When we talk about something being in the wake of something else, we’re alluding to the waves behind a ship moving along the sea. To be in the wake of the ship is to be left behind, to be caught up in the disruption of its passage. Of course wake can mean other things. It’s also the ritual of putting someone or something to rest. Or it’s the rising from a dream, or a...
Like everyone else I’m looking forward to the election being over. In my life I don’t think there’s a been an uglier campaign season, or one that’s made me more disheartened by the American electorate. I don’t think I’m in the minority here. I’m a Clinton supporter. I voted for Obama in 2008. I think Clinton is the best candidate this year...
This is from George Saunders’ latest New Yorker piece, chronicling his days on the campaign trail talking with Trump supporters and protestors: The tragedy of the Trump movement is that one set of struggling people has been pitted against other groups of struggling people by someone who has known little struggle, at least in the material sense, and hence seems to have little empathy for...
Others, more eloquent than I, have called out Donald Trump for invoking the “America First” slogan on the campaign trail. The slogan was a prominent cry among WW II isolationists, including Charles Lindberg, who (in particular) stoked anti-semitic rhetoric as an excuse for staying out of the war. I’m anti-war myself, on principle. But I get that there are times when we have a...
Reading tonight, in the Washington Post, about people in Denmark being prosecuted for giving rides to migrant asylum seekers. Just the latest in what seems to be an endless string of stories about European countries — mostly driven by far-right politicians who have seized control — turning away from those fleeing oppression in Syria and elsewhere. And obviously the stories...