Contrasts in Jamie Ager’s NC-11 campaign against Republican incumbent Rep. Chuck Edwards will reach beyond the two men’s occupations. Ager is a fourth-generation farmer from a storied political family. * Edwards owns six McDonald’s franchises. Also at issue will be the region’s ongoing recovery from the devastation from Hurricane Helene’s deadly visit on Sept. 27, 2024. And the pace of it. Over a year and a half later, WNC is still waiting for promised federal funds.
Helene caused $60 billion in damage across North Carolina. For all of Edwards’s cozying up to the Trump administration in his R+5 district, the region had seen only 9 percent of promised recovery monies, Gov. Josh Stein (D) noted last fall. Stein nevertheless requested another $13.5 billion for storm recovery from Congress this month.
Helene recovery also will be an issue in former Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) bid for the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. Cook’s Political ranks the race Lean D.
To get a sense of Edwards, consider his trolling a town hall crowd in Asheville last March. Or his lending his campaign $250,000, then collecting interest when he repaid himself 2 years later (Asheville Watchdog). Or his response to Leslie Boyd, a former beat reporter who turned activist after the death of her son (The Assembly):
Boyd’s son Mike died from colon cancer in 2008; he was uninsured due to a pre-existing condition. She shared this with Edwards when he was a member of the state House, she said, while she was advocating for Medicaid expansion.
“His first question was whether my son had a job when he got sick,” Boyd recalled. “Nobody had asked me that before. And I was stunned. I said, ‘Are you implying that my son was too lazy to deserve to live?’ He said, ‘No, but you know, a lot of people just want a handout.’”
A spokesperson for Edwards’ office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
After a small (4-10 person), weekly sidewalk protest in front of an Edwards-owned McDonald’s in Hendersonville, NC grew to 40-some and briefly moved inside on March 15, Edwards sent Boyd a letter banning her from his six properties.
Freight is back on track
In better news, rail service to WNC from the east returned this weekend for the first time since Helene hit in Sept. 2024 and washed out large sections of track (Blue Ridge Public Radio):
The railway, known as the Old Fort Loops, has been a lifeline for many local businesses. The first train since Helene will roll through this weekend — and that has rail advocates excited.
The twisting, turning stretch of railway known as the Old Fort Loops runs about 13 miles between Old Fort and Swannanoa. Climbing more than 1,000 feet through the Blue Ridge Mountains, it’s one of the most treacherous sections of rail in the country.
The rail route crosses over the Eastern Continental Divide east of Asheville.
The railway sustained heavy damage from Helene, and for months, it wasn’t clear whether the owner, Norfolk Southern, would rebuild it. Finally, last May, the construction began. And now, less than a year later, the first freight train is about to roll through since the storm.
Norfolk Southern posted on Saturday, “The 59‑car westbound train traveled from Hickory and Old Fort before entering the iconic Old Fort Loops, climbing the mountains through tunnels and sweeping horseshoe turns on its way toward Asheville.”
Speaking of tunnels.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee placed Jamie Ager’s NC-11 race on its Red to Blue list as a potential flip in February. Cook’s Political Report moved the race from Solid to Likely Republican in September.
I worked for the state party on Heath Shuler’s successful 2006 NC-11 race. That was the last time the seat flipped from red to blue prior to REDMAP redistricting in 2011. Ager’s campaign is the first time since then that I see daylight at the end of the tunnel. Get onboard.
For a sense of the historic Old Fort Loops, watch this drone video shot before Helene.
* After Jamie’s father John won an NC state House seat in 2014, he often showed up to local meetings in muddy boots. John did eventually start wearing ties, albeit dated ones.
That bully is, of course, United States President Donald Trump – whose idea of diplomacy is to strut around the globe spewing puerile, profanity-laced threats meant to frighten or intimidate other presidents and prime ministers into acquiescence or submission.
For years, Trump’s modus operandi worked. Too often, too many presidents and prime ministers opted to mollify him, instead of challenging him.
Their myopic reasoning – that assuaging Trump’s ego would soothe his petty, vindictive instincts – only emboldened a president who, like every bully, takes keen pleasure in exploiting weakness to satisfy a narcissism-centred hunger for dominance.
With 1.4 billion Catholics backing Pope Leo XIV and a mere 325 million American citizens (only citizens count in Trump’s America, right?), but only 135 million approving of Trump (41.5% RCP average), the man who would be Orange Julius Caesar finds himself outmatched in every way except militarily. Leo is 10 times the man Trump never was.
