Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stuart Walker, Research Fellow in Sustainabilty Assessment, University of Sheffield
The garden office from the inside.Lorna Jackson, CC BY-NC-ND
When we moved into our house, there was a shed in the garden. Its timbers were rotten, the floor had long since disappeared into the ground, there was no door, the window had fallen out and various creatures had moved in.
I decided to rebuild it out of a material that has been used around the world for hundreds of years, but is less commonly seen in modern buildings: straw bales. A year later, and the “work shed” is now nearly finished.
As sustainability assessment lead at Sheffield University’s Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, I wanted to make sure my garden office had the lowest possible embodied carbon (a term used to describe the amount of carbon contained, or “embodied” in the materials used to make a product), and low energy use once it was up and running.
That meant the office would need to be very well insulated to avoid using lots of energy to heat it, and made of materials with low carbon content.
Due to its structure, straw is a fantastic insulating material. It’s also cheap, easy to work with, and since the straw absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it grows, straw buildings act as carbon stores. If we use this in a building, the carbon remains stored for the lifetime of the building, and can even be returned to the soil at the end of life.
My first real involvement with straw building was through the design of a low carbon cold room in Kenya, working with energy efficiency experts from the Energy Saving Trust and Solar Cooling Engineering, and architects from Switzerland and Kenya. A cold room is an easy-to-build and cheap alternative to a large fridge, enabling farmers in developing countries to store produce at a market, improving incomes and reducing food waste.
Stuart Walker working on his straw bale office. Lorna Jackson., CC BY-NC-ND
This cold room is now operating at Homa Bay market on the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya. It has cement-free foundations, solar panels and batteries, water storage, low energy cooling units, a timber structure and straw bale walls. The project showed me that straw bale structures can provide good insulation without the environmental impact of expanded polystyrene.
Natural materials like mud, earth and dung, as well as fibrous materials such as straw were used to build homes for centuries.
Straw bale housing history
Straw in bale form has been used for buildings since the 1800s. After the invention of mechanical baler in the US, straw bales were used to construct homes in places where timber and stone were hard to find.
Some of these early buildings still exist, but most straw bale houses in the US were built since the 1970s. These buildings offer warm comfortable homes and were the inspiration for a new wave of UK straw bale builders in the 1990s.
Straw works well for single or two-storey buildings, but requires careful design to avoid water leaking into it. Provided the bale buildings are protected from rain splash at the bottom and have an overhanging roof at the top, water isn’t really a problem. Fire requires oxygen and fuel, so a compressed straw bale is fire resistant, and straw bale buildings have met all fire, planning, and building regulations, and even achieved Passivhaus – extremely high standards of insulation, thermal performance and energy use.
The straw bale ‘fridge’ built in Kenya. Francis Maina, CC BY-NC-ND
My new garden office has 40cm thick walls and double glazed windows, it’s clad on the outside with reclaimed timber (some of which came from the original shed) and the roof, windows, doors and underfloor insulation are all secondhand. The final step is cladding the inside.
Here I’ve adopted another traditional building practice and used cob. Cob is a mixture of clay, water, sand and chopped straw. After digging the clay from our garden and mixing it, I’ve applied the cob by hand, via an incredibly messy but very satisfying process.
I know that the lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of my shed will be about 20 tonnes lower than they would have been if I had used expanded foam insulation and plasterboard.
People who live in straw bale houses talk about how the irregular shape and natural materials of straw bale buildings also have a positive impact on them, and say that buildings like my shed create a connection with the builder particular to the use of natural materials.
This concept, known as biophilic design, is challenging to quantify but I look forward to finding how it feels to sit inside it.
Stuart Walker is affiliated with The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, University of Sheffield. He receives funding from the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.
In 18th- and 19th-century Ireland, it was common for courting couples to exchange gifts to mark their developing relationships. Many of these items are familiar gifts today: books, cards, items of clothing, jewellery and sweet treats. Others, however, are less familiar. In fact, some of the gifts exchanged by couples in the past might give many today the dreaded ick – especially those items of the hairier variety.
While you might be familiar with the tradition of mourning hairwork jewellery that was made and worn to remember deceased loved ones in the Victorian era, hairy tokens were traditionally a gift exchanged between couples in love. In my new book, Pious and Promiscuous: Life, Love and Family in Presbyterian Ulster, I explore the tradition of gift-giving among courting couples in Ulster – from hairy tokens to food and clothing. The book reveals for the first time the personal stories that shaped the rituals of Presbyterian family life in 18th- and 19th-century Ulster.
Batchelor’s Fare, Bread, Cheese, and Kisses, by Thomas Rowlandson (1813). Met Museum
Gift-givers thought deeply about what to gift that special someone. Items exchanged in courtship were carefully chosen because different gifts had different meanings. Whereas shirts were understood to symbolise friendship, items like gloves – which covered the hands and fingers – were associated with marriage.
Those on the receiving end also had to consider whether or not to accept these tokens. Accepting a gift from a would-be suitor indicated that the receiver shared their romantic interest. Refusing a gift communicated the opposite. The tradition of gift-giving could also be used to break off relationships. When a relationship failed, people were expected to return any gifts that they had received.
The most special token that a person could gift was their hair. As a physical piece of a person that would outlast their human life, a lock of hair symbolised immortal love. Locks of hair were generally gifted by women to men and sometimes at the request of their male suitors.
Men might write to their beloveds and request that they enclose a lock of hair in their next letter as a token with which to remember them. Locks of hair could be tied into neat plaits and fashioned with a ribbon, enabling the lock to keep its shape. Hair could also be pressed into jewellery or placed in the back of miniatures.
The recipients of these hairy tokens would engage with them both physically and sensorially. Locks of hair could be rubbed, stroked, sniffed and gazed upon as the recipient thought about the person who had sent it. Given their size, these little hairy tokens could also be secreted inside of clothes and worn next to the heart, or placed under a pillow and slept upon, enabling the recipient to dream of its hairy bestower.
A hairy fetish
Some people appear to have had a real appetite, perhaps even a fetish, for hairy gifts and tokens. Robert James Tennent (1803–80), a middle-class man who came of age in 19th-century Belfast, is one such example. Catalogued among his papers at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast, is an extraordinary archive of hairy treasures, each seemingly representing a woman with whom he had some sort of romantic connection.
What makes Tennent’s collection so intriguing is its size. It contains 14 locks of hair, each wrapped individually in a small handmade envelope. At one time the collection may have been even larger. Among the items is an envelope, now empty, bearing the label “Hair”, which possibly held a lock of hair that has since been lost.
The hair itself varies dramatically in colour, condition and care: wisps of fine blonde hair; neatly tied plaits of brown hair, fashioned with pink string; and unshapen masses of dark hair streaked with grey. The collection also contains a broken ring.
In 2022, I published a paper on Tennent’s hairy treasures in which I theorised that he kept and curated the collection as a trophy cabinet of his past romantic (and sexual) adventures. I argued that the collection served the purpose of a handmade and homemade pornographic archive that Tennent could revisit to transport himself back to pleasured memories and experiences.
Evidence for this view is inscribed in the collection itself. Twelve of the locks are labelled, telling us the name of the woman to whom the hair belonged. We can identify ten women in total. Eleven of the locks are also dated, recording the day, month and year that they were received by Tennent. The collection was assembled between 1818 and 1827, when Tennent was between 15 and 24 years of age.
