Barbarians on the inside, styling in solidarity, and Goods for the Study.

This week in dismantling U.S. democracy.

Mar 14, 2025

This week in “Republicans Holding The World Hostage”:

Our friends in Mexico are angry. Like, very angry. Witness the 350,000 people who stormed Mexico City’s city center last Sunday to celebrate the postponement of US. incited tariffs against them. As Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed concerned citizens, she urged calm and consideration to the collective as the response.

Because this is what a leader does.

Separately but related, hats off to our Mexican friends for electing a female President in 2024. ¿Quién es más macho? Not the 77 million Republican voters who by contrast declared themselves “He-Man Women Haters Club” members in voting as they did in the 2024 U.S. Election.

And Canada, oh Canada. As Trump continues threats to make them the 51st state, this week he announced his plan to increase tariffs — by 25%, 50%, who knows, stay tuned! — on aluminum and steel. At which point, Canada threatened to impose a 25% retaliatory tariff on electricity that they provide for many of our northern states along the border - which, among other things, keeps the lights on at U.S. auto manufacturing plants located there.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and incoming Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat down to breakfast this week to finalize a retaliatory “strategy” against America. “These are dark days, dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust,” Carney said.

But all of this pain inflicted on the world is caused by one man and his team of Democracy Destroyers, in ways no one could have ever truly anticipated. Per Ontario Premier Doug Ford in an interview on Tuesday, “This is not the American people’s fault, and Canadians know it.”

Except, you know what? It totally is the American people’s fault. This is just diplomatic speak designed to communicate sympathy in solidarity to the 75 million here who voted against this regime. Because we are all now held hostage against the cruel and twisted desires of the Republican Party.

The barbarians are’t at the gate. They live among us: they are our friends (getting more difficult by the day to call them that) and neighbors who traded in their souls for some imagined tax break, each willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater on democracy. Perhaps they should now also go spit on the graves of their own ancestors, who bravely fought WWI and WWII.

Oh! And the stock market spiraled this week, with no doubt so much more pain to come down along those lines. Stay tuned!

Then there was the defunding and immediate dismantling of the Department of Education, which will have immediate catastrophic effects on American families everywhere, and on the fabric of our society.

…And the government could shut down tonight.

Is our country better off than it was 7 weeks ago? Only a fool would answer yes.

But now let’s climb out of the gutter and up onto a higher plane of thinking and being. Because as Yves Saint Laurent once said, “Without elegance of the heart, there is no elegance.”

And as we re-visit ongoing the WWII French resistance, let’s channel the life the mind, and the inner cultivation of, as a powerful form of resistance in standing up against a dictator, since it was the great making of the French Resistance’s success.

The ability to creatively immerse oneself ongoing in history, philosophy, the arts, theology, world languages, and international relations is a gift, for the perspective that it provides and over a lifetime.

Yet so many in past decades have instead in college majored in things “much more practical”- like accounting or coding. Which now feels like it’s all coming home to roost. Because those who do not (attentively) study history are doomed to repeat it. And since we right now witness in so many around us a shockingly limited ability to grasp the magnitude of this moment, to put it into critical context.

In terms of next steps, I propose that we all take a brief pause, and spend this weekend brainstorming in our heads and hearts about how we might each contribute on a grassroots level here. And since the first step toward any successful outcome is to write it down, why not do it in great style and make the process a glamorous one!

To kick off, you might consider stocking up at one of my favorite spots in Nolita: Goods for the Study on Mulberry Street, which in solidarity with our allies exudes its own air of international flair and savoir faire.

Goods for the Study is a treasure trove for those who appreciate the art of putting pen or paint to paper, and who understand that creativity creates critical communication and connection.

Spanish Paris-based fashion designer Maria de la Orden, and Spanish fashion designer Blanca Miró Scrimieri are avid fans, and I think you might soon be too. Check out their beautiful notebooks and selection of pens, paint sets, divine writing paper (send a note to your friends in Paris, let them know you’re “on it here” behind our democracy!), and other unique accessories that will contribute to thoughtful and well-organized next steps.

Be the change you want to see — and start by collecting, outlining, and immediately executing your next steps behind saving our democracy.