Dispatches from the Culture War
Let’s give it another go, shall we?
My last missive was, shall we say, a tad down in the mouth. Things could not possibly be so dire. As one critic would have it, it sounded as though my dog had died.
Well, she did, in fact. The day before the election. And there is an enormous Maggie shaped hole in my heart.
It’s not hard to find examples of politicians exploiting tragedy for cheap emotional gain. But it’s hard to imagine a more cynical episode than the stunt trump pulled last night during his congressional address.
On January 28, just a week into the trump reign, our Commander in Chief green lighted a military raid in Yemen. By most accounts, the president* took a cavalier attitude toward approving the mission. He could not be bothered to attend to the mission in the Situation Room, preferring to stay in the residence and tweet about trivialities. Leadership.
Like so many of my friends and allies these days, I wake up every morning with one thought at the front of my mind:
What fresh hell will Trump bring today?
Maybe it will be careless antagonism of one of our long-standing international allies.
We have always been at war with Australia! Bad hombres!
Maybe it will be careless antagonism of one of our long-standing international rivals. What could possibly go wrong with putting Iran “on notice”? Or warning China to steer clear of the South China Sea? Especially when the Pentagon itself had no advance warning that such red lines would appear.
