Thomas Chatterton Williams is a staff writer at The Atlantic, a visiting professor at Bard College and a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest book is Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse, a reflection on the online and offline tumults of 2020, a year consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, and a bizarre and rancorous US presidential election.

The book recalls this period as one in which the most outspoken cohorts of both right and left became so detached from reality that each sought to co-opt a morally indifferent virus for their own psychodramas. The consequences, as the briefest survey of modern politics will confirm, are with us still.

Is there an argument to be made that, with all things considered, it’s surprising that we didn’t go even crazier?
I like that; it could have been worse. Yes and no. There was a moment when we really did lose our minds in many ways. But you’re right – society didn’t come to an absolute halt. While there was violence in the US from the summer of 2020 through 6 January 2021, it could have been much worse. As chaotic as things were, society didn’t fully come apart; that’s the optimistic take. Still, there were subtle and lasting damages that we continue to deal with today. This is especially true with the backlash against the excesses of the left, which we’re experiencing now under Donald Trump’s second presidency.

The book is in part a critique of those strident identity politics – but is it arguable that in a confusing situation, people are drawn to the certainties that come with it?
We have to acknowledge that many people – both on the conservative right and on the progressive left – didn’t want to transcend race and identity. After the disillusionment that followed Barack Obama’s inability to change the country overnight, the left embraced identity, difference and tribalism – along with the idea that we must advocate for ourselves as identity blocs. I believe this had a very pernicious effect. It has given the white majority permission to advocate for themselves as a racial bloc, an idea that had previously become disreputable among large swathes of the white population. A lot of people feel most comfortable in a balkanised America, where groups advocate for themselves as a team. We must face that. But what we glimpsed in the early Obama years is a promise that we can still live up to.

Near the end of 2020, when Trump lost the election and the coronavirus pandemic seemed to be receding, did you think things had gone back to normal?
I sort of did but then it got weirder. The progressive left overplayed its hand, believing that it could dictate cultural norms from the top down. People were not saying what they really thought because there was a climate of fear and censoriousness in academic, media and cultural institutions. As a result, we had an inaccurate idea of what the country truly believed. By 2024, it came as a shock to many that Trump hadn’t gone away – and that we were seeing a snowballing rejection of the American vision that had succeeded in 2020. It was a Pyrrhic victory, is what I’m saying.

It would obviously be dispiriting to publish a polemic and have no one pay attention to it. But are you surprised by how angry ‘Summer Of Our Discontent’ has made its critics?
I’m not. I’ve been at this for a little while, and I know that these are divisive issues. What has surprised me is how strong the urge is to memory-hole some of what we all lived through, to deny how bad it was. It was a very chaotic moment, and people don’t seem to want to assess it on its own terms. Some say, ‘If there was violence, it was justified,’ or if people got fired, it’s ‘You have to break some eggs to make an omelette.’ I’ve seen critics argue that it makes no sense to discuss what the left did wrong because what the right is doing is so much worse. While I agree that the right’s actions are worse, we can’t understand why the country chose to prefer the right without also evaluating what the left is doing. 

If you aren’t getting the headlines you want, blame the media. This tried-and-tested political formula might predate Donald Trump’s presidency but he has taken it to new extremes. In July he escalated his war on mainstream media with $1.1bn (€946m) of proposed cuts to public broadcasting. But it won’t be the journalists in Washington who will suffer the most from these changes. The country’s radio stations and their listeners risk losing access to considered, informed journalism.

Critics on the right argue that National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) are Washington-centric and biased against Trump, with their newsrooms slanted towards liberal and progressive viewpoints. This is partially true. But they are hardly the radical-leftist propaganda machines that conservative pundits often claim that they are. Public media is not without its faults – last year’s suspension of a senior NPR editor who raised concerns about impartiality highlighted deeper issues. That controversy exposed a range of problems within these national networks, including falling revenues, dwindling audience numbers and internal disputes over how best to reverse the decline. 

