This excellent piece reminded me of Ian Kershaw's 2-volume biography of Hitler -- "Hubris" and "Nemesis". One just hopes that the D's don't succumb to overweening pride in the next 2 years.
Your discussion of Nemesis and Hubris, reminded me of Simone Weil's piece The Illiad or the Poem of Force. Two major points of the piece are that 1) the Illiad's main subject is Force, the process of men exerting power on each other and turning living human into objects, and 2) No one controls Force. Anyone who uses force to dominate others eventually become drunk on their own power, believing it to be limitless, but this inevitably triggers a reversal of fortune.
To paraphrase Michelle Obama - it feels good to be proud of my country again. My daughter was 8 in 2016 when she said - "I thought you said he wouldn't win!?" This week, she voted in her first election and was beaming when I picked her up from work Tuesday night.
This piece helped me contextualize what we heard from Hakeem Jeffries, James Talarico, and Adam Hamilton downplaying possible legislative investigations and prosecutions into the Trump administration's criminality. They mostly evaded answering directly, instead euphemistically suggesting that "they're not looking to get even" or that "they don't want vengeance," all of them repeating that the party's mandate is to deliver substantive improvement on the cost of living crisis.
I think while we can safely bet that a Democratic Oversight committee will absolutely expose and promulgate Trump & Co.'s various corruptions and depravities to the public, it would do better for Democrats to insist on framing these prosecutions as being driven by the virtues of justice, fairness, and a concern for the survival of our democratic republic rather than a personalized (yet well-deserved) animosity toward Trump and his ilk.
If MAGA's financial/moral corruption and disastrous governing are inextricable, then so too should the Democratic Party’s intention to seek justice for their criminality be inextricable from their mandate to provide affordability, social mobility, inequality alleviation, and renewed solidarity to a beleaguered public. Repeated on every platform, every media appearance, and with every policy announcement.
This would certainly help make the lives of Annie Andrews, Adam Hamilton, James Talarico, Josh Turek, and hopefully Scott Colom and Mary Peltola much easier, and the dream of a Democratic “Just Deal” Coalition as durable and successful as FDR’s New Deal more achievable.
Inspiring. Thanks for the explanation of the origins of "nemesis".
One question (or doubt)I have about where we are heading now: As the Blue Wave enabled Democratic lawmakers to undertake a campaign to undo the harm done byTrump, the DOGE bros and the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" revolutionaries, will it go too far? Will justice be done, or will this be a campaign of tit-for-tat political retribution? That would be a mistake.
At the risk of sounding "too moderate", the ultimate goal of holding hearings, doing investigations and "calling people to account" should be rebuilding the machinery of government on a fair and non-partisan basis that was scorned by Trump and his minions.
Such a transformation will not happen without a lot of effort -- hopefully some Republicans will participate -- and cannot be achieved while Trump occupies the White House, but it must happen in order to right the ship of state and set her back on course. (Apologies for using this trite metaphor, but I think it is apt).
I attended Bard College, and I adored visiting the FDR library when I was a student. It felt like a pilgrimage to the wellspring of our politics. I do not recall whether I topped off any of my trips with a stop at the Ever Ready Diner, just up the road from the Roosevelt manse, but that diner's club sandwich was also a beloved respite from the bland mediocrity of cafeteria fare. I am glad you enjoyed a happy place of mine so much.
FDR, the guy who issued Executive Order 9066, is a contrast to the current administration?
And we know that when Mamdani visited Trump and Mamdani pointed out the FDR painting Trump hung up in the oval office, Trump was very receptive to what Mamdani said about FDR.
I get the direction of this piece, but I don't know if I can fully endorse its thesis.
Sorry to grate. Perhaps another writer is more to your taste, but that's not the essential core of what FDR contributed to America in the minds of most people.
You pose a chicken-egg problem of the highest order. Everyone, including Trump and Mamdani apparently, memory hole his most significant executive action which leads to the propagation of hagiography that also serves to prevent most people from overlooking the distributional effects of the policies most people do remember, and many in Black Studies departments speak openly about this flaw in the remembrance of FDR's legacy.
Most Americans remember Andrew Jackson for being the guy on the $20 bill, if anything.
If you ask Japanese-Americans about FDR, many of them will tell you how they really feel, and of the generational trauma that still reverberates.
Great piece. I visited the FDR museum last year, also on a whim, on my way up to Albany to take the bar exam. I too expected it to be hokey but also found myself deeply struck by the experience.
For those of us supportive of the new election results, the word of the moment might be "focus". We have only a year and a half to get changes and improvements (by mid 2028 the presidential election campaign will kick off with Republicans--and the public--demanding a showing of what the new order has accomplished by then). The nature of things that have occurred over the past decade- (institutional devolvements, corruption, various economic problems, supply-chain disruptions with war) are all complex matters, not resolved in a day, and need hard, and not-so-romantic work to either adjust or get rid of. All that has to take place with Trump still in office, with his veto power over much of what our new politicians will be promoting, and probably other trouble-making doings for his duration--as well as the not-so-controllable behavior of other countries and the world financial setup. So there needs to be very sharp focus on the part of our incoming politicians on what to do and how to do it so that by mid-year 2028 there is something tangible to show and prevent a flip-flop by dissatisfied voters back to Republicans.
This excellent piece reminded me of Ian Kershaw's 2-volume biography of Hitler -- "Hubris" and "Nemesis". One just hopes that the D's don't succumb to overweening pride in the next 2 years.
FDR: Likes dogs, in fact likes the best kind of dog
Trump: Hates dogs
This is some of your loveliest writing, John. Thank you for it.
I can feel within it a yearning that I share, both for the country and for those elements of character I lack.
