet narratives no longer require the endorsement of credentialed journalists or elected officials to attain great influence. And claims that the new video of Pretti was a deepfake spread virally on X, Bluesky, and TikTok, even as news outlets confirmed the video’s authenticity.
The rush to denialism was misguided in an obvious sense: It is never wise to publish strong assertions in the absence of solid evidence, and always embarrassing to do so in error.
But the left’s conspiracy theorizing about Pretti’s past scuffle with federal agents was also reckless in a more profound respect. As the backlash to Pretti’s killing demonstrated, video evidence is one of the few remaining checks on Donald Trump’s mendacity and malfeasance. It is therefore critical for the president’s opponents to preserve the authority of recorded images. By baselessly declaring a politically inconvenient film to be a deepfake, some liberals did the opposite.
From the moment he entered our politics, Trump has been waging a war of attrition against objective reality.
All politicians play games with the truth. But Trump’s lies have long been exceptional in their volume and audacity. In his first term alone, the president made more than 30,000 false or misleading statements – from petty whoppers about the size of his inauguration crowd to grave fictions about the 2020 election’s legitimacy.
The scale and shamelessness of Trump’s mendacity is itself an assertion of dominance — a declaration that his word supersedes reality.
The administration tested this proposition last Saturday, when Border Patrol agents shot Alex Pretti to death in Minneapolis.
Cellphone videos showed the 37-year-old trying to help a fellow protester off the ground, only to be pepper-sprayed, beaten, disarmed — and then shot 10 times — by federal officers. Yet when the administration began putting out statements about the shooting, it didn’t even try to align its narrative with this public evidence. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security told Americans that Pretti had “approached officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun,” in a bid “to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement” — claims that anyone with eyes and internet access could recognize as false.
And, for the most part, they did. Outrage about the administration’s lies proved broad and bipartisan. To quell it, the president demoted his Border Patrol commander, the head of DHS confessed that her initial statements about the shooting may have been wrong, and the FBI took control of the investigation into Pretti’s killing.
These developments may or may not restore Border Patrol’s accountability to the rule of law. But they did reaffirm, at least momentarily, the White House spin room’s subservience to readily verifiable facts.
The administration might be able to deceive half the country about matters they can’t evaluate with their own senses. One can’t ascertain the legitimacy of the 2020 election or efficacy of vaccines through mere sight and sound. And the institutions that once forged consensus on such subjects — the mainstream media, academia, and the civil service — have steadily bled influence. But the backlash to Pretti’s killing suggested that video could still ground Americans in some semblance of a shared reality — and thus, constrain the president’s capacity to choose his own.
In this context, it is both irresponsible and counterproductive for liberals to deem politically discomfiting videos AI, if they lack strong evidence for such allegations.
Of course, artificial intelligence really can generate photorealistic videos. And this does mean that the veracity of recordings can’t be taken for granted. Reporters were right to seek independent confirmation of the latest Pretti video rather than blindly trusting their validity.
But this reality just underscores the importance of not “crying deepfake” erroneously. We are at risk of losing one of the last remaining constraints on partisan self-deception and presidential perfidy. To falsely disparage the authenticity of a recording is therefore to corrode those constraints — and thus, hasten the arrival of a world where videos of state violence have little power.
In the heat of political conflict, it can be hard to resist the pull of propaganda. We want ideologically convenient facts and broadly sympathetic narratives. We crave saintly martyrs and satanic adversaries.
But liberals can’t let such desires override their intellectual honesty. The authoritarian right can spread self-flattering fictions with abandon because it has no investment in sustaining a reality-based politics. Proponents of democracy do not have that luxury. If we can suppress our own propagandistic impulses, however, we will have another advantage; the facts will be on our side.
