Your article presents frightening thoughts to a nation without the tools to think rationally. I would have hoped you might have had a word about the rotting effects of late-stage Capitalism. It's greasing the skids of Republican decline (pun intended).
...I earnestly believe in the democracy not only of America but of every awakened people that wishes and intends to govern and control its own affairs.
It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this that may be called the original fountain of independence and liberty in American and here drink draughts of patriotic feeling which seem to renew the very blood in one's veins. Down in Washington sometimes when the days are hot and the business presses intolerably and there are so many things to do that it does not seem possible to do anything in the way it ought to be done, it is always possible to lift one's thought above the task of the moment and, as it were, to realize that great thing of which we are all parts, the great body of American feeling and American principle. No man could do the work that has to be done in Washington if he allowed himself to be separated from that body of principle. He must make himself feel that he is a part of the people of the United States, that he is trying to think not only for them, but with them, and then he cannot feel lonely. He not only cannot feel lonely but he cannot feel afraid of anything.
My dream is that as the years go on and the world knows more and more of America it will also drink at these fountains of youth and renewal; that it also will turn to America for those moral inspirations which lie at the basis of all freedom; that the world will never fear America unless it feels that it is engaged in some enterprise which is inconsistent with the rights of humanity; and that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.
What other great people has devoted itself to this exalted ideal? To what other nation in the world can all eyes look for an instant sympathy that thrills the whole body politic when men anywhere are fighting for their rights? I do not know that there will ever be a declaration of independence and of grievances for mankind, but I believe that if any such document is ever drawn it will be drawn in the spirit of the American Declaration of Independence, and that America has lifted high the light which will shine unto all generations and guide the feet of mankind to the goal of justice and liberty and peace.
I sincerely appreciate your sentiments, Diane, but I read this particular part with some trepidation for this reason: I am struggling with an exposition of the Faustian deal that the GOP has made with Trump and his predecessors when pursuing the long term objectives that we see materializing almost daily outside the purview of the Jan. 6 committee. I wonder if Rep. Cheney still believes that the Ends justified the Means deployed... but the same goes for Woodrow Wilson's racist perspective and the broader compromises that Democrats accepted to regain power towards the laudable (imo) pursuit of a progressive agenda, Jim Crow legislation and reinvigorated racial segregation (and not just in the Deep South) being the primary example.
Perhaps some would call this a false equivalency or "both-sides-ism", but I would suggest that the Democrats (and liberals, in general) finally learned the error of their ways while the Republicans (and the cohort of Vichy conservativism) have lost their way, and the latter are all the more culpable in the wake of their parallel historical itineraries.
I agree with many of your points and thanks for your thoughtful reply! Many of us, the old hippy, idealistic crowd, fervently believe in things getting better. How we get there or who has to be excluded in the rearview of history because of our awareness now...all is up for discussion and reasonable civil discourse! Of course I would not support the old ways that are racist, colonial, and oppressive. The human story, that we see embodied in the election of President Joe Biden in 2020, is to move forward into the future.
Joe embodies the commitment, the lack of loneliness, the lack of fear, that our former President is writing about. It's fine with me to point out that the life in that early era was full of the worst of humanity. The worst of humanity is still with us: imagine going to the Capitol of the United States, usually a peaceful sanctuary, with arms and a blood thirst for the Members and the Vice-President.
In every generation, we have a chance to stand up to do the right thing. Right or wrong, the students in the 1960's and 70's were organized enough to move civilization forward a few inches. It is up to the following generations to take up the standard and eliminate cruel racism, slavery (it is still with us), and bias of all kinds.
Let's hope for a bright future, the new kids coming up are pretty extraordinary and are up to the job of changing the world :)
"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds." Dalai Lama
"Bloom where you are planted."
I am very very far from being an expert on these matters so I would like to hear from others about these topics too! Thanks for commenting, your message is very meaningful and important.
