Bari’s Picks of the Week: Heroes, Radicals, and Gen Z’s Hottest Show

It’s been seven days since President Trump signed his massive, sweeping, and extremely expensive “Big Beautiful Bill,” which our Tyler Cowen called “one of the most radical experiments in fiscal policy in my lifetime.”

Tyler was one of many contributors to our symposium on the BBB, featuring analysis and critiques from across the political spectrum. In case you missed it:

But perhaps the BBB already feels like a vague and distant memory. There’s been an astounding amount of news over the past seven days—and no story more tragic than a horrifying natural disaster in Texas.

A preventable tragedy?

More than 120 people are now known to have died in the massive flooding along the Guadalupe River in Texas Hill Country. It’s a heartbreaking tragedy, which of course hasn’t prevented politicians from trying to capitalize on it. This one blames DOGE, this one blames Joe Biden—you get the picture.

But as Roger Pielke Jr. argued this week, the whole tragedy was both predictable and preventable. For one thing, it occurred in an area of Texas dubbed “Flash Flood Alley.” And the Guadalupe River has done this kind of thing before. Yet there were no apparent warning systems in place. Pielke makes a strong case for why public officials should have been more prepared and must now make sure that this never happens again.

As Congressman Dan Crenshaw wrote in our pages, the nightmare flood brought out the best in Texans. One example: Emma Foltz. A rising senior at Louisiana Tech who was working as a counselor at Camp Mystic, the famed Christian summer camp for girls that was devastated by the flood, Foltz protected the lives of more than a dozen campers when she guided them to higher ground.

She is one of many Texans who risked—and in some cases lost—their lives trying to save others. Among them was Julian Ryan, who died getting his young family out of harm’s way. And then there’s Coast Guard petty officer Scott Ruskan, who personally rescued 165 people. Read about their stories in Dan’s moving piece.

Is this the end of consulting?

When I was in college, consulting was the hot career. It seemed like everyone dreamed of a career at McKinsey or Bain or Deloitte. These firms—and the people who worked there—made big money, even if what they did all day was never clear to many of us.

But Joe Nocera says those days are over thanks to two things: the Trump administration’s crackdown on government waste and the rise of AI.

If you want to understand how transformative technology and federal belt tightening is reshaping one of America’s most lucrative industries—and transforming our economy in the process—this is a must-read:

Is Mayor Mamdani inevitable?

The 33-year-old socialist is now the Democratic nominee for mayor, which means he’s very much on track to run America’s greatest city. But he’s also facing some unusual headwinds, as Olivia Reingold reported for us this week, such as endlessly embarrassing social media feeds. Mamdani is the kind of guy who deploys shopworn progressive phrases like “culture is not a costume,” which makes his decision to tweet out videos of South Asian men pretending to be Jews during Hanukkah look a little hypocritical.

Oh, and he also identified as both “Asian” and “Black or African American” when applying to Columbia University, where his father was and is a radical professor. Mamdani is not black. He’s also not apologizing. Read Olivia’s report here.

But most observers believe that for Mamdani to lose, his opponents must coalesce behind one candidate. In an interview with Coleman Hughes this week, Mayor Eric Adams—who was elected as a Democrat in 2021 but is now running as an independent—made the case for why he should be that candidate.

The bigger question in this race is whether Mamdani is a harbinger of things to come nationally, namely a resurgence of socialism, which is proving awfully attractive to folks who were born after the Cold War ended. Tyler Cowen takes a look at socialism’s ongoing appeal—and whether it’s primarily a symptom of America’s increasingly grumpy attitude toward capitalism.

And in other news…

When he was 14 years old, Holden Hughes would smudge a dark-green paste on his skin to treat his acne. Three years later, amid the madness that engulfed the nation in the summer of 2020, a photo of him wearing the paste would surface on social media—and completely upend his life. He was accused of wearing blackface, and within 24 hours he was told he was no longer welcome at his Catholic high school in California. Now 22, Hughes opened up to Frannie Block about his teenage cancellation and the scars left by the experience.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump’s former “first buddy,” announced this week that he’s starting a new political party. Yet despite his near-infinite resources, nobody in Washington seems to be taking it all that seriously. Should they? Matt Continetti takes a look at why the odds are stacked against Elon’s latest political venture.

Medical researcher Shay Laps arrived at Stanford in 2024 hoping to transform how we treat diabetes. He had a sterling résumé and was hired at the recommendation of a Nobel Prize winner. So why was he gone less than a year later? Laps believes it’s because he’s an Israeli who served in the IDF, which he says led to him being ostracized by his colleagues. In a lawsuit against the school, he’s even accusing a coworker of sabotaging his research. Maya Sulkin has the exclusive.

And as we wind down this week’s email, let me admit something to you: I don’t know a whole lot about Love Island, TV’s hottest show. I suspect there’s a demographic explanation for my ignorance—it doesn’t exactly seem designed for busy, middle-aged moms. But Sascha Seinfeld makes a compelling case that the sleazy-seeming reality show is a blessing in disguise for Gen Z, the most lovelorn and sexless generation since . . . I don’t know, the Puritans? And at least the Puritans got married. Gen Z can barely get out of bed. Kids today, am I right? Anyway, it’s an excellent piece about a show my aging brain has trouble comprehending.

That’s it for this week, but we have plenty coming in the next few days, including a great Chris Arnade piece tomorrow on what a perfect city would look like. Check it out. And have a wonderful weekend.