A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM\u2019s Morning Memo.<\/p>\n
Greetings!<\/p>\n
Many thanks to the eminently capable Sarah Posner for standing in for me here the past two weeks while I was on vacation in Copenhagen.<\/p>\n
Thanks for the Tips!<\/p>\n
You outdid yourselves with recommendations, tips, and dos\/donts for Copenhagen and the surrounding area. <\/p>\n
Copenhagen\u2019s food scene remains vibrant, and we ate extremely well, but thanks to you, we landed in some gems we otherwise would not have encountered. <\/p>\n
Your tips on what to avoid were handy, too, and let us double down on some points of interest we happened upon along the way, rather than wasting time on more conventional attractions. <\/p>\n
Again, thank you. Your emails were thoughtful, clever, insightful, and proved you to be the well-traveled lot that I imagined you to be. <\/p>\n
I Need to Get Out More<\/p>\n
This was my first trip abroad since the onset of the Trump II presidency, and it was an invigorating antidote to my own provincialism. As much as I deplore American self-centeredness, I am guilty of it, too. <\/p>\n
Just as it\u2019s important to contextualize America\u2019s rightward lurch with Europe\u2019s, it\u2019s critical to look abroad for other examples of durable democracies, cultural strengths, policy solutions, and ways of doing things. <\/p>\n
By American standards, Denmark is tiny. Its combination of population (6 million), land area (16,000 mi\u00b2 for Denmark proper), nominal GDP ($501 billion), and per capita nominal GDP ($81,000) makes it roughly comparable to Maryland.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m actually partial to Maryland and it\u2019s geographic, demographic, and cultural diversity \u2014 from the Chesapeake Bay region to the urban density of Baltimore to the suburban sprawl around D.C. to its thoroughly Appalachian panhandle \u2014 but I spent a lot of time imagining Maryland as a NATO member responsible for its own national defense, with universal health care, a splendid rail and transit system, and free college tuition.<\/p>\n
I am more prone than most to romanticizing the places I visit, and this was purely a personal pleasure trip, not a reporting junket. So I want to be careful not to let my enthusiasms get the best of me, or pretend my casual observations as an enchanted tourist are serious analysis. Denmark is not perfect. It has struggled with increased immigration, showing spasms of anti-immigrant assholery like we\u2019ve seen here. An aging population is straining its health care system. Trump\u2019s designs on Greenland and his abandonment of NATO have forced it into historically high levels of defense spending. <\/p>\n
And yet \u2026 the thing that drew me there \u2014 Copenhagen\u2019s reputation as a humane, livable, bicycle-centric city \u2014 didn\u2019t prepare me for its bustling, entrepreneurial, vibrant economy. There\u2019s construction everywhere, and not just new construction, but renovations, repairs, and constant upkeep. The Danes seem to have a cultural aversion to the kind of maintenance debt that we\u2019re so familiar with in the United States, especially for public infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Things are tidy, well-kept, and invested in \u2014 in both public and private spaces. Every public clock I saw was working and told the correct time. I found myself improbably marveling over the quality of windows and doors even in ancient buildings. Things are tight, sealed, and useable. Stuff works. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never been especially persuaded by the claims that America used to do things but doesn\u2019t anymore. After seeing all the \u201cdoing\u201d going on in Denmark, I\u2019m having second thoughts. Most maddening was the extent of the EV infrastructure in urban Copenhagen. While D.C. and other American cities have hemmed and hawed and puzzled and quarreled over how to respond to the EV revolution, Copenhagen just did it. Chargers are everywhere. They\u2019re not obtrusive. They\u2019re not over-engineered. They\u2019re tucked in along sidewalks, emerge from cobblestone streets, and manage to blend in like parking meters. With space constraints and historic streets and architecture to consider, they just got busy and did it.<\/p>\n
None of Denmark\u2019s charms by themselves point toward a path forward here, where one of the two major political parties has spent two decades torpedoing good governance, indulging in epic political corruption<\/a>, and not just eschewing responsibility for the real problems we face but actively making them worse for its own Machiavellian purposes. But Denmark was a needed reminder of what things can look like when stuff is getting done \u2014 and that it\u2019s a choice that every society makes not just at each election but every day in every way. It\u2019s more cultural than political, a social movement born of countless individual decisions.<\/p>\n I needed a reminder of what that felt like because it\u2019s easy to lose the memory of that feeling. <\/p>\n Reentry Was Rough<\/p>\n I made it back to D.C. in time for the Fourth \u2014 and 100 degree temperatures. The roar of military jets streaking outside my apartment window most of the day Saturday made for an unsettling Trump-infused holiday.<\/p>\n Photo of the Day<\/p>\n This image is from today. A Black woman sits on the DC metro as masked white nationalists prepare to march on our nation’s capital. <\/p>\n This is America’s 250th anniversary. REUTERS\/Cheney Orr pic.twitter.com\/eIO8XJwIuA<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) July 4, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n Programming Note<\/p>\n Back to the more typical Morning Memo tomorrow, but I\u2019ll mix in some more Denmark reflections this week. Thanks for indulging me. <\/p>\n News? Tips? Feedback?\u00a0Please let me know<\/a>. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here<\/a>.<\/p>\n