There’s a 2014 social media thread floating about, written long before Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy, where a friend and I discussed how “the Hitlers” of the world can capture a nation.

In that exchange, we discussed how they latch onto real or perceived hardships, find scapegoats to blame them on, draw ‘us vs. them’ battle lines, then look for an opportunity to justify conflict to vanquish the enemy to the benefit of the righteous, hijacking patriotism to suit their own purposes. It was an abstract exercise in how a demagogue could turn a democracy into something darker.

Today, I have a far more complete blueprint for creating an authoritarian state. If I were president, here’s what I would do.

It still includes identifying a scapegoat, because mass movements always need a devil. And the role performative patriotism plays is as obvious as Pete Hegseth’s American flag socks and pocket hanky. But those are mere accessories that set the table.

Once the devil is identified - whether it’s immigrants and Muslims who we claim are raping our women, killing our children and bastardizing our culture, or an enemy within filled with Marxists and DEI-obsessed social justice warriors who hate their own country - we can use the threat they represent to convince our followers to demand action. The more we dehumanize, the more pain we’ll be able to inflict. And because of the us-versus-them dynamic, we can count on our supporters to cover for our excesses, even if we go so far as shooting citizens in faces and backs on city streets.

Discrediting the media would speed this along since I would become the arbiter of truth. I wouldn’t need the people to believe me, I’d just need to muddy the waters enough that people spend more time arguing over what’s true than they do arguing actual policy. While they argue, we advance.

This wouldn’t happen overnight, but hammering away at the pillars of public trust by ridiculing the press, criticizing the courts and questioning election results will create unbridgeable divisions, which is all that’s required for a strongman to thrive. Simple phraseology works best. Things like Fake News, Stop the Steal and Witch Hunt simultaneously rally the faithful and dismiss the naysayers. A snappy phrase to paint those naysayers as unhinged would help. Something like Trump Derangement Syndrome. Or better yet, its initials - TDS. There will be no need for reasoned debate or evidence to back up our claims once such vapid rejoinders are in place.

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Our two-party system, without the need to build multi-party coalitions, works to our advantage, especially in a country where the idea of one person, one vote is undermined by things like disproportional Senate representation, the Electoral College and gerrymandering. All this makes winning the presidency and the Senate all the easier, which in turn makes stacking the courts possible over time. Once the Supreme Court leans far enough our way, the idea of checks and balances ensured by three coequal branches of government goes out the window because those branches are no longer equal. A Court that’s subservient to the Executive branch will undermine Congress’s power by default. Congress will exist only to fund our pet projects.

Here’s where it gets fun. We’ll start by asking Congress to give ICE more money than the FBI, DEA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Prisons combined, thus creating the most powerful federal police force in history. With the people angry and frightened by all we’ve told them that they have to be angry and frightened about - and with Congress and the courts out of the way - we’ll use that money to build massive detention centers and outfit a secret police force with unbridled powers to invade homes, pull people from vehicles and detain them without our people having to identify themselves, show their faces, give their names, or even produce badges or warrants. We’ll start with immigrants, but the infrastructure will be in place in case we need it for enemies of the state or other such people who might later cause us trouble. People will be so desensitized to the bounds we’re overstepping by then that it will no longer be seen as overstepping. Maybe we could create a circumstance where ICE steps in to ease a domestic situation, such as airport security. They wouldn’t have to do anything, but their mere presence in public places would make them part of everyday life. That’s how normalizing works.

Returning to infrastructure, we’ll build extensive and intrusive surveillance capabilities using cameras, facial recognition, license plate capture, and digital footprints. We’ll give technology companies broad latitude to monitor, record and store all manner of digital data and communication, with the unspoken understanding that we’ll be able to access this information if and when we deem it necessary. Organizations like Palantir will be invaluable, given their data collection and analysis capabilities. We will know more about the people than they know about themselves. There will be no hiding. Ever.

We’ll still have a free press, of course. Nominally, at least. But broadcast licenses and proposed mergers will need to be approved by the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department, which are under our control. We can leverage this power to ensure that broadcast and social media entities like CBS and TikTok are controlled by owners we consider friends. We’ll try to guide CNN into friendly hands while we’re at it. Meta, Apple and X will fall in line, in the “go along to get along” manner common to unprincipled self-interest.

Even with the media in our back pocket, we don’t want to take any chances, so we’ll require that anyone seeking military press credentials agree to report only authorized information, agree to mandatory escorts inside the Pentagon, and submit all reporting for review - restrictions that did not exist even during WWII.

This will give us free rein to blow civilian boats out of international waters in violation of international law, kidnap Nicolas Maduro and seize Venezuela’s oil and gold, and even go to war with Iran without proper press oversight, let alone Congressional approval.

If there’s any doubt who’s in charge, I’ll treat Washington, DC as my own private property, bulldozing a chunk of the White House without seeking advice or permission and plastering my name and likeness everywhere, from multi-story banners on the Departments of Labor and Justice buildings, to the Kennedy Center, to U.S. coins and currency.

And if that doesn’t work, we’ll indict those who are against us and pardon those who are for us. The way pardoned Binance founder Changpen Zhao got the Abu Dhabi firm MGX to use my cryptocurrency to invest $2 billion in his company should be a hint as to how I conduct business.

Oh, and have I talked about the SAVE Act? Those pesky elections need to be addressed…

…and so it goes.

This is where we are, folks. This is not a drill.

• Us versus them narratives

• Demonizing the “enemy”

• Massive detention centers

• Masked secret police

• Government surveillance

• Weaponized justice

• Control of the media

• No checks on executive power

• Crypto-corruption

• Unauthorized wars

• Seeking control of elections

This is what I’d do if I wanted to destroy American democracy. I don’t. But Donald Trump sure seems to. Anyone who’s studied Hannah Arendt or read Dietrich Bonhoeffer will recognize the echoes of history in what’s described above. From filling a cabinet with incompetent fools and lackeys, to filling followers’ heads with the mush of slogans and catchphrases, it is all here.

His only mistake is treating half the people as the enemy within, something no successful demagogue would ever do. That will eventually become his downfall, but today it will simply send millions into the streets to let him know we do not abide.

It may be a small line in the sand, but it’s the only example on this page of true patriotism.

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It was during the Berlin Airlift, at a time when the German people were still wary of the U.S. three years after the end of WWII, when polls showed a majority still agreed with the idea that Nazism was a good idea poorly executed1. We were neither their friend nor role model.

It was in this setting that Gail Hoversen, an American pilot flying supplies to West Berlin after the Soviets blocked them from coming in by land, wandered one day to a fence where a group of German children was watching the planes fly in and out. They asked for nothing, but he had two sticks of Wrigley’s Doublemint gum, which he tore in half and gave to them. Taken aback by how they shared the gum, even taking turns to smell the wrapper, he decided he would drop candy from his plane the next day, telling the kids to look for the plane wiggling its wings.

They did, and he did, his crew pushing Hershey bars tied to parachutes made of their silk handkerchiefs out of Hoversen’s plane. The crowd of children grew daily as word got out. Eventually, other crews joined in until the entire base was preparing candy for airdrops from American planes. When news reached Washington, prepping candy drops became a national project. By the time the airlift ended, 23 tons of candy had been dropped using 250,000 hand-tied parachutes.

It is impossible to overstate the global impact of this simple gesture. Countless handwritten thank-you notes poured in from German children. German adults still spoke of the American Candy Bombers years after the fact. Their story matters because it turned what many Germans saw as a superpower battle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union into something far more personal. The Americans won this first battle en route to winning the Cold War by winning the hearts of the people on the ground. It is arguably our single finest moment.

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I fear we are no longer that country. Instead, we’re behaving more like the Soviets than the Americans of 1948.

Evidence has been in plain view from the moment Donald Trump returned to office. DOGE cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the program credited with saving 26 million lives since 2003, are conservatively estimated to have cost 150,000 lives in the past year. Broader cuts to USAID in that period are believed responsible for at least 750,000 deaths, most of them children. The additional cases of malaria, tuberculosis, malnutrition, and more are as staggering as they are devastating.

Now we find that the U.S. is threatening cuts in HIV aid as leverage - some would say blackmail - to secure access to critical minerals in Zambia. This would appear to be an even crueler version of what was witnessed in the Oval Office when Donald Trump and J.D. Vance pressured Vladimir Zelensky to sign over rights to Ukraine’s mineral wealth in exchange for continued support in their war with Russia. A movie scene comes to mind where a mobster threatens to kill a baby to force its mother to open the safe. How far we have fallen since the days of the Candy Bombers.

This comes at a time when China is building ties throughout Africa with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), funding infrastructure development that includes railroads, highways, hospitals, schools, and port projects. This would seem to be another example where the U.S. is creating a leadership vacuum that China is all too willing to fill.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has used its control of Venezuela to place an embargo on oil shipments to Cuba, creating water and fuel shortages that have strained education, transportation, and medical services to their breaking points. CNN has reported that “tens of thousands” of people are in need of surgeries that can’t be performed due to electricity shortages. Lindsey Graham, one of the loudest proponents of the war in Iran, can barely contain his excitement at the thought of going after Cuba next. We can assume that Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban refugees, shares that excitement.

A reasonable argument can be made that we can’t afford to play rich uncle, funding every deserving cause. But it’s hard to buy that argument when the humanitarian programs we’ve cut cost a fraction of the $200 billion that’s been requested to continue the war with Iran, an endeavor hardly winning friends, respect, or even a more secure world.

It leaves one to wonder what we’re trying to accomplish. A recap of our global scorecard over the past year would show cuts in aid to poor nations have killed hundreds of thousands, that we’ve publicly shamed Vladimir Zelensky to get him to commit Ukraine’s mineral reserves to us in exchange for aid in his fight against Vladimir Putin, turned the lights out in Cuba, stolen Venezuela’s oil, threatened to take Greenland from an ally, held Zambia’s people hostage to gain access to their critical minerals, and rained bombs and missiles on the Iranian people in hopes they would rise up against their own government. We’re now scavenging interceptor missiles from South Korea, making them more vulnerable, while relaxing sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil, helping to fund our enemies who are actively at war with us and our allies.

I have no idea what this administration is doing or what its endgame is. I don’t think the administration does either. Nothing we get out of this blend of greed, cruelty, and stupidity can possibly be worth it. It certainly won’t be worth what we earned by dropping candy bars from the sky.

There’s a lesson in that somewhere.

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One would be justified in asking who’s really in charge here, but that answer was already obvious when Marco Rubio tried to justify our preemptive attack on Iran.

“There absolutely was an imminent threat,” Rubio claimed two days after the initial attacks. “And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we thought it would be attacked— it would immediately come after us.”

His attempt to walk that back aside, the message was clear in a way that only circular logic can be. We had to hit them before they hit back in self-defense for a hit we knew was coming because Israel told us it was coming. [author’s note - my family says my writing is not as easy to follow as it once was, but that’s what happens when you try to make sense of the nonsensical.]

But one thing is clear: we would not have gone to war, certainly not without a reason and an objective, if we followed the Constitution's dictate that Congress declare war. Instead, that decision was driven by a foreign leader on his timetable. So much for concern about our sovereignty. It would be bad enough if it ended there, but it gets worse.

What takes this from shameful lap-doggery to violation of international law and possible war crime is the perfidy that started the war. Again, that doesn't happen if we follow the law.

The U.S. and Iran began informal talks on Iran’s nuclear program in early February. Benjamin Netanyahu quickly made his way to the Oval Office on February 11 to make sure those negotiations didn’t interfere with the plans to attack Iran that he’d pushed for during a December 2025 meeting at Mar-a-Lago.

The negotiations with Iran went forward despite Netanyahu’s apprehension. Meanwhile, the U.S. continued to send ships and troops to the Persian Gulf in anticipation of the war Netanyahu hoped for.

But here is where it gets murky. Depending on what one reads, negotiations were either at an impasse or on the verge of a breakthrough in the days before the war began. U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Steven Witkoff met with the Iranians for five hours on Thursday, February 26. Kushner told the president afterwards that “it would take months” to get a deal done.

The next day, Omani foreign minister Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi, who’d been mediating the talks, told CBS’s Face the Nation that he believed a breakthrough deal where Iran would never have a nuclear weapon was within reach. Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, echoed the Omani assessment.

We now know, after learning from Joe Kent, who resigned this past Wednesday as the head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, that Iran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. This suggests that even if Kushner was correct in assuming it might take months to get an agreement, there was no risk in waiting given the game-changing breakthrough the Omani and British participants believed was possible.

But Netanyahu had a deadline. He needed to get his budget passed by March 31. Failure to do so would have dissolved the Knesset and forced elections in early July. A war would put that deadline on hold and allow Netanyahu to set new elections on his own timetable. Peace was his enemy. His failure to secure a pardon from Israeli President Isaac Herzog for multiple charges of bribery and fraud added to Netanyahu’s urgency to delay any election that could leave him a private citizen and more vulnerable to prosecution [author’s note #2: imagine how envious this must make Donald Trump, who seems ready to do anything to disrupt our November midterms].

Netanyahu’s reprieve came in the form of intelligence regarding Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s expected whereabouts on February 28. This forced our hand, as Marco Rubio’s concerns about retaliatory strikes make abundantly clear, revealing that Netanyahu told us he was going after Khamenei whether we were with him or not. Ongoing talks be damned.

If Trump and Netanyahu have been unclear about their reasons for going to war, this explains everything. We went to war because peace was bad for Netanyahu, and they’ve been unclear about that reason because they could never admit the truth.

Remember, this was the same day that we first heard reports about a possible breakthrough on Iranian nuclear weapons in talks that were still ongoing. We may have lost a history-making opportunity. That is the real crime, but not the only one.

A little historical perspective may be helpful here, especially in light of yesterday’s Oval Office exchange where the president “joked” about surprise attacks with Japan’s prime minister. Japan did, indeed, surprise us at Pearl Harbor. Making that surprise worse was that we believed Japanese diplomats were actively negotiating for peace up until the moment the attack began. Instead, Japan had intended to declare war 30 minutes before the attack, but trouble decoding the transmission from Tokyo delayed delivery until almost two hours after the first bombs dropped. We viewed the failure to declare war before the start of hostilities as treachery, leading Franklin Roosevelt to give a speech to Congress the next day that began:

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

“The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.” [emphasis mine]

It should be noted that FDR concluded that speech by asking Congress to declare war against Japan. That’s how it used to be done, as required by the Constitution, even after an attack like Pearl Harbor.

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Today, we are the ones starting illegal wars, in no small part because we now allow presidents to start wars illegally. It’s the reason mankind creates laws in the first place, to keep us from falling into barbarism. The rule of law is all that separates us from the law of the jungle, where only the strong survive. Once we start turning a blind eye, the descent has begun. And if ever there were an argument for Congressional approval, this would be it. Perhaps we wouldn’t have been played the way we were.

Some might argue that FDR could afford to ask Congress for a declaration of war because it was a slam dunk; that today’s situation is far more complicated. This gets the argument backwards. It is precisely when things are uncertain, when there is no clear answer, that rigorous debate is most necessary. Our founders knew this, aware that unconstrained kings were too inclined to waste blood and treasure on unwise follies. So they made sure that decisions to go to war were made by representatives of the people who would fight those wars. It was that respect for the law and the people that was the source of our strength. That’s no longer the case.

Instead, we have a scofflaw president who ceded the power to begin an illegal war to a foreign leader accused of crimes against humanity. We still have no clear reason for starting this war and no stated goal for ending it. Meanwhile, our partner, the one who leveled Gaza, is now sending ground troops into Lebanon. He’s taking out Iranian LNG facilities against our wishes. He’s bombed Iranian water supplies. Netanyahu is getting what he wants. He’s doing to Iran and Lebanon what he did to Gaza, while putting off his own day of reckoning. He’s not our partner, he’s the puppet master.

And all our puppet can do is scream at him in all caps to stop. Scream at our allies in all caps to help.

That’s not strength, that’s desperation. The desperation of a weak man caught trying to act tough. And the whole world is paying the price.

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So, here we are. This is the fatal plunge into the abyss that the Western powers have stubbornly been digging over the past several decades. The threshold of barbarism has now definitively been crossed, with the murderous carelessness of those who do not really understand the historical chaos that is taking shape. The old order, which had wagered on law against brute force, has just violently finished collapsing before our eyes in 2026. This new war is the war too many: by its scale and its nature, it heralds a major turning point in the history of international relations.

Published on March 6, 2026 by Olivier Berruyer, Carla Costantini

Given the gravity of the current context, this article seemed too important to us to limit its circulation: we have therefore made it freely accessible; please do not hesitate to share it widely. If you find this work useful and want to help us continue, you can join our subscribers — or, if that is already the case, support us with a tax-deductible donation. Thank you! (Elucid editorial staff)

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Article outline:
I. An operation of rare violence
II. Law of war: make way for barbarism
III. Complete media shipwreck
IV. The war too many: History begins a very dark chapter

Let things be clear: no one here will claim that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a model democracy. The human-rights violations, multiple, systematic, and documented, that mark the history of that country are undeniable and condemnable. But that observation, damning as it may be, cannot serve as a blank check for an operation whose implications go infinitely beyond the framework of a conflict between Iran on the one hand, and Israel and the United States on the other.