Leo is also more of a leader than many nominal ones in government and business who’ve attempted to deal with Trump’s bullying by placating him and offering gifts. Yet “Leo made his objections plain – without hesitation or even a hint of qualification,” writes Andrew Mitrovica.
Trump and his Christian nationalist mob got right miffed at the pope’s urging to “think deeply” about the “innocent people” harmed by Trump’s war.
“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” Leo said in last Sunday’s homily. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood.’”
Leo did not name him, yet his stinging broadside was, no doubt, directed at America’s preening secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, and the gaggle of faux “Christian” preachers cheerleading a calamitous war of choice.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not escape Leo’s piercing rod.
The Trump administration responded with characteristic peevishness, chest-puffing, declaration that military might makes right, “and that the Church had better take its side.”
“I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do,” Leo said.
Leo has Trump outgunned. He possesses moral clarity. Trump has none.
In this contest of personalities and will, the divide is stark: One side offers the familiar tropes of the strongman, while the other reminds us that dignity is a dividend of tolerance and understanding.
The bully may have the missiles and a presidential seal, but he has finally met a principled antagonist who will not be cowed, bought, or brow-beaten into collusion or silence.
And that, it seems, is the one idea Donald Trump cannot abide.
Look at the powerful people Stealing the sun from the day Wish I could do something about it When all I can do is pray
– from “Powerful People” by Gino Vannelli
If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster.
Near the Day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky.
A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans
– Hopi Prophecies sung in the soundtrack of the film Koyannasqatsi
Next Wednesday (April 22nd) is Earth Day. You don’t seem to hear much about Earth Day anymore; I suppose the media has had other shiny things to chase after; important and impactful stories to be sure, but from a planetary perspective…will all of this fussing and fighting really matter in 50 years? As Grace Slick once sang, doesn’t mean shit to a tree. Believe me, over the millenniums Mother Nature has seen worse; and from her perspective, Earth is only mostly dead.
The Trump administration started 2026 off with an especially grim policy change: When placing limits on certain deadly air pollutants, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will no longer factor in the value of human health — only the expense of regulations for polluters.
The new policy will apply to two particularly harmful pollutants: fine particulate matter and ozone. Both have been linked to a range of health impacts, including asthma, dementia, heart disease, and premature death.
“The Trump administration is saying, literally, that they put zero value on human life,” Marshall Burke, an environmental economist at Stanford University, told The New York Times. “If your kid breathes in air pollution from a power plant or industrial source, EPA is saying that they care only insofar as cleaning up that pollution would cost the emitter.”
The change marks a significant break from precedent. For decades, the federal government has placed a monetary value on a human life — $11.7 million, to be exact — and used that metric to weigh the costs of regulation against the benefits to human health. It’s believed that this long-term practice has prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths from air pollution in the United States. […]
The Trump administration has been slashing its way through the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claiming that states can take on more responsibility for environmental oversight. But guess what? More than half of US states are woefully unprepared. It turns out they, too, have been hacking away at their own environmental agencies for the past 15 years.
According to a new report by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), since 2010, 27 US states have downsized budgets and 31 have cut staff at their own public health and environmental agencies that usually work in collaboration with the EPA. Collectively, these states have cut about $1.4 billion from their environmental agencies, or about 33 percent of the nation’s spending on state-level environmental regulation, says the report.
“These deep reductions mean that … not only will the federal pollution cop no longer be on the beat, state authorities may not show up either,” the report notes. As a result, there will be fewer inspections of polluting industries and weaker enforcement. “It really means that more American communities are at risk of being exposed to industrial pollution,” Jen Duggan, EIP’s executive director, told usa today.
Seven states — including Texas, where industry is growing rapidly — have reduced pollution-control funding by at least one-third, increasing the risk of industrial accidents and exposure to pollution. Mississippi slashed its environmental agency’s budget by 71 percent from 2010 through 2024; South Dakota by 61 percent.
One bright spot from the report: A handful of states — including California, Colorado, and Massachusetts — have moved in the opposite direction, building up their state environmental agencies.
The four astronauts of Artemis II say their mission gave the world a sense of hope and unity at a time when both feel in short supply.
At their first Nasa news conference since returning last Friday, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen said they left as friends and came back as something closer – bound by an experience that no earthly language can fully contain.
