trump wanting to be a king is the same as liberals wanting to be european change my mind

Unpacking a very specific type of American obsession with leaving the country and a trend chat with one of Los Angeles' most exciting culture watchers.

May 03, 2026

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🏘️ SOME HOUSEKEEPING 🏘️ This month, posts may be slimmer as I am celebrating a big birthday a week from today and want to try to 1.) work less as a reward to myself and 2.) try to take a proper vacation week next week and the last week of the month. Nothing should change as far as weekly dispatches, but some items may be more Mariah sized and more ~reflective on life~ as I may be more offline.
🦿HIP REPLACEMENT🦿 this week sees Ben Dietz and I are joined by Kayla Suarez of social club and podcast Grownkid to chat therapy speak, Hasan Piker’s popularity, and the new season of Euphoria. Tune in on Substack, YouTube, and or Spotify!

U.S. is ‘being humiliated by Iran’
America’s special relationship ‘probably Israel’
Ghana Pulls Out Of US Aid Over Personal Data

I don’t really think something is shifting, but it’s to be noted that Germany, the UK, and Ghana had big “Watch your back, US.” things to say this week. Something I’ve been thinking about in all this too is, given how the US (Trump.) is terrorizing the rest of the world, I’m surprised another country hasn’t tried to take Trump out. We fuck around so much elsewhere…who is fucking around with us? Besides Russia, etc. Or do they need to, if we’re all going crazy enough to make it happen ourselves?

United Arab Emirates to quit oil cartel Opec

I’m not really sure what this means, but it feels quite important. This video was informative, elucidating how and why something like Saudi’s culture push and the resulting Desert Warrior box office flop is so big. Oil ain’t what it used to be!

Court weakens Voting Rights Act
Could deliver GOP a host of House seats

A nightmare, as the most evil Supreme Court to ever exist (I think?) has dealt another gift to the right in the name of “helping” Black Americans. As a Harvard law professor said in the Post story, this “could alter the makeup of Congress in a way that hasn’t been seen since the period after the Civil War.”

Half of bets on military action are successful
Investigation of Spikes That Led to Payouts

Polymarket, if you’re reading this, I want you to know that I think you are deeply evil and part of our great cultural decay. And to be clear: No! I am not interested in collaborating because you are an insider trading and gambling addiction profiteer!!!!! That goes for you too, Kalshi!!!!!!!!

Google Gives OpenAI 20B Reasons To Worry

It seems Google may beat OpenAI in the rock/paper/scissors that has been happening in the AI space. This reminds me of a very good story on AI bubbling from FT in March, where this line offered a lightbulb moment for me: “Google, Amazon and Microsoft too have real businesses to fall back on. OpenAI, in contrast, does not.”

Dead Internet Theory Is 17% of the Way True

According to a new study at least, which found 35% of newly published websites made since ChatGPT launched were made with the help of AI — and 17% were completely AI generated. Do we think this will choke the internet out of usability soon? I don’t think so, but such sloppy seas certainly make for noisy spaces (and stresses the import of people like moi, I guess).

US coastline is heading for an ocean disaster
A catastrophic climate event is upon us

Not to stress you out, but one of the most frightening climate disasters is seconds away from unfolding. Get ready to hear a lot more about Amoc.

**NEW**: Q1 analysis Trend Report: Trend Report™ is available for download here.

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One thing I love about America and Americans — which is something I love about myself and my Americaness — is the ability to dream. We are a people who imagine possibility, who see a situation and push for change. It’s a beautiful thing and, for those who haven’t spent time outside of the country, such a worldview is very unique. Yes, it can dip into a somewhat colonial, obnoxious, gentrification-y, nouveau riche “I want it so I get it.” approach that reveals the truth of the Ugly American trope, but that “type” is by and large a minority that was once the majority. Americans carry a wondrousness despite the circumstances, despite the American Dream having been smothered for some time, for most people. It is our ability to dream that is forcing a reckoning and reconsideration of what it could be, to indulge the possibilities of someone like Zohran Mamdani, inspiring the world in turn. Both Gen Z and Millennials are leading a charge to rethink what our dream state is, which the nation has too long ignored much to its detriment. Our inequalities and our failure to elevate is a key reason for our great discontent, thus the rise in communities and leaders eager to break down and rebuild the system. None of this is new, as evidenced by viral posts this week from the latest New York Times’ America in Focus round-table, which displayed how dreaming turns to magical thinking for some so lost in the country, hence Trump’s ability to steal their dreams.

