“The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.” – Bertrand Russell: Freedom, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen, Harcourt Brace, 1940.
Introduction
Welcome to The Cameron Journal Newsletter!
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, 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.
Updates
Oh, my has it been a long week! We will dive into the headlines shortly, but even personally, so much is happening. In the past 2 weeks, I have recorded 23 new podcast episodes. I have no idea what release schedule I will need to implement to put out all this content, but it has been exhausting on multiple levels. Fortunately, things are slowing down, so I am happy. However, the content that I have coming up is top-notch. Look for exciting new episodes in February!
Programming note: there will be no Newshour this week as I am taking a short trip.
Special Event!
Please make sure to join us on February 6th at 4 p.m. Eastern for a special event with Jesse Hirsch and David Beckemeyer, we will be doing a live conversation about the future of Left-leaning media and what we can do to increase the share of Democrats and Leftists in new media. Influencers and new media were a big part of the 2024 election, and the vast majority of them are on the Right. We are talking about what we need to do to get a Democrat ecosystem going along. We don’t need a Joe Rogan of the Left, we need to increase the funding and access for those who are already producing shows and talking to their audiences. The Biden administration (and the DNC) have never embraced podcasters, influencers, and others in New Media. We’re going to talk about this and more.
To get links to watch, please visit CameronJournal.com/Newshour
Write your book in 2025!
You can write a book in 2025 and I can help! My new writing courses are out now, and you can sign up for Fiction, Non-Fiction or both! To learn more, please visit The Cameron Journal Academy and check out my course: The Power of Story.
The Latest
Let’s dive into the stories I’m following this week!
The Right and “Sensitive Young Men”
This morning I was sent this article from a reader. It is from The Free Press, and they talk about how the Right has won over the Sensitive Young Men. The idea is that while the Left offers boring policies and more of the same system that has left young men behind, the Right offers a heroic journey, especially Trump as a person. The Trump story from 2015 to now has been heroic will getting elected accidentally, losing, surviving prosecution and lawsuits, and then getting shot. Trump gives young men something to believe in.
I was mindful of this dynamic recently because I was telling someone that the biggest trend I heard about the election was basic: fear. I don’t know that we could do anything to counter the fear that people had of the future, of Harris, of the Left, or of pending social issues, and that fear overwhelmed their desire to access abortion or other reproductive healthcare.
Humans love a good story, and the reality is that the Left does not sell a story. They are boring with policies and facts. The Right sells and story and a grand vision for the future. This is even true for influencers like Bilzerian, Tate, and others. They sell a grand story that gives young men something to believe in for the first time in their lives. Telling a story has always animated the popular imagination, and Trump knows that all-too-well.
Let’s Talk Migrants
With ICE raids pending and much more, immigration continues to be a hot topic in today’s political environment. However, I often like to take an international view. I enjoyed this opinion piece in The New York Times about the new levels of migration around the world. The US is not the only country with a migrant crisis. European countries are facing this problem too. Earlier this month, Germany closed its borders and Poland has closed its borders and armed them with troops and barbed wire. We are seeing borders being enforced more than at any time since WWII. The US is following suit by getting restrictive with its immigration as well. Wealthy nations are simply shutting out people from poorer countries from coming and taking advantage of economic opportunities. This is combined with President Trump wanting to end USAID and reduce spending on Foreign Aid to various countries, which will directly lead to hunger, instability, and a bigger migrant crisis as people try to escape their situation to survive.
This week, President Trump announced that migrants will be held at a new facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The first denizens of this facility will be migrants with a criminal background. Given the history of torture at Guantanamo Bay and the fact that it is not in the territorial US, there are already concerns about how the migrants will be treated.
Teachers are bracing for ICE raids at schools. I’ve mentioned stories that are coming out about ICE being called at hospitals and schools already. The deportations have begun. It is already affecting construction and agriculture as workers are afraid of showing up to work for fear of an ICE raid.
Americans wanted to fix immigration, and we are seeing the early results of that choice. Long-time readers know that I am conservative, this point. I would like to create a workers program for people in this country and have an abundance of legal immigration for jobs that Americans will not do. However, even I find some of this behavior to be Draconian.
AI is Like Computers: Where’s the Productivity?
I found this interesting article in Bloomberg that asks, if AI is so great, where is the increased productivity? Incidentally, the rise of technology hasn’t really ever increased productivity. Paul Krugman is famous for pointing this out in the early 2000s. For all the hype around the personal computer, it never really moved productivity. Part of this can be credited to the fact that when a service becomes cheaper, we demand more of it and if the means to provide that service don’t need to scale, you can’t measure that increase in productivity because you’re able to fulfill that demand without expanding in any meaningful. It appears that AI might do this on steroids.
AI is already radically changing our lives, and you probably won’t be able to tell in productivity numbers. Much like computers, the whole point of AI is to be able to accomplish the same goals with fewer resources. AI is the culmination of what I’ve said about Capitalism since 2014: the goal of Capitalism is a frictionless return.
From The Cameron Journal
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