The sanity caucus; AI regurgitates; books as startups: Newsletter 14 January 2026

Newsletter 131. American business is the last bulwark against authoritarianism. Plus, large language models memorize whole books, Matthew McConaughey™, three people to follow, three books to read, and the virtual book coach.

Enough, cried the business interests

The checks and balances in our political system have been effectively neutered. Trump dominates the executive and the Republicans who control Congress live in fear of his wrath. The Supreme Court seems inclined to endorse most of his actions (although a ruling soon on tariffs might draw a line). Blue state governors have been, for the most part, impotent. And now Trump is meddling with mail-in voting rules and musing about cancelling this year’s elections.

If you’re opposed to military action in foreign countries, ICE’s aggressive and deadly force, and a president who says the only thing that can stop him is his own morality, you might think it’s game over for the resistance in America.

But you’re about to be rescued by corporate America.

Do not imagine that business interests give a crap about your politics, your rights, or your suffering. They care about shareholder value. That’s how the game is played.

But for them to make money, there must be a game.

Call it the sanity caucus. Business interests value stability, rules that protect their interests, and a currency that retains its value. And markets. They need people and businesses to be able to buy what they are selling.

Monied interests are going to start pushing back.

Take the Federal Reserve. History shows that when politicians undermine the independence of central banks, the results are disastrous for currencies, including devastating inflation. Trump’s attack on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell including Justice Department subpoenas has roused business interests. The Wall Street Journal’s staunchly conservative editorial page decried it. The most likely result of a Fed cowed into following Trump’s policies is rampant inflation. Economic instability is bad for business.

Whatever you can say about NATO, it has historically been stolid and stable — creating an environment in which western interests can do business. An American regime focused only on the Americas, including a threat to take over Greenland — which is part of Denmark, a NATO country — could end that alliance. Meanwhile, the oil companies that Trump assumed would be delighted to get access to Venezuelan oil are afraid to sign up, because oil refining demands years of stability to build up — and they’ve been burned in Venezuela before.

Seventy percent of America’s gross domestic product comes from consumer spending. A healthy consumer class is essential to business. A consumer class afraid of losing their jobs, ravaged by inflation, with expensive or absent health insurance and living in fear of harassment by a federal police force is not a healthy market. Do not imagine that the Wal-Marts and Amazons actually care about people, but they do care about markets. Meta can’t sell ads, and Apple can’t sell phones, if spending is crippled.

Business wants global trade with tariff policies that don’t shift every other week. It wants dependable infrastructure, both physical and virtual. It wants an educated workforce. It wants basic scientific research it can turn into technical and medical advancements. These desires grow, not out of softhearted love, but out a desire to be able to innovate and compete. Without these elements, investment will shrivel. And corporate patience with the regime will recede.

Remember where the money that elects Congress comes from. Unhappy corporations will stop funding knee-jerk Trump supporters. They place ads in favor of pro-business, pro-stability candidates. They’ll act in support of their access to markets.

There are certainly those companies, like Palantir, that will make lots of money in a Trump-dominated America. But for every one of those there are dozens of ordinary companies worth billions of dollars that just want to keep doing what they’re doing. We’re about to see mainstream business cry “enough.”

American business interests are the ultimate check and balance. They’re going to come off the sidelines. The only question is how and when.

News for writers and others who think

According to an article in The Atlantic, ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini and Grok are able to cough up huge excerpts of published books, indicating that they have “memorized” them. The proprietors of these models deny that they store content, but when a model can generate nearly all of the first Harry Potter book when prompted with the first few words, such denials don’t hold up.

On Jane Friedman’s blog, author Pete Millspaugh suggests treating your book as a startup. I agree. I’m ghostwriting a book on startups right now, and the parallels to book launches and promotion are striking.

To battle AI cloning, Matthew McConaughey trademarked himself (WSJ gift link).

Nothing made me smile more than Jimmy Fallon, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck pronouncing, in rapid succession, the name of every town in Massachusetts. Worcester rhymes with Gloucester, and each is only two syllables.

Three people to follow

Srividya Sridharan , Forrester AI, Data, and Analytics expert

Michelle Rafter , crack business ghostwriter and ASJA luminary

Pascal BORNET , AI and automation deep thinker

Three books to read

Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland by Martha Barnette (Harry N. Abrams, 2025). Musings on language and how it got that way.

How to Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World That Demands Answers by Simone Stolzoff (W.W. Norton, 2026). The value of wrestling with the unknown.

A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan (Penguin, 2026). Varied perspectives on being sentient from the famous writer on food and psychedelics.

Virtual book coach

Need help working on a nonfiction book? Try this.