But here’s the thing about Trump — and Americans today — which reveals a long existing truth of something many are dreaming and dreaming and dreaming about: Europe. For whatever reason, likely due to our country’s age and the real-and-not vibe of being an emancipated child of a country, Americans are obsessed with Europe in a way that verges on an obsession that over-invests Miracle Grow to be used out their windows so they can watch the grass of their neighbors flourish at the expense of their own. Insecurity as a means to sell yourself out, to not-do-the-work, or at least to always offer a needless point of comparison that looks backwards instead of forward: America often has a deep political and cultural dysmorphia that thieves progress, a strange jealousy that distracts from political and cultural self-improvement, all unsurprising given our originating the mania of self-perfection obsession. This is where Trump comes in, as he is the person who has the most severe case of European dreaming in a way that rivals your co-worker who has been talking about their god damned trip to the Amalfi coast for five fucking months and will not shut the fuck up about it. His reign of terror is predicated on a low self-esteem around his being sufficiently rich and powerful, which was ignited by an Obama-era dick jousting that sparked a presidency where he could fully realize his obsessions with the theatrics a certain continent in parallel from us. A gaudy gold court, a gilded ballroom, a garish monumental arch, an aquamarine reflecting pool, a shining portrait in metal, a copy of his face upon state documents: these are the obvious attempts of a wannabe king to signal to the world that, like their kings, he is one too. As Trump met with King Charles this week, the feeling was less his pride in place or even in his own accomplishments but an unconfident attempt to outdo a legacy by offering tell after tell of a national and political insecurity. “America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they have since independence,” King Charles said before Congress, while touching on checked executive power, empowering NATO, and caring for the environment. “The actions of this great nation matter even more.” And yet: Trump sighed at the head of the table of the faux Versailles of his own making, ornate plates set, proclaiming “TWO KINGS” in rage bait aspiration, tears on Truth social as he prays to a royal god to make him a real royal boy. Such is a dream state divorced from reality.

But who are we (Or many of us.) to yell “NO KINGS” at him if we’re too eager to abandon the project of our nation to bury our faces in the bosoms of elsewhere? Story after story after story after story , story, story, story, story, story, etc. this year highlight a trend, which is undoubtedly true but also a product of the media obsessed with our obsession with this obsession too: we, who wish to live under the rule of a king who isn’t our own, lust for a European life of assumed freedoms based on surface-level lusting after healthcare, plazas, old churches, coffee and cigarettes, and other cultural stereotypes from the past that linger in our present. This lusting never fully comprehends another culture and, worse, refuses to let the elephant into the room, that you — a would-be immigrant — won’t be greeted with open arms in such a process, that so much of culture is isn’t unique and most problems are shared (a la similar xenophobia): you can drape yourself under white albs neo-colonialism and a title like “expat,” but know that is a bandage when you needed a tourniquet. “More Americans than at any time in the past two decades say they would like to move away from the U.S. permanently,” Gallup noted in late 2025. Now, America has a net-negative migration, as 2.2 million self-deportations and at least 180,000 citizens have left the country in the last year, the latter of whom join the estimated 4 to 9 million Americans already living abroad, according to the Wall Street Journal. “The new American dream, for some of its citizens, is to no longer live there,” the story states smugly, conjuring a flurry of viral posts based in this fantasy and an economy of questionable how-to guides that seek to exploit escapism, gambling your life on a thin dream. “They won’t tell you this in therapy…but the real way to feel better is to go to Italy,” an emblematic TikTok audio — and its many viral variants — goes. The American dream for many is to leave, be that to London or Paris or Berlin or Tokyo or Sydney or wherever else you can imagine being “better than here.” Is it performative or not? It doesn’t matter, as you’re stuck going round and round the roundabout of cope and lust because you don’t know how to drive abroad.

