Things Thomas Says on Podcasts

…Americans going from Biden to Trump to anybody but Trump. Same signs. No, listening to podcasts isn't marching in the streets. China isn't automatically next, but the connection worth watching is recognition. Discovering that your private disappointment is somebody else's experience too. Marx called it class consciousness. History calls it populism. I call it radical unacceptance. Understand, Beijing fears less the individual complaint than the shared diagnosis. You promised advancement. We did the schooling. Where's the future? That question doesn't require a revolutionary ideology, just enough people comparing notes. Censorship cannot manufacture a convincing answer. Only performance can do that. And that's the Chinese Communist Party's conundrum right now. Number four, smells like teen spirit. Citation New York Times. UAE sent desert wolves to help Sudanese militia accused of genocide. The New York Times review of my great powers back in 2009 zeroed in on an argument of mine. Rising powers often behave like unruly teenagers. New capabilities, expanding appetites, limited appreciation…

…written into tech companies' charters and operations with platform workers instructed to, quote, listen to the party and follow the party, unquote. Not much ambiguity about the desired user experience. My read. The Chinese Communist Party sees an economy generating connections it doesn't fully control, and its answer is to insert itself deeper into the machinery. Understand the contradiction. You want entrepreneurs discovering what nobody anticipated, but you want cadres ensuring nothing politically unexpected happens. So it's innovation, please. Surprise, no thank you. That's not an impossible combination, but it's sure as hell an expensive one. Somebody has to decide when commercial experimentation becomes ideological deviation. Everybody else learns to anticipate that decision. The party calls this cohesion. I call it state interference in business that is doomed to fail. The danger isn't that China suddenly stops innovating. It's that control becomes the…

Tom Barnett here. The date is 8 November 2026. This is the combination post and podcast entitled Sunday Cutdown 145, 8 November, 2026. Subtitle, Clearing My Inbox of Stories I Want to Document. Summary. From Ukraine targeting Russia's AI ambitions to Trump choosing confrontation over accommodation. This week's dozen mini-posts track a world where transformation outruns governance. As always, I like to remind this is a reader-supported publication. If you can help out on any level, please do. And I do now note I am open to Venmo donations, which has been a very pleasant discovery for me. Number one, Stephen Miller appointed Wright Defense Commissioner for DC. Citation, Washington Post. Stephen Miller's promotion angers industries reeling from immigration enforcement. A teaser for Monday's Post methinks. Trump faces a fork in the road. Go out beloved, if scandal-ridden, or go out hated. The first path is Clintonian. Absorb the electoral rebuke. Move toward the available middle. Give people reasons to remember prosperity…