2026-01-31 07:05:00
记者唐纳德·莱蒙（Don Lemon）于2025年9月2日在美国华盛顿特区的哥伦布圆环附近联合车站附近的一场集会上采访了众议员阿尔·格林（Al Green，D-TX）。| 安德鲁·哈尼克/Getty Images
本文出自《Logoff》日报，旨在帮助您了解特朗普政府的动态，而不会让政治新闻占据您的生活。点击此处订阅。
欢迎来到《Logoff》：特朗普政府正在起诉两名记者，指控他们报道明尼苏达州抗议活动的行为。发生了什么？唐纳德·莱蒙是长期在CNN工作的主持人，于2023年被该网络解雇；而来自明尼苏达州圣保罗的独立记者乔治亚·福特（Georgia Fort）则被控与多名抗议者一起，犯有阴谋剥夺权利和妨碍宗教自由的罪名。这些指控源于他们对本月早些时候明尼苏达州某抗议活动的报道。抗议者中断了圣保罗一家教堂的礼拜活动，因为该教堂的牧师在移民与海关执法局（ICE）任职。莱蒙和福特则记录了这次抗议活动。周五公布的起诉书指控了九人，其中莱蒙、福特和其他被告被指控“以协调接管的方式进入教堂，实施压迫、恐吓、威胁、干扰和身体阻拦等行为”。
背景是什么？特朗普政府此前曾试图起诉莱蒙至少两次，但均未成功。抗议活动发生后不久，一名联邦治安法官拒绝签发针对莱蒙的逮捕令；当特朗普政府对此提出上诉时，该决定也被联邦地区法院法官和联邦上诉法院驳回。上周，还有三名活动人士因与抗议活动有关而被起诉；其中一次，白宫还对妮基玛·利维·阿姆斯特朗（Nekima Levy Armstrong）的照片进行了数字处理，使其看起来像是在被逮捕时在哭泣。
为什么这值得关注？记者被起诉本身就令人不安，而特朗普政府为了获得起诉所采取的手段更是令人震惊。同样令人担忧的是政府表现出的兴奋情绪：白宫在周五早上的一条X（原推特）帖子中称赞了莱蒙的被捕，配图是一张黑白照片，并写道“当生活给你柠檬，就做柠檬派（When life gives you lemons… ⛓️）”。此外，白宫还称这次事件为“圣保罗教堂骚乱”，使用了复数形式，尽管实际上只发生了一次抗议活动。
在漫长的一周结束时，这个故事让我感到一丝温暖：芝加哥的一名学校过街天桥守卫乔·萨斯（Joe Sass）因帮助一名学生穿越被冰冻融雪覆盖的街道而走红，随后人们为他筹集了超过8000美元。萨斯告诉《华盛顿邮报》：“我喜欢帮助别人，如果人们能把我看作一个乐于助人的人，那将是世界上最美好的事情之一。我只是在这里帮助我的邻居。”祝您度过一个愉快的周末，我们周一再见！
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is indicting two journalists for their coverage of a Minneapolis protest.
What happened? Don Lemon, a longtime CNN host who was fired from the network in 2023, and Georgia Fort, an independent journalist in St. Paul, Minnesota, were charged with conspiracy to deprive rights and interfering with religious freedom on Friday, along with multiple protesters.
The charges stem from their coverage of a Minneapolis-area protest earlier this month; activists interrupted a church service in St. Paul over a pastor at the church who works for ICE, while Lemon and Fort documented the protest.
The indictment, unsealed Friday, which charges nine total people on the same two counts, alleges Lemon, Fort, and the other defendants “entered the Church in a coordinated takeover-style attack and engaged in acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference, and physical obstruction.”
What’s the context? The Trump administration tried and failed to charge Lemon at least twice prior to Friday’s indictment by a grand jury. Shortly after the protest, a federal magistrate judge refused to sign an arrest warrant for Lemon; when the Trump administration appealed that decision, it was also rejected by a federal district court judge and by a federal appeals court panel.
Three activists were also charged last week in connection with the protests; in one instance, the White House digitally manipulated a photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong to make it appear she was crying when she was arrested.
Why does this matter? The indictment of journalists is disturbing on its face, as are the lengths the Trump administration went to to secure the indictment. Equally alarming is the administration’s apparent giddiness: The White House touted Lemon’s arrest in an X post Friday morning, writing “When life gives you lemons… ⛓️” over a black-and-white photo of Lemon. It also referred to the “St. Paul Church Riots” — plural, despite the fact that it was a single protest.
This story made me smile at the end of a long week: People raised more than $8,000 for a school crossing guard in Chicago, Joe Sass, after he went viral for helping a student across a street flooded with icy slush.
“I like being a helper,” Sass told the Washington Post (it’s a gift link). “And I think if people could think of me as that, then I think that’s like one of the most beautiful things in the world. I’m just a friend out here helping my neighbors.”