And yet: that grass we’ve obsessed over is more a distraction than anything else, a straw man we frantically write fan fiction about. Debates about the “Europoor” have been rising and falling for some time, sparking comparisons between EU countries and US states, conversations around skewed unreal wealth by Brits, imagining US lifestyles versus EU, as the realities of different lifestyles outside of a contained grid post. These discussions are based in two lost souls punching each other when they should be punching above, at the higher classes who fucked up not just their home but the places they lust after and long to defend. Low wages, issues of housing, economic pains (despite “no war”), laxness to the point of parody, the ongoing stagnation of innovation: same-same, different-different, perfection truly in the eye of the beholder. Thus brings us to an ongoing reality check that will become a greater and greater storyline, that such coveting for something else instead of caring for what you have will end poorly on the individual level — and likely on a collective level, comparisons as the thief of electoral joy both domestically and internationally. It starts with “californians getting de-influenced to plan these euro vacations” and ends with stories like The Cut’s recent “They Moved Abroad for a Cheaper Life. But at What Cost?” or the recent New York Times “They Went Abroad to Save Money. Moving Back Seems Unaffordable.,” expanding out to a fleet of videos sharing experience of migrational realities and truthful comparisons and contrasts: “The UK salaries in London are unlivable compared to what it costs to live in this city,” one recent video goes, comparing the live in LA to London and the gulfs between salaries being “about 50% less”; “JP Morgan offered me $38K in London,” a video from March goes, “Microsoft offered me $222K in Seattle. Same degree.”; “The ambition gap between the US and UK is actually huge,” another video from February goes, speaking to how this is good for one’s mental health, only to follow up to swim around the gulf of lost incentives and earnings; “I don’t recommend leaving America and moving abroad,” a video from October went, “Most Americans aren’t self-sufficient enough to navigate the challenges that come with immigration, which aren’t often highlighted in cute little social media posts of your favorite American influencer.” Fuck around, find out, etc.

Life and politics aren’t contained within a picture online of a place that looks different from where you are: it is a container of fantasy, one that seeks to take your money and leave you feeling momentarily better but ultimately the same. Trump’s lusting to be a king and our lusting to leave are the same thing, which remind me again and again that the liberal answer to “Make America Great Again” is moving to Europe, to dig your head in Mediterranean sands while assuming all problems will be “solved” that way instead of realizing the monsters in a trenchcoat are the same just in a different type of outerwear, made more complicated by their speaking different languages. I think this all the time, constantly confronted with the reality of moving abroad as my cup fills more and more with regrets while the buzz of a “better life” fizzles. As I enter my fifth year in Spain, the feeling is more of helpless than righteous empowerment because I did indeed take the bait that came with imagining the possibilities outside rather than doing the necessary inner work, all as I watch a place and a people I love constantly pummelled — and I am a bit helpless from the outside, despite experiencing the various trickle-down effects that eventually flood the rest of the world.

“We have to get those folks back,” Canadian progressive politician Avi Lewis told Democracy Now! this week of our northern neighbors’ own political delinquency, before reflecting on how a similar movement in the style of Mamdani is forming. “There’s something going on here up in Canada,” he says, before warning, “Don’t romanticize it, as Americans too often do.” Don’t romanticize it, as Americans too often do. Our ability to dream is so powerful and precious but all too often is the exact thing that dissolves any ounce of pride and patriotism that lead to action action, allowing a culture — and the future — to be lost at the hands of others.

Spirit Airlines shuts down

Pour one out, less because it was “good” but because such is another signal of the K-state coming to kill off a crucial aid for the less-monied.