Everything about what is unfolding before our eyes is senseless. The aggressors, who present themselves as victims, no longer even bother with propaganda to win public support for a war that will nevertheless deeply and durably affect Western populations in the years to come. They do what they want, for the simple reason that they can, and because we let them.

We have just slipped into a parallel world: that of raw violence, outside law and reason, driven by a childish strategic vision disconnected from the real political, economic, and social stakes.

In this important article, we will try to provide an analysis of the situation in order to counterbalance the dominant media narrative, complacent when it is not openly dishonest. Things remain hazy and are evolving at dizzying speed. But it is fundamental to understand, starting today, what is at stake — and to prepare for it.

I. An operation of rare violence

“Cutting off the head of the snake”?

The military operation “Epic Fury” (alias “Peace Through Strength”) began on March 1, 2026, with an objective that was, to say the least, shaky and shifting, as Mark Warner, the leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, recalled: “It was about Iran’s nuclear capability; a few days later, it was about destroying ballistic missiles; then it was — in the President’s own words — regime change... and now we hear it’s about sinking the Iranian fleet.”

In the end, what was revealed to us this weekend was a “neutralization” of the country’s strategic command, with Israeli and American officials using the term “decapitation” (“cutting off the head of the snake”) to describe the nature of their mission. The list of those targeted and killed is absolutely staggering: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei; his daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and daughter-in-law; Chief of Staff Abdolrahim Mousavi; Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh; Khatam al-Anbiya intelligence chief Salah Asadi; IRGC commander-in-chief Mohammad Pakpour; military office chief Mohammad Shirazi; special adviser Ali Shamkhani; IRGC aerospace force commander Majid Mousavi; and weapons research officials (SPND) Hossein Jabal-Amelian and Reza Mozafari-Nia.

In total, nearly fifty people were killed in this single “decapitation” operation alone, not counting civilian collateral casualties. It is moreover astonishing to see Trump dare to declare: “There are many outcomes that would be good. Number one is to decapitate them, wipe out their whole group of killers and thugs.”

This constitutes a form of violence for which it is hard to find precedents in modern history. It is the systematic, coordinated physical elimination of the entire governing apparatus of a sovereign state recognized by the United Nations, all without the slightest declaration of war.

The most astonishing element of this operation — and the one that best reveals its true nature — is the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In the symbolic and religious hierarchy of Shiism, the Supreme Leader is far more than a head of state; his function is closer to that of a kind of “pope” than to that of a president. He is also recognized as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Whatever his crimes may be, assassinating such a figure, along with his wife and members of his family, amounts to setting off something that goes infinitely beyond the framework of a conventional military operation.

Khamenei was in fact perfectly aware of this. He could have fled — that was apparently his Plan B in the event of regime collapse — but according to the available information, he refused to leave and even refused to shelter in a bunker. According to the Financial Times, “Khamenei [...] was not living in hiding. [...] He had publicly raised the possibility of being killed. [...] Some experts say he expected to become a martyr,” which is ultimately not very surprising for a high Shiite leader, given Shiism’s exaltation of martyrdom, all the more so at the hand of the ultimate enemy during Ramadan.

Given how highly symbolic his role was, and how much that magnified the impact of his assassination on the global Shiite community, Khamenei probably turned his own death into a political and religious weapon against the West. It was all the more foolish an assassination because Khamenei, elderly and suffering from cancer, had only a limited life expectancy.

The unreason of war

But then why is this destructive operation taking place now? What justified these illegal bombings, with no declaration of war and no warning?

Let us look at the timing of the attack. Negotiations between Iran and the United States were underway in Oman and had made considerable progress during the week preceding the strikes. On Friday, February 27, the Omani foreign minister indicated that “the negotiations have thus far enabled substantial, important, and unprecedented progress,” and that “an agreement was within reach.” He was obviously “dismayed” by the bombing that began the next day, even though the parties had already set the next round of negotiations for the following week.

That agreement provided for major Iranian concessions: the destruction of their current stockpile of enriched uranium, a ban on any future storage of enriched uranium on Iranian territory, limits on centrifuges, a commitment to pursue only a civilian nuclear program, and the resumption of IAEA inspections. In other words, Iran was on the verge of yielding on most of what the West had been demanding.

Launching a war just as a historic agreement is about to be concluded defies all logic — unless one accepts that the nuclear issue was clearly not the real central concern. The objective lay elsewhere. According to the available information, it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who initially pushed for action during an Oval Office meeting on February 11, 2026, with the aim of sabotaging the ongoing U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations.

According to Axios, the final decision to attack was made during a call between Trump and Netanyahu on February 23, 2026, five days earlier. Netanyahu reportedly shared the crucial information that “Khamenei and his advisers would be meeting in one place on the morning of Saturday, February 28.”

The Geneva talks were allegedly intended only “to buy time until the new strike date, while deliberately making the Iranians believe that diplomacy remained Trump’s main path.”

What is striking is that Trump deliberately ignored the warnings of his military advisers, in particular those of General Dan Caine about the heavy foreseeable American losses and the regional destabilization this could cause. Worse still, in line with Israel’s wishes, Trump went so far as to distort General Caine’s assessment by presenting it on Truth Social as the announcement of an “easy victory.”

From that point on, it appears obvious that Israel’s goal is above all the destruction, if not of the Iranian state itself, then at least of any form of military threat Iran might represent.

This is an existential vision that has driven Israeli policy from the beginning, making any attempt at peace illusory. That Donald Trump is following along, following his ally into this deadly impasse when it is scarcely in his interest to do so, is beyond comprehension. But we will return to that.

Peace is in no way the purpose of this attack. That becomes all the more obvious given that all the Iranian officials with whom negotiations were underway were assassinated. Through this operation, the message sent to the entire world is the following: negotiating with the United States is dangerous, since negotiations are only a trick meant to lower the adversary’s guard before striking.

II. Law of war: make way for barbarism

A millennia-old prohibition on assassination and perfidy

Let us imagine for a moment that, during negotiations, Iran had sent drones and assassinated President Trump, half the American government, the Joint Chiefs, the CIA director, a few governors, and, for good measure, George Bush at his ranch and Bill Clinton at home. Let us then imagine that, the next day, Iran proposed sitting down at a table to negotiate a cease-fire. What would people say? How would the world react? The answer is clear: it would be regarded as an act of absolute barbarism, a casus belli justifying total retaliation, a violation of every norm of civilization.

As early as antiquity, there was a distinction between killing an enemy in battle and assassinating him through trickery or treachery. Cicero evoked the idea that even toward the enemy, certain duties remain, and that war must be waged with a certain good faith. “There are also duties to be fulfilled toward those from whom we have received injury; for punishment and revenge have limits.”

These principles would be taken up and systematized over the centuries, all the way to Hugo Grotius, often considered the father of international law, who in his 1625 work On the Law of War and Peace explained that one could kill, but never by perfidy, or by breaking an undertaking. We even find traces of this in President Lincoln’s 1863 Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (the Lieber Code):

“The law of war does not allow proclaiming an individual belonging to the hostile army, nor a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw who may be slain without trial [...] no more than the modern law of peace [...] Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.”

In the United States, assassination is moreover still prohibited by Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12333. These rules were ultimately framed in contemporary international law through:

the Hague Conventions of 1899 (Articles 22 and 23(b)): “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited. [...] It is especially forbidden [...] to kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army.”

and the 1949 Geneva Conventions (Protocol I): “Article 37 – Prohibition of perfidy. It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary with intent to betray that confidence shall constitute perfidy [for example] (a) the feigning of an intent to negotiate.”

These rules have existed for centuries for a good reason: they are the last bulwark preventing humanity from sinking into barbarism. Without a minimum of trust between leaders, peace is simply impossible.

After 1945, humanity undertook the project of building an international order meant to avoid that barbarism. The Charter of the United Nations established, in its earliest articles, the fundamental principle prohibiting the use of force in international relations. The crime of aggression — the act of one state attacking another sovereign state without Security Council authorization and outside the framework of self-defense — has been considered, since the Nuremberg trials, the “supreme crime”:

“War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” [Judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1946]

What is at stake in this war against Iran is, by contrast, a totally childish reading of the world. A regression toward a very American scheme in which there is “the good guy” and “the bad guy,” and in which one merely has to kill the bad guy for everything to work out. This “Walt Disney Geopolitics” is a Manichaean conception applied to problems of dizzying complexity. Iran is a country of 90 million inhabitants, with a complex society, a millennia-old history, and internal dynamics that largely escape the understanding of Western commentators. We refer you to our 2025 interview with Thierry Coville, which was particularly illuminating on this point.

All of that gets brushed aside and replaced by a simple, comforting narrative in which our material interests and moral righteousness mechanically coincide, and where sometimes the mere conviction that we are the ambassadors of good and truth on earth is enough to make blood flow.

Barbarism, in its clearest sense, denotes a state in which the only law that applies is that of force. If one accepts that a powerful state may unilaterally decide to eliminate the leaders of another state without a declaration of war, without an international mandate, and without any legal legitimacy, then it is not only international law that collapses — civilization itself does.

“We do it because we can”: no more need even for propaganda!

We have moved from a world in which propaganda was necessary to justify war to a world in which people no longer even see the problem. In 1991, to trigger the Gulf War, the Americans relied on public-relations agencies to manufacture the incubator-babies story in Kuwait. The American public did not want that war; it had to be persuaded. During the bombing of Belgrade, during the Iraq War of 2003, there were still propaganda efforts, big lies, attempts at least to preserve appearances. Today, that is apparently no longer even necessary. The change in mentality is such that the dehumanization of the adversary has been fully internalized.

That dehumanization is accompanied by staggering duplicity. On the one hand, people rightly mourn the plight of Iranian women, unjustly treated, and on the other they look away while peace processes, sabotaged in broad daylight, risk leading to civil war.

Moreover, the violations in this matter are not limited to international law. American constitutional law itself has been trampled. The U.S. Constitution provides that Congress must approve entry into war: the War Powers Act of the 1970s, adopted after the trauma of Vietnam, requires at minimum that Congress be informed within 48 hours after the outbreak of hostilities. None of this was respected.

Pentagon briefings to Congress contradicted the White House’s claims about the existence of an imminent Iranian threat. The Pentagon explicitly stated that Iran was preparing no strike against American interests and would not attack the United States unless Israel struck first. The CIA and the Pentagon had also warned of the high risks of the attack, cautioning that regime change would probably not work and that there were serious unpredictable consequences that could spiral uncontrollably throughout the Middle East.

All warning lights were red: while Vice President J.D. Vance was arguing for a “hit hard and fast” strategy, Tucker Carlson, for his part, reportedly met with Trump three times to argue against the war, citing risks to American personnel, energy prices, and the problematic dependence of the United States on Israel. The CIA anticipated that, in the event of war, Iran might end up led by “hard-liners,” face popular uprisings, or come under pragmatic control by the Revolutionary Guards. None of those scenarios should have encouraged the action that was taken.

President Trump’s communications since the strikes unsurprisingly reveal a total strategic fog. To the Washington Post, the objective was the “freedom” of the Iranian people. To the New York Times, it was about selecting new leaders. To ABC, he promised a short war. To Axios, he mentioned options ranging from a quick end to total control of the country. Most recently, he now wants UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER — though he said the same thing in 2025...

To appreciate the state of decay of American power, one can quote the ABC correspondent:

“President Trump told me tonight that the United States had identified possible candidates to take control of Iran, but that they had been killed in the initial attack. ‘The attack was so successful that it eliminated most of the candidates,’ Trump told me. ‘It won’t be anyone we thought of because they’re all dead. The second and third choices are dead.’”

Next to Trump, George W. Bush almost starts to look like an honest and measured president.

The Republican camp has had the greatest difficulty in defending a coherent position, especially given that in 2025 American intelligence judged that Iran was not building nuclear weapons. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, declared: “This is a religious war and we will determine the course of the Middle East for a thousand years.” As if it were already done.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio eventually let the cat out of the bag, before trying to walk it back: “There absolutely was an imminent threat. And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we thought it would be attacked [editor’s note: by Israel] — it would immediately come after us.”

That therefore amounts to labeling as a “threat”... the legitimate self-defense of the state being attacked. It seems that Israel has long benefited from a much more favorable interpretation of Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, but after all, who cares about law — it is not law that is going to drive out “the bad guys.”

On the Democratic side in Congress, voices have been raised and the question of impeachment could seriously arise if things go badly. The war being manifestly unconstitutional, if the situation were to deteriorate — inflation, a third oil shock, supply problems, and economic crisis — impeachment would become a credible scenario. It should be noted in that regard that Democrats came out appalled from the government briefing this Tuesday, having concluded that the executive branch quite simply had no plan.

The question therefore arises as to how many Republicans will in the future support a war that is manifestly contrary to Trump’s campaign promises...

III. Complete media shipwreck

Before deploring the wretched media handling of this affair, one must recall the weight of History. Since the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 by the CIA and MI6, which shattered Iran’s nascent democracy in favor of oil interests, the West has never stopped destroying what it claims to promote. Support for the Shah’s dictatorship generated the resentment that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And this week, the “decapitation” operation in turn reinforces the patriotic reflex and smothers civil society under martial law. Each intervention is justified by the consequences of the previous one, forming a vicious circle in which the West sabotages, generation after generation, the very conditions for Iranian democracy.

The same causes produce the same effects, and these scenarios recur in the wake of all American imperial actions: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. You do not bring democracy through war. It is nonsense, a negation of any serious materialist, historical, and anthropological vision. There are hardly any people left but fanatical neoconservatives in the mold of BHL who still buy into these childish and dangerous narratives.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres managed to condemn both the strikes and the Iranian retaliatory actions, and called for the immediate cessation of hostilities in an impeccable statement — one that puts most European leaders to shame, with the exception of Spain.

Among the most tragic events of this operation, the bombing of the Shajarah Tayyebeh girls’ primary school in Minab stands out for its horror. Missiles destroyed the school, killing between 165 and 180 people, including dozens of girls aged 7 to 12, and injuring a hundred more. Images showing the devastation and then the funerals spread around the world.

Worse still, investigations revealed that the U.S. strike was possibly due to outdated intelligence — a simple map that had not been updated. UNESCO immediately condemned the strike, invoking international humanitarian law, which formally prohibits attacks on educational institutions and children. Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and global symbol of girls’ right to education, said she was devastated and called for accountability and de-escalation. It was, alas, followed by the sadly familiar litany of bombed schools and hospitals.

And yet the coverage of this “blunder” was often perfunctory in broadcast media, and largely minimized relative to the standard catechism: “we killed the dictator, Iranians are crying tears of joy, the regime is collapsing, and the women have been saved.”

The phrase most relentlessly repeated was probably this one: “no one will mourn Khamenei” (again note the use of emotional register in place of analysis).

In the West, perhaps. But in the rest of the world, that is false.

A fundamental reminder is needed here. By assassinating the Supreme Leader, the operation transformed what might have remained a “classic” geopolitical conflict into a religious conflict of an entirely different nature. That is the fundamental difference from the bombing of nuclear sites carried out nine months earlier. In Shiism, martyrdom occupies a central place, rooted in the very origins of that branch of Islam, going back to the massacre of Karbala and the death of Imam Hussein. Khamenei’s death resonates in the Shiite collective unconscious as a direct echo of the founding tragedy of Karbala.

In the hours following the operation, at least three major ayatollahs — Naser Makarem Shirazi, one of Iran’s leading religious figures, Nouri Hamedani, and Kamal al-Haydari — issued fatwas stating that “avenging the blood of the martyred leader of the revolution [Khamenei] is the religious duty of all Muslims in the world”; they explicitly targeted the United States and Israel, against whom al-Haydari “declared jihad.”

The red flag was raised over the sacred mosques, a traditional Shiite sign calling for vengeance for spilled blood. This signal, of considerable symbolic power, was scarcely mentioned in our media. Yet it means that the West is now, in the eyes of a significant portion of the Shiite Muslim world, the target of a call to violence.

Faced with this, the Israeli defense minister publicly indicated that the army had already received orders to assassinate the next Supreme Leader as soon as he is elected; to disrupt that election, the army also bombed the building where the votes were being counted. As a result, terrorism experts “warn of possible waves of attacks in Europe.” This “relatively high risk” of terrorist escalation should alarm us all.

The global Shiite community represents about 200 million people. Even assuming that only half of them feel directly concerned by the assassination of the Supreme Leader, that still means 100 million individuals profoundly affected. Demonstrations have already taken place in Iran, but also in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, Pakistan, and even northern India.

By showing mainly images of Iranians happy about Khamenei’s death — something one can understand — news channels minimize an important part of the truth. The particular emphasis placed on celebrations by a few members of the diaspora in Washington, London, and Paris is especially manipulative when that context is not provided and the other side of reality is concealed.

