It’s difficult tracking American news from Denmark these days. There’s so much going on at such speed, and all of it with so much intensity and surrounded by so much commentary, with such high stakes, that making sense of things on any given day requires an unsustainable volume of reading and viewing. And on those…
Author: greg nagan
Danish Media Pounce
The New York Post published a story yesterday that, like most unflattering stories about Joe Biden, didn’t get much coverage in Denmark. It was entitled “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” The smoking gun in question was an email on a computer whose contents came to the Post’s attention:…
Our Unconstitutional Constitution
It has to be said over and over and over again: Amy Coney Barrett is going to be confirmed as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Constitution gives the president the power to nominate her, and it gives the Senate the power to approve her nomination. The president has nominated her and…
Fingers and Stones
Sunday morning, fresh cup of coffee in hand, I start browsing Twitter and run smack into this at the top of my feed: The article linked in that tweet is here: Tusindvis af bevæbnede amerikanere gør sig klar: – Der kommer en krig til november. Here’s the lede: “Der findes formentlig flere tusinde amerikanere, som…
Political Math
Did you know 72% of Americans lack basic math competence, and the other 38% are below average? That’s obviously a joke, but following the news or browsing a social media feed these days it’s hard not to feel that a population that understood the basics of mathematics might be a little less… agitated. And then…
“Astounding Irresponsibility”
Big Big Lies
(Before I begin: it’s not my intention to go three or four days at a stretch without posting something, but I had a busy week and it’s not like anything was going on in American politics or culture. Slow news week, right?) This blog is mainly “about the relationship between Danish and American culture, politics,…
“Win, lose, or draw”
I was reading Berlingske’s preview of tonight’s debate between President Trump and Joe Biden (I’m a glutton for punishment), and it was about what I’d expected. At one point in the article, however, author Mikkel Danielsen notes that maybe the attacks predicted from Trump could be an advantage to Biden. “[Det] mener flere amerikanske analytikere,”…
Demokratiets nedbrydning
I’m registered to vote in New York, so my Senators are Chuck Schumer (currently the minority leader of the Senate) and this piece of work: Yes, that’s the junior Senator for New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, proudly (and “without evidence,” as the kids say) declaring Amy Coney Barrett unfit for office, and (also without evidence) calling…
“Jeg frygter for vores land”
There’s been a lot of Danish coverage of President Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and I obviously haven’t seen or read it all. But from what I have seen, the coverage isn’t surprising. We can start with a DR piece that’s pretty representative of the genre: Trumps kandidat til Højesteret…
For meget er aldrig nok
Stupidity has metastasized in America. We can start with an article from DR: “Slut med hvide stemmer til ikke-hvide roller: ‘The Simpsons’-karakter får ny stemme,” the upshot of which is that the role of Carl Carlson, voiced for more than three decades by Hank Azaria, will in the premiere of their 32nd season be voiced…
“Mob justice is not justice.”
Be careful browsing Berlingske today, because they’ve got a steaming pile of rancid shit on their homepage. “Hvis man vil forstå, hvorfor Louisville i Kentucky lige nu er ved at koge over af raseri,” writes Mikkel Danielsen, “må man forstå, hvad der skete lidt over midnat på Springfield Drive 13. marts.” He’s writing about the…
Sidste ønske (og andet vrøvl)
All is transpiring as I foretold. Here’s a state-funded DR explainer of sorts, “Vejen er banet for Trumps næste højesteretsdommer: Mitt Romney slukker demokraternes håb.” It’s everything we’ve come to expect from state-funded journalism: it begins with an actual fact: Senator Mitt Romney has publicly declared he would not block a Trump nomination to the…
Hund bider mand (igen)
Once again it’s newsworthy that America’s status in the world is declining under a Republican president. Berlingske shares the news: Siden årtusindeskiftet har analysecentret Pew Resarch Center målt, hvordan udlandet ser på USA. Og aldrig før har meningsmålingerne været så negative som nu. Pew Research elaborates: ”By wide margins, people in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy…
Karen
Cirkus kommer til byen
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died yesterday, Friday the 18th of September. Everybody you knew that was a Constitutional scholar back in January, an amateur microbiologist this spring, and an amateur sociologist and civil rights historian this summer will now astonish you with their command of judicial norms and precedents… their mastery of…
Manglende kontekst
I wrote about the horrific attempted assassination of two L.A. cops in Compton on Sunday. It’s big news in the states, as it should be. I was curious to see how Danish media had covered it…. and apparently they’re almost all straight outta Compton. Here’s a search I performed on DR a little after 17:00…
En følelse af proportioner
Nine unarmed black men were killed by law enforcement in 2019. This is established fact. That’s not to say innocent men — reviewing the stories on a case by case basis, these were mostly violent criminals resisting arrest and in at least several cases attempting to take control of an officer’s weapon — but they…
Steffen Kretz: Joementum!
The big campaign story coming out of Labor Day weekend in the states was the leveling of the playing field: An interesting turn of events, and probably a bit of a shocker to anyone who’s been relying on DR’s ace U.S.A. correspondent Steffen Kretz for their sense of where the American election is headed. That’s…
Vinter kommer
Another amped-up exposé on the dread QAnon conspiracy came out today, this time from TV2. I dealt with QAnon a while back, when Berlingske ran a feature on the weird conspiracy, and I don’t want to spend more time in that particular rabbit hole. The world of today is, like the worlds of yesterday and…