Intro
Welcome to The Cameron Journal Newsletter. Each week, Cameron Lee Cowan wraps up the headlines with commentary, helping you navigate today’s media narratives, how they are affecting our Culture, Lifestyle, and Society.
The World is Hard, This is Not
If you’re new here, my name is Cameron Lee Cowan M.A. MFA, and I’m the Creative Director here at The Cameron Journal. You can learn more about me on the about page. I do research and commentary on politics, culture, and the world around us. Each week I send out the latest headlines, the latest videos from The Cameron Journal and commentary about the week’s events.
Remember, The World is Hard, This is Not.
Update from Cameron
Hello everyone! It’s Halloween week. We’ll be doing a Halloween episode on The Living Joke on Wednesday. Anyway, October has gone by rapidly even though we have a few days to go yet. Fall has been so uneventful, the leaves just gave up but I am enjoying the cooler days and the cooler nights. I love to sleep under my duvet in the cold and it was properly chilly last night; I loved it.
It was a busy week in the news. We have a great set of headlines this week on:
The government shutdown
The New White House Ballroom
The Federal Takeover of Elections
I’ve been posting some of the articles I wrote about my book, America’s Lost Generation, on social media and looking for some engagement. It is such an important story, and I wish more people were able to read and understand what happened to Millennials and where our economy is going. We are barreling toward a lost decade of our own and no one seems to understand that, especially with the tariffs on.
Let’s get into the headlines!
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The Headlines
Don’t forget to join me on Monday for The Cameron Journal Newshour to catch on everything happening in the world!
The White House Ballroom and What It Means
This week, construction began on a new ballroom for the White House in Washington, D.C. As residences for heads of state go, the White House is modest in size. Past presidents have often complained about the lack of office space, the lack of living space, and the lack of space to entertain for state dinners and other functions. More room for large functions has been needed for some time.
FDR created the Oval Office to move himself out of the Roosevelt Room, and Truman had the entire building gutted so it could be reinforced with steel and strengthened. Various changes to the gardens, interior and other modifications have been made throughout the years. Bearing in mind, this building has been in continuous use since 1817 (after the first one built in 1792 was burnt down by the British in the War of 1812).
President Trump announced that he was moving forward with the new ballroom earlier this year and construction began this week with the demolition of the entire East Wing ballroom and clearing of the landscaping and land to accommodate the new, privately financed ballroom. As one can imagine, in today’s political climate, this has caused some controversy.
This is the part where I become a bit of a critic of my liberal colleagues and fellow voters. Social media has been filled with people this week wringing their hands about why Trump shouldn’t be doing the project. The sad posts and unnecessary critiques is part of the reason so many people find the Democratic brand entirely toxic. It is unhelpful.
This ballroom is much needed and of course Trump, being a builder, will be the one to do it. However, it has become a sort of symbol of the kind of destruction of norms, processes, and the democratic foundations that seem to abound around us. I get that it is an emotional view and a potent thing to watch, but ultimately, it doesn’t mean anything. It is good at generating an emotional response. Everyone is taking this moment far too seriously, and the fact that I’m sitting here writing about it is infuriating enough. In any case, we have the hard work of trying to continue the American experiment, and whether Trump builds a new ballroom isn’t going to save hard-won rights or institutions. Liberal whining and whinging about this is why liberals are good at losing elections. It seems like we are losers and given the response on social media, who can’t honestly say that people don’t have a reason to think that about all democrats? We whine too often and too loudly about things that don’t matter. And this is another instance of it.
The Federal Takeover of Elections
In a week when we learned that there is (possibly) and plan to create a National Guard task force that can be deployed to all 50 states, and we learned that there is a new plan to take over elections in 2026 for the mid-terms, we find out that at least part of those plans is already happening.Per the NY Times, the Justice Department announced that it will be monitoring elections in New Jersey and California at the request of Republican officials in those states.
There are off-off-year elections on November 4th across the nation for some state and local races. Many states have ballot initiatives up for vote, and that includes both states. Typically, the federal government does not get involved in off-off-year elections and only steps in case of irregularities. This is a usual step but no unheard of. My worry is that this is the harbinger of something far bigger in 2026 and this is a friendly test run.
The Constitution gives the states power of elections, and it is explicit in that. The federal government has very few powers about elections and has very little responsibility for them. Watch this story and watch this space because this is concerning. If we cannot trust the integrity of elections, then our democracy is truly lost.
Some people who were unhappy with the 2020 election result would say that we’ve already crossed that line. However, I would remind them that those cases did not go anywhere and the evidence of irregularities in 2020 was always thin. The biggest thing that happened in 2020 was that many states opened up mail-in-voting due to the pandemic and more people voted. I’ve already seen some Democrats complain about the 2024 results. When you don’t believe election results, and you complain for 4 years that the election was stolen, people start to not believe the results and that almost always leads to armed conflict.
Watch this space.
Government Shutdown?
Readers might notice that I haven’t really covered the government shutdown which is stretching into its 3rd week. Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on letting Obamacare subsidies expire and raising health insurance premiums for millions of Americans, especially in upper tax brackets. There is also the small matter of Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) not being seated and sworn in. Why would Speaker Johnson want to avoid this? She is the clinching vote on the mandatory congressional release of the Epstein files.
People posit on Twitter/X that the government may stay shutdown forever leaving the White House in charge of everything It is already affecting the basic functions of society. FAA air traffic controllers are working for free, the military is going unpaid and SNAP (food stamp) recipients will not be getting their benefits in November.
I care about how the government shutdown influences people like government workers and those who need food assistance but as a news story, it is not terribly compelling. Democrats are, and I think rightly so, trying to stop 11 million Americans from being hit with huge healthcare premium increases. Republicans are playing hardball and there is an argument that these pandemic era subsidy extensions need to expire for the nations finances. However, the cash crunch did not stop President Trump from sending $40 Billion to Argentina to bail out their failing economy. It doesn’t all quite wash does it?
I predict that Democrats will likely fold on the shutdown because the price of suffering will be too high, and their already toxic brand will only get worse. There isn’t a great win scenario for Democrats here. They are being blamed for the shutdown on all sides, and they don’t have any goodwill to spend on this. In my mind, Schumer and Jeffries need to announce their willingness to vote for the GOP plan to re-open the government and toss the ball back in the GOP court. If the shutdown extends beyond that then we will know that there is something else afoot.
America’s Lost Generation is Out Now! Get Your Copy!
I’m excited to announce that America’s Lost Generation is out now! It’s available everywhere books are sold or through The Cameron Journal directly. You’ve been hearing me talk about this book for a long time, and you’ve read the Millennials collection on The Cameron Journal. Looking to Japan for guidance (and a cautionary tale), I told the story of Millennials through their voices.
Articles of Interest
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The Interview:
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