This sobriquet describes citizens/voters who hold an unfavorable view of both major political parties (or, in a presidential race, both major-party candidates) rather than favoring one over the other.

Not to be confused with moderates, although they could be, double haters are distrustful or cynical about the political system as a whole. And because they lack a fixed party attachment, their vote preference tends to swing sharply from cycle to cycle, typically breaking against the party currently in power.

Ironically, double haters more identify as Democrats; you’d think, given Trump’s second-term track record that Republicans would be up in arms. There’s some of that, but disaffection is nearly endemic in the Democratic Party. It’s given rise to Democratic Socialists, who’ve scored some impressive early victories in recent state elections. Democrats are angry at what they feel is a weak-kneed party leadership that seems bound and determined not to rock any boats. The public face of double haters may be Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who excoriates the Trump GOP and the DNC (Democratic National Committee) with equal disdain.

El-Sayed won the primary and is neck-and-neck with Republican Mike Rogers because he articulates a powerful message: everyday Americans are deeply upset about political ineffectiveness, which has led to very few legislative accomplishments that help middle-class families. People so disaffected are far from dominating American politics, but in a time of increasing hyper-partisanship, coupled with frustration over economic and cultural conditions, double-disillusioned citizens could quite possibly determine the outcome of the upcoming November midterm elections — most specifically, control of Congress.

A sizable number of double haters in both parties are young adults, who are being whiplashed between unavailable housing choices and the escalating rollout of artificial intelligence, which is already threatening wide swaths of the economy with widespread white-collar job reductions. That’s a key insight: double haters aren’t necessarily driven by party ID but by personal crises — lack of affordable housing, unclear job advancement, the costs of raising a family. When life is relatively good, these dissatisfactions fall below the radar. But when things are perceived to be out of whack, double haters turning out in large numbers may prove increasingly crucial as long as traditional politics remains so frustratingly unresponsive.

You don’t see this term used widely in news media analyses of polling data, but a growing faction of political observers are beginning to see disenchanted voters as being increasingly decisive in off-year elections — extending even into the 2028 presidential sweepstakes, in which there is no White House incumbent.

Recent election results offer some intriguing clues: Research from mid-2024 found that a quarter of Americans held unfavorable views of both Biden and Trump. This was the highest share at that stage in any of the last 10 elections, and that bloc had nearly doubled in size since 2020. Apparently, voters were persuaded that Joe Biden should not have sought re-election, and took their dissatisfaction out on Democrats.

How about this year, with midterms a little more than two months away? With no Donald Trump on the ballot anywhere, 2026 might be the first midterm where double-hater voting rivals a presidential-year level disaffection. Certainly, public opinion polling reflects broad-scale dissatisfaction about the state of the nation. Coupled with the near-certain trend that off-year elections favor the party out of power, the odds increase that this could be a game-changing election.

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I’m actually nervous about double haters. Voting in the United States increasingly reflects something that should concern every citizen: genuine disapproval of the parties as institutions that respond to citizen needs. Case in point: a broken healthcare system that is an embarrassment among Western democracies. The clear risk is that qualified, well-meaning citizens will shun elective office, resulting in a leadership vacuum that has long troubled experts on authoritarian regimes and how they come into power.

Congressional approval is at near-record lows across party lines. Republicans are highly disfavored, Democrats even more so. More and more Americans self-identify as “independents.” We are entering a slippery slope indeed if the general public is so turned off by politics that citizens will begin looking for less moderate, more extreme solutions.

A related concern is the enormous inflow of campaign cash (most of it anonymous). According to a New York Times analysis, A New York Times review of advertising data, campaign-finance filings and tax records revealed that about $1 billion in anonymous money is sloshing through the political landscape in 2026, a staggering sum and yet almost certainly a low-end estimate, given how difficult this money is to trace.

Of particular concern are so-called “pop-up” Super PACs that can literally come out of nowhere in the closing several weeks of campaigning. These entities eventually must reveal their donors, but not until after the elections. Pop-up entities are everywhere this year.

Although both parties depend upon PACs and dark money contributions, Republicans are far outraising and outspending Democrats. Simultaneously, Trump is pleading with Republicans to pretend that he’s on ballots everywhere (he isn’t).

I mention the dark influence of money only to suggest that even the most outraged double haters are no match for loads of cash flooding the airwaves and social media as the midterms approach. Money can be especially decisive in close contests and, at the moment, control of the Senate after November is up in the air.

It’s Lake Ontario, Damnit!

Hardly surprising that the Trump regime is grasping at straws as the midterms loom. Renaming Lake Ontario. Buying Venezuela’s massive oil deposits. The ballroom. The White House is literally throwing everything it can think of against the wall, hoping something, anything, will stick to draw attention away from high consumer prices, an endless war, widespread corruption, and a president who is increasingly erratic.

Much more significant is the administration’s attempt to take control of the midterm elections by trampling on the Constitution’s separation of powers to enable Trump and his devoted Republican backers to decide for the rest of us who gets to vote in November and how.

The situation is fluid, obviously, with lawsuits flying, appeals mounting, and all eyes focused on a Supreme Court whose 6-3 majority is twisting itself into pretzels to rule that a president has every right to control elections as part of the office’s official duties. It is an absurd, historically catastrophic position; if that’s the Court’s final decision, voting in the weeks ahead will be a chaotic charade intended to keep Trump in the Oval Office.

All of which raises a question of grave long-range significance. Are we a democracy that is destroying itself as citizens and voters become more and more disgusted with political representation? And is money the arbiter of power, the only arbiter?

If history is any guide, whenever politics/government decouples from popular political will, one of two things happens: either revolution or the phenomenon of “surrender in advance,” when citizens seeking security and predictability are lured into accepting authoritarian rule, in which political leaders end voting — elections — as no longer necessary.

The best argument against these fraught possibilities is to remember that the United States was created specifically to give citizens a direct say in the government they want. It was a radical idea in 1776 and remains so today. Double haters will have to turn out in record numbers to offset an administration attempting a takeover of the reins of power to fashion a one-party faux democracy in which (as even Trump has stated) there’s no need for voting.

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There is, however, a relevant recent example of a nation that turned out its authoritarian government: Hungary. Hungarians rose up earlier this year to oust the government of Viktor Orban, a corrupt despot who had extended police state tactics into all corners of national life. Orban tried very hard to control elections, but as it turned out, Hungarian double haters who despised Orban and were fed up with dysfunctional government rolled out in record numbers to change the nation back to democratic rule.

Let’s hope we can emulate Hungary in November. It will take a strong majority of disaffected Americans to change direction. Our future as a democracy may well depend on our friends and neighbors being so disaffected with things as they are that righteous indignation translates into choosing love of country over quiet, mute obeisance.

For most sane individuals, it is hard to stay mad or upset all the time. Life is too short. But being disenchanted with politics as is is going to be a major influence as voters head to the polls. Being pissed off in November is just what the doctor ordered.

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I will finish Regime Change, in part because I rarely do not finish a hardcover book, and in part because there is a jaw-dropping tidbit or incident on every page that truly has me wondering whether Swan and Haberman made everything up as a work of political fiction.

That’s, of course, not true, although I’m sure Donald Trump or whoever becomes his next press secretary will dismiss the entire book as pure fantasy, along with a recommendation that both scribes be locked up.

So — spoiler alert — if you don’t already have a copy, I would advise holding off because the book, good as it is, is already outdated. The absolute, total lunacy of Trump in his second term is detailed beyond dispute by the Times duo all the way to late spring. But the lunacy has gotten even worse since the book’s release last month: Trump is moving forward with plans to take control of the midterm elections to prevent Democrats from taking control of Congress. The ballroom/bunker construction rolls on, even though an existing, well-equipped bunker already exists. I await new maps of North America, with Lake Ontario now Lake America. Meantime, the “war” with Iran languishes, justice for Epstein’s horrific impules remains blocked. And hundreds of otherwise innocent, law-abiding brown and black Americans who weren’t born here are being deported to strange destinations without the first court hearing.

There are countless facts in the pages of Regime Change. They form a mosaic of the most dysfunctional presidential administration ever, one filled with knaves, fools, supplicants and wackos who “work” alongside a handful of truly despicable miscreants whose very presence so near the pinnacle of power is chilling and deeply alarming. Stephen Miller, the oberleutnant overseeing the illegal and immoral deportation of thousands of men, women and children on suspicion of being Latino, plays a significant role throughout the book in executing deranged, punitive, obscenely unnecessary Executive Orders that have no historical equal. Miller has to be the weirdest, racist, most hate-filled individual ever to lurk around in the White House, with the possible exception of career crackpot Laura Loomer, who plays a cameo role in the book and the administration.

Dozens of prominent names (some you’ve mercilessly forgotten) have their moments in the spotlight as the Haberman/Swan narrative unfolds. I am hard-pressed to identify even one who merits praise or appreciation. I have to remind myself I am reading a work of political reporting and not Mad Magazine or The Onion.

A full reading of Regime Change is the only way to grasp the foul nature of Second Trump. But in the face of near-daily chaos, let me touch upon a few narrative threads that emerge as you wonder whether our nation can survive Trump trauma.

The United States is Without a Functioning Government

The second Trump attempt at governance was doomed to malfunction. It assumed office without a cohesive purpose beyond Trump’s overwhelming need to seek revenge against those who had ever crossed him.

This singular focus on retribution colored early decision-making in two ways, as Regime Change chronicles. Trump’s Cabinet picks were chosen for key positions based upon loyalty to him, not the nation, and a willingness to come up against — and skirt — established laws and regulations that make up the infrastructure of government. His henchmen and women were uniformly unqualified for the offices they took over, but that made no difference because experience counted for little, and blind loyalty all. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Miller, Howard Ludnick, Scott Bessent . . . the individuals chosen to manage the second term (most are still there) became part of a Mafia-type cabal to implement a kind of bureaucratic pogrom against real and imagined enemies. The interests and needs of the nation, including the loyal MAGA base, were never seriously considered — and still aren’t.

(Readers of Regime Change will have to search long and hard for any mention of a specific policy idea or proposal to address pressing societal needs).

Donald Trump Exists in a Separate World

Like many, I knew of Trump’s obvious shortcomings, which is why a second term felt so fraught. But Swan and Haberman’s reporting reveals a psychologically flawed character who by any reasonable measure should be in treatment, not the White House.

Trump commands a world of his own making, not the one that exists. Regime Change describes this pathology as follows:

“Trump had always endeavored to author his own reality and then force others around him to submit to his version of events. Trump lied, of course, endlessly and preposterously; but what started as fantasies often blurred and morphed into a reality of his making. With jarring frequency, and the help of his devotees, Trump spoke his worlds into existence.”

People Are Expendable

I had long suspected, as had many, that Trump was unable to establish human connections with others — only temporary arrangements he arranged and destroyed at will.

We hear a great deal about the adoration of his MAGA true believers. Yet there isn’t anything unusual about that. Ancient kings, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Franco, and Castro all enjoyed fierce devotion even as events around them spiraled into catastrophe. The truly shocking revelation I felt reading Regime Change is how isolated Donald Trump is from humanity.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his on-again, off-again relationship with Elon Musk, richly detailed early in the book.

The two men held each other in low regard. Trump thought Musk was a “bullshit artist,” and Musk thought Trump was over the hill and should “sail into the sunset.”

But mutual need brought them together in a brief, ill-fated attempt to reduce federal spending by cutbacks of more than a trillion dollars. Trump wanted someone to organize the reductions, while he kept out of the way of any responsibility. “Musk had little knowledge of the labyrinthine federal system, nor how its budget functioned,” Swan and Haberman wrote. “And he had even less interest in the Constitution, which could severely hobble the dramatic unilateral reingeneering of the government he imagined.”

In other words, at the very pinnacle of American government, we had two dysfunctional characters living in their own madeup worlds, impacing the fate of thousands of federal workers and, by extension, millions of people around the globe who benefitted from the United States’ long history of enlightened, soft diplomacy.

The damage remains largely unaccounted for. But consider this: even as thousands have purchased Regime Change, and as Trump’s polling numbers drop, the administration’s campaigns to redraw the United States as a white, Christian authoritarian state continue on. At the moment, thousands are stufffed into crowded deportation facilties no more than cattle, with scant food, and no legal representation. Are these not concentration camps?

In their self-absorption, Trump and Musk have laid waste to ethical standards, moral circumspection, and any indication of interest in the general public, other than as data points and campaign contributions.

With Trump and Musk (and Miller) calling the shots, who can say what the next two and a half years will bring.

The Missing Word: Voters

Reading Regime Change, this stands out most in my mind. The 340 million Americans under the “leadership” of the second Trump regime are not mentioned anywhere. The book, therefore, should not be read as a political or governmental analysis, but instead as an ongoing, eyewitness accounting of total dysfunction at the pinnacle of the world’s most powerful and influential nation.

I can’t wrap my arms around how onerous and disconcerting this is. Haberman and Swan deserve the Pulitzer Prize and the world’s thanks for peering behind the gold lame curtains of the Trump administration and finding consummate incompetence.

As noted, Trump is trying to throw his weight into state elections (a complete violation of the separation of powers), and at the moment, he is being backed by the feckless Supreme Court majority. At a minimun, and unless there is dramatic pushback, the November elections could become a vote counting nightmare, overseen by ICE agents paid to disrupt domestic tranquility. It has all the markings of a disaster.

And then there is this. Even if the midterms come off without a hitch (doubtful), Donald Trump has two more years to impose his fantasies of power on the nation and the world. It isn’t exactly guaranteed that Maggie Haberman and Johathon Swan will still be able to write and publish much longer . . .

Constitutional experts say were in the midst of a stress test of our democracy.

They are so, so right.

[Footnote: direct passages from Regime Change are reproduced exactly—and in quotes—as they appear in the book].

There is so much happening, so quickly, that keeping up is an incredible challenge. I was quite sad about the news of Dolly Parton’s passing: she seemed indestructible to me and millions of others. But there’s no such thing these days as time for mourning or retrospection. Stuff just keeps vying for attention. Unless you’re off the grid or living on a desert island, it is virtually impossible to absorb and filter the flow of information saturating your life.

Well, okay. What else is new?

Today, something of a milestone in holding back the constant tsunami of unwelcome manipulation was reached. Meta — owner/operator of Facebook and Instagram — gave up its specious position that its apps weren’t addictive to young minds. The New York Times’s lead paragraph summed up:

“Meta on Wednesday reached a landmark settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion in penalties and make major changes to its products over claims it endangered children with addictive social media platforms.”

If that weren’t already a Holy Toledo moment, Meta also settled with Texas for about $1 billion over similar allegations. The company still faces numerous other lawsuits from school districts and individuals, some of which are scheduled for trial in the coming months.

If you have school-age children (I don’t, but the parents of my three grandchildren will be pleased), this is beyond welcome for any number of reasons. It is about time ordinary citizens were able to successfully fight back against the encroaching suffocation by technology. It revealed that there is a “smell test” underlying the law used to evaluate blatantly false or misleading claims. This announcement also suggests that other firms that use consumers (of all ages) as pincushions may finally be held accountable.

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The word “pincushion” has long been associated with addiction, mostly regarding heroin. There are many other addictions, and to my eternal sorrow, I know a lot about tobacco addiction from a brief stint as a corporate flack for Philip Morris, renamed in 2008 as the Altria Group. It produces tobacco products, still claiming that smoking isn’t addictive.

It is, and cigarettes, chewing tobacco, pipe smoking, and vaping have for decades been marketed for tension relief and relaxation—euphemisms masking addiction. The PM headquarters in New York City near Grand Central Station were bizarre. Rolling carts delivered snacks and fresh packs of cigarettes to office employees. Whenever a meeting was scheduled, secretaries scurried to bring in ashtrays and cigarettes. The area I worked in was tasked with fighting restrictions on cigarette sales across the 50 states. Several colleagues were immediately dispatched to block the proposal, and they succeeded.

It took me years of struggle to kick the habit myself, at great cost. A lesson was burned into my psyche: addiction is a very big and wildly profitable business. Not just in hawking tobacco, but in credit card debt, manipulative online apps, usurious insurance policies, timeshare arrangements, and on and on.

It is also insidious. It can ravage adults, but it is especially dangerous for young minds. Companies, marketers, ad agencies, and computer designers know all about the power of addiction; one pervasive form is advertising, which overwhelms us—addiction by repetition.

Regulations? Scattered and weak, for the most part. There have been many attempts through the decades to protect ordinary citizens from predatory practices, with very mixed results. An especially relevant example is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which theoretically protects citizens from all kinds of credit scams, such as payday loans. Sounds good, but consider this: the CFPB cannot lock anyone up. If its investigators uncover criminal fraud or theft, they must refer the case to the DOJ or state attorneys general for criminal prosecution. Does anyone seriously believe that under the Trump regime, and with Todd Blanche as Attorney General, there will be criminal prosecutions? Loan sharks are among his biggest financial backers.

The real fact is that the United States has, from our outset as a nation, engaged in a dance pitting marketplace freedom against regulation; dealing with addiction is a longstanding but still largely unresolved issue.

Which makes today’s Meta announcement such a welcome development. As they have shown elsewhere, America’s federal district courts are acting like the Dutch boy with his thumb plugging a hole in the dike. District and appellate courts across the nation, with judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans, are standing firm against abuse in the civic, business, educational, and political spheres. It would be hard to imagine where we’d be without this backstop.

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Sadly, and ominously, the current Supreme Court’s majority appears not to see things this way, and it’s about to be challenged along several parallel fronts. Specifically, the six Republicans on the bench are predisposed to side with the purveyors of addiction over their complainants.

This very issue may, sooner or later, reach the Court’s docket: the accelerating rollout of artificial intelligence, both in terms of physical expansion and of powerful computer algorithms that are beginning to frighten even their creators.

The danger of AI is that it could well be many times more addictive than any social media app. It is already infiltrating student computers, university files, and corporate record-keeping — all in the name of bolstering productivity. But just like Meta and others, the companies building AI appear largely agnostic about the technology’s hidden, addictive characteristics. The core message of the tech sector is that AI’s benefits far outweigh its downside risks. Roll the dice.

