Back from Australia where we have been on tour with Road Scholar since November 4, 2024. And a lot has happened since then. A real lot.
Some examples:
Donald Trump was unambiguously elected president on November 5. In addition to winning the electoral college, Trump won the popular vote, the first Republican to do so since George W. Bush in 2004.
In addition, Republicans convincingly captured control of the Senate. They also managed to hang on to their historically slim House majority by their fingernails.
Democrats inexplicably appear to be surprised at the results.
Daniel Perry, a marine veteran, was charged with manslaughter for holding Jordan Neely in a choke-hold on the F train in Manhattan. Neely had been threatening subway riders before Perry intervened. In the event, the jury returned a not guilty verdict in what was widely seen as a rebuke to New York DA Alvin Bragg for prosecuting the case to begin with.
Syria’s 14 year civil war has apparently come to an end and the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has finally collapsed. Israel has devastated Hamas; Hezbollah has been severely wounded. Further, Israel has decapitated the leadership of both Hamas and Hezbollah.
Partly as a consequence, Iran’s geopolitical weakness has been exposed. Iran’s “ring of fire” strategy of surrounding Israel with surrogates has failed. But we need to be clear-eyed about all this. There aren’t any good guys in the Syria saga. And Bashar al-Assad is now enjoying the sunny climes of Moscow.
The fate of Ukraine is up in the air. So is the path forward for Vladimir Putin. The plans Xi Jing Ping has for Taiwan remain unknown and perhaps unknowable.
Luigi Mangione, a 2020 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, has been charged with the murder of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson. The murder of Thompson is actually being celebrated in some quarters. Taylor Lorenz, formerly of the Washington Post and New York Times, is one of the cheerleaders in this regard. Here for instance is what she posted on Bluesky “People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering,”.
A little context here. There are some people expressing shock that the apparently pre-meditated assassination of Thompson is being celebrated in some quarters. But there is no reason to be shocked. It is part and parcel of what historian Richard Hofstadter called the paranoid style of American politics.
When in the 1960s H Rap Brown (not one of my favorites) said that “… violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie” he was not wrong. We have gone through several violent eras, of which the latest is but one example.
We had, for instance, violent resistance to the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Who can forget Lester Maddox, axe in hand, standing in the schoolhouse door? Or Bull Connor unleashing the dogs on Civil Rights protesters? Or the Vietnam war protests that turned violent; or the bombings that several campuses experienced? Or race riots in the cities? Or the anti-globalization protests of the 2000s? How about the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that CNN described as “mostly peaceful”?
Unfortunately, we do not suffer from a lack of examples of politically inspired violence. Perhaps though, we can step back, take stock and allow reason to dominate the discourse rather than bumper sticker slogans. That shouldn’t be asking too much.
JFB
