2026-02-01 20:00:00
2026年1月29日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在白宫内阁会议上讲话，国防部长皮特·海格塞思在旁观看。尽管特朗普曾承诺专注于“美国优先”，但他的全球野心却显而易见。近期，美国在委内瑞拉采取行动，对格陵兰、欧洲和伊朗发出威胁，并公开寻求诺贝尔和平奖。特朗普最新的全球举措是成立“和平委员会”，其终身会费高达十亿美元，被一些人视为试图取代联合国的尝试。截至目前，加入该委员会的国家大多是国际舞台上的次要角色，包括白俄罗斯、阿塞拜疆和萨尔瓦多。
然而，无论该委员会是否能成功建立一个“更灵活、更有效的国际和平建设机构”，它都是特朗普试图重新确立美国在国际事务中影响力的新尝试，尤其是在美国的邻国中。塔夫茨大学弗莱彻国际关系学院的国际政治教授莫妮卡·杜夫·托夫指出，特朗普试图重新确立美国的影响力范围，即“势力范围”，这种影响力体现在对盟友和伙伴国家的控制上，而非直接统治。
特朗普的“势力范围”包括委内瑞拉和格陵兰，但他的目标还远不止于此。他希望美国在西方世界保持主导地位，同时在全球其他地区如中东和亚洲也拥有影响力。然而，这种做法可能引发其他国家的反弹，尤其是中国和俄罗斯。中国和俄罗斯都试图在国际事务中发挥更大作用，而美国的这种行为可能让它们觉得可以效仿。
特朗普的“和平委员会”被视为对联合国的挑战，但其影响力有限。尽管美国在委内瑞拉和伊朗采取了一些强硬措施，但这些行动并未真正改变国际秩序。相反，它们可能削弱美国的国际声誉，并导致盟友的不满。目前，盟友国家正在团结起来，因为他们认为美国不再是可靠的伙伴。与此同时，俄罗斯和中国则在观察美国的行动，并可能采取类似策略。
总的来说，当前的国际局势似乎正在走向一种“无政府状态”，各国都在争夺影响力，而美国的政策可能正在加剧这种趋势。
It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has global aspirations — despite his promises of focusing on “America First.” The past few weeks have seen US action in Venezuela; threats to Greenland, Europe, and Iran; and Trump’s open solicitation of a Nobel Peace Prize.
The president’s latest global push: the Board of Peace.
With its billion-dollar lifetime membership fee, the new body has been labeled a minor bid to replace the United Nations. So far the countries who have joined are relatively minor players on the world stage, including Belarus, Azerbaijan, and El Salvador.
But whether or not the board ends up successful in its mission to create “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body,” it’s Trump’s latest attempt to exert a new kind of international power, especially over America’s neighbors.
“He’s trying to reestablish the US sphere of influence, its control over the Western Hemisphere,” said Monica Duffy Toft, professor of international politics at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and director of the Center for Strategic Studies.
Today, Explained co-host Noel King spoke with Toft about where our idea of a “world order” came from and where it may be headed after Trump’s shakeup. Below is an excerpt of their 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.
It is unbelievably still January of 2026, and we have had really significant events in Venezuela, over Greenland, with the EU and NATO. And all of this is leading people to say President Donald Trump is trying to remake the world order.
What is the world order?
So the world order was established after World War II. The United States and its Western allies decided to establish rules that would govern the international system and along with that a series of institutions, including, by the way, the United Nations. And what they were trying to do is set up a system of law — international law, norms, and rules in order to prevent a third world war.
The idea was that the use of force — the use of the military — was no longer going to be an acceptable form of international politicking on the global arena.
This is the thing that President Trump seeks to change or to undo or to disrupt. You’ve written about a philosophy that you think is relevant right now. What’s the philosophy?
He’s trying to reestablish the US sphere of influence, its control over the Western Hemisphere. And a sphere of influence, it’s best understood as control without rule. States within a sphere are sovereign on paper; they have their own government, their own borders, their own money, and they have international recognition. But their strategic choices are restrained by the great power, and in this case, it’s the United States.
What [the US] is doing is saying, under President Trump and his administration, [countries within its sphere] can’t freely choose alliances, trade partners without crossing lines or without getting agreement from the United States.