These Couples Wanted to Have Children

They aren’t having them because of money. If this story is surprising to you, I’d like to buy you some lube so I can help you take your head out of your fucking ass. I’d also love to see this story expanded globally as I know there are many “Well, if we had childcare.” types grumbling (See above essay.) but I will tell you: even in Europe, not having kids because of financial struggles is a truism. For example: the only place where I have seen babies, babies, babies from young people in my four years was in Copenhagen last summer, which we can attribute to the widening disparities in the city around money.

Marble Dominated Milan Design Week
Design Week was fun – and disappointing
“FASHION WEEK IN DISGUISE”

I went to Milan Design Week in 2017 and have been dying to go back. But, the affair seems to have jumped the shark, illustrating how fashion is colonizing anything culturally interesting given that industry is dying and clout chasing hard. Such a branded suffocation has turned the rare design event into a Coachella and…my boner has been killed. Thanks again, fashion fascists!

New Banksy Statue Causes Stir

Another point on the board for Banksy.

Why Do Stores Throw Away Good Products?

It would be a lie to say I am not dumpster diving curious, and such a story like this really makes it known just how wasteful a state we’re in. This is to also say: stop buying shit! We have enough stuff in the world, available for free or used! You are not a royal and we should send them to the gallows anyway!!

The Men Who Want Their Foreskins Back

A wild story, which is uncomfortable and reveals the unique lengths people will go to modify their bodies.

As Brands Get Refunds, What Do They Owe?

A great question about tariffs, as brands should not be hogging this money — and yet they will.

How Cultured Are You?

I scored a 21 on this fab T quiz, which is because I got trigger happy as I was “doing so well” and then bombed things around theater and old books. Ironic, as someone who studied theater and English!

Book of Love Album Review

“Boy (Extended Mix)” is one of my favorite songs of all time, and this review of their debut album is so sweet and so inspiring. Artists should make synth-pop bands again!

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There’s no place like home, which is a way of saying there’s no place like Los Angeles — at least that’s what I say, as the west coast city is my adoptive home and the longest place I’ve lived in my near four decades of life. An acquired taste, sure, but it’s a site of consistent innovation and opportunity, so wide-eyed and excited about what could be even if that means opening the door to bad actors that cannibalize culture and industry a la evil tech non-geniuses. But alas: LA is my home, my beloved, a city where I found myself as a person and as a writer. You can’t make me hate it! It’s a never-ending vibe that is full of dreams and dreamers.

Now living mostly not-in-the-city (Long story, see above, etc.), I do my best to stay away from any content, publications, or general news about the city’s culture as to not plunge me into a depression of yearning. This means sites like Eater LA or even KCRW are off limits but Americana At Brand Memes and ScentBar are okay, that I can spend time in the ambiently Angeleno but not follow the news so closely that I then start to feel like the only way to solve the problem of my being so far is using my face to stop a speeding car.

This is why I’m thankful for someone like tasbeeh herwees, whose No Bad Days offers a peek into the city’s culture that speaks to locals but also those who are allies of the city like myself. Tasbeeh’s capturing of culture is so sharp, a solid champion of LA representing who Angelenos actually are: the culturally curious fighting for the city to be its best self, offering memorials to classics like Taix and the dishy details around the never-ending drama around LARB. She’s keeping tabs on the city’s new generation of talents — Anna Dorn! Demi Adejuyigbe! — and easily has defined herself as one of them too. As we’ve chatted and passed each other many a time in the halls of newsletter writing, I wanted to see what trends she was into, and how Los Angeles flows in and out her attraction to them. Get ready to get into clowns, public transit, and the need for more counter culture!!

