The Guide #185: How The Phantom Menace’s trade wars can help you understand our political moment
In this week’s newsletter: Donald Trump’s week of chaos has made me reappraise the unloved Star Wars prequel – was it quite prescient after all?There are many scary things to come out of Trump’s tariffs. The world economy being thrown into chaos; spiralling prices; furious economic experts showing charts with big down arrows, using phrases like “gilt markets” and “share index undergrowth”, which I definitely understand. But the most terrifying thing – the thing that has made me truly believe that we are living in the End Times – is a panic-inducing realisation: The Phantom Menace just might have been right all along.For those who haven’t seen the first Star Wars prequel, GOD I envy you. The dialogue is wooden and the structure inexplicable (sure, let’s just have a pod-race instead of an Act II) – and that’s even before we get onto the Jar Jar Binks of it all (the answer to the question “what if we shaved Paddington and spliced his DNA with the most unlikeable newt in the world?”). But the biggest complaint is the subject matter. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: Donald Trump’s week of chaos has made me reappraise the unloved Star Wars prequel – was it quite prescient after all?
There are many scary things to come out of Trump’s tariffs. The world economy being thrown into chaos; spiralling prices; furious economic experts showing charts with big down arrows, using phrases like “gilt markets” and “share index undergrowth”, which I definitely understand. But the most terrifying thing – the thing that has made me truly believe that we are living in the End Times – is a panic-inducing realisation: The Phantom Menace just might have been right all along.
For those who haven’t seen the first Star Wars prequel, GOD I envy you. The dialogue is wooden and the structure inexplicable (sure, let’s just have a pod-race instead of an Act II) – and that’s even before we get onto the Jar Jar Binks of it all (the answer to the question “what if we shaved Paddington and spliced his DNA with the most unlikeable newt in the world?”). But the biggest complaint is the subject matter. Continue reading...