What’s the sphere of influence that the US is seeking? We clearly want to have a lot of influence in Venezuela. Greenland, the president has been very clear there as well. But what other nations and regions do we see Trump wanting to have influence over? And what does he want them to do or not do?
We know that he wants the Western sphere under US control. This was part of the National Security Strategy that was released. And it’s very clear that the United States is going to dominate the region. You can look at what is done in Venezuela, where it just said Venezuela can no longer have [formal trade] relations with China and with Russia.
But paradoxically, [the Trump administration] also wants to have global reach. And so now we’re seeing the tensions. There’s a flotilla moving to the Middle East in order to get Iran to behave. And then also the United States wants to maintain its leverage in Asia. It has allies there, of course: Japan and Taiwan and South Korea.
So on the one hand, it’s really pressing its case in the Western Hemisphere, but then it’s also insisting that it should have some leverage in these other regions. And the one that is probably most problematic is Asia. Because of course if the United States can have pointy elbows in its own sphere, China could make the argument, then why can’t we?
This makes me wonder then: Who are the other great powers? Who are the other nations trying to influence the smaller nations here?
The top two are probably the Russian Federation, of course, which invaded Ukraine in 2014 and then again in 2022. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s made it very clear that he wants to determine Ukrainians’ foreign policy so much so that it doesn’t want to join in the EU or NATO, and it doesn’t want NATO expanded. So the Russian Federation is one.
And of course, the other one is China, whose economy is booming, as a huge population and a large landmass.
This makes me think of the way [China’s leader] Xi [Jinping] and Putin talk about their objectives in the world. Let’s go back to early January, after the United States spirited [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro out of Venezuela.
Stephen Miller got on television and he said to CNN’s Jake Tapper, “We live in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world — since the beginning of time.”
It was striking. It reminded me of the way Vladimir Putin talks about the world and the way Xi talks about the world.
Is the United States just doing what Russia and China are already doing?
Noel, that is a great way to put it. But what I would say is we were already there.
The United States superpower has always been [about] trade, and free trade. And so what’s paradoxical here is that we did not need to use force to do that. Now we’re using force, but at a time in history when we’re finding that it’s not as effective in securing our national strategic goals.
What’s kind of a shame here is that the United States is, under President Trump — he seems to like this muscular foreign policy. You get the quick victories, [like] Venezuela. But over the longer term, it’s eroding the American reputation. And over the longer term, it’s actually undermining our interests.
What you’re going to see is a balancing against the United States. You’re already seeing the hedging, where you’ve got [Prime Minister] Mark Carney of Canada declaring,“We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it.” That we’re in a new world order, and we cannot rely on our allies — we cannot rely on the United States. And he’s not alone.
You said the United States is using force, and I wonder to what degree you think that’s true. So Venezuela, yes, we did go in. It was a quick mission, I think we could put it that way. Greenland, we did not actually do anything, nor did we even end up levying tariffs on Europe over the whole Greenland fight. President Trump backed off.
So when you say we’re using force, how do you see that? You’re not talking boots on the ground, right?
Potentially.
The Trump administration did say with the Greenland operation, before it deescalated, thankfully, that they wouldn’t discount putting American forces in there and reestablishing those bases.
I wasn’t fully confident that the US wasn’t going to deploy troops. And I’m pretty sure the Europeans feared that the US was going to take that step.
We love sanctions and Trump loves tariffs, and we’re using them not only against adversaries, but against allies. Noel, that’s the difference, right? Is that we’re threatening our allies, and because the United States is so quick with the trigger, we can’t be trusted that we’re not going to use force.
It feels like we are barreling toward something in this moment. Trump’s Board of Peace, at this juncture, is this minor bid to replace the United Nations. We’ve talked about the international norms that are being upended. What do you think we are barreling toward?
What’s unnerving is that it really does seem to be one individual within this administration that has a lot of say about where we’re headed.
But the question is: How far is the administration willing to push this? And my concern, Noel, is that [bombing] Iran [in June 2025] was a successful operation. At least, they’ve sold it as that. The experts say, “No, we didn’t denude the nuclear capacity of Iran for that long,” but [the Trump administration] sees it as a victory.
And then secondarily, Venezuela was quick and dirty, right? We got in and we got out.
