Week 28: A Stable Journey?
Greater chaos enters the US and the world. And enjoying the metro mindset of Scandinavia
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has obviously become the major issue of the week. The responses on social media have been typically feverish. What is noticeable is an inability of understanding the system as a whole – a country so mentally bound to a partisan framework that it’s blind to itself.
These heightened political passions (from multiple groups), combined with a society where access to guns is incredibly easy and seen as a cultural right, means there was a certain inevitability to this. President Biden claiming that “violence in America like this is just unheard of” was more wishful thinking than an accurate assessment. Violence is deeply embedded within American politics, its history, and society-at-large. The gun is America’s god. Of course it plays a central role in the country’s politics. The “we’re not like this” rhetoric looks very odd from the outside.
I suspect this now makes a second Trump presidency all but inevitable. This incident will create a wave sympathy for a man who up until now has deserved none.
Trump has been aching to be a victim for his whole life. While he may finally be a legitimate victim here we shouldn’t overlook that he is the man who holds a significant amount of culpability for this current political turbulence. Of course individuals like the shooter are accountable for their own behaviour – we are all capable of being, and should be expected to be, in control of our own emotions and actions – but politicians have an outsized role in setting the tone.
Public leadership is just that: public leadership. It requires responsibility, something that a great many politicians are avoiding at present (Trump is the most prominent example). This is the rubber band snapping back – those who encourage and take glee in violence will inevitably have violence visited upon themselves. This should be a lesson for all politicians who seek to inflame and exploit people’s passions. I doubt this is the lesson Trump will learn though. Like everything he’ll see this as an immense opportunity – and one that he’ll be lusting to take.
Which makes this an incredibly dangerous time for the United States, and as a consequence the world as a whole. These forces of instability that have erupted in the US will encourage revisionist states like Russia and China who will sense opportunity for themselves within US instability. A Trump now even more focused on his internal enemies will leave the international sphere wide-open to radical actions from belligerent states.
The question now is whether the world’s second tier and middle powers will be able to create enough stability by themselves? And how much effort are they going to make to fill a void that the US will vacate?
Nobody seems to have language to say: We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life.
The Republican National Convention, which opens this week, will welcome to its stage apologists for Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its aggression against U.S. allies. Trump’s own infatuation with Russia and other dictatorships has not dimmed even slightly with age or experience. Yet all of these urgent and necessary truths must now be subdued to the ritual invocation of “thoughts and prayers” for someone who never gave a thought or uttered a prayer for any of the victims of his own many incitements to bloodshed.
Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable—and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.
David Frum – The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator, The Atlantic
Metro Mindset
Despite this being the third year in a row I have divided my time between Melbourne and Sweden, it remains absolutely fascinating to me the ease of getting around. Given my love of foreign public transport – and the inordinate amount of time I spend thinking about how to improve Melbourne’s – there’s very little more exciting to me than jumping on a train. And the prospect of new train lines.
Being in a small town in southern Sweden there are a number of products I use that are unavailable here. Of course, I could just use the internet to buy them, but the internet doesn’t involve public transport, so it lacks the same thrill. So instead this weekend I headed to Malmö to do some shopping.
However, a trip Malmö also brings into play its effective twin city of Copenhagen, just across the Öresund (or Øresund in Danish), and the temptation to make a visit there as well is often too great to resist. With the early stages of a writing project developing with a woman in Copenhagen, popping across also allowed us to meet and make some more substantial plans (hopefully more details to come soon).
Since the opening of the dual road and rail Öresund Bridge/Tunnel in 2000, Copenhagen and Malmö have become far more integrated. The lower cost of living in Malmö means that it is very easy for people to live in Malmö and work in Copenhagen. Currently trains run across the strait around every 20 minutes – with different routes going to Østerport in the Copenhagen suburbs through Malmö and to the Swedish cities of Gothenburg, Kalmar, and Karlskrona. For anyone in southern Sweden, Copenhagen is now the easiest airport to fly into (as I always do).
However the train traffic across the bridge is currently at capacity, with freight trains also using the route. Meaning that trains cannot keep pace with the demand. A new tunnel from Germany to Denmark due to be completed in 2029 – creating a more direct link between Hamburg and Copenhagen – will also increase freight traffic into Sweden.
The solution to all this is another new tunnel under the Öresund that would connect Malmö into the Copenhagen Metro – creating two new metro stations in Malmö, alongside stopping at Malmö Centralstation. The more direct route would cut time between the two cities in half (to about 20 minutes). The plan is to be able to run trains every 90 seconds, which would further integrate the two cities.1
The project is being heavily pushed by the local governments in Copenhagen and Malmö, and has received some initially funding from the European Union, but has yet to be committed to by the Swedish and Danish governments. Although with tolls on the Öresund Bridge now close to having paid off its construction this revenue could be redirected to the metro tunnel (although it would be nice if paying the bridge off would make the train fares a little cheaper. It’s currently around USD 20 for a return trip between Malmö and Copenhagen.)
As an aside here, the combined population of Copenhagen and Malmö is about 3 million. Melbourne is quickly approaching 5.5 million, yet the idea of running trains every 90 second would be nowhere near the Victorian government’s (pathetic) vision. It’s still very common to wait 25 minutes for a train on some lines during the daytime (Craigieburn Line, I’m looking at you).