The phrase “no one will mourn those people,” repeated in Western media and by former presidents such as François Hollande, holds true only inside the Western media bubble. In the rest of the world, millions of people are mourning and calling for revenge. This disconnect between Western perception and the reality on the ground only worsens the problem.

The 27 European leaders — or at least the most important among them, the “trio” of France-England-Germany — are incapable of stating a truth that should be elementary: Israel attacked Iran, just as Russia attacked Ukraine. But where, then, are the sanctions against Israel?

That idea appears to have become an absolute taboo throughout the media and the political class, from the far right all the way to the Socialist Party. Even the Greens, once pacifists, have become the first to support most military interventions in the name of superficial “moral values.”

IV. The war too many: History begins a very dark chapter

Iran will not yield easily

Iran is not Gaddafi’s Libya, nor some small fragile regime backed by a few Bedouins. It is a country three times the size of France, the world’s twentieth industrial power, with a strong concentration in the military sector. If one looks only at the missile industry, Iran is probably among the seven or eight leading powers in the world. The idea that such a state will collapse simply because a few dozen of its leaders have been killed is fantasy.

Iran has at least fifteen different missile models, mass-produced for decades for its defense, with its stock estimated at 2,500 missiles. The country manufactures around 100 ballistic missiles per month, against only 6 to 7 interceptors on the American side, a disparity publicly emphasized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself.

We are witnessing a contest between Iranian drones costing $20,000 and American missiles costing $4,000,000. Iran also possesses tens of thousands of drones — some estimates go as high as 80,000 in stock and production of 400 per day — whose effectiveness has been demonstrated by their use in Ukraine on Russia’s behalf.

The country also has a vast population of engineers, entirely capable of sustaining a prolonged war effort. Certainly, there will be consequences from heavy bombing of Iranian sites, which do not have great control over their skies. But their sky is large, and American precision weapons are in limited supply. Barring surprise, what may well unfold is a real war of attrition.

Iran’s strategy is therefore fearsomely simple: first send a large number of low-cost missiles in order to force the adversary to consume its Patriot interceptors, each of which costs several million euros, until after a few days the interceptor stocks are exhausted.

What is new here is that Iran is using intermediate missile models that more easily evade interception systems. Images have shown sequences in which nine or even fifteen interceptors miss a single Iranian missile. If ten interceptors are wasted for every missile launched, and Iran sends a hundred, the arithmetic is simple: within about ten days, Israel could find itself without interceptors and therefore at the mercy of bombardment.

The United States used far more Patriot interceptors in three days of conflict (800) than it provided to Ukraine over four years of conflict. It is therefore redeploying its defensive resources back from Asia in order to protect itself, which is already creating tensions with South Korea, which sees American protection promises evaporating — promises that had already strained its relations with China when those systems were deployed in 2017.

In addition, geography also favors Iran. First, it is a territory with particularly difficult topography, with many deserts and mountains. Second, unlike Ukraine, which Russia attacked across a land border, Iran is distant from its aggressors. Israel is a small state located far away, and the United States must project force across 10,000 kilometers.

To this favorable position one must add that the Islamic Republic has activated its so-called “decentralized mosaic defense” doctrine. The principle, developed from 20 years of analyzing American failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that in the event of a first strike decapitating the command, pre-established orders are followed by military units, which then shift into autonomous mode and continue fighting without needing orders from a central command that no longer exists. This resembles Cold War “dead hand” protocols. The foreign minister has in fact confirmed that the military is now partially autonomous and that the political power no longer fully controls it. That means there are currently 31 small autonomous armies in Iran, each able to determine its own strategy. The United States may indeed have cut off “the head of the snake” — but it was the Lernaean Hydra: cut off one head, and two grow back. This situation makes the conflict extremely unpredictable, and above all historically dangerous. But such is the way of things: when you kill the leaders, the country is less well led...

What about the Iranian offensive side?

The retaliation first targeted American bases in the region, which was predictable and conventional. The lack of U.S. strategy meant they had not been able to evacuate before the war the 50,000 members of their personnel stationed in allied states. Since, unlike in 2025, Iran retaliated immediately against the bases, the Americans reportedly asked part of their personnel on Saturday morning to take refuge in hotels in nearby cities, which Iran then attacked. The United Arab Emirates, including Dubai, was particularly affected. Those states found themselves turned into a war zone without having wanted it.

The Gulf monarchies, which had built their security on the American alliance, now find themselves in a critical situation. Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and others are beginning to realize that the American presence, far from protecting them, turns them into lightning rods not connected to the ground: it attracts lightning without protecting them from it. The Saudis are already publicly protesting that “America abandoned them”: American interceptors were deployed first to protect Israel rather than Washington’s Gulf allies.

Iran’s strategy toward the Gulf monarchies is threefold: first, to push those states to pressure Trump to stop the conflict; second, to take revenge on those Muslim states considered “infidels” who sold their sovereignty to the Americans; third, to attack their economic model. And indeed, images of missiles striking Dubai’s towers are not exactly good advertising for the region’s attractiveness.

The Gulf monarchies’ economies are directly affected. Dubai, which built its model on tourism, tax exile, and security, now sees its prosperity seriously called into question.

The enemy too many: the West completes its decline

By living for too long in an imaginary world made up of childish and fantastical narratives, people forget that a war with an enemy as strategically positioned as Iran carries serious consequences for global trade. Let us say it plainly: this is not something to embark upon with a fragile, dependent economy.

Indeed, Iran has a considerable nuisance capacity. First of all with regard to international maritime traffic thanks to its position around the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and 20% of liquefied gas transit.

The Revolutionary Guards announced that they had closed the Strait of Hormuz. One can argue about how airtight that closure really is, but even without an official closure, the strait is de facto difficult to use. No owner of an LNG tanker or oil tanker will risk sending a vessel through a war zone. Insurers have already stopped covering those routes, and international shipping companies have largely suspended their traffic in the region.

As a sign of the seriousness of the situation, the United States has announced that it is considering escorting ships militarily, and France has announced it is building a coalition for the same purpose. The Iranian reaction is likely to be violent, especially since the strait is only 30 km wide and, being shallow, allows shipping lanes of only 3 km in each direction. The strait is often shallower than the 20-meter draft of tankers; even the navigable passages are only 50 meters deep. Finally, the Iranians still have the means to mine the strait’s channels with their 6,000 mines and around twenty submarines.

Iran also has the capacity to attack oil fields and refineries within missile range in neighboring states, or even within artillery range. For the moment, these attacks remain limited, but they could intensify considerably if the conflict drags on. The destruction of Gulf oil capacity would provoke an unprecedented global energy crisis. The conflict would inevitably spread — but Khamenei had been very clear on February 1, 2026: “The Americans must know that if they trigger a war this time, it will be a regional war.”

If the conflict lasts fifteen days, the consequences for Europe will remain limited, but Trump and his defense secretary are already talking about a conflict of four weeks, or eight, or three months, with the secretary promising to sow “death and desolation from the sky, day after day.” If the situation continues, the crisis could far exceed the oil shocks of 1974 and 1979, which nonetheless deeply marked Western economies. And unfortunately, it is hard to see how all this could end quickly and well, given that no negotiation seems possible.

The shutdown of QatarEnergy production due to regional instability has already driven gas prices up more than 80% in Europe. They could end up reaching completely unsustainable levels, feeding back again into electricity prices in Europe.

One can issue all the debt one wants to cushion the damage; it still will not fill a car’s tank or keep a factory running. The irony of the situation is that Europe is already turning to Russia to compensate, even though the European Parliament voted in December 2025 to ban imports of Russian gas by 2027... Which goes to show that values have their limits.

But if, on top of that, the United States — already at maximum production capacity — stops exporting gas because of domestic shortages, and Russia turns its back on us, Europe would then face a major crisis. And Putin has just declared that “Customers have emerged who are ready to buy the same natural gas at higher prices, notably because of events in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. That is natural; there is no political agenda — it is just business.” Given the European Parliament vote, the Russian government is reportedly soon to meet to discuss the immediate halt of Russian gas exports to Europe.

If the conflict escalates, things could turn very ugly. Yemen, allied with Iran, could block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the gateway to the Suez Canal — affecting Europe’s supply of... everything. Iran could target the desalination plants that sustain Saudi Arabia. And it has already announced that it could target Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant. How long will they hold back if the CIA succeeds in triggering a civil war by arming the Kurds, as Trump is trying to do? Or will Trump back down and leave the conflict in humiliating fashion while pretending he won? Especially once the serious financial repercussions of this affair begin inevitably to be felt, with capital fleeing risk zones, including the United States. Economic and financial globalization absolutely required one thing: peace.

China, for its part, will also be affected by the conflict, since Iran is a fundamental crossroads of the “Silk Roads,” through which part of its trade passes. If a pro-Western regime were installed in Iran, it could decide to cut Chinese trade routes in the event of a conflict, which would therefore represent a threat to China. Losing control of that route, whether through war or tomorrow through political exclusion, now represents a national-security issue for Beijing — incomparably more than it ever did for the United States.

China therefore certainly will not let things happen without reacting. It is already discreetly helping Iran, through deliveries of weapons and intelligence, especially satellite intelligence. Tomorrow it could do exactly what the West is doing with Ukraine, namely provide much more equipment and logistical support without direct military engagement. That could push the conflict into a prolonged attritional phase, with unpredictable consequences for the entire region and the world.

Finally, one of the most immediate and most terrifying consequences for Western populations, as mentioned above, remains the terrorist risk. The declarations of jihad issued by Shiite authorities do not target only the United States and Israel. Who can believe that France and the other Western countries will be spared after affirming their material and moral support?

A question therefore arises: at what point were European peoples consulted about an action that directly exposes them to retaliation? No referendum, no parliamentary vote, no public consultation preceded an operation and political responses whose consequences directly affect the daily security of hundreds of millions of Europeans and put their economic and social future at stake.

This war is a dead end at every level and presents itself as the grand finale of a civilization driven by nihilistic politics, one that is upside down, as Emmanuel Todd recently explained to us.

Trump, who sees himself as a dealmaker, finds himself for the first time in a situation where a deal is impossible, because it now goes far beyond the realm of business. Up to now, his method has consisted in striking hard in order to force negotiation. But can one really imagine Americans agreeing to negotiate with the Japanese two weeks after Pearl Harbor?

As of today, the triumvirate designated to ensure the interim of Iranian power, in accordance with the Constitution, has unsurprisingly shut the door on any discussion with the United States. The legal official of the trio stated unambiguously that negotiation was out of the question.

We will continue to follow events closely on Élucid in order to inform you about this major paradigm shift. The times are, to say the least, hallucinatory and worrying, and more than ever information is under threat, while we, as citizens, are being carried forcefully along in a historical current that bodes nothing good. But count on us not to yield anything to absurdity and violence. We will do our part.

Note: This piece originally appeared in the French publication Elucid. The original can be found here: Les États-Unis et Israël nous entraînent dans une barbarie suicidaire (The US and Israel are leading us into suicidal barbarism). My thanks to the ELUCID editorial staff for granting permission to share this remarkable piece of writing and opinion.

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We know China and Russia have rooting interests in how the war in Iran turns out. We know the price of oil has skyrocketed, putting economies around the world at risk. We know that 40 to 50 percent of the urea nitrogen used in fertilizer passes through the Straits of Hormuz, which has been blocked just as the northern hemisphere planting season is about to start, putting food stocks at risk and all but ensuring higher prices. This is happening just weeks after we alienated our closest allies by trying to strongarm one of them into handing over a significant chunk of their territory, prompting our longtime ally to the north to proclaim that the era of trusting the United States is over. All this as the world sees images of American secret police - for what are masked, unidentified federal law enforcement agents, if not secret police - shooting American citizens dead on city streets, not long before photos of mass graves for young school girls killed by American bombs circulate around the globe.

Through it all, the president insists that America is the hottest country on the planet. Yes, we may be hot, but so is radioactive waste. If there is any validity to the saying attributed to Lenin that there are weeks where decades happen, then we’ve experienced a century of trauma in the ten weeks since we deposed Nicolás Maduro and took control of Venezuela’s oil production.

It is hard to overstate the lasting damage that’s been done to our global reputation, our moral authority, and perhaps most devastatingly, the value of our word. Such is to be expected when inept stupidity meets unfounded certitude. Add a dash of Christian nationalism, a healthy dose of bloodlust, and a bully’s ego, and suddenly, the greatest military power in history becomes not a keeper of world order, but the biggest threat to it.

Theocracy versus Thugocracy

It is almost certain that the ease with which we deposed Nicolas Maduro helped convince Donald Trump and those around him that we could do much the same in Iran. The tens of thousands of Iranian protesters who were gunned down by their government less than a week after we removed Maduro likely convinced the administration that the Iranian people were ready to lay down their lives to topple their own government. Instead of seeing this as an example of the Iran regime’s brutal determination to remain in power, the president and his advisors saw it as evidence of a country begging for deliverance. It is not difficult to imagine the president expecting the U.S. to be lauded as saviors, much as Vladimir Putin expected Russian troops to be welcomed into Kyiv, visions of Allied troops being cheered as they entered 1944 Paris dancing in their heads. Clearly, Trump miscalculated as badly as did his idol.

Comparing Venezuela to Iran and Maduro to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were mistakes of the first order. Venezuela was a thugocracy, Iran a theocracy. Like most thugs, loyalty to Maduro ran only as far as his reach. Once he was gone, loyalties shifted as would be expected in a transactional network where self-interest and survival are paramount.

Loyalty in Iran, by contrast, was not to a man but to a faith. Killing Khamenei and his inner circle turned this into a religious war for Iran’s Shi’a faithful. His position within the faith was akin to that of “pope,” serving as both head of state and leader of the faith. That’s why red flags were raised above sacred mosques soon after his death, a traditional Shiite call to avenge spilled blood, accompanied by fatwahs from leading clerics telling the faithful that it is the “religious duty of all Muslims” to avenge the martyred leader.

That’s a tad different from Venezuela’s “go along to get along” response to Maduro’s arrest. The administration’s failure to foresee such resistance betrays a monumental failure of intelligence - and not necessarily of the espionage kind. What seems to have been overlooked amid all the talk of Iran’s forty-seven years of state-sponsored terrorism is that those forty-seven years gave Iran’s regime plenty of time to sink its tentacles deep into Iranian society and throughout the Middle East. How else could Hamas plan the October 7th terror attacks without detection in the most surveilled patch of ground on Earth? And we’re surprised that cutting off the head doesn’t kill the beast? The blind stupidity boggles.

A Laundry List of Mistakes

These aren’t our only unforced errors. Our failure to build a coalition, our lack of preparation to evacuate U.S. citizens from the war zone, our failure to anticipate that Iran might block the Straits of Hormuz - all are the result of poor planning, ineptitude, stupidity, or hubris. Or all of the above.

The administration can’t say it wasn’t warned. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed his concerns in mid-February that weapon shortages, the complexity of the operation, the lack of allied support, and the possibility Iran might stop shipping traffic made the operation risky, but the president apparently thought he and his Secretary of “War” knew better. Because what better source for advice on pursuing an unwinnable Middle East war than Pete Hegseth, a man with the Crusades cross and rallying cry - “Deus Vult” (God wills it) - tattooed across his arm and chest? This is not the snide remark it may appear to be, but an honest reflection of a man who harbors dangerous Christian nationalist beliefs that should be seen as compromising his critical decision-making on matters of war. (author’s note: if Hegseth were Muslim, his views would mark him as an Islamic extremist).

We now find ourselves in a holy war without friends - save for Israel - as oil prices skyrocket and fertilizer shortages loom, thanks to Iranian mines and drone attacks in the Straits of Hormuz. The only ships allowed to pass are Iranian vessels loaded with oil bound for China. Meanwhile, Russia - rapidly running out of cash just two weeks ago in its war with Ukraine - is now enjoying a $150 million per day reprieve thanks to rising oil prices and relaxed sanctions.

With enemies like us, who needs friends?

We do. But it appears we have none. After a year of slapping tariffs willy-nilly on friends and allies, after trying to strong-arm Denmark into giving up Greenland, and after dismissing the lives sacrificed by Great Britain and other allies in our wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, we act surprised that they’re now thumbing their noses at us as we beg for help. These are simple lessons about fairness, loyalty, and respect that children learn in fables and fairy tales, but they are lost on the American president.

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The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told an audience in Davos that the rules-based order enforced by the U.S. was a lie intended to allow the strong to “do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must,” he was signalling not just the end of U.S. leadership, but the official end of the American Century. Just as decades do not start or end cleanly - the 60’s arguably began with JFK’s assassination in 1963 and ended with Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation - the same is true of centuries. The American century began with our entry into WWI in 1917 and came to a close in 2026, when enemies were treated as friends and friends as enemies. Donald Trump’s newfound reverence for the Monroe Doctrine was not a reassertion of American will, but a surrender to fear and weakness, a withdrawal behind a wall as imaginary and porous as the one he erected along the Mexican border.

