Två av de viktigaste texterna om USA nu

1.
"Precisely because the problem is one of temperament and character, it will not get better. It will get worse, as power intoxicates Trump and those around him"
(...)
The question is, what should Americans do about it? To friends still thinking of serving as political appointees in this administration, beware: When you sell your soul to the Devil, he prefers to collect his purchase on the installment plan. Trump’s disregard for either Secretary of Defense Mattis or Secretary-designate Tillerson in his disastrous policy salvos this week, in favor of his White House advisers, tells you all you need to know about who is really in charge. To be associated with these people is going to be, for all but the strongest characters, an exercise in moral self-destruction.
For the community of conservative thinkers and experts, and more importantly, conservative politicians, this is a testing time. Either you stand up for your principles and for what you know is decent behavior, or you go down, if not now, then years from now, as a coward or opportunist. Your reputation will never recover, nor should it.
Rifts are opening up among friends that will not be healed. The conservative movement of Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, of William F. Buckley and Irving Kristol, was always heterogeneous, but it more or less hung together. No more. New currents of thought, new alliances, new political configurations will emerge. The biggest split will be between those who draw a line and the power-sick—whose longing to have access to power, or influence it, or indeed to wield it themselves—causes them to fatally compromise their values. For many more it will be a split between those obsessed with anxiety, hatred, and resentment, and those who can hear Lincoln’s call to the better angels of our nature, whose America is not replete with carnage, but a city on a hill.
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2. 
Personspecificerad datainsamling som styrmedel av valkampanj.
Detta är en växande del av valpropgandans och därmed det politiska valets bräcklighet inför attacker av riktad reklam, riktad suggestion, riktad information - och där samtliga använda för att demoralisera, skrämma, skapa motvilja, eller engagera för sina speciella frågor. Trumps analytiska procedurmakare har använt data av det slaget; egentligen exakt detsamma som händer när du tänkt googlat Kreta och genast får åtta hotellerbjudanden därifrån i ditt mail.
De nya metoden att scanna folks karaktärer är utomordentligt obehagliga och skrupelfria datasnubbar har nu byggt stora lukrativa firmor på det material som finns lättåtkomligt i våra digitala spår på nätet: Läs om hur storebror data-analytikern ser dig och vet hur du ska manipuleras för att till exempel rösta med förskräckelse, eller avstå, på grund av misstro. 

This is not the happiest week of our lives. Cheer up!