Judging the judges. Over the past few years, Americans appear to have lost faith in their judicial system, quickly and dramatically. Now, only about 35 percent say they have confidence in U.S. courts, according to a Gallop poll published on December 17. It’s a steep decline from 59 percent just four years ago.

Gallup surveys public opinion on legal systems in 160 countries, and only nine times since 2006 have they recorded a drop over four years greater than what they’re seeing in the U.S. now. Those nine instances were typically in countries experiencing civil war (Syria), a military takeover (Burma), or profound economic and political crisis (Venezuela).

The United States lags 20 points behind the median level of confidence in the wealthy countries of the OECD. Global data from 2023 show the U.S. in 92nd place in a ranking of countries by public confidence in their judiciaries—putting it behind Russia, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Hungary. Why is this happening?

The Gallup poll suggests the court cases against President-elect Donald Trump are likely factors in the decline of confidence. Many, particularly among Republicans, believe the prosecutions against Trump have been politically motivated; many others, particularly among Democrats, are upset that the Supreme Court granted Trump immunity from some of the felony charges against him—or have viewed the Court for years as being essentially in the Republican camp.

In July, Christopher W. Schmidt looked at accusations in the U.S.—on both the right and the left—that the judicial system has been politically captured. Schmidt says the idea is an old one in America—including as a way to mobilize partisans to vote. What’s new is that the U.S. political center—and the institutions traditionally aligned with it, like the mainstream media or the legal profession—are now rallying less and less to show public support for the judicial system and stepping back more and more to challenge it.

—Michael Bluhm

The pond gets wider. The U.S. and Europe are drifting apart, economically. The American economy grows and grows, worker productivity rises reliably each year, and the world’s top tech companies are headquartered in California.

Europe can’t compete. In 1995, worker productivity was about the same in the two regions, but now European productivity lags 20 percent behind U.S. numbers. The gap between U.S. and European GDP has meanwhile doubled over the past 20 years. U.S. start-ups have taken on about five times more in venture capital than European start-ups have over the past decade. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better in 2025.

In October, the International Monetary Fund adjusted its forecast for U.S. GDP growth next year up to 2.2 percent—and for the eurozone, down to 0.8 percent. What’s happened to Europe?

Today, Martin Wolf looks at what’s expanding the gap between America’s and Europe’s economic fortunes—and what it means for European life, among poorer people especially.

—Michael Bluhm

111 MHz: ‘Personare.’ The Austrian guitarist and composer Christian Fennesz is back with his first new record in five years. Curiously, the press materials suggest this song was inspired by 1980s pop from West Africa. Which is either strangely elusive or intentionally funny. Cinematic, blissed-out, and warm, yes—but hardly Ghanaian highlife.

—Brendan Hasenstab

5 W Main: Bandits. While there are roughly 1,000 shootings a year in New York City, there’s been unusual intrigue in the recent murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan. The 26-year-old suspect now in custody, Luigi Mangione, appears to have planned the crime extensively—the evidence including the words “deny,” “delay,” “depose” etched on the shell casings, in an apparent reference to a 2010 book on the American health-insurance industry, Delay, Deny, Defend.

Remarkably, a significant number of Americans have either celebrated the crime or said that, even if they couldn’t condone murder, they could nevertheless understand why it happened here. When UnitedHealthcare expressed the company’s sorrow about Thompson’s death, the post received more than 80,000 laughing-emoji reactions. Some gave Mangione the nickname “the adjustor,” in reference to insurance adjustors who evaluate claims. And Delay, Deny, Defend sold out in bookstores within hours of news about the shell casings. As the title of an article in one local newspaper put it, “Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows C.E.O.’s Killing.” What is all this?

While edgy, hostile, or even outright terrible behavior may now be common on the internet, the killing does seem to have tapped into an unusual reservoir of frustration in U.S. society—at a time when about half of Americans say they have trouble meeting health-care costs. Polling indicates that most Americans consider the killing unjustified, yet more young people have a favorable view of Mangione than of UnitedHealthcare or the U.S. health insurance industry as a whole.

But the killing may also tap into a cultural trope with a very long history: the romanticization of the “social bandit,” the outlaw who—as the late British historian Eric Hobsbawm explores in his 1969 classic, Bandits—many admire for fighting what they see as injustice. Sometimes, the figure is a “noble robber,” like England’s Medieval Robin Hood; sometimes, a terror-bringing avenger, like Mexico’s nineteenth-century Joaquin Murrieta. “Such is the need for heroes and champions,” Hobsbawm writes, “that if there are no real ones, unsuitable candidates are pressed into service.”

—Gustav Jönsson

Reputational hazards. Back in 2019, when I lived in Hong Kong, the police began ordering financial institutions to freeze the bank accounts of clients tied to the then-ongoing protest movement. The banks complied, and they've kept complying. Last year, for instance, HSBC closed three bank accounts belonging to the League of Social Democrats, one of Hong Kong’s last remaining pro-democracy groups. The practice, sometimes called “debanking,” is an established part of the autocratic playbook for crushing political dissent.

Recent claims, including from the prominent American venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, imply that something comparable may now be happening in democratic countries, too. Is that true? And if so, how common would it be?

Today, Victoria Barnes explores what's behind the obscure but politically charged practice of debanking.

—Gustav Jönsson

111 MHz: ‘New Sun.’ The experimental arm of Andrew PM Hunt’s music making, Dialect, makes great effect of his intuitive wanderings on the new album Altas of Green—here, as the weather cools in the Northern Hemisphere, blending piano, guitar, woodwinds, and electronics in a track with the warmth of high-summer sunlight.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Many warships, few words. On December 9, China began its largest naval exercises in almost 30 years, deploying about 90 vessels and some 50 warplanes in the South China Sea—from near Japan’s southern islands to the Taiwan Strait. Oddly, Beijing didn’t announce the maneuvers—and has refused to say anything about them.

On December 10, Taiwanese defense officials called a news conference to present evidence about the drills. They say they think China wants to show it has the strength both to conquer the island and to prevent the U.S. and its allies from coming to Taiwan’s defense.

Media reports also suggested that China would launch some sort of operation to show its displeasure that Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te visited Hawaii, along with the U.S. territory of Guam, in early December while on an official visit to other partners in the Asia-Pacific.

What’s Beijing up to?

In October, Issac Kardon looked at its strategy in the South China Sea, with China having stepped up its military presence—and its harassment of neighboring countries—in recent years. These exercises, Kardon says, have multiple goals: One is to prepare the battlefield for a potential invasion of Taiwan, which Beijing wants to reunite with the mainland. But a larger goal is to establish China as the dominant maritime power in the whole South China Sea—which has menacing implications toward the U.S. presence there.

—Michael Bluhm

‘It’s a series of unfortunate events.’ Two years ago, all Western countries were hit hard by inflation—topping 10 percent in much of Europe and 9 percent in the U.S. Stories about inflation dominated most news coverage of the American economy. They’ve since been replaced by a narrative emphasizing how U.S. inflation has fallen back below 3 percent, GDP has grown more than in other advanced economies, and the country has added new jobs for a record 46 months in a row.

Meanwhile, though, prices in America never settled back down. Today, food is on average 28 percent more expensive than it was five years ago, while homes are on average 47 percent more expensive than they were four years ago. How’d this happen?

Today, Peter Ganong looks at what’s driving up long-term costs in the U.S.—and how they’re complicating opportunities for so many Americans to better their lives.

—Michael Bluhm