Add to that the perfidy that saw us start a war without clear demands or deadlines, one that saw us assassinate the leader of a sovereign state while legitimate negotiations were ongoing, and it’s hard not to see the same sneaky underhandedness deployed by the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor. We have become what we once reviled. If the world now reviles us, we have no one but ourselves to blame.

So, to recap, this is what we know.

Allies no longer trust us, enemies disrespect us, and our one remaining ally - Israel - manipulates us. We’re in the middle of a war with no clearly stated mission or endpoint. Exiting now while trying to claim victory will only leave an agitated Iran, a Middle East questioning the value of allowing American military bases on their soil, and a world looking for stability and moral leadership somewhere other than from the United States. Back home, too many Americans are coming to hate their fellow citizens, and even MAGA is fighting its own civil war.

This is Donald Trump’s life’s work coming to fruition. He can keep dividing in half only so long until he is alone. How long that might take, I don’t know. But what I do know is that every week does, indeed, feel like a decade. Time does not fly when you’re not having fun. And we still have almost three full years to go.

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That story came to mind as I surveyed some recent bumps and bangs. Consider…

The February jobs report showed the economy shed 92,000 jobs, the fifth decline in nine months. Inflation, while tamed, remains stubbornly above the Fed’s target rate of two percent. Gasoline at the station where I paid $2.32 a gallon ten days ago now costs $3.49 after oil prices spiked to $100 per barrel. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq are all down for the year. Almost as a bonus, the U.S. is weathering one of the largest measles outbreaks since the disease was declared eradicated in 2000. All this while we’re engaged in a war with Iran that has no announced endgame outside eliminating their nuclear capability - and there seems to be no concrete plan to accomplish that.

Donald Trump is like Pinball Wizard, enacting tariffs here, alienating allies there, starting wars without thinking them through, insisting all the while that he’s fine to drive, oblivious to the damage in his wake. And like Pinball Wizard, we are fortunate it hasn’t been worse.

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There is a reason friends don’t let friends drive drunk. And there’s a reason why presidents have cabinets and trusted advisors. Except that this president has neither a cabinet nor trusted advisors. Instead, he is surrounded by sycophants whose only job seems to be to encourage him by reminding him what an excellent driver he is. This is not just delusional, it is dangerous.

Most people learn from their mistakes. Donald Trump is not one of those people, largely because he is incapable of admitting he’s made one. The only mistakes Donald Trump has ever admitted to - despite bankrupting six businesses, seeing at least ten others fail, and being blamed for the collapse of the USFL - are what he calls “stupid hires.” Among these “stupid hires” are Jeff Sessions, John Kelly, and Jerome Powell, whose shortcomings were not acting as full-on lackeys for Donald Trump. Which is to say that his only mistakes have been hiring people who might advise him against making mistakes.

Donald Trump's inner circle is thus filled with what Hannah Arendt described as “those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity” is sure to guarantee their loyalty. Her topic was totalitarianism, but it just as easily could have been incompetence.

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Examples abound. His cabinet nods approvingly as the president claims impossible drug savings of 500 or 600 percent. His Commerce Secretary, caught in lies about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, would rather justify the president’s math than say it was wrong. His Education Secretary speaks of the wonders that A-One could work in the classroom, when what she really means is AI. His Attorney General, who once dropped a fraud investigation into Trump University after her Florida AG campaign received a $25,000 donation from Donald Trump, tells Congress his administration is the most transparent in history, even as she stonewalls them over the Epstein investigation by withholding some 40,000 files, including many connecting the president to the case. His Secretary of Health and Human Services has stated that steroids, antibiotics, and cod liver oil are effective weapons against measles, betraying his ignorance about antibiotics, viral infections, and folk medicine. His Secretary of “War,” who suggested his willingness to go to war against his own country in his book The War of Warriors, displays a disturbing bloodlust where most military leaders express regret that death is part of their duty. And his Secretary of State, presumed to be his chief diplomat, appears to have wars lined up from Venezuela to Iran to Cuba.

It doesn’t end there. The president’s choice to replace the Homeland Security chief who bragged about killing her young dog to prove her manly bona fides, is a man who tried to prove his manly bona fides by seeking to start a fistfight during a Senate hearing. And his FBI Director once wrote a children’s book called The Plot Against the King, described as a fantastical retelling of Hillary’s horrible plot against Trump, where Kash the Distinguished Discoverer wins the day. I kid you not. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

This is the team directing our economy, teaching our children, protecting our health, and advising our president as he leads us into war. The dings and dents we’re experiencing aren’t just happenstance, they are warning signs that all is not well. Still, the president tells us it is, even as oil marches past $100 per barrel with no end to its rise, or the war that caused it, in sight. His cheerleaders are oblivious to the risks posed by the massive deficits that will result from the unnecessary tax cuts given to people who don’t need them. They’re indifferent to the pain suffered by those losing their healthcare subsidies. They lie about Americans shot in the back or face by ICE agents. And wishful thinking is the order of the day concerning Iran, the threat AI poses to jobs and privacy, the growing police state, and the real concerns about everyday affordability.

We are a bus full of revelers with a drunken Pinball Wizard at the wheel, bouncing from one calamity to the next. Some are yelling for him to stop, but he only hears the voices cheering him on. We can hope we don’t run off into a ditch or go up in flames before his time at the wheel is up, but there are a lot of ways all this could go south before he’s through. This is no drill. His threats to gain control of elections before the midterms are his way of keeping anyone from tapping the brakes on the bus. It is time for the sober among us to be the best version of citizens we can be.

Still, there is hope. There have been signs of cracks in the MAGA armor. We need to attack those cracks the way ice and water turn cracks in sidewalks into crumbling concrete. Not everyone is thrilled with the war in Iran, the handling of the Epstein files, or the heavy-handed tactics used by ICE. The more calls and emails our elected representatives get, the more we leverage the discomfort some reluctant Trump supporters have begun to exhibit, the more we can slow the devolution into chaos. We need to show up and speak out. We need to buy as much time as possible until we can replace the man at the wheel. But the time to act is now, lest we risk the whole thing ending in a fatal crack-up.

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It’s hard to be optimistic given that the two leaders responsible for this war have both proven themselves more adept at breaking things than fixing them. It takes a bit of mental jiu-jitsu to paint Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel as one of the good guys after more than two years of indiscriminate killing in Gaza that can justifiably be labeled genocide. That they are our partner in a war we claim is to rid the Middle East of a terrorist state would be a source of irony were the subject not so serious.

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Before going any further, do I think the world would be a better place with a free and democratic Iran? Of course. The Iranians I’ve known personally, and more significantly, people I know who have served as government interpreters working with Iranian nationals, suggest the Iranian people not only long to be free of their oppressors, but are nothing like the regressive and repressive government that rules over them. They are not to fault for the havoc their government has wreaked upon the world and deserve better. Furthermore, the Middle East and the world as a whole would be a better place without state sponsors of terror running one of the largest oil-producing and Muslim countries on earth. From helping to arm Russia in Ukraine to backing terrorists around the globe, including Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran has been arguably the most disruptive force against peace for decades. We should all hope this past weekend’s initiative turns out to be wise.

This is the conundrum we find ourselves in. No one, save for some religious fanatics, would argue that the world won’t be a better place if our gambit in Iran succeeds. But no one has been able to articulate what such success looks like or when we will know it’s been achieved.

Neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, nor Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine could tell us what the endgame was during their briefing this morning. President Trump said the attacks would continue until Iran no longer poses a threat, which could be taken as saying the plan is to fire missiles, decapitate Iran’s government, and hope that something better arises from the ashes. There seems to be no plan beyond the wreckage.

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We’ve tried this before and don’t have to look far to see what happens. We took out Saddam Hussein and ended up with ISIS. We spent nearly 20 years fighting in Afghanistan, where the Taliban still rules. Bashar al-Assad was replaced in Syria by a former Al Qaeda fighter who has now met at least twice with Vladimir Putin. We took out our long-time nemesis Muammar Ghaddafi in Libya, leaving the country divided between the Government of National Unity in Tripoli and the Government of National Stability in Benghazi (neither seems worthy of their name). Somalia, Gaza, Sudan - none are ringing endorsements of our efforts to bring peace to the region.

Some may point to Venezuela as a success, but that may have more to do with turning a blind eye to what’s transpiring beyond the oil fields, the only real concern our president seems to have. It is hard to imagine the drug cartels quietly laid down their arms, surrendered their mountains of drugs, and decided to take up the coffee trade. I am not going to speculate what kind of deal may have been struck with “interim” president Delcy Rodriguez, but it demands far more scrutiny than it’s gotten. Same with the Epstein affair.

I’m tempted to say, “but I digress,” but distraction would seem to be the point, the modus operandi of this administration - to “flood the zone with shit” as Steve Bannon once put it. The old saying that nothing’s a priority when everything’s a priority rings true here, except that the word “priority” could be replaced with crime, crisis, and scandal.

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Consider that we deposed Nicolas Maduro 58 days ago, on January 3. Events since have included the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the takeover of TikTok’s algorithm by Trump ally Larry Ellison, the release of 3 million pages of Epstein files, the Greenland foray, the creation of Trump’s Board of Peace (and UN competitor), and the start of a war with Iran. All in less than two full months. We are bombarded with a steady stream of events that demand our undivided attention, but their sheer volume makes that impossible.

Every one of these demands intense scrutiny and sober review. They got no such thing. Instead, they each got a few days of headlines before it was on to the next thing. We can only hope the endgame in Iran received a tad more attention. That Iran deserved no more than two paragraphs in the president’s record-length State of the Union speech does not augur well for the thoroughness of the long-range planning. I have much faith in the military to plan and carry out their part of the mission, but after that, not so much.

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It is hard to believe that the tail is not wagging the dog, especially when one considers that Bibi Netanyahu squeezed a February 11th White House visit into the chaotic schedule above to discuss nuclear negotiations with Iran. Reports suggest Netanyahu feared these talks might lead to an agreement between the U.S. and Iran that would preclude military intervention. If Netanyahu did indeed convince Trump to pursue the military option, the seventeen intervening days between that meeting and the commencement of hostilities would hardly seem enough time to outline a peace plan, let alone coordinate its implementation. It also suggests that the U.S. is the junior partner in this alliance. If so, every dime spent on this endeavor should come out of any aid destined for Israel.

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Which brings us back to Israel. It sickens me that Netanyahu can get his way - and get us to put American lives on the line to do his bidding - after the atrocities his government perpetrated in Gaza. That not only are there no repercussions for what transpired, but that he gets rewarded, truly turns my stomach. I wrote a month after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks that I feared Israel’s response would turn world opinion against not just the state of Israel, but Jews in general, thus sparking a new wave of antisemitism. That certainly seems to have been the case.

We can only pray that this war will somehow lead to a peaceful Iran that renounces state-sponsored terror and pursues real and lasting peace with Israel and its fellow countries around the world. If that happens, it will then be up to Israel to prove that it can do the same. Its actions in Gaza have caused real harm to the image of Jews around the world. Just as the vast majority of Iranians are not responsible for the actions of their government, the same is true of Jews. The Israeli government owes it to them to show that it, too, can be a good global citizen. Ridding itself of Benjamin Netanyahu would be a good start.

“The President has a real opportunity at the State of the Union: Bring the country together. Remind us who we are. We saw it for brief moments recently celebrating Olympic medal wins by Team USA. Politics disappeared and we were simply Americans cheering together. We need more of that.”

What was Kasich thinking? The former Ohio governor and long-time thorn in Trump’s side is right that we need more unity, but he should know better than anyone that Donald Trump is not the man to deliver it. The president couldn’t even bring us together over the Olympic golds won by our men’s and women’s hockey teams. True to his brand, the president screwed up the equivalent of a two-horse parade, turning one of our proudest moments into yet another loyalty test.

This divisiveness is not a bug, it is an essential feature of his operating system. Division is as hardwired into Trump’s psyche as are his pronouns - I, me, mine. And it is around those pronouns that his entire worldview is built. One is either with him or against him, which is where his version of us versus them originates. It is not about we or us, it is about him. Are you with me or against me?

He proved it during the SOTU when he asked Congress to stand up if they thought a president’s first duty is to protect American citizens from dangerous illegal immigrants. It was a ridiculous request that demanded an instantaneous distillation of complex questions regarding the president’s role as defined by the Constitution and the myriad concerns of the American people into a single, binary decision. In doing so, he made it not a question of the president’s duty as implied by his oath - to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and to faithfully execute ALL the duties of the office of the president - but instead a litmus test of loyalty designed to create division. Those who were with him, even if they disagreed with the premise, were going to stand. Those against, or principled enough to risk his wrath, weren’t.

Are you with me or against me?

This reminded me of something a late friend of mine said during Trump’s first term, when the president questioned the patriotism of NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem. My friend, an Eagle Scout father and as good an American as one could find, said he wanted to stand for the anthem - but he wanted to do it for the country, not for Trump. It’s hard to convey how divisive and destructive this is. A simple act of respect for the country that so many of us took pride in suddenly became another presidential loyalty test. Standing, even when we wanted to, came with a hint of resentment towards a president who would sully such a moment. Worse, it left an almost unidentifiable discomfort with a country that would elect such a man.

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This is the president’s divisiveness at its most insidious, poisoning patriotism for his own purposes. Incapable of loving the country because he is incapable of loving anything or anyone but himself, he exploits others’ love of country to grab some for himself. When he hugs a flag the way a drunk might hug a lamppost, supporters see their patriotism in the act. When he tells NFL players to stand for the anthem, supporters see themselves in his disgust. He and they become indistinguishable. He then turns criticism directed at him for these acts into another us-versus-them loyalty test.

Are you with me or against me?

Nowhere has he used this to his advantage more than with his legal issues. Framing the attacks on him as attacks on his supporters creates a false connection, where the legal charges against him become attacks on them. This turns those making such charges into a common enemy, which explains why his supporters don’t see his attacks as any more divisive than what is hurled at them. His supporters see it as “they attack us, he attacks them.” It’s a brilliant ju-jitsu move where he turns his opponents’ actions into opportunities to be the defender of the people, when in fact, he is turning the people into his defenders.

This strategy’s effectiveness was evident in the comments below Kasich’s post, where the president’s defenders argued that he is no more divisive than any of his predecessors or attackers. All the usual suspects were there - Russia, Jack Smith, Biden, Obama. All given as evidence that both sides divide us equally.

But there was one comment that inadvertently revealed Donald Trump’s fatal shortcoming, his Achilles heel.

80 million.

That was the entire comment, an exaggerated reference to the 77 million votes Donald Trump received in 2024. It was meant to convey the president’s broad support, but it betrayed the true source of the division that won’t go away. That’s because those 77 million Americans are the only ones he cares about. He’s not the leader of a country, he’s the leader of a faction. That, by definition, is divisive.

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He may pay lip service to “the American people,” but only in the most generic sense. His concern never goes any deeper. He only wants to hear about, and he only cares about, those who support him and agree that everything is just swell. He doesn’t want to hear that people are having trouble making ends meet - affordability is a hoax. He doesn’t care about justice for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims - that is behind us. He doesn’t want to believe that thousands of small businesses have been put at risk of failure because of his tariffs. Anyone who complains about those things is dead to him.

Are you with me or against me?

Any suggestion that someone isn’t perfectly content under his leadership is met with contempt. There are three clear examples of this. One during Covid, one following the Texas floods last summer, and one three weeks ago regarding justice for Epstein survivors. In all three, the president was asked what he would say to people who were looking to government for answers - to people frightened by Covid, to people who might have lost loved ones because of delays in communicating flood warnings, to Epstein survivors who feel they haven’t gotten justice. In every case he attacked the reporter asking the question.

These are all softball questions, the kind that allow presidents to show leadership and compassion in times of crisis or trauma. It’s how Ronald Reagan comforted a nation following the Challenger disaster, how Bill Clinton’s response to the Oklahoma City bombing reversed his crashing opinion polls, and how George Bush showed he understood our pain when he told rescue workers, while standing on the smoking rubble of the Twin Towers, that he heard us.

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Donald Trump not only whiffs on these softballs, he throws his bat because he does not want to hear that something is imperfect or that someone may be suffering on his watch. It is perhaps the clearest evidence we have that he is only president for those who support him in the moment.

Are you with me or against me?

I came up with a simple measure of a president’s ability to lead shortly after 9/11, when I played Toby Keith’s Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue back-to-back with Alan Jackson’s Where Were You for my wife. She had the expected reaction, at first all fist-pumping jingoism, followed by a somber need for tissues. As I watched her mood change, I noted that a successful president had to be able to play to both ends of that emotional spectrum. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George Bush met the challenge, as have Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and others. But Donald Trump fails miserably because he is incapable of separating others’ pain from his own ego. A healthy person recognizes that others’ agony is not their own injury. Donald Trump can’t make that distinction, so public tragedy becomes personal grievance.