Thank you for your understanding and warmhearted response. For what it's worth, I am less concerned by the extremists who tried to subvert the 2020 election than by those in the GOP who are unable to see - or just unwilling to acknowledge - the connections with all that preceded and that began well before 2016. They are unremorseful, for the most part, that "It Was All a Lie..." (as Stuart Stevens entitled his forthright mea culpa that stands out even among the more sincere #NeverTrumpers or more recent converts like Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger.
Just to be clear, I join those who honor Cheney and Kinzinger for their decisive commitment to their oaths of office and the choice of Country over Party; however, I wonder if they and others would ever publicly (or even privately) recognize the causal relationship of broader perfidy, obstruction, and deconstruction of political norms that has led, for example, to an illegitimate and retrograde majority on the Supreme Court that is now demonstrating no reserve in its contempt for the evolving historical spirit, not to mention the literal prominence, of the institution where they were appointed and the Constitution that they claim to defend.
I'm actually tempted by a comparison with the historical case of Vichy in France: how would we react as a polity if it were proven more concretely than we already sense that the late Justice Scalia and the still Justice Thomas - among others, perhaps - were coordinating closely with those parties both visible and subaltern who wanted to move the Court in the positions that it took between 2000 and the current day (and perhaps earlier). Much of this has been in plain sight in the form of the strangely named (imo) Federalist Society that has done anything but strengthen the nation as a whole, but "what if" (to borrow a phrase) it was actually where the poisonous weeds of conspiracy and corruption were most deeply rooted.
How, for example, will Ms. Cheney respond if it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Ginni Thomas has been secretly and effectively guiding, and perhaps directly manipulating, her husband since they married in 1987?
I am sure that most of the people reading this would agree with you!
I would love to hear more from Jim Fallows about living through the era of the GOP presidents: Reagan, Bush X2....they are moderates now, but the regressive policies held America back. The utter waste of billions and trillions that could have gone to social policy were wasted in a made up war in Iraq, lives and countries destroyed, a refusal to move into a bright new peaceful world without nuclear weapons. A refusal to help the earth for 30 years, caving to the fossil fuel industry.
All has not been rosy in American politics, but we can be optimistic that the Democratic Party will indeed take our world into a great new direction.
Jonathan Schell made the point in the 1970's in The Fate of the Earth: those who are involved in making change happen don't have the despair of those just watching. Doing something to help others is the answer to feeling empowered, but I am just a nonprofit worker expressing my view about it so I am biased.
Have a great holiday everyone and thanks JF for a thought provoking and groundbreaking article as always!
Be the change you want to see in the world. Gandhi
Thank you, James Fallows for providing this cool forum!
Corrupt gop leaders are our fate. As Jim Fallows knows so well, the nixon era was a literal nightmare. Our country was breaking down.
The courage of Liz Cheney and everyone is outstanding, now, at the precipice.
The committee hearings are as riveting as the hearings were back then, the quiet courage of John Dean in the hushed packed hearing room.
To get a corrupt president to resign and to send many associates to jail, that took courage as well.
In every era, we find those willing to go far to help our democracy. That selflessness needs to be recognized. From the Capitol Police who diverted the mob long enough for Members and the Vice-President to survive death, to the families of the officers killed and wounded on Jan 6, we are a selfless people.
Let's recognize the daily courage of every person around the planet that does the simple daily thing of just getting up in the morning and just doing their job.
Millions around the planet work tirelessly to help others, let's honor them.
The grifters have always been with us; and grifters, thy name is gop, not the gop we know, but some awful twisted version.
Susan Collins from my home state of Maine can be blamed for Brett Kavanaugh but she is unrecognized for her alliance with Maine Dem Senator Angus King, to bring about recent gun control legislation. We are a small state, and these Senators are our neighbors. We need to thank them when it is the right thing to do.
From Professor Tribe's site: “We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.” — Anand Giridharadas
Richard Nixon, failed US president, resigned in disgrace :
“I would have made a good pope.”
“If I had feelings, I probably wouldn’t have even survived.”