These mini successes may embolden them a little bit more. And the question is: How are our allies going to respond? And we see how they’re responding; they’re uniting. They’re saying, we’ve got to keep this together because the United States is now not a reliable partner. They feel as if they’re fighting for that Western liberal order and that Ukraine is the front line.
And then the adversaries — the Russian Federation and China — what lessons are they taking from this? China under President Xi is kind of thumping [its] chest and saying, “I’m the big boy in the room,” right? “We’re stable. We’re not going to use force.” And then Putin is looking at this smirking, thinking, “Great, if the United States can get away with these shenanigans, then I can too” — right?
We’re in kind of a Wild West situation. And the question is: How are they going to respond to it?
2026-02-01 20:00:00
2025年12月21日，在亚利桑那州凤凰城举行的Turning Point USA年度AmericaFest会议上，与会者佩戴特朗普帽子。今年的会议是为了纪念在9月于犹他州大学校园遇害的右翼活动家查理·克里克（Charlie Kirk），这一事件引发了保守派的深切哀悼，并促使特朗普威胁要对“激进左翼”采取行动。（图片由Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images）
查理·克里克创立了Turning Point USA，旨在影响他所认为正在被自由派大学灌输思想的大学生群体。他的努力得到了保守派名人的广泛支持，包括特朗普和副总统JD·范斯（JD Vance）。然而，自克里克遇害后，Turning Point USA在校园中的影响力迅速扩大，会员数量在某些地区激增数千人；而克里克的遗孀埃里卡·克里克（Erika Kirk）则名义上接管了该组织。但正如《纽约杂志》的Simon van Zuylen-Wood在最新一期《Today, Explained》中告诉Noel King的那样，还有其他右翼超级明星正在争夺组织领导地位，而许多年轻保守派人士则开始接受比克里克更为黑暗和阴谋论的世界观。
以下是他们对话的节选，已进行删减和润色。完整内容请收听《Today, Explained》节目，可在Apple Podcasts、Pandora和Spotify等平台获取。
在查理·克里克于9月在犹他州遇害后，人们开始思考：Turning Point USA会如何发展？这不仅关乎TPUSA本身，也关乎青年保守主义的未来。我曾前往亚利桑那州的NFL体育场参加克里克的纪念活动，并与大学生们交谈，发现要了解“查理·克里克之后”的情况，校园是最关键的场所。9月中旬和12月中旬的答案截然不同。如果我在查理·克里克遇害三周后撰写这篇文章，我可能会认为一场全国性的宗教复兴正在发生。无论人们对查理·克里克的右翼政治持何看法，他的存在在某种程度上遏制了更恶劣的势力在年轻右翼群体中的渗透。而查理·克里克的离去，使得这些势力变得更加明显。
在报道过程中，我采访了许多年轻人。其中最突出的人物是俄亥俄州立大学（Ole Miss）Turning Point USA分会的主席莱斯利·拉奇曼（Lesley Lachman）。她20岁，来自纽约威斯特彻斯特县。她代表了一种微趋势：来自东北部的年轻人希望进入南方的“全美”大学。她不仅代表了校园组织的增长，也象征着其社会地位的提升。她被称为“蜂后”，人人皆知她的名字。
如今，校园中的保守派生态由多个组织构成，其中Turning Point USA目前处于主导地位。此外还有Young Americans for Liberty、Young Americans for Freedom以及传统的College Republicans组织，后者本身也分为多个小组。我的文章主线是Z世代的激进化趋势。例如，莱斯利·拉奇曼虽然拥有坚定的保守派背景，但她的许多同学甚至比她更右倾，认为特朗普过于温和，而JD·范斯则令人怀疑。查理·克里克在他们眼中甚至算不上“温和”，但他们依然热爱他，因为他的理念。
查理·克里克的离去对特朗普和MAGA（让美国再次伟大）运动意味着什么？在文章中，我提到的两位主要人物——康达·欧文斯（Candace Owens）和尼克·弗恩特斯（Nick Fuentes）——在这些年轻人的社交媒体上占据主导地位。欧文斯是一位阴谋论者，她的关于查理·克里克死亡的极端理论在Spotify播客排行榜上迅速攀升；而弗恩特斯则是一个公开的反犹主义者。从选举角度来看，这种纯粹的身份政治和仇恨驱动的策略对MAGA的前景更为不利。如果采取弗恩特斯式的极端立场，可能会直接摧毁特朗普在2024年11月当选时所依赖的多民族联盟。
我文章中一个引人注目的特点是年轻女性的大量参与。我认为Turning Point USA对年轻女性的吸引力并不完全来自埃里卡·克里克，尽管她现在成为组织的象征人物，这将加速Turning Point USA女性主导的趋势。许多这些年轻共和党组织，尤其是那些对尼克·弗恩特斯感兴趣的群体，都极度男性化，以至于我与他们交谈时，他们几乎都在抱怨：“为什么没有女孩来参加我们的会议？”此外，Turning Point USA还关注一些特定议题，如“让美国健康起来”（Make America Healthy Again）运动，以及涉及跨性别运动员和非法移民的问题。这些议题对保守派女性具有很强的吸引力。例如，Turning Point USA有一位名叫亚历克斯·克拉克（Alex Clark）的网红，她主持播客并是“让美国健康起来”运动的重要人物。该运动目前在年轻保守派女性中非常受欢迎。