It’s why Donald Trump can’t help but be divisive. In a perfect world - his perfect world - everyone would be happy and he’d get the credit. But it’s not a perfect world and never will be. There will always be people in need - in need of jobs, of healthcare, of protection, of justice. They are a president’s first responsibility, but Donald Trump’s worst nightmare. That’s a divide that can never be bridged.

I say “should” because the way the files have been released and redacted has been so careless and haphazard that it’s impossible to tell if it’s due to general incompetence or willful corruption. Since I’ve been saying from the start that the Epstein affair is not, and should not be viewed as, a Left/Right matter, I’m hesitant to make what could be mistaken for partisan accusations regarding the incompetence of the Justice Department that’s running this investigation. But I will say that Pam Bondi’s stonewalling and Kash Patel’s claim that this matter is now closed as far as the FBI is concerned is a travesty. While the United Kingdom has shown it is willing to arrest the king’s brother and strip him of his royal titles and privileges, we see no such desire for anything resembling that level of accountability in this land of no kings.

What might be most troubling about this affair is that we likely wouldn’t care were it not for the sexual depravity at its heart. Epstein’s island would just be another location like Davos, Aspen, or any of the other enclaves where people who believe they have been anointed to rule over the rest of us gather to share dinner, drinks, and that most valuable of all commodities, information.

This is where the real revelation of the Epstein files comes into view. Information was Jeffrey Epstein’s currency. It is what drew people into his orbit the way a porchlight attracts all manner of insects - buzzing and circling, unsure why they are there but certain they’ll come away with something of value. Sure, he may have provided girls for some of his guests, there may have been pedophilia and torture and God knows what else, but those were mere amenities at Hotel Epstein, his version of mud baths and hot rock massages. The real draw was information and access of a type seen as so valuable that the sultans of government, media, business, tech, and finance were willing to sell whatever remained of their souls by keeping silent about the abuse so as not to risk their seat at Epstein’s table.

The mistake these people make is in confusing intel - insider information - for intelligence. That being the first to know makes them the smartest in the room. This is where the hubris that leads people to believe they are meant to be the ruling class begins. From that hubris springs the belief that the rules of a decent society do not apply. And when rules don’t apply to a ruling class, rot sets in.

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The extent of this rot included not just presidents and princes, but also cabinet members, tech titans, foreign potentates, financiers, filmmakers, academics, and just about any wannabe hangers-on one could imagine. The result was a deep state global in scale, accountable to no one, and hidden in plain sight because anytime someone uncovered a part of the story that risked blowing the thing wide open, there was always someone else with too much at stake to let that happen.

Epstein’s fingers were into everything, from his nextdoor neighbor’s home to deals that involved Israeli biometrics and cybersecurity firms, Nigerian gas and oil operations, Russian oligarchs, Austrian, American, and South African experts in navigating global sanctions, the head of one of the world’s largest logistics operations (Sultan Ahmad bin Sulayem of DP World), an Israeli prime minister, a Nigerian president, Henry Kissinger and venture capitalist Peter Thiel - and that was just one deal.

One of the best representations of Epstein’s global reach is this visualization of his network. It seems there was almost nothing that Epstein didn’t touch, and helping to keep it all quiet were the questionable and sordid escapades that have garnered the bulk of the attention. Here’s a tiny, rather tame sampling:

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made a point of telling us how disgusting he and his wife found their neighbor Jeffrey Epstein, but failed to tell us that they bought their NYC home from Epstein for $10 and “other valuable considerations.”

• Epstein secured a $3 million stake in Coinbase with the help of Brock Pierce, who sent Epstein a series of emails suggesting they meet in Puerto Rico, at Mar-a-Lago, or on a boat off Antigua “full of amazing Ukraine’s finest.”

• Elon Musk emailed Epstein one Christmas morning, seeking the opposite of “a peaceful island experience” once his kids went home.

• Bill Gates asked Epstein to find him some antibiotics for the saddest Mickey ever slipped to one’s own wife, making for an even sadder coda to a failed marriage.

• Epstein emailed DP World’s Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem that he “loved the torture video.”

• Longevity guru Peter Attia jokingly complained that he had to keep quiet about Epstein’s lifestyle.

This only scratches the surface of the depravity found in Epstein’s emails, which include references to rape, beatings, and torture. It was the mutual desire to keep all this quiet that allowed him to operate what was essentially a global shadow government.

Now, in more civilized parts of the world, people are beginning to pay a price for their Epstein dalliances. In addition to the public shame and legal consequences suffered by former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Sultan bin Sulayem has been forced out of his CEO role at DP World, Peter Mandolsen was fired as British ambassador to the U.S and is under investigation on charges that could bring a life sentence., a former prime minister of Norway is also facing criminal charges, and a host of other foreign business leaders and government officials have been forced out or face prosecution.

Such is not the case on this side of the Atlantic, where, aside from a handful of midlevel casualties, the self-anointed ruling elite continue on their merry way, stronger than ever and unconcerned with the wheels of justice. Jeffrey Epstein may be dead, but for these folks, life goes on.

What has changed is the center of power and self-dealing. It is no longer Epstein Island but 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Instead of secrets of criminal debauchery working to ensure mutual silence, the threat of state power hangs like the sword of Damocles over anyone who dares cross the king. The Epstein affair may not be a matter of Right vs. Left, but it is no doubt a matter of right and wrong. That much remains the same.

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The Department of Justice, the FCC, FTC, EPA - even the military - are all tools used by the president to silence enemies and reward allies. Qatar gives Donald Trump a $400 million Boeing 747 and they receive access to military training facilities on U.S. soil. The United Arab Emirates uses Trump’s World Liberty Financial stablecoin to transfer $2 billion to cryptocurrency firm Binance and the U.S. approves a deal to ship advanced computer chips to the UAE, while Binance founder Changpeng Zhao receives a presidential pardon (Binance now holds 87% of Trump’s stablecoin). The president promises to do the oil industry’s bidding in exchange for supporting his race to regain the Oval Office. They comply and the president deploys the US military to secure foreign oil assets in Venezuela that he argues were unfairly taken.

If only the president were so committed to using the powers at his disposal to secure justice for what was stolen from Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, but I digress.

Mergers, acquisitions, and foreign technology sales requiring administration approval hinge almost entirely on what one does for Donald Trump. From Apple CEO Tim Cook’s 24k gold plaque to the hundreds of millions in private donations for the president’s pet ballroom project, from CBS’s cancellation of Stephen Colbert to putting Bari Weiss in charge of CBS News, open displays of fealty and obsequiousness are the new currency that allow one to operate without interference. Bending one’s knee in the form of gifts or praise for Donald Trump, instead of shutting one’s mouth about pedophilia, is the new price to do as one pleases.

Let the good times roll. An $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance, announced in 2024, was not approved by the FCC until Paramount’s CBS unit gave Trump $16 million in 2025 to settle what had been considered a frivolous lawsuit.

Skydance was owned by David Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison. When Congress overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill banning TikTok if it were not sold to a U.S. company due to national security concerns, Donald Trump ignored the law and the Supreme Court for months, working out an agreement that gave Ellison’s Oracle control of the platform’s content, security, and algorithm. Days after Oracle took over last month, users found they could no longer send direct messages that included the word “Epstein.”

As with Epstein, the amoral elite take care of their own. Keeping quiet about sex crimes or settling lawsuits is easy when morals take a backseat to profits. Amoral profiteering is a polite way to define corruption. Across both enterprises - Epstein’s and Trump’s - the corruption has been immense.

Forbes estimates that Donald Trump has added more than $3 billion to his net worth since retaking office last year. Meanwhile, the magazine estimates that his son, Eric, has increased his net worth tenfold to more than a billion dollars, while Don Jr.’s net worth has grown sixfold over the same timeframe.

On the other side of the balance sheet, Elon Musk’s net worth is nearing 3/4s of a trillion dollars. Jeff Bezos’ net worth has doubled since Epstein died, Mark Zuckerberg’s has tripled, and Larry Ellison’s has quadrupled. And deserving of a story all its own, venture capitalist Peter Thiel has seen his net worth grow 1,000-fold, to $27 billion, as his investment in deep state surveillance infrastructure firm Palantir Technologies soars.

All this as Pam Bondi crows about a Dow at 50,000 and FBI Director Kash Patel tells us to move along, that there’s nothing to see here. And so, justice is denied to those who suffered the most horrific of violations while a privileged few profit as though nothing happened and nothing has changed. This is the rot that takes place when amoral power is left to its own devices.

We are rightfully appalled that so many men (and women) could remain silent about the crimes committed by Epstein and his co-conspirators. We are disgusted that they would turn a blind eye so they could continue to feed at Epstein’s insider trough. And yet, in ways, we are just as complicit. So many of us are just as willing to remain silent about the grift taking place in plain sight on our own watch, in exchange for what? Lower taxes? Ridding ourselves of “undesirables?” For what?

A two-tiered system of justice has long been a telltale sign of tyranny. Jefferson defined it as “rules for thee, but not for me.” It can also manifest itself as justice for some but not for all, as was the case in 1930s Germany or the Jim Crow South. We are witnessing the worst of all worlds, one where too many don’t care that due process is denied to those caught up in the dragnet that seeks to rid us of unwanted immigrants, while we turn a blind eye to the grift that acts as a cancer eating away at the fibers of our democracy.

H.L. Mencken once observed that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

We are getting exactly what we deserve. We should be ashamed.

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I've had a hard time deciding on the word that best captures Pam Bondi’s essence, but vile seems to work. If that seems harsh, consider it in light of how Bondi debased herself yesterday. In a sea of abhorrent behavior, I did not think it possible to fall any further than she had as she sat with a smug look on her face after getting under Rep. Becca Balint's skin by suggesting the congresswoman, whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, had somehow promoted antisemitism. But I was wrong - and it took mere seconds to be proved so - when Bondi laughed as Rep. Balint walked out in anger over the smear. This, coming from a woman who had earlier scolded Rep. Jamie Raskin for laughing when Bondi brought up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, apropos of nothing, in answer to a question about investigating Epstein co-conspirators.

I’m tiring of asking readers to ponder for a moment what I’ve just descibed, but the absurdity of what we’re witnessing has become so routine that we’re coming to see it as just that - routine. We can’t let that happen. So I will rephrase what I just wrote in the forlorn hope that maybe one supporter of the president will take the time to read and consider how wrong all this is.

Rep. Jerry Nadler had earlier asked the attorney general how many co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein she was investigating, a perfectly legitimate question for a House oversight committee hearing. But, as is her wont, Pam Bondi deflected by pointing out how no one had asked that question of Merrick Garland, before adding, “You know why? Because Donald Trump,” then, looking at her notes, continued, “the Dow, the Dow right now is over, the Dow is over 50,000,” prompting Raskin to laugh out of justifiable incredulity.

I get why he laughed. I mean, seriously, WTF? That “wtf” is my reaction shows just how ridiculous this administration has become. What does the Dow have to do with anything regarding the Epstein case, or the Justice Department, for that matter? She deserved to be laughed at for making such a mockery of the role she holds. But shame is not an emotion known to Pam Bondi.

Which is, itself, a shame, because it wouldn't be long before she would ask for time to specifically accuse Rep. Balint of casting an antisemitic vote. That was enough for Balint, who after a few heated words reminding Bondi that her grandfather had died in the Holocaust, walked out of the chamber as Bondi laughed. It was reprehensible.

This could have been a fairly easy hearing for Bondi. Despite her missteps handling the Epstein files, she could have taken the edge off Democratic attacks by vowing to seek justice on behalf of the Epstein survivors. But like shame, that too is beyond Pam Bondi's ability. Instead, she chose to abdicate her role as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer in the service of power, party and the president. That's not her job.

I came of age during the Watergate hearings, where the White House counsel, whose job is to serve as legal counsel to the president, testified before Congress that he’d told the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency. It was Republican Senator Howard Baker who asked the fateful question, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” And it was a group of Republicans, including Barry Goldwater, who urged Richard Nixon to resign for the good of the country.

How far we have fallen in understanding that in a government of, by, and for the people, public officials are there to serve us, not their party or those in power. There was a time when we understood this very simple concept, where principle took precedence over party. If there is a divide between justice for the people or the perpetrators, public officials were to take the people’s side. That is no longer the case.

The attorney general’s job is to serve as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, working to ensure justice for all the people, but Pam Bondi approaches her job as though she has one client, whose name is Donald Trump. And even there, she acts more like a P.R. flack than a lawyer, deflecting rather than arguing facts. It shouldn't be this way, but since it's how she sees her job and how the president demands it, we are left with a vacuum where justice for the American people ought to be.

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The most immediate victims of that vacuum are the Epstein survivors, who have received far less respect and privacy from Pam Bondi’s Justice Department than have Epstein’s enablers and co-conspirators. Bondi, whose job is to protect these women, wouldn’t so much as look at them or apologize during the hearing. Whether that was due to cowardice or dereliction of duty doesn’t matter. Either excuse makes her unfit for the office she holds.

But the real victim of Bondi’s misguided loyalty is the rule of law. Who are we to turn to if the person most responsible for ensuring that we all enjoy equal protection under the law doesn’t see that as her job? If not her, who? That is the question I want to ask any Trump supporter who has read this far. What recourse do we have when even victims of child sex trafficking are forced to take a backseat to protecting those in power? Who is there to represent us? Please, the comment section is available. I want to know.

The Epstein case has never been a matter of Left versus Right, or even Donald Trump versus his opponents. It is a matter of up versus down, power versus the vulnerable. If we can’t come together in defense of victims here, where can we? If the full force of the U.S. government now exists to protect power at the expense of the rest of us, the day we’ve been dreading - left and right, pro-life and pro-choice, Christian, Muslim, Jew and atheist - is here, for if there is no equal protection under the law, there is no rule of law. We are all at the mercy of those in power.

I am at a loss for words. Vile, abhorrent, reprehensible - the English language provides plenty, though none seem sufficient for what we've witnessed. And yet, if we fail to rediscover decency and respect soon, especially respect for the rule of law, I fear the search for adjectives will be the least of our worries.

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I have to confess that there was always something unsettling about Detroit’s riverfront ethnic festivals that my friends and I would attend while in high school. Even when I was with first and second-generation German or Italian friends, at German or Italian festivals, I always thought they felt a bit over the top. They didn’t feel ethnic, they felt forced, almost as if they were trying too hard. The music so foreign, the language a barrier, the food too authentic.

That is, until we attended the Polish festival. Suddenly, I understood. This wasn’t foreign; it was my grandma’s house. The food wasn’t some Americanized, freezer-bin version of Polish food, it was what my grandmother made in her own kitchen. The music was what we played at weddings and sang around dining room tables. The language the people spoke amongst themselves wasn’t foreign, it was the language my grandparents spoke to each other. It was then that I realized that what I’d experienced at the German and Italian festivals wasn't foreign, it was what my friends experienced among their own families. The music, food, and language were what they had grown up with, just like me, only different.

That’s why it’s too bad everyone didn’t stick around for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance. They would have seen it was a 13-minute, 40-second ethnic festival where he shared his experience, one just like every other ethnic experience. Only different. That is America, a nation of immigrants, indigenous, and once-indentured peoples with wildly divergent histories, yet with so much in common. There is a phrase for that.

E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one.

Therein lies the mistake made by those who bolted out of anger for an alternative show. E Pluribus Unum only works when we allow ourselves to appreciate what makes each of us unique (the many), while celebrating the things that unite us (the one). One half of the equation won’t suffice. Not just many, not just one. We need both. Thinking that we can separate ourselves and survive, let alone thrive, is a fool’s mission, as is believing there’s a one-size-fits-all solution that will satisfy everyone. Today’s fractured mediascape and the society it has produced won’t allow it. Which is why events like the Super Bowl are so important. They are among the increasingly rare times when all of us, with all our varied beliefs and backgrounds, can come together in a shared experience where there is something for everyone.

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It wasn’t always this way. There was a time long before cable, social media, and streaming, where we would share, for better or worse, entertainment and news from the same sources, then gather around the proverbial water-cooler to discuss them. All in the Family, Roots, M*A*S*H, and Cosby were all shared cultural touchstones that allowed us to confront preconceived notions collectively without a profit-driven rage machine telling us what to think. The best of these left us with a newfound understanding that allowed varied lifestyles to thrive within a shared set of cultural values. E pluribus unum - individual expression of common values. That is a good thing. Today’s fractured media landscape not only makes such universal acceptance more difficult, but it profits from doing so.

It pains me to say it, but perhaps we could learn a lesson from the NFL, which seems to be one of the few remaining media juggernauts willing to straddle our widening divide. Sunday saw a performance of the black national anthem (“Lift Every Voice and Sing”), an anti-fascist anthem (“American Idiot”), and the national anthem (with perfunctory military flyover), sandwiched around “America the Beautiful” by LGBTQ icon Brandi Carlile, all capped off by Bad Bunny’s halftime show that included an official, if not exactly traditional, straight wedding. There was something for everyone. But instead of coming off like a hodge-podge, it was a colorful collage that showed the tapestry that is America - all of the Americas. And if there was some pointed protest hidden amongst the joy, well, that's America, too.