Tennent’s archiving efforts betray his philandering lifestyle when a younger, unmarried man. There is a considerable overlap in the dates that the different locks of hair were collected. In fact, at least two locks of hair were received into his collection at the same time that Tennent was courting his future wife, Eliza McCracken. The pair were involved in a rather bumpy courtship from 1826, eventually marrying in 1830.
Whereas item nine in the collection labelled “Hair of Lucretia Belfast” is dated December 13 1826, item 15, belonging to Ellen Lepper, is dated June 26 1827. A lock of McCracken’s hair is also included in Tennent’s collection; a partly unrolled plait of brown hair bears the label: “Eliza, Where is the Bosom friend dearer than all.”
That Tennent returned to these tokens to revisit his bachelorhood is suggested by the physical state of some of the items too. A lock of hair attributed to Miss Catharine Louise Lawless (dated November 10/11 1820), may have once been tied into a neat little plait. It is likely that the plait has come undone overtime due to excessive touch.
So, if you find yourself stumped, browsing the shelves this Valentine’s Day for the perfect gift for your other half, perhaps the answer lies atop of your head. Hairy tokens might not suit everyone’s taste today, but they remind us that love and how we express it has always been intensely personal.
From locks of hair twisted into plaits and encased in jewellery to chocolate hearts and handwritten love notes, the tokens we give carry meaning and memory. Love and affection, then as now, is an expression of our intimate sides and can occasionally be a little hairy.
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Leanne Calvert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lauren Hall, Associate professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of Technology
Local officials get to participate in events such as ribbon cuttings, celebrating projects they may have helped make happen.NHLI/Eliot J. Schechter via Getty Images
But things are much less heated at the local level. A survey of more than 1,400 local officials by the Carnegie Corporation and CivicPulse found that local governments are “largely insulated from the harshest effects of polarization.” Communities with fewer than 50,000 residents proved especially resilient to partisan dysfunction.
Why this difference? As a political scientist, I believe that lessons from the local level not only open a window onto how polarization works but also the dynamics and tools that can help reduce it.
Problems are more concrete
Local governments deal with concrete issues – sometimes literally, when it comes to paving roads and fixing potholes. In general, cities and counties handle day-to-day functions, such as garbage pickup, running schools and enforcing zoning rules. Addressing tangible needs keeps local leaders’ attention fixed on specific problems that call out for specific solutions, not lengthy ideological debates.
By contrast, a lot of national political conflict in the U.S. involves symbolic issues, such as debates about identity and values on topics such as race, abortion and transgender rights. These battles are often divisive, even more so than purely ideological disagreements, because they can activate tribal differences and prove more resistant to compromise.
When mayors come together, they often find they face common problems in their cities. Gathered here, from left, are Jerry Dyer of Fresno, Calif., John Ewing Jr. of Omaha, Neb., and David Holt of Oklahoma City. AP Photo/Kevin Wolf
Such arguments at the national level, or on social media, can lead to wildly inaccurate stereotypes about people with opposing views. Today’s partisans often perceive their opponents as far more extreme than they actually are, or they may stereotype them – imagining that all Republicans are wealthy, evangelical culture warriors, for instance, or conversely being convinced that all Democrats are radical urban activists. In terms of ideology, the median members of both parties, in fact, look similar.
These kinds of misperceptions can fuel hostility.
Local officials, however, live among the human beings they represent, whose complexity defies caricature. Living and interacting in the same communities leads to greater recognition of shared interests and values, according to the Carnegie/CivicPulse survey.
Meaningful interaction with others, including partisans of the opposing party, reduces prejudice about them. Local government provides a natural space where identities overlap.
People are complicated
In national U.S. politics today, large groups of individuals are divided not only by party but a variety of other factors, including race, religion, geography and social networks. When these differences align with ideology, political disagreement can feel like an existential threat.
Such differences are not always as pronounced at the local level. A neighbor who disagrees about property taxes could be the coach of your child’s soccer team. Your fellow school board member might share your concerns about curriculum but vote differently in presidential elections.
Mayors can find themselves caught up in national debates, as did Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies in his city. AP Photo/Kevin Wolf
These cross-cutting connections remind us that political opponents are not a monolithic enemy but complex individuals. When people discover they have commonalities outside of politics with others holding opposing views, polarization can decrease significantly.
Finally, most local elections are technically nonpartisan. Keeping party labels off ballots allows voters to judge candidates as individuals and not merely as Republicans or Democrats.
Nevertheless, the relative partisan calm of local governance suggests that polarization is not inevitable. It emerges from specific conditions that can be altered.
Polarization might be reduced by creating more opportunities for cross-partisan collaboration around concrete problems. Philanthropists and even states might invest in local journalism that covers pragmatic governance rather than partisan conflict. More cities and counties could adopt changes in election law that would de-emphasize party labels where they add little information for voters.
Aside from structural changes, individual Americans can strive to recognize that their neighbors are not the cardboard cutouts they might imagine when thinking about “the other side.” Instead, Americans can recognize that even political opponents are navigating similar landscapes of community, personal challenges and time constraints, with often similar desires to see their roads paved and their children well educated.
The conditions shaping our interactions matter enormously. If conditions change, perhaps less partisan rancor will be the result.
Lauren Hall is a Distinguished Fellow for the Study of Liberalism and a Free Society with the Institute for Humane Studies. She was previously a Pluralism Fellow with the Mercatus Center.
A young George Washington was thrust into the dense, contested wilderness of the Ohio River Valley as a land surveyor for real estate development companies in Virginia.Henry Hintermeister/Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
This Presidents Day, I’ve been thinking about George Washington − not at his finest hour, but possibly at his worst.
In 1754, a 22-year-old Washington marched into the wilderness surrounding Pittsburgh with more ambition than sense. He volunteered to travel to the Ohio Valley on a mission to deliver a letter from Robert Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, to the commander of French troops in the Ohio territory. This military mission sparked an international war, cost him his first command and taught him lessons that would shape the American Revolution.
As a professor of early American history who has written two books on the American Revolution, I’ve learned that Washington’s time spent in the Fort Duquesne area taught him valuable lessons about frontier warfare, international diplomacy and personal resilience.
The mission to expel the French
In 1753, Dinwiddie decided to expel French fur trappers and military forces from the strategic confluence of three mighty waterways that crisscrossed the interior of the continent: the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers. This confluence is where downtown Pittsburgh now stands, but at the time it was wilderness.
King George II authorized Dinwiddie to use force, if necessary, to secure lands that Virginia was claiming as its own.
As a major in the Virginia provincial militia, Washington wanted the assignment to deliver Dinwiddie’s demand that the French retreat. He believe the assignment would secure him a British army commission.
Washington received his marching orders on Oct. 31, 1753. He traveled to Fort Le Boeuf in northwestern Pennsylvania and returned a month later with a polite but firm “no” from the French.
Dinwiddie promoted Washington from major to lieutenant colonel and ordered him to return to the Ohio River Valley in April 1754 with 160 men. Washington quickly learned that French forces of about 500 men had already constructed the formidable Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio. It was at this point that he faced his first major test as a military leader. Instead of falling back to gather more substantial reinforcements, he pushed forward. This decision reflected an aggressive, perhaps naive, brand of leadership characterized by a desire for action over caution.