While NPR and PBS face significant challenges, the effect of the funding cuts will be felt most acutely at a local level. Across the US, millions of people rely on publicly funded regional radio for news and information. The country is vast and many rural communities have no newspaper or TV station; some even lack reliable internet access. More than 98 per cent of people, however, live within range of a public radio station. 

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes federal funding, assists about 1,500 regional radio and TV outlets. People tune in to these stations to find out what’s happening in their legislature, including whether dangerous weather is on the way or what community events are coming up. These aren’t platforms for anti-Trump rhetoric: they are often based in Republican heartlands, staffed by hard-working journalists committed to informing listeners about the events that affect their everyday lives. 

“We have literally and figuratively weathered storms and the pandemic by providing life-saving information,” says Ju-Don Marshall, the CEO of WFAE, a public radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina, which has been on air since 1977. “Our communities have relied on us for our coverage of emergencies, government, education, health crises and the lack of affordable housing in the Charlotte region, as well as nonpartisan voter guides.”

Due to funding cuts, however, the station has been forced to let go of six employees, including three journalists. When you land on its webpage, a pop-up asks for donations to help keep independent reporting alive. Across the country, outlets such as WFAE are trying to figure out how to fill the gap left by dwindling federal support. Many are cutting staff, while some without diverse revenue streams might be forced to shut down entirely. NPR has previously estimated that up to 18 per cent of its local affiliates could close if federal funding is withdrawn. 

This couldn’t come at a worse time. Local radio is needed more than ever. During Hurricane Helene last year, people turned to their radios for information about where to find shelter and supplies. As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe across the US, access to dependable, community-focused journalism is increasingly vital.

But it’s not just the climate that is volatile – so is the political landscape. Without independent coverage of local politics and current affairs, people will retreat deeper into partisan echo chambers, where rumour and conspiracy thrive. In the absence of trusted journalism, social-media sensationalism often fills the void – a troubling shift for any democracy.

“There are several studies that show that when local news declines, disinformation and misinformation take root, communities become more polarised and civic engagement declines,” says Marshall. In an information vacuum, something always fills the space – and in this deeply divided time, it’s unlikely to be the truth. 

Charlotte McDonald-Gibson is a Monocle contributor based in Washington. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

The perceived wisdom is that Washington is more divided than ever. The city’s social scene, however, tells a different story. Butterworth’s in Capitol Hill is booming. Even at 17.00 on a sweltering weekday when Congress is on its break, there’s a good-sized crowd. People in suits with sharp haircuts mingle with the city’s more outlandish characters over beef-tallow fries. 
 
In a town that voted 90 per cent Democrat and where some restaurants had ejected Republicans during the last Trump administration, embracing the Make America Great Again (Maga) crowd is a risky business. 

I’m making polite conversation with head chef Bart Hutchins when co-owner Raheem Kassam wafts in, waving his “hellos”. He makes a show of flicking through a glossy magazine, the latest to feature his Washington restaurant, before declaring the article “boring”. “I don’t care whether it’s positive, it just needs to be interesting,” he says before sitting down. 

The bar is high for being interesting here. I’m neither a cabinet member nor an eccentric in matching tweed with a libertarian podcast. I’m blonde but I can’t quite coax my locks into the bouffants beloved by the Republican power women seen propping up the bar drinking their French 75s. 

For a restaurant that opened in October, Butterworth’s has garnered an extraordinary amount of column inches. The main investor is Uber’s senior legal counsel, Alex Butterworth, but it is his co-investor who has become the face of the restaurant. Kassam, a well-connected Brit who was once adviser to populist politician Nigel Farage, set up the UK arm of Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News before moving to the US to launch his own conservative news outlet, The National Pulse. 