此外，还有两位名叫莱利（Riley）的女性：莱利·拉金（Lakin Riley）和莱利·格莱恩斯（Riley Gaines）。前者是一名护理学生，2024年在佐治亚大学校园附近被一名非法入境的委内瑞拉移民杀害；后者则是一名游泳运动员，曾在肯塔基大学与跨性别运动员莱亚·托马斯（Leah Thomas）进行比赛，后者代表宾夕法尼亚大学。跨性别运动员问题和非法移民问题成为Turning Point USA关注的重点。
这些年轻人认为，自由派已经出卖了像他们这样的女性。莱斯利·拉奇曼在2024年春季莱利·格莱恩斯演讲时，就已经开始参加Turning Point USA的活动，随后她成为了分会主席。
如果你是查理·克里克的追随者，你会追随这位已故的“殉道者”，还是追随仍在YouTube和Twitter上活跃的其他人？你认为他们接下来会往哪个方向发展？
根据我所看到的一切，他们正朝着他们所关注的社交媒体内容的方向发展。这一点不可忽视，康达·欧文斯和尼克·弗恩特斯在他们的信息流中占据主导地位。在一个推崇阴谋论的文化环境中，美国右翼，尤其是年轻右翼，对阴谋论的胃口是无穷无尽的。查理·克里克每天在播客和校园中出现的视频，如今被他的最大敌人尼克·弗恩特斯所取代。到12月底，围绕尼克·弗恩特斯及其影响力的话题已无法回避。我问莱斯利，尼克·弗恩特斯在你生活中扮演什么角色？她告诉我，当她感到悲伤或孤独时，通常会查看查理·克里克的动态。但自从查理·克里克去世后，她有时会忍不住直接观看尼克·弗恩特斯的内容。
Charlie Kirk started Turning Point USA to reach college-aged kids he believed were being indoctrinated by liberal universities. His efforts were thoroughly embraced by conservative luminaries, all the way up to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
But since Kirk was assassinated in September, TPUSA’s popularity has exploded on college campuses with membership increasing by the thousands in some places; and Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has nominally taken over the organization in her late husband’s stead.
But as New York magazine’s Simon van Zuylen-Wood told Noel King for the latest episode of Today, Explained, there are other right-wing superstars who are jockeying for position in the organization, and many young conservatives are embracing a worldview that is darker and more conspiratorial than Kirk ever was.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full episode, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
After Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah, in September, the question was: What would happen to Turning Point USA?
The question was not only what is going to happen to TPUSA, his campus and electoral apparatus, but also what was going to happen to youth conservatism?
I went to the [Kirk] memorial [at the NFL stadium in Arizona] and started talking to college kids, and it became evident that the place to go investigate the post-Charlie Kirk moment was the campus.
The answer in mid-September looked really different from the answer in mid-December. If I had written my story three weeks after Charlie Kirk was killed, I would’ve thought that there was a sort of nationwide religious revival taking place.
Charlie Kirk, whatever people thought of his right-wing politics, was playing a role that only became more evident to me after he was gone. He was serving as a sort of stopgap against even more malign forces that were creeping up on the young right.
