Donald Trump’s election in 2016 reminded Americans that the national interest is rarely the same as the interests of the people. The moments when the strategies of the leaders coincide with the hopes of the led are rare, and often symbolic. The commemoration this week of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings is one […]
The President rose early and got his retaliation in first. “The Greatest Political Hoax of all time!” Donald Trump tweeted on Thursday morning at 7:54 a.m. “Crimes were committed by Crooked, Dirty Cops and DNC/The Democrats.” Slower to catch the worm was attorney general William Barr, who was washed, dressed and before the cameras at […]
“I am an innocent man,’ Billy Joel bellowed on his song of that name. “Oh yes, I am.” “Love your music!” Donald Trump tweeted in 2016 after the Bronx piano-tickler had dedicated performances of his 1974 tune ‘The Entertainer’ to the showman from Queens. Trump is an innocent man. Oh yes, he is. Robert Mueller […]
All Cretans are liars, said Epimenides the Cretan. Actually, that phrase has come down to us by hearsay, a kind of Cretan whispers. Judging from Wednesday’s testimony by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, hearsay and innuendo are enough to sustain a Congressional enquiry. But what Epimenides really said was that his fellow Cretans were “always […]
The State of the Union address is an American institution, like Amtrak. So it doesn’t really work any more. This year, it didn’t even happen on time. The record-breaking government shutdown deferred a set-piece so bitter that observers of a delicate constitution ran the risk of digesting themselves in their own gall. Nobody has more […]
Donald Trump wants to install an immoveable object on the southern border, but has come up against the irresistible force of Senate procedure. Yesterday, the Senate rejected two proposals, one from each party, designed to end Washington’s Mexican standoff. In cinematic custom, all parties are pointing weapons at each other’s heads. But so far the […]
It is the fate of successful party managers to be liked by no one, but to be indispensable to all. Last Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi won the House Democrats’ nomination for the next Speaker of the House. Her majority, 203 votes to 32, shows how she has managed to stay on top in her party, not […]
Nobody wants to compromise in American politics these days — except, that is, for the voters. This week’s midterms confirmed that a majority of the minority of Americans who bother to vote share Thoreau’s sentiment: “That government is best which governs least.” But the voters of America don’t share Thoreau’s purpose. The grumpy hermit of […]
Many of the cliches about America are clichés because they are true, but some of them are clichés because they serve to hide the truth. Americans are a nation of immigrants. Yet Americans, despite being conscious of their ancestral connections to other countries and continents, struggle to understand a world where nationhood is tribal rather […]
Donald Trump used to be a laughing stock, but then he became president, and America stopped laughing. The United States has often been a butt of ridicule abroad, especially among Europeans who consider themselves too sophisticated to have ideals, and among postcolonial peoples caught beneath the footsteps of a blundering giant. You still hear laughter, […]
Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, knows more about saving souls than share prices, and more about sacred vestments than stock investments. But we won’t be rid of that turbulent priest just by mocking his sentimental socialism. However much we bash the bishop, he’s largely right about the ‘gig economy’ and corporate tax-dodging. Anyone who […]
As we approach November’s midterms, the new is still not normal. The novelties and abnormalities of the Trump presidency multiply as fast as the president’s thumbs can tweet and his jaw can flap. Trump cannot see a cuff without wanting to talk off it. On Labor Day, when the rest of the country was occupied […]
It is a rare morning when I wake to find Donald Trump and Winston Churchill cohabiting in the same thought. It is not a pleasant way to begin the day, but this is what you get for reading last night’s news before going to bed. The confession of Michael Cohen and the conviction of Paul […]
Observers of the diplomatic tour that sacked Brussels, laid waste to Britain, and then ended on a nuclear-tipped grand finale in Helsinki know that, like Oscar Wilde, Donald Trump travels the world with nothing to declare but his genius. And, like the divine Oscar, the less-than-divine Donald is a comedian who mistakes himself for a […]
The retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the Supreme Court, and the imminent nomination of his replacement by Donald Trump, confirm that the United States has entered a new era. Or rather, it has left an old one. We might or might not be seeing the birth of an institutionalised, twenty-first century populism; we’ll have […]
They say that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. The moral and political failure on America’s southern border has, however, many fathers. It is entirely accurate to blame Donald Trump for the disgraceful cruelty of separating parents from children. The buck stops there, on the president’s desk. Previous presidents have wished the […]
Anyone who tells you that they know what’s going on in the Trump presidency is almost certainly wrong. The television experts are one-eyed with partisanship, and the online amateurs are unhinged by it. Believe nothing of what you see on television, and half of what you read. Which half you choose is up to you. […]
The British papers are transfixed by Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to the United States. Is the Special Relationship dead? Has Trump thrown over Theresa May, the bit on the other side of the Atlantic that he once called “My Maggie”, for a perky younger model with a firm handshake? Is this the self-inflicted harm of […]
As the revolving door at the White House spins ever faster, this week saw an expected arrival, an unsurprising departure, and then a somewhat unexpected arrival. First in, on Tuesday, was Mohammed bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Then on Thursday, President Trump’s national security advisor H.R. McMaster left his position. On his way out, McMaster […]
Rex Tillerson will not be missed as Secretary of State. It was hard to notice him in the first place. Tillerson was the weakest secretary of state in recent American history. He entered Trump’s cabinet a businessman with no more experience in government than the President, and not much apparent knowledge of foreign policy. In […]