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Unfortunately, a sizable cohort fled for an alternative, not because they hate Bad Bunny, but because they’d been told they should. Consider that last sentence for a moment. It reminds me of an exchange I once overheard between roommates looking at a menu.

“JB, what’s arugula?”

“It’s like lettuce.”

“Do I like it?”

“No.”

Only, in this case, it was Bad Bunny who was on the menu. Instead of allowing curiosity to see what the halftime show might bring - to see if they might like arugula - many let others make that decision for them. This wasn’t Hallmark countrprogramming for those who don’t care for football or halftime shows, it was a deliberate, politically-driven intent to divide us further at a time when we least need such division. As mentioned above, there was something for everyone, including the red meat patriotism of “The Star Spangled Banner” and military jets flying in formation, but for some, that was not enough. It’s as though some want their version of America and nothing else. I’m afraid none of us gets to have our way, and only our way. Not anymore. That's not because we've let too many people, or too many of the wrong people, into the country. It's because we are finally recognizing all the people who have been a part of this country all along. That’s part of the beauty of this nation we’ve built, and learning to appreciate that - on both sides - will go a long way in curing what ails us today.

Passing on an ethnic festival because one’s not a fan of schnitzel and sauerkraut is understandable. But not going because one doesn’t like Germans, or perhaps worse, because someone else says we shouldn’t like Germans, is cause for some soul-searching. I would hope those who fled the Super Bowl halftime for similar reasons would do the same. The worst that could happen, as happened to me at those Detroit ethnic festivals so many years ago, is that in learning about those around you, you learn a little bit more about yourself. And what you find is that everybody is different - just like you. E pluribus unum.

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“I don’t know who it was, but someone, maybe or maybe not Henry James, said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who upon seeing someone else suffering think, That could happen to me, and those who think, That will never happen to me. The first kind of people help us to endure, the second kind make life hell.”

It arrived just as I was contemplating the stark differences between Kristi Noem, the woman I had profiled the previous Thursday, and Amy Acton, the candidate for Ohio governor that I met and heard speak two days later. Kristi Noem seems congenitally condemned to being the sort who makes life hell, harboring an inner cruelty that could only find a home in the administration she now serves. Amy Acton is something else. The dichotomy is stark.

I came away from Saturday’s event with the feeling that Dr. Acton was unlike any politician I had ever met, something I couldn’t put my finger on until I realized it was because Amy Acton is not a politician; she is a public servant. Her public service was what prompted leaders of Ohio’s Democratic Party to plead with her to run, and it was her commitment to public service that convinced her to say yes. Perhaps more telling is how the goodwill she earned from that service was enough to dissuade Democratic heavyweights like former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and former U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan from entering the governor’s race.

The public service that put her in such demand was her stint as Ohio’s Director of Public Health during the early days of Covid, where her steady, informative, and dare I say, kind daily updates made her something of a folk hero. She was so popular that young girls were posting videos of themselves with lab coats and stethoscopes, while Dr. Amy bobbleheads appeared on store shelves. She retains surprising goodwill among the people of Ohio, untainted by the animosity that hounded so many officials during Covid. Her humility, honesty, and surprisingly fierce compassion could help her maintain that goodwill, though her billionaire opponent’s war chest will certainly do its best to undermine it.

All this is a long way of getting to the passage at the top of this piece. Our politics, fueled by a libertarian, free-market mania, have taken an obscene carrot-and-stick approach to merit-based policies, where the carrot is reserved for those who succeed and the stick for those who struggle. It is Dickensian in its perversity, where the successful enjoy a path paved with deregulation, employer-friendly workplace rules, and a billionaire-friendly tax code paid for by cuts to Medicaid and ACA subsidies, leaving those most in need to fend for themselves. It is not carrot-and-stick as incentive, it is carrot as reward for those in the favored class and stick as punishment for those with the temerity to burden us with their failure. In a society where compassion has been confused for weakness and cruelty confused for resolve, one can almost hear Ebeneezer Scrooge asking, “Are there no prisons?”

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These are policies built by people so far removed from poverty that they can’t see the humanity in those who struggle. Some may have pulled themselves up from nothing, forgetting all the help they received along the way. Some were raised in comfort, blind to how comfort eases the path forward. Still others were born to privilege and believe privilege is a birthright. These are people who see others suffering and think not that there but for the grace of God go I, but that by the grace of their own hand, fortune, or virtue, such suffering is not their concern. This should come as no surprise, coming from a ruling class where people like Elon Musk and the late Charlie Kirk have decried empathy as a societal curse. To the degree that Hannah Arendt was correct in her observation that the death of human empathy is a warning sign that a culture is about to fall into barbarism, so it is that such people see suffering and make life hell.

Amy Acton could have easily fallen into this trap. I did not know until last weekend that she came from nothing, battling hunger, neglect, and homelessness as a child. Her journey is a measure of fortitude and character, but her success has not made her a victim of ego. Where one often finds boastfulness, there is only gratitude. It is in that gratitude that lies the clearest demarcation between the leadership we so desperately need today and the angry politics we are being forced to endure.

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Dr. Acton is the first to admit she wouldn’t have succeeded without the help of others - she specifically points to a family that would feed her and her brother breakfast every morning on their way to school. But she also knows there are others just as capable as she, who don’t or won’t have someone to bridge that gap between desperation and possibility.

These are people being hurt through no fault of their own, often due to the indifference of a state that sees the stick as the best way to deal with the inconvenience of those who can’t fend for themselves. That stick takes the form of budget cuts that close hospitals, forcing women to drive an hour and a half to Cincinnati or cross state lines to find a place to deliver their baby. It takes the form of unconstitutional school funding that forces districts like Toledo to end local busing and go to four-day school weeks to make ends meet, while the state mandates that public school funds pay for buses to take voucher students to private schools. It takes the form of indifference to the 23-year-old father who faces $300,000 in medical bills amassed in keeping his premature son alive, on top of his student loan debt, practically ensuring he and his family will never get ahead.

This is what happens when reverence for free markets allows them to run wild, forgetting that it’s not consumers, but shareholders who are free markets’ only responsibility. Hospitals close, private schools get preferential treatment, and medical bills are heaped on those unfortunate enough to need extraordinary care. It needn’t and shouldn’t have to be this way. Our Chicken Little approach to these problems is what Amy Acton seeks to fix by asking us to have the courage to stare them in the face and act, just like that family that would give her breakfast on her way to school.

Her reminder that the root word of courage is cor, the Latin word for heart, puts her prescription at odds with today’s one-size-fits-all response to everything that ails us. Free markets can do much, but they cannot do everything because they leave gaps - gaps that people fall into. It takes heart to appreciate the pain such folks who fall into those gaps suffer. That is empathy defined, the very human - and humane - capacity that has inexplicably become anathema to certain thought leaders on the right. It takes heart to fight for causes that will have no direct benefit to us, save for a healthier, more productive society. And it takes courage to fight for them in the face of forces who believe such people are undeserving of our help, or that doing so makes us weak, especially if fighting for them puts us at odds with those in our own tribe.

It is courage that we need to find - the courage to ask and answer hard questions.

We need to ask ourselves, did the students of Toledo do anything to deserve a substandard education that will haunt them the rest of their lives? Did the woman living in Mt. Orab do anything wrong except to remain in her home after the nearest rural hospital closed? Did the man with the premature infant do anything wrong other than to go to school, get married, and have a child? If not, then why do we think the stick is the best recourse?

Some will argue that these are anecdotal tales, but they have a cumulative effect, made worse by intentional societal neglect. These are all folks working to be positive, productive members of society, but this is where the perversity of our policies becomes so evident. Our belief that the stick will motivate them to do better only introduces friction that makes their path harder. A few will navigate that path, almost always with help, but most will not. Many will struggle, and a few will fall into lives of crime, drugs, and violence, which we will answer with more sticks. We will blame them for their misfortune without ever considering our role, so we’ll do more of the same. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Meanwhile, we grease the wheels for those who want for nothing. We do it because we’re told that they are the producers. I won’t argue that they aren’t, but they have shown they know how to navigate the world as it is. They do not need our help. Yet, we help them anyway, in a paradoxical belief that they could never succeed the way they have without our assistance and that making their path easier will somehow help those who need a nearby hospital, a full week of classes, or a way out of school and medical debt. It is insane. Which is why lather, rinse, repeat, more of the same, has become the definition of insanity.

The incongruity of these policies should slap us in the face. We believe those with wealth, education, and contacts need their path eased, lest they fail, while believing that making the path more difficult for those lacking any of those advantages is somehow the best way to encourage their success.

It is how the carrot and the stick divide us into two kinds of people - those who see suffering and seek to help, and those who see suffering and make life hell.

Therein lies the most courageous thing asked of us - to step back and look into our own hearts to discover, or perhaps more accurately, rediscover our own values. To decide which side of that line we want to stand on. We tell ourselves it is only fair that those who succeed get to reap their rewards and that those who struggle pull themselves up. We tell ourselves this is how a meritocracy works. But is it really? When there is a false start in a race, where someone gets a head start, we restart the race in the name of fairness. Yes, this is impractical in real life, but doesn’t fairness suggest that something be done? This is where we mustn’t be afraid to ask hard questions and be prepared to make difficult, even painful choices, to ensure a fair, if not even, playing field.

What we call “tough love” has become little more than indifference bordering on selfishness. It’s the result of decades of pain-free promises that offer easy solutions to difficult challenges. Meanwhile, we become a harsher, less just, more divided, and dare I say, poorer country.

This is what happens when confidence becomes fear and caring becomes indifference. Fear and indifference are the antithesis of courage and heart. The former celebrates a woman who would drag her young dog to a gravel pit to shoot her, the latter appreciates the concerned bedside manner of a woman who knows problems don’t fix themselves, that we can’t just bury them in the backyard. That they require something of us. It is a hard truth we’ve been ignoring for more than four decades now. It’s a lie we’ve been told, internalized, and that we now tell ourselves.

It is time that we find the courage to face the truth and have the heart to act. It is time we realize that curing the ills that bedevil us will not be cost or pain-free. It is time that we take the doctor’s advice, lest we continue the long descent into hell.

Let’s not forget that Kristi Noem killed her dog. Not because the dog was old or sick or wounded. Not to put her out of its misery. No, she shot and killed the dog because it messed up her friends’ hunting trip, then attacked a neighbor’s chickens. Long story short, the dog embarrassed her, so she killed it. Then killed a family goat almost as an afterthought, simply because it was nearby and she already had her gun, so why not?

Why bring this back up? Because it’s a reflection of who she is. And because she is the head of Homeland Security, a department that is behaving much the way Noem did that autumn day, however many years ago.

As a refresher, Cricket was a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer whose only crime was behaving like a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, a breed known for intense, chaotic energy that generally requires two years of training lasting well into the dog’s third year before becoming a reliable hunting companion. By this measure, Cricket was still a young pup.

One would have to read the entire passage in Noem’s book to grasp the ugliness her story reveals, but what transpired that day showed a woman with terrible judgment embarrassing herself, first by bringing a rambunctious, untrained dog on an important client’s hunting trip, then by stopping at a friend’s farm with the same dog loose in her truck bed. In the course of that day, Cricket ran wild, chasing away any pheasants before the hunters could get within range, then did much the same at the friend’s farm, where the prey lacked the pheasants’ gift of flight.

A person of good judgment would have known better than to take Cricket on this outing. A decent person would have taken responsibility for that poor judgment. Kristi Noem did neither. Instead, when she got home, she dragged her dog to a gravel pit and shot her in a fit of anger, frustration, and embarrassment over mistakes that were of her own making, then added the goat for good measure. That she would boast of this speaks volumes. Perhaps the most telling moment in a passage filled with telling moments is when she describes Cricket after the chicken affair as “the picture of pure joy,” before adding, “I hated that dog.” In that moment, Cricket was acting like a young, wirehaired pointer. Kristi Noem showed herself to be something much darker.

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This is who the president has chosen to protect the American people, a woman of poor judgment, without empathy, willing to lie to herself and us to justify killing. It happened with Cricket. It happened with her goat. And it happened with Renee Good and Alex Pretti. If that seems blunt, that’s because it’s deserved.

The mayhem we’ve witnessed in Minneapolis is unnecessary, but mayhem is to be expected from a government filled with people like Kristi Noem. She may be the one in the crosshairs, but one could throw darts blindfolded in the Oval Office and be sure to hit someone of matching character. The homeland security chain of command, running from the president, through Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, to Tom Homan and the now removed Greg Bovino, reads like a who’s who of sociopathic leadership.

My last piece detailed how the president’s childhood left him damaged, so self-centered that empathy is impossible because nothing exists except as it relates to him. Our lone glimmer of hope is the degree to which he sees murder and mayhem as a poor reflection on him - a sort of empathy by proxy. We’ll take what we can get.

We certainly can’t look to the rest of the team, led by Stephen Miller, who I thought was the most frightening man in America back in 2017. My opinion hasn’t changed, given that he seems to have the loudest - and most consistent - voice in the administration. Tom Homan may have replaced Greg Bovino in Minneapolis, but as long as Miller has the president’s ear, we can expect cruelty to reign. If there is a fascist face to this administration, it would be his. He comes across as a man born 85 years too late.

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That Tom Homan, alleged recipient of a $50,000 cash bribe, is now seen as the voice of reason in the deportation debate should be all the evidence needed to prove the precarious state we’re in. Yes, he was Barack Obama’s chief immigration enforcement official, but that needs to be put in perspective. The president in 2013 was one nuanced enough to create the DACA program to protect children who’d come to the U.S. with their parents, while pursuing removals in an aggressive, but humane manner. There is no such check in place today. Instead, Homan’s line to the top consists of Noem, Miller and Trump - hardly a trio noted for compassionate moderation.

Noem surely thought her tale of taking down Cricket would prove her tough-guy bona fides in a “South Dakota - where the men are men, and the women are, too” kind of way. But instead of making her one of the boys, it betrays her as a victim of the same crisis in masculinity that has been unfolding for more than twenty years. False bravado born of insecurity that has put us at the mercy of the schoolyard bullies who confuse violence for resolve and stubbornness for principle. Rather than seek to protect the vulnerable, the instinct is to trample them as proof of one’s strength, but this only exposes one’s weakness. We are now led by an administration filled with such weaklings.

The most secure person in any room is the one who can admit an error, learn from it, and move on. But there is no such person in this administration, which believes in shoot first, ask questions never. Not because they are afraid of what we may learn about them, but because they are afraid of what they may learn about themselves. No government should ever be led by people afraid or unwilling to look in the mirror. This government is filled with them.

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We’ve become so inured to the president’s erratic, asocial behavior that we’ve come to see it as normal, as part of his brand. Others suggest he may be slipping into dementia. But there is more than enough evidence to suggest this is not his brand or a sign of decline, but something worse, a moral deficiency rooted in his childhood that has turned allies against us, us against each other - and now has his U.S. government killing American citizens in the name of protecting us. If that seems unhinged, it’s with good reason.

We can’t say we weren’t warned. When the late Charles Krauthammer questioned Donald Trump’s mental state in a 2016 piece, he noted Trump’s “shocking absence of elementary decency and of natural empathy,” calling his “untempered Pavlovian responses” unusual in “both ferocity and unpredictability.”

This is beyond narcissism. I used to think Trump was an 11-year-old, an undeveloped schoolyard bully. I was off by about 10 years. His needs are more primitive, an infantile hunger for approval and praise, a craving that can never be satisfied. He lives in a cocoon of solipsism where the world outside himself has value — indeed exists — only insofar as it sustains and inflates him.

What gives this assessment more weight than your typical D.C. punditry is that Krauthammer was a Harvard-trained, board-certified clinical psychiatrist. He knew his words - Pavlovian, primitive, infantile - carried more weight because of his pedigree, yet he used them anyway. It was a signal fire, warning us of the man who would become president. We failed to listen, and now the nation and our world are paying a heavy price.

Calling Trump’s reactions Pavlovian suggests they are hardwired, no different from Pavlov’s dogs’ salivary glands at the sound of a bell. They are autonomic responses of the limbic system, absent prefrontal cortex moderation. In layman’s terms, they’re primitive reactions of the so-called lizard brain, free of interference from the gray matter that gives us our humanity. In that particular column, Krauthammer was referring to Trump’s days-long attack on Khizr Khan, the Gold Star parent whose immigrant son died in defense of his adopted country. Khan’s criticism of Trump at that year’s Democratic National Convention blinded Trump to the sacrifice suffered by Khan and his wife, betraying the shocking absence of natural empathy noted by Krauthammer. I am loath to use the word “literal” in metaphorical descriptions, but it’s hard not to use it to describe what was a Neanderthal response to the most human of tragedies - the loss of one’s son.

