The Other MAGA President
The DailyYou’re reading The New Yorker’s daily newsletter, a guide to our top stories, featuring exclusive insights from our writers and editors. Sign up to receive it in your in-box.In today’s newsletter, Jon Lee Anderson reports on the slash-and-burn austerity measures in Argentina that have earned admiration from Trump acolytes. Plus:The conservative attack on over-the-counter birth controlSarah Larson on the best podcasts of 2024Honoring the art of carpentryJavier Milei Wages War on Argentina’s GovernmentThe President, a libertarian economist given to outrageous provocations, wants to remake the nation. Can it survive his shock-therapy approach?Supporters of Javier Milei, the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” President of Argentina, call him the Madman or the Wig—a reference to his hairdo, an unkempt shag with disco sideburns. Detractors liken him to the pilot of an aircraft plunging toward the ground. Milei—who came to power, amid an anti-incumbent wave, in part by blaming economic trouble on corruption among politicians, journalists, trade unionists, and academics—believes in a drastic reduction in the scope of government. He once declared that “the state is the pedophile in the kindergarten, with the children chained up and slathered in Vaseline.” Jon Lee Anderson met with Milei, and, in this week’s issue, he details the striking parallels he found between the Argentinean President and America’s President-elect. Read the story »The LedeIs Contraception Under Attack?The birth-control pill can now be bought over the counter in America, for the first time in the medication’s roughly sixty-year history. The safe, inexpensive contraceptive, which has been available without a prescription in more than a hundred other countries for many years, “is arriving at a fraught time for reproductive freedom in the U.S.,” Margaret Talbot writes. Anti-abortion groups, conservative politicians, and influencers on TikTok touting “natural family planning” have mounted an assault on what is among the best-studied preventative-health measures available. Read the story »More Top StoriesAre Grownups Just Giant Kids?The Best Podcasts of 2024The Deep Elation of Working with WoodDaily Cartoon“You’re just mad ’cause now you’ll never get to see how hot Hunter would’ve looked in an orange jumpsuit.”Cartoon by Emily FlakeCopy link to cartoonCopy link to cartoonLink copiedShopShopMore Fun & GamesPlay today’s moderately challenging puzzle. A clue: Tradition during which performers pretend to eat and spit out lettuce for good luck. Nine letters.Shouts & Murmurs: How to Make the World a Better Place in Ten Easy StepsP.S. The first, fleeting flakes of the season swirled briefly in New York City this morning, bringing with them a wintery mood befitting of Margaret Atwood’s story “Stone Mattress,” from 2011, in which a woman named Verna embarks on an Arctic cruise, “a vacation, pure and simple,” among “the vast cool sweeps of ice and rock and sea and sky.” Verna intends to “take a breather, do some inner accounting, shed worn skin”—certainly not to kill someone. And yet . . . ❄️
In today’s newsletter, Jon Lee Anderson reports on the slash-and-burn austerity measures in Argentina that have earned admiration from Trump acolytes. Plus:
- The conservative attack on over-the-counter birth control
- Sarah Larson on the best podcasts of 2024
- Honoring the art of carpentry
Javier Milei Wages War on Argentina’s Government
The President, a libertarian economist given to outrageous provocations, wants to remake the nation. Can it survive his shock-therapy approach?
Supporters of Javier Milei, the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” President of Argentina, call him the Madman or the Wig—a reference to his hairdo, an unkempt shag with disco sideburns. Detractors liken him to the pilot of an aircraft plunging toward the ground. Milei—who came to power, amid an anti-incumbent wave, in part by blaming economic trouble on corruption among politicians, journalists, trade unionists, and academics—believes in a drastic reduction in the scope of government. He once declared that “the state is the pedophile in the kindergarten, with the children chained up and slathered in Vaseline.” Jon Lee Anderson met with Milei, and, in this week’s issue, he details the striking parallels he found between the Argentinean President and America’s President-elect. Read the story »
The Lede
Is Contraception Under Attack?
The birth-control pill can now be bought over the counter in America, for the first time in the medication’s roughly sixty-year history. The safe, inexpensive contraceptive, which has been available without a prescription in more than a hundred other countries for many years, “is arriving at a fraught time for reproductive freedom in the U.S.,” Margaret Talbot writes. Anti-abortion groups, conservative politicians, and influencers on TikTok touting “natural family planning” have mounted an assault on what is among the best-studied preventative-health measures available. Read the story »
Daily Cartoon
- Play today’s moderately challenging puzzle. A clue: Tradition during which performers pretend to eat and spit out lettuce for good luck. Nine letters.
- Shouts & Murmurs: How to Make the World a Better Place in Ten Easy Steps
P.S. The first, fleeting flakes of the season swirled briefly in New York City this morning, bringing with them a wintery mood befitting of Margaret Atwood’s story “Stone Mattress,” from 2011, in which a woman named Verna embarks on an Arctic cruise, “a vacation, pure and simple,” among “the vast cool sweeps of ice and rock and sea and sky.” Verna intends to “take a breather, do some inner accounting, shed worn skin”—certainly not to kill someone. And yet . . . ❄️