As I write, some tech insiders are ringing alarm bells, and the construction of mammoth data centers is angering citizens, regardless of their political preference. The Trump regime is lamely pushing for voluntary restraint in the tech sector, while attorneys general in red and blue states are crafting their own regulations.

The ultimate arbiter of these crashing tides is the Supreme Court. This doesn’t bode well. Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative colleagues are building a track record of momentous decisions that bend justice away from protection and towards unrestrained market advancement. It previously declared that money is free speech and can’t be restricted in politics. In 2024, it declared that presidents are above the law — completely counter to the very reason this nation was created.

In these and similar decisions, the Court is entrenched against the tides brushing against our shores. Countries around the world are limiting social media use by young people. Last year, Australia became the first nation to bar children under 16 from using social media. Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and others have implemented or are considering similar rules. Last month, the European Union took the first step toward its own ban, which would be the largest in the world.

In the United States, lawmakers have reintroduced the Kids Online Safety Act. This bill would strengthen privacy protections for minors and allow them to opt out of algorithmic features linked to compulsive social media use. Multiple states have also passed laws aimed at limiting harm to children from social media.

A similar, parallel trend is growing about artificial intelligence.

We cannot help but realize that AI is already as manipulative as Meta. In fact, it is already showing that its uses can negatively impact learning, reasoning, and thought. Generative AI is becoming a shortcut to knowledge — facts, interpretation, background, perspective — very few of us really thought we needed. Social media addiction entices. AI addiction substitutes its mind for yours.

Despite today’s settlement announcement by Meta, there remain dozens of lawsuits challenging social media apps on the one hand, and AI overreach on the other. These have every chance of eventually reaching the Supreme Court. It must be obvious by now that the Roberts Court has little regard for circuit and appellate courts’ decisions that protect Americans from being pincushions.

I wish I could say I was holding out for a Supreme Court’s hero.

The race circuit was quite short: 1.66 miles. As the Indy Cars navigated the race on streets not purpose-built for high speed, you could see the toll on the drivers, obvious as the racers bounced over ruts and bits of rubber, spinning off their wheels, falling like black snow along the route. Lots of crashes on an unfamiliar course.

The event was planned as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary. Because I enjoy auto racing, I watched about half of the race, won by an American driver, a fact noted by a Fox Sports reporter who asked the startled driver, Kyle Kirkwood, what it meant to win the race for his country. His answer was muddled, as if he hadn’t anticipated the question.

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The race took place due to an Executive Order from Donald Trump, but for once, he stayed well away from any supervisory role. The race route didn’t come close to the construction site of the White House, or the botched Reflecting Pool. But his influence couldn’t be missed, given his administration’s assault on national government operations, including the Smithsonian, the National Gallery, and the American Indian Museum and the Archives.

The Fox broadcasting crew avoided any mention of these choices; no surprise. The IndyCar drivers, many of whom are from around the globe, participated because they are under contract. No one was forced to participate, but no one was excused.

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As Americans, we don’t often think of Washington as ours. It’s the seat of government, the highest Court’s, Congress, and a myriad of agencies huddled mostly in central D.C., roughly bounded by Capitol Hill on the east, down Pennsylvania Ave. to the White House and the Washington Monument, and memorable memorials that attract millions here from home and abroad. The Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the Vietnam Wall, and serene parks in memory of World War II and the Korean War.

The aerial views of the race reminded me of how green the Capital is. Old trees shade the streets in every direction. There’s also this: its character has not changed through the years. The federal Height of Buildings Act of 1910 limits building heights to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet, capping commercial streets at 130 feet and residential streets at 90 feet. From the air, Washington looks compressed — even squelched— like one sees on K Street, where the lobbyists have their offices. Other than developers, Washingtonians are fine witht the way things are — or were.

But that’s actually a very strong positive. Unlike London or Moscow, Washington has not fallen to commercial pressures that enable developers to build towering skyscrapers in the District (they are allowed across the Potomac in the Virginia suburbs). The prohibition is pleasing; on my last visit to London, I was dismayed that St, Paul’s Cathedral was surrounded and diminished by terribly designed office towers. When I was in Moscow in 1974, Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin dominated the skyline. Pictures I’ve seen make Moscow look a lot like Sao Paolo or Chicago.

The preservation of the Washington skyline is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also serves as a physical link to our historic past. Pennsylvania Avenue has been altered, not ruined. The Presidential monuments stand in glorious separation from traffic interchanges. The Washington Memorial emerges upward on a slight rise just south of the White House. You have to walk to it. One has to park and walk to enter the Lincoln Memorial, or the Reflecting Pool, or the Vietnam Wall. That’s how it should be.

I’ve had the good fortune to see these attractions in person. The Lincoln Memorial is breathtaking. The Vietnam Wall brought me to tears.

These edifices are how we honor our history.

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Many things about the current President disgust me. His demolition of the East Wing to build a Versailles-like vanity ballroom is at the top of my list. (Trump admittted that he admires Versailles, which stands as a monument to royal excess and tone-deaf comparisons). So, too, has been his haphazard effort to renovate the Reflecting Pool on the cheap. And apparently, he still plans to build an oversized Arch of Trump blocking the view of Arlington National Cemetery, and that of drivers entering the District over the bridge JFK’s funeral cortege passed on its way to his final resting place. Trump draped the sculptures on both ends of the bridge in gaudy gold paint. It will be a disgraceful abomination if the Arch is allowed to proceed.

As of this writing, the ballroom is going ahead despite widespread opposition. The ballroom design is a vulgar example of ersatz royal privilege. To me, however, the real issue is Trump’s disdain for historic traditions, which means, among other things, avoiding using the wrecking ball on the buildings that stand for who we are.

Trump and the denizens surrounding him seem determined to alter the narrative of our history to fit their private wishes and ideological choices. They use monuments as targets for their wrath, without bothering to articulate much more than Trump’s boast about his career as a real estate developer. (I ask anyone if there is a Trump development that moves you emotionally; the Trump Tower to me was a pathetic attempt to take control of Manhattan. It didn’t).

My objections are not among the top criticisms of Trump. Lord knows there is plenty of grist for the mill without raising a caution about ruining the Capital.

It is, however, much more than symbolic of his non-stop wreakage. The man is without a vision that extends beyond his nose. There has never been a president suffering from advanced narcissism. He is in a class all by himself, and maybe that’s what he really wants: to be reckoned with as the most powerful figure ever to achieve power. Anything in his way, like the White House and the city of national government, is mere objects of his temporary attention span.

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The IndyCar race today drew large crowds. There are no reports that people were ordered to attend. Americans love car racing, of all kinds. I don’t dispute it was a good idea just in advance of a long, hot summer and Labor Day (which I doubt the White House will mention).

The Trump regime is all circus these days, and has been for months. Governance long ago ceased. Trump can’t manage to manage his Cabinet flunkies, like Scott Bessent, who seems about as qualified to be Treasury Secretary as I am. The war in Iran is foundering, the economy is meandering, prices remain high, and artificial intelligence seems poised to take over the world. Epstein is all but forgotten except by his many victims. Corruption in the White House is at an all-time high (or low) in reckless, illegal vanity. And now a blonde, swooning woman is revealed to be Trump’s “binky,” more powerful than any other individual in the administration. She writes his social media posts.

Whatever you want to call it, this isn’t government by and for the people. It is whim atop rage from a singularly objectionable personality.

We clearly need a renovation. Not of the buildings or edifices of American government, but its would-be leaders. We badly need a DNF (did not finish).

Roosevelt was among the wealthiest presidents, but over many decades of political leadership, he successfully connected with middle-class and low-income voters, a fact confirmed by his four sweeping election victories. When he died in 1945, a massive funeral cortege carried his coffin from Warm Springs, GA back to Washington. Huge crowds packed the streets and lined the railroad tracks. Many were brought to tears and waved as the flag-draped coffin passed by. The History Channel documentary repeated a frequently quoted anecdote: an elderly man obviously without means was asked if he had ever met FDR. No, the man said, but he knew me.

As revered by many (my parents adored him), Roosevelt is scorned by conservatives as a traitor to capitalism and a society based on financial success. The three Republican presidents who preceded him in the Oval Office (Harding, Coolidge and Hoover) shared a philosophy that rejected any kind of government intervention to help citizens in need. If they had problems, seek assistance from friends and family. A helping hand was not a governmental policy.

FDR, faced with that obstinacy upon winning the 1932 election, knew that decisive— controversial—action was needed as the Great Depression continued to ravage not just the United States but also much of the world. He feared that without involving the federal government in helping the nation recover, fascism, which was already surfacing in Germany, Italy, and Soviet communism, would spread to our shores.

Over time, the Roosevelt administration was able to push dozens of plans through Congress to restore public confidence in a nation that had been dealt a near-fatal stock market collapse that wiped out fortunes, jobs and hope. His crowning New Deal achievement was Social Security, a revolutionary concept intended to help aging Americans avoid financial and emotional destitution.

Looking back, FDR demonstrated inordinate political will. We desperately need that again, during a time when truth, verifiable fact and established guidelines and traditions are eroding before our eyes.

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The 1935 Social Security Act represented a monumental reimagining of the role of representative democracy. The government would no longer stand aside, and tax dollars would flow into the economy to help citizens get back on their feet.

The program wasn’t without flaws, and thinking that the program can’t be improved is foolhardy.

The crux of Social Security imposed a payroll levy in which employers and workers would each contribute to a special government trust fund on a monthly basis. A cap prevented the contributions from business and employees from skyrocketing out of control. Every citizen was eligible to collect benefits once they reached retirement age.

Social Security remains a cornerstone of government policy. But (no surprise) it was attacked by the conservative right from the moment the plan was enacted, and ever since. At the same time, details have been revised, and while the plan limps along, the Social Security Trust Fund, from which monthly checks are written, is constantly facing financial collapse as costs exceed contributions.

The biggest problem is twofold: wages needed to fund Social Security have fallen dramatically, resulting in a shortfall in program funding. Just as vexing, the Social Security wage cap is set at $184,500. This means that anyone earning exactly $184,500 pays the maximum employee contribution of $11,439. However, an executive making $1,000,000 or $10,000,000 pays that exact same $11,439. Any earned income above the $184,500 threshold is entirely free from Social Security withholding.

Clearly, this is unsustainable. But so is political ennui. Everyone in Congress, the White House, the news media, economists and many citizens are aware of the mounting problems. But there is nothing approaching consensus on what might be done to ensure the program’s long-term survival.

I will spare readers a deep dive into the weeds of Social Security policy prescriptions. Dozens upon dozens of ideas have been floated by scholars, economists and elected officials, but consensus is lacking. The major stumbling block appears to be hesitation by incumbent legislators and administrations to propose anything that might raise taxes, no matter how much of a societal priority it is.

Which is (sorry) a long introduction to what surely has to be a change of heart in Washington. Unlikely, anytime soon, but probably essential on the part of whoever replaces Donald Trump in 2028

I’ve become a bit of a scold about political courage, yet that’s the heart of the matter. Republicans are adamant: no tax hikes. Democrats use euphemisms (“revenue enhancements”) to disguise their intentions. The general public is excluded from consideration, as if their opinions hold no weight. This, despite many years of polling showing that Social Security is viewed by strong majorities as the federal government’s most essential program.

What’s holding back reform efforts even more is the ever-increasing influence of political contributions, now virtually unregulated. Who shells out this tidal wave of campaign cash? Some but not all corporations. Ultra-wealthy families who consider taxation a worse scourge than cancer. Special interests, including banks, investment firms, private equity operations and political operatives assigned to block any attempts to revise the highly imbalanced tax code, as well as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Add the Republican Party to this list. If that sounds partisan, consider the 2025 One Big Beautiful Act (OBBA) pushed by the Trump regime without a single Democratic vote. Trump and the GOP hailed this legislation as helping all Americans, but poring over its details, any breaks for wage earners (like no tax on tips) are temporary, while huge tax reductions for the wealthiest households not only increased but were made permanent.

The legislation has greatly increased the national debt to a stratospheric $40 trillion, a stunning turnaround from those who once claimed to be deficit hawks. If anything is unsustainable, it is the enormous sums needed just to make interest payments. In the meantime, the size and scope of the deficit have spooked bond and stock markets and contributed to high mortgage interest rates. So much is out of fiscal balance at the moment, only the zealous rollout of artificial intelligence is fueling stock market gains. The rest of the non-tech economy is underperforming and drifting.

To foot the bill for this tax giveway, Republicans took it out on their favorite target—the poor—by eliminating subsidies for Affordable Care Act recipients, while also imposing punitive new eligibility requirements for those on Medicaid. Already, many thousands have lost health insurance, and even more will be adversely impacted after the new year (after the upcoming midterms) when the full impact of OBBA begins. The effects of these moves are dire: people who can’t afford healthcare, and already struggling hospital emergency rooms overrun with patients with nowhere else to turn.

Yet here we are, waging an inept war with Iran, continuing tariffs that boost retail prices, rounding up and decimating the economy’s labor force, while pushing ahead on vanity projects and promoting naked corruption.

You wonder sometimes if anyone is paying attention.

I don’t have solutions to these ills to put before readers. But two suggestions for if/when control of Congress changes hands:

• Repeal or greatly revise the One Big Beautiful Bill as a step in recovering fiscal sanity. One needn’t be a Communist or Socialist or Democratic Socialist to understand that the wealthiest 1% of household incomes (including the Trump family and a majority of his Cabinet) are making out like bandits while the rest of us are—if not struggling to stay afloat—paddling furiously. As a basic reform, no tax cut should ever be permanent. Nor should any legislation expand the deficit.

• Before a new administration takes office in 2028, someone or a nonprofit with political credibility and gravitas should organize a public-interest firm to advocate for establishing an independent commission to study and recommend revisions to Social Security to protect its solvency. Participation by retired incumbents from each party who still have much to contribute would be important.

These are meant as ideas to ponder as we approach the midterms. I have become estranged from most political news because it is insanely repetitive, and I can’t recall hearing a concrete proposal to improve citizens' lives. You may not hear anything approaching candor and courage from office holders and candidates, but you still retain the power (hopefully) to help move the nation out of the doldrums.

I suppose I am guilty of prattling on with Trump’s standing dropping to new lows. Yet he remains in control, and has 2-1/2 years left in his second term.

Another way to frame this argument is that the Great Depression happened because no one was paying attention. We’d be wise to wake up.

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Beats me. My curiosity three months ahead of the balloting is whether the results, whatever they turn out to be, will be one of those seminal moments when the nation turns a corner, shaking off the doldrums of political divisiveness and enabling the two warring parties to reach common ground so necessary to a functioning representative democracy.

It doesn’t feel that way at the moment. Campaign rhetoric from both sides is already heated; nothing unusual in that. It will only grow more strident, especially if the President aggressively pursues his plan to curtail voting to control the outcome of Congressional races in his favor.

Still, one senses that voters really want change — a change in direction, and something in short supply in the current environment: representatives who work on their behalf, not on special-interest priorities dictated by wealthy contributors or ideologically driven wedge issues that have so dominated public discourse for several years. Arguably the most topical issue—the rapid rollout of artificial intelligence—reveals how many citizens feel that forces over which they have no control are implementing profound societal change with little or no explanation, coupled with huge data farms that are reshaping many communities in ways they do not want.

It is not likely that there will be an upsurge in bipartisanship. Party identification still holds sway, but it is unraveling as independents are gaining strength. Gerrymandering guarantees that very few contests are truly competitive. The flow of campaign cash is already on a tidal scale, a fact that repels average Americans, even though whichever candidate has the biggest treasure chest is not always the winner.

Perhaps, then, a more helpful way to think about what may motivate busy, distracted, anxious voters in November. Specific issues like inflation are always uppermost. But beyond the basic matters, I am trying to limn how each party portrays itself to voters. What do Democrats and Republicans actually stand for? Do they actually stand for anything that would most appeal to a restive, unhappy nation?

For Republicans . . .

Do Republican voters want to stick with Trump, or has the hold on the Grand Old Party evaporated?

Public opinion polling isn’t helpful. Most polls don’t do well at assessing respondents' feelings. Issues are measurable. Sensibilities are more difficult to parse. But how Republicans — MAGA and longtime stalwarts— feel about Trump is the overriding unknown as the midterms approach, and even more so no matter the election outcomes.

Sticking with Trump means more of the same, but likely even more unhinged. He isn’t going to change, have a come-to-Jesus moment, and make an effort to govern. If Republicans hold Congress, there is not much outside federal district courts to stop the administration’s proclivities. The administration long ago abandoned paying attention to Republican voters caught in the same economic morass of high prices, a spirit-draining war, and absurd vanity projects.

On the other hand, conservative Republicans who may be repelled by Trump’s erratic reign might remain loyal because, to them, Democrats are the real enemies — not Russia, Iran, tariffs, gas prices, AI, and rampant corruption. At a minimum, control of the Senate affords Trump the very real possibility of one or two Supreme Court appointees should Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas retire.

Trump has more or less signaled his choice of JD Vance to succeed him in 2028, but it’s well known within GOP circles that Vance possesses an underpowered personality compared to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Both of them were Trump critics — until they weren’t — but Rubio has broad support outside the radical right wing. (It is worth noting that Rubio has loyally supported the Iranian escapade but not aggressively. A case of keeping his powder dry, but not demonstrating much in nation-first thinking.)

The larger question is whether the MAGA movement has entered the history books, freeing Republicans to return to responsible conservatism. Republicans I know are appalled by Trump’s behavior and policies. However, as long as there are Democrats, a sizable majority of Republicans will never cross party lines, period.

In sum, for Republicans, are the upcoming elections about staying the course with Donald Trump, with all the baggage he carries, or sitting out the upcoming elections? Simply stated, for the Republican Party, staying with a man who is deeply unpopular is the conundrum. Who within the party can emerge with a new, saner vision of political leadership?

For Democrats . . .

The dilemma for Democrats is, as usual, what the party stands for. The “Big Tent” reputation, in place since the Depression, remains a factor, fueling constant internal debates and anger among liberals, progressives, and moderates. This mix of attitudes and preferences has often resulted in a lack of a clear focus or identity.

Race remains the fault line separating the two parties. Republicans have consistently positioned themselves as representing white citizens, the dominant cohort in an increasingly diverse population. In 2024, many blacks and Latino voters abandoned their Democratic Party origins and voted for Trump; subsequent events — the wholesale removal of law-abiding immigrants, the stripping away of DEI policies, and the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act — have all but ended Republicans’ outreach to minorities. Democratic Black and Latino leaders want more attention paid to their concerns, but this is generating pushback from whites who believe that winning elections may mean sacrificing diversity.

Most of the media’s attention at the moment is on whether Democrats are moving even more to the political left. The actual situation is more nuanced: even when liberal Democrats have won some off-year elections, their wins have been narrow.

Progressive Democrats are not socialists or Communists, as Trump claims. Neither are Social Democrats. Avoiding these epithets already out in full force will put added pressure on left-leaning candidates to articulate specific policy ideas with broad appeal, such as universal healthcare.

The ongoing debate about Democratic ideology amplifies a persistent issue that will confront the party whether it wins control of Congress or once again loses to very conservative, far-right Republicans. What, exactly, are the party’s core beliefs and issues?

To me, this will be the critical fork in the road for each party, but especially for Democrats. On the one hand, should the party’s candidates focus on issues of concern, such as affordability? On the other, should they seek revenge for the many missteps of the Trump regime? Can the party do both?

At the moment, I don’t discern which way the wind is blowing. But as the party’s leaders and candidates sort it out, the bigger question is: what do voters want?

The most obvious answer is doing both, with policy ideas coupled with committee hearings to ferret out Republican misdeeds. Going in that direction could prove disastrous if it turns off independent voters and moderate Republicans and Democrats who want to get on with the business of renewal rather than revenge.

One example suffices: what can Democrats do to rein in Robert F. Kennedy’s reckless paranoia? If the Democrats win the House in the Fall, they can use the power of the purse to thwart Kennedy’s bizarre notions of public health. Can they do that without also dragging Kennedy into show trial committee hearings? Do Democrats urge dismissal of Hegseth and Miller, or focus on reestablishing an independent military and ending large-scale deportations?

Answering these questions will require clear political leadership. History is a guide. Whenever one party retakes Congress, the urge for tit-for-tat retribution can be overwhelming. And God knows, the wreckage of Trump’s second term is leaving a sour taste in the mouths of many Americans. Resisting this impulse is risky, but so is giving Trump an undeserved pass.

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Stepping away from the specifics, America is headed into momentous voting choices this Fall and in 2028 without competent political leadership helping to point the way. Republicans must decide whether to keep riding Trump’s coattails and authoritarian impulses, or look to move back from the radical far right. I struggle to identify anyone within the GOP ranks with the gravitas and vision who might emerge. Tucker Carlson? Thom Tillis? Elon Musk? Mike Johnson? Who?

For Democrats, there is no surfeit of potential candidates to wrest control of the party’s direction. That will be sorted out in time, but in the short term — after the midterm results are known — what can the party do to improve its miserable standing with most voters, including fellow Democrats? For the party, is the choice retribution or renewal?

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In writing this, I came across a recent musing from retired New York Times columnist David Brooks, a political moderate always more fascinated by motivations and feelings than actual policy choices. He wrote the following, and I found it captured not only what I am feeling, but what perhaps most voters are also sensing:

“Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause.

Since January 20 [2025], as I have watched America behave vilely—towards our friends in Canada and Mexico, towards our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky (Brooks’ emphasis) in the Oval Office—I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination?

“Maybe the best description for what I am feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.”

Me, too, and one hopes most of our friends and neighbors are feeling the same way.

I doubt the allegation — idiotic on its face — will make much of a difference to voters who have a whole lot more important concerns these days. But then again, Trump and his loyal Republicans are themselves threatened as the November midterms approach. They’ve been instructed to add “communism” to their public comments and repeat it as if nothing else matters.

So why would I even bother bringing more attention to this latest foolishness? A couple of reasons: one is that many citizens have very little knowledge or understanding of what communism is or was. As someone who lived through the Russian-American “Cold War,” communists who held sway in the Kremlin became our arch-enemies in a nuclear arms race pitting Communists against Freedom-loving Americans. The possibility of nuclear annihilation was background noise in the years between 1945 and 1989. I am of the generation told to get on the floor under my desk at school and hope I could survive a Russian nuclear attack. So, yes, commies were the bad guys.

Very few Americans in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s harbor such nightmares.

A second reason is that a closer examination of Trump’s 2026 Red Scare reveals that he is projecting onto his political enemies the communist ideology holding sway in Russia and China, America’s biggest global frenemies. As we are all too aware, Trump demeans NATO, dismisses diplomatic and economic ties among nations, and preaches an incessant America First agenda that relegates the rest of the world to secondary status. He noticeably avoids lumping Russia and China as also-rans in the contest for world domination. Why is that?

The fact is that Trump is implementing policies and programs that closely parallel those of the Russian and Chinese governments.

Let’s take a look:

Opponents are enemies

Neither Russia nor China tolerates political opposition. They go out of their way to castigate dissenters as enemies of the people. So does Trump.

Suppression of independent journalism

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping control their nation’s public and private discourse with state-sponsored propaganda. There is no such thing as an independent press; in China, journalists are banned to outer Mongolia. In Russia, they are murdered. Trump hasn’t gone that far, but he is doing his damnedest to muffle independent news gathering.

Oligarchial economics

The economies of Russia and China are state-controlled, directed from the top and implemented by political hacks who divvy up management of agriculture, energy, defense, national security, domestic policy, religion, arts and entertainment and athletics. They serve at the pleasure of Putin and Xi and can disappear from sight without warning. The Trump cabinet is made up of party hacks who’ve been given oversight of defense, transportation, national security, diplomacy, agriculture, education, commerce, and on and on. Trump micromanages everything from behind his desk; competence is not a job requirement; loyalty is.

Separate Policing

The United States, under Trump, has implemented a parallel policing function within the Department of Homeland Security to oversee immigration enforcement. Armed, masked, anonymous men and women patrol cities and towns ferreting out anyone in the country illegally — or might be — for immediate expulsion. China and Russia have similar enforcement entities with extraordinary powers of intimidation. Their borders are secured by military forces.

One-party rule

There are no opposition political parties in Russia and China. Trump desires one-party rule here. All three nations have representative entities — Congresses or legislatures — but their members are rubber-stamp mannequins. That wasn’t the way things were in this country until Trump began his second term.

Discrimination

The Chinese government brutally suppresses minorities such as the Uighers. Russia discriminates against rural populations, blocking their entry into Moscow and St. Petersburg and implementing policies meant to sustain economic dependency on the state. The Trump regime doesn’t hide its white-only preferences, nor its antipathy to women, gays, trans people and racial minorities. It is without a doubt the most virulently racist administration since the antebellum decades leading up to the Civil War.

Military might

Defense budgets of Russia and China dwarf domestic spending — a vestige of the Cold War. Where the dollars are spent, and for what purposes, are top-secret activities. There is no accountability or civilian oversight. The same goes for the United States in the Trump regime.

Rogue diplomacy

Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago and keeps threatening neighbors like Poland and Finland. China keeps threatening Taiwan even as it uses economic muscle to gain hegemony over valuable African resources. Trump decapitated the Venezuelan government, threatens Cuba, Greenland and Canada, and is caught up in a senseless on-again, off-again war with Iran.

Corruption

It is widely reported that Putin is far and away the wealthiest individual on the planet, making Trump look like a piker. Xi’s personal wealth is unknown, but he’s definitely not going without. Putin takes a percentage of the Russian economy's revenues and receives money and treasure from his oligarchs. Trump took in more than $2 billion in revenue from a variety of “business” ventures that are valued solely on their proximity to the Oval Office. Part carnival barker and part crime boss, Trump shakes down business suitors and treats diplomacy as strictly deal-making.

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When you put this information into a document, it becomes clear just how far off the rails the Trump regime has gone. Keep in mind that he raised the specter of communism after Democrats elected candidates who proposed policies that the radical right media called “socialist” and “communist,” and traditional media observers described as “leftist” and “liberal.”

Trump’s antipathy seems mostly directed at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Mamdani explicitly identifies as a democratic socialist rather than a social democrat (as are political parties in much of Europe), and is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. El-Sayed does not affiliate with the DSA and calls himself a champion for the economically distressed. Neither comes anywhere close to being a communist in thought, word or deed. Call them communists anyway.

So, where does this leave us?

I probably wouldn’t have even bothered with this post were it not for the fact that Trump remains in office for a bit more than two years, and can do much additional damage to our national well-being.

We are left then to ponder Trump’s megaphone as President and Commander-in-Chief. He and his cronies do not value truth and observable reality when an AI cartoon of Trump as Jesus will do just as well.

I doubt whether the epithet "communism" will stick. It is preposterous. The more he and his minions talk it up as a grave threat, the more citizens with common sense and a mind of their own will laugh it off as the meanderings of an increasingly senile despot.

There is a danger in that, however. One thing about Trump we should not ignore is that were it not for our independent fourth estate and a number of courageous district court judges who’ve stopped or delayed many of the administration’s worst policies, we’d be at the mercy of a self-absorbed lunatic whose grip on power remains near absolute.

That’s a specter as fraught as anything since the Cold War.

Blanche thinks otherwise, asserting that since the Department of Justice is part of the Executive Branch, it must respond to whatever the President orders — as long as the actions fall within the “executive powers” of the presidency. What constitutes “executive powers” isn’t exactly clear.

Blanche is dead wrong, as is the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2024 that the Office of the President is immune from prosecution in exercising the responsibilities of the office.

I am neither an attorney nor a legal scholar, but as a one-time journalist, I do possess a sensitive nose. This enables me to smell a rat. And the Court’s decision two years ago, and Blanche’s interpretation of executive power, smells to high heaven.

This entire matter would normally be of interest only to scholars, lawyers and opinion writers. Most everyone else would likely yawn. But with more than two years left in Trump’s second — and disastrous — term, an Attorney General as supine as Blanche is an utter disaster unleashed in the service of Trump’s increasingly erratic and incoherent administration. Laws and regulations of immense importance (voting) may be overturned. Trump’s list of enemies subject to DoJ harassment will grow. Good people will be attacked, demeaned, threatened, arraigned. Customs and traditions will crumble. More innocent individuals protesting government overreach will be bullied, beaten, or shot dead.

So, yes, this is a very big deal. As citizens and voters, we must come to grips with another 24+ months of reckless lawfare that serves the desires of our worst president ever.

Let’s unpack.

No Kings Meant NO Kings

The Colonies’ political, business and religious leaders who assembled in Philadelphia to charter a course for a new nation were united in one undebatable idea: they wanted nothing to do with royal rule. All of them were familiar with European monarchies and were especially knowledgeable about King George III of Great Britain, whose laws, customs and procedures had largely been borrowed by the first settlers.

The Founders harbored a radical notion: that no man would be above the law in the new nation they were fashioning. From that basic principle, all else that ended up in the Constitution and the Rule of Law followed as bricks in a sturdy foundation of government.

The most vocal was James Madison (also, arguably, the most astute of the Founders). Madison abhorred hereditary monarchy as a fundamentally tyrannical system that concentrated absolute power and stripped citizens of their natural liberties. As the primary architect of the U.S. Constitution, Madison dedicated his career to building a republic that would explicitly prevent a hereditary monarchy or an "elective king" from ever rising in America.

Most directly relevant to modern times, during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Madison adamantly opposed granting the president sweeping royal prerogatives. When Alexander Hamilton proposed a lifetime executive term, Madison and the other delegates flatly rejected it, fearing it would mirror a British-style monarchy. He engineered the system of checks and balances so that no future president could use executive power to govern like a monarch.

His views held sway, and a nation like none before emerged — a democratic republic in which power was invested in the nation’s laws, as enacted by its citizens, not forced upon them. In America, said Thomas Paine, “the law is king.”

Americans have largely bought into citizen hegemony. It appeals to the strain of egalitarianism of the United States (albeit with several fraught times of failure and challenge).

That no man is above the law has survived several challenges. Over many decades, Presidents sought more power, and lost:

Abraham Lincoln, desperate to keep the nation from collapsing in disunion, for a time suspended the right of habeas corpus. His allies were horrified, and eventually, Lincoln and Congress agreed on a wartime emergency law.

FDR, angry with a recalcitrant Supreme Court that had rejected several New Deal policies, pushed to “pack the Court” with sympathetic judges. Critics and even friendly lawmakers accused Roosevelt of overreaching executive power and violating the separation of powers. He backed off.

Harry Truman nationalized the steel industry during the Korean War, citing a national emergency. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled against Truman, declaring the seizure unconstitutional. The justices found that the President’s "inherent emergency powers" as Commander-in-Chief did not grant him the authority to seize private property without prior authorization from Congress. (emphasis added).

The Watergate scandal was by far the most consequential power grab by a sitting President. Richard Nixon’s expansive view of the presidency—rooted in the belief that actions taken by a president in the national interest cannot be illegal—led to covert operations, obstruction of justice, and the systematic abuse of intelligence agencies. A unanimous Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in United States v. Nixon that executive privilege is not absolute.

In light of these precedents, what happened to the idea that no one is above the law?

Donald Trump Meets John Roberts

Recent research reveals that Chief Justice John Roberts, who was elevated to the Court in 2003, was less than candid in his Senate confirmation hearings. Like every recent Court nominee, Roberts repeated that it was a settled legal question that in American jurisprudence, no man — including presidents — is above the law.

Turns out Roberts believed otherwise. Along with other conservatives on the Court — Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas — Roberts thought there is a fundamental flaw in the Constitution’s separation of powers (which established three separate but equal branches of government). Such a dispersal of responsibility neutered the government’s ability to act more forcefully in matters of grave importance. A president must possess and use executive power, placing the executive branch above legislative and judicial functions.

Dozens of conservative scholars and attorneys kept alive the idea of an all-powerful President. In the 1980’s, Reagan’s lawyers, alongside ideologically aligned law professors and think tanks, developed an intellectual framework for establishing the executive branch as above and apart from the other branches of government. The idea, later named “a unitary executive,” remained an ideological construct until Donald Trump appeared on the scene.

You may recall (although it feels like it happened a century ago) that Donald Trump was indicted for provoking the mob assault on the Capitol in January, 2021. Trump appealed, arguing that criminal prosecution of a former president for official responsibilities is unconstitutional.

Suddenly, as if fallen from heaven, Roberts had the appeal he needed, and with Alito, Thomas, and three Trump appointees, fashioned an entirely new theory of Constitutional law. In exercising their official responsibilities, presidents were immune from prosecution.

The decision is much more radical than it appeared at first glance. Presidents are given “presumptive” immunity, meaning that actions are presumed to be legal and within official duties. Additionally, the majority ruled that official actions cannot be admitted as evidence in a trial evaluating or proving a president's unofficial acts. (Emphasis added).

Let that finding sink in. There is, in the Roberts’ Court view, no legal way to question a president’s “official actions.”

And what are “official actions”? The Court didn’t say. The decision observed that “unofficial” acts might be challenged, but failed to offer a precise definition of official and unofficial. (Conjure this loophole: the proverbial truck driving through a balsa wood barrier).

The Trump regime in its second go-round has jumped on the Court’s decision like a miner striking gold. Before everyone’s eyes, and with astonishment, Trump implemented an expansive new vision of the separation of powers, with the President effectively calling all the shots across every branch of government

What’s becoming clearer with each passing day is that a very bad genie was let out of the bottle.

Over the past 21 months, Donald Trump has sought to push this theory’s view of presidential power further than any president in history. Until the Roberts Court rewrote history, we were a nation of laws, not men. Rejecting 250 years of established jurisprudence, Trump vs United States flipped the narrative by installing a would-be Prometheus unbound by law, custom, or public support.

To recap, Trump’s expansive weaponization of executive immunity is the apogee of a controversial theory of government that, at a minimum, conflicts with how Americans have long understood that power dispersed upholds the idea that no man is above the law.

Except . . .

It is pretty clear that the Roberts Court, right-wing intellectuals, even the most dedicated Project 2025 activists, did not envision what might happen if a megalomaniac managed to win the White House. (James Madison saw this coming, but no one paid attention).

Trump has attracted to his regime the most inexperienced crew of ne’er-do-wells and denizens in American history. The record so far is one of catastrophic failure. Nothing beyond “securing the border” (which was already secure) classifies as a win. Nothing is working, a war is foundering, prices are high, morale is low. So much losing.

Worse, a benevolent dictator might have been a possibility — might. But what we have instead is a reckless, driven fool with childish impulses and a monstrous ego disguising an ocean of insecurities. His many liabilities are magnified by lowlifes like Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth who are drunk with power and devoid of human qualities.

Corruption is rampant and blatant. Trump apparently thinks no one cares what he does with his spare time, so why not plunder the Treasury?

I write all this to underscore just how radically off the rails we have become under this deeply flawed notion of a “unitary executive.” Under the Constitution, Congress holds the unassailable power of the purse — the budget and spending plans of the vast federal bureaucracy. This Congress — controlled by Republicans — gave that power away with not even a whimper, and stands today as an example of institutional collapse. Republicans are so emotionally hogtied by Trump that they’ve given up independent thought. One of those who voted for Blanche to become AG said he did so because maybe someone else would be worse. Infamy awaits this bunch.

We are left at the moment to accept — and if not accept, then accommodate — that revenge and retribution are “official acts.” Wrecking half the White House is within the bounds of executive action. Working overtime to limit voting is an acceptable duty of the Oval Office. We have no choice beyond a shrug that Trump will end up using tax dollars to reward the January 6 hoodlums, while exonerating himself, his family and his rich friends from tax liability ever again. No one seriously believes that these decisions constitute “official acts.”

Unified executive power is an idea that threatens not only our standing in the world, but also our reputation as a nation that respects the law as fair and equitable. It is an Orwellian world that happened because we weren’t looking.

A Thought Experiment

Michigan’s Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, advocates Medicare for all.

The President of the United States doesn’t think voting is necessary, and is pushing for restrictions to ensure that his side always wins.

Which one is the real radical?

This is the most radical administration in American history, and is equaled only by history’s most demonic authoritarian regimes. No, political enemies haven’t been banished to distant prisons, or murdered. But protestors have been shot and beaten by ICE storm troopers, while thousands of innocent individuals and families have been whisked away to strange, distant lands without due process. The evil in our midst is . . . Joe Biden?

We are either dreaming or numb to the emergency we face.