It’s a pattern we’ve seen repeated again and again and again. Criticize Trump and he attacks. Praise Trump and he embraces. Look at his response to the shooting death of Renee Good. He insisted in the immediate aftermath that she tried to run ICE agent Jonathan Ross over, a position he maintained even as he was presented with frame-by-frame evidence to the contrary.

“She behaved horribly,” the president insisted in an interview with the New York Times the day after the shooting. “And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over.”

But note the change in tone two weeks later.

“I felt horribly when I was told that the young woman ... the tragedy. It’s a tragedy. It’s a horrible thing. Everybody would say, ICE would say the same thing.”

Then came the tell, the reason for the change of heart.

“When I learned her parents, and her father in particular, I hope he still is, but I don’t know, were tremendous Trump fans. He was all for Trump. Loved Trump, and it’s terrible,” the president added. “I was told that by a lot of people. They said, ‘Oh, he loves you.’ He was. I hope he still feels that way.”

Yes, a father’s daughter was dead, but Trump hoped the father still loved him nonetheless. The tragedy isn’t that a woman died, but that it might have cost him someone’s devotion.

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This is what Krauthammer meant by a cocoon of solipsism, a self-centeredness so severe that it goes beyond narcissism. His worldview is infantile, incapable of grasping that people and lives matter outside his orbit. It’s not that different from an actual infant, who laughs at a game of peek-a-boo because it has not yet developed the concept of object permanence. To the baby, out-of-sight means it no longer exists. In the Trumpian version of this game, nothing happens without him at the center.

For proof, look no further than his response to Rob Reiner’s murder. Normal people reacted with shock and horror, wondering how something like this could happen. But Donald Trump is not normal. He responded by claiming the murderer must have been motivated by Reiner’s criticism of Trump, making this a crime of passion in defense of Trump’s honor. That is beyond tasteless; it is a sign of a damaged mind.

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Consider the pattern over the past decade. Indifference to one parent’s grief over the loss of a child because that parent didn’t like Trump. Regret over the death of another child because the parent loved Trump. And practically boasting, “that’s what you get for dissing me” regarding Rob Reiner’s death. Who in their right mind would do any one of these things? Surely, no one in their right mind would do all of them. But our president has.

Pavlovian responses all, driven by nothing but what those involved thought of him. Nothing else, because in Donald Trump’s mind, there is nothing else. If any other adult in our personal lives did this, we would insist they seek help. Instead, this man sought the White House.

There is evidence this was therapy, a sort of self-medication. A 1989 Time cover story quoted a close associate of Trump’s who saw the future president as “a black hole in space” with “no sense of his own emotions or identity.” He foresaw the future president pursuing ever-larger projects in an attempt to fill that void, but feared such efforts would be in vain. It is not unreasonable to believe his pursuit of the presidency was another attempt to fill that void, making us - and perhaps Venezuela, Greenland, Denmark, indeed, all of western society - victims of a sociopathic need to satisfy that which cannot be satisfied.

The sociopath reference is not without merit. Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology, detailed the president’s dysfunctional upbringing in her book Too Much and Never Enough. She tells how Trump’s mother was sidelined by illness, leaving a father she describes as a sociopath as his primary influence. Some of the sociopathic traits she says Trump internalized at his father’s knee included abusive behavior, a propensity for lying, a lack of empathy, and an indifference to right and wrong.

His mother’s detachment had its own negative consequences. A caregiver’s soothing reassurance when a child is hurt, or gentle reminder that “we don’t hit,” is a critical part of moderating the limbic system’s unconscious reactions to pain, needs, wants, and fears. This behavioral modeling and mirroring informs children what is right and proper, teaching self-regulation, emotional control, and empathy. As these lessons are learned, the brain creates synaptic connections to handle this workload, much as we build additional highway lanes to carry increased traffic. The result is a child secure in themselves, able to control their emotions and find satisfaction in personal accomplishment. Absent such nurturing, unused synapses are pruned away in a “use it or lose it” drive for efficiency.

But Donald Trump’s environment was anything but nurturing. Instead, he was rewarded for modeling his father’s behavior. As he grew older, he came to believe his father’s zero-sum worldview that equated net worth with self-worth, a world where only one could win, leaving everyone else a loser. One such loser was his brother, whose kindness brought on their father’s severe, often public humiliation - another lesson Donald internalized. Science is clear that high-stress, abusive upbringings without the mitigating effects of a nurturing caregiver produce damaged children. Donald Trump had just such an upbringing.

This is how the primitive, infantile, Pavlovian behaviors that Krauthammer recognized and we see every day - the insults, the lies, the self-aggrandizement, and so much more - became hardwired in the president’s brain. His damaged mind has now become our damaged future. He has all but destroyed the most successful and enduring alliance in Western history for a few bases and some assurances in Greenland. In the process, he told Norway’s prime minister that Greenland was his price for being denied the Nobel Peace Prize - a prize he shamelessly accepted from rightful recipient Maria Machado. He is deploying poorly-trained and even less disciplined paramilitary units to American cities with deadly results, to what end? To make a tough guy show of deporting undocumented immigrants that could be accomplished with far less death and drama? His sudden reverence for the Monroe Doctrine in the name of protecting us is ceding the rest of the world to Russia and China. He is a small man making lots of noise, and like the Wizard of Oz, praying we pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

It is past time we do. With allies who no longer trust us, adversaries who are salivating at our missteps, and a government blatantly lying to us about the people they gun down in the street, it has become essential that the American people recognize that we are being led by a compromised man. We keep hearing this is not normal. That’s because the president is not normal - and never has been.

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It was at the end of a haunting three-hour visit, and came during the last of the video exhibits. Unlike the others, this one had no narration or commentary. It didn’t need any. It was entitled “The Life that was Lost” and consisted of nothing but short clips of silent home movies depicting the daily life of Europe’s prewar Jews, Roma, and others who were soon to become Nazi victims.

In one, from somewhere in Poland - I didn’t note the town - a family is filmed exiting a door and descending the front steps of what appears to be someone’s home. First come a couple of younger people, then a middle-aged man with an older bearded man - both hesitating and smiling - and finally, the annoyed family matriarch, shooing them away while gesturing towards the cameraperson, as if to say, “Turn that thing off!”

I guffawed out of reflex before remembering where I was. I couldn’t help myself. In that brief moment, I had just seen my own extended Polish family. These were my cousins, my parents, my aunts and uncles. It was my grandmother. We are not Jewish, but we were - and are - that family. Tight-knit, emotive, open, direct. I could “hear” my grandmother in that woman’s gestures because I had lived it. So many times I had lived that moment. I could hear her haranguing my poor grandfather as he stopped just outside the door. “Stanley, why are you stopping? Go.”

And so, I laughed.

I think that was the whole point of having this as the exhibit's last display - that we see ourselves in the people whose misery and tragedy we had just spent hours absorbing. That we see them as people rather than as victims or statistics. Or as the lies that had turned them into targets.

This is the other side of the battle we are watching unfold over immigration in the U.S. As much as the thuggery of masked ICE agents pulling people from their homes, cars, and places of work may remind us of the forced removal of Jews from German society in the early days of the Third Reich, there is a human side that is at the heart of all of this.

The people we are targeting are real human beings. We don’t know what brought them here, but for most it is almost certainly the same things that brought our families - my family - here. They came to escape poverty, violence, or despotism. They came seeking peace, freedom, and most of all, a better life for themselves and their families. In that regard, they are no different from us. In fact, except for a piece of paper, they are us.

I understand the concern that many of these folks came here illegally, but branding all of them dangerous criminals for what is a federal misdemeanor paints them as something that they are not. Demagogues have exploited this for years.

This is not something that only began with the emergence of Donald Trump. My family had a heated argument on Christmas Eve 2013 over this very topic, reflecting one that was already taking place nationwide. It was probably 7 on 1, with a dozen abstaining, arguing that immigrants were criminals for entering the country illegally and that they needed to be removed. I was the lone voice against, not because I thought we should not try to control our borders, but because the vilification I was witnessing online and on talk radio risked the sort of dehumanization that is always required before atrocities become possible.

Donald Trump has only made it worse. He has been relentless in painting all those here without proper approval as the worst of humanity, as human scum. His story of the woman and the snake, his references to an infestation, the ridiculous and unfounded accusations that foreign countries have emptied their jails and mental institutions to send those people to the U.S. - all are exactly the types of lies and exaggerations that can be seen in 1930’s German propaganda and speeches. The data supplied by ICE are proof that these are lies (see below). Voltaire wasn’t wrong when he warned that the first step to committing atrocities is to believe absurdities. These would be such absurdities.

I’ve long been fascinated with how Germany, the educated, cultured birthplace of Bach, Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, Planck and Einstein, was convinced to fall for Nazi lies. There is nothing genetic that made the German people more susceptible, or that makes us more immune to believing such lies or committing such atrocities. But knowledge and understanding can inoculate us against the worst of human nature.

If there is any evidence that the lessons Auschwitz can teach us have had their desired effect, it can be found in the resistance that ICE is encountering across the country. It is heartening to see American citizens who have no dog in this fight put themselves on the line for others who have so little recourse otherwise. That resistance is not just against ICE, but against the lies told about human beings and the indifference that allows the worst to happen.

The tagline for the campaign promoting the Auschwitz exhibit is “Not long ago. Not far away.” Those resisting, whether in the street, online, or at the ballot box, are doing their part to ensure that it never becomes right here, right now.

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I’m not sure how it came up, but this morning I told my adult son of a conversation his mother and I had with an older French couple while visiting France a couple of years ago. The wife spoke little English, and I spoke even less French, but we were able to muscle through well enough. At one point, she asked if we’d been to France before, and if so, where we had gone. We told her we had, visiting both Paris and Normandy. At the mention of Normandy, the husband, who spoke no English, suddenly perked up.

“Les plages?” (the beaches?)

“Oui, oui, les plages.”

Then he said something that made me appreciate the year I’d spent on Duolingo. I knew just enough French to understand what came next. It’s something I will never forget.

“Merci, merci. Les Américains ont aidé à sauver la France. N’oubliez jamais, n’oubliez jamais” (“Thank you, thank you. The Americans helped save France. Never forget, never forget.”).

His reaction was so genuine, so sincere. The dry history of books, movies, and black-and-white documentaries made real. We were witnessing the residue of the joy and gratitude of the throngs who greeted our troops as they entered Paris in 1944. It was a stark reminder that if not for the sacrifice of our young soldiers, sailors, and airmen, we would all be living in a very different world.

As I related that to my son, I told him of our visit to the American cemetery at Omaha Beach the year before, where many who died helping to save France and freedom are buried, and of the inscription that greets visitors as they enter:

“If ever proof were needed that we fought for a cause and not for conquest it could be found in these cemeteries. Here was our only conquest: All we asked…was enough… soil in which to bury our gallant dead.”

I have that inscription committed to memory, having recited it multiple times since that visit. But as I recited it today, I had to stop as I began to choke up. I warned my son I was about to cry, but continued to complete the quote, then added with an even shakier voice, “That’s who we are…were.”

It’s that change from present to past tense that hit so hard. “That’s who we are…were.”

It is that sense of loss that is the source of my sadness and anger as I watch what is transpiring today. Sadness that the country I love is no longer what I always believed it to be. Anger that so many still can’t, or won’t, see what we’ve lost. Worse, is that so many continue to cheer it on.

Like countless others, I’ve spent more than ten years, not just fearing, but warning that this would happen. That vilifying immigrants would someday justify using inhuman and unconstitutional means to remove them. That laughing off Donald Trump’s jokes about police brutality - “Please, don’t be too nice” - would someday become standard operating procedure. That his lament that we didn’t take Iraq’s oil was proof of his lust for the land and resources of other nations. That words etched in stone, like those quoted above, would become as quaint and meaningless as the parchment barriers that James Madison warned were the only thing that separated us from tyranny.

I am sickened by the argument that the rush of immigrants into the country would somehow destroy America, when so many making that argument are doing that work themselves.

We were once a nation that was confident, compassionate, optimistic and resolute. We’ve replaced that with a bully’s lie that seeks to mask its insecurity with cruelty and bravado. It is evident in everything from the tough-guy theater of ICE, where camo-wearing men play hard-ass while hiding behind masks, to the president’s sudden reverence for the Monroe Doctrine, which he has accurately rebranded the Donroe Doctrine. There could be no more appropriate moniker for a policy that’s intended to project strength, but is nothing but surrender. It is a retreat from world engagement disguised as regional domination. It should be viewed as little more than an imaginary version of his border wall - an ineffective shield behind which to cower.

We are not a cruel, fearful, cowering people, but we are governed by people who are.

Still, there is hope. The ICE protests that we’ve witnessed in Portland, Chicago, Minneapolis and elsewhere are not being carried out by the immigrants at risk of detention and deportation. Instead, American citizens with nothing to gain are putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the dignity of their fellow human beings. We are angered by the sight of armed troops and uniformed thugs on our city streets. We are recognizing the administration’s attempts to tell us not to believe our eyes for the desperate lies they are. This administration will fail because they do not understand the American people.

In his speech to a joint session of Congress following our victory in Operation Desert Storm, George H.W. Bush referenced a video that showed four traumatized Iraqi soldiers surrendering to an American GI. The president briefly choked up as he reminded us of the soldier’s reassuring words. “You’re OK. You’re alright now.”

He went on to say how that scene “said a lot about America. A lot about who we are.” That we are a caring, good, generous people, concluding with “Let us always be caring and good and generous in all we do.”

He was right. We are a caring and good and generous people. I take comfort in that. I take comfort in the people willing to stand up to ICE. I take heart in all those who stand in opposition to this administration. This government does not reflect who we are as a people. Our anger about that is showing, but they cannot win unless we let them. It may be a long battle, it may get even uglier, but my money is on us because I know who we are.

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The United States has two mythical icons of its own - the Minuteman and the Cowboy. One, the vigilant patriot ready to defend liberty at a moment’s notice, the other an open-range loner unconstrained by rules, willing to mete out justice as he sees fit. Paul Revere and John Wayne.

Both icons were invoked in a recruiting piece posted last week by Homeland Security. One that depicted a man on horseback crossing a snow-covered prairie, purple mountains majesty in the background, a B2 stealth bomber keeping vigil overhead. The Minuteman and the Cowboy. Accompanied by a promise, “We’ll Have Our Home Again,” and a web address: JOIN.ICE.NOW.

One can only hope that it’s a coincidence that We’ll Have Our Home Again is also the title of a song claimed by white supremacist groups as a neo-Nazi anthem associated with a band known as Männerbund.

The concerning coincidences don’t end there.

Männerbund (German for “men’s league”) is a term used to describe male warrior tribes who undergo rites of passage, form intense bonds, and operate outside normal society. It has now been associated with the alt-right and white supremacy. The song itself appears under various titles, including By God We’ll Have Our Home Again, which, according to a subreddit that tracks the alt-right, has been chosen by the Proud Goys, a post-January 6th rebrand of the Proud Boys, as their official anthem. If that’s not enough, the song was first introduced at a post-January 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally by a man who goes by the name of Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology. One can only guess why he chose that moniker.

Continuing the chain of “please tell me it’s a coincidence” coincidents, “Goy” is a riff on Groyper, the name given to adherents of white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Fuentes has been one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics of late because he believes the president is failing in his promise to rid the country of the unwanted.

Fuentes can now relax. He should view this Homeland Security campaign as manna from heaven. It is a promise to Fuentes and his ilk that they have not been forgotten. If anything, it is an open invitation to come join the cause.

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The link to join ICE takes one to a page where Uncle Sam proclaims that “America Needs You.” And the reason is that we’ve “been invaded by criminals and predators.” Choose your mission, no degree required (seriously, it says that).

American iconography alongside the title of a white supremacist anthem to direct recruits to a page accepting applications from people of average education to help rid the nation of undesirables. What could go wrong?

Yes, we can hope these are all mere coincidences, and many will dismiss these concerns as just that - coincidence. But the question remains, just what kind of applicant will this campaign attract? And what kind of country will result?

In his book Ordinary Men, about the Nazi killing squads responsible for at least 38,000 firearm executions in Poland during WWII, author Christopher Browning notes that most of the non-commissioned officers who made up these units were not regular army, but former national police recruits. These squads lacked the discipline of military units while sharing a few common traits. Among these were a racial ideology powered by a mission to “protect the Volk from internal enemies” and a belief that harsh measures equaled maintaining order. They were ordinary men of average education whose experience as an internal police force normalized coercion, intimidation, and street-level force against unarmed civilians.

If that sounds familiar, it should. I wish it didn't.

Please consider that last paragraph in light of the death of Renee Nicole Good. Consider it in the light of all the scenes of individuals pulled from cars in broad daylight or dragged from their homes in midnight raids. Consider it in the light of a 67 year-old American citizen returning to his suburban Chicago home after a Sunday run as ICE was conducting raids on his street, where he was thrown to the ground, suffering six broken ribs and internal bleeding.

