Sep 8, 2025
82

This Week in the New Normal #105

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.

1. “ID Cards will be great if our side does them”

As the resistance to Starmer’s Digital ID plan foments around the country, Conservative agitator Isabel Oakeshott has taken to her column in the Telegraph to…defend them:

ID cards can create a culture of trust, but not under this Government

Digital IDs work; they create high-trust societies where people don’t lock their doors. We all carry cell phones and passports anyway, so why complain?

Maybe it’s sub-optimal, but we have a real problem with illegal immigrants and this will probably help.

You see Digital IDs aren’t inherently a bad; it’s just we can’t trust Labour to use them right.

Transparent stuff.

2. On the nature of rights

A video clip was doing the rounds this week, showing a debate between Tim Kaine and Ted Cruz in the Senate.

This will be the first time OFFG has ever agreed with Ted Cruz.

Rights DO “come from God” – or, “our creator” as described in the US Constitution. This is a philosophical statement, not a religious one. Meaning that rights are innate, they belong to all people inherently and not in the gift any individual or institution.

The reverse position, as Kaine states, that rights originate from laws or the government, inverts the citizen’s relationship with the state. Essentially, it immediately degrades them from “rights” to “privileges”. That idea is very dangerous.

3. At least they’re honest

In his latest attempt to troll the liberal coastal populations of the US, Donald Trump has announced he’s re-branding the “Department of Defence” the “Department of War”.

This undoes the previous change, from “war” to “defence”, following World War II.

The media was quickly flooded with images and videos of signs being changed. Defense Secretary Pete Hesageth is gleefully revelling in being Secretary of War. It’s all very performative.

The name the Department of Defense was always a propagandist lie anyway. An Orwellian mendaconym. A phrase I’m coining right now for a name which intentionally conveys the complete opposite of the truth (patent pending).

It was never about defence, and always about war. But the fact that they’re finally “admitting” that is very interesting.

It’s not all bad…

Good Morning Britain ran a twitter poll to judge support for the planned Digital ID scheme. Here are the results:

I know, I know, you can’t trust polls. But still…I liked seeing it.

Also, here’s a little girl reading to her cat:

I’m a simple man.

*

All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention Texas (temporarily) banning lab-grown meat the or ludicrously theatrical Epstein press conference.

There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.

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