A Modest Idea

I have long harbored the idea that our country could really benefit from a dose of political participation — something well beyond and more meaningful than 4th of July sparklers.

Let’s say Democrats somehow manage to take control of Congress in the upcoming midterms, making Trump a real lame duck. Rather than spend needless hours in retribution against Trump’s awful reign, how about something positive and engaging?

I think Democrats, independents, and willing Republicans might like a national referendum that would accompany all ballots in the 2026 presidential sweepstakes.

The referendum would consist of one question, with two possible answers: yes or no.

Do you favor the statement that no one in America is above the law? Y or N?

I am confident Yes will win.

On the right, Tucker Carlson, joined by Marjorie Taylor Greene and other disaffected MAGA acolytes, claims they are assembling a third rail for the November midterms — a rejection of Trump and a rejection of Democrats, in favor of those who fiercely oppose foreign escapades (Iran) in favor of pre-WWII isolationism. Carlson seems to fancy himself an experienced diplomat (could have fooled me), but more is at play: the possibility of a third-party presidential candidate (Carlson) who has name recognition, dresses Ivy League-William F. Buckley, and was until recently a Trump toadie.

Meanwhile, Democrats are all aflutter with concerns about the popularity of Democratic Socialist candidates, who have performed well in recent elections, the most recent being the Michigan Senate primary, when a progressive narrowly beat an establishment, centrist candidate.

Then, late today, Trump all but ordained his successor-as-despot, the mercurial JD Vance.

You can’t make this up, sadly. All it shows is what I wrote yesterday: the upcoming path to the November midterms is fast-changing, chaotic, and (most likely) excruciatingly boring to average Americans.

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Labor Day is the kickoff of the campaign stretch runs leading up to national elections. As I write, the environment is fluid and changing, with each Party fine-tuning its closing arguments. This post isn’t an attempt to guess who wins, but more a back-of-the-envelope assessment of how and why Republicans and Democrats have reached this point in their ongoing and increasingly hostile confrontation.

DEMOCRATS

The (slightly) majority political party is searching for a core appeal to voters but, as always, it is deeply divided between centrists and progressives. Given that Donald Trump’s administration is widely unpopular, one would think the party’s best appeal is that they aren’t Republicans. Yet that will get Democrats only so far. While many Democratic candidates articulate specific goals, the party itself is still nibbling around the edges of a coherent, persuasive policy. The ideological divide between moderates and progressives doesn’t help.

This uncertainty is the party’s most pressing weakness at a time when, by all typical benchmarks, Democrats should be on target for a sweeping win on par with their winning performance in 2018 in Donald Trump’s first term. That is by no means assured, however.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is loathed as incompetent by party stalwarts. It botched a planned mea culpa explanation of why Kamala Harris lost to Trump in 2024. Many Democrats believe the party is too dependent on major campaign donors who don’t share the “big tent” idea that everyone is welcome into a political movement whose roots sprouted in FDR’s Depression-era New Deal. They want it to be the party that emphasizes economic progress with policies that raise all boats, but often ends up offering voters vague policy initiatives that convey a party stuck in the weeds, unwilling to offend any special interest group or voting bloc.

Democrats have long been pro-government interventionists. They support regulations impacting corporations and Wall Street. The party embraces public education and civil and human rights. Democrats are inexorably linked to the civil rights movement, and have relied upon the support of black citizens for generations. This association has extended to the Latino community, as well as Muslims, gays, and other minorities. The party’s demographic portrait reflects the nation’s growing diversity. Women are the backbone of the Democratic Party, especially young professionals and moms working outside the home. Reproductive rights are crucial and, for most Democrats, non-negotiable.

All that is true, but the uncomfortable fact is that the party has most often backed away from aggressively pursuing its goals, such as advocating universal healthcare as a human right. Over time, the cumulative effect of mushy politics is one of weakness and indecision. Democrats are disliked — even by fellow Democrats — as wishy-washy and unprincipled. The Party’s most significant achievement, the Affordable Care Act, has been gutted by Trump-led Republicans, throwing thousands of families into chaos. The party’s pushback, never mind outrage, has been underwhelming.

All that said, there are signs of change, albeit with a two-edged sword. Self-styled Democratic Socialists have scored shocking victories in New York City and many state and local elections around the country. Michigan Democrats just selected a populist progressive, Abdul El-Sayed, over a mainstream candidate backed by party moderates. Rather than celebrating the enthusiasm these candidates are generating, moderate factions are mounting efforts to stop the party’s shift to the ideological left. Republicans can barely control their glee.

REPUBLICANS

If this were 1956 instead of 2026, I’d be describing a completely different Republican Party. Under the modest hand of war hero Dwight Eisenhower, Republicans personified middle American values. Mostly white, mostly middle class, religious, God-fearing, Chamber of Commerce, hardware store citizens who were equal parts isolationist and globally oriented. They supported the United Nations, feared the Soviet Union, and believed that communism could be countered with foreign aid and diplomatic relations. Some of history’s most distinguished public servants were rock-ribbed Republicans who were deeply patriotic and encouraged bipartisan political solutions.

Today’s GOP could not be more different. It is under the thumb of an authoritarian, deeply corrupt president who came of age under the guidance of radical ideologues from the party’s far right. Allies have been insulted. Despots like Vladimir Putin are treated with kid gloves. Trump’s cabinet is an all-white collection of incompetent toadies.

Trump’s fortunes, and the GOP’s, shifted into high gear as a result of an internal rebellion that began in Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It was inspired by deeply conservative, far-right operatives like Lee Atwater who wanted a political party that was anti-government, anti-regulation, anti- foreign entanglements, anti-civil rights, anti-everything Democrats favored. Out went non-partisan cooperation and political alliances. In came candidates and governors who detested Democrats and despised social welfare programs, civil rights legislation, abortion, and restrictions on private gun ownership. There was, and continues to be, a strain of racial bias among many of its true believers.

Republicans have always been much more organized and cohesive than Democrats. Many Republicans over the years harbored a hatred for the New Deal and FDR’s “socialist” policies. Despite the complete takeover of the GOP by Trump, many Republicans remain loyal to the party. I count many Republicans as lifelong friends; we agree on many matters, but they can’t conceive of voting for a Democrat — ever.

That discipline has hardened into lockstep obedience in Trump’s second term. No Republicans holding office dare cross Trump. Those that have were banned by primary voters lacking only pitchforks. Even staunch Trump critics (the late Lindsay Graham comes to mind, as does Marco Rubio) changed their outlook to support Trump no matter how convoluted their reasoning is. Todd Blanche’s pending coronation as Attorney General stands as the quintessential example of moral collapse and ethical drift.

The administration is in disarray, careening from crisis to crisis of its own making. The Republican dominated Congress gave up its power to the Executive Branch led by a White House that demeans and disparages even the GOP’s staunchest legislators. Trump is isolated and fumbling, his hold on power slipping into incoherence. Today’s Republican Party is a cabal, plain and simple. And many Americans don’t like what they see. Whether they will continue to fall in line in November (or either stay home or support Democrats) is a major unknowable.

Somewhere around 35-40% of citizens in polls identify as Republicans. They may stay home in November, or flood the polling places to once again punish Democrats for being Democrats.

INDEPENDENTS

Individuals who distrust both parties are increasingly declaring themselves as independents. It is the fastest-growing reshuffling in domestic politics; independents could very well determine the midterm elections and the 2028 presidential sweepstakes.

Independents occupy the middle ground on the political spectrum, but with an additional element: they cannot abide market-driven, consultant-laden candidates without traceable convictions. Polls reveal that more Democrats than Republicans are becoming Independents, and that’s not surprising. Men and women who prefer nuance and deliberation over shoot-from-the-hip governance long ago dropped their GOP affiliation. But the Democratic Party’s persistent weaknesses are turning off more and more voters. Whether they decide for change away from Trump, or sit it out, could very easily determine the winners in November.

(Already, a handful of Democratic candidates have dropped out of races in favor of independents who may have better luck defeating Republicans. There is no such thing at the moment of an independent who affiliates with the GOP).

ADDITIONAL COMPLICATIONS

Party history and affiliations are by no means the only factors driving politics. Issues are always dominant, and so are undercurrents that flow just below the surface.

• “Big Money” — much of the discontent among Democrats is the influence of outsized campaign special interest spending. This issue is especially driving the party’s progressive wing to numerous recent primary and general election wins. Thanks to Trump’s pro-business/ wealthy class “Big Beautiful Bill,” Republicans are all-in on unlimited campaign contributions and spending. The fraught influence of monetized political speech coincides with polling that shows alarm, if not mistrust, of how special interests control election outcomes. At the moment, opposition to unlimited campaign contributions favors Democrats and Independents. Big money issues overlap with growing anxiety about the rollout of artificial intelligence. They also conflate with Trump’s blatant record of corruption benefiting himself, his family, and his closest confidants. Together, these issues may be decisive against Republican incumbents in the midterms.

• Evangelicals — Democrats are largely viewed as secular, but with important Jewish support in major cities. Under Trump’s preferences, right-wing evangelicals overwhelmingly support the GOP (ignoring Trump’s checkered morals). The extreme evangelicals literally order adherents to back Trump as the savior of American purity, and in the past, they’ve turned out in droves to back GOP candidates. In close state elections in places like Georgia, their influence can’t be discounted. (The Senate campaign of Democrat James Talarico in Texas directly challenges evangelical zealotry. The reaction is unhinged; Talarico is a vegetarian!).

• AIPAC/Israel — Israel’s treatment of Gaza is a festering domestic issue there and here. In the United States, virtually unlimited support for Israel — maintained by both parties via AIPAC fundraising — is suddenly jeopardized. In several recent elections, anti-AIPAC candidates have won most recent contests, most notably in Michigan’s Senate race and in Illinois. More than anything, this issue reveals a sea-change in alignment: Democratic hostility towards Israel is growing, while Trump remains committed to Israel’s punitive treatment of Palestine. The touchstone of discontent is Benjamin Netanyahu, who in many ways is a Trump protege.

• Women’s Position in Society — the two parties are split asunder over differing views of the proper role of women in democratic society. Reproductive rights — abortion — remains the most divisive issue, and shows no signs of abating. The Dobbs decision overturning 50 years of precedent sanctioning a woman’s right to choose would undoubtedly be a top priority should Democrats regain control of Congress; Republicans this cycle are basing their campaign on countering that effort. Further complicating this issue, Republicans seem supportive of a nascent “tradwife” movement that promotes traditional stay-at-home housewives subservient to their husbands. That’s a view that will attract some and repel others, as is already apparent in family-first Utah.

• “It’s the Economy, Stupid” — James Carville's mantra in Bill Clinton’s first presidential run in 1992 still holds sway in the minds of most political observers. For good reason. Polling consistently has shown over many election cycles that economic issues — affordability, more than anything — dominate voter sentiment, and will this year. Trump’s tariff policies and his flippant disdain for “affordability” are seen as potentially crucial in voter turnout in the Fall. What this issue lacks is specifics: who and what is causing high prices, income inequality, scarce housing, and many other problems. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared this week that the income gap between the wealthy and everyone else is “over.”

Last But Not Least . . .

Off-year elections usually spell trouble for incumbents in the majority and in the White House. This is the factor I believe most political analysts underestimate. November’s midterm elections will be a referendum on Donald Trump, whose approval ratings have plunged to an incredibly weak 32%.

You may ask why I devoted this post to an analysis when the outcome may already be apparent. The reason is that every one of the issues I outlined (above) was either prompted by Donald Trump or exacerbated by him.

Over and over, voters at the moment say they want two things from their elected leaders: accountability and authenticity. Trump shuns responsibility for everything he does that fails or is misguided (tariffs) or the result of his consummate megalomania (Reflecting Pool).

A certain segment of Americans, however, supports Trump as a truly unique and authentic public figure, vain, erratic, corrupt, indecisive, but a totally blunt and vivid character unlike any president in history. They like someone who breaks the rules, strikes back against conventional wisdom, follows his own North Star, and dishes out invective and retribution as he battles incoming attacks.

These are the qualities that delighted MAGA Republicans, and their support has stayed consistent through three elections dating back a decade. Is this support wavering? Will MAGA adherents turn out once again for Trump, or have they had enough? It is an imponderable at the moment.

It isn’t an irrelevant question. Control of Congress remains uncertain, but almost every guess favors a very narrow election outcome. If Trump’s core support stays home, his slate of candidates will fare poorly, endangering the last two years of his administration.

Which is why Trump keeps talking about sandbagging the midterms by restricting voting or intimidating voters with armed, masked ICE agents. Both moves violate Constitutional guardrails, but if anything is crystal clear, it is Donald Trump’s hostile animosity towards the Rule of Law and traditional norms.

The bottom, bottom line is that the nation heads into the Fall with no clear political leadership. This fact alone makes the midterms more volatile than ever. Republicans are fighting headwinds, but Democrats are unpopular. No one has stepped forward to accept or take on a leadership role in either party. For Republicans, the question is who follows Trump. For Democrats, it is who can step up.

There is an overriding issue. Public opinion surveys consistently show that significant majorities believe the “system” is broken — the system being a catch-all phrase for political disarray, expensive healthcare, environmental degradation, the looming threat of artificial intelligence, and underlying it all, a sense of national drift that is taking us further and further away from the ideals that sustained America through 250 years of growth and struggle.

It’s as if we are aware of a tumor inside the body politic, and we want leaders who can excise the problem and return us to health. We are nowhere near a solution, and that’s the issue tearing us apart.

We can already feel all the impact. A Google query today provides immediate results. Customer service is now dominated by AI agents, lugubriously pleasant but mostly unable to answer your questions. Just the other day, I asked Claude if it could create a basic household budget app. Two minutes later, I was up and running a program that makes Excel cranky and outmoded.

Even as I am benefiting from AI, I am uneasy about it. If you are paying attention, you probably are, too. AI is rolling out at warp speed. Even as the impacts of the technology are being hotly debated, there is at present (except in a few scattered places) no one and nothing stopping the rollout.

You’d assume that politicians and governments would be on top of this situation. But by and large, that isn’t happening. Like the 1849 California gold rush or the 1889 Oklahoma land grant stampede, events have far outpaced discussion, much less hesitation.

In fact, at least in the United States, the federal government is taking an active hand in promoting the rollout, going so far as taking a direct financial investment in some of the leading tech firms. Communism, anyone?

Who’s in charge?

It is a question that has several answers. Tech entrepreneurs, surely — Amazon, ChatGPT, Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, Google, Apple. Investors riding on the bandwagon. Local governments suddenly awash in cash as data farms sprout seemingly overnight.

Absent, however, is any appreciable role by the federal government in either reviewing what’s happening. slowing down the expansion, or even holding hearings on the impact of AI technology. President Donald Trump is a big fan of AI, and the government is investing tax dollars in the leading AI companies. Communism, anyone?

This hands-off stance is unprecedented and ominous. Yet at the moment, it hardly seems to register as a concern of voters. Gas pump prices, Iran, healthcare inequities, corruption and affordability are on the minds of most Americans. Distractions abound. We don’t yet seem able, as a nation, to make the connection between the White House’s rampant corruption and the absence of policies to address citizen concerns.

From this perspective, the conclusion is inescapable. The United States is drifting, rudderless. This is the issue underlying every other topic, not just AI. The Trump regime isn’t governing, but hanging by a thread. In my view, Trump’s dysfunction will decide the upcoming Congressional elections and the 2028 presidential sweepstakes. Do we, the people, want to be in charge of our destiny? We’re about to find out.

FACTS

Today, there are about 20 million A.I. chips crammed into the data centers that underpin the technology’s growing abilities and usage worldwide, according to the research firm Epoch AI. That figure is expected to double roughly every nine months, putting the world on pace to have about 200 million of the chips by the end of 2028 — 10 times current levels. (New York Times)

Nothing in recent history comes even close to this hyper-accelerated technological expansion. At the moment, AI is generating an average of 750 megawatts of power. Within five years, the power surge will reach an average of 9,700 megawatts. The problem is, no nation — not even the United States — has sufficient power capabilities to feed the AI maw.

To be sure, people are beginning to take notice. The furious build-out of resource-draining data farms is a growing issue, even in red states. Water and ground resources are disappearing to cool the computers. Infrastructure costs — roads, access, existing power grids, land — are being foisted upon local and state governments by the tech firms.

By 2029, A.I. infrastructure investment is forecast to top $1 trillion globally, up from $318 billion last year, according to IDC, the market research firm. Sort of feels like that giant boulder rolling toward Harrison Ford in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

In March 2024, the world had about 2.4 million of “H100 equivalent” A.I. chips. Now, as millions of more advanced chips are being brought online every month, the world is set to have about 200 million H100 equivalents in just a year and a half, according to Epoch AI.

The Government’s Response

There isn’t one. In fact, if anything, the Trump administration is actively encouraging an even faster pace of AI development.

Ponder that for a moment. AI proponents constantly emphasize how much the technology will boost productivity, leading to even more prosperity. And yet productivity is a measure of human output per hour. AI is replacing human endeavor by speeding up decision-making far faster than what even the best minds can manage. This will hollow out white-collar office jobs — already happening across administrative tasks like accounting, logistics, scientific and medical research, and laboratory jobs become outdated. With AI, we may soon know how to stop cancer from spreading. Just in time as private sector health insurance uses sophisticated AI algorithms to reduce healthcare benefits.

Have you heard any expressions of concern from the White House or top economic advisors in the administration? No, you have not. Trump and his Cabinet are all in on AI, and they count among their friends top high-tech executives like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and David Ellison (not to mention Elon Musk), who shower the President with lavish gifts and cash contributions in return for a hands-off, light regulatory touch.

Here is the troubling nexus of public policy and Trump’s corrupting proclivities. His judgments and policy choices are based on a “pay to play” mentality: Trump pays attention to those who most flatter him with gifts and cash.

Out of curiosity, I queried Claude, my go-to AI agent, about Trump’s AI policies, and I received a response that may as well have been written by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The Claude agent bent over backward to claim that the Trump regime was involved in protecting consumers. It was generative AI poppycock. AI is not being “governed” at all. A few states have stepped up involvement, but Trump insists on legislation that will block any state control of AI. Instead of regulation, the administration favors “voluntary” compliance, which is absurd on its face. Trump has deployed delegated Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as the point person with Silicon Valley. That’s like sending a puppy into a bull ring.

