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. This week we’re talking about the latest on Jimmy Kimmel and turning a corner, we meditate on Kamala Harris’ new book and we talk about Trump at the UN. Also, Mariah Carey’s new album, “Here For It All” is streaming now (big lamb here).
The World is Hard, This is Not
Each week I send out the latest headlines, the latest videos from The Cameron Journal and commentary about the week’s events.
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.
Remember, The World is Hard, This is Not.
Update from Cameron
This newsletter will be late. I know because I usually send it at 5 pm on Saturday and it’s already 15 after 7 and I’m just now writing this. Hello! I hope you all enjoyed checking out my talk at the Unleash AI Summit. I saw that a few people had downloaded my free gifts and signed up for the newsletter so welcome! It’s been a mix of hot and cold here in New England. Yesterday it was a lovely temperate but now it’s 78 today. However, fall is coming I’m already seeing peeking yellow leaves on the bushes in the yard where I am.
This week was comparatively quiet news-wise, although we have a situation in Portland, which has become the latest front in President Trump’s efforts to protect ICE agents and his immigration agenda. Meanwhile, President Trump was at the UN this week where not only did the escalator fail but the video feed of his speech was interrupted. That’s not nearly as bad as when Benjamin Netanyahu spoke and people left the room entirely.
There are some off-year elections happening right now in New Jersey and Virginia and I’m keeping an eye on those, especially Virginia governor. The old trope is that which ever party takes the governorship of Virginia will win the next presidential election. Glenn Youngkin, a republican won in 2021.
Let’s move onto the headlines quickly!
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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!
Meditations on Kamala Harris’ Book Tour
Kamala Harris hit the book campaign trail this week. She’s doing more podcasts to promote this book than she did in her campaign, but never us mind. Her new book, 107 Days tells the story of the 2024 campaign. The book is honest and salacious. Free from the constrains of Joe Biden, she admits that she was reckless to let him run again and that set up the candidate swap last summer leading to her having 107 days to try and win the White House. She also points fingers at democrat leadership from the Obamas to Nancy Pelosi. Ironically, she complements Hillary Clinton on her support. Mrs. Clinton told her that she wanted to be on her “war council.” And now we know why Mrs. Clinton always had the black vote locked up.
The thing I notice the most is how her mood has changed. She is more natural at this now and I think it proves that if she had the full year to run with the backing of the DNC and President Biden, she could she done very well. I saw a video on Tik Tok this morning where she was speaking to college students at Howard and she sounded like a President.
Overall, her interviews are hilarious, she is funny and inspiring. However, I think, interestingly enough, this is the kind of review the Democratic party needs right now. It is written by an insider, former Presidential candidate, former Vice President, and former Senator from the biggest Democratic state. She’s taking the whole party leadership to task for 2024. It is needed, necessary and coming from the right place. If you haven’t stopped to listen to her talk about the book with Rachel Maddow and others, I encourage you to go check that out.
Right now she is the favorite for 2028 and given this book and her popularity, she hasn’t said she’s not running, so could we see another Kamala Harris campaign in 3 years? Time will tell.
Kimmel and Kirk: A Corner?
Jimmy Kimmel returned to late night TV this week and on Tuesday delivered a heartfelt monologue thanking people who agreed with him, people who did not agree with him and did a perfect job of clearing the air around his suspension. It was perfect in every way and it was exactly what the situation required. Local affiliate broadcasters Sinclair and Nexstar did not air the Tuesday night broadcast in many of their markets, but by Thursday, Sinclair caved and put Kimmel back on the air in their markets (including St. Louis and Washington D.C. No word from Nexstar, but I don’t think they will hold out forever.
The narrative on the Kimmel situation has become a narrative about free speech but it has also become a narrative about the power of the popular voice. ABC did not cave because of anything other than the flood of people cancelling Disney+ subscriptions (Disney is the parent company of ABC) and people calling into their local TV stations asking why Kimmel wasn’t on the air.
Of everything that has happened since Charlie Kirk was brutally shot in Utah, the Kimmel story has transcended the whole affair and discussion. Indeed, we are less focused on Charlie Kirk and far more focused on the free speech he stood for (and I think he did). I do agree with Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher on Pivot who remarked that it was a bit of a hollow victory. Kimmel has a small audience and late night TV is a dying business. Kimmel did get 6.8 million viewers on Tuesday and that is a six-fold increase from his usual 1.8 million a night. Colbert is out at CBS still and my guess is that Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel will be quietly retired when his contract comes up in the next few years.
