Mulher nua, mulher vestida, September 8, 2025, Manuel S. Fonseca

É mesmo ali, na Argélia e Marrocos. Há uma mulher nua outra decentissimamente vestida. A mulher nua está livre, em plena rua, a mulher vestida despejada na prisão.

A mulher nua vive em Sétif, cidade argelina de predominância cabila (berbere). A mulher nua é uma estátua erguida numa fonte de Sétif. De seios lindos, coxas expostas, ousada e inocente nesse requebro com que se senta: os habitantes de Sétif orgulham-se dela.

Mas às notórias forças vivas do islamismo repugna toda a iconografia. Por isso, Aïn el-Fouara (Fonte Que Jorra), como se chama essa mulher de mármore, é atacada com regularidade e ferocidade: a martelo, a explosivos, a cinzel. Os islamistas apostam em apagar da face da terra todos os ídolos e, há um mês, a picareta de um fundamentalista destruiu-lhe o belo rosto, quebrou-lhe um ombro e torturou-lhe os seios. Uma orquestrada campanha nas redes sociais e mesquitas, quer despedaçar essa mulher – um estudioso islâmico propôs cobri-la (uma burka?) – mas os orgulhosos cabilas de Sétif teimam em defender a mulher cuja nudez se derrete em água fresca.

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Trump’s approval with independents sinks below Biden’s, Trump’s post-Jan. 6 | Weekly roundup for July 27, 2025, by G. Elliott Morris

This week in political data: Gallup’s newsy poll; Pew benchmark data; Senate race ratings; Manufacturing prices increase; and AI disrupting news traffic.

Dear readers,

Welcome back to Strength In Numbers. This is your Sunday briefing covering new data on politics and public opinion.

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions for our July poll with Verasight. This month’s survey turned up some interesting insights, and I look forward to reading more suggested topics for August!

Trump hits new record low with independents

The poll I saw circulating most online this week is a new Gallup survey of Trump’s first six months in office. Gallup finds Trump with a 37% approval rating among adults (a new low across all pollsters) and losing ground on all issues.

Strikingly, Gallup finds that just 38% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling immigration, and 37% approve of his job on the economy — the two issues that probably won him the 2024 election. Trump has lost double digits on handling the federal budget and 6 points on trade/tariffs.

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Talking With Henry Farrell (Weaponized interdependence and tech bro ideology, oh my), with Paul Krugman, July 26, 2025

Henry Farrell is one of my favorite international relations experts, co-author of a fascinating book about “weaponized interdependence” that was the basis for a great event last year at CUNY’s Graduate Center. It’s even more relevant now, with America under new management. And Henry has also been writing some really interesting stuff about the emerging ideologies of Silicon Valley’s elite. So we had a wide-ranging conversation, with probably too many science-fiction references. Transcript follows.

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Deindustrialization: Causes and Consequences, Paul Krugman, May 18, 2025

It’s not mostly about globalization, and it’s not what ails workers.

A few months before the 1992 election I, along with some other Democratic-leaning economists, flew to Little Rock to meet with Governor and presidential candidate Bill Clinton. The ostensible purpose was to discuss policy, but it was obviously also an audition. At one point Clinton asked what could be done to restore manufacturing to its previous share of employment.

Heads turned to me; this was clearly my department. I said something like this: “Sorry, governor, but that’s really not feasible. Even if we could eliminate the trade deficit, manufacturing employment would only rise modestly and would still be a much smaller share of the economy than in the past.”

Needless to say, I didn’t get a job in the Clinton administration. It was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

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Do indigno do presente sobre a História, By estatuadesal on Abril 19, 2025, (Rui Pereira, in Facebook, 18/04/2025, Revisão da Estátua)

Indignamente, o parlamento alemão excluiu a Rússia e a Bielorrússia das celebrações em Berlim da importantíssima efeméride do octogésimo aniversário da derrota do nazi-fascismo, a 9 de maio de 1945 (ver artigo sobre o tema aqui).

Já antes a Rússia fora, da mesma indigna forma, excluída da celebração do “Dia D” no norte de França. Nunca tive pulsões germanófobas. Do que pude ir aprendendo sobre o assunto, relacionei sempre a tragédia alemã da primeira metade do século muito mais com as recomposições imperiais do capitalismo do que com qualquer vocação “nazista” intrínseca ao povo alemão. Não creio, aliás, que existam vocações intrínsecas a qualquer povo – expressão já de si tão complexa (esta de “povo”) que não precisamos de complicá-la ainda mais.

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Why Trump Will Lose His Trade War, Paul Krugman, Apr 16, 2025

Scenes from the trade war:

  • In response to Donald Trump’s huge tariffs on Chinese exports, China’s government has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets, both critical to many modern industries and the military
  • Trade talks between the United States and the European Union appear to have gone nowhere, with Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s top trade official, reportedly having “struggled to determine America’s aims.”

In other words, the Chinese, unlike the Trump administration, understand what trade and trade wars are about. And the Trumpers, in addition to not knowing what they’re doing, don’t even know what they want.

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