Why This Matters

I may be deluded, but given the enormous effects generated by AI, there needs to be a robust public policy response to its rollout. Otherwise, it is entirely possible that without regulation and oversight, there will be a rapidly expanding power shift from government to the private sector. We’ve already seen what can happen. War Secretary Hegseth blackballed Anthropic, Claude’s parent, for raising alarms about how the military might use the technology to develop weapons that need no human intervention. New algorithms coming online enable computers to teach themselves without any human involvement or interaction.

Alongside the rollout, the tech moguls are expending untold millions in Washington and state capitols in campaign contributions for pro-AI lawmakers. Musk this week announced plans to throw millions of dollars into campaigns to keep Republicans in control of Congress and the Oval Office. The GOP also is coalescing behind Vice President JD Vance as Trump’s successor. Vance is the personality-starved prodigy created by far-right tech investor Peter Thiel, who believes that government of any kind ought to be outlawed.

I seriously doubt most Americans, even among the MAGA crowd, favor this possibility. Whether that hesitation is reflected in the midterm voting is uncertain.

At the moment, Trump’s popularity is cratering to Richard Nixon levels. Yet due to the gerrymandering of Congressional districts, only a relative handful of House and Senate contests are actually competitive. In states like North Carolina, vote totals in recent elections reveal a very close purple state, with the two parties almost equal in popularity. But the GOP-dominated state legislature has created a Congressional district map in which 11 of the districts are guaranteed Republican, to only three favoring Democrats. Project this situation nationally, and it is no wonder control of Congress remains razor-thin.

In such a tainted landscape, is the rollout of AI even a factor in the minds of the majority of voters? I haven’t seen polling on this, so it is hard to say.

But it ought to be.

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The other day after I finished my swimming exercises, I entered the YMCA’s sauna, where two guys were lounging in the heat. They were commiserating about how challenging it is today to raise children. One of the dads said it is difficult to know what his 9th grader is learning in school; feedback is non-existent. His thoughts switched to AI. “Are they learning anything, or just copying?” he asked. “What is his future going to be like if he isn’t able to think?”

Indeed.

The victim — and that’s what he is — was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the highly regarded public health physician who helped steer the United States through the COVID pandemic in 2020-2022. Despite his best efforts, and those of scientists and researchers the world over, millions perished as governments and private laboratories frantically searched for something, anything, to stem the tide of death and damage.

Probably everyone would prefer to forget this horrific time, but not Republicans, who clearly have nothing better to do than distract attention from a useless war and rampant corruption amid high grocery prices and a weak, tariff-stunted economy.

This needless exercise was instigated by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a self-fashioned libertarian, ophthalmologist, and three-term incumbent best known for being erratic. He has risen to become chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, from which perch he has relentlessly hounded Fauci for failing to — something that isn’t clear — but seems to be that Fauci somehow caused the pandemic and ought to be in prison.

Paul forced Fauci to appear in person, and set out to castigate him as a traitor, a killer, and a tool of Chinese mass murder manipulation. Fellow Republicans on the committee lined up to attack Fauci, who declined to testify, using his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. His silence enraged the GOP senators. One, the Ohio car dealer mogul Bernie Moreno, used the F-bomb to describe Fauci’s alleged misdoings. Moreno was joined in hostility by two of the Senate’s lesser lights, Josh Hawley and Ron Johnson, while the 85-year-old public servant sat mute as the insults were hurled his way. (Paul kicked Fauci’s attorney out of the hearing).

I never in a million years imagined that elected legislators could sink to such a craven display of unhinged (faked) anger towards an individual with a sterling career in public health. It was a show trial assassination, and appalling to witness.

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When citizens survey the current political landscape, what do they see? What do they really see, or do they avert their eyes and convince themselves that we remain a nation of laws and Constitutional norms?

The savagery directed at Fauci wasn’t just wrong and reprehensible. It represented something much more fraught: an attack on public service itself. Fauci was pilloried for decisions that were not his, such as imposing masks and closing schools, all of which were the responsibilities of 50 state governors. He was accused of manipulating drugs that made the epidemic worse, killing untold millions more. no such finding has been forthcoming. Despite decades of first-hand experience at the nexus of public health and government oversight, Fauci was blamed by the Republican lawmakers for the pandemic — an outrageous, unfair, and despicable display intended to draw the public’s attention away from the continuing chaos of the Trump regime.

Show trials are a feature of authoritarian governments. If we want to know where we are as a nation, this is where we are. Ginning up false and reckless charges against an innocent person, dragging the intimidated target before the cameras and letting loose with wild invective, hoping that the guilty offender would collapse in submission and confess all. That it didn’t work with Fauci made his accusers even more aggressive. Hearing “fuck” yelled by a sitting senator in a public hearing towards a retired public servant represents a new low in political decorum.

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Show trials — defined as political stunts with often deadly results — came to prominence in the dictatorship of Josef Stalin. At first rare and hardly noticed, Stalin and his secret police henchmen soon put thousands of political prisoners through the wringer before murdering them. Paranoid and constantly suspicious, Stalin believed the Soviet Union’s top generals were conspiring with Japan and Nazi Germany in 1937. Eight generals were tortured senseless, put on trial, filmed by propagandists, and forced to confess to crimes they didn’t commit. They were hanged that evening.

Still worried, Stalin carried out more mass trials of Soviet officers, in the thousands, which became a factor when Germany invaded Russia in 1941 and came close to defeating the Soviet regime. The nation’s defense was weakened by political machination, and if it sounds familiar, it is.

The Nazis loved show trials, as well. Thousands of Jews and others suspected in the failed assassination of Hitler were savaged in public show trials. Many years ago, watching the superb British documentary series, “The World at War,” one of these trials showed a man standing before a raging Nazi jurist, trying to hold up his pants. He knew he was about to be executed, but he stood bravely as the judge, Roland Freisler, shouted epithets from the bench in his black robes. The man was dragged away to be garroted with piano wire.

These events happened many years ago. But they happened again, just a few years ago in Moscow, courtesy of Trump’s favorite despot, Vladimir Putin. Remember Alexi Navalny? He was the fearless anti-Putin dissident. In 2021, Navalny was poisoned by secret police agents, barely survived, but then returned to Russia to carry on his brave attacks against the corrupt Putin regime. Ignoring world public opinion, Navalny was put on display in a disgusting show “trial,” found guilty and sent to a remote Arctic penal colony in 2024, where he perished. That was two years ago, just before Donald Trump won a second term as President of the United States.

—

A part of me cannot believe I am writing this. We’ve had our bad moments as a nation, but politically instigated show trials must surely offend almost all Americans. Or perhaps not.

Tony Fauci was virtually guaranteed to be judged for his role during the pandemic. Thrust into the spotlight, he was both overwhelmed and flattered by the attention of the moment. Trump, flailing away in the Oval Office, praised Fauci’s expertise and came to rely on his advice, until Fauci began dominating the limelight — a mortal offense in Trump’s mind. The president decided to show his scientific abilities by cynically disparaging Fauci’s superior knowledge of public health and viruses. Ivermectin. Bleach. Then silence, as the pandemic worsened. Fauci was effectively assigned to walk the plank. If/when COVID were contained, Trump would take all the credit. If not, then that little Italian know-it-all could take the blame.

Science, in the form of breakthrough research in Europe, saved us. The MRNA vaccines stopped the virus, and fatalities tailed off. Despite Trump’s best efforts, Fauci was the hero.

Lurking just beneath the surface of the pandemic were “libertarians” like Rand Paul, who believed that government had no right to impose mask mandates or close schools and public places. Masks became the symbol of government suppression of individual rights. As a loyal Trump acolyte, Paul and other Republicans began looking for a scapegoat not in the Oval Office. Fauci.

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Events have already put the grilling of Fauci in the rearview mirror. Today is all about whether Todd Blanche has the votes to become Trump’s official consigliere. The Iran incursion worsens.

Perhaps writing this is futile. We all have a lot of other things on our minds. No one other than a crew of obedient ciphers wants to bring back the nightmares of COVID. I will argue, however, that citizens who desire to be better as a nation shouldn’t overlook what happened to Anthony Fauci. He was thrown into the maelstrom of a political show trial, the closest we’ve come to the dark days of Joseph McCarthy’s reckless Red Scare.

“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Words spoken by attorney Joseph Welch to McCarthy in 1954 during the televised Army-McCarthy hearings.

Welch directed this rebuke at McCarthy after the Senator aggressively attacked a young lawyer on Welch’s team. The moment is considered a major turning point that turned public opinion against McCarthy’s reckless accusations.

Senator Paul, Senator Moreno, Senators Hawley and Johnson: have you no sense of decency?

Good question. I doubt any of those senators who eviscerated Fauci will respond. Who’s to hold them in contempt? None of these miscreants are up for re-election this year, so they enjoy carte blanche permission to be jackasses. We can, however, push them and their party out of control of Congress, and that would be a step forward.

Have we the right and the duty to expect decency?

The President of Nothing is determined to control the outcome of the election, and that is about the only matter he cares about. The public space is overwhelmed with speculations about what Trump might do, perhaps deploying troops to polling places in blue states in a blatant move to suppress the vote count of traditional Democratic stalwarts: black and brown citizens, career professional women working outside the home, people with advanced degrees, teachers, anyone who liked “The Odyssey.”

The “war” with Iran drags on like a barroom drunk, with casualties mounting and our stock of guided missiles dissipating.

The ballroom is still being built. The Reflecting Pool remains drained. The Arch of Trump looms. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is shuttered, our nation’s Capitol desecrated by a megalomaniac.

The boisterous fans from hither and yon who came to America for the World Cup are back home. They liked us, and we liked them, but only as visitors. The last thing we need, this Administration asserts, is more diversity. We are a white Christian military nation led by an overweight, 80-year-old bully who dodged the draft and posts AI-generated images of himself piloting jet fighters.

The White House oozes the stench of corruption, while a passive, cowardly Congress yawns. The Supreme Court is devoured with partisan bickering. Federal courts are blocking many of the Administration’s worst dictates, even as the Senate will approve a partisan hack to be Attorney General.

Elsewhere, distractions abound. Summer vacations are at their peak. Pro football teams are starting pre-season camp. Our beloved national parks are overcrowded but absurdly understaffed. Artificial Intelligence mega-firms dominate the stock markets, while angry citizens around the nation are fighting back against resource-draining data farms. Jeffrey Epstein’s sour ghost hangs over the Oval Office. Prices for fuel and food remain high, hiring is erratic, while white-collar firings are mounting. The economy is moving along on two cylinders. The roundup of good folks by ICE toughs continues, and detention centers are overflowing with parents and children who are the backbone of American agriculture and the tourism and hospitality sectors.

Environmental safeguards have been eliminated, while temperatures continue to set records here and abroad.

It is August 2026, and the world’s most necessary nation is a mess. Or is it?

—

We are in for a bumpy ride to November. That much is clear. What isn’t by any measure clear is what Americans are prepared to do about it.

Polling consistently shows that we are tired (and bored) with Trump, but also unfavorably disposed toward Democrats. Who to choose? Which path do we take as the fork in the road approaches?

I keep close tabs on the views of experienced political sages (to spare you), and at the moment, I cannot discern a consensus. That is actually astounding because it’s been a long time since the nation was as dysfunctional and drifting as it is at the moment. Most dismaying is that around 35-40% of citizens still favor the leadership of Donald Trump, and for the life of me, this is the most troubling issue of all. I simply cannot come to grips knowing that millions of Americans still support a president and his party that, together, are the most incompetent ship of fools in our history.

I can guess. Distraction. Ennui. Cynicism. Indifference. Partisan animosity bordering on hatred. Yet it defies comprehension that anyone with an ounce of common sense would believe that everything is fine and headed in the right direction.

My discomfort goes well beyond Party affiliation. Republicans are a cabal of cowards, but Democrats clutch in anguish as they attempt to offer a cohesive argument to throw the bums out of office and start over.

Is there anything that offers even a glimmer of hope?

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There is, and it literally comes from nowhere, out of the blue.

Last week, I went to the movies for the first time in nearly a decade to watch “The Odyssey.” It is one helluva a motion picture experience. Millions have also flocked to see it, setting box office records everywhere in the world. I’ve previously written about my reactions to the movie, and to my surprise, the number of views of my Substack column is way beyond what I expected.

Social media platforms are filled with opinions and ideas about The Odyssey. Total strangers are posting videos of themselves analyzing the top 10 best scenes, or the five most persuasive takeaways. Many posters — and this is, I believe, worth noting— are young men and women, folks in their 20s and 30s. Some reactions are negative or dismissive, but on the whole, and as far as I can tell, Christopher Nolan’s epic tale of Homer’s odyssey has struck a responsive chord.

I don’t think the outpouring is fake. Of course, there is some paid “influencer” commentary. But I sense something more organic is happening. Viewers have managed to hone in on one particular idea that is at the heart of the movie: who do I want to be?

Matt Damon’s Odysseus is everyman struggling to be strong and true. He exists in a milieu of civilization dominated by overwhelming subservience to a panoply of gods with mythical powers controlling every aspect of life. It is a brutal, barely cvilized time; danger lurks everywhere. Odysseus desires to be just a man, someone who loves and is loved, someone who cares for others, a person with noble intentions and a reservoir of kindness, while brave and motivated to be at peace within himself. Can he survive in such a hostile environment? He is tested in a series of incredible physical and mental challenges in a quest that has become embedded in art and literature ever since.

This isn’t the portrait composed by Homer 3,000 years ago. His Odysseus is a violent human in a dangerous world, tested by the gods to find his way home while overcoming horrific obstacles. In other words, a character from the distant past who is familiar in contemporary society as the true “hero” who succeeds against all odds because he is a manly man. This is the framing right-wing ideologues prefer, and they castigate the movie for the way it questions who Odysseus is to modern audiences.

There are two scenes from the movie that hone in on the ageless question of who am I?

In the immediate aftermath of the sacking of Troy, Odysseus (Damon) walks through the flaming rubble as the armies of Agamemnon pillage the city, murder innocent women and children, decapitate statues of gods. Odysseus helped plan the successful military assault, using the subterfuge of a hollow horse intended to trick the Trojans into opening its walls to secreted invaders. A screaming woman is hacked to pieces in front of him. A child is tossed into a fire. Odysseus takes it all in, and he is startled by what he has done or let happen. This cannot be me.

The second scene happens some years later. Odysseus and a loyal band of sailors approach a rocky island where women (perhaps mermaids) dwell. Their siren songs have long attracted passing sailors to come ashore, where they perish. Odysseus’ crew stuffs wax into their ears, while he orders himself to be lashed to the mast so he can hear the sirens for himself. He screams in pain and barely survives. His crewmates ask what he heard. His response is the crux of the entire movie, and the passage that I think has provoked an outpouring of self-reflection unheard of in a 21st-century world:

“What you most want is what you most can’t have. And what you most can’t have is what you already had... and lost.”

The two sentences, it seems, have struck a nerve, offering introspection into the frustrations of contemporary society that afflicts much of modern-day life.

We are led by wants, controlled by marketing gimmicks constantly repeated, and compelled by a need to get more out of life that may or probably isn’t attainable. It is the discontent of life, and it is ruining us.

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I have no idea whether this was Nolan’s intention in making The Odyssey. He certainly didn’t reproduce Homer’s epic tale faithfully. However, in his conception, Nolan is expressing the angst of life today. But also suggesting a way out of the malaise: by being true to oneself, to avoid manipulation that lurks everywhere, to adhere to Zeus’ Law (the Golden Rule of time immemorial: treat others as you want to be treated) and go from there.

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By now, I suspect most readers are probably skeptical about my premise. It was just a movie, for god’s sake.

I might agree, yet I cannot help but be moved not just by the power of the movie but also by its message to viewers. It asks what we truly want.

And back we are to the 99 days ahead. What do we truly want as citizens of a democracy? Are we so distracted by distractions that we’ve foregone thinking for ourselves? Do we accept diversity as a value of civilization, or do we make mental lists of real or imagined enemies? Are we citizens who stand on our own two feet, or ciphers in a corrupt conspiracy? I cannot accept that the overwhelming majority of citizens are not concerned about the direction this government is taking.

These are questions that come to mind because of a movie. How unlikely is that?

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Since my dear Jeanne’s passing, I am reassessing these ideas. It’s as if I were rebooting my mind. I may be wrong or misguided or naive, but I strongly believe that we can survive the days ahead and embark on a new course if we cast aside the conventional wisdom, the polling tabulations, the politicians’ promises and prevarications, the media cycles, and look inside. What do I want out of the time I have? I want it to be better than it is, but how does that happen?

The answer awaits our national (and personal) introspection. Can we overcome what we most can’t have and instead turn to what we already had but somehow lost? It strikes me that America has lost a great deal of its promise in recent years. We used to be good. What are we now?

The remarkable outpouring of acclaim for “The Odyssey” suggests that this will be the question 99 days from today that will determine our fate. Yes, the economy. Yes, corruption in the White House. Yes, the dumb war.

But underlying all of that, what do we want to be as individuals, and as part of something bigger than ourselves? It says something that for many, this has long been the question, going back 3,000 years.

I’ll begin by urging you to see The Odyssey. It is by no means perfect, but it is compelling, entertaining, shockingly violent at times, and a masterpiece of filmmaking.

(I would welcome comments from those who’ve endured the 2 hours and 45 minutes of viewing. One of the wonders of movies is that there is always something that happens that will likely stick in your memory for a long time)

Here’s what I saw and experienced:

• The soundtrack is very LOUD, I mean deafening at times. There’s a lot of warfare, violence, fearsome storms at sea, and indoor sword and spear combat. As I was leaving the theater, a couple was walking beside me. Did you like it?, I asked. The man nearly yelled his answer: “Hated it! Couldn’t hear a goddam thing.”

• The first several minutes are confusing. Lots of characters are introduced, but who they are and what role they play in the movie isn’t clear. Tell yourself, as I often do, “no one in the theater knows what’s going on, either. Relax.”

