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 Trump Agonistes, Wall Street’s Great Wall, America After George Floyd Good afternoon, and thanks as always for reading the The Daily Courant, our private email highlighting the most noteworthy journalism being published across Puck.
Today, we direct your attention to Tina Nguyen‘s carefully-sourced reporting on the movements of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the former West Wing “interns” whose absence may nevertheless hold the key to the greatest question in politics.
Plus, below the fold, Baratunde Thurston offers five meditations on how to heal America after a summer of unrest. And keep watch for the latest edition of our podcast, The Powers That Be, dropping tomorrow with media and tech industry insights from Dylan Byers, Matt Belloni, Julia Ioffe, and Teddy Schleifer.
The greatest looming question in American politics is, alas, whether Trump will run for president again. And if does, will his closest family members—“the interns,” as they were known in the west wing—ride shotgun once again? Last August, as I traversed the country reporting on the Trump movement in exile, I stopped over in Black Hills, South Dakota, to witness an extraordinary migratory event. Every year, hundreds of thousands of bikers hop on their Harley-Davidsons and drive thousands of miles to the open-sky freeways surrounding Mount Rushmore to attend the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, where they spend two weeks joyriding in shiny chrome flocks, thronging to Kid Rock at Buffalo Chip and knocking back Wild Turkey around campfires at night. While the Rally itself is apolitical, the merchandise is most definitely not: vendors lining the highways hawk every manner of culture-war totems, from “Trump Won” stickers and Thin Blue Line flags to Three Percenter and other right-wing militia gear.
I was reminded of the Sturgis rally this past week as I scanned the headlines for any sign of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the patrician, centi-millionaire couple who were, for a time, arguably the most important members of the unruly administration of Donald Trump. Their soft power in the White House was often exaggerated but nevertheless undeniable. In the early days of 2017, Trump was a magnet for second-stringers, opportunists, and ne’er-do-wells: Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Michael Flynn, Michael Dubke, Sebastian Gorka, K. T. McFarland. But as one after another fled or were fired, Jared and Ivanka were the last ones standing—often performing the Gary Cohn or Mark Milley role as advisers who could hide the nuclear football or monitor his intake of red pills.
And yet, during the supposed interregnum between Trump administrations, as the ex-president’s allies plot his return from his “Winter White House” in Mar-a-Lago, the power unit known as Javanka is noticeably absent. “I haven’t heard Jared’s name in a political context since January,” an influential Trumpworld advisor told me. Ivanka, who briefly flirted with a Senate campaign in Florida, called Marco Rubio sometime after the Capitol insurrection to tell him she wouldn’t be running.
That’s not to say that South Florida has been quiet. On the contrary, one cannot throw a stone in Palm Beach these days without hitting some Republican strategist or Trump ally or aspiring ally. The back patio at Mar-a-Lago hosts a constant stream of conservative media personalities, rich G.O.P. donors, and amatuer election-fraud investigators…
FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT 
It’s an open question whether Peacock, or any streamer but Netflix, can make make an off-network show a hit—but NBC can certainly try harder.
MATTHEW BELLONI 
For some, the 2016 election was the wake up call. For others it was the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. For most, it still hasn’t come.
BARATUNDE THURSTON 
Facebook’s dilemma is that it needs to hook a new generation of kids to survive—and its demographic crisis is getting worse.
ALEX KANTROWITZ 
Serious China watchers fear that businesses have underestimated the gravity of Xi’s “regulatory crackdown”—but privately worry that Washington isn’t responding with nearly enough nuance.
WILLIAM D. COHAN
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