Have a restful weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!
2026-01-30 21:30:00
2025年11月12日，护士马蒂尔德·扎因阿布·卡马拉在弗里敦的计划生育生殖健康诊所展示了一些避孕产品，这些产品用于家庭计划生育咨询活动。| 摄影：Saidu Bah/AFP via Getty Images
副总统JD·范斯在上周五华盛顿特区举行的年度生命之 march（生命游行）上，对一群“ZOOMER修女”、风笛手和白人至上主义者怒吼道：“野蛮的标志是我们把婴儿当作麻烦丢弃。”随后，他宣布将墨西哥城政策扩大三倍。这项已有数十年历史、备受争议的外交政策禁止接受外国援助的组织提及堕胎作为计划生育的一种选择。该政策在去年特朗普总统重返白宫后被重新实施。
虽然（通常为共和党）政府重新实施该政策并不罕见，但这是该政策第二次被扩大。如今，该政策还禁止提及“性别意识形态”或多样性、公平与包容性，适用于所有形式的援助。扩展后的政策表明，政府将更广泛地针对任何被认为“政治正确”的事物进行限制，包括那些明确为LGBTQ群体服务的组织，例如为跨性别者提供服务的诊所，或为边缘群体争取权利的组织，例如资助当地土著社区学校。
“这实际上是利用美国的对外援助来推行意识形态议程，”全球平等理事会主管基弗·布坎南上周告诉 NPR。这些变化几乎与特朗普去年发布行政命令冻结数十亿美元救命援助的时间完全一致，这标志着美国国际开发署（USAID）的最终终结。研究人员现在可信地估计，数百万人在援助冻结后死亡，因为他们的健康诊所关闭，食物援助消失，艾滋病感染未被诊断。
尽管特朗普政府最近几个月已恢复一些关键健康项目的资金，如 PEPFAR 和全球基金，但墨西哥城政策的扩展意味着许多世界上最脆弱和边缘化的人群，特别是母亲和儿童，将继续因资金削减而遭受不成比例的苦难。
在低收入国家，许多妇女健康组织不仅承担本地计划生育工作，还负责生殖和产科护理、宫颈癌筛查、艾滋病治疗、儿童健康服务以及家暴和性暴力幸存者的资源。当这些组织因墨西哥城政策失去资金时，所有这些服务都会受到影响，导致亲密伴侣暴力增加、儿童营养不良和艾滋病感染率上升。
讽刺的是，研究一致表明，该政策实际上会增加接受援助国家的堕胎数量，因为它阻碍了人们获取避孕药具的途径。同时，它也使分娩变得更加危险。一项研究估计，在特朗普首次执政期间，由于当地卫生提供者未能通过该政策的审查，额外有108,000名母亲和儿童死亡。这相当于1,300多个资助项目被取消，至少损失了1.53亿美元资金，每一美元都意味着更少的艾滋病检测工具、疟疾蚊帐和婴儿配方奶粉。
此次，特朗普政府已经削减了大多数此类组织的资金。与整体外国援助削减38%相比，特朗普削减了母婴健康组织和计划生育及生殖健康组织资金的90%以上。虽然难以预测最终影响，但显然，数以十万计的母亲和儿童可能会因此丧生。
扩展后的墨西哥城政策不仅适用于外国组织，还适用于在美国运营但服务于海外的组织、联合国等多边机构，甚至可能包括外国政府。此前，该政策适用于约80亿美元的全球健康资金，现在则适用于超过300亿美元的非军事对外援助资金。
许多组织可能被迫在继续为某些弱势群体提供服务和放弃重要资金来源之间做出选择。如果你想确保他们的工作得以继续，现在就是表达支持的好时机。在低收入国家提供计划生育服务的主要机构 MSI Reproductive Choices 因该政策重新实施而损失了1500万美元。Project Resource Optimization 也有一个数据库，记录了之前由 USAID 资助的许多关键救生项目，包括母婴健康项目。
美国的文化战争本不应成为成千上万甚至数百万贫困国家妇女和儿童的死亡判决。但多亏了特朗普及其政府的琐碎政策，这种风险正变得越来越大。
“The mark of barbarism is that we treat babies like inconveniences to be discarded,” Vice President JD Vance bellowed to a crowd of zoomer nuns, bagpipers, and white nationalists at the annual March for Life in Washington, DC, last Friday.
