Vox

The Trump administration is really pushing whole milk, but it’s not the first presidential administration to advocate for the dairy industry.

In the 1940s, Congress developed the National School Lunch Program, which required schools to serve each student at participating schools a cup of whole milk. That helped the industry sell off surpluses, which beneficially raised prices for farmers.

“There is a reflexive deference to dairy at USDA and in federal food policy circles regardless of political affiliation,” a former USDA official, who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, told Vox senior reporter Kenny Torrella. “Dairy is treated as a cultural and political baseline, receiving more attention than almost all other US commodities…USDA staff feel almost a paternal sense of protection over the industry, at all costs.”

12 hours ago | [YT] | 835

Vox

There was an underrated storyline of the 2024 election, one that’s increasingly starting to resurface now, as President Donald Trump goes on a foreign policy crusade, threatening to upend longstanding geopolitical norms between the United States and our allies (*cough, acquiring Greenland, cough*): Gen Z really doesn’t want to go to war.

George, a 19-year-old Republican from New York, said that while he has been optimistic about Trump’s foreign policy because he believes the United States should “make the world a safer place,” he’s skeptical of the administration’s recent suite of military operations and standoffs.

“It feels like it’s very ‘make it up as you go,’” he said. “And then when it comes to Greenland, I feel like it’s sort of, ‘What are we doing here?’ It’s not being the good guys on the world stage. And why are you trying to mess things up?”

📸: Fire at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, is seen from a distance after a series of explosions in Caracas on January 3, 2026. AFP via Getty Images

1 day ago | [YT] | 4,852

Vox

Immigration was the foundation of Trump’s political strength — the issue where he consistently enjoyed the trust of a supermajority of Americans.

And he squandered it within a year.

Following the deaths of two US citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of the administration’s ICE, Trump was faced with a backlash so broad and overwhelming that he finally decided to change course, however minutely.

“By indulging radical impulses, Trump has achieved an extraordinary feat of political self-sabotage: He has managed to turn his greatest source of political vitality into a vulnerability — and done so despite successfully addressing the electorate’s chief complaint on that issue as of 2024,” writes Vox senior correspondent Eric Levitz.

📸: Al Drago/Getty Images

2 days ago | [YT] | 4,080

Vox

Prenuptial agreements, long exclusive to celebrities and the ultrarich, have trickled down to the rest of us.

There might be several things driving the trend: new apps that make it easier and cheaper to draw up prenups, influencers touting the value of prenups on social media and in podcasts, and young people being more likely to be the children of divorced parents.

“I think that this generation is just a bit more realistic, that ‘happily ever after' or ‘until death do we part' are not realistic ways to think about marriage,” said New Yorker staff writer Jennifer Wilson, who did a deep dive into the world of prenups.

www.vox.com/podcasts/476312/prenup-marriage-planni…<media_url>

3 days ago | [YT] | 1,495

Vox

Trump’s approval rating is one of the lowest in recorded history. And it’s fallen to new lows in recent weeks, as the nation reels from the recent killings of two anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota. Yet, the Trump White House shows no signs of backing off its agenda or moderating to reflect public opinion.

This week, Today, Explained is taking a pulse check on MAGA. We’ve looked at focus groups, talked to pollsters, and checked in with some of the voters from the 2024 presidential campaign trail. In this episode we ask whether MAGA is still defending the president. Host Astead Herndon brings that question to two people who follow Trump’s base closely: John Fredericks, the host of the right-wing radio show The John Fredericks Show, and Sarah Longwell, the founder and publisher of the conservative-leaning publication The Bulwark.

4 days ago | [YT] | 99

Vox

Young men today are widely seen, rightly or wrongly, as a generation adrift.

They can’t get jobs, they aren’t seeing friends, and their isolation and disaffection have been blamed for recent mass shootings and political violence. But even if Gen Z men are increasingly cut off from society (a claim some would dispute), there’s one very social endeavor they still want to participate in: having kids.

