It Doesn’t Have to be Like This
INSIDE: A Dispatch From Denmark
Greetings!
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.
Thanks for the Tips!
You outdid yourselves with recommendations, tips, and dos/donts for Copenhagen and the surrounding area.
Copenhagen’s food scene remains vibrant, and we ate extremely well, but thanks to you, we landed in some gems we otherwise would not have encountered.
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.
Again, thank you. Your emails were thoughtful, clever, insightful, and proved you to be the well-traveled lot that I imagined you to be.
I Need to Get Out More
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.
Just as it’s important to contextualize America’s rightward lurch with Europe’s, it’s critical to look abroad for other examples of durable democracies, cultural strengths, policy solutions, and ways of doing things.
By American standards, Denmark is tiny. Its combination of population (6 million), land area (16,000 mi² for Denmark proper), nominal GDP ($501 billion), and per capita nominal GDP ($81,000) makes it roughly comparable to Maryland.
I’m actually partial to Maryland and it’s geographic, demographic, and cultural diversity — from the Chesapeake Bay region to the urban density of Baltimore to the suburban sprawl around D.C. to its thoroughly Appalachian panhandle — 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.
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’ve seen here. An aging population is straining its health care system. Trump’s designs on Greenland and his abandonment of NATO have forced it into historically high levels of defense spending.
And yet … the thing that drew me there — Copenhagen’s reputation as a humane, livable, bicycle-centric city — didn’t prepare me for its bustling, entrepreneurial, vibrant economy. There’s 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’re so familiar with in the United States, especially for public infrastructure.
Things are tidy, well-kept, and invested in — 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.
I’ve never been especially persuaded by the claims that America used to do things but doesn’t anymore. After seeing all the “doing” going on in Denmark, I’m 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’re not obtrusive. They’re not over-engineered. They’re 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.
None of Denmark’s 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, 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 — and that it’s a choice that every society makes not just at each election but every day in every way. It’s more cultural than political, a social movement born of countless individual decisions.
I needed a reminder of what that felt like because it’s easy to lose the memory of that feeling.
Reentry Was Rough
I made it back to D.C. in time for the Fourth — 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.
Photo of the Day
Programming Note
Back to the more typical Morning Memo tomorrow, but I’ll mix in some more Denmark reflections this week. Thanks for indulging me.
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Denmark is fantastic - I have been just once in 2013, but I agree with everything you saw. What struck me at the time was the friendliness and overall happiness I saw around me. Because it was part business trip, I wasn't able to get out of Copenhagen, but what a livable, walkable, bike-friendly city! And mind you, I was there in early November, when the sun doesn't rise until after 8 am and is setting by 4 pm. If I felt I could manage becoming moderately fluent in Danish, I would consider relocating.
Thanks for sharing your trip. Like a mini mental vacation and a reminder of positive possibilities.