The vice president then proceeded to announce a threefold expansion of the Mexico City policy, a decades-old, controversial foreign policy that prohibits organizations from receiving foreign aid if they mention abortion as a family planning option. It was reinstated last year when President Donald Trump resumed office.
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While it’s not uncommon for (usually Republican) administrations to reinstate it, this is only the second time the policy — which critics call the “global gag rule” — has been expanded. It now also prohibits talk of “gender ideology” or diversity, equity, and inclusion for all forms of assistance. The extended policy indicates that the administration will now be casting an even wider net against anything deemed woke, including groups that explicitly serve LGBTQ people, like a clinic that serves transgender people, for example, or that explicitly advocate for the rights of marginalized groups, such as funding a local school for an Indigenous community.
“This is about weaponizing U.S. foreign assistance to promote an ideological agenda,” Keifer Buckingham, managing director for the Council for Global Equality, told NPR last week.
The changes come almost exactly one year to the day since Donald Trump issued an executive order freezing billions of dollars in lifesaving aid, setting in motion the final death knell for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Researchers now credibly estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have died in the aftermath, as their health clinics closed, their food aid vanished, and their HIV infections went undiagnosed.
And while the Trump administration has moved in recent months to restore some funding for crucial health programs — like PEPFAR and the Global Fund — the expansion of the Mexico City policy means that many of the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized people, particularly mothers and young children, will continue to suffer disproportionately from the consequences of cuts.
In low-income countries, many women’s health organizations end up taking on the brunt of not only local family planning, but also reproductive and maternity care, cervical cancer screenings, HIV treatment, children’s health services, and resources for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. When the Mexico City policy disqualifies these groups from receiving funds, it affects all of those services too, leading to spikes in intimate partner violence, nutritional deficits in children, and HIV infections.
Paradoxically, research has consistently shown that the policy actually increases the number of abortions in countries receiving aid, because it disrupts people’s access to contraceptives. It also makes giving birth much less safe. One study estimated that during the first Trump administration, an additional 108,000 mothers and children died because their local health providers did not pass the rule’s sniff test. This amounted to over 1,300 canceled grants and at least $153 million in lost funding, every dollar of which meant fewer HIV testing kits, malaria nets, and baby formula for people in need.
This time around, the Trump administration has already slashed funding to most of these organizations. Trump slashed upwards of 90 percent of funding for maternal and child health organizations and family planning and reproductive health, compared with 38 percent in cuts to foreign aid overall. While it’s difficult to predict the full toll, it’s clear that hundreds of thousands of mothers and young children will likely die as a result.
The expanded Mexico City policy will now apply not only to foreign-run organizations — as it has in the past — but also to US-based organizations that work overseas, multilaterals like the United Nations, and potentially, foreign governments. It previously applied to a tranche of about $8 billion worth of global health funding, but now applies to over $30 billion of non-military foreign assistance.
Many groups will likely find themselves forced to choose between discontinuing services for some of the vulnerable populations they serve — or forfeiting a vital stream of funding.
If you want to help make sure their work continues, then now is a good time to show your support. MSI Reproductive Choices, a major provider of family planning services in low-income countries, has lost $15 million due to the reinstated Mexico City policy. Project Resource Optimization also has a database filled with specific lifesaving projects — including for maternal and child health — that were previously funded by USAID.
America’s culture wars should never have been a death sentence for hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of women and children in poor countries. But thanks to Trump and his administration’s petty policies, that’s increasingly what they risk becoming.
2026-01-30 21:00:00
If it feels like your algorithm is being hijacked by tiny, silver fish, you’re not just seeing things; sardines are experiencing a cultural moment right now. From influencers showing off snack plates and skin care tips to fitness experts raving about its high protein content, the internet can’t stop extolling the benefits of the formerly slept-on, salty snack.
It’s a bit like millennials experiencing “bacon-mania” in the 2010s or Gen Z’s more recent obsession with olives and pickles. The hype around sardines has gotten so big that some store owners are hiking up prices, citing increased demand and steep tariffs. Longtime sardine consumers have taken to social media to complain about the budget-friendly meal becoming more expensive and naming one culprit, in particular. “Sardines and canned fish in general being randomly expensive now — we hate you, TikTok,” wrote one X user last week.