And without Charlie Kirk there, they started to become much more prominent. They see the murder of Charlie Kirk as evidence of left-wing intolerance, but they also no longer have Kirk as this kind of role model who is actually keeping these darker forces at bay.
You talked to a lot of young people as you were reporting this piece. Who stood out to you?
The main character of my piece is the president of the TPUSA chapter at Ole Miss, Lesley Lachman.
She’s 20 years old. She’s from Westchester County, New York. She represents a kind of micro-trend, which is kids from the Northeast who want to go to college at these big “All-American” schools in the South.
She represents what appeared to be kind of the boom where not only does the campus organization grow, but her social status grows. She’s a queen bee, everybody knows who she is.
What’s the conservative ecosystem on campuses look like now?
There are a bunch of different groups, [with] TPUSA being the sort of top dog right now; but there’s Young Americans for Liberty, Young Americans for Freedom, and there’s the classic College Republicans groups, which are themselves divided into groups.
The radicalization of Gen Z is the through line of my piece, and what happens is that a young woman like Lesley Lachman, she’s got impeccable conservative bonafides, but actually there are many, many students even to her right, who feel like Trump is too moderate, [and that] JD Vance is suspect.
Charlie Kirk was barely acceptable as a “moderate,” but they loved him anyway because of what he stood for.
What does it mean for Trump and for MAGA that Charlie Kirk is gone and now there are lots of kids to the right, even the far right of Charlie Kirk?
It’s extremely troubling that two main figures in my piece that are just dominating the feeds of these students are Candace Owens — who’s a conspiracy theorist [who] has rocketed-up the Spotify podcast charts by spreading really out-there theories about his death — and Nick Fuentes, who’s an outright antisemite.
But as an electoral consequence, it’s actually arguably more troubling to MAGA’s chances. If you are doing pure identitarian, hate-driven politics in the Fuentes vein, you probably instantly just doomed the multiracial coalition that brought Trump to office in November 2024.
One of the things that was striking about your piece was the presence of so many young women.
I think the TPUSA’s appeal to young women is actually not quite about Erika Kirk, although Erika Kirk now being the figurehead is going to accelerate the female-dominated nature of TPUSA.
A lot of these young Republican groups, especially the ones that are sort of interested in Nick Fuentes, are extremely male, to the point where I was hanging out with these kids and they were basically kind of complaining like, “Why can’t we get any girls to come to our meetings?”
There’s also a handful of issues that TPUSA really hones in on that is activating for conservative women in Kirk Country, as I call it.
TPUSA has an influencer called Alex Clark who hosts a podcast and she’s a big Make America Healthy Again influencer. MAHA is extremely popular right now with young conservative women.
There’s also the issue of the two Rileys, Lakin and Riley and Riley Gaines.
Lakin Riley was a nursing student who was killed by a Venezuelan migrant in 2024 near the University of Georgia campus, a Venezuelan who entered illegally during the Biden administration.
And then there’s Riley Gaines, who is a swimmer who was at the University of Kentucky who competed against the trans athlete, Leah Thomas, who swam at University of Pennsylvania.
Trans sports issues and illegal immigration are issues that TPUSA focused on a lot. They feel like liberals have sold women like them out.
And Lesley, who’s TPUSA president at Ole Miss, she was already kind of going to meetings last fall, last spring 2024 when Riley Gaines came and spoke. That’s when she threw herself into TPUSA and then became the president.
If you’re a Kirk acolyte, do you follow the “martyr,” the person who has passed on, or do you follow the person who’s still available, still on YouTube, still on Twitter? Where do you think they’re headed?
Based on everything I saw, they are headed where their feed is headed, and it cannot be overemphasized how dominant Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes are in their feeds.
In a culture that rewards conspiracism, the appetite on the American right, the young American right, for conspiracy is just bottomless. Absent clips of Charlie Kirk on his podcast every day or on the campus, his greatest enemy, Nick Fuentes, is there.
By the end of December, the discourse around Nick Fuentes and his influence was inescapable. And I asked Leslie, well, how does he factor into your life?
And she told me that, when she was sad, when she was feeling lonely, ordinarily she would’ve scrolled over and seen what Charlie Kirk was up to. [But since Kirk’s death,] she couldn’t help herself; she’d sometimes just watch Nick instead.
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!