Bannon has hosted private events and interviews at Butterworth’s and, like a pied piper, prompted other conservatives to follow. The Washington Post took note and published a piece earlier this year, proclaiming that “Maga’s new hangout is for the weirdos and freaks”. Diners have included secretary of state Marco Rubio, FBI head Kash Patel, treasury secretary Scott Bessent and former national security adviser Mike Waltz. 
 
But Butterworth’s is interesting exactly because it’s not (just) a Maga bar. Kassam, despite having just offered me a caviar bump, likens the restaurant to the sitcom Cheers but where people can enjoy a drink regardless of their political stripes. “I meet people in here every night who say, ‘By the way, I’m left wing, don’t tell anyone,’” he says with an exaggerated whisper. “And I’m like, ‘So are those eight other people over there, so are the three at the bar – you’re totally fine.’” 
 
The restaurant, it should be said, is a hoot. One where 1980s hits and French synth pop thunder under a deer-antler chandelier. Head chef Bart Hutchins is a veteran of the DC-dining scene and on show is his nose-to-tail approach with a French-accented menu featuring bone marrow with escargot and lamb tartare with foie gras. 
 
Butterworth’s isn’t the first restaurant to mix eating and ideology. At Political Pattie’s, an ill-fated bar that actively branded itself bipartisan, the owners were wonderful: well-intentioned, eloquent and idealistic. The restaurant was awful, devoid of atmosphere and filled with preachy quotes on the walls and forgettable cocktails. It closed not long after opening. Butterworth’s, however, is proof that some Washingtonians prefer a well-cooked steak to the usual political beef.

Charlotte McDonald-Gibson is a Monocle contributor who is based in Washington. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

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In a world that feels more unpredictable by the day, who craves a crystal ball more than insurers? From climate disasters to political shocks, risk is everywhere – and for insurance companies, reading the future isn’t a luxury – it’s the business model.

To understand how they’re making sense of it all, Monocle sat down with Gilles Moëc, chief economist at AXA Group. The French insurance giant operates in some 50 countries and Moëc leads the in-house team tasked with spotting trouble before it hits.

He splits his time between Paris and London, and is disarmingly calm for a man who describes his job as “worrying constantly”. We asked him about climate policy, the return of Trump, AI and whether Europe’s big defence spending spree might actually be a good thing.

What does your day-to-day look like as chief economist?
Producing scenarios and worrying constantly is a definition of what I do. Insurers tend to stress about “what-ifs”. For instance, we pay a lot of attention to the global fight against climate change, which is one of the most critical drivers shaping the world economy today.

It’s now half a year into president Donald Trump’s second term. How worried are you about the backlash against renewable energy in the US?
The understanding back in October and November of last year was that although some of the Biden administration’s subsidies for solar and wind power would be eliminated, most of the decarbonisation efforts would continue because many of the projects were going to be implemented in Republican states. Now that we have the final version of the ‘big, beautiful bill’, we know that most projects are going to be dead in the water. During the first mandate, there were no big changes in the speed of decarbonisation. This time, it looks different.

Do you see environmental concerns and decarbonisation falling behind in the pecking order in Europe as well?
I’m quite optimistic about that, because economic, environmental and geopolitical interests are aligned across Europe. The US is now the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world. Every year, Europe spends between two to three per cent of its hard-earned GDP on importing fossil fuel from the rest of the world, which puts us in a fragile position, as we saw when the war broke out in Ukraine. So for us, decarbonisation isn’t just our contribution to the fight against climate change. It’s also a way to make progress towards geopolitical sovereignty, as it is a way to save money in the future. 

What are France’s economic strong suits?
Compared to many big European countries, France still has a demographic vitality that you can’t find elsewhere. The country produces a disproportionate number of global brands and companies. France is also one of the very few countries close to achieving energy sovereignty, and we can offer companies operating in the nation electricity costs that are more attractive than a lot of other locations.