Tell me about a trend you’re following that you’re really into.
CLOWNING. Or more broadly, play, which is the spirit that animates clowning. Under these political and social headwinds, you can clown or be clowned. I choose the former.
I recently interviewed a couple of clowns for my newsletter and I found the way they came to clowning really interesting. All of them came to it from a place of pain, or grief, or resilience in the face of tragedy. Clowning is sincerity erupted. It’s holding a mirror up to the absurdity of our human condition. It blows up social norms and creates a space for catharsis and laughter.
I really loved what Alex Tatarsky, an art clown, had to say about it: “Clown is really about trying to practice honesty with a group of people in a room. Often that’s how you alchemize failure and sadness and despair into something else. Simply by acknowledging it together, it starts to transform. Clown is a real gift in that way. These moments of despair can begin to turn into something else, with a group of people in a room.”
How can we turn our despair into something else? It’s easy, in times of great personal grief, to turn into yourself, to self-isolate and become immobile. I’ve experienced that myself, and the only way to snap out of it is by stepping outside of yourself and reintegrating yourself in your community and becoming useful to your neighbors. Everyone needs laughter. Everyone needs a way to make the nonsense of our current political moment legible, so that we can imagine a way to dismantle it. I think clowning does that.
What’s a trend you hope never dies?
I don’t know if this a trend or simply my algorithm feeding me the content I want to see, but I’ve been seeing more and more people in Los Angeles taking public transit. I’ve been making an intentional effort to take it more and more. Last night, my boyfriend and I took the train to Highland Park from East Hollywood. It took 45 minutes. By car it would have taken 30. That’s not a bad tradeoff for sitting in a car or spending money on gas or an Uber. I’ll happily spend 15 extra minutes!
People in LA are so dramatic about the inconveniences of public transit! The bus is a fabulous way to get around town (I once took the bus to the Golden Globes). Meanwhile, no one seems to consider the inconveniences of driving. All the time spent looking for parking. Parking tickets.
What’s a trend you are so over?
Peptides. The quest for eternal youth is destructive. A friend of mine (who shall NOT be named) recently told me she was getting peptides injected in a random person’s apartment. I do some injectables myself —don’t get me wrong—but only at a doctor’s office. Please do not buy peptides from Temu!!!
What are your thoughts on Los Angeles as a trend epicenter?
The description of No Bad Days is, “A newsletter about Los Angeles, and everyone else.” That’s because we are still one of the top cultural producers of the world. What happens here often happens elsewhere. You could go to Omaha and find a teenage girl with a Valley accent. Almost every American movie is about Los Angeles, even when it isn’t really about Los Angeles.
That is all under threat of course. Greedy landlords and corporate executives are squeezing out the artists. Film companies are moving their production to places where they don’t have to give their workers healthcare or fair wages. It’s so important to keep the film industry in Los Angeles—because this is where it belongs.
What are people most missing in the narrative of Los Angeles now?
It’s true LA is not doing great right now. Our leaders have failed us. They have, over and over again, kowtowed to the interests of property developers and landlords and corporations. Their policies are killing everything that makes Los Angeles great, and preventing any real change from happening.
But there is still optimism. Mayor Karen Bass, for a while, was pandering to the interest of property owners who didn’t want LA Metro to tunnel under homes for the K-Line extension, despite the research that suggested it wouldn’t have any affect on the structure of their homes or their quality of life. People showed up in massive numbers to push for the K-line extension, and we managed to push it through.
More importantly, counterculture and underground culture is thriving. There are parties everyday in unsanctioned venues. People are making independent art and showcasing it in unexpected places. People are producing indie films again. If there is cultural decline, it’s happening within institutions. They have abandoned the artists so the artists have abandoned them.

Follow Tasbeeh on Instagram and be sure to subscribe to No Bad Days.

“D Line extension”
“New Ad Campaign”

These are most definitely spoofs but…whatever you gotta do to get people riding the train and public transport in LA is a win-win. Truly exceptional work here.

“HOOOOOOWLING”
“fish head wife”
“what a meme”
“stop fucking crying”
“Who the fuck made this”

The JP Morgan executive sex drama was a very good meme, made all the crazier that…it was all made up! Get out of here, incel Tung Tung Sahur mfer.

“32 year old rich auntie”
“got off the train”
“banged by a trucker”
“sitting in my room”
“drink lowkey nasty”
“gmail when”

The non-binary auntie video is a must see. I would like to see the behind the scenes, where they have to run and grab their phone after each shot. (Also? It really is a great cultural product that rightfully has people debating Black capitalism, nouveau richeness, and transactions as “luxury.” All fascinating.)