Volcanoes are erupting in The Philippines, but on-fire Australia received some welcome rain. The Iran war cries have been called off and The Donald’s military powers are about to be hamstrung by the Senate. Meanwhile, his impeachment trial is starting, and we’re all on Twitter for a front-row seat.
What Could Go Right? Navigating the Chaos
How to endure the firehose of news that accompanies a second Trump term
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Navigating the Chaos
President Donald Trump is back in office, and one big difference between him and any other president is the guarantee of a chaotic firehose of news.
I thought it would be a good time to revisit some stalwart suggestions around how to respond to such an information environment. Here are three guidelines for staying positive and rational in the turbulence that has already started and is yet to come.
Put Guardrails on Your News Intake
Many people consume news passively rather than actively. They may see the news playing at their gym or watch something when it pops up on their social feeds. But it’s better to view your media diet as an intentional choice, just as you choose what you eat and drink.
The 24-hour news cycle became dominant during the rise of cable television in the 1980s, and the omnipresent reminder that there is always something happening somewhere was supercharged by the internet and the smartphone. But we don’t eat all day, and we shouldn’t be harassed by the news all day, either. Choose a medium—paper, email, podcast, television, and so on—and a time to consume the news that works best with your schedule. Restrict consumption to that medium and that time.
Because I have to stew in the news all day for my job and want my non-working hours to be fun and enjoyable, I personally have a zero-tolerance policy for news or any kind of political content on my social media feeds, and recommend the same to everyone. However, if you’re averse to that idea, try this: instead of following news accounts so that they appear in your feed, check the recent posts of one or two during your allotted news intake time by visiting their profile. You will remain in the driver’s seat that way, instead of ceding control to the algorithms.
Shift Your Perspective
Amid the onslaught of Donald Trump–focused media content that has already begun, a line from Buddhist scripture is helpful: “A grain of salt cast into a small cup of water renders it undrinkable, but such is not the case if it be cast into a river.” In other words, our information environment is about to feel a lot like a lot of salt poured into a very small water glass.
You can dilute the taste by widening your lens. The United States is not the whole world; consume some news from outside of it. Politics is not the whole of the US; follow items on technology, science, arts and culture, and so on. And federal policy is not the whole of politics; put some of your focus on local or regional goings-on.
Our work here at The Progress Network is meant to help turn your glass into a river, so—shameless plug—please feel free to encourage others to sign up for our newsletter or listen to our podcast. I would also recommend Semafor’s daily Flagship newsletter, which has a nice balance between international and national items and also deliberately includes stories that aren’t grim.
Focus on Action, Not Vibes
As David Brooks recently wrote in his New York Times column ($), “We live in a soap opera country. . . . In our culture you don’t want to focus on boring policy questions; you want to engage in the kind of endless culture war that gets voters riled up.”
But we can be the boring policy questions we want to see in the world. Unfortunately, our current information environment has primed us to view nearly everything as an urgent, personal threat. Most things are not.
Try to focus less on absurdities, outrages, and controversy, and more on concrete policy movement. One day into President Trump’s second term, we already had Melania’s hat, Musk’s salute, the Gulf of America, and other points of distraction, on top of a flurry of executive orders. Some of those will end up unenforceable or reversed, or will face legal challenge, but others have already caused trouble for lawful asylum seekers at the border. Be judicious about where you place your time, energy, and attention.
Fortify Your Mind
I recently interviewed a cognitive behavioral therapist about how our modern information environment creates a feeling of being responsible for witnessing every bad thing in the world.
He reminded me that our capacity to turn outward relies on our capacity to first turn inward. We must have practices in place in our own lives that steady and enrich us, so that we can call on that strength to face even the worst of the world constructively.
For one of my colleagues, that is a daily morning run (before he goes online). For my partner, it’s volunteering to repair early 20th-century steam engines for a local museum. It might be dinners with your kids or a weekly get-together with friends. Whatever it is that enables you to build the psychological reserves you need, don’t neglect it. It’s a key component of clear thinking and energetic action.
P.S. We were delighted to see that The Progress Network in part inspired reader Andy D. to start his own good news newsletter focused on his home state of New Hampshire!
By the Numbers
<1%: Vietnam’s multidimensional poverty rate as of 2024.
685B: Amount in remittances—money made abroad sent back to a person’s country of origin for household income—to low- and middle-income countries in 2024, the highest ever. Remittances are a significant contributor to anti-poverty measures.
8.57%: Indonesia’s latest poverty rate, the lowest ever recorded.
Quick Hits
🦠 Is Covid-19 becoming a milder disease? Infections are rampant, but symptoms are lighter, hospitalizations are down, and even those admitted are staying for a shorter period of time.
🧠 Seventy really is the new 60—a longitudinal study of more than 14,000 people found that older adults today function better physically and mentally than previous generations did at the same age.
🌈 This month, the legalization of same-sex marriage takes effect in Thailand and Lichtenstein.
⚖️ Kenya’s high court has ruled that criminalizing attempted suicide is unconstitutional. Currently, criminal law there classifies an attempt as a misdemeanor with imprisonment for up to two years or a fine, applicable to anyone over eight years old.
🔬 The Gates Foundation highlights six innovations changing the landscape of global health, such as microbiome-directed, ready-to-use therapeutic foods—nutrient-dense pastes used to treat severe malnutrition and help prevent relapse.
🧑🚒 The Wildfire Conservancy is conducting a first-of-its-kind cancer study on the firefighters battling the Palisades Fire with the hope that increased knowledge of cancer-causing conditions will help future firefighters.
🐢 Since sea turtle conservation took off in the 1970s, populations of sea turtles have surged worldwide. (Bloomberg $)
📉 The number of proposed coal plants in the OECD region has decreased to just five; one could be the last new coal-fired power station to ever be built there.
👀 What we’re watching: While the Israel-Hamas war is in a temporary ceasefire, writer Noah Smith explains why he believes long term, the Middle East will emerge peaceful and stable, with serious conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen subsiding.
💡 Editor’s pick: Flames made it to within six feet of the Getty Museum, an art museum located in Los Angeles famed for its encyclopedic collection of art, but it sustained no damage. The WSJ chronicles how the museum emerged as a “near-miraculous beacon of disaster preparedness.” ($)
TPN Member Originals
(Who are our Members? Get to know them.)
- What Trump wants from Greenland, Canada, Panama . . . and more | GZERO | Ian Bremmer
- We deserve Pete Hegseth | NYT ($) | David Brooks
- Nobody knows what Trump is going to do | Slow Boring | Matthew Yglesias
- Season Premier | The Edgy Optimist | Zachary Karabell
- The birth of aspirational populism | Yascha Mounk | Yascha Mounk
- A (new) American golden age | Faster, Please! | James Pethokoukis
- A new phase of the fight to save our democracy | Lucid | Ruth Ben-Ghiat
- Are working class voters a lost cause for Democrats? | WaPo ($) | Fareed Zakaria
- The right way to look for a new job | The Atlantic ($) | Arthur C. Brooks
- After the fires | No Mercy/No Malice | Scott Galloway
- How Hollywood’s awards season could change the world (a little) | NYT ($) | John McWhorter
- How sci-fi can have drama without dystopia or doomerism | Roots of Progress | Jason Crawford