Ah, the soothing power of the Hudson Valley in autumn
Your discussion of Nemesis and Hubris, reminded me of Simone Weil's piece The Illiad or the Poem of Force. Two major points of the piece are that 1) the Illiad's main subject is Force, the process of men exerting power on each other and turning living human into objects, and 2) No one controls Force. Anyone who uses force to dominate others eventually become drunk on their own power, believing it to be limitless, but this inevitably triggers a reversal of fortune.
To paraphrase Michelle Obama - it feels good to be proud of my country again. My daughter was 8 in 2016 when she said - "I thought you said he wouldn't win!?" This week, she voted in her first election and was beaming when I picked her up from work Tuesday night.
This piece helped me contextualize what we heard from Hakeem Jeffries, James Talarico, and Adam Hamilton downplaying possible legislative investigations and prosecutions into the Trump administration's criminality. They mostly evaded answering directly, instead euphemistically suggesting that "they're not looking to get even" or that "they don't want vengeance," all of them repeating that the party's mandate is to deliver substantive improvement on the cost of living crisis.
I think while we can safely bet that a Democratic Oversight committee will absolutely expose and promulgate Trump & Co.'s various corruptions and depravities to the public, it would do better for Democrats to insist on framing these prosecutions as being driven by the virtues of justice, fairness, and a concern for the survival of our democratic republic rather than a personalized (yet well-deserved) animosity toward Trump and his ilk.
If MAGA's financial/moral corruption and disastrous governing are inextricable, then so too should the Democratic Party’s intention to seek justice for their criminality be inextricable from their mandate to provide affordability, social mobility, inequality alleviation, and renewed solidarity to a beleaguered public. Repeated on every platform, every media appearance, and with every policy announcement.
This would certainly help make the lives of Annie Andrews, Adam Hamilton, James Talarico, Josh Turek, and hopefully Scott Colom and Mary Peltola much easier, and the dream of a Democratic “Just Deal” Coalition as durable and successful as FDR’s New Deal more achievable.
Thanks for the read John.
Inspiring. Thanks for the explanation of the origins of "nemesis".
One question (or doubt)I have about where we are heading now: As the Blue Wave enabled Democratic lawmakers to undertake a campaign to undo the harm done byTrump, the DOGE bros and the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" revolutionaries, will it go too far? Will justice be done, or will this be a campaign of tit-for-tat political retribution? That would be a mistake.
At the risk of sounding "too moderate", the ultimate goal of holding hearings, doing investigations and "calling people to account" should be rebuilding the machinery of government on a fair and non-partisan basis that was scorned by Trump and his minions.
Such a transformation will not happen without a lot of effort -- hopefully some Republicans will participate -- and cannot be achieved while Trump occupies the White House, but it must happen in order to right the ship of state and set her back on course. (Apologies for using this trite metaphor, but I think it is apt).
Jon,
I attended Bard College, and I adored visiting the FDR library when I was a student. It felt like a pilgrimage to the wellspring of our politics. I do not recall whether I topped off any of my trips with a stop at the Ever Ready Diner, just up the road from the Roosevelt manse, but that diner's club sandwich was also a beloved respite from the bland mediocrity of cafeteria fare. I am glad you enjoyed a happy place of mine so much.
-Zak
FDR, the guy who issued Executive Order 9066, is a contrast to the current administration?
And we know that when Mamdani visited Trump and Mamdani pointed out the FDR painting Trump hung up in the oval office, Trump was very receptive to what Mamdani said about FDR.
I get the direction of this piece, but I don't know if I can fully endorse its thesis.
It doesn't even have a thesis.
First paragraph:
"I wondered if that country was forever lost; If we had just forgotten the spirit of FDR’s America and it was now just fading nostalgia."
The spirit of FDR's America is executive order 9066. That sentence was grating to read.
Sorry to grate. Perhaps another writer is more to your taste, but that's not the essential core of what FDR contributed to America in the minds of most people.
You pose a chicken-egg problem of the highest order. Everyone, including Trump and Mamdani apparently, memory hole his most significant executive action which leads to the propagation of hagiography that also serves to prevent most people from overlooking the distributional effects of the policies most people do remember, and many in Black Studies departments speak openly about this flaw in the remembrance of FDR's legacy.
Most Americans remember Andrew Jackson for being the guy on the $20 bill, if anything.
If you ask Japanese-Americans about FDR, many of them will tell you how they really feel, and of the generational trauma that still reverberates.
Great piece. I visited the FDR museum last year, also on a whim, on my way up to Albany to take the bar exam. I too expected it to be hokey but also found myself deeply struck by the experience.
For those of us supportive of the new election results, the word of the moment might be "focus". We have only a year and a half to get changes and improvements (by mid 2028 the presidential election campaign will kick off with Republicans--and the public--demanding a showing of what the new order has accomplished by then). The nature of things that have occurred over the past decade- (institutional devolvements, corruption, various economic problems, supply-chain disruptions with war) are all complex matters, not resolved in a day, and need hard, and not-so-romantic work to either adjust or get rid of. All that has to take place with Trump still in office, with his veto power over much of what our new politicians will be promoting, and probably other trouble-making doings for his duration--as well as the not-so-controllable behavior of other countries and the world financial setup. So there needs to be very sharp focus on the part of our incoming politicians on what to do and how to do it so that by mid-year 2028 there is something tangible to show and prevent a flip-flop by dissatisfied voters back to Republicans.
Democrats have to thank the two people they did everything in their power to destroy: Bernie and Zohran.
Yesterday was a delight to wake up to but by the end of the day I was thinking.... Democrats?Ewww!
Just a thought - perhaps Balance might include the introduction of the Erinyes?