“I really believe life is simple. It's all the other people that make things complicated.”
“I know you think you believe you understand what you thought I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is exactly what I meant.”
“When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal.”
“I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.”
Our rules of government may be antiquated. But our system of government is still, broadly speaking, responsive to the will of the people. The problem is that a significant percentage of Americans now embrace a party that rejects the rule of law. Fine-tuning the framework of democracy solves little if nearly half of the electorate is comfortable with authoritarian rule.
To take only one example: On January 6, 2021, when over 100 Republicans in the House challenged the electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania based on a lie, those members of Congress were, by and large, representing their voters' wishes.
The Founding Fathers gave us so many ways to renew and revamp the democratic system. In my view, we could fix the representational imbalances of the Senate, the flaws in the Electoral College, and so on -- if a decisive majority of the population wanted to. We don't have that decisive majority.
I hope that Mr. Fallows, whose work I've enjoyed reading for many years, will address this factor in a future post.
I've been a giddy optimist all of my life. I thought when we elected Obama in 2008 that we might have turned a corner, that maybe the light of that shining city on the hill was what I was seeing at the end of the tunnel. Now I know it was only an oncoming freight train full of ignorance, fear and rage fueled by racism inspired and encouraged from the top down. I feel flattened, and discouraged, and, yes, fearful. Because of Dobbs 50 percent of Americans have lost authority over their own bodies and because of Bruen we're all packing now. What happens when the first Texas Ranger stops a car full of women at the New Mexico border? We're already teetering on the precipice of a second civil war and one incident like that could shove us right over the edge.
It turns out that the overturning of Roe is probably the best thing to happen to America’s democracy in years. People in red states are about to learn what it’s like to live under the Taliban and they will hold that lesson for the rest of their lives.
I'm another Michael in the history business, but (deservedly) less prominent than Beschloss. This has been coming since the 1930s. Really. At that time, republicans fought over whether to try to destroy the New Deal or accept it and try to limit it, as Ike believed. But there hasn't been a republican elected president since Eisenhower who got into office legitimately--Nixon with Vietnam peace talk shenanigans in 1968 and Watergate in 1972, Reagan with the hostage crisis in 1980, Bush I with the slandering of Dukakis--not simply criticism, but actionable slander--and then his son and now Orange Hitler conducting coups (2000 was a coup--if in another country the candidate's brother was in charge of the province deciding the election, we would go ballistic). Since the 1960s, republicans have been committed to destroying the government because the government protected people other than white males. And Democrats have not understood--and too many still don't--that there are no policy wonks in the republican party. You're either a traitor or not a republican. That's it.
Probability is an exact science, but predictions are hubris. Same with luck - it's a convenient label we apply to a fictional narrative that aids our attempts at making sense of the frequently unpleasant, illogical, and cruel facts that surround us each day.
All any of us can do is strive for sensibility, responsibility and compassion in our words & actions and then rely on whatever Force we believe may be managing our universe to provide us with an outcome that will cause the least amount of suffering. This requires a degree of humility that human nature typically abhors, which is why we're so uncomfortable with the notion.
Nevertheless, there is enormous value in cataloguing the players and their behaviors - productive or counterproductive - in order to guide us in our efforts to do the best we can. The above synopsis aids us in that regard, and for that I'm grateful.
Thank you for that superb essay. I'm a pessimist by nature; yet the Select Committee in general, and in particular, Cassidy Hutchinson's contribution, have left me feeling somewhat optimistic.
In some quarters, the difference betwixt an optimist and a pessimist is that latter avows matters have reached a nadir, and the former avers they haven’t. A most excellent essay by the way. Kudos.
I expect to turn 81 this month. Which is to say, to paraphrase Dean Acheson's memoir, I was present at the creation of the America that was meant to be, and now I bear reluctant witness to its destruction.
On (un)-related points: when I was in my final year of college, I didn't go home to California for the Christmas break but instead spent that couple-week period of December, 1969 camped out in DC, finishing a book for a Ralph Nader project I was working on. Deb was in Italy that Christmas with her family, for her sister's wedding in Rome. A year and a half later, we'd be getting married in Oxford.