What are the French economy’s weaknesses?
First, education. It used to be one of our key assets but the system has deteriorated, and it needs to be addressed because it concerns our long-term growth. The second is our ageing population. Even if we are in a better demographic position than many other European countries, we also have a fairly generous welfare system that doesn’t cope well with ageing. Taken together, these two issues are going to pose significant fiscal challenges that need to be dealt with.

How does AI fit into this picture?
France is in a fairly good position. There’s an established start-up culture and we already have an AI producer. The key is not only having companies that develop AI solutions but also ensuring their adoption. Digitalisation in general happened faster in France than in Germany, so I’m hopeful that, even if we are not among the top producers or innovators in the technique itself, we can at least adopt it quickly. You also need to have a government that allows exploration before regulating. In Europe – it’s not only a French problem – we very often have the reflex of regulating before we’ve seen implementation. This is where we need to take a hard look at ourselves. 

Do you see the growing consensus that Europe needs to invest massively in its defence industry as a positive economic development?
Some extra spending will have a positive multiplying effect on our economy. Military equipment manufacturers employ high-skilled blue-collar workers at a time when there are very few sectors that do. And there will most likely be some developments in productivity. 

The Apollo Program in the US, for example, had an effect not just on productivity through new research but it also forced American companies to follow some innovative management and quality-control techniques. Additional investment is not going to change the face of the European economy but it can benefit it. 

Is the world’s leading research-and-development (R&D) nation scaring away its best and brightest? As relations between the Trump administration and American universities grow increasingly confrontational – and sweeping cuts to government funding put thousands of scientific jobs in limbo – up to 75 per cent of US-based scientists say that they are considering leaving the country. 

But the US’s loss could be Europe’s gain. The number of top researchers looking for a more welcoming environment is just the opportunity to start closing the R&D gap that has long existed between the Old Continent and the US.

Andrew Michael Liebhold is one such example. After almost four decades at the US Forest Service (USFS), the invasive species expert accepted an offer to become chief scientist at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, which funded his position with the help of investments by the European Commission.

“It turns out that I got out just in time,” Liebhold tells Monocle. A few months after his move, his previous department at the USFS – with roughly 1,500 staff, nearly a third of whom hold doctorates – came under threat when the Trump administration proposed major cuts to its funding by 2026. “I’ve received phone calls from former colleagues who are afraid they will be out of a job soon.”

The USFS is far from the only example. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which conducts critical climate studies, is also being targeted by the White House. Meanwhile, the National Institute of Health (NIH), which has supported some of the highest-quality research on healthcare and medicine, has already cancelled nearly $2bn (€1.7bn) in federal grants to US institutions. The breadth and depth of these cuts has led to thousands of scientists and researchers losing funding for their studies – and even their jobs. “The Trump administration’s logic seems to be that if we don’t research an issue, then it will go away – at least from the public sphere,” says Liebhold.

France has been especially active in efforts to capitalise on the uncertainty in the US. In 2017, Emmanuel Macron called on nations to “Make our planet great again,” inviting US climate scientists to work in France, after Donald Trump pulled his country out of the Paris Climate Accords. In May this year, France also launched a new national programme called “Choose France for Science”. Macron has since announced that additional funds would draw scientists from across disciplines, insisting that his nation “must become a refuge”.

A spokesperson for The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), the French government agency in charge of the programme, told Monocle that “over 15 per cent of researchers who work in France today are foreign nationals.” The ANR’s new initiative aims to recruit about 100 foreign scientists, and they have said that Choose France for Science will give even more visibility to French research capacity, as well as attract the best scientists in the world.

Aix-Marseille University in the south of France has already welcomed new US recruits – and is set to hire more. “Our colleagues in the US are restricted in their academic freedom,” says the university’s president, Eric Berton. “It’s in reaction to this that we have created our programme to grant them scientific asylum.” To date, the university has received hundreds of applications from researchers at institutions including Columbia, Harvard, MIT and Nasa.

But that doesn’t mean the research landscape will shift overnight. Many senior researchers – even Europeans – are staying put, even if it means thinking outside the box to make up for lost public investment.

Columbia geophysics professor Paul Gentine is one of the researchers with no plans to move, telling Monocle that “it’s great that Europe has put in place incentives so quickly, but there isn’t the capacity yet to absorb all of this research capacity.”

For many scientists who are out of a job, or fear that they soon will be, the prospect of a fresh start in Europe will appeal, despite lower salaries and budgets. With France even considering a scientific refugee status as a result of the US exodus, the country is laying the groundwork to capture that talent. While the US shoots itself in the foot, Europe might receive a shot in the arm.

Bouvier is Monocle’s Paris bureau chief

The Arabian Gulf was wide awake on Monday night as shaky footage of Iranian missiles over Qatari skies filled our screens. While it was one of the politest acts of aggression ever witnessed, the region’s centres of commerce, from Doha to Dubai, are rightly concerned. Iran had launched a carefully telegraphed barrage of missiles at the US military’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar – home to some 10,000 American personnel – in retaliation for Washington’s strike on three of its nuclear sites over the weekend. Doha had been given advance notice and residents knew that something was coming when the country’s airspace was closed and the US and UK embassies told all citizens to remain indoors. Then, a spectacle unfolded in the sky: striking and surreal but ultimately bloodless.

The mood in Dubai is a little more introspective today – not tense or fearful so much as eerie. There’s the usual rush into the financial district; bookings for brunches and beach clubs haven’t been cancelled; the school run continues. But people are walking a little more slowly and perhaps even speaking a tad more quietly. Everyone was glued to their phones last night because, this time, it felt different. It was right above us. 

In Doha, I’m told that the mood is less serene. Flights are resuming but the city remains on high alert – and it must. The Qatari government is balancing too many delicate relationships – with the US, Hamas and Iran – and now dealing with the prospect of incoming missiles. Qatar has played the middleman better than most countries over the years but the best middlemen know when things are getting too hot. 

If Iran’s attempt to hit a US base in Qatar looked like the most civilised missile attack in modern memory, that’s because it was. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, made it clear that the goal of the attack was deterrence, not death. Donald Trump even thanked Iran for the warning, calling the missiles “weak”, and suggested that both parties had essentially done what they needed to do. Israel and the US got to flex their might as Operation Midnight Hammer severely damaged Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran got to save face with a dramatic but largely theatrical response. And Trump got to talk about peace. But what about the region? What about those of us watching from Dubai and Doha, cities that thrive on calm and continuity?

For many in the Gulf, especially the vast expat community that lives between the Middle East and Europe, the real anxiety wasn’t about politics or power plays – it was about planes. British Airways briefly grounded its routes, Flydubai held back for a while and parents started quietly wondering whether summer holidays to the Med would still happen. In truth, most people in Qatari and Emirati cities aren’t concerned about the big diplomatic picture. They’re thinking practically: will tensions affect oil prices? Will airspace closures become the new normal? For all the choreography, there’s still a deep unease. Iran is weakened but also more desperate.

Whether a lasting ceasefire will soon materialise depends on who you ask. Neither Israel nor Iran appeared fully committed to Trump’s script and tit-for-tat missile attacks quickly resumed on Tuesday morning. Can Tehran really regard Trump as a trusted broker of peace when, only days ago, he floated the idea of regime change in Iran? And can Israel be convinced to pull back on its hard-won military advantage when every instinct will push its leaders to double down and deny Tehran any chance of rebuilding? There are motivations on both sides to continue a conflict in which each sees the other as an existential threat. So, yes, the skies might have cleared and for now the missiles have stopped. But beneath the calm, the fundamentals remain unchanged. Here in the Gulf, we know better than to confuse a pause with peace. And in cities such as Dubai and Doha – outwardly calm, inwardly braced – we’ll keep watching the skies just in case.

