The Index
Truth in an age of noise. @joanwestenberg.eth
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
To be born in a liberal democracy is to inherit a paradox: the freedom to denounce the very system that grants you the freedom to denounce it. https://www.theindex.media/p/nobody-has-more-contempt-for-liberal-democracy-than-people-who-ve-never-lived-without-it-e6d712655e6
0 reply
0 recast
10 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
War is not a morality play. It is not written in the language of heroes and villains. It is a deplorable bureaucratic process, a strategic wager, and a human disaster. Iran may not be Iraq. But America, still, may be America. And that’s what should worry you most. https://www.theindex.media/p/iran-is-not-iraq-but-america-is-still-america-b0f4
5 replies
4 recasts
34 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
Polling asks what people say. Markets reveal what people believe. One collects answers. The other prices in risk. https://www.theindex.media/p/what-if-the-market-is-a-better-pollster-than-democracy
1 reply
1 recast
10 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
"If a fungus can eat plastic, maybe nature will save us from ourselves." That’s the hope. And that’s the problem. The narrative replaces the responsibility. https://www.theindex.media/the-climate-crisis-needs-a-reckoning-not-a-fungus/
2 replies
3 recasts
18 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
You didn’t “burn out.” You adapted. To a political system that treats belief like a consumable and optimism like a liability. https://www.theindex.media/the-market-for-hope-is-in-recession/
0 reply
0 recast
0 reaction
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
What looks like apathy is often risk management. What looks like disengagement is a cost-benefit calculation. I wrote about the collapse of civic belief - and why cynicism isn’t a crisis of morality. It’s a failure of systems. https://www.theindex.media/the-market-for-hope-is-in-recession/
0 reply
0 recast
0 reaction
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
The more public health works, the more people think they don’t need it. That’s how anti-vaxx became a luxury belief: Safety becomes ambient, and ambience invites sabotage. https://www.theindex.media/the-herd-immunity-illusion/
4 replies
1 recast
16 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
In the middle of Russia’s deadliest airstrike of the war, Trump couldn’t hold a coherent position for more than five minutes. First, he’s mad at Putin. Then he’s reminiscing about how well they get along. Then he’s ranting about socks and iPhones. The show must go on. https://www.theindex.media/air-raid-sirens-and-sound-bites/
0 reply
0 recast
8 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
It’s not just that Trump officials don’t know how government works. It’s that they think you are the fool for expecting them to. https://www.theindex.media/the-unlearning-of-america/
2 replies
0 recast
14 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
Trump doesn’t want to stop antisemitism. He wants to monopolize it. So only he and his allies get to define what counts. https://www.theindex.media/trumps-selective-antisemitism/
1 reply
0 recast
12 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
Trump’s birthday party gets tanks. Your grandma loses Medicaid. That’s the deal. https://www.theindex.media/an-america-of-tanks-and-taxes/
0 reply
1 recast
25 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
A broken clock isn’t always useless. And even a small step toward fixing one of the most exploitative systems in American life deserves consideration. https://www.theindex.media/even-a-broken-clock-can-lower-drug-prices/
0 reply
0 recast
4 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
The Trump doctrine: tweet tariffs into being, walk them back when the market flinches, and pretend volatility is strategy. https://www.theindex.media/the-tariff-delusion/
0 reply
0 recast
8 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
The president is confused, slurring, repeating himself, fixated on Obama, and openly unsure if he’s bound by the Constitution. The diagnosis is on display. The crisis is cognitive. And nobody around him dares to say it out loud. https://www.theindex.media/donald-trump-is-a-man-in-decline/
3 replies
4 recasts
29 reactions
JA Westenberg
@joanwestenberg.eth
The international immune system is activating. Democracy, flawed and fragile, is developing antibodies against a very specific kind of viral politics. The backlash is electoral, cultural, and institutional. And it is spreading. https://www.theindex.media/rebuke/
3 replies
4 recasts
26 reactions