• I thought the cast was dominated by the events, with a few exceptions. Matt Damon is the lead, and he literally goes through hell and back, but he emotes with recognizable passion in only a few scenes. On the other hand, Anne Hathaway, as Penelope (Ulysses’ long-suffering wife), is magnificent throughout. The extras on the ship, a vital part of the narrative, are perfect in their roles, and the actor John Leguizamo, who plays a blind but loyal friend to Ulysses, is outstanding.

• Ulysses is, in most ways, an action flick. No one would dare call it that, because it suggests the kind of move-making garbage we’ve been exposed to in recent years. It is, and it’s a nail-biting roller-coaster.

• The musical score was unfamiliar but stirring, especially towards the end. The producers wanted sounds that may have been heard 3,000 years ago; whether they are accurate is unknowable, but at least Nolan avoided using contemporary music and arrangements.

• Christopher Nolan takes huge chances in his choice of subjects and his execution. (His co-creator is his wife). This is an epic movie with serious underlying themes (more on that in a moment). Yet the heart of the matter with Nolan’s movies is that he knows how to grab and hold an audience, at a time in contemporary history when most people’s attention is very brief.

• There is a dog — a pooch of undetermined breed — who is Ulysses’ pet. He is only in a few scenes, and if you have a pet, a shudder will ripple through your body at the end.

• The varying reactions to Ulysses, to me, don’t really convey how much of a mammoth adventure in storytelling you will see. It is actually exhausting because events come at viewers fast and furious. I wished there had been an intermission, because I needed a bathroom break. But I worried that if I got up and slipped out, I’d miss something really important. Glad I stuck it out.

• The highlight is actually so abrupt that you might miss it. Odysseus and his crew are passing by the Sirens, women or mermaids isolated on a rocky island who lure passing sailors to their death with overpowering voices. Ulysses (Damon) demands that everyone put wax in their ears and tie him to the mast so he can hear for himself. Nolan muffles the soundtrack as if we all put wax in our ears; Damon howls, but survives, and his crewmates ask what he heard. Damon’s reply is the pivotal point of the movie.

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Let me finish by returning to the theme of my original post about how The Odyssey has become a flashpoint in our ongoing culture wars.

While the movie has been overwhelmingly praised, there are detractors. (There are always detractors of every movie, even Gone With the Wind and Casablanca).

Criticism this time strikes me as politically motivated, and has found a supportive voice from Maureen Dowd, the New York Times’ long-time and influential weekly columnist.

As I previously wrote, the political objections center around a point that is the kind of dreck right-wing social media influencers are always trashing the public space with. Essentially, they accuse Nolan of infiltrating the 3,000-year-old epic with modern biases — a level of “wokeness” that the critics say is wimpy notions of how we should behave, according to the wishes of left-wing namby-pambies bent on destroying American democracy from within.

This is, to me, patently absurd. But Dowd, who relishes writing against the grain, amplified the criticism from the right by stating that Nolan purposefully whitewashed Homer’s conception of Ulysses as a rowdy, violent, sexually promiscuous bully. Dowd backed her criticism by quoting numerous passages from the widely accepted best translation of the Odyssey that reveal the many ways Nolan either ignored or downplayed these unpleasant character traits.

Her final paragraph is worth quoting in full:

“Homer did not portray a world turning against violence. He limned a profoundly martial universe — interspersed with lots of magic and sex and cavorting, conniving immortals. If you smooth it out and modernize it too much, you lose what made it so important to begin with. And you’re just left with a guy finding his way home.”

I beg to differ. Nolan was after a larger quarry than faithfully filming a world from the distant past. Nolan created his film as a kind of warning. In his conception, Ulysses is an imperfect but intensely human character filled with the character traits and emotions we all feel. Ulysses desperately tries to keep his soldiers and sailors from harm, and mourns with grief when they are lost. Contrast that with War Secretary Hegseth. Just as important, Nolan focuses on Ulysses’ undying love for Penelope, so sturdy he will do anything to be back by her side. Homer’s voice from the past is sadly misogynistic.

I don’t know what others may think, but I much prefer Nolan’s interpretation as most relevant and needed these days. I plowed through The Odyssey many years ago, and to Chris Nolan’s credit, the film gives the action sequences a remarkable eye for chaos and upheaval. But Nolan — at nearly every part of the movie — suggests that the Law of Zeus, which commanded the ancient Greeks to treat every stranger as a friend, just might be what we need to escape from the whirlpool of mindless militarism we are enduring.

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This isn’t a movie review. I have not yet seen Christopher Nolan’s treatment of the ancient Greek poet Homer’s 3,000-year-old epic. I am interested in assessing how “The Odyssey” is being buffeted by a fresh round of the ongoing culture wars that divide Americans into warring camps.

A brief detour: I’ve loved movies all my life. When I was a wee lad of 6, my parents somehow allowed my brothers and me to see a matinee showing of “The Halls of Montezuma,” a violent, often horrific World War II homage to the U.S. Marine Corps, featuring Richard Widmark and Jack Palance. Instead of ducking, I was transfixed, and have been about movies ever since.

As I grew up, I became a cinema connoisseur like a customer at an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. I delved into British, French and Italian flicks in college. Later, I was enthralled with The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter. I admired how the theater movie screen could pack such an emotional wallop. In 2018, Peter Jackson (the major domo of the Rings trilogy) created an astounding documentary in which he completely updated grainy, black-and-white World War I films. “They Shall Not Grow Old” was an extraordinary marriage of technology and iconography. Unforgettable. There is a scene showing British soldiers scrambling out of a trench when, suddenly, the screen transformed from 1917 to what looked and felt as if the “war to end all wars” had just happened. I gasped in awe.

Of course, movies have long been controversial, attacked as propaganda and rife with subliminal messages — go buy popcorn right now, or vote for X. At the height of the ongoing Red Scare, Hollywood actors, directors and writers faced withering criticism from paranoid conservatives who spotted a Commie stooge everywhere they looked.

Today, the sense of deja vu is palpable. Once again, movies are in the headlines as influencers on social media attack Nolan’s film as an attempt to undermine democracy by celebrating in the main character (Matt Damon) a man who grieves and regrets. Can’t have that!

On one side of this particular war is the movie industry that many love to hate as too liberal, too communist, too “woke,” but which manages, year after year, to produce films that millions can’t wait to see (either in theaters or streaming).

On the other side is a dominating, arrogant worldview — a hostile, anti-woke ideology more in tune with despots and megalomaniacs. Some of its prominent adherents include Ayn Rand, Roy Cohn, Wrestlemania, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller and the late Charlie Kirk. I will add Elon Musk and the shape-shifting JD Vance. Donald Trump presides over this counter-factual movement.

Critics of the left have found political gold by metastasizing everything people can’t stand, for whatever reason. Much of it is unalloyed nihilism, with Steve Bannon as its putative leader. The grievances are as diffused as a shotgun. Among the targets are “DEI,” women who work outside the home, professors and universities, mainstream Protestants, poor people, journalists at the New York Times, the Atlantic, PBS, protestors, non-white foreigners and immigrants . . .The list of offending perpetrators is limitless.

Why the hate? The anti-woke contingent believes that America has grown weak and ineffective, when what we need to be is strong, virile, and without mercy towards enemies. It’s a modern equivalent of Depression-era European militarism.

There is also a streak of virulent anti-intellectualism. The argument, such as it is, asserts that education, literacy, and scientific inquiry have contributed to a decline in American power and might. Why? Because the liberal tradition welcomes a diversity of ideas and solutions, which leads to bumbling ineffectiveness and crawling progress. Opinion writers and columnists, and legacy networks, are frequent targets, as seen in bogus lawsuits, White House-directed takeovers of CBS, the neutering of NBC and PBS, and a looming threat to CNN. The goal is to muffle any form of criticism and dissent.

Somewhere around 40% of voters identify as MAGA adherents, in which wokeness is the guiding and conforming issue. One might summarize wokeness this way: “Americans despise sissies.”

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Wait a minute! I thought this was going to be about movies.

Well, it is. If you love movies, or books — fiction or non-fiction — you know that there is a common theme and coda to nearly every creative endeavor involving humankind.

It is about the journey, the quest, the travail besetting everyone throughout their lives. The journey is the backbone of the creative impulse underlying novels, movies, and other forms of creativity. One of the very best at this is Barbara Kingsolver’s “Poisonwood Bible.” The most extraordinarily true example of epic struggle is Sir Ernest Shackleton’s “Endurance,” his account of how marooned Antarctic sailors endured horrible privation only to be rescued after a heroic open-ocean voyage by five sailors led by Shackleton, who found a whaling station and help. Not one crewman was lost.

Not every movie or book is about a journey to hell and back, but enough are that “The Odyssey” may strike some as hackneyed or boringly repetitive. Skeptics aside, the movie set box office records over the opening weekend here and abroad.

The Odyssey has, however, sparked controversy, and this is where the culture wars are once again dividing society.

A contributing opinion writer, Sharon Waxman, writing in the New York Times, probes how wokeness is infecting public perceptions of The Odyssey. Right-wing media is strongly critical. Elon Musk is weighing in with a theory that the movie is woke and so is Nolan. Waxman writes:

“In the months before the film’s release, Mr. Musk gleefully fed the culture wars by accusing Mr. Nolan of “desecrating Homer,” and by affirming an online post that claimed “The Odyssey” was part of a left-wing plan to “destroy Western Civilization and everything that helped create it.” This week, Mr. Musk announced that before year’s end, there will be another full-length version of the “Odyssey,” created using his artificial intelligence program Grok, which he promised would be “true to the art of Homer.”

Holy Toledo mudhen!! Musk’s mention of the “art” of Homer’s writing conveniently ignores what most historians have long believed — that "Homer" was an amalgamation of various oral poets who passed down the Iliad and the Odyssey over centuries. Others argue a master poet, perhaps a man named Homer, lived around 850 BCE who first unified these epic stories.

Delving deeper, the wokeness posse thinks Homer wrote Ulysses as if he were writing about a hardened Navy SEAL who battled enemies and the elements — a real war fighter in the Hegseth mode. Others have chimed in with a similar criticism. Nolan has had to confront the critics in numerous online and streaming interviews. His view, as reflected in how he wrote the screenplay (with his wife) and directed the movie, was that Ulysses was a character bedeviled by grief and empathy brought on by the many travails of his decade-long journey back home. He was brave beyond words, tough as nails, cruel and mean, but for all that, a human in every dimension of life. Ulysses wasn’t a bad guy, but a flawed one, making him relatable to generations of readers.

Critics think Nolan created a Ulysses with a modern-day sensibility, which demeans how history interprets Ulysses as a take-no-prisoners hero. It is, in the view of critics, a treacherous rewriting of an enduring classic.

With U.S. service members killed in a useless war, with Christian nationalists marching in puff-chested synchrony, with brutal Wrestlemania mauling on the White House lawn, we are swimming through thick mud these days as the Trump regime peddles its anti-woke agenda. Hegseth doesn’t want women on the front lines, and ignores the cold reality that bullets and bombs have killed several women serving on the front lines.

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The anti-woke crowd loves to disparage and condemn. They dismiss the reality that it takes courage to be different, to empathize with people struggling, to stand up for their beliefs and challenge conventional wisdom. To be an Alex Pretti, a Rene Nicole Good. It is only human to have doubts, to question, to grieve, to be sympathetic, to have faith. These qualities have persisted throughout history and have served humankind well. The Trump era demeans, tears down and rejects the mystic chords of memory (Lincoln’s inspiring idea) with fear and paranoia.

This is what we must discuss as a nation, especially as the tragic war in Iran wears on, not making lists of sissies.

Consider the irony. Amid ongoing arrests and deportations of alleged illegal residents, we were invaded by thousands of foreigners from around the world. Many came from African and South American nations that our President often demeans as “trash” and “failed states.”

Trump-inspired xenophobia was dealt a serious blow, as cities all over welcomed World Cup fans. Lawrence, Kansas, hosted Algeria’s team with unbridled enthusiasm. In Houston, people mimicked the Norwegian rowing gesture, and rambunctious visitors from Scotland drained Boston of its beer reserves. The reserved Dutch marched and sang along Miami streets. Mexico and Canada — our bordering neighbors Trump persists in demeaning — hosted several matches that drew American fans unafraid to venture across the borders.

The championship match pitting Spain versus Argentina was rife with irony. Only a week before, Trump declared that the United States was fed up with Spain and was cutting off all economic ties. Argentina’s far-right President, Javier Milei, was last seen gleefully wielding a chainsaw at a DOGE rally for Elon Musk.

Overall attendance set records, bolstered by fans of the 48 national teams, including thousands of Americans (paying outrageous ticket prices) to cheer for a U.S. squad given little chance of making a splash in the tournament (it didn’t).

Much of this is surprising. Soccer — a.k.a. “football”/futbol — is well down the list of popular sports in the States. We prefer athletic events with lots of scoring: football, basketball, baseball. Soccer celebrates low-scoring matches, often settled by nerve-wracking penalty kicks. The final was a nail-biter that ended 1-nil (zero).

Global soccer is a source of enduring national pride. It is the dominant sport in virtually every nation except the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Even small countries had large fan contingents: Senegal and Morocco, Paraguay and Cape Verde. Tiny Curacao scored on mighty Germany!

Soccer’s appeal is grounded in several advantages no other sport enjoys. It is very inexpensive, needing only a ball and athletic shoes (and, as players mature, shin guards). Some of the competitors are from impoverished rural locales or poor nations. Futbol is a great social equalizer in an often unfair world.

Star players become national heroes in part because they are so recognizable. No caps or helmets. Astute fans can spot Lionel Messi on the street because they see him perform on the pitch. In many ways, soccer is an up-close-and-personal spectator experience. Matches unfold in large stadiums and smallish neighborhood venues, many cozy as a church.

Another plus is that teams are not limited to megacities and absurdly rich owners, although there’s a lot of both. Some of the most prominent teams, such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Liverpool, are owned by wealthy individuals from the Gulf States or by multinational corporations. FIFA, the sport’s guiding organization, is awash in both cash and corruption. But with all that, there’s room for smaller, less prosperous cities and towns to field teams with passionate fan bases. (Of all the major sports teams in America, the only small city with a franchise is Green Bay, Wisconsin, whose team — the Packers — is also the only community-owned franchise). Everywhere in Europe, relatively small cities have soccer teams and stadiums. My favorite example in this regard is England’s Nottingham Forest FC, affectionately called the Reds. It competes in the top-tier Premier League in an area of just 38,000 souls.

Soccer’s appeal is understandable. It is a sport with humble origins, played by recognizable, superb athletes on every continent except Antarctica, before dedicated, often fanatical fans in modest, cozy stadiums in Köln and Côte d’Ivoire, Christchurch and Cartagena.

Sure, there are problems. Players in the major leagues of Europe are bought and sold for outlandish contracts. Unsuccessful teams can be “relegated” to the purgatorial minor leagues — some never to return. Constantly rising prices are shutting out blue-collar, working-class fans. Yet none of these seems to have dampened the sport’s popularity. Attendance is healthy, even in the States, where Major League Soccer seems to be gaining a foothold.

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It wasn’t meant as such, but America’s co-hosting of this year’s World Cup stands as a welcome counterpoint to the embarrassing nationalist boasts of Trump et al. Trump is losing popularity at home, while overseas, he is reviled as an incompetent thug who is both dangerous and reckless. International coverage of U.S. politics focuses on the worst of the worst actions of the administration, especially ICE’s strong-arm tactics in hunting down suspected illegal immigrants. In the lead-up to the competition, fans from abroad were advised to avoid stepping out of line or showing disrespect.

That wasn’t the case, thankfully. Americans everywhere welcomed fans with open arms and an outpouring of hospitality. Few predicted Germans in Charlotte and Belgians in Seattle leading impromptu serenading of visiting squads sequestered in hotels. Scottish fans marched in Boston to the sound of bagpipes. Norwegians crowded a golf gallery to cheer their best-known hero, Viktor Hovland. (Norway’s superb striker, Erling Haaland, became an overnight hero — to Americans!) As a consequence, the World Cup managed to create a vibe that amounted to a global rebuke of Donald Trump and his foolish pecidillos.

In one specific way, the thousands of fans who poured into America undermined the Trump regime’s white nationalist ideology. Africans, Muslims, Shintoists, Iranians, and socialists entered our borders and — can you believe it — the United States still stands! Not one foreign visitor was killed. There were arrests for public drunkenness and other misdemeanors. But Antifa didn’t recruit gullible Aussies or Paraguayan villagers. There’s never been anything like it.

As usual, Trump showed up for the final match, about as welcome as ants at a picnic. Also, as usual, he couldn’t leave the stage, standing alongside the Spanish champions as if he were their coach.

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This six-week event ultimately was a celebration of America’s melting pot heritage, far different from Trump’s version of it as a dystopian cesspool of deep-state anarchists, pet-eating brown and black criminals, and wild-eyed Communist liberals.

Most of us have tried to block out Trump’s insufferable administration, but there is a cost to the insistent noise emanating from the Oval Office. A society as varied and diverse as ours can absorb a lot without bending in surrender. But at the moment, we are mostly enduring, as if in a prolonged summer thunderstorm that’s knocked out the power.

The unvarnished reality is that the negative drumbeat of Trump’s second term is exacting an emotional and psychological toll. It often feels as though we are sinking as the world’s most vital and necessary anchor of freedom.

We pay a very large penalty for Trump time. We are coming face to face with this reality every day. The World Cup interrupted the gloomy narrative with a festival of unity and respect by a nation that still welcomes everyone. It is a lesson learned by the nations of the world and will live on as a proud moment for us.

I did, however, find the time while driving on I-95 to wonder how a nation so powerful and diverse seems off-kilter and out of focus. Is the United States progressing or declining? Are we still the world’s most important, powerful and relevant nation? Or are we receding as other nations, particularly our allies, are pursuing a separation arrangement foreshadowing divorce? Are we still what we claim to be? Or is our image tarnished, maybe beyond recovery?

I don’t have answers; I'm not sure anyone does. But perhaps these questions might help shed light on underlying issues that have brought us to this point.

Is the United States Governable?

By all the usual signposts, the United States continues to function. Sure, there are problems, especially rapidly rising income inequality. But that’s never stopped citizens from hitting the road on summer vacations, attending baseball games in large cities and small. Even with higher per-gallon fuel costs, we are a nation that’s always on the move. The invasion of foreigners for the World Cup futbol tournament has been a delightful diversion. Contrary to Stephen Miller’s warped beliefs, people from abroad are ecstatically diverse and lots of fun. Besides, they liked America and Americans!