I believe on the night of Christmas Eve itself, maybe the preceding day, I was walking with my friend and colleague, the late Joe Tom Easley of Eagle Pass, Texas, from the Nader office in DuPont Circle through Georgetown to dinner at the house of a friend, Marcy Benstock. The snow was coming down hard.
Ahead of us, walking gingerly along the slippery and snow-covered bricks of the Georgetown sidewalk, was an older gentleman using a classic wooden cane and wearing what I remember as a bowler hat, though it probably was something less eccentric.
He didn't look at us — he was concentrating on keeping his footing. As we passed him and gave him plenty of leeway on the sidewalk — I was 20, Joe Tom was 25, this man seemed ancient — I got a look at his distinctive white mustache. "That's Dean Acheson," I whispered to Joe Tom as we got ahead of him by a few yards. It seemed a moment from the Washington of Henry Adams's era.
Your article presents frightening thoughts to a nation without the tools to think rationally. I would have hoped you might have had a word about the rotting effects of late-stage Capitalism. It's greasing the skids of Republican decline (pun intended).
Thank you for pointing out Phil Klay's new book in "Undemocratic Wars," NYTBR 3 July '22. With reference to your review, you might be interested in this, as well, written 10 years ago. Check the comments of Sec Def Gates: https://psmag.com/social-justice/america-in-the-hands-of-a-professional-military-30240
Presidential Speeches, Woodrow Wilson
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/july-4-1914-fourth-july-address
...I earnestly believe in the democracy not only of America but of every awakened people that wishes and intends to govern and control its own affairs.
It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this that may be called the original fountain of independence and liberty in American and here drink draughts of patriotic feeling which seem to renew the very blood in one's veins. Down in Washington sometimes when the days are hot and the business presses intolerably and there are so many things to do that it does not seem possible to do anything in the way it ought to be done, it is always possible to lift one's thought above the task of the moment and, as it were, to realize that great thing of which we are all parts, the great body of American feeling and American principle. No man could do the work that has to be done in Washington if he allowed himself to be separated from that body of principle. He must make himself feel that he is a part of the people of the United States, that he is trying to think not only for them, but with them, and then he cannot feel lonely. He not only cannot feel lonely but he cannot feel afraid of anything.
My dream is that as the years go on and the world knows more and more of America it will also drink at these fountains of youth and renewal; that it also will turn to America for those moral inspirations which lie at the basis of all freedom; that the world will never fear America unless it feels that it is engaged in some enterprise which is inconsistent with the rights of humanity; and that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.
What other great people has devoted itself to this exalted ideal? To what other nation in the world can all eyes look for an instant sympathy that thrills the whole body politic when men anywhere are fighting for their rights? I do not know that there will ever be a declaration of independence and of grievances for mankind, but I believe that if any such document is ever drawn it will be drawn in the spirit of the American Declaration of Independence, and that America has lifted high the light which will shine unto all generations and guide the feet of mankind to the goal of justice and liberty and peace.
I sincerely appreciate your sentiments, Diane, but I read this particular part with some trepidation for this reason: I am struggling with an exposition of the Faustian deal that the GOP has made with Trump and his predecessors when pursuing the long term objectives that we see materializing almost daily outside the purview of the Jan. 6 committee. I wonder if Rep. Cheney still believes that the Ends justified the Means deployed... but the same goes for Woodrow Wilson's racist perspective and the broader compromises that Democrats accepted to regain power towards the laudable (imo) pursuit of a progressive agenda, Jim Crow legislation and reinvigorated racial segregation (and not just in the Deep South) being the primary example.
Perhaps some would call this a false equivalency or "both-sides-ism", but I would suggest that the Democrats (and liberals, in general) finally learned the error of their ways while the Republicans (and the cohort of Vichy conservativism) have lost their way, and the latter are all the more culpable in the wake of their parallel historical itineraries.
I agree with many of your points and thanks for your thoughtful reply! Many of us, the old hippy, idealistic crowd, fervently believe in things getting better. How we get there or who has to be excluded in the rearview of history because of our awareness now...all is up for discussion and reasonable civil discourse! Of course I would not support the old ways that are racist, colonial, and oppressive. The human story, that we see embodied in the election of President Joe Biden in 2020, is to move forward into the future.
Joe embodies the commitment, the lack of loneliness, the lack of fear, that our former President is writing about. It's fine with me to point out that the life in that early era was full of the worst of humanity. The worst of humanity is still with us: imagine going to the Capitol of the United States, usually a peaceful sanctuary, with arms and a blood thirst for the Members and the Vice-President.
In every generation, we have a chance to stand up to do the right thing. Right or wrong, the students in the 1960's and 70's were organized enough to move civilization forward a few inches. It is up to the following generations to take up the standard and eliminate cruel racism, slavery (it is still with us), and bias of all kinds.
Let's hope for a bright future, the new kids coming up are pretty extraordinary and are up to the job of changing the world :)
"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds." Dalai Lama
"Bloom where you are planted."
I am very very far from being an expert on these matters so I would like to hear from others about these topics too! Thanks for commenting, your message is very meaningful and important.
Thank you for your understanding and warmhearted response. For what it's worth, I am less concerned by the extremists who tried to subvert the 2020 election than by those in the GOP who are unable to see - or just unwilling to acknowledge - the connections with all that preceded and that began well before 2016. They are unremorseful, for the most part, that "It Was All a Lie..." (as Stuart Stevens entitled his forthright mea culpa that stands out even among the more sincere #NeverTrumpers or more recent converts like Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger.
Just to be clear, I join those who honor Cheney and Kinzinger for their decisive commitment to their oaths of office and the choice of Country over Party; however, I wonder if they and others would ever publicly (or even privately) recognize the causal relationship of broader perfidy, obstruction, and deconstruction of political norms that has led, for example, to an illegitimate and retrograde majority on the Supreme Court that is now demonstrating no reserve in its contempt for the evolving historical spirit, not to mention the literal prominence, of the institution where they were appointed and the Constitution that they claim to defend.
I'm actually tempted by a comparison with the historical case of Vichy in France: how would we react as a polity if it were proven more concretely than we already sense that the late Justice Scalia and the still Justice Thomas - among others, perhaps - were coordinating closely with those parties both visible and subaltern who wanted to move the Court in the positions that it took between 2000 and the current day (and perhaps earlier). Much of this has been in plain sight in the form of the strangely named (imo) Federalist Society that has done anything but strengthen the nation as a whole, but "what if" (to borrow a phrase) it was actually where the poisonous weeds of conspiracy and corruption were most deeply rooted.
How, for example, will Ms. Cheney respond if it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Ginni Thomas has been secretly and effectively guiding, and perhaps directly manipulating, her husband since they married in 1987?
Thanks Ed, and have a nice holiday!
I am sure that most of the people reading this would agree with you!
I would love to hear more from Jim Fallows about living through the era of the GOP presidents: Reagan, Bush X2....they are moderates now, but the regressive policies held America back. The utter waste of billions and trillions that could have gone to social policy were wasted in a made up war in Iraq, lives and countries destroyed, a refusal to move into a bright new peaceful world without nuclear weapons. A refusal to help the earth for 30 years, caving to the fossil fuel industry.
All has not been rosy in American politics, but we can be optimistic that the Democratic Party will indeed take our world into a great new direction.
Jonathan Schell made the point in the 1970's in The Fate of the Earth: those who are involved in making change happen don't have the despair of those just watching. Doing something to help others is the answer to feeling empowered, but I am just a nonprofit worker expressing my view about it so I am biased.
Have a great holiday everyone and thanks JF for a thought provoking and groundbreaking article as always!
Be the change you want to see in the world. Gandhi
Thank you, James Fallows for providing this cool forum!
Thanks for the great, insightful article!
Corrupt gop leaders are our fate. As Jim Fallows knows so well, the nixon era was a literal nightmare. Our country was breaking down.
The courage of Liz Cheney and everyone is outstanding, now, at the precipice.
The committee hearings are as riveting as the hearings were back then, the quiet courage of John Dean in the hushed packed hearing room.
To get a corrupt president to resign and to send many associates to jail, that took courage as well.
In every era, we find those willing to go far to help our democracy. That selflessness needs to be recognized. From the Capitol Police who diverted the mob long enough for Members and the Vice-President to survive death, to the families of the officers killed and wounded on Jan 6, we are a selfless people.
Let's recognize the daily courage of every person around the planet that does the simple daily thing of just getting up in the morning and just doing their job.
Millions around the planet work tirelessly to help others, let's honor them.
The grifters have always been with us; and grifters, thy name is gop, not the gop we know, but some awful twisted version.
Susan Collins from my home state of Maine can be blamed for Brett Kavanaugh but she is unrecognized for her alliance with Maine Dem Senator Angus King, to bring about recent gun control legislation. We are a small state, and these Senators are our neighbors. We need to thank them when it is the right thing to do.
From Professor Tribe's site: “We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.” — Anand Giridharadas
Richard Nixon, failed US president, resigned in disgrace :
“I would have made a good pope.”
“If I had feelings, I probably wouldn’t have even survived.”
“I really believe life is simple. It's all the other people that make things complicated.”
“I know you think you believe you understand what you thought I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is exactly what I meant.”
“When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal.”
“I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.”
“I am not a crook.”
― Richard Nixon
Thank you. Yes, as I think mentioned above: I disagree with Liz Cheney on almost everything. But I tremendously admire her forthrightness.
thanks for your kind reply!
From Professor Tribe's site: “We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.” — Anand Giridharadas
Richard Nixon, failed US president, resigned in disgrace :
“I would have made a good pope.”
“If I had feelings, I probably wouldn’t have even survived.”
“I really believe life is simple. It's all the other people that make things complicated.”
“I know you think you believe you understand what you thought I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is exactly what I meant.”
“When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal.”
“I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.”
“I am not a crook.”
― Richard Nixon
Goodreads site
Rings completely true.
Our rules of government may be antiquated. But our system of government is still, broadly speaking, responsive to the will of the people. The problem is that a significant percentage of Americans now embrace a party that rejects the rule of law. Fine-tuning the framework of democracy solves little if nearly half of the electorate is comfortable with authoritarian rule.
To take only one example: On January 6, 2021, when over 100 Republicans in the House challenged the electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania based on a lie, those members of Congress were, by and large, representing their voters' wishes.
The Founding Fathers gave us so many ways to renew and revamp the democratic system. In my view, we could fix the representational imbalances of the Senate, the flaws in the Electoral College, and so on -- if a decisive majority of the population wanted to. We don't have that decisive majority.
I hope that Mr. Fallows, whose work I've enjoyed reading for many years, will address this factor in a future post.
Thank you. Yes, on the "posts to come" list.
I've been a giddy optimist all of my life. I thought when we elected Obama in 2008 that we might have turned a corner, that maybe the light of that shining city on the hill was what I was seeing at the end of the tunnel. Now I know it was only an oncoming freight train full of ignorance, fear and rage fueled by racism inspired and encouraged from the top down. I feel flattened, and discouraged, and, yes, fearful. Because of Dobbs 50 percent of Americans have lost authority over their own bodies and because of Bruen we're all packing now. What happens when the first Texas Ranger stops a car full of women at the New Mexico border? We're already teetering on the precipice of a second civil war and one incident like that could shove us right over the edge.
This is what the news of the future will bring. Thank you.
It turns out that the overturning of Roe is probably the best thing to happen to America’s democracy in years. People in red states are about to learn what it’s like to live under the Taliban and they will hold that lesson for the rest of their lives.