More than the technical milestones, the mission reminded them of what being human actually means: laughter, joy, tears, and an instinct toward one another that transcends borders. […]
Artemis II carried its crew further from Earth than any humans have ever gone, swinging around the far side of the Moon in just over nine days. Victor Glover became the first black astronaut to reach deep space; Christina Koch the first woman; Jeremy Hansen the first Canadian.
For Koch, the scale of what they had done only became clear through others’ eyes when her husband told her on a video call that the mission had cut through divisions and united people. She found herself undone.
“When my husband looked me in the eye on that video call and said, ‘No, really, you’ve made a difference’,” she told reporters, “it brought tears to my eyes, and I said, that’s all we ever wanted.”
Glover talked about it being an experience shared by the entire world.
“I think something that we all feel and we try to share is how much we want to reflect back to you all how we did this, not we as a crew, we as countries and as humans did this,” he said.
Thinking about that, he said, brought to mind “the picture of the Earth as we started to go farther” as they traveled close to the moon and how they talked about “looking at you and how beautiful Earth is”.
Yes, it is quite beautiful, isn’t it?
So don’t fuck it up. Or, as Carl Sagan (more eloquently) put it:
To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
To honor that “pale blue dot”, my top 10 eco-flicks for Earth Day:
Chasing Ice – Jeff Orlowski’s film is glacially paced. That is, “glacial pacing” ain’t what it used to be. Glaciers are moving along (“retreating”, technically) at a pretty good clip. This does not portend well. To be less flowery: we’re fucked. According to nature photographer (and subject of Orlowski’s film) James Balog, “The story…is in the ice.”
Balog’s journey began in 2005, while on assignment in the Arctic for National Geographic to document the effect of climate change. Up until that trip, he candidly admits he “…didn’t think humans were capable” of influencing weather patterns so profoundly. His epiphany gave birth to a multi-year project utilizing modified time-lapse cameras to capture alarming empirical evidence of the effects of global warming.,
The images are beautiful, yet troubling. Orlowski’s film mirrors the dichotomy, equal parts cautionary eco-doc and art installation. The images trump the montage of inane squawking by climate deniers in the opening, proving that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Full review
The Emerald Forest– Although it may initially seem a heavy-handed (if well-meaning) “save the rain forest” polemic, John Boorman’s underrated 1985 adventure (a cross between The Searchers and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan) goes much deeper.
Powers Boothe plays an American construction engineer working on a dam project in Brazil. One day, while his wife and young son are visiting the job site on the edge of the rain forest, the boy is abducted and adopted by an indigenous tribe who call themselves “The Invisible People”, touching off an obsessive decade-long search by the father. By the time he is finally reunited with his now-teenage son (Charley Boorman), the challenge becomes a matter of how he and his wife (Meg Foster) are going to coax the young man back into “civilization”.
Tautly directed, lushly photographed (by Philippe Rousselot) and well-acted. Rosco Pallenberg scripted (he also adapted the screenplay for Boorman’s 1981 film Excalibur).
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster – I know what you’re thinking: there’s no accounting for some people’s tastes. But who ever said an environmental “message” movie couldn’t also provide mindless, guilty fun? Let’s have a little action. Knock over a few buildings. Wreak havoc. Crash a wild party on the rim of a volcano with some Japanese flower children. Besides, Godzilla is on our side for a change. Watch him valiantly battle Hedora, a sludge-oozing toxic avenger out to make mankind collectively suck on his grody tailpipe. And you haven’t lived until you’ve heard “Save the Earth”-my vote for “best worst” song ever from a film (much less a monster movie).
An Inconvenient Truth – I re-watched this recently; I hadn’t seen it since it opened in 2006, and it struck me how it now plays less like a warning bell and more like the nightly news. It’s the end of the world as we know it. Apocalyptic sci-fi is now scientific fact. Former VP/Nobel winner Al Gore is a Power Point-packing Rod Serling, submitting a gallery of nightmare nature scenarios for our disapproval. I’m tempted to say that Gore and director Davis Guggenheim’s chilling look at the results of unchecked global warming only reveals the tip of the iceberg…but it’s melting too fast.
Koyannisqatsi – In 1982 this genre-defying film quietly made its way around the art houses; it’s now a cult favorite. Directed by activist/ex-Christian monk Godfrey Reggio, with beautiful cinematography by Ron Fricke (who later directed Chronos, Baraka, and Samsara) and music by Philip Glass (who also scored Reggio’s sequels), it was considered a transcendent experience by some; New Age hokum by others (count me as a fan).
The title (from ancient Hopi) translates as “life out of balance” The narrative-free imagery, running the gamut from natural vistas to scenes of First World urban decay, is open for interpretation. Reggio followed up in 1988 with Powaqqatsi (“parasitic way of life”), focusing on the First World’s drain on Third World resources, then book-ended his trilogy with Naqoyqatsi (“life as war”).
Manufactured Landscapes – A unique eco-documentary from Jennifer Baichwal about photographer Edward Burtynsky, who is an “earth diarist” of sorts. While his photographs are striking, they don’t paint a pretty picture of our fragile planet. Burtynsky’s eye discerns a terrible beauty in the wake of the profound and irreversible human imprint incurred by accelerated modernization. As captured by Burtynsky’s camera, strip-mined vistas recall the stark desolation of NASA photos sent from the Martian surface; mountains of “e-waste” dumped in a vast Chinese landfill take on an almost gothic, cyber-punk dreamscape. The photographs play like a scroll through Google Earth images, as reinterpreted by Jackson Pollock. An eye-opener. Full review
Princess Mononoke – Anime master Hayao Miyazaki and his cohorts at Studio Ghibli have raised the bar on the art form over the past several decades. This 1997 Ghibli production is one of their most visually resplendent. Perhaps not as “kid-friendly” as per usual, but many of the usual Miyazaki themes are present: humanism, white magic, beneficent forest gods, female empowerment, and pacifist angst in a violent world. The lovely score is by frequent Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi. For another great Miyazaki film with an environmental message, check out Nausicaa Valley of the Wind.
Queen of the Sun – I never thought that a documentary about honeybees would make me laugh and cry-but Taggart Siegel’s 2010 film did just that. Appearing at first to be a distressing examination of Colony Collapse Syndrome, a phenomenon that has puzzled and dismayed beekeepers and scientists alike with its increasing frequency over the past few decades, the film becomes a sometimes joyous, sometimes humbling meditation on how essential these tiny yet complex social creatures are to the planet’s life cycle. Humans may harbor a pretty high opinion of our own place on the evolutionary ladder, but Siegel lays out a convincing case which proves that these busy little creatures are, in fact, the boss of us. Full review
Silent Running – In space, no one can hear you trimming the verge! Bruce Dern is an agrarian antihero in this 1972 sci-fi adventure, directed by legendary special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull. Produced around the time “ecology” was a buzzword, its message may seem a little heavy-handed today, but the film remains a cult favorite.
Dern plays the gardener on a commercial space freighter that houses several bio-domes, each dedicated to preserving a species of vegetation (in this bleak future, the Earth is barren of organic growth).
While it’s a 9 to 5 drudge gig to his blue-collar shipmates, Dern sees his cultivating duties as a sacred mission. When the interests of commerce demand the crew jettison the domes to make room for more lucrative cargo, Dern goes off his nut, eventually ending up alone with two salvaged bio-domes and a trio of droids (Huey, Dewey and Louie) who play Man Friday to his Robinson Crusoe. Joan Baez contributes two songs on the soundtrack.
Soylent Green – Based on a Harry Harrison novel, Richard Fleischer’s 1973 film is set in 2022, when traditional culinary fare is but a dim memory, due to overpopulation and environmental depletion. Only the wealthy can afford the odd tomato or stalk of celery; most of the U.S. population lives on processed “Soylent Corporation” product. The government encourages the sick and the elderly to politely move out of the way by providing handy suicide assistance centers (considering ongoing threats to our Social Security system, that doesn’t seem much of a stretch anymore).
Oh-there is some ham served up onscreen, courtesy of Charlton Heston’s scenery-chewing turn as a NYC cop who is investigating the murder of a Soylent Corporation executive. Edward G. Robinson’s moving death scene has added poignancy; as it preceded his passing by less than two weeks after the production wrapped.
Bonus Tracks!
Here’s an environmentally-sound mixtape to accompany your Earth Day activities:
With so many lives at risk in the Middle East in recent weeks, it seemed frivolous if not immoral to care whether the White House got a new ballroom. It just did not seem to matter much, then, now or ever. And yet the president of the United States, who would seem to have more reason than most to obsess over the war, insisted even as bombs were falling that the ballroom was “very important”. And so maybe attention should be paid.
[…]
[O]n March 31st a federal judge, Richard Leon, ruled that in demolishing the old East Wing and starting to build his addition, which at 90,000 square feet is nearly double the size of the White House mansion, Mr Trump usurped Congress’s authority. Judge Leon, a conservative, peppered his irate opinion with exclamation marks, responding to some of Mr Trump’s claims with an eye-rolling “Please!” Still, all Mr Trump needed to do, Judge Leon wrote, was to get Congress’s authorisation. Pending that, he blocked construction except as needed for security. Mr Trump’s lawyers responded on April 3rd with exclamation points of their own, in an appeal declaring the president to be within his rights. With Trumpian redundancy they thrice called the ballroom “desperately needed”, and they declared it beautiful. But they also insisted it “serves mission-critical national security goals”. The roof, for example, is meant to be proof against drones.
Regardless of who prevails in court, the legal papers help illuminate why the ballroom matters: because it is the most complete model to date of Mr Trump’s ambition, methods and means. It is, in short, the Trumpiest thing he has attempted. However vast the ballroom proves to be, it will not provide jobs or health care, or even state-dinner invitations, to the left-behind, anti-elitist, anti-swamp voters Mr Trump relies upon. And yet, though most Americans oppose the project, MAGA adherents overwhelmingly support it, revealing the direction in which MAGA loyalty truly runs. These Republicans are devoted to serving Mr Trump in his great goal, also exemplified by the ballroom: to make his enduring mark. “I’m fighting wars and other things,” he acknowledged recently, but he wanted to talk to reporters about the ballroom instead “because this is going to be with us for a long time”.
It is—again—just a ballroom. And yet it also reveals Mr Trump’s contempt for the Framers’ foundational preoccupation with checking executive power. Just as he claimed he could impose tariffs on any country for any reason, also to protect national security, he has asserted awesome power over federal property. His theory is so sweeping, Judge Leon wrote, that it would license him to tear down the White House and replace it with a skyscraper. “No statute comes close to giving the president the authority he claims to have,” the judge wrote. Congress, he pointed out, has historically exercised such close oversight of the White House that it prescribes the number of staff and their pay.
In my mind the following is what says it all. This monstrosity is nothing but a slush fund for various wealthy players to gain favor with the president. And they are all falling all over themselves to do it:
And the ballroom is proving a very temple of bootlicking. To any doubts, Mr Trump’s aides respond by extolling him as a “master builder” or the best developer “in the entire world”. His lawyers declare the project to be under budget, though the price tag has already quadrupled from the $100m the president initially declared. They make a virtue of what in previous presidencies would be a vice, that Mr Trump has raised the money from private sources through another signature move—soliciting donors eager for presidential favour, some of whom may never be named. Mr Trump’s allies insist the project will not cost taxpayers anything. That claim values the time of the president and his aides, along with all future maintenance of the colossus, at nothing.
He figured, probably rightly, that once he tore down the east wing they’d have to let him build it rather than leave a big ugly hole in the ground.
When the Supreme Court considered Mr Trump’s use of tariffs, his lawyers argued, unsuccessfully, that what was done was done: it would be too hard for the government to refund the money… They are trying the same move now, lamenting the “large hole beside the Executive Residence”.
And this is why the hole itself, rather than Trump’s Folly if it is built in the end, would be the most apt monument to this presidency.
Yes, a gaping hole would be the perfect tribute. Short of that the Democrats should have it torn down immediately upon taking office just as the Iraqis tore down Saddam’s statue in Baghdad. Symbolism matters. And leaving it up would be the worst symbol of all —a disgusting reminder that an American president who cares nothing for the rule of law and behaves like a tinpot dictator of a banana republic can get away with it.
Dan Pfeiffer has an interesting piece today on the electorate’s rapidly changing views on Israel. This is a massive change and it’s important that the Democratic establishment understands that people are simply appalled by Israel’s behavior and will not support it:
According to an NBC poll, positive views of Israel have dropped 15 points since 2023, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th terrorist attack. The shift is driven primarily by Democrats, but it goes much further than that. Support among independents is down 19 points, and even among Republicans, it’s dropped 9 points.
Pew found that strong majorities of Americans have negative views of Israel and Netanyahu. This is not just a Democratic phenomenon — a majority of adults under 50 now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively.