Some people think this is a corner that has been turned. As it turns out, the FCC chair can go on a podcast, threatened TV conglomerates and get things canceled but that then causes such a brouhaha that it is un-done within a week. As much as they think they control everything, they clearly don’t control the popular voice.
Trump, the UN and Portland
As I mentioned in the update section, President Trump visited the UN General Assembly this week to give a speech. Not only did the escalator fail but so did the video feed. Someone wrote in and asked me if it was sabotage. I laughed and reminded them that the escalators in the UN are ancient (I think from the 70s) and they break down all the time (and they do). As far as the video feed goes, same problem, old equipment. I don’t think any of it was intentional. The UN is a place where perception is everything and there are far worse people to undermine than President Trump.
However, his speech was the most disturbing part of the day. Like many of his speeches, he painted a dark picture of a dangerous world. He went directly after European leaders for their stance on immigration and launder the resiliency of the American economy, among other topics like him arranging to install marble floors in the building. He hit all the major conflicts (Israel/Gaza figured prominently) and the hostage situation there. He rejected global commitments to climate change calling it “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on humanity.” He even managed to make a joke about public safety and the perils of how windmills and green energy ruin the Scottish countryside and that he wants them, “to do well.” Trump was quiet than usual, more reserved and serious than many of this other speeches. Despite the content, it seemed almost normal.
It is no secret that Trump wants to re-write the global order of things and in his first 8 months in office, he has done an admirable job of doing just that through trade, leaving the WHO, and taking a hard line with nearly every nation. Alongside the speech, he announced new tariffs between 25-50% on trucks and furniture this week. The US hasn’t made furniture domestically in decades so all this amounts to is making IKEA and Wayfair more expensive for people. The trucking industry has already been hit with tariffs on metals which they need and this new tariff is supposed to defend them from foreign trucks (Volvo, International) from undercutting them, however, the price of semi-trucks is already up due to input costs. Yet another lesson why tariffs, as a tool, are not always effective.
Reminder: America’s Lost Generation is Out Now!
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.
I want to highlight some of the early buzz for this book from Sean St. Heart from Coup Save America:
America’s Lost Generation is a powerful and necessary examination of one of the most misunderstood generations in American history. Cameron Lee Cowan delivers a deeply engaging and thoroughly researched narrative that peels back the layers of Millennial life with nuance, empathy, and intellectual rigor. Drawing from the voices of everyday people through the r/lostgeneration subreddit, Cowan weaves personal testimonies with global economic analysis, offering readers a haunting yet relatable chronicle of a generation that came of age in the shadow of economic collapse, systemic failure, and social upheaval.
What sets this book apart is its ability to merge emotional resonance with academic precision. The parallels Cowan draws between American Millennials and Japan’s lost generation are particularly striking and underscore how globalization and neoliberal policy have shaped generational prospects across borders. Through these comparisons, Cowan highlights how young people in advanced economies are often scapegoated for failures they inherited, not created.
More than a collection of statistics or policy critiques, America’s Lost Generation is a humanizing work that amplifies voices too typically ignored or caricatured. It challenges prevailing narratives about laziness and entitlement by illustrating the structural barriers Millennials face—crushing student debt, unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, and a shredded social contract. Cowan’s thoughtful prose and meticulous storytelling make this book essential reading for policymakers, educators, social scientists, and anyone who wants to understand the lived realities of a generation trying to make its way in a system designed to fail them.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to better grasp the forces shaping our current moment—and what it will take to build a more equitable future.
Watch my interview with Sean on Coup Save America:
Interesting Video of the Week
I’m a big union guy. I’m all for organized labor. Organized labor gave us the weekend, the 8 hour work day, and a myriad of safety regulations and other workplace standards that are now commonplace. However, this video proposes an interesting idea, that we don’t need unions anymore and that they are holding us back. At first blanch, this might seem extreme, especially if you’re pro-labor but I think that some of their points are worthy of consideration. Unions can be incredibly powerful in securing funds for healthcare, retirement and other things that benefit workers, but what if there’s a better way to handle these problems? The only danger I can see is that we’ve already seen what happens to workers without unions and how companies undermine wages and benefits for profit throwing the responsibility for people back onto the taxpayer in favor of profits. In this video, we’re going to meditate on this question that affects both business owners and workers!
Articles of Interest
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