In the US and elsewhere, those aggrieved by US action against Iran this weekend have fallen predictably back on comparisons with the events of 2003, when the US and its allies invaded Iraq. 

Twenty-two years ago the US justified this drastic action with the prospect of a rogue regime developing weapons of mass destruction, along with the vague notion that toppling said tyranny would usher in a new dawn of peace and democracy, not only in the country on the receiving end but across the wider Middle Eastern region. The weapons turned out not to exist, while peace and democracy remain works in progress: Iraq might now be a broadly better place than it was under Saddam Hussein but that is a low bar cleared at horrendous cost, most of it borne by Iraq’s people.

But while there might well be reasonable grounds for protesting the decision by Donald Trump to join Israel’s assault on Iran’s nuclear – and other – facilities, they are not to be found anywhere in Iraq. Iraq is not Iran and then is not now. 

For a start, nobody is suggesting that the US or its allies mount a full-scale invasion of Iran. But the threat posed by the country is – and has been for decades – substantially less imaginary than that ever posed by Hussein’s Iraq. Iran has long operated and facilitated a network of baneful proxies across the Middle East, greatly to the detriment of the people of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Iran has also officially pledged itself, time and again, to the destruction of a fellow member of the United Nations, Israel, a country entitled – if not obliged – by history to take such threats seriously. 

One does not need to be especially twitchy to dislike the idea of all of the above underpinned by the power to deliver cataclysm, and in June, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – not a noted coterie of yee-hawing warmongers – declared Iran in breach of non-proliferation obligations, in enriching uranium far beyond what is necessary for civilian power generation. The IAEA estimated that Iran was close to having enough weapons-grade uranium to make nine nuclear bombs. 

The anger from some Democrats that Trump has not sought Congressional approval for these raids is performative. There is a probably unresolvable glitch in the American system, to the effect that while the power to declare war theoretically does belong to Congress, the president is the commander in chief. Besides which, formal declarations of war are a relic of an older world: no US president, Republican or Democrat, has sought such authority from Congress since 4 June 1942, when the US declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. 

At this early stage, Trump’s decision looks more opportunist than strategic. The US president appears to have calculated that with Israel having started operations against Iran’s nuclear apparatus, the US could finish the job (the degree to which any of this was choreographed in advance between Jerusalem and Washington is, at this point, unknowable). He further seems to believe – and correctly – that Iran is in a weaker position than it has been for many years. Its proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis are substantially withered; its former puppet Bashar al-Assad is banished. The Iranian regime also fears the frustrations of that (large) portion of its own population that would prefer the nation to be, as it could and should be, a prosperous and marvellous modern state, as opposed to a bankrupt and ossified theocracy. Iran’s options for retaliation, whatever apocalyptic threats that it utters, are limited. 

Trump could certainly have banked that, whatever pro forma diplomatic harrumphing is being emitted from some quarters, nobody is really much upset by Iran’s nuclear ambitions being curtailed. While Iran has had clients and vassals, it has no friends. Even Russia and China, Iran’s current sort-of allies of convenience, were signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – the deal brokered by the Obama administration that limited Iran’s uranium enrichment before Trump flounced from it during his first term. 

As is always a possibility where Trump is concerned, he might just be acting on inchoate impulse – and his instincts, it is fair to say, have been short of 100 per cent reliable before now. But any serious objection to the action taken by the US this weekend – and Israel in recent days – has to acknowledge what an Iranian bomb would mean – or, perhaps, would have meant. 

For more updates and insights, tune in to Monocle Radio.

It will be a very different LGBTQ Pride month this year in the US – the first since the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the implementation of his anti-diversity initiatives across every element of government and society. There’s no blueprint for celebrating a month acknowledging a minority group when diversity initiatives have essentially been outlawed. Grave consequences potentially await companies and institutions that support diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. But while the American public is still ready to fete the queer community throughout June, the private sector has become far less sanguine.