Washington’s initial confidence was high. He famously wrote to his brother that there was “something charming” in the sound of whistling bullets.
The Jumonville affair and an international crisis
Perhaps the most controversial moment of Washington’s early leadership occurred on May 28, 1754, about 40 miles south of Fort Duquesne. Guided by the Seneca leader Tanacharison – known as the “Half King” – and 12 Seneca warriors, Washington and his detachment of 40 militiamen ambushed a party of 35 French Canadian militiamen led by Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. The Jumonville affair lasted only 15 minutes, but its repercussions were global.
Ten of the French, including Jumonville, were killed. Washington’s inability to control his Native American allies – the Seneca warriors executed Jumonville – exposed a critical gap in his early leadership. He lacked the ability to manage the volatile intercultural alliances necessary for frontier warfare.
Washington also allowed one enemy soldier to escape to warn Fort Duquesne. This skirmish effectively ignited the French and Indian War, and Washington found himself at the center of a burgeoning international crisis.
Defeat at Fort Necessity
Washington then made the fateful decision to dig in and call for reinforcements instead of retreating in the face of inevitable French retaliation. Reinforcements arrived: 200 Virginia militiamen and 100 British regulars. They brought news from Dinwiddie: congratulations on Washington’s victory and his promotion to colonel.
His inexperience showed in his design of Fort Necessity. He positioned the small, circular palisade in a meadow depression, where surrounding wooded high ground allowed enemy marksmen to fire down with impunity. Worse still, Tanacharison, disillusioned with Washington’s leadership and the British failure to follow through with promised support, had already departed with his warriors weeks earlier. When the French and their Native American allies finally attacked on July 3, heavy rains flooded the shallow trenches, soaking gunpowder and leaving Washington’s men vulnerable inside their poorly designed fortification.
The battle of Fort Necessity was a grueling, daylong engagement in the mud and rain. Approximately 700 French and Native American allies surrounded the combined force of 460 Virginian militiamen and British regulars. Despite being outnumbered and outmaneuvered, Washington maintained order among his demoralized troops. When French commander Louis Coulon de Villiers – Jumonville’s brother – offered a truce, Washington faced the most humbling moment of his young life: the necessity of surrender. His decision to capitulate was a pragmatic act of leadership that prioritized the survival of his men over personal honor.
The surrender also included a stinging lesson in the nuances of diplomacy. Because Washington could not read French, he signed a document that used the word “l’assassinat,” which translates to “assassination,” to describe Jumonville’s death. This inadvertent admission that he had ordered the assassination of a French diplomat became propaganda for the French, teaching Washington the vital importance of optics in international relations.
The 1754 campaign ended in a full retreat to Virginia, and Washington resigned his commission shortly thereafter. Yet, this period was essential in transforming Washington from a man seeking personal glory into one who understood the weight of responsibility.
He learned that leadership required more than courage – it demanded understanding of terrain, cultural awareness of allies and enemies, and political acumen. The strategic importance of the Ohio River Valley, a gateway to the continental interior and vast fur-trading networks, made these lessons all the more significant.
Ultimately, the hard lessons Washington learned at the threshold of Fort Duquesne in 1754 provided the foundational experience for his later role as commander in chief of the Continental Army. The decisions he made in Pennsylvania and the Ohio wilderness, including the impulsive attack, the poor choice of defensive ground and the diplomatic oversight, were the very errors he would spend the rest of his military career correcting.
Though he did not capture Fort Duquesne in 1754, the young George Washington left the woods of Pennsylvania with a far more valuable prize: the tempered, resilient spirit of a leader who had learned from his mistakes.
Christopher Magra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
It’s February, and you grab a box of cheap Valentine’s chocolate from the grocery store on your lunch break. Later, you’re eating it at your office desk when you realize someone else is watching. Suddenly, you feel a flicker of embarrassment. You hide the box away, make a joke or quietly wish they hadn’t noticed – not because the chocolate tastes bad, but because you don’t want to be judged for choosing it.
We aresocial marketing researcherswho study stigma in marketing. In our research, we coined the term “consumption stigma” to describe how people can be judged or looked down on by others, or by themselves, simply for using certain products – even when there’s nothing objectively wrong with them.
Living with consumption stigma
When people feel judged for what they consume, or choose not to consume, the effects can be mentally exhausting. Feeling stigmatized can quietly erode self-esteem, increase anxiety and change how people behave in everyday settings. What starts as a small moment of embarrassment can grow into a persistent concern about being seen the “wrong” way.
The research we reviewed found that to avoid stigma, people may deliberately consume more expensive or socially approved alternatives, even when those choices strain their finances. Imagine someone who switches to a premium chocolate brand at the office, not because she prefers the taste, but because she wants to avoid feeling embarrassed.
Over time, this kind of adjustment could pull people into spending patterns that are beyond their means, feeding a cycle of consumption driven more by social pressure than genuine need or enjoyment. We suggest that the ramifications can be even more stark in other contexts – for example, when a child skips a free school lunch to avoid being teased, or when a veteran turns down mental health support because they fear being judged by others.
From a business perspective, when consumers avoid or abandon products to escape stigma, companies may see declining demand that has little to do with quality or value. We suggest that if consumption stigma spreads at scale, the cumulative effect can translate into lost revenue and weakened brand value.
Understanding consumption stigma, then, isn’t just about consumer well-being; it’s also critical for businesses trying to understand why people buy, hide or walk away from certain products.
Stigma often feels powerful because it masquerades as reality. But at its core, consumption stigma is a social judgment, a shared story people tell about what certain choices supposedly say about someone. When that story goes unchallenged, stigma sticks. When it’s questioned, its power starts to fade.
One way people reduce stigma is by reclaiming the narrative around their consumption. Instead of hiding, explaining or compensating, they openly own their choices. This shift from avoidance to acceptance can strip stigma of its force.
Imagine a shopper who embraces buying cheaper store brands at the grocery store, seeing it not as a compromise but as a sign of being savvy to pay less for the same thing. When people wear their choices like armor, whether it’s cheap chocolate, secondhand clothing or specialized physical or mental health services, those choices lose their sting. When a behavior is no longer treated as something shameful, it becomes harder for others to use it as a basis for judging or looking down on people.
Of course, stigma doesn’t disappear overnight. But research shows that when enough people stop treating a behavior as something to hide, the social meaning around it begins to change. What feels embarrassing in one moment can become normalized in the next. For example, research on fashion consumption has shown how wearing a veil, once widely stigmatized in urban and secular settings, gradually became seen as ordinary and even fashionable as more women openly adopted it.
Enjoying cheap chocolate shouldn’t require justification. Cold water tastes just as good out of an unbranded travel mug as it does from a Stanley tumbler. A generic sweatshirt keeps you just as cozy as Aritzia. And yet, many people feel the need to explain, deflect or upgrade their choices to avoid being judged. Understanding consumption stigma helps explain why and underscores that these feelings aren’t personal failures, but social constructions.
