Keen On America

Could Trump woo the upcoming 2026 World Cup and subvert the world’s most beloved sport for his own ugly ends? Not according to Simon Kuper, the Anglo-Dutch-French football writer whose adventures at the last nine World Cups are documented in his upcoming book World Cup Fever. Mussolini failed to control the 1934 World Cup in Italy, Kuper reminds us, and Trump won’t have any more success manipulating the 2026 competition in America. Rather than a stage for political power, he argues, the World Cup represents the greatest of all communal sporting experiences. The Beautiful Game 1 Authoritarians 0. Justice is round. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

What comes after neoliberalism? According to Branko Milanovic, the World Bank’s former lead research economist, it’s capitalism with a nationalist face. In his new book, The Great Global Transformation, Milanovic argues that globalization of the neoliberal age has been replaced by state-centric Chinese and American capitalism. Greed still drives these twin models, he argues, but they are dominated by what he calls “homoploutia” - a new elite economic class rich in both capital and labor income. Marx’s 19th century bourgeoisie, then, has metastasized into Milanovic’s 21st century homoploutia. So who are the 21st century version of the proletariat? What humans (or machines) now have nothing to lose but their chains? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The 2025 Trump was supposed to be a more refined version of the 2017 original. But according to National Interest editor Jacob Heilbrunn, Trump 2.0 has fizzled into Trump 0.2. 2025 will be remembered, Heilbrunn argues, as the beginning of the end of Trump’s authoritarian aspirations. MAGA has fractured, the administration is incompetent, and Trump himself is running what Heilbrunn calls an "absentee landlord" presidency. And things, Heilbrunn predicts, are only going to get worse. In 2026, he suspects, there will be a serious economic downturn—even an AI-triggered 1929-style crash—that will only formalize the dismal failure of Trump's second regime. Perhaps. Although Trump always seems most resilient after being written off by DC pundits like Heilbrunn. The old pugilist, albeit only a “quasi-Caesar”, still has a few more rounds in him. Three more years, to be exact. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Whither America? For the Canadian writer Stephen Marche, that’s no longer the question. America in 2025, for Marche, has already withered. The Toronto-based author of The Next Civil War argues that the future has already arrived in the United States. And it’s a violent, regressive future - which is only going to get more dismal in 2026. That’s the view from Toronto where Marche is enjoying a front seat on the arrival of the American future. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The best fiction seems real, the best non-fiction books read like fiction. That, at least, is Bethanne Patrick’s take on the best books of 2025. Selecting her favorite four fiction and four non-fiction books, the LA Times book critic suggests that all eight of these books brilliantly blur the line between fact and fiction. Take, for example, Murderland, Caroline Fraser’s new non-fiction linking 1970s serial killers to environmental toxins from mining. “People love true crime as if there’s something called untrue crime”, Patrick notes. “Fraser shows that what really happened and the way it blows up in our minds—that’s where fact and fiction blur.”Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe