1979 Is the Year That Explains Donald Trump
1979 Is the Year That Explains Donald Trump
It sure feels like 1979 again. Iran is fighting the West. The price of gas has been rising for weeks. Moscow is aiming to take advantage of a distracted White House. The party in control of Washington is anxiously looking at the polls. Flared pants and jumpsuits are back! So are cigarettes. Steven Spielberg is riding high after doing a movie about humans encountering aliens. (Not to be outdone, actual space missions are back too.) U2 put out new music. Even the Pittsburgh Pirates are good.
And if we do seem to have returned to that moment in time, then, well, Donald Trump would seem to be ready for whatever comes next, because the guy has lived his whole life like it’s the 1980s.
He embraces the big-bigger-biggest ethos of the decade, with its gold-plated style and “greed is good” mantra. His views have been shaped by the brash era in which excess was the norm and ostentatious displays of wealth and power were celebrated in pop culture and in Trump’s Manhattan. (The pink-marbled lobby o…
Pete Hegseth Is Trying to Resegregate the Military
Service in wartime has long been a reliable path for Americans denied full citizenship to secure their rights. Black troops’ contributions to the Union cause during the Civil War helped convince Abraham Lincoln of the righteousness of extending suffrage to Black men. Women’s work on the home front during World War I persuaded a reluctant Woodrow Wilson to urge passage of the Nineteenth Amendment as a “war measure.” The military’s repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was followed a few years later by the Supreme Court’s recognition of the marriage rights of same-sex couples.
Perhaps the Trump administration is hoping the process works just as well in reverse.
Despite the conflict with Iran and other recent military activity overseas, the Pentagon seems focused on purging minorities and women. Last week, NBC News reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had intervened to block or delay the promotions of more than a dozen Black and female senior officers. According to both NBC and The New Y…
Only Losers Play the Madman
The most important thing to understand about the “madman theory” of foreign policy is that it was designed by losers for losers.
The world first heard of the madman theory from a 1978 memoir by President Richard Nixon’s former chief of staff H. R. Haldeman. According to Haldeman, Nixon said: “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war.” Faced with an otherwise hopeless war in Vietnam, Nixon would pretend to be crazy to intimidate the North Vietnamese into allowing him some face-saving escape.
Nobody executes a madman strategy when he feels that he’s winning. Strong and successful powers emphasize consistency and predictability. So do powers that hope to be seen as strong and successful. When China’s foreign minister speaks to the world, he uses language such as “China will be a reliable force for stability” and China “is providing the greatest certainty in this uncertain world.” He understands that true power does not need to …
The Artemis Astronauts Are Studs
The tendrils of Christina Koch’s flyaway hair swirled about in the gravityless cockpit of the Orion spacecraft, seeming to represent all of the untetheredness of the Artemis II mission. As her mane eddied, like its own separate creature, throughout the record 252,756-mile journey to the radio-silent black side of the moon, it brought a sense of irrepressible aliveness to that dead stone up there.
Until this past week, a certain ho-humness had set in about human space flight. The International Space Station has been manned for more than 25 years; routine trips carry relatively anonymous men and women to a giant fan doing its repetitive circles in low-Earth orbit. NASA’s Artemis II scanning expedition to the lunar far side, using repurposed space-shuttle engines, at first seemed hardly capable of breaking an audience’s collective yawn.
Then it took off: four people arrowing atop what amounts to a bomb bound for the remotest point that man has visited in the cold, splintering sky. As they …
Maybe You’ll Never Really Know Who You’re Marrying
The following contains spoilers for the film The Drama.
The Drama features the kind of unforgettable first-kiss story that would belong in the First Kiss Hall of Fame, if such a thing existed. Late one night, Charlie (played by Robert Pattinson) tries to sneak Emma (Zendaya) into the museum at which he works, but his ID clears only the first of multiple doors. The alarms go off, the two get locked in the entry hall, and as Emma panics, Charlie rushes over to kiss her, quieting her fear.
It’s swoon-worthy—or is it? The Drama follows Charlie and Emma in the days leading up to their wedding, during which the rose-colored glasses each of them wore slip off. One evening, Emma makes a dark confession that casts her in a completely different light; Charlie’s reaction, in turn, shakes her trust. Moments that had seemed cute take on a sinister bent. Maybe their first kiss wasn’t a spontaneous expression of care, but a deliberate attempt to startle Emma. Maybe it was a bad omen. Maybe, Charlie an…
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