Bread and Pokémon Stadiums
Hey! Welcome back! I’m gonna try a new thing where I do a little roundup of thoughts I had over the week. This one is really about the news. They won’t all be, but it’s been one of those weeks.
An Old Man Is Coming For Your Toys
Now that Trump has placed his pause on his tariffs, the launch of the Nintendo Switch is no longer in trouble. I think. See, last week, Nintendo revealed their new Nintendo Switch 2 with brand new games like Mario Kart World: the first Mario Kart World that lets you… drive in traffic? Exactly what everyone wants.
Nintendo is a Japanese company. Something I particularly remember because my Catholic grandma called everything they came out with “satanic.” In response to Trump’s tariffs, Nintendo placed a pause on the pre-sales of the Switch 2. The Switch 2 was already considerably more expensive than the Nintendo Switch, so gamers were freaking out. They are already raising delightful chaos at movie theaters watching a movie they like, do you want them to try and do their own January 6th?
And here’s the thing, as much as Elon Musk and Trump try to style themselves as Roman Emperors (Musk loves his Roman salute,) the thing that this tariffs disaster forgot is the whole “bread and circuses” thing. That’s a phrase from the Latin panem et circenses, attributed to 1st-Century satirist Juvenal. For all my readers who aren’t Juvenal-heads or deeply into the Hunger Games lore (why do you think the country is called Panem?), this is the idea that politicians can rule without actually delivering on anything substantial for the people as long as they can feed and entertain them. But bread and circuses are hard to maintain when eggs are 60% more expensive than this time last year because the person in charge our health is a Slim Jim with Dr. Strangelove’s personality and when people can’t get their Nintendo Switches.
It’s not just the Switch 2. The tariffs on China affect the price of all toys. Because guess what, they’re all made in China. This made for endearingly funny interactions in a Transformers toys forum.
So these tariffs are ruining Christmas presents. They’re also ruining Christmas Christmas, because U.S. retailers are almost completely reliant on China for Christmas decorations and 80% of the artificial Christmas trees bought in the U.S. are made in China. So this Christmas, get ready to gather round the all-American Christmas tree: A corn stalk. And celebrate with all-American presents: More corn stalks.
All this to say, the point of bread and circuses is to DISTRACT the people, but when you try to destroy the economic order that RULES our lives, we can’t be distracted from terrible, self-inflicted policy that affects— again— everything in our lives.
Now, this isn’t just some member of the Transformers forum. This is Tony_Bacala. Administrator and Car Robots Professional.
It sounds like I’m dunking on him, but he’s right! The tariff policies are so bad, they make it so we can’t have activities that we can be distracted with because the politics is so inherently linked to those activities.
Duds of the Week
My job is writing jokes about the news every day. So, I’m gonna try this new thing where I share some jokes that I liked very much, but other people who are very smart and funny didn’t.
Wall Street billionaires are not used to being on the outside looking in…With the backdrop of rapidly mounting stock market losses, corporate titans have worked every angle — phone calls, social media and even a typically staid shareholder letter — to try to change Mr. Trump's mind.
A shareholder letter!? Well, that should do it! “Hmmm, Godzilla is coming toward the building. We must take action!… Dear Mrs. Godzilla. Mrs? Miss? Ms. I’ll go with Ms.”
The Nasdaq 100 plunged into a bear market.
Which is a bad thing, but also possibly the name of the best sitcom ever? Think about it: two bears run a mini market in Akron. Can they juggle owning a small business, love, and their insatiable desire of eating out of a dumpster? Also, their best friend is played by Wanda Sykes.
Meryl Streep In Talks To Play Aslan In Greta Gerwig & Netflix's Narnia Movie
Before the trolls online get mad, remember that C. S. Lewis always said that Aslan was supposed to be an allegory for Anna Wintour.
What I’m Reading!
I just finished Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! and I can’t believed I missed this book for so long. I have now started her new novel The Antidote.
What I’m Doing!
I’m in Boston to promote my book. If you live in Boston, come to Brookline Booksmith to hang out and listen to me talk to WBUR’s Simón Rios about my book!
Next week, I’ll be doing Live Wire Radio in Portland, OR
And the week after that, I will be in Village Well in Culver City talking to my good pal, Joanna Haussman!
As always, I love you and buy my book!