Meanwhile, the Trump regime seems to be falling apart in almost daily incompetence. We are at war with Iran — again! Trump threatens future elections, even though he and his party won big in 2024. I’m not sure we have a functioning government in Washington. DOGE-inspired job cuts are quietly being restored, even as the Lincoln Reflecting Pool is fenced and empty, ICE agents are recklessly nabbing (and in two cases, killing) suspected illegal immigrants, and Todd Blanche, the would-be Attorney General — charged with maintaining law, order and the Rule of Law — spent his confirmation asserting that he obeys whatever Trump orders, the Constitution be damned. Congress is a mess, foregoing its duties to enable the Trump regime’s worst instincts.

Companies, large and small, have all but given up on customer relations. Things break, fall apart, or don’t work; finding help (much less solutions) is nearly impossible. There are fewer employees in supermarkets, pharmacies, public and private utilities, car dealerships, and doctors’ offices. Few carry cash, credit cards are maxed out, and repairs are prohibitively expensive. Last time I called to schedule an appointment with my PCP, the earliest available appointment was in October. Virtually everything these days is conducted online. Customer service is increasingly an AI (non-human) function. Reach a live rep; chances are English is not his or her native language. In fact, actually reaching a live person is becoming rarer by the day.

Still, American ingenuity enables us to function despite these barriers. One can find brief videos online that show how to change the oil in your Jeep, download instructions for programming a microwave oven or a laptop computer, or find the recipe for suerbraten. Since moving into my apartment, I’ve assembled a metal/wood coffee table, a rolling grocery carrier, a shower chair, and a desk chair.

Whether we realize it, we are being weaned away any sense of commonality with others. If the power goes out (as it will more often as data farms come on stream), chances are we will be living in darkness for much more than a few minutes. If your infant is choking or your elderly parent falls, EMS teams will come to the rescue, but after they unload you at the overwhelmed hospital ER, you’ll have to wait your turn. Bank tellers and big box floor staff are disappearing. We can complain all we want, but is anyone listening?

Clearly, self-sufficiency is something we all must master. Public services like street repairs and snow removal are under financial strain. You can write, call, or text your Congressional representative or city council member, but don’t assume you will ever hear back.

In sum, the ties that have long bound us are unraveling, making governance and comity even more difficult.

Three diametrically opposite visions of democracy

In response to what ails the nation, there are three differing and competing visions of what the United States ought to be in the 21st century. Voting, if there is to be voting, will decide which of these visions will inform our future.

One comes from Republicans (more broadly, the conservative right on the political spectrum). It is a nostalgic vision, albeit with a brutal tinge. It is America in the 1950s with Ike in the White House, corporate titans in charge, couples dressed up to fly TWA, segregated schools, homemakers, low prices (and corporate taxes high), healthcare was stuck in amber — the Salk vaccine was the miracle of the decade — movie theaters overflowed with record crowds, Democrats and Republicans were frenemies.

But attached to this bucolic past, radicals associated with Project 2025 and similar ideologues are promoting an Americans for White First Agenda so discriminatory that the John Birch Society would cringe. Stephen Miller, Trump’s go-to advisor on woke eradication, openly encourages ridding the United States of almost all black and brown citizens. “Reforms” put in place under Miller’s aegis favor whites over all other ethnicities and cultures. Immigration is all but curtailed, except for South African whites.

(There is also among Trump true believers that what we most need are Christian nationalists on the march, supported by a manly Defense (a.k.a. War) Department that will soon begin testing testosterone levels in all the military services — including women — for God only knows what purpose.

A contrary vision comes from Democrats, itself an ungainly collection of competing ideas ranging from socialism to progressive to down-the-middle rectitude. Democrats largely carry on the policies of FDR and Truman, including a strong government role in balancing the scales of the economy, courts, and the law, and offering a welcoming hand to immigrants and emigres from oppression and subjugation.

I know of no Democrat anywhere espousing the government takeover of the means of production — a bedrock Marxist-Leninist principle. I do know of one prominent Republican who is actively implementing this old Marxist maxim: Donald Trump, who is directing the government to take ownership positions in defense contractors, among other economic sectors.

Republicans have radicalized into a far-right movement totally under the spell of the most corrupt and craven president in our history. Blanche, the Attorney General pick, lacks a moral compass or ethical considerations. He chooses to serve at the feet of a tyrant, in the process sullying public confidence in the faithful execution of the laws of the land without fear or favor.

There is a third vision of America emerging that seeks a new path: a deregulated nation run by brilliant high-tech entrepreneurs who insist that they are not only better and more efficient than government and the private sector but are ordained to rule.

This group includes Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Jensen Huang, among many others. Individually and collectively, their political power is surpassed only by the gargantuan federal government.

Musk and the others envision a meritocracy based on creative entrepreneurship — innovation across virtually all segments of post-industrial economies, including national defense and security. Their varied programs and services are already widely deployed here and abroad, and to the extent that the stock markets are showing resilience, it’s due to investor confidence in the future, i.e., artificial intelligence. Skeptics believe a market plunge is inevitable, but no one, least of all the White House, is concerned. Just the opposite. Trump is an AI cheerleader, and he promises to oppose government oversight or regulation. The Silicon Valley titans (mostly guys) love him, or at least demonstrate fealty with lavish, embarrassing gifts.

This third rail poses an immense threat to representative democracies because of its cozy relationship with the White House. Tech money is pouring into the midterms and 2028 presidential election when one of its own, JD Vance, is an odds- on choice to take up Trump’s banner. The President, Vance, and the regime’s inner circle are awash in illicit extortion schemes. One of the most ominous is the strangehold AI has on the Oval Office.

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I could go on, but the salient point is that there isn’t a unifying vision of America that anyone (that I am aware of) can articulate. We are left with a trio of wholly unsatisfactory forces that control politics, government, the media, healthcare, food production, and environmental policy, not for us, but for their selfish ends.

In case you are wondering, at least the Democrats continue to support the basic principles of respect for the law and courts and the sanctity of voting. Republican politicians and tech entrepreneurs view voting as a vestigial element the nation could easily do without. A point worth remembering.

The ground up is showing up.

The latest Trump distraction is one of the oldest in the propaganda playbook: Red Scare. A new version of the Red Scare is being resurrected because several Democratic candidates who identify as “social democrats” have won local and state elections. The purveyor of this overblown threat is, you guessed it, Donald Trump, who earned his chops in the art of deceit in the company of Roy Cohn, famous for representing Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, who launched the original Red Scare in the early 1950s. It was Cohn who instilled in Trump the aggressive stance of never — ever — admitting a mistake. Some days I think that Cohn moulded Trump to be just as obnoxious as McCarthy without being drunk.

I grew up in the 50s. I feared the expansion of Soviet communism, as did millions of others. The Cold War between America and Russia was intense and prolonged, fueled by the threat of nuclear war. (My brothers and I, in grade school, were forced to get under our desks at school in case of an atomic bomb attack). Fortunately, the threat diminished over time, in part due to the inescapable logic of mutually assured destruction (MAD), and in part because the Soviets spent so much on weaponry that there was little left to sustain the desperately impoverished Russian populace in the vast hinterlands and steppes.

It’s unlikely that many Americans in their 20s, 30s, or 40s are familiar with this history. Yet Trump seems to think that another propaganda-driven Red Scare will save the Republican Party in the upcoming midterms.

What might prove the GOP’s downfall is a growing political movement among Gen Z adults who are impatient about what they see as entrenched political interests grossly out of touch with contemporary issues: housing shortages, excessive rents, environmental damage, profit- dependent healthcare, and — most of all — less and less access to the economic ladder.

The most prominent voice among Gen Zers at the moment is New York City Mayor Zorhan Mamdani, a nominal Democrat more associated with the Democratic Socialists of America. Mamdani handily won the mayoral election last November, sending shockwaves throughout the political world. Since then, other candidates who largely support Mamdani’s views have also found election success.

At the moment, Democratic socialism is a nascent movement, yet whatever its future, the adherents’ message is unmistakable to Republicans, Democrats and high-tech entrepreneurs: you are failing America by weak policies, blatant corruption and abandoning all those without seven-figure annual incomes. Among their list of grievances, this new breed of Democrat urges the repeal of Citizens United, a term limit for Supreme Court justices, and the restoration of environmental regulations. They are vociferous in opposing Israel’s tactics in Gaza and Lebanon and strongly oppose the continued development of huge, resource-draining data farms.

Readers may find these goals naive, undoable, or impractical. They do have one advantage, however. They are starkly different from the bland, emotionless vagaries of mainstream establishment politicians of both parties. Their ideas are specific and tangible, rare these days. Importantly, surveys indicate that registered or independent voters are increasingly shedding their party affiliations, looking for something new and fresh.

Labels aside, what we may be witnessing is a ground-up trend that rejects politics as usual. Some ideas may be “radical” (surely the epithet the GOP will emphasize), but in terms of politics in other democracies, these positions reflect the democratic socialist governments in Scandinavia: high taxes on the wealthy, universal health care, free education from pre-school to university, equitable treatment under the law, environmental protections. It is relevant that Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are consistently ranked as the globe’s “happiest” nations. No one views these nations as radical or dangerous.

Whether these progressive ideals gain wide traction is anyone’s guess. The Democratic National Committee’s leaders are scrambling, and Republicans on the far right are going bonkers. The takeaway is obvious: millions of Americans are fed up with ineffective, cautious leadership that never seems to connect with normal citizens.

__

If I may summarize, I believe the next elections will be a referendum not precisely about Donald Trump, but something deeper. Many Americans remain fiercely patriotic and favor a robust global presence with a strong military accompanied by the soft power of our cultural and artistic aesthetics. (We undoubtedly rule the world in labeled merc).

For the wealthiest, the United States is Valhalla. For the rest of us, it may not be the land of constant sorrows, but it is often a frustrating grind. There is a sinking realization that we may have outgrown the government we have, with an overpowering federal government in Washington and 50 sometimes warring, sometimes cooperating states whose citizens most identify as Missourians or Vermonters.

Where is the unifying message that will guide our future? That’s what is on people’s minds.

If there is a silver lining in Trump, it is that it serves as a wake-up call about what most of us don’t want. Now we just need to figure out what we do want.

In a few days, I will complete my move to Maryland, where I will be just around the corner from my oldest son and his family — including three grandchildren who are growing up as fast as sunflowers. I purposefully set aside writing to focus on the myriad details of picking up stakes, but with help from family and wonderful neighbors, I’ll soon be settled in a new place.

—

It is July 4, our 250th anniversary, a more than sufficient cause for celebration. And yet, as we surely know, the nation we revere is riven with discord, more than at any previous time.

There is much to celebrate in our history, and it remains a unique tale about the birth of a new form of government in which ordinary citizens hold the power. Yet today, dissonant voices offer a different vision, more divisive, more confrontational, unpleasant and ominous.

The difference is stark: one is a history of a rambunctious, kinetic assemblage of 340 million souls going in all directions, always seeking higher ground. The other is a nation that closely resembles a 17th-century monarchy, in which privilege and power are held by a select few who despise freedom as inimical to order and obedience.

Which we truly (or accurately) are today is the question, isn’t it?

I am not discouraged, despite the current divisions. The situation is forcing citizens to confront questions about our nation that have mostly been ignored or set aside for generations. What does “from the many, one” really mean? Do we want a representative democracy, or rule by executive fiat? Can we balance freedom with responsibility? Do Americans write their destiny, or must our hopes be brushed aside? Are we really the greatest nation ever?

—

I sense that these questions lurk in the background as most of us find comfort in the July 4 rituals of picnics, fireworks, flags, and parades. All good. I’ve been invited over to my neighbor’s for grilled brats and cold beer in 100-degree heat. What could be better?

Still, my mind is unsettled because what I'm seeing doesn’t square with my long-held assumptions about our country. It feels like our patriotic narrative is being hijacked by those who espouse a wholly different nation: a “Christian” country that celebrates wealth and influence as core values, while rejecting diversity and excoriating dissent—freedom to choose supplanted by lock-step obedience. Ethics shunned and corruption embraced.

The only way to navigate this morass is to revisit the basic tenets that have propelled our nation’s development thus far.

Truth

Until the Founders assembled in Philadelphia, what counted as verifiable fact — the truth — was held in strict control by government decree. News and opinion were censored. Decrees were announced, while objections or alternative explanations were suppressed. Even the most sanguine of monarchies controlled the national narrative.

Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison were by no means perfect in judgment or candor. Still, they agreed on a revolutionary idea: a free and open society could only succeed if veracity were valued over secrecy. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson asserted “inalienable (i.e., natural) rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Unexpressed but clearly intended, such rights could only blossom in a free and open society in which citizens were called upon to stand guard against oppression and falsehood.

Time and experience have shown how vital truth-telling is. When our governments have lied — Watergate, Vietnam, Iraq — the consequences were enormous in loss of faith and trust.

Yet truth can be difficult. It must be reliable over time, not subject to wind direction or whim. Politicians and their consultants have cooked up “variations” of the truth as if it were malleable. Our media is constantly accused of bias, and a lack of credibility is, as a general rule, a persistent weakness of an open society. It often feels as though we are marketed to rather than informed.

The Trump regime weaponizes truth, bending it to support a preconceived narrative based on falsehood, conjecture, and propaganda. The entire premise of Trump’s second term is based on the complete fabrication — that he won the 2020 election. No one with a detectable pulse believes the claim, yet it persists because lies entrench before the truth catches up.

The nation cannot survive this veer away from truth-telling. It is fundamental.

Trust

The Founders were greatly influenced by the European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. Characterized by an emphasis on reason, empirical evidence, and the scientific method, the Enlightenment promoted ideals of individual liberty, religious tolerance, progress, and natural rights. Its thinkers advocated for constitutional government, the separation of church and state, and the application of rational principles to social and political reform.

Implicit in these ideals was an assumption of trust uniting government with the governed. The Founders considered trust to be central to press freedom, open inquiry, separate but equal branches of government, and religious liberty. Citizens in the new Republic were asked to take on a new burden: trust in those elected to govern them honestly and openly— a strange and exciting notion at the time and ever since.

It is evident that between Trump and those who swear allegiance to him, trust is something entirely different: trust enforced by threats and intimidation. When Trump recently asserted that as President, “I can do anything I want,” the ranks of acolytes and sycophants closed ranks behind an assertion not expressed since the Dark Ages.

The upshot is that today, trust in government is in smithereens. I do not believe a word he or anyone in his regime says, for good reason. Other than the committed far right, few do, yet about 40% of Americans trust Trump, who lies like a rug.

A lack of trust breeds not merely contempt and suspicion, but also fantasy and irrationality. Trust no one. Only believe what I tell you. We are the only ones in the know. Few believe polls. Politicians rank below used car salesmen in trustworthiness. Social media and influence peddlers dominate the information environment. A significant percentage of what we now see, hear, and read is canned crap.

Looming now is a development that is raising stress and provoking anxiety: artificial intelligence. Whatever AI’s proven abilities to compile and interpret, the fear it poses centers on the very real possibility that machines in data farms will soon take over independent judgment and creativity. With Trump in the White House (pushing AI with no government oversight), the timing couldn’t be worse.

The nation cannot survive this veer away from trust in each other. It is fundamental.

Freedom

I doubt any society has ever invoked the word “freedom” as much as Americans. We are one of the few that actually list the freedoms we possess: speech, press, religion, guns, assembly, the right to petition, due process, and speedy trials among the most prominent. The Ninth Amendment bestows upon us virtually limitless freedoms, making clear that specific rights in the Constitution do not mean that people lack other rights. Wow!

It is worth noting that there is no mention of the responsibilities attendant to these bestowed freedoms. This matter has been left to the courts to decide, along with conventional wisdom and, at times, gargantuan misinterpretations. Do corporations really possess free speech rights? Is the right to bear arms a license to scare and intimidate? Are presidents above the law? Have we put racism behind us once and for all? It seems as if the nation is always pushing the envelope to o do whatever it wants while suppressing all contrary suggestions.

Which is why Trump in the White House at our 250th anniversary is so absurdly ironic. He doesn’t believe in the concept of freedom, although he mouths about it incessantly. By his Executive Orders (he’s virtually bypassed Congress), Donald Trump wants to stifle freedom for large swaths of the general public: political opponents, minorities, federal courts (not counting the Supreme Court’s), the press, state election officials, voting, habeas corpus, immigrants, and on and on.

This regime does believe in selective freedoms. The freedom to swindle, to manipulate, to bribe, to molest and bully, to threaten and browbeat. A freedom unattached to the truth. A freedom to mislead and misjudge. The freedom to call names, to disparage, to hate.

We know, or ought to know, that Trump’s entire persona is wrapped up in his excessive self-absorption. Nothing beyond self-aggrandizement is relevant, certainly not ethical considerations or a moral compass. WYSIWYG — a lout.

Yet we also know that a substantial number of Americans buy into this perversion. Who knows why is, ultimately, beside the point. It simply is, like algae on the Reflecting Pool.

The nation cannot survive this veer away from understanding that freedom's essence is fundamental.

Fragility

Almost everything I’ve touched upon in this post beset the Founders as they deliberated how to build a new nation unlike any before. If there is a lesson to sustain us this particular Fourth of July, it is a recognition that all we believe and hold dear about our nation is not etched in granite. It is, instead, a nation that is at once robust and powerful and also extremely fragile, like a seaside condo on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

The ocean is actually a perfect simile for where we find ourselves today. The tide is out and continues to recede. But since time immemorial, the ocean tides have reversed under the influence of the Moon’s gravity.

We must be confident that the tide will come back in and that these times will recede as challenges are met and overcome. Nothing is guaranteed in a democracy. But nor should there be any alibis to cover our shortcomings. Those who live here and enjoy our inalienable rights under it must be prepared to sustain it. Disagreements and disputes are normal; setbacks and disappointments are inevitable. The relevant question for today’s celebration is whether we are up to the task of resetting our course away from despotism and back toward a striving democracy.

I am betting on the latter, in the same way I am betting that the tides along the Atlantic and Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico will continue their ceaseless murmur.

