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. This week we’re talking SCOTUS, Gerrymandering, and the Rule of Law.
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
Autumn is here in New England and instead of beautiful colors, it’s getting cold fast and most of the leaves are just turning brown and dropping off the trees. As I sit here, it’s already in the high 50s and it’s only in the early evening. So much for a beautiful fall, right? I am however, happy to be back in my big hoodie from Ralph Lauren and I’m excited for some cozy times including a cozy Sunday tomorrow under the duvet.
This week was busy. I had a podcast guest on Friday that said something that really stuck with me. She is Canadian and while I was apologizing for our tawdry treatment of Canada in the last few months, she stopped me and said (paraphrasing) ‘I think it’s a good thing because we’ve always been taken care of by another empire, first the British and then the United States. It’s becoming a teenager-playing-video-games-in-the-basement situation. The US should take care of itself and so should Canada.’ It really shifted my perspective on it because as much as it was hard to hear I realized that she was right.
Is Canada growing up? Is Trump perhaps forcing everyone to grow up a bit, give up luxury beliefs, and take things more seriously? I’m not sure what the answer to that is but I certainly think it is something to think about. History how’s that when it becomes every man for himself, wars tend to break out and the world becomes a more violent place without the force of a super-power or large Empire to put a lid on things. Are we ok living in that world? That’s what I’m pondering this weekend. Let’s move onto 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!
Shall We Continue with Rule of Law?
There is an excellent conversation piece in the New York Times about the new term at the Supreme Court. The new term is just getting underway and there are some heavy cases coming down through the courts. Trump v. Slaughter will determine if the President has unilateral authority to fire people in agencies that Congress has deemed to be independent like the Federal Trade Commission or the Federal Communications Commission. What’s at stake here is the idea of a unitary executive. If Trump can fire people at will without Congressional approval (despite Congressional confirmation) then where does his power really stop? And what if every President can come in and just clean out the civil service? It would be a huge step-backward to the 19th century. Congress has not restricted the Trump administration and the Courts have showed their usual deference but many of these cases bring up a sticky question: what are we really doing with the rule of law? Does it really bind the president’s powers or are his powers unlimited as many in the administration keeping trying to speak into existence?
Why it matters: The Rule of Law is a vital part of society. Having a shared set of rules for acting in society and having consequences for the violation of those rules is one of the reasons the United States is a successful country. Trust me, you don’t want to live in a society with a weak rule of law where personal relationships or bribes are more important than respecting the law. Rule of Law is one of the things that the Anglophone rule gets right and it is nothing to play with. If Trump can ignore the law when it is convenient, it won’t be long before merely having a personal relationship with Trump is more important than the courts. Trump wants this but we don’t want to live in that society.
There are also various tariff cases coming along too as to whether Trump can institute tariffs without congressional approval. There’s also some sticky cases coming along with a pair of cases on trans girls in sports and a case in Colorado involving gay conversion therapy and whether that should be allowed. According to the article, the law is quite broad and the person in the suit is a Christian “counselor.” I have a bit of a personal stake in that case as I am from Colorado and while I did not end up in any conversion therapy I know people who did and it is truly horrible. But I’m not surprised that it would be Colorado that would decide to do this.
Why it matters: If tariffs are struck down, then the Trump Trade War falls apart overnight. It would change the economy radically. As far as the trans cases and the gay conversion therapy, those cases will likely favor schools and leagues limiting women’s sports to only biological females and this is part and parcel of where the country is going on social issues.
DNC 2024 Election Rehab
James Talarico made headlines this week when a new video came out of an interview he had done as part of his US Senate run in Texas. He said that the Democratic party had become the party of the status quo and that’s not the party he signed up to be in. He wants the party to be more progressive and to be more responsive to voters needs. This dovetails only a little bit into the latest DNC post-mortem which blames the 2024 electoral blowout on late spending and a mid-election candidate switch. I feel like they are stating the obvious with the last one. At the time, when Biden dropped out, I said “You can’t do that and win.” At that moment I knew that the mechanations of the DNC had probably lost the election.
Given Biden’s radiation treatment for cancer, getting him out of office was probably the right idea. His illness would be a huge problem right now and we might have ended up with President Harris anyway.
In any case, James Talarico got roasted on Twitter for criticizing the Democratic party. One of the big differences between the DNC and GOP is that the GOP rarely gets much critique from its voters or from its biggest politicians or media personalities. They may complain about policy and other things but they don’t attack the party. Over at the DNC, the Democrats don’t have to just deal with the incoming from the Republicans, they also have to deal with the incoming from inside the party. As someone who complains about their incompetence from time to time, partly it is because they are terrible at their jobs due to being too insular, elite and out of touch.
However, I’m noticing a post 2024 shift. Regular voters are perhaps looking for less criticism of the party and more falling into like like the Republicans. The GOP has two advantages: they set the agenda for the national conversation (despite those who think it’s the other way around) and they people fall in line with the agenda. The Democrats don’t set the agenda for conversation and their own politicians and media figures don’t fall in line much less the voters. As the old saying goes: Republicans fall in line and Democrats fall in love.
Gerrymander Deluxe
When it comes to Gerrymandering, The Supreme Court is considering striking a provision of the Voting Rights Act that regulates the racial make up of districts in certain states so as not to disenfranchise certain groups. Louisiana v Callais would allow districts to be drawn without any racial considerations. Seems fair, right? When the VRA was passed, at the time, this was a way for southern states to disenfranchise black voters but putting them in several districts, areas with a majority black population would not have any black representatives. The high court is looking at striking that down and that would allow Republicans in those states to draw a variety of new districts in addition to their existing efforts. According to Politico, it could lead to 19 districts and give the GOP a structural advantage in future elections.
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:
Articles of Interest
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