According to Heritage of Pride, the organiser of New York’s annual pride parade, 25 per cent of corporate donors have cancelled or reduced sponsorship this year, which can run from $7,500 to $175,000 (€6,600 to €154,000). Long-time supporters such as PepsiCo, Nissan, Citi, Mastercard and PricewaterhouseCoopers are not returning to this year’s festivities. Other brands are trading marquee sponsorship deals for lower-profile parade booths and product placements. 

Brewing company Anheuser-Busch has ended its PrideFest sponsorship in St Louis, and the same goes for spirits giant Diageo in San Francisco. Such moves not only threaten to reduce the size of Pride events in June but also broader outreach efforts by festival organisers throughout the year. Perhaps most worrisome, nearly 40 per cent of companies plan to reduce internal Pride programming over fears of White House retribution. As Fabrice Houdart, executive director of the Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors, recently told The New York Times, “there are a lot of companies saying ‘I won’t engage on anything LGBT-related because I don’t want to find myself being a target.’”

While this year’s corporate retreat may feel regressive – if not foreboding – the shift does offer a much-needed reset for a Pride industry that many LGBTQ activists felt had become more concerned with celebrating capitalism than sexual liberation. Grassroots groups such as the Dyke March and Reclaim Pride Coalition have long held alternative, “protest” Pride events – the latter under the banner: “NO COPS, NO CORPS, NO BS”. 

Even if it’s possible, ending Pride’s reliance on private sector largesse won’t be simple. Nor will it be easy for Trump to ignore the millions of LGBTQ people and allies that are expected to pour into Washington as it holds the biannual WorldPride event over the next two weeks. Hilton, Delta and Amazon are all listed as sponsors, though the extent of their contributions remains unclear. Even skittish companies such as home-goods retailer Target – which faced a backlash over its Pride fashion collection in 2024 – are finding ways to support LGBTQ causes while still avoiding White House ire: Target will reduce its visible brand presence at New York’s Pride march while still contributing cash to the event. Ultimately, of course, the show will go on. And for all the backroom corporate tussling, there remain few shows with the scale and spectacle of Pride. 

There have been many calls for resistance against president Donald Trump since he returned to the White House in January – but surprisingly little action. New York, however, appears to be stepping up and taking the fight against executive overreach to the streets – literally. 

Just weeks before Trump’s inauguration, New York introduced the most expansive congestion-pricing scheme in the nation. Under the plan, drivers travelling below 60th Street are now charged $9 (€8) during peak hours – 05.00 to 21.00 on weekdays and 09.00 to 21.00 on weekends – and $2.25 (€2) during off-peak hours for the “privilege” of driving below Midtown. Viewed as an eco-friendly, pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly revenue-raiser, congestion pricing brought in a respectable $159m (€140m) in its first three months of operation, according to New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) – well on its way to reaching the $500m (€440m) goal set for its first year. The money will go towards new subway infrastructure along with closing the MTA’s projected $3bn (€2.6bn) budget deficit. 

First proposed back in 2019, congestion pricing has not been without controversy: a group of small-business owners filed a suit in February 2024 to halt its implementation over fears that it would hurt restaurant traffic. But backed by both New York’s state governor, Kathy Hochul, and New York City mayor (and avid cyclist), Eric Adams, the pricing plan commenced this year. And that’s when Trump stepped in. 

Within weeks of his inauguration, the White House pulled the federal approval for New York’s pricing plan granted by the Biden administration back in May 2023. The move was not entirely surprising – in 2019, Trump held up federal approval amid fights with then-governor Andrew Cuomo over immigration reform. New York, it seems, needs White House support for the scheme because it includes highways that receive federal funding.

Five years on, Trump has returned to Washington and congestion pricing has emerged as a high-profile power struggle between frustrated big-city progressives and a regressive (and repressive) White House. The latest flare-up played out this past week when New York ignored a third White House deadline to end congestion pricing — with little to suggest that it will pause the programme anytime soon. The White House, however, appears to have had enough, with secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, threatening to freeze federal funding for Manhattan transport projects as early as 28 May if the scheme is not paused.  