Bibi Netanyahu and the genocide in Gaza have done untold damage to Israel’s standing in the United States. Only a few years ago, Israel was seen as one of our closest allies. Now, many Americans view it as a pariah state. That has real implications for American politics. While many Democrats have spoken out, the leadership — particularly Senator Schumer — has been reluctant to, clinging to an outdated view of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Politicians who don’t grasp this seismic shift risk being out of touch with the electorate in both parties. Israel is yet another issue where there’s a yawning gap between the base and the establishment.
Democrats must speak out against anti-semitism in all of its forms. But they cannot accept the proposition that criticism of the Netanyahu government or AIPAC is the same as anti-semitism.
There are limits, though. On Thursday, a special election was held in New Jersey. Progressive Analilia Mejia easily won the seat previously held by Governor Mikie Sherrill. Mejia overperformed in the Hispanic parts of the state and persuaded a significant number of independents and Republicans. In that sense, her win looked like every other Democratic special election — with one big exception. Mejia massively underperformed in the heavily Jewish precincts in towns like Livingston. In one precinct, she underperformed Kamala Harris by 50 points.
Politico described her positions on Israel as follows:
Mejia has said she believes Israel committed genocide in Gaza and did not raise her hand when asked at a candidate forum if she believed Jews “have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, what is commonly referred to as Zionism.”
The Republican spent most of his time and money communicating to the Jewish community and painting Mejia in the worst light possible. This is just one race, so I wouldn’t read too much into it, but it’s an early indicator of the Republican strategy for this fall.
Having said all of that: the public is unhappy with the Netanyahu government, and they are unhappy with our government’s relationship with Netanyahu. They don’t want their tax dollars paying to kill kids in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran. And Democrats can’t be afraid to speak to that anger.
This is going to be a wedge issue going forward and it’s a tough one in terms of making sure that everyone understands the fundamental difference between antisemitism and opposition to Zionism or Israeli policy. This will be an ongoing discussion that is likely to get very uncomfortable at times. It is what it is.
But Pfeiffer is right that the worm has turned on this issue. Netanyahu has made Israel into a pariah state due to Gaza and now with Iran and Lebanon I don’t think there’s any going back.
I highly recommend that you watch this discussion between Paul Krugman and Kim Lane Scheppele. The story of Magyar’s rise is much more complicated — and fascinating — than previously known. Scheppele is an incredible source. Here’s just one little excerpt:
Krugman: Given all that, it’s still kind of astonishingly brave that people were willing to stand up in this campaign.
Scheppele: Absolutely. And Peter Magyar developed into this role, right? Because he came out of Fidesz circles. I don’t think he imagined himself as the opposition. He spent 20 years in the shadows. This is not what most leaders do. So he kind of grew into the role as people projected onto him a role he should play. And so one of the things he started saying at his rallies is “We shall not live in fear ever again.” And so it was the fear thing. And he would travel. I mean, Peter Magyar never had security. I’m sure he had death threats. I’m sure that they had a target on his back. He was clearly bugged and wiretapped. They would occasionally release conversations between him and close associates. Like I said, they sent him a girlfriend from the security services. I mean, they had him on their radar but he never traveled with security. He’d dive into crowds to shake hands and so forth, and he would say, “This is our country. We cannot live in fear.” And then crowds were chanting like, “We shouldn’t live with fear!”
And today, actually, I was just in tears this morning reading this. One of my close friends wrote to me and was trying to make sense of everything. He’s also a sociologist, I might add. And he said, “What just happened can be expressed in the most beautiful way by the word “awakening.” I felt the country is waking up to self-consciousness as we wake up every morning. Hungarian society woke up from an unbearable world into a normal and livable world. It took time, but I feel like in the last two years, people’s attitude toward each other and toward politics has changed step by step. I just had to follow the events of the Tisza Party. [Magyar’s Party] Because whoever saw these events could testify that not only more and more people came out to the streets to listen to Peter Magyar, but people were smiling more and more and became more intimate, more joyful, more confident. And they were increasingly connected to the community with a sense of belonging. On the day after the election, Peter Magyar put it simply: ‘What happened was this is the end, and what lies ahead is change and creation.’”
I mean, that’s what those rallies were. More than what he actually said, you showed up and saw how many other people felt the same thing you did. And then the fear went away as the crowd expanded.