The current cultural obsession with sardines isn’t being driven by memes or even insatiable cravings. It’s all about health, beauty, and the Gen Z concept of “-maxxing,” the internet-slang suffix for optimizing a specific area of one’s life. It’s the appropriately affordable snack for an increasingly unaffordable era that has led young people to invest in their self-improvement when they can’t monetarily invest in much else.
Watching social media brag about their sardine consumption feels a bit uncanny. Many of us have gone our entire lives passing up sardines at the supermarket for more mainstream seafood, whether that’s canned tuna or something more luxurious, like smoked salmon. If you were raised on sardines, it wasn’t exactly the type of meal you would show off during lunchtime. Maybe its most accurate moniker is a struggle food, an involuntary grocery pick for those on a tight budget. That was the case for influencer Ally Renee when she began incorporating them into her diet.
“I always watched my dad eating them growing up,” Renee said. “But I actually got into them by force, because they were like the cheapest thing I could afford in LA.”
Now, she’s become a big proponent of sardines on her page, describing it as “skincare in a can” in one of her latest videos. She says she genuinely enjoys the taste of them, but the fact that they’re filled with Omega 3’s and high in protein is a “win-win.”
“I notice my skin is more bouncy and the texture is a little better,” she said. “When I’m trying to tone up my body, it’s such a good source of protein.”
With 28 grams of protein per serving (around the same amount as a lot of pricey protein bars), sardines factor into the current obsession with protein intake and strength training. As a source of omega-3 fatty acids, they may help to reduce inflammation — one of the most-fretted-about medical conditions online — and boost collagen. You’ll also see sardines touted online as a way of “looksmaxxing,” “skinmaxxing,” “omega-3-maxxing,” and so on. The objective when eating them is never just to have a good meal, but to be improving your health and appearance at the same time while making the most out of every penny spent.
Kim Severson, a food culture reporter for the New York Times, sees a few other things contributing to the current sardine takeover, including high-end chefs incorporating sardines in their menus and the recent rise in tourism to Portugal, “the land of tinned fish.” She added that we’re also witnessing the “snack-ification of America,” where snack plates, girl dinners, and meals entirely made of side dishes have become a popular mode of serving food — and saving money.
“Affordability is a big part of it,” Severson said. “You can eat well with these little snack bites for less.”
The desire to eat well for less has driven a lot of food trends on social media since the pandemic, as people were forced to come up with creative dining options at home and on a budget. A few years ago, the rise of the girl dinner, which is essentially a homemade Lunchable, revolutionized the way many young people thought about healthy, affordable, and aesthetically pleasing food preparation. Self-proclaimed “snack plate girls” even started dedicating their pages to these protein medleys. Grocery prices continued to rise, and the snack plate came into fashion as more people embraced low-effort charcuterie boards. So, it felt appropriate, at the end of last year, when sardines became the centerpiece of many of these viral dishes. TikTok quickly became enamored with the aesthetic of a tin of oven-baked sardines surrounded by tomatoes, pickles, and hard-boiled eggs.
Severson says these sardine snack plates satisfy a “culinary itch” that consumers may not be able to scratch by spending money at fancy restaurants. But it’s just one of the ways sardines have become integral to aspirational living on a budget.
What was once a resource for famished soldiers during both world wars and foreign-born workers in the early 20th century has gotten a surprisingly glamorous makeover, thanks to its place in young people’s skin care regimes and sophisticated meals. There are even more expensive brands, like Fishwife, which sell “premium” sardines in artful tins with preserved ingredients that have helped boost the image of sardines as luxury.
However, the largely utilitarian function of sardines has seemed to remain intact. While you’ll find influencers raving about sardines’ briny taste, they’ve become more of a holy grail for wellness junkies and health nuts than something simply meant to be enjoyed. It shouldn’t be so surprising that a highly nutritious but affordable food is speaking to young people from a generation that’s hyper-focused on self-improvement and optimization in lieu of abundant job opportunities and wrestling with an economically uncertain future.
Maybe most glaringly, the current sardine obsession falls into a well-documented trend of Gen Z giving the cheapest items value. If they can turn affordable knickknacks into status symbols, why not make a $2 can of sardines the ultimate wellness secret?