Sometimes, the most effective response isn’t to consume differently, but to think differently. When people stop treating everyday choices as moral signals, they make room for a more humane – and hopefully honest – marketplace.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A large group of protesters, including clergy, gathered outside St. Paul International Airport in St. Paul, Minn., on Jan. 23, 2026, to demonstrate against the immigration crackdown.Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Image
As Christian clergy across the United States participate in ongoing protests against harsh immigration enforcement actions and further funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, many are still pondering the words of Rob Hirschfeld. On Jan. 18, 2026, Hirschfeld, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, encouraged clergy in his diocese to “prepare for a new era of martyrdom” and put their wills and affairs in order.
He asserted that “it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”
Hirschfeld’s words attracted a lot of attention, with clergy generally responding positively, though at least one priest argued that he “did not sign up to be a martyr” and had a family and church relying on him.
Other clergy have willingly facedarrest for their advocacy on behalf of immigrants, seeing it as a moral calling. Rev. Karen Larson was arrested while protesting at the Minneapolis airport. She stated that when people are being separated from their families and taken to unknown detention centers, “this is our call” to protest on their behalf.
As a scholar of religious ethics, I am interested in how Christian clergy and thinkers consider personal risk when they feel called to engage in social action.
Most data on the risks that clergy face in their roles as religious leaders comes from studies of religious leaders in institutional settings, such as hospitals or prisons.
Questions about professional risks became particularly acute during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis, when researchers were uncertain exactly how the disease was spread and caregivers feared they might acquire HIV through their bedside work.
In her memoir about chaplaincy with HIV patients, Audrey Elisa Kerr notes that Riverside Church in New York continued to organize funerals, ministries and support groups for HIV/AIDS patients despite “terror” in the wider community about contagion.
As a chaplain herself, Kerr says this story of “radical hospitality” inspired her to set aside her own fears and embrace her professional role caring for people who were ill and dying.
Priests and nuns of the Catholic Church who cared for HIV/AIDS patients in the 1980s risked both the fear of contagion and the disapproval of their bishops and communities, since many of the people they cared for were men who had sex with men.
Some felt, however, that they must care for those at the margins as part of their role in the church or their monastic order. Sister Carol of the Hospital Sisters of Saint Francis felt that it was simply her moral duty as a sister to “go where she was needed,” despite potential risk.
Examination of the ethical obligations of chaplains and clergy ramped up during the COVID-19 pandemic when at least some priest, pastors and hospital chaplains felt an obligation to continue visiting patients for spiritual care.
Risks in other institutional settings are not such a matter of life and death. Because of their professional preaching function, however, clergy in church settings do accept the risk of alienating church members when they feel religiously called to speak about social issues. Rev. Teri McDowell Ott has written about taking risks when discussing LGBTQ+ inclusion and starting a prison ministry.
Risk-taking during social protest
For many clergy, religious and ethical obligations extend beyond their work in institutions like churches and hospitals and include their witness in public life.
Many feel an obligation to preach on issues of moral importance, even topics that are considered controversial and might elicit strong disagreement. It is common for priests and pastors in conservative churches to include messages against legalized abortion in their sermons.
Tom Ascol of the Center for Baptist Leadership urged Baptist pastors to preach about abortion in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.
Rev. Leah Schade, a Lutheran minister and scholar, has argued that since 2017, mainline pastors have preached more often on issues like racism, environmental justice or gun violence. Schade says pastors are inspired to speak more bluntly about social issues because of their religious concern for people who are at risk of harm from injustice or government policies.
Some clergy view their moral obligations as going beyond preaching and leading them to on-the-ground advocacy and protest. Rev. Brandy Daniels of the Disciples of Christ denomination examines these obligations in an article on her participation in a group of interfaith clergy in Portland, Oregon. The group was convened by a local rabbi and supported protesters for racial justice in Portland in 2017. In Daniels’ analysis, clergy took on the risk of staying in the middle of protests and facing a violent police response in order to “bear moral witness,” something they were both empowered and obligated to do as religious leaders.
Risking their lives
There are more extreme cases in which clergy who challenged government leaders or policies were killed for their words and actions of protest.
The official portrait of Archbishop Oscar Romero, displayed in the Metropolitan Cathedral for a memorial service in San Salvador, El Salvador, on March 24, 2018. AP Photo/Salvador Melendez
In a well-known historical example, Bishop Oscar Romero, canonized as a martyred saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 2018, was assassinated in 1980 after speaking out against human rights violations against poor and Indigenous communities committed by the government of El Salvador. Romero viewed himself, in his priestly role, as a representative of God who was obliged to “give voice to the voiceless.”
During recent protests against ICE in Minneapolis and elsewhere, many clergy risked arrest and bodily harm. Rev. Kenny Callaghan, a Metropolitan Community Church pastor, who says that ICE agents in Minneapolis pointed a gun in his face and handcuffed him as he tried to help a woman they were questioning, said, “It’s in my DNA; I have to speak up for marginalized people.”
On Jan. 23, 2026, over 100 clergy were arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport as they protested and prayed against ICE actions. Rev. Mariah Furness Tollgaard said that she and others accepted being arrested as a way of demonstrating public support for migrants who are afraid to leave their homes.
In Chicago, ministers have been hit with projectiles and violently arrested. Presbyterian pastor David Black was shot in the head with a pepper spray projectile while protesting outside an immigration detention center in October 2025.
As I see it, for these and many Christian clergy and ethicists, the call to ministry includes an obligation to express their values of care for vulnerable neighbors precisely through a public willingness to accept personal risk.
Laura E. Alexander receives funding from the Mellon Foundation for research on immigration and religion and was previously a fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. She is independently affiliated with the Nebraska Alliance for Thriving Communities.
Source: The Conversation – in French – By Jean-Lou Justine, Professeur, UMR ISYEB (Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité), Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)
Les chiens et les chats domestiques peuvent transporter les vers plats (plathelminthes) collés sur leur pelage. Sans le vouloir, ils contribuent ainsi à la propagation de ces espèces exotiques envahissantes. Notre travail vient d’être publié dans la revue scientifique PeerJ.
Au niveau mondial, les espèces exotiques intrusives représentent un des dangers majeurs pour la biodiversité. Il est frappant de découvrir que les chiens et les chats, nos compagnons du quotidien, participent de manière involontaire à l’envahissement des jardins par une espèce potentiellement dangereuse pour la biodiversité.
Comment avons-nous fait cette découverte ?
Nous menons un projet de sciences participatives sur les invasions de vers plats.
Nous avons été interpellés par des courriels envoyés par des particuliers signalant la présence de vers collés au pelage de chiens et de chats. Nous avons alors réexaminé plus de 6 000 messages reçus en douze ans et avons constaté que ces observations étaient loin d’être anecdotiques : elles représentaient environ 15 % des signalements.
Fait remarquable, parmi la dizaine d’espèces de vers plats exotiques introduits en France, une seule était concernée : Caenoplana variegata, une espèce venue d’Australie dont le régime alimentaire est composé d’arthropodes (cloportes, insectes, araignées).
Caenoplana variegata, le ver plat qui est transporté par les chats et les chiens. par Jean-Lou Justine, CC BY
En quoi cette découverte est-elle importante ?
On sait depuis longtemps que les plathelminthes (vers plats) exotiques sont transportés de leur pays d’origine vers l’Europe par des moyens liés aux activités humaines : conteneurs de plantes acheminés par bateau, camions livrant ensuite les jardineries, puis transport en voiture jusqu’aux jardins.