Hochul, for her part, appears unmoved. “Congestion pricing is lawful – and it’s effective. Traffic is down, business is up and the cameras are staying on,” her spokesperson said last week. The numbers are clearly on Hochul’s side: since congestion pricing began, New York has seen two million fewer car trips per month, according to the MTA, while public transport ridership is up. Most crucially, according to Hochul’s office, rather than businesses such as restaurants and theatres seeing declines in the “congestion” zones – they have actually seen an increase in reservations and sales.

Despite the gripe with Trump, other US cities are taking note of New York’s congestion-pricing wins as they weigh up the implementation of their own traffic tolls. San Francisco, in particular, could take the plunge as it faces major budget shortfalls for its beleaguered public-transport system, which has yet to fully recover from pandemic-era declines. 

In the meantime, all eyes will be on Manhattan this coming week as it faces the first real test of its White House defiance. Without federal support, New York’s already ailing subways will fall into further decline. But this time, rather than blaming Covid, New Yorkers – who overwhelmingly support congestion pricing – will have a more tangible target for their ire: one Donald J Trump. 

Kaufman is an editor and columnist for the ‘New York Post’. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Europeans need to understand the US – and fast. Too many of us still think that Washington’s instinct is to defend the West, and hence that Trumpism is a passing aberration. It surely can’t be normal for Americans to hate one another so much that more than half the nation voted for a leader who gabbles about annexing countries instead of opting to be ruled by liberals. But Trumpism is an extreme reset back to the US’s default position: largely indifferent toward Europe, driven by the belief that there are far more urgent matters at home to take care of. Europeans find this hard to grasp because their entire history has made it clear that the biggest threats to their lives and freedoms comes from militarised neighbours.

To understand why things look different across the Atlantic, let’s channel John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the US and the great-grandaddy of isolationism. Imagine that what he called “this Western World” is a different planet altogether: “planet USA”. On this planet, which was originally inhabited by a small number of easy-to-evict residents, lies everything that progress requires. M, most important of which is a complete lack of dangerous neighbours. With wealth for the taking and no one to threaten the settlers, the only real battle to be fought is among the planet’s people. Despite engaging victoriously in many major battles, the US’s civil war – the war that cost the most American lives – continues to define its politics. 

During the Cold War era it seemed possible that communism could forcibly unite the world under an ideologically hostile regime. As a result, the US supported all non-communist countries. In 1990 a clique of so-called neo-conservatives in Washington hit upon a breathtaking new plan: they would beam down to any troubled land on Earth and terraform it into a simulacrum of “planet USA”. As Germany’s ex-foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, told me last year, “I was once a revolutionary myself, so I knew straight away that these weren’t conservatives – they were revolutionaries.” This revolution, like so many others, didn’t go well. As a result, Americans voted to concentrate on a far older and more existential issue: the battle for their nation’s character.

If you’re on “planet USA”, why would you worry about what Russia does in its terrestrial backyard? Russia is eager for mutually profitable deals and has a defence budget smaller than that of the UK and Germany combined. Vladimir Putin is not going to take away Republicans’ guns, raise taxes on the rich or destroy law and order with “wokeness”. Only the planet’s own, treacherous “libtards” can do that. Conversely, victory for a free Ukraine won’t save DEI programmes, women’s rights or Medicare. For that, the US Democrats must beat the screaming Magas at home. 

Engaging with the rest of Earth is back to being merely an option for “planet USA”. Civil war, declared or not, is what really matters. That said, we earthlings should heed another of John Quincy’s insights: America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” it does this at home. The US isn’t planning to save us from our own monsters (again). We have to learn to look after ourselves.

Hawes is the author of several books, including ‘The Shortest History of Germany’.