Every day, Trump does or says something so nuts, so indecent, so opposed to the my understanding of America--to the open, tolerant, and free America in which I grew up, to the America I've been hopelessly devoted to all my life, the America whose political genius I've--
--proudly explained everywhere in the world--that I really don't know if we can return after this.
Before him, we were in the Garden of Eden. We had our political differences, but we didn't hate each other so much that we truly hoped the others would die.
But the bitterness and division are so deep now, so rancorous, that we've become like all the other countries, the ones we fled from.
We'll never trust ourselves the same way again.
Certainly, we'll never forget we were capable of coming to the verge of civil war--
--over what? Over a man so objectively useless and cynical that he insists daily that everything I believed in, with all my heart, is just "fake news" or "stuff for pussies" -- like our allies, for example. I bought the Kool Aid with that whole "American Exceptionalism" fantasy--
the belief that my country was unlike the others because it was based on an idea, and therefore welcomed anyone willing to accept this idea, and was thus a country so welcoming that everyone who came to America could enjoy life,and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It was an America where I could start by bagging cookies at Mrs. Fields and wind up selling the film rights to a novel I wrote in between my shifts.
An America full of happy, big-hearted people who encouraged others to pursue their dreams--
because they instinctively knew there was enough to go around, enough of everything, for everyone.
No one felt poor because the rich were rich; everyone felt rich, except for a minor financial embarrassment.
Opportunity was always just around the corner--
--and it really was. If you were successful, no one envied you because it would their her turn next.
This happy, confident, contented America of my childhood seems gone forever now, replaced by a bitter vision in which Trump screws everyone,
and we're all suckers and losers for falling for it.
Or enemies for refusing to fall for it.
There's violence in the air.
And misery, and poverty.
And it makes me so sad.
How much damage one man can do.
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Yes. I have no evidence that this was the deeper source of the tensions, but I sure hope this factors into NATO's thinking and that they're making plans in the full understanding that this could happen. I worry that they may be in some kind of total denial:
Maybe they're not. Maybe this is discussed at every step, but privately. But it's not beyond imagination that some kind of superstition, or fear of causing offense, prevents people from saying to Biden, "Whatever we do has to be Trump-proof."
e.g., "We need to get Ukraine what it needs *now,* because we don't necessarily have "as much time as it takes." And "we need to pass key treaties *now,* because we may not have the chance later."
You will never convince me that these kids are on the street because they’re sincerely worried that they’ll be forced to toil until the age of 64. When you’re that young, you can’t even truly conceive that one day you’ll be 64.
And the idea that *this* is the worry that keeps them up at night these days is risible. Have they not noticed that Vladimir Putin regularly threatens to nuke them?
That recent advances in artificial intelligence are so revolutionary that we can’t even imagine what work, retirement, or human life will be like by the time they’re old enough to retire?
On invading Mexico: open.substack.com/pub/claireberl… I wrote this because I find the lack of debate about this spooky. I think the GOP is *seriously* talking about invading Mexico!
I sometimes think I’ve been away from the US for so long that I’ve lost my feeling for US culture, because I just don’t get why some perfectly trivial controversies become absolute firestorms, with no one talking about anything else for days, whereas much more serious things--
--like the GOP seriously proposing to invade Mexico, and trying to pass an AUMF to do it--don’t even warrant an opinion piece in the NYT.
Are we just taking it for granted that these proposals aren't serious?
But why? Once you pass that AUMF, it can be used by *any* president.
Tucker Carlson's Ukraine war anniversary episode is obscene-an unrelenting firehose of anti-Americanism, Russian propaganda, and grotesque lies about Ukraine. It leaves me slack-jawed that this was aired in America.
Why is the most-viewed host on American cable television serving an unremittingly hostile and genocidal foe of the United States?
This isn't subtle; it's Baghdad Bob level insane.
We know from the Dominion filing that he knows perfectly well these are lies. But we also know he'd cut out his own tongue before saying anything that would displease his viewers. So he must know that this is what they want to hear--but *why* would they want to hear this?
It's deeply sinister that the West's central platform for sharing news and information is owned by a Putin apologist. Even Father Coughlin (or more aptly, Henry Ford) didn't have this kind of control over the arterials of public debate.
This can't be trivialized. He and Tucker Carlson are overtly on the side of the most dangerous enemy of the West and of humanity since Hitler. Given the influence they have on public debate, this is *deeply* sinister.
Together, they're capable of severely undermining Western unity, morale, and support for Ukraine. Despite the happy rhetoric about supporting Ukraine "as long as it takes," we all know we're only one election away from leaving Ukraine and Europe to Putin's mercy--
If you missed it in the newsletter, I want to point out a very good place to donate for earthquake victims in Syria. My friend @esi_zey is organizing it and I trust her implicitly: crowdfunding.copalana.org/mycampaign/109…
She writes: "The difference between this and donating to Kızılay or Support to Life for example is that this is a relatively small project and we know exactly where the money is going ... so this might give people a bit more sense of having helped.
"It’s a specific shelter. In Sheikh Bahar. And God knows the Syrians were already miserable, are at the mercy of the Syrian regime and Turkey, therefore largely cut off from the world and receiving aid.