We will see, whether the lesson is worth the consequences.
I'm another Michael in the history business, but (deservedly) less prominent than Beschloss. This has been coming since the 1930s. Really. At that time, republicans fought over whether to try to destroy the New Deal or accept it and try to limit it, as Ike believed. But there hasn't been a republican elected president since Eisenhower who got into office legitimately--Nixon with Vietnam peace talk shenanigans in 1968 and Watergate in 1972, Reagan with the hostage crisis in 1980, Bush I with the slandering of Dukakis--not simply criticism, but actionable slander--and then his son and now Orange Hitler conducting coups (2000 was a coup--if in another country the candidate's brother was in charge of the province deciding the election, we would go ballistic). Since the 1960s, republicans have been committed to destroying the government because the government protected people other than white males. And Democrats have not understood--and too many still don't--that there are no policy wonks in the republican party. You're either a traitor or not a republican. That's it.
Alas, I agree.
Probability is an exact science, but predictions are hubris. Same with luck - it's a convenient label we apply to a fictional narrative that aids our attempts at making sense of the frequently unpleasant, illogical, and cruel facts that surround us each day.
All any of us can do is strive for sensibility, responsibility and compassion in our words & actions and then rely on whatever Force we believe may be managing our universe to provide us with an outcome that will cause the least amount of suffering. This requires a degree of humility that human nature typically abhors, which is why we're so uncomfortable with the notion.
Nevertheless, there is enormous value in cataloguing the players and their behaviors - productive or counterproductive - in order to guide us in our efforts to do the best we can. The above synopsis aids us in that regard, and for that I'm grateful.
Thank you.
My brother is more optimistic than me on the prospects for American decency to prevail. I hope Jim is right.
Tomás! Part of the philosophy of "conditional optimism": things won't necessarily get better. But they *could*.
As we both used to say about our childhood team the LA Rams.
Thank you, James Fallows, for describing these horrors so clearly.
I am eager to hear your assessments and recommendations for A Plan to get us through the all-important midterms. Thank you.
Thanks. Next on the agenda.
Thank you for that superb essay. I'm a pessimist by nature; yet the Select Committee in general, and in particular, Cassidy Hutchinson's contribution, have left me feeling somewhat optimistic.
And I got a few squirts of dopamine just from the quality of the writing of the essay.
Thanks!
Amen
Thank you.
In some quarters, the difference betwixt an optimist and a pessimist is that latter avows matters have reached a nadir, and the former avers they haven’t. A most excellent essay by the way. Kudos.
Thank you. Arrgh, these times.
I expect to turn 81 this month. Which is to say, to paraphrase Dean Acheson's memoir, I was present at the creation of the America that was meant to be, and now I bear reluctant witness to its destruction.
I understand what you mean ...
On (un)-related points: when I was in my final year of college, I didn't go home to California for the Christmas break but instead spent that couple-week period of December, 1969 camped out in DC, finishing a book for a Ralph Nader project I was working on. Deb was in Italy that Christmas with her family, for her sister's wedding in Rome. A year and a half later, we'd be getting married in Oxford.
I believe on the night of Christmas Eve itself, maybe the preceding day, I was walking with my friend and colleague, the late Joe Tom Easley of Eagle Pass, Texas, from the Nader office in DuPont Circle through Georgetown to dinner at the house of a friend, Marcy Benstock. The snow was coming down hard.
Ahead of us, walking gingerly along the slippery and snow-covered bricks of the Georgetown sidewalk, was an older gentleman using a classic wooden cane and wearing what I remember as a bowler hat, though it probably was something less eccentric.
He didn't look at us — he was concentrating on keeping his footing. As we passed him and gave him plenty of leeway on the sidewalk — I was 20, Joe Tom was 25, this man seemed ancient — I got a look at his distinctive white mustache. "That's Dean Acheson," I whispered to Joe Tom as we got ahead of him by a few yards. It seemed a moment from the Washington of Henry Adams's era.