Whatever happens …

Recently: Why is life so hectic? William E. Scheuerman on how high-speed society makes strongmen appealing—and why they can’t really deliver. (Open-access, in partnership with the Marlborough House Foundation—see our editor’s note here.)

Today: How the fight over American election results came to start before the vote … &c.

For members: The founder of the snack company Kind says the CEO of the media brand Semafor once bragged to him about getting a mint from the Qatari government to train journalists. Semafor covers Qatar almost every day of the week. Huh. … Do teenagers actually do better without social media? Standpoints from Matti Vuorre and Andrew Przybylski, Christopher Ferguson, and Leonardo Bursztyn. … & What does Google see in AI that investors seem not to? Daron Acemoglu on tech firms’ persistence in betting that computers will be able to think like people.

+ New music from Loidis …

No gun, no insignia

On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department said it was sending about 1,000 people to watch the voting in all 50 states, the first time it’s covered every one. Late Monday, a federal judge, Reggie Walton, ordered that none of them carry a gun, wear federal insignia, or make an arrest. Indiana’s election officials say state law keeps the monitors out. Kentucky’s chief election official, Michael Adams, says they’ll “stand outside.” In the past 10 days, the department lost bids to set aside ballots, over claims of voter confusion in Alaska and noncitizen voting in California, the last at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. What are the monitors for?

‘As much noise as possible’

Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the DoJ’s civil-rights division, says election integrity “has been one of the top priorities for this Administration.” David Becker, who spent seven years as a lawyer in that division’s voting section, sees the department trying “to kick up as much noise as possible,” particularly with “very flimsy litigation.” The department, he says, has no “blanket authority to be everywhere,” and observers from both parties already watch the ballots being counted. After the count, he can “almost guarantee” false claims about it from a losing candidate, a losing party, or the president. A week ago, U.S. President Donald Trump said he’d respect the results—“if they’re honest elections.”

Bulwarks

Here in The Signal, in 2022, Lucan Way says that 15 years earlier, “you would have taken it for granted that if elections were close, both parties would accept the results. And that is not the case now.” American democracy, he says, is unstable rather than declining, and three things keep it from falling further: a united second party; a civil society that’s hard to shut down; and the states, since “it is wholly implausible that one political party is going to dominate every state.” When the department sued Kentucky’s Adams, a Republican, for his voters’ records in February, he said he wouldn’t “voluntarily commit a data breach.” … See “Volatile compounds.”

Signed unread

On August 23, 1864, Abraham Lincoln wrote that it seemed “exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected.” It would then be his duty “to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration.” He folded the paper, pasted it shut, and had his cabinet sign the back without reading it. He won on November 8. Two nights later, he read a speech from a White House window: “We can not have free government without elections.” The next day, at a cabinet meeting, he took out the pasted-shut paper, told his secretary, John Hay, to “see if you can get this open without tearing it,” and read it aloud.

Meanwhile

U.S. forces strike Iranian missile crews near the Strait of Hormuz, a day before the vote. … Russian bombs hit a school used to hand out aid in Komyshuvakha, in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, killing at least 26. … Britain’s High Court spares MI5, the domestic intelligence agency, contempt proceedings over false evidence it gave three courts, and leaves any case to the police. … Staff at Czech public television and radio strike for a day against a government plan to fund them from the state budget instead of license fees. … & NASA’s Perseverance rover has driven farther across another world than any vehicle before it: 45.22 kilometers on Mars.

Thoughts? concierge@thesgnl.com.

From the despatch

Off market

The founder of the snack company Kind says the CEO of the media brand Semafor once bragged to him about getting a mint from the Qatari government to train journalists. Semafor covers Qatar almost every day of the week. Huh.

On Wednesday, Daniel Lubetzky, the founder of the snack company Kind, and one of the investors on the American reality series Shark Tank, posted on X that Semafor’s co-founder and chief executive, Justin B. Smith, had once approached him, apparently looking for investment, and bragged about “an enormous amount of money from the government of Qatar” to “train journalists.” Lubetzky says he doesn’t recall the precise amounts, but that it was “directionally” something like US$2 million for a boot camp that would cost Semafor $50,000. He told Smith it sounded like a bribe; Smith, by his account, insisted it wouldn’t compromise him. Semafor’s own announcements list a Qatari state agency among its commercial partners, and Semafor runs journalism workshops in Doha with Qatari state bodies. When the entertainment-industry site TheWrap asked who paid for the workshops, and how much, Semafor didn’t answer.

In The Signal’s print extra Altered States, Ben Freeman says foreign money buying influence in Washington is “extremely and increasingly common—not least, autocratic money,” and that most of it is “perfectly legal.” Nick Cleveland-Stout says Qatar spends big in Washington mainly to ward off its regional rivals, above all Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel (see “‘A huge, flying conflict of interest’”). And in our most recent print extra, Shadow Play, Sarath K. Ganji says, “Once a city or a company or a media outlet depends on Gulf money, they tend to stop criticizing.” Semafor does business with both sides of the Gulf’s biggest rivalry: Badr Jafar, the U.A.E. foreign minister’s special envoy for business and philanthropy, is one of its investors, and its commercial partners include two Abu Dhabi companies and Invest Qatar.

What is Qatar paying Semafor for, then?

‘The great rewiring’

Do teenagers actually do better without social media? Standpoints from Matti Vuorre and Andrew Przybylski, Christopher Ferguson, and Leonardo Bursztyn.

In March 2024, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published The Anxious Generation, which argues that a collapse in teenagers’ mental health began in the early 2010s, when they traded flip phones for smartphones and social media. He wants to trade what he calls a “phone-based childhood” for a “play-based” one: no smartphone until high school, no social media until 16, and children sent back outside on their own. The book became a bestseller, and researchers have argued about it ever since. Australia has kept under-16s off social media since last December. Britain is next. On Thursday, Ofcom, the regulator that will enforce Britain’s ban, set out the ways platforms could prove a user’s age: photo ID, a check with their bank, a digital ID, or a face scan backed up by one of the others. When the ban starts next year, every British child under 16 will have to come off social media all at once.

Is it going to help?

From the files

Money well spent

What does Google see in AI that investors seem not to? Daron Acemoglu on tech firms’ persistence in betting that computers will be able to think like people.

On Thursday, Alphabet, the company that owns Google, had its worst day on the stock market ever, losing nearly 13 percent of its value—about US$500 billion. The night before, it reported that Google’s search sales grew 12 percent last quarter, short of the 15 percent Wall Street expected. Its bill for servers and data centers hit $51.4 billion over the same three months, more cash than it brought in, and it plans to spend about $300 billion next year. “The bears will argue this is the first quarter that AI is starting to seriously hurt their search business,” says Jeffrey Wlodarczak, an analyst with Pivotal Research who follows the company for investors.

So, what’s Google’s plan?

Music

‘Dry Your Eyes’

Brian Leeds, from Emporia, Kansas, has recorded as Huerco S., Pendant, and Royal Crown of Sweden …