People laughed when Donald Trump said that he liked when police officers rough up suspects as they pushed them into cruisers. They looked the other way when families were separated at the border and children were lost. They were indifferent when detainees were sent to Aligator Alley, a prison set in a distant swamp designed to make legal representation difficult. They raised no uproar when Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported against a court order. And barely a peep was heard when the administration asked the Supreme Court to review birthright citizenship, seeking a change that could leave children who were born in the United States stateless. The argument was that they all deserved it for one reason or another.

Now, there are those saying that an American citizen, who died at the hands of a national police force that behaves an awful lot like those that were the breeding ground for Nazi death squads, got what she deserved.

So, to anyone who has looked aside, dismissed or justified what we've witnessed, I have a question.

When do you say enough?

It is not a rhetorical question. Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s most trenchant observers, noted that most evil is done by people who never made up their mind to do good or evil. I would argue the issue is far more basic. It’s that too many fail to decide what is good and what is evil.

Because the parallels are not perfectly aligned, we think we have nothing to fear. Because we’re not going after Jews or Gypsies or gays, we feel it’s not the same. We believe it’s different because the Germans were told lies about those groups, but we’re convinced that immigrants are a REAL problem. We’ve bought the narrative that they are bringing drugs, that they are rapists. That they are the kind of people who eat cats and dogs. That they’ve come from foreign prisons and mental hospitals.

Or, as the ICE recruitment page says, that they’re criminals and predators. It is the same thing Germans were told about Jews, gypsies, and gays. We believe a German leader would lie to his people, but we don’t believe an American leader would lie to us.

So, where do we draw the line between what’s right and wrong, good and evil. And when do we decide how we will react when faced with it?

We are making those decisions right now. We can assume this is all temporary and that ICE’s recruiting campaign is a coincidence. We can tell ourselves that someday we’ll be able to take those heavily armed, unidentified masked agents using goon tactics off our streets. We can tell ourselves they’ll someday slip quietly back into mainstream society. We can dismiss all this as hyperbole and convince ourselves that we’ll stand up for what’s right if and when the time comes. But will we?

What if this is just the start? What if it keeps getting worse? What if the price to resist becomes too great? Will we have the gumption, the guts, to fight back?

We live in a world very different from that of the 1930s. It is one of unprecedented surveillance capabilities, where anyone with access to data from our devices, image, and license plate number knows more about us than we know ourselves. The government pays for access to that data. They know where we are, what we’re doing, what we’re we’re writing, and if they want, what we’re saying. It is a time that screams for respect for civil rights and the rule of law.

Instead, we have the opposite. We have a White House posting FAFO memes, begging us to test them as they build a nationwide police force that seems to have few limits, while too many of us shrug at due process and equal rights under the law. We’re telling ourselves that whatever happens to others must have been deserved. We are serving government power at the expense of human rights. Meanwhile, we are telling the worst among us that they can become enforcers of American virtue - the armed Minuteman or the stoic cowboy - backed by presidential precedent that they can get away with anything as long as it’s in service to his desires. Pardons await. All one need do is sign up.

And we will have our home again. We just won’t recognize it.

For context, let me begin by confessing that I’ve been pulled over by cops more times than I can remember. I once counted 23 times, almost all for speeding, but I'm sure I missed a few. In none of those encounters have I ever had a cop stride toward my car like the ICE agent that approached Renee Nicole Good’s vehicle, shouting "get out of the fucking car!" while reaching for the door handle. I did have one approach in a crouch with his hand on his gun during a 5 am stop in Detroit. This was after getting lost while rushing to see my dad before he went into surgery. In that one, I immediately felt my heart race, the hair on my arms rise and my pits begin to sweat. It was a classic fight-or-flight reaction of the sympathetic nervous system.

This is literally our body's way of taking over in a time of stress. The brain stops thinking rationally and starts thinking reactively. It's why people wet themselves when they're frightened - the hormonal flush forces brain activity away from bodily functions to focus on the threat at hand. One of my favorite books, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, helps understand the cognitive side of this reaction, where split-second decisions are made without the help of rational thought, often resulting in poor judgment.

It is reasonable to assume both Renee Nicole Good and Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot her, were experiencing the poor judgment associated with fight-or-flight reactions. She was reacting to a masked, armed agent who’d approached aggressively, grabbing at her door handle while shouting expletives to get out of the car. Meanwhile, Ross was reacting to a vehicle accelerating as he was walking in front of it. She chose flight, he chose fight. Neither did so by thinking or acting rationally. That is by nature’s design.

This was what would be called in layman’s terms, a crazy situation, where neither had their wits about them. I am neither a lawyer nor psychiatrist, but I expect mental state will play some part in how this plays out in court (if it ever gets there - if it doesn’t, it’ll be a severe blow for the rule of law, but that’s a battle for another day).

Without going into the frame-by-frame video analyses we’ve all seen, the real question is what triggered the reaction?

The easy explanation is that the approaching officer caused Good to panic, who reacted by trying to flee, which startled Ross, causing him to draw his gun and shoot.

If only it were that simple. Based on what we’ve seen thus far, I’d argue the professionals who should be trained to manage tense situations must bear the bulk of the responsibility. We had one agent distracted by his phone, making him somewhat unaware of his surroundings. Using a cellphone while driving would get Jonathan Ross ticketed. It’s hard to see how using it while handling a firearm should not carry some culpability.

Going back a few seconds, there is the other agent who created the tension that triggered everything. Renee Good’s interaction with Ross just moments before was not that of one intending to cause bodily harm or with a desire to flee. Had the approaching officer walked up calmly and sought only to converse with Good, he may have been able to convince her to move on. At the very least, he would have had more control over the situation if she then decided to resist. It is almost certain that a calmer approach would not have resulted in her fleeing, Ross shooting, Good dying, and the country fracturing. He owns that.

It’s at this point that one wishes we could use one of those rewind devices like those used in movies, where they back up in fast motion to show the events that led up to the particular moment we wish to make sense of. This moment cries for such a device.

We’ve heard reports that Good and her wife had been harassing ICE earlier, blocking streets and fleeing at least once. Her interaction with Ross just before the shooting did have a bit of cat-and-mouse playfulness to it, suggesting she saw this as something of a game. Ross and his colleagues clearly did not. In fact, the unidentified agent’s angry attempt to get her out of the car, and Good’s decision to flee, was reminiscent of one Ding-Dong-Dash too many on the same house, where the owner comes out loaded for bear before the bell’s even rung, startling the kids and sending them scattering.

Except this was no game. The price was one life ended and an entire nation divided. That is too high a price.

So the rewind machine needs to take us further back. We need to understand the decision to put Ross back on the street after suffering a traumatic injury in another incident involving a vehicle, when he was dragged down the street after busting a back window with his fist. We need to go back to the recruitment and training process that produces agents who exhibit behavior that exacerbates, rather than de-escalates, tense situations. We need to go back to the decision to have these agents wear masks and refuse to identify themselves, which only raises questions about motives that seem contrary to American ideals.

But ultimately, we need to go back to the decision to put agents on the street at all. Last week, my local county sheriff, almost a caricature of sheriffs with his bushy mustache and 10 gallon hat, sought to deflect criticism of the conditions ICE detainees experience at his jail by saying he had far more detainees when Barack Obama was president. This is a common argument made by Trump supporters, thinking it betrays hypocrisy on the part of the president’s critics.

It doesn’t.

What it betrays is how poorly the president and his supporters understand their opponents, human nature and American ideals. As my sheriff readily argued (though he might be wrong), Barack Obama removed far more undocumented immigrants than has Donald Trump.

But what he and they don’t understand is that this isn’t about deportations, it is about human dignity. The Obama administration didn’t need to deploy masked agents on city streets. They didn’t need to drag daycare workers away in front of their young charges. They didn’t need to grab high school athletes off the street and send them back to countries they hadn’t seen since their parents brought them here as young children. And they didn’t need to pull people from cars in broad daylight, a scene repeated so often and with such brutality that people fear for their safety when ICE approaches. So much so, that sometimes they flee. Like Renee Nicole Good.

What the wayback machine shows is that responsibility lies with Tom Homan, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and ultimately, Donald Trump, whose desire for performance theater created an atmosphere of fear, anger and mistrust. They have confused bullying for resolve. They have traded proper procedure for brutality. And worst of all, they have sacrificed American ideals for showmanship. Their desire to poke the bear is designed to provoke. One can imagine them relishing confrontations such as this, regardless the price. If fault lies anywhere, it lies here. If there is domestic terror, it starts here. For what is the point of FAFO (fuck around, find out) if not to instill fear backed by the threat of violence? Is that not terror defined? Freedom lies in knowing where the boundaries are. FAFO makes a mockery of that, taunting people to test limits and suffer sometimes deadly consequences.

The administration is now in full-on propaganda mode, telling us not to believe what we see with our own eyes. It will not work as long as there are people determined to call out those lies and people like Renee Nicole Good and her wife willing to put themselves on the front line to preserve human dignity. We must organize and mobilize. Email, call, write or visit our elected representatives. Let them know that if they won’t hold ICE, the administration and the president accountable, then we’ll hold them accountable. Because this land is still our land. We can never let any of them ever forget that.

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Just over a week ago, Donald Trump was taking heat from his base all over social media. Not from the people or bots that respond to his Truth Social posts, but regular folks who could be described as loyal MAGA or decidedly on the right. They were being peeled away not by commentary from long-time detractors, but by folks like Rand Paul, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. The effect was reflected in the rank-and-file’s online anger over everything from support of Israel to attacks on Venezuelan fast boats, the end of ACA subsidies and the Epstein files.

A week later, a military action in Venezuela, a rewriting of the January 6 narrative posted on a White House website, and a deadly shooting in Minnesota have corralled the herd and set down markers. It felt like a week filled with events that historians look back on, like the Boston Massacre or the Night of Long Knives, where people are forced to choose one side or the other as power seeks to impose itself.

It all came to a head in six seconds. That’s how much time elapsed from the moment a masked ICE agent ordered Renee Nicole Good to “get out of the fucking car” until she was dead.

Six seconds seen in two starkly different ways. One side saw a woman get what she deserved for putting an officer’s life in danger while ignoring the orders of a federal agent. The other saw the tragic murder of a panicked woman fleeing masked agents serving a rogue administration.

But those six seconds may have done more than divide the country along ideological lines. It may have divided its future from its past, when we stopped being a republic guided by the rule of law and the will of the people and became something different, ruled by the whims of a man.

This week was the administration’s FAFO ethos in full flower, an effort to intimidate outside the law in a “go ahead, test us” sort of way. And let there be no doubt, this was a week of tests. Tests of limits and loyalty, flip sides of the same coin, seeking answers to a simple question: Are you with us or against us?

It’s a question of loyalty masked as patriotism. But instead of loyalty to the country or the Constitution, it’s about loyalty to Donald Trump. That loyalty brings all sorts of benefits, as the pardons hailed in the White House’s January 6 rewrite attest. Do our bidding and there will be no consequences, maybe even rewards. Get shot crawling through a busted window, like Ashli Babbitt, we’ll call you a hero. But cross us? That’s another story. You become an outsider, the enemy. And then, the country isn’t here to protect you because you are no longer one of us.

In that regard, Renee Nicole Good is all of us. She is everyone who has opposed Donald Trump, refusing to bow down in loyalty.

The president’s Truth Social post in the wake of her death was reminiscent of his post regarding the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. That should come as no surprise, not because we know the president to lack any trace of empathy or decency, but because his Reiner post was not really about Rob Reiner or his wife. Instead, it was a reflection of his feelings towards anyone who offers the slightest criticism, any of us who is has not fully pledged loyalty. It is proof that he is not president of the American people, but president of his people.

That may not register with folks who support him, but it should. Donald Trump’s loyalty is fickle. As long as you support him, he will support you. One need look no further than Marjorie Taylor Greene to understand how it works. Her criticisms were purely on policy, but he turned on her so decisively that her son began getting death threats. When she shared those threats with the president, his response was to insult her. Once one of his strongest allies, he now cares about her as much as he would the woman shot to death in Minnesota. Simply disagreeing with the president made MTG a target.

Thus this week’s tipping point. The president told the New York Times yesterday that he felt constrained internationally only by his own morality. At home, he claimed courts can only restrict his domestic policy “under certain circumstances.” Those supporting his foray into Venezuela or his knee-jerk response to the Minneapolis shooting only embolden him. A president unrestrained by international law and testing the limits of the law at home is no path to liberty.

Emanuel Kant said a man is free if he needs to obey no person, but the laws. Likewise, James Madison warned that we are protected from tyranny by mere parchment barriers if any of the three branches of government fail in their role as a check on the others. Congress and the Supreme Court are both failing just as Madison feared - and Donald Trump is willing to burn those barriers so that he, rather than the Constitution, is the law. That is tyranny.

There are times when government of the people, by the people and for the people requires a movement of the people. Now is just such a time. Donald Trump is testing how far he can push the limit and we are the last line of defense. He will go only as far as we let him. I’ve heard some express concern that standing up to him could put targets on our backs. If that’s not evidence of just how great the threat is, I don’t know what is. But if that means a target on my back, count me in.

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It had been ten years since Elvis Presley had released his first single when The Beatles made their 1964 debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. Record companies and the music-buying public had spent those intervening years searching for that next Elvis. Ricky Nelson, Eddie Cochran, even Conway Twitty, had all been tagged as “The Next Elvis.” But it wasn’t a sensual, enigmatic American, but four irreverent moptops from Liverpool who ended the search. Not by being the next Elvis, but by being uniquely themselves.

This is how history rhymes but never repeats - the next one is never like the last. In fact, the search for the next big thing is doomed to fail for that very reason. We’re so busy looking for the snarling lip and swiveling hips that we miss the clues that really matter. The signs were all there - the six hour marathon shows in Hamburg. The packed crowds at the Cavern in Liverpool. The establishment’s discomfort. But all that went undetected because those who should have known better were looking for something else.

And that is why we need to stop looking for the next Hitler. There won’t be one.

But there will be someone. We can identify them if we watch for the clues. The destruction of truth. The undermining of the media. Disregarding the rule of law. For persecuting enemies and protecting friends. We need to look for armed troops and paramilitary units roaming city streets. Disparaging the opposition as the enemy within. Insisting on ideological purity and treating those who disagree as evil.

We need to look for attempts to subvert legitimate elections and for celebrations of those complicit in such attempts as heroes and patriots. For attempts to treat criminal convictions as rallying cries rather than as cause for public shame.

We need to look for dehumanizing language that treats others as The Other. That refers to them as vermin, as human scum, as an infestation. For remote prisons to house “them” far from the public eye. For criticism of those who defend others’ humanity. To paint them as traitors. For signs that we no longer care about all people, but about our people, our tribe. For only those who matter. For us versus them.

We need to look for acts that suggest we somehow have a first claim on the earth’s resources. For belligerent claims that land or resources belonging to others are rightfully ours. For belligerent acts in support of those claims. For signs that it’s never enough, that after every conquest there must be another.

We need to look in the mirror. Someone please convince me none of these things are happening in the United States today. Please point out one that hasn’t happened.

A 1930’s parallel exists for each one of these. You can find them here.

But we’re blinded to those parallels by the clear contradictions.

This president isn’t consumed with blind hate. Instead, he is cursed with a cold indifference. He is not obsessed with world domination, but with self-aggrandizement. He doesn’t seek to vanquish enemies, but to accumulate wealth. He acts not so much as the nation’s savior, but as the head of a crime family.

So, no, there won’t be ovens and genocide and decisive defeat. Nor will there be the eye-opening shame such things bring on that reveals the guilt of true believers and the complicity of those chose to look the other way.

But that’s a pretty low bar. There is still a lot of awfulness that can transpire in the space between gas chambers and where we are today. The erosion of truth means that lies can run rampant. That’s especially dangerous in a world where a handful of tech giants know more about us than we know ourselves and where a self-serving president is willing to give them free rein in exchange for tribute and treasure. There are so many ways this could go south that it’s a fool’s game to try to guess, but Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad comes to mind, though the fix isn’t as easy as a hammer throw.

We are a heavily indebted nation that just passed a bill granting tax cuts to those same billionaires, guaranteeing that we will slide even deeper into debt. This while we try to maintain the world’s largest and most expensive military as we make new enemies and alienate our allies. We’ve already sought control of one country and are making noises about others.

We are cutting investments in health and science, putting the future health of both our people and our economy at risk. Other countries are actively recruiting our scientists and researchers with promises of academic freedom this administration is restricting here at home. Meanwhile, the president is using his Justice Department to chill a free press through control of the merger process. There are so many moving parts, it’s hard to discern how it will play out, but a whole lot easier to see how it could go wrong.

I plan to explore all this over the next few weeks, looking at how this administration’s attacks on health, science, immigration, democracy, the rule of law, truth, and just plain honesty and decency could play out. I make no promises, but I do make one request. Let’s not let Nazi comparisons serve as a Trojan Horse that allows the real threat to slip by undetected, because the greatest threat is not a repeat of history, but the blinders history can create.

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