Today, while writing Daybreak Notes & Beans (which you can read here), I stumbled upon a pattern. I wrote about bees learning Morse code in that good-news newsletter. And that Canada would like to join Eurovision. And in Australia, crocodiles used to climb trees and bagpipers played AC/DC in Melbourne. Each story broke a rule we thought unbreakable.
And that should inspire us.
It made me think about fixed points, those certainties we build our understanding around. In 1989, standing in divided Berlin on my way back home, East to West with a backpack and nine months of adventures to share, I passed through the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie without believing it would one day disappear. Later that year, the world watched Germans chisel away the hated division of Europe. The VOPO intimidation and the Stasi files on everyone no longer mattered, and the fixed point shifted.
Americans face their own fixed point today: the seeming inevitability of rapid democratic decline under Trump’s authoritarian grip. His approval rating sits at just 33%, down from an already low 43% in March.
What I have learned over the years is that what seems fixed and immovable can change, often when there is little reason for hope. And that notion should, right now, be a reason for hope. So keep your eyes open for remarkable developments and connections you didn’t expect; there are plenty these days that may or may not suggest the tide is turning. It’s too soon to say when and how, but the current signs and dynamics are too important to ignore.
The Cracks Are Already Showing
Watch for moments when the news moves faster than you can follow it. The past 24 hours were like that: while you were trying to interpret three released Epstein emails, the flow suddenly expanded to 20,000 pages, and as I type this, I see news flashes popping up every hour with new findings in the Epstein case. This situation would have been highly consequential in any presidency, but it now unfolds during a presidency that’s already marked by daily drama and uncontrolled dynamics.
Regime collapse is often along the lines of Mike’s bankruptcy explanation in Fiesta, The Sun Also Rises: “Two ways: gradually and then suddenly.” It starts with small defections, then accelerates. In Romania, Ceaușescu held absolute power until the moment he didn’t. Fixed points break when you least expect them, and assumed permanence suddenly becomes fragility. Soon after, everyone will look back and say that was bound to happen.
The Democratic victories across recent local elections tell their own story. Not just resistance, but appetite for change. I wonder what matters more to voters: the chaos in Washington or rising grocery prices. My guess is that Trump’s legal troubles may matter far less than rapidly rising medical and other costs of daily life. Democracy’s abstract peril may matter less to many than concrete economic anxiety.
Owning affordability
Republicans scramble to reclaim economic credibility after first embracing reverse Robin Hood policies. They want to own “affordability” while their tax cuts flow upward. It’s like watching someone claim they’re pro-oxygen while performing suffocation.
The public isn’t buying it anymore, and massively supported Zohran Mamdani, whose focus on affordability sounds so much more convincing for those who still remember how Trump frequently vowed to stop inflation “on day one” of his presidency if elected and “make America affordable again.”
For many, Washington, D.C., and its scandals are far away. But everywhere, people notice changes in the jobs market, insurance costs, and the price of eggs. Economic security trumps everything else. The EU nearly collapsed over Greek debt, not democratic deficits. Brexit occurred because of misleading claims about NHS funding, rather than speeches about sovereignty.
History’s Lesson: The Unexpected Is Inevitable
In 1788, Louis XVI controlled France with absolute power. By 1793, he’d lost his head—literally. In 1916, the Romanovs ruled a sixth of Earth’s land surface. By 1918, they were dead in a basement. In 1989, the Berlin Wall was permanent. By 1990, I got a piece of it as a souvenir.
The pattern never changes: what cannot continue, won’t. Trump’s reign shows similar stress fractures. Farmers hurt by tariffs. Seniors abandoned by Medicare cuts. Suburban women repelled by extremism. Even his approval among Republicans softens when pollsters ask about specific policies rather than tribal loyalty.
I remember reading an interview with a Hungarian border guard in 1990. He said everyone knew the system was dying, but nobody knew when it would actually die. “We performed our duties until the moment we didn’t,” he said. “One day we were checking papers, the next day we were telling people where to find the nearest hole in the border fence.”
That’s how these moments work. Slowly, then suddenly.
The Unexpected Future
Writing today’s Daybreak Notes & Beans newsletter reminded me that nature constantly breaks its own rules. Snapdragons in the Pyrenees maintain species boundaries while hybridizing. I also wrote about LED lights that kill cancer cells while sparing healthy ones. And yesterday, a treaty was signed that recognizes 60,000 years of Indigenous Australian sovereignty after two centuries of denial.
If bees can master symbolic communication, if Canada can join Eurovision, and if Napoleon’s diamond can surface after 210 years in hiding, then American democracy can surprise us, too.
The signs accumulate. Document releases. Electoral shifts. Economic reality puncturing political fantasy. All are cracks in what seemed solid. Watch for moments when what seems impossible becomes inevitable. It’s hard to predict when, but history drifts to a point where millions of Americans are no longer willing to accept that democracy’s erosion can’t be reversed.
Never doubt that what seems fixed today can move tomorrow.