This piece in the WSJ (gift link)lays out the history of the church and the US government and as we know it was often hostile mostly due to anti Catholic bigotry. But it changed :
Post-Cold War presidents mostly walked in lockstep with Catholic leaders at home and in Rome, with a major exception being the Iraq war. John Paul II advised George W. Bush not to take pre-emptive action against Saddam Hussein. Bush stayed the course but reaffirmed his respect for the holy father. The next year Bush presented the pope with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, vowing to work with the pope “for human liberty and human dignity, in order to spread peace and compassion.”
Trump has chosen a different path.
In each election since 2016, Trump won a majority of the White Catholic vote, increasing his percentage in 2024 to about 60%. Yet beneath these positive election results, the mood can be tense. Many of the president’s actions suggest values that are out of step with the presidents that came before him; and as recent popes have demonstrated, they are also out of line with the values of the Catholic church.
During Trump’s first presidential campaign and first term, Pope Francis noted that the gospel called on Christians to build bridges, not (border) walls. Trump issued a statement that Francis was going to wish Trump was president if ISIS attacked the Vatican.
But the real escalation of the conflict has come in recent months. Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, has proven to be very politically savvy. He seems to have ensured that when he speaks, the American bishops generally fall in line behind him. He has called on the bishops to defend the rights and dignity of immigrants and refugees, and they have answered by submitting legal briefs to the Supreme Court on their behalf.
Their larger clash, however, came over the war in Iran. When Trump vowed to destroy Iranian civilization, to blast it back to the stone ages, Leo called his rhetoric “unacceptable.” He preached against the “delusion of omnipotence,” and called for an end to “idolatry of self and money” and “enough of war.”
Catholics have criteria that they invoke to evaluate righteousness of wars, which date to the fifth century teachings of St. Augustine. They determine whether a cause is just, if all other options have been exhausted, if war will lead to peace, and if the evil being targeted by war is greater than the evil of the violence the war will inflict. This allows them to determine what is a “just war” and what is not.
The American president and his advisers have made limited effort to justify their aggressive military actions, which also meet none of the traditional Catholic just war criteria.
The pope’s skepticism about the administration’s rationale for war prompted Trump, unlike any president in the last 100 years, to recast the Vatican as an adversary rather than an ally. Never before, even at the height of U.S. anti-Catholicism, has a sitting president attacked the pope like this
He attacks anyone who dares to disagree with him or is more popular. I honestly don’t think it’s any more complicated than that. He’s a Know-Nothing in the original sense of the world taking the country back to the 1800s in more ways than one.
Donald Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo XIV are even more misguided than Trump’s other assaults on decency. CNN’s Harry Enten explains Trump’s tanking polls in a manner reminiscent of Howard Cosell’s famous “Down goes Frazier!”
“Down he goes …. into the Dead Sea!”
CNN: “It’s a blowout… not even close… Pope Leo absolutely crushing Trump when it comes to how popular they are.” pic.twitter.com/Ww3E4U4pGl
All this while Donald Trump eats McDonald’s and sailors under his command eat Unhappy Meals. The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations denied reports of food shortages and poor food quality, declaring that the “US Navy possesses an unmatched logistics capability.” And the shortages, mystery meat and food trays two-thirds empty? Simply “routine menu adjustments.”
Photo: Satellite image, Strait of Hormuz. NASA, 2018. (Public domain.)
The fabulist residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. “made 13 posts in an hour” Friday celebrating his greatness. (That’s His Greatness.) Ron Filipkowski compiled the lot:
“Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again. It will no longer be used as a weapon against the World!
“A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD! DJT”
“Now that the Hormuz Strait situation is over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help. I TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL. They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!
“Again! This deal is not tied, in any way, to Lebanon, but we will, MAKE LEBANON GREAT AGAIN!”
“Iran, with the help of the U.S.A., has removed, or is removing, all sea mines! Thank you!”
“Thank you to Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar for your great bravery and help!”
“The U.S.A. will get all Nuclear “Dust,” created by our great B2 Bombers – No money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form. This deal is in no way subject to Lebanon, either, but the USA will, separately, work with Lebanon, and deal with the Hezboolah situation in an appropriate manner. Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!”
“The Failing New York Times, FAKE NEWS CNN, and others, just don’t know what to do. They are desperately looking for a reason to criticize President Donald J. Trump on the Iran situation, but just can’t find it. Why don’t they just say, at the right time, JOB WELL DONE, MR. PRESIDENT, and start to gain back their credibility???”
Speaking of credibility, the Strait of Hormuz is an open and shut case that His Greatness has none.