Ce qu’on ne comprenait pas bien, c’est comment les vers plats, qui se déplacent très lentement, pouvaient ensuite envahir les jardins aux alentours. Le mécanisme mis en évidence est pourtant simple : un chien (ou un chat) se roule dans l’herbe, un ver se colle sur le pelage, et l’animal va le déposer un peu plus loin. Dans certains cas, il le ramène même chez lui, ce qui permet aux propriétaires de le remarquer.
Par ailleurs, il est surprenant de constater qu’une seule espèce est concernée en France, alors qu’elle n’est pas la plus abondante. C’est Obama nungara qui est l’espèce la plus répandue, tant en nombre de communes envahies qu’en nombre de vers dans un jardin, mais aucun signalement de transport par animal n’a été reçu pour cette espèce.
Cette différence s’explique par leur régime alimentaire. Obama nungara se nourrit de vers de terre et d’escargots, tandis que Caenoplana variegata consomme des arthropodes, produisant un mucus très abondant et collant qui piège ses proies. Ce mucus peut adhérer aux poils des animaux (ou à une chaussure ou un pantalon, d’ailleurs). De plus, Caenoplana variegata se reproduit par clonage et n’a donc pas besoin de partenaire sexuel : un seul ver transporté peut infester un jardin entier.
Nous avons alors tenté d’évaluer quelles distances parcourent les 10 millions de chats et les 16 millions de chiens de France chaque année. À partir des informations existantes sur les trajets quotidiens des chats et des chiens, nous avons abouti à une estimation spectaculaire : des milliards de kilomètres au total par an, ce qui représente plusieurs fois la distance de la Terre au Soleil ! Même si une petite fraction des animaux domestiques transporte des vers, cela représente un nombre énorme d’occasions de transporter ces espèces envahissantes.
Un point à clarifier est qu’il ne s’agit pas de parasitisme, mais d’un phénomène qui s’appelle « phorésie ». C’est un mécanisme bien connu dans la nature, en particulier chez des plantes qui ont des graines collantes ou épineuses, qui s’accrochent aux poils des animaux et tombent un peu plus loin. Mais ici, c’est un animal collant qui utilise ce processus pour se propager rapidement.
Quelles sont les suites de ces travaux ?
Nous espérons que cette découverte va stimuler les observations et nous attendons de nouveaux signalements du même genre. D’autre part, nos résultats publiés concernent la France, pour laquelle les sciences participatives ont fourni énormément d’informations, mais quelques observations suggèrent que le même phénomène existe aussi dans d’autres pays, mais avec d’autres espèces de vers plats.
Il est désormais nécessaire d’étendre ces recherches à l’échelle internationale, afin de mieux comprendre l’ampleur de ce mode de dispersion et les espèces concernées.
Tout savoir en trois minutes sur des résultats récents de recherches commentés et contextualisés par les chercheuses et les chercheurs qui les ont menées, c’est le principe de nos « Research Briefs ». Un format à retrouver ici.
Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.
The ranks of The Washington Post’s newsroom have shrunk since this photo was taken in 2016.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The Washington Post’s evisceration at the hands of its billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, didn’t have to happen.
Following months of speculation, the Post cut at least300 of its 800 journalists on Feb. 4, 2026, drastically reducing its international, local and sports coverage and eliminating its photo department and stand-alone book review section. The downsizing followed several decisions by Bezos that drove away hundreds of thousands of subscribers, from killing the Post’s endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just before the 2024 election to announcing that the editorial pages would henceforth be dedicated to “personal liberties and free markets.”
But though those moves inflicted considerable damage, the paper had been floundering ever since Donald Trump’s first presidential term, when Bezos proudly added the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to its nameplate and the paper achieved both growth and profitability.
While its principal rival, The New York Times, successfully pivoted by rolling out ancillary products such as games, a cooking app and a consumer guide, the Post lost momentum – and was then pushed off a cliff as Bezos, in my view, started placing a higher value on peace with Trump than on making sure that democracy didn’t die in darkness.
I’m a journalism professor and the author of three books about the future of news. I tracked Bezos’ stewardship of the Post during better times in my 2018 book, “The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century.” And I’ve been watching in horror over the past several years as he’s dismantled much of what he built.
The Times, as the nation’s leading newspaper, is unique, and the extent to which other publishers can learn from its example is limited. But if Bezos ever decides he wants to take journalism seriously again, then he might take a look at a handful of large regional papers that have charted a route to sustainability against the strong headwinds that continue to buffet the news business.
5 good examples
Perhaps the most important difference between these papers and the Post – and the hundreds of other shrinking media outlets owned by corporate chains and hedge funds – is that they are rooted in the communities they cover. Whether owned by wealthy people or run by nonprofits, they place service to their city and region above extracting the last smidgen of revenue they can squeeze out.
Although I could add a few to this list, I am mentioning five large regional newspapers as examples of how it’s possible to succeed despite the long-term decline in the economics of journalism.
Also known as major metropolitan dailies, these papers are all smaller than they were during the heyday of the 1970s and ’80s. Although the for-profit papers are privately owned and do not publish financial results, I’ve learned through years of reporting that the generous profit margins that once characterized newspapers have all but disappeared. Still, these papers have maintained substantial staffs and are their regions’ leading, though not sole, news providers.
The front page of The Washington Post on Aug. 6, 2013, announced that Jeff Bezos had agreed to buy the newspaper from the Graham family. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Common themes
It’s hard to identify specific reasons why these papers have succeeded, but a few themes emerge.
The Boston Globe and The Minnesota Star Tribune, for instance, have both expanded into other geographic areas. The Globe has moved into Rhode Island and New Hampshire – with more to come in 2026.
Similarly, the Strib, as The Minnesota Star Tribune is known, now covers news across Minnesota, well beyond its base in the Twin Cities.
The Globe has also balanced experimentation with attention to the basics.
Not long after John and Linda Henry bought the Globe in 2013, they started a separate digital publication called Crux, which covered the Catholic Church. It failed to attract advertisers, and the Globe spun it off; Crux continues under different ownership.
As for the basics, the Globe charges a premium for its journalism – as much as $36 a month for a digital-only subscription. And though paid digital circulation has stalled over the past year at about 260,000, that’s considerably more than most papers in its weight class.
The Star Tribune, owned by sports mogul Glen Taylor, unveiled a new, paywall-free breaking-news blog in the midst of the sometimes deadly immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The paper also offers unlimited gift links, so that paid subscribers can share stories with others, as well as a family subscription plan.
And it has a nonprofit fund to which donors can make tax-deductible contributions to support the paper’s journalism.
The Seattle Times recently handed off management of the paper to Ryan Blethen, who represents the fifth generation of his family to serve as publisher. In contrast to formerly family-owned papers such as the Courier Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, and The Des Moines Register, whose large families forced their sale two generations ago, The Seattle Times has actually become more independent: In 2024, the Times bought out Chatham Asset Management, a private equity firm that had controlled 49.5% of the paper.
In addition to the for-profit model, two other ownership structures have shown promise.
In 2016, H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest donated The Philadelphia Inquirer, which he and a partner had bought just two years earlier, to a nonprofit that was renamed the Lenfest Institute following his death in 2018.
The Inquirer itself is a for-profit public benefit corporation, a designation that eases the standard corporate requirement that it maximize earnings, while the nonprofit helps support journalism at the Inquirer and other news organizations.