__

I write this sitting in the room where Jeanne died. It is nearly empty. A new family will move in shortly. I feel I must go and move on, but am I abandoning her memory? These thoughts are much on my mind because she loved the panoply of the Fourth of July: hot dogs, ice cream, sparklers and firecrackers. It was for kids and adults; that’s what she so liked about this day. This is written for her.

I will be residing nearby by oldest son and his family (my grandchildren). They’ve called me Grumpy for years, so we shall see how things work out. I’m sure it will be a new and fun chapter.

Truthfully, I also need a break from writing about current affairs. We are stuck in an algae-saturated pond of serial incompetence. But saying so over and over is exhausting of the spirit and taxing of the brain.

Perhaps things will begin to become clearer as summer strains on, and everyone will be recharged in the fall. I anticipate I will be renewed; Maryland is colder and it snows there, unlike down here in Lindsay Graham-La-La Land.

I hope all my readers and subscribers enjoy a true July 4th celebration. Despite our many issues and differences, we are good folks by and large, and you can tell by how we’ve embraced soccer fans from around the world. And how they’ve embraced us. We can’t allow the bad guys to drag us down.

Thank you for reading. Be back soon.

Paul

Like many, I am mystified by the “deal” with Iran that Jared Kushner and Steve Witcoff worked out. From all I can tell, the deal benefits Iran a lot more than it benefits us.

This is but the latest example of failed Presidential leadership, covering major events from ending a needless war to failing to fix the Reflecting Pool, while backing Republican Senate candidates in the midterms who, charitably, are misfits for office.

A baseline competence for the world’s most powerful nation is veracity. Is the President trustworthy? Do you believe or accept what he says? On this score, Trump is proving to be a serial liar-in-chief. He said that a ballroom no one wants would be fully privately financed, but it turns out taxpayers will be on the hook as the project’s budget (low-balled to start) is spiraling out of control. Trump denies he wants to mess with the midterm elections, but then turns around and puts a hold on a Cabinet appointee until the Republican Congress passes a draconian proposal that could disenfranchise millions . . . of Democrats.

I simply do not trust anything the Trump administration says, and that’s saying a lot, because it emits a constant stream of lies, misinformation and fantasies for every 24/7 news cycle. One especially troubling effect is the frequent contradictions: the President boasts he got everything he wanted from Iran, but then turns around to explain that there isn’t any tangible progress in limiting Iran’s capability to assemble nuclear weapons. Head-spinning is commonplace with this bunch.

I saw a stand-up comedian online recently who likened the administration to whack-a-mole, the table-top game in which a mole would appear from one of many holes, and you had to pound it back with a mallet. A great stress reducer.

Consider these moles who have all but disappeared: remember “Epic Fury” Pete Hegseth? For months, the Pentagon’s Rambo-in-Chief, now off the grid, preaching bizarro gobsmack to sparsely attended Christian nationalist gatherings. Anyone recall Air Force General Dean Cain, architect of the Iran excursion? How about Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary who channels Mad Magazine’s Alfred J Neuman’s “What me worry?” insouciance? Where in the world is Marco Rubio? Is Todd Blanche an AI creature? Kash Patel seems to be hanging by a thread of his own making, but so far he’s avoided swigging champagne in World Cup locker rooms.

These are all shrinking violets when measured against Trump, an octogenarian in clearly failing physical and cognitive health. Is the nation prepared for another 2.5 years of this madness?

This Is No Way to Govern

Yes, Trump is unfit to govern. He doesn’t know how to lead, and doesn’t car.

Everyone, including me, is sick to death of the dysfunction in Washington. Why do I even bother writing about it?

The answer is that for all intents and purposes, the most powerful and advanced nation on the globe isn’t currently being governed at all. The individual in charge is falling apart and incompetent, but possessed with sufficient residual power to do great harm to our national interests.

This is a serious matter, but it’s as if the entire citizenry is sleepwalking.

Just as problematic, there is no way to end this situation — and Trump and his true believers get this, if nothing else.

For example, there is not a snowball’s chance that Congress would move to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. The Amendment reads as follows:

“If the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office but does not voluntarily step aside, the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet (or another body designated by Congress) can declare the President incapacitated. By submitting a written declaration to congressional leaders, the Vice President immediately assumes the powers of Acting President.”

Anyone within Congress or Vance’s office prepared to take this (admittedly) monumental step? Didn’t think so. Some Democrats have talked about it, but are powerless. Neither Senate President John Thune nor House Speaker Mike Johnson has the courage or the nation’s interest at heart to organize an attempt to remove Trump from office.

The Supreme Court is of no help in this regard. Neither, effectively, is public opinion. Trump conveys every day that he is aware of the unfavorable polls, but could care less. He is going out of his way to demonstrate his rejection of public confidence by pushing ahead with the ballroom, the UFC stunt, plans for an Arch, the reflecting pool and God knows what else he has up his sleeve.

If nothing else, the situation we are in is the consequence of collective foolishness dating back to the Founding Fathers, all of whom (save for James Madison) never seriously believed that a madman would reach the Oval Office. This naivete has persisted for 250 years, and shows itself in the weakness of the 25th Amendment and the flaw of a representative democracy reliant upon consent of the governed.

The flip side is just as threatening. By controlling Congress and the Supreme Court, Trump has consolidated power in the Executive Branch at the expense of the Legislative and Judicial branches. By the way, this is no accident of history. The blueprint for the takeover of American government by an authoritarian regime was described in detail in the infamous Project 2025 plan put together by extreme right-wing radicals. Much of what this document recommends has been implemented; the unvarnished truth is that this effort would not have gotten off the ground except under the aegis of a morally bankrupt and politically destructive figure like Trump — the nightmare possibility in the dank basement of representative democracy.

Bottom Line: We’re Stuck

If American government is falling apart before our eyes, who is in charge? Where is leadership coming from? The answer is pretty scary.

Right now, the private sector is running things. By “private sector,” I mean profit-making banks and financial institutions, private equity funds, major defense, infrastructure and energy corporations, private healthcare providers, and — looming more and more large on the horizon — privately-owned high-tech enterprises that are accumulating vast economic power that is shifting the direction of the economy away from Washington to C-suites scattered in Silicon Valley and Texas.

Here's where things stand as of mid-June 2026. Worth noting up front: SpaceX, long the most valuable private company in the country, completed its IPO on June 12, debuting on Nasdaq at roughly a $1.77 trillion valuation, so it's now it’s the largest corporate enterprise on the planet. Here’s a sample of others:

• Anthropic – ~$965 billion

• OpenAI – ~$852 billion.

• Stripe – ~$159 billion. Payment solutions

• Databricks – ~$134 billion. Data and AI platform company.

• Waymo – ~$126 billion. Alphabet’s self-driving unit.

• Cargill – ~$62 billion. The agribusiness and commodities conglomerate, and the rare non-tech name this high up the list.

• Anduril Industries – ~$61 billion. Defense tech.

• Prometheus – ~$41 billion. Jeff Bezos’s “physical AI” startup focused on engineering and manufacturing applications, founded just seven months ago.

• Figure AI – ~$40 billion. Humanoid robotics.

• A three-way tie around $32 billion: Safe Superintelligence (Ilya Sutskever’s AI lab), Ramp (corporate spend management), and Epic Games (Fortnite/Unreal Engine).

(This list provided by Claude AI).

The federal government is larger in gross size than any of these (or all of them together. But that’s not the point. The point is that private interests control the essential cogs of civilization. They control who obtains healthcare. They pick the academic and educational winners. They establish guidelines for future planning in jobs and infrastructure, as well as in natural resources and climate change policy.

Ultimate responsibility for guiding the nation rested upon the shoulders of elected officials. Not any more. Responsibility is diffused and scattered. Lest you doubt this, consider the following: while Washington distracts or sleeps, the American economy chugs along virtually devoid of government oversight or regulation. When one adds in the enormous sums these outfits spend on lobbying at Congress and state legislatures, it becomes increasingly apparent that the tide has shifted — perhaps irrevocably — from government to the private sector.

And the consequence of that isn’t hard to comprehend: the interests of private sector entities do not coincide with our national interests. Their priority is profits, first and last. Through most of our history, this relationship with government was viewed as successful and workable, and the symbiosis was generally understood and accepted. Under successive Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan, however, government is perceived as inimical to private enterprise, and this philosophy is ascendant. It also happens to be the arrangement favored by authoritarians throughout history, with Trump merely the latest example.

Is It Hopeless?

Things are serious but not yet dire. What happens during the rest of 2026 will be pivotal.

• Nothing suggests that Donald Trump will change or redirect his administration back to the conservative center. It is a radical, authoritarian regime pockmarked by serial corruption, abnormal policy gyrations, and continued hyperpartisanship. His replacement picks for sycophants who were fired are, if anything, even more incompetent.

• The damage inflicted will take generations to be resolved. It will take creative, bold vision to come up with a better use for a useless ballroom, a masked national police force, the cruel deportation or incarceration of thousands because of the hatreds of a single individual towards non-whites.

• The economy is puffing along wonderfully for the wealthiest among us who have the financial bandwidth for discretionary investments in crypto, hedge funds and private equity deals. The meme for this cohort is not Jared Kushner, who is a mere piker compared to Elon Musk, the world’s first trillionaire.

• Artificial intelligence is by far the most significant economic driver at the moment, and while valuations are far outstripping revenue and profit, signs of a market recalibration — a crash — are not dampening investor demand. Just to cover their bets, the Musks, Bezos, and Altmans are putting millions of dollars into state and Washington lobbying to head off even modest regulation of their businesses. It’s the 1880s all over again.

• The World Cup chose North America before Trump’s second term. He managed to snare a Dave FIFA trophy but the real impact is something he can’t stand: thousands of fans from everywhere flocked here to watch and cheer their teams. They are as diverse, energetic and fun group as we could hope to attract. Like the Knicks and the ‘Canes, people love teams they identify with.

• Job growth is extremely modest, and major companies are aggressively shedding positions. Along with persistent inflation, this is Trump’s Achilles’ heel — if he had one, which he doesn’t seem to possess. Job reductions and position eliminations are most threatening to white-collar office workers and professionals. Recent college graduates are struggling to find a first real job and a house or apartment they can afford. Their frustration is tangible and real, and may presage a huge shift away from incumbents in both parties in the midterms.

• The political winds continue to shift, but a clear forecast doesn’t appear to be available as the July 4th weekend nears. Democrats look stronger in elections so far, but whether that’s because they are more appealing than Republicans isn’t clear; the DNC is a mess. The RNC, like the Justice Department, is a subsidiary of Trump, Inc. He’s gone out of his way to promote grifters and miscreants for election in the Fall.

• Midterms traditionally favor the party out of power. The one caveat is that divisiveness and partisanship have not been this extreme in decades. Democrats are aiming towards a full housecleaning and taking control of Congress. More likely, they will take the House, but narrowly lose the Senate, an outcome that won’t effectively slow down or curb Trump’s megalomaniacal fantasies. Much now depends on Senate elections in Texas, Maine, Georgia and Alaska. Too close to call.

• The random variable this cycle is the pervasive, fraught influence of social media. With pathetically few exceptions, very little of online content is trustworthy. Much of it is deceitful and deceptive. But evidence shows that it directly impacts public opinion. That’s a Trump/Republican advantage because both are without remorse. The new problem is that some among opposition Democratic leaders think the road to victory is paved with mindless drivel that shows they know how to connect with disgruntled MAGA voters.

• Another development worth watching that could impact the midterms is Ukraine’s growing dominance over Russia using breakthrough drone weaponry. Trump abandoned Ukraine and bet the house on Vladimir Putin. Many voters will not forget.

A Summary and a Hope

We are all surely aware that if we like to gamble and speculate, we can begin investing in “prediction markets “— the latest marketing swindle designed to separate people from their money. That’s the kind of innovation Americans seem attracted to. Less noticed are medical research breakthroughs for treatments of such deadly threats as pancreatic cancer. Induced weight loss is the current fix, compelled by body shaming and millions in non-stop advertising and promotion.

Left unstated — barely articulated — is much thought given to values. I happen to believe, however, that voting in November (if it unfolds unencumbered by Trumpian anti-voting efforts) will offer citizens a chance to take stock and act upon the values they really hold dear: respect, comity, empathy, fortitude, fairness. My only hesitation is whether these values exist.

It seems embarrassing, doesn’t it, to even mention these values out loud, much less in an online post. So yesterday. So irrelevant, so passe.

I sure hope that we will experience an outpouring of essential, baseline decency that has dominated American culture from the outset, and despite frequent challenges such as the one we currently face.

We simply must find a way to reject out of hand what we’ve seen, heard, felt, and experienced these past many months. It’s as if we had a government imposed upon us by aliens from another planet.

If we are Donald Trump — in person or in reverie — we are done. If we are the us we can be, the future is bright.

Perhaps it’s my advanced age. I just feel overwhelmed and turned off by all the useless junk that appears on my iPhone or Mac — even with my spam filters running 24-7. Clearly manufactured AI videos. Constant advertising barrages from weight-loss solutions and online mattress sales to gutter cleaners and shower-replacement projects. This barrage never stops, and about the only way to avoid it is to hide, and that means unplugging. Not sure that’s a workable solution. I’d prefer not to channel Ted Kaczynski.

A certain percentage of this stream of effluence is marketing and advertising — let’s say about half of our daily content intake as citizens in a consumer-oriented economy. The other half is generated by events which come to all of us via every known communications channel there is — print and online newspapers and magazines, radio, TV networks and streaming services, junk stuffed in the mailbox, political campaign pollution . . . none of this content ever ends or even slows down.

If I were a kitchen sponge (and I sometimes feel I am), I would be that soggy mess in the sink underneath a steady stream of water.

What’s troubling is that much of it is a chimera of activity that obscures the tasks we all face in staying alive and above water. We exist in a thicket of misdirection, banality, and meaninglessness. A recent word — kerfuffle — is as good as any in describing how much we are all caught up in the trivial.

This week (it’s only Tuesday) the Trump Administration announced a “deal” of some kind with Iran that sounded short of truce or peace treaty. There were few details, other than a sort of 60-day "cooling-off” period while discussions surrounding Iran’s stockpile of nuclear material continue. As an aside, the announcement also said we were prepared to give Iran billions of dollars in reconstruction funds. Are we paying reparations? Is that a victory?

Huh? Color me skeptical, but that doesn’t sound like a diplomatic “win” for the United States as much as a generous application of ruby red lipstick onto a very obese pig.

I suspect most readers feel the same, but for me the vagueness isn’t the problem. What IS the problem is a gusher of statements from the White House, parsed by a myriad of wool-gathering analyses by respected columnists and “influencers,” and a seemingly never-ending discussion about this so-called deal. It is much ado about nothing.

Iran has practically wiped out almost every other matter of interest in recent months, but that doesn’t mean there’s no shortage of distractions, from the algae-plugged beautiful new Reflecting Pool to the disgraced UFC blood fight on the White House lawn in which the winning brawler demonstrated how seriously his bell had been rung by declaring that Michelle Obama was a man. Have we really debased ourselves this deep?

This cacophony isn’t informative or legitimate. It takes a sturdy focus to keep one’s attention on things that really ought to matter, or inform, or comfort us. In that spirit, allow me to list examples of real things I am seeing and experiencing in the world today — despite the noise.

1. Singing cities and crowds. New Yorkers flooded the streets to celebrate the Knicks NBA championship. Folks in and around Raleigh, NC, are on a celebratory high after the Carolina Hurricanes won this year’s Stanley Cup. The razor-thin Indy 500 win was so thrilling that replays are all over online, all showing people cheering, crying, and celebrating simultaneously. Add in the flocks of visitors from overseas here for the World Cup matches, and we have a potpourri of languages, accents, and voices singing their hearts out during games, and well before and well afterward. These are real, impromptu events and you can’t help but smile and cheer along.

2. Helping hands. Picking up stakes and moving isn’t for the faint of heart. I’ve done it four or five times as an adult. Simply coordinating dates, logistics, inventory (taking or tossing), and letting creditors, subscribers, and utilities know would humble the strongest among us. All that said, my realtor, my adult children, my extended family, friends from all over, and at times complete strangers have all helped me navigate the rapids without drowning. This is real stuff, and I couldn’t make it without it.

3. Restoring old links. Through my posts, I have reconnected with old childhood friends from my Huck Finn days in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Both these guys are bosom buddies who’ve gone through hell and remain exactly what made us friends in the first place: none of us has our guard up. We say what we mean and don’t pull punches. With Bill and Mike, it’s like having three living historians talking over chocolate cokes about where the hell are we going in our eighties? Real, valuable stuff.

4. Personal rituals. I keep my even keel by adhering to daily rituals that, for some reason, really help ground me. (You probably have your own). First thing every morning, I “solve” the NYTimes’ mini-crossword puzzle. Not as infuriating as Wordle and doesn’t take forever. Yogurt with Grape Nuts for breakfast. No television during the day. A 30-minute nap after lunch. Light dinners, avoiding meat. No more than one beer per day; liquor is out. Phone settings that block spam and “unknown” callers. Detaching myself from the damn cellphone. Listening to birds and watching the leaves and branches wave in the breeze. Cloud-watching, always the same but never identical. Grounded in the moment, one could say. Every night when the stars are out, I look for Orion’s Belt and bright Betelgeuse, which is soon going to explode,

5. Not dwelling in the past, but celebrating it. The biggest challenge I face is a wrestling match with grief. I’ve written about it often, but losing one’s spouse is an utter catastrophe, especially the cause of her passing. But Lord, I am trying. The driving motivation to move is the opportunity to be with my grandchildren. Nothing really has defined my life as much as having children and standing by as they grew and expanded their horizons. I want to experience those feelings again, albeit with a bit more wisdom. Grief and rejuvenation are achingly, excitingly real emotions.

6. Writing. I write these Substack posts to stay on point with my life. I’ve always written, and I’ve always loved history, current events, and how the world we live in impacts our lives. These posts, ideally, keep me relevant — but they are worthless unless they also spark an interest and relevance in the lives of those who read them. If or when they no longer appear, it means I’ve either been arrested by ICE agents for criticizing Trump, or I am passed.

7. Age. That’s the reality ahead, and I decline to go quietly into the gentle good night.