“I definitely want to have kids,” Branden Estrada, an 18-year-old college freshman, said. “I had such a good family life that I’ve always thought about what it’s going to be like for me to have kids of my own.”

www.vox.com/life/476905/gen-z-men-dads-fatherhood-…<media_url>

4 days ago | [YT] | 2,052

Vox

When President Donald Trump announced that border czar Tom Homan would be taking over immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, many anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement critics, conservatives, and media commentators sighed a breath of relief.

Instead of the firebrand Greg Bovino, Minneapolis would get an adult in the room at last: someone who worked under Democratic and Republican presidents, who had more experience with enforcement operations, and who has been relatively quiet as Trump’s mass deportations have unfolded this year.

Still, a closer look at Homan’s record reveals a more complicated picture.

His actions, his statements, and his prior controversies suggest that he is something other than the moderating “adult in the room” that he has been presented as by the Trump administration.

📸: Ben Brewer/Bloomberg via Getty Images Bloomberg via Getty Images

5 days ago | [YT] | 650

Vox

If you’re avoiding the news for your mental health, it’s probably helping. But it also may be causing you some guilt. By choosing to take a break, are you giving the people in power exactly what they want?

Sigal Samuel, the writer of Vox’s advice column Your Mileage May Vary, got asked that very question by a reader and reminded them that attention is an ethical resource.

“More information isn’t always better. Instead of trying to take in as much info as possible, we should try to take in info in a way that serves the real goal: enhancing, or at least preserving, our capacity for moral attention,” Samuel writes.

“That’s why some thinkers nowadays talk about the importance of reclaiming ‘attentional sovereignty.’ You need to be able to direct your attentional resources deliberately. If you strategically withdraw from an overwhelming information environment, that’s not necessarily a failure of civic duty. It can be an exercise of your agency that ultimately helps you engage with the news more meaningfully.”

6 days ago | [YT] | 6,559

Vox

Kristi Noem is the secretary of President Donald Trump’s embattled and emboldened Department of Homeland Security, and is thus tasked with overseeing the immigration crackdown that’s brought chaos to Minneapolis and other cities. Since that campaign claimed the life of a second US citizen last weekend, many lawmakers — including some Republicans — have begun calling for Noem’s ouster.

Whether that will actually happen — and whether it would represent any real rebuke or de-escalation of Trump’s unchecked deportation campaign — is anybody’s guess.

But we spoke with New York magazine’s Washington correspondent Ben Terris to better understand the consequences Noem could face.

📸: Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images

6 days ago | [YT] | 2,169

Vox

What should you do if you feel very disturbed by what’s going on in Minnesota, but your friends don’t feel called to act or even care?

Sigal Samuel, the writer of Vox’s advice column Your Mileage May Vary, got asked that very question by a reader and turned to Ernst Fraenkel, a German Jewish political scientist and labor lawyer who authored the 1941 book The Dual State.

“Here’s his main insight: Life under authoritarianism is actually, for the most part, weirdly normal. It’s often even, well, boring. The average person can go about their day as usual. You take your kids to school, you head to the office, and yes, you even host dinner parties. You live in the realm that Fraenkel referred to as “the normative state,” and from within that realm, it’s easy to think that if you just keep your head down and avoid making waves, you’ll be perfectly fine, thank you very much,” Samuel writes.

“But Fraenkel’s book is called The Dual State for a reason. This first state, the business-as-usual one, actually exists to lull you into a sense of complacency such that you don’t realize that another state is also operating in parallel with it. That second state, which Fraenkel calls ‘the prerogative state,’ only becomes visible to you when you do something that the powers that be don’t like. Then suddenly you’re in a realm where the rule of law does not exist, where citizens can be killed with impunity, where you — even you, who thought you were invulnerable — can become a target.”

So, Samuel argues the first step is making sure your friends truly understand the kind of reality we’re in at this moment.

🎨: Pete Gamlen for Vox

1 week ago | [YT] | 7,124