The paper has thrived under the new arrangement, with the publisher, Elizabeth Hughes, writing recently that the model could be used to revive the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on the opposite end of Pennsylvania.
The Post-Gazette’s owners, citing mounting losses, have announced that the paper will shut down in May.
And though The Salt Lake Tribune is the first – and, still, the only – metro daily to embrace a pure nonprofit model, it stands as an intriguing idea that could be emulated elsewhere.
Billionaire owner Paul Huntsman converted the paper to a nonprofit in 2019 after buying it from Alden three years earlier. Executive editor Lauren Gustus said recently that the Tribune is expanding both the size of its news staff and its coverage area, and it’s dropping its paywall in favor of voluntary payments. That’s similar to how nonprofit public radio and television stations support themselves.
A poster boy for decline
The past two decades have not been kind to the newspaper business. More than 3,500 U.S. papers have closed in that period, according to the most recent State of Local News report from Northwestern University’s Medill School. By destroying The Washington Post, the very institution he had previously done so much to build up, Jeff Bezos has transformed himself into the poster boy for that decline.
Yet here and there, in communities across the country, newspapers are reinventing themselves.
There are no easy fixes. But perseverance, innovation and a relentless focus on serving the public are the keys to success, regardless of ownership structure or geography. Bezos could learn from these models.
Dan Kennedy is the co-leader of the What Works: The Future of Local News project at Northeastern University. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of CommonWealth Beacon, a digital news outlet that covers state politics and public policy in Massachusetts. Kennedy is also on the board of the Local Journalism Project, the nonprofit arm of The Provincetown Independent, which is organized as a for-profit public benefit corporation.
Le ministère de la santé vient de lancer sa feuille de route 2026-2030 pour la prise en charge des personnes en situation d’obésité. Ce cadre stratégique invite à questionner un paradoxe : l’État a déployé dès 2001 un ensemble d’actions autour de l’activité physique et la nutrition en vue de réduire la prévalence de cette maladie, et, pourtant, celle-ci augmente régulièrement depuis une trentaine d’années.
L’obésité est une maladie dont les causes et conséquences sont désormais bien documentées par la littérature médicale comme sociologique. Sa prévalence n’a cessé d’augmenter depuis les années 1990 dans le monde. La France ne fait pas exception. De 8,5 % en 1997, la population adulte en situation d’obésité est passée à 15 % en 2012, puis à 17 % en 2020. Des écarts importants existent entre les personnes suivant leur âge, leur sexe, leur région, leur niveau d’éducation et leur catégorie socioprofessionnelle.
Ces données épidémiologiques et sanitaires ont participé à une prise de conscience (certes, partielle) des pouvoirs publics quant à la nécessité d’agir. Mais les politiques publiques menées contre l’obésité en France sont inefficaces. Comment l’expliquer ? Quelles stratégies sont mises à l’œuvre par les lobbies pour contrer les mesures ? Et comment concilier lutte contre l’obésité et lutte contre la grossophobie ? Faisons le point.
Les années 1990, ou la prise de conscience du lien entre alimentation et santé
La reconnaissance de l’obésité comme une « épidémie » par l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) en 1997 incite les autorités sanitaires nationales à se saisir de cet enjeu.
En France, il faut attendre la fin des années 1990 pour voir le ministère de la santé s’intéresser à la question. Plusieurs dynamiques politiques et sociales se croisent alors. Le débat sur la « malbouffe » s’impose dans l’espace médiatique à cette période, notamment après le démontage d’un restaurant d’une célèbre chaîne de fast-food à Millau en 1999.
Il s’insère dans une séquence plus large de préoccupations sur le lien entre santé et alimentation, amorcée dès le début de la décennie avec les épisodes liés au variant de la maladie de Creutzfeldt-Jakob, surnommé « maladie de la vache folle ».
Un plan national nutrition santé depuis 2001
Pour que les différentes dynamiques se combinent, il faudra néanmoins attendre l’apparition d’une « fenêtre d’opportunité politique » en 2000.
Le gouvernement cherche alors des thèmes à proposer à ses partenaires européens, en vue de sa présidence de l’Union européenne en 2001. Le ministère de la santé suggère celui de la nutrition santé, et en profite pour lancer un plan national, le Plan national nutrition santé (PNNS). Cette mise à l’agenda discrète, à la croisée de préoccupations nutritionnelles, sanitaires et politiques, constitue sans doute la première inscription de l’obésité comme problème de santé publique en France. La version actuelle du PNNS se décline en dix mesures phares présentées sur le site MangerBouger.
Avec notamment des recommandations en direction des professionnels et du grand public, le PNNS a pour objectif d’améliorer l’état de santé de la population en agissant sur la nutrition, qui est l’un de ses déterminants majeurs. Le plan vise à réduire la prévalence de l’obésité chez les adultes – le même objectif de réduction sera intégré à la loi 2004-806 du 9 août 2004 relative à la politique de santé publique, sans que des moyens supplémentaires soient adoptés.
« Problème fluide » par excellence, l’obésité fera l’objet après 2001 de nouvelles inscriptions régulières à l’agenda, sans que cet intérêt entraîne de diminution de la prévalence. Elle fera de nouveau l’objet d’une attention politique et sociale à travers les débats parlementaires sur la loi de santé publique de 2004 et ceux entourant les messages sanitaires dans les publicités alimentaires en 2007.
D’autres mesures seront prises, parmi lesquelles :
le développement d’initiatives locales (villes-santé, santé-environnement, etc.), par exemple ici, dans les Hauts-de-France, et de plans autour de l’activité physique ou encore
Mais le poids des lobbies, et la complexité des actions à mener pour réduire la prévalence de l’obésité en font un problème insoluble – en tout cas sans changements sociaux structurels.
Alors, plus de vingt ans après le lancement du premier PNNS, le constat est sans appel : la prévalence de l’obésité continue de croître. Cet échec relatif s’explique par plusieurs facteurs structurels.
Une approche trop centrée sur la responsabilité individuelle
Tout d’abord, les politiques publiques françaises ont adopté une approche essentiellement comportementale, centrée sur la responsabilité individuelle : mieux manger, bouger davantage, équilibrer son alimentation.
Ce cadrage moral et sanitaire tend à négliger les déterminants sociaux de la santé, alors que les études montrent que l’obésité touche davantage les classes populaires, les femmes et les habitants de certaines régions. En ciblant les comportements sans agir sur les conditions de vie – précarité, urbanisme, accès à des aliments de qualité –, ces politiques ne font qu’effleurer les causes profondes du phénomène.
Ensuite, les politiques de lutte contre l’obésité se caractérisent par une forte dispersion institutionnelle (ministère de la santé, de l’éducation nationale, de la ville…). Les mesures se succèdent sans continuité, souvent diluées dans des programmes plus larges (nutrition, prévention, activité physique). L’obésité n’apparaît que comme un sous-thème, rarement comme une priorité politique autonome. Cette dilution empêche la mise en place d’une stratégie nationale cohérente et dotée de moyens pérennes.
Le poids de l’agro-industrie
Enfin, le poids des industries agroalimentaires constitue un frein structurel à l’effectivité des politiques nutritionnelles. Dotées de ressources économiques, juridiques et communicationnelles considérables, ces industries développent des stratégies d’influence visant à affaiblir, retarder ou contourner les mesures de santé publique adoptées par les pouvoirs publics.
L’un des exemples les plus emblématiques concerne les mobilisations contre le Nutri-Score, portées par des acteurs industriels (secteurs des huiles, des produits laitiers, des produits sucrés) et certains États membres de l’Union européenne, comme l’Italie, qui ont cherché à en contester la scientificité, à en limiter le caractère obligatoire ou à promouvoir des systèmes alternatifs moins contraignants auprès de la Commission européenne. Ces actions s’inscrivent dans une logique classique de lobbying réglementaire, visant à déplacer le débat du terrain de la santé publique vers celui de la liberté économique, du choix du consommateur ou de la protection des « traditions alimentaires ».
Ces logiques se retrouvent également dans les tensions autour de la fiscalité nutritionnelle, en particulier la taxe sur les sodas ou sur la réticence à encadrer strictement la publicité alimentaire, notamment à destination des enfants et des adolescents. Dans ce contexte, les politiques publiques apparaissent souvent prises en étau entre injonctions à la prévention des maladies chroniques et pressions industrielles, ce qui limite la portée transformatrice des réformes engagées.
Ces impasses morales, institutionnelles et économiques contribuent à expliquer la difficulté persistante de la France à enrayer l’augmentation de l’obésité, malgré une mobilisation politique et médiatique récurrente.
Lutter aussi contre la grossophobie
Peut-être pourrions-nous également incriminer les préjugés et stéréotypes à l’égard des personnes grosses. Le relatif désengagement des politiques de santé et l’accent mis sur la responsabilité individuelle ne s’expliquent-ils pas, au moins en partie, par une vision stéréotypée de l’obésité, qui en fait avant tout une affaire de décisions personnelles ?
Dans la lutte contre la grossophobie, les pouvoirs publics demeurent en tous cas frileux, déléguant aux bonnes volontésassociatives ou professionnelles la mise en place d’actions dont on peine à deviner les contours. À cet égard, l’absence du terme de « grossophobie » dans la dernière feuille de route obésité présentée par le gouvernement interroge fortement.
Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.
Source: The Conversation – France in French (3) – By Olivier Fournout, Maître de conférence HDR, département Sciences économiques et sociales, chercheur à l’Institut Interdisciplinaire de l’Innovation (CNRS), Télécom Paris – Institut Mines-Télécom
Qualifier Donald Trump de « fou », comme c’est régulièrement le cas ces derniers temps, tend à détourner l’attention de la cohérence de la politique conduite par l’intéressé depuis son retour à la Maison-Blanche et du fait qu’il constitue moins une anomalie individuelle qu’un produit typique d’un système économique, médiatique et culturel qui valorise la domination, la spectacularisation et la marchandisation du monde. Il convient de se détourner de cette psychologisation à outrance pour mieux se concentrer sur les structures sociales qui ont rendu possible l’accession au pouvoir d’un tel individu.
C’est devenu en quelques jours du mois de janvier 2026 la note la plus tenue de l’espace médiatique : Trump est fou. Une élue démocrate au Congrès des États-Unis tire la sonnette d’alarme sur X, le 19 janvier : le président est « mentalement extrêmement malade », affirme-t-elle. Fox News, média proche de Donald Trump sur le long terme, reprend les propos dès le lendemain sur un ton factuel. Le 22 janvier, lendemain du discours de Trump à Davos, durant lequel il a demandé « un bout de glace » (à savoir le Groenland) « en échange de la paix mondiale », l’Humanité fait le titre de sa une avec un magnifique jeu de mots : Trump « Fou allié ».
Une du 22 janvier 2026. L’Humanité
Le 23 janvier, des messageries relayent ce qui déjà se diffuse largement dans la presse : « Déclaration de représentants démocrates au Congrès US : la santé mentale de Donald Trump est altérée ; c’est pire que Joe Biden, c’est un cas de démence ».
Le 24 janvier, la une de l’hebdomadaire The Economist montre un Donald Trump torse nu à califourchon sur un ours polaire – message de folle divagation en escalade mimétique avec Poutine et ses clichés poitrine à l’air, l’animal du Grand Nord soulignant en l’occurrence les prétentions du locataire de la Maison Blanche sur le Groenland.
Une du 24 janvier 2026. The Economist
Même le premier ministre slovaque Robert Fico, pourtant un allié du milliardaire new-yorkais, l’aurait jugé « complètement dérangé » après l’avoir rencontré le 19 janvier à Mar-a-Lago. Le cas Trump est donc désormais régulièrement examiné à l’aune de la folie par des élus, des journalistes, mais aussi des psychiatres.
Il y a pourtant matière à être dubitatif sur les accusations de folie portées contre Trump. Non seulement elles n’ont guère contribué jusqu’ici à le neutraliser, mais elles ont même fait son succès et empêchent de penser le vrai problème. Les arguments en leur défaveur méritent un tour d’horizon.
Quelle légitimité du discours médicalisant ?
Il peut sembler contestable, même quand on est psychiatre et a fortiori quand on ne l’est pas, de déclarer quelqu’un malade mental sans l’avoir examiné selon des protocoles précis.
Quand le 5 mars 2025 le sénateur français Claude Malhuret, qui est médecin, traite Trump de « Néron » et de « bouffon » à la tribune du palais du Luxembourg – une intervention qui deviendra virale aux États-Unis –, le discours est de belle facture rhétorique, mais il n’est pas médical.
Le sénateur ne se réfère d’ailleurs pas à l’Académie. À ce stade, en l’absence d’examen effectué par des professionnels dont les résultats auraient été rendus publics, qualifier Trump de fou relève plus de la tournure politique que médicale.
Une rhétorique inefficace
Les déclarations sur la folie de Trump se succèdent sur le long cours sans avoir montré la moindre efficacité pour le combattre. Dès la première année de son premier mandat, la rumeur bruisse d’une possible destitution pour raison mentale sur la base d’avis d’experts qui n’ont pourtant pas eu d’entretiens avec le principal intéressé. Aucune procédure de destitution ne sera engagée sur ces bases.
Une nouvelle sortie collective de professionnels sur le déclin cognitif de Trump, lui trouvant un « désordre sévère et incurable de la personnalité », eut lieu en octobre 2024. Ce qui ne l’empêcha pas d’être élu assez aisément le mois suivant face à Kamala Harris. Quant à la défaite de 2020, elle arriva en pleine vague Covid et fut moins la conséquence des assertions selon lesquelles le président sortant était fou que de sa gestion désastreuse de la pandémie : sous-estimation de l’ampleur des contagions et de la mortalité, refus ostensible du port du masque.
Un jour, sans doute, Trump quittera-t-il le pouvoir, mais les effets des jugements de maladie mentale sur sa carrière politique – et en particulier sur sa victoire de 2024, qui se produisit alors que les électeurs avaient toute connaissance de son profil personnel – ont été nuls jusqu’à aujourd’hui.
Des attaques qui font le jeu de Trump
Pis encore : ces attaques ne sont pas seulement inefficaces, elles servent Trump. Le cœur de sa technique – qu’il a explicitée dès les années 1980 dans The Art of the Deal – consiste à semer la controverse pour faire parler de lui et de ses projets. Lui répondre sur ce terrain qui est le sien, en le traitant notamment de psychopathe (ou d’aberrant, de monstrueux, de stupide, ou de lunaire – le dernier vocable à la mode), c’est tomber dans le piège : il se pose ensuite en victime et ramasse les suffrages. Le sujet d’étonnement est que, depuis dix ans, aucune leçon n’ait été tirée de ces échecs à répétition dans la lutte contre Trump.
« Je fulmine et m’extasie comme un dément, et plus je suis fou, plus l’audimat grimpe »,
s’autopitchait Trump pour son émission de téléréalité, The Apprentice (source : Think Big and Kick Ass: In Business and Life, D. Trump et B. Zanker, 2007). Folie ? Non. Mise en scène éprouvée qui attire l’attention à son profit.
Mais le bénéfice s’enclenche aussi pour les commentateurs et les chambres d’écho. Et c’est là que le bât blesse : les « coups de folie » de Trump sont en réalité des diversions où les médias, les oppositions, les politiques et, souvent, les experts s’engouffrent pour le buzz.
Trump est à l’image de la société
Au-delà de la télé, les méthodes de Trump sont typiques de conseils de vie qui circulent largement dans la société, émanant de bien d’autres agents que lui. On pense, par exemple, aux classiques Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive (1988), de Harvey Mackay, ou The Concise 33 Strategies of War (2006), de Robert Greene.
On pense aussi aux métaphores guerrières qui se glissent dans des ouvrages de management plus pondérés ; « les salles de commandement en temps de guerre » décrivent les réunions des équipes « successful », dans X-Teams (2007) ; donner plus de pouvoir au manager est recommandé pour qu’il ne se retrouve pas « face à dix ennemis avec une seule balle dans son fusil », dans Smart simplicity (2014).
Déclarer Trump fou fait oublier à quel point le mode opératoire trumpiste est, pour une part non négligeable, partagé transversalement par la société. Ainsi, Trump privilégie-t-il les rapports de force. Il a toujours été sans équivoque sur ce point qui lui apporta la réussite dans le business, la télévision, le marché du leadership, et maintenant en politique. Mais cela ne se réalise pas contre la société américaine, comme par accident, mais en miroir d’un vaste spectre de celle-ci.
La négociation le revolver sur la tempe alimente quantité de traités de développement personnel, de management et de communication au travail. Elle est la matrice scénaristique assurant la popularité des films hollywoodiens (non seulement les westerns mais aussi les « propositions qui ne se refusent pas » du film le Parrain). Rien, là, de fou ou d’aberrant. Juste un éthos dominant qui a sa rationalité et qui n’a jamais été soft.
Aussi, aucune surprise si la rencontre d’un pouvoir fort est seule susceptible de faire fléchir Trump. Là encore, il est explicite sur ce point depuis longtemps. Lorsqu’il fut proche de la faillite dans les années 1990, il courbe l’échine devant les banquiers : « Quand vous devez de l’argent à des gens, vous allez les voir dans leur bureau […] Je voulais faire n’importe quoi sauf aller à des dîners avec des banquiers, mais je suis allé dîner avec des banquiers » (in Think big, 2007). Rationalité strictement instrumentale, certes, mais rationalité. L’article de fond « Ice and heat » récemment publié par The Economist sur l’affaire du Groenland relève que la menace européenne de déclencher l’instrument anti-coercition a joué, pour l’instant, dans le recul de Trump.
Révéler la structure pour mieux la combattre
Pour contrer l’Amérique de Trump, il conviendrait d’abord plutôt de se pencher sur la rationalité de ses lignes directrices. Son action, aussi bien en diplomatie qu’en politique intérieure, aussi bien en politique économique qu’en gestion des ressources naturelles, découle d’une stratégie claire et constante, pensée et volontariste. C’est sur ce terrain qu’il faut se battre pour défaire Trump, et non par des coups d’épée dans l’eau qui donnent bonne conscience à bon compte, sont repris en boucle, mais n’apportent rien de consistant face au fulminant showman.
Olivier Fournout a notamment publié : « La trumpisation du monde. Pourquoi le monde adore Trump, y compris ceux qui le détestent. » Éditions Le Bord de l’Eau, 2020
Du discours de Trump à Davos, le 21 janvier 2026, ressortent plusieurs traits qui n’ont rien de mentalement dérangé. D’une part, il apporte un momentum aux extrêmes droites européennes déjà au pouvoir ou aux portes de celui-ci. D’autre part, une Europe qui se réarme et qui reste toujours globalement « alliée » des États-Unis débouche sur une situation stratégique plus favorable du point de vue américain : tel est le résultat, objectif, de la séquence historique actuelle.
Enfin, la demande d’avoir un « titre de propriété » sur le Groenland réussit à installer, même si elle n’aboutit pas, l’horizon indépassable du monde selon Trump : « La terre, comme les esclaves d’Ulysse, reste une propriété », comme l’écrivait Aldo Leopold, pionnier de la protection de la nature aux États-Unis, dans Almanach d’un comté des sables, publié en 1948 (traduction française de 2022 aux éditions Gallmeister). Trump est dans son élément, en parfaite maîtrise du vocabulaire pour fragiliser la transition ou bifurcation écologique. Comme l’exprime Estelle Ferrarese dans sa critique de la consommation éthique, « dans aucun cas la finalité n’est de mettre certaines choses (comme la terre) hors marché ».
Question ouverte pour l’Histoire
En insistant sur la supposée folie de Trump, les commentaires se rabattent sur un prisme psychologisant individuel. Peut-être Trump est-il fou. La sénilité peut le guetter – il en a l’âge. Des centaines de pathologies psychiatriques sont au menu des possibles qui peuvent se combiner.
Mais l’analyse et l’inquiétude ont à se pencher, en parallèle, sur le symptôme structurel de notre temps, sur ce système qui, depuis cinquante ans, propulse Trump au zénith des affaires, des médias, des ventes de conseils pour réussir, et deux fois au sommet du pouvoir exécutif de la première puissance mondiale.
La prise de distance avec l’accusation de folie portée contre Trump ouvre un chantier de réflexion où le problème n’est plus la folie personnelle du leader élu, mais une stratégie dont Trump est, en quelque sorte, un avatar extrême mais emblématique. Le regard se détache de l’événementiel chaotique – trumpiste ou non trumpiste – pour retrouver le fil d’une analyse structurelle. Sans conteste, Trump fragilise l’ONU et l’OMS, mais à l’aune de l’histoire longue, il ressort qu’une « impuissance structurelle » persévère, selon laquelle « dans le cas des États-Unis, c’est un grand classique que de bouder (au mieux) et de torpiller (autant que possible) toutes les démarches multilatérales dont ils n’ont pas pris l’initiative ou qu’ils ne sont pas (ou plus) capables de contrôler » (Alain Bihr, l’Écocide capitaliste, tome 1, 2026, p. 249).
Les psychés peuvent être « débridées », mais ce sont les « structures sociales » qui « sélectionnent les structures psychiques qui leur sont adéquates ». Trump n’est plus alors une anomalie foutraque, sénile, troublée, en rupture avec ce qui a précédé et à côté des structures sociales, mais la poursuite d’une marchandisation du monde à haut risque, dont le diagnostic est à mettre en haut des médiascans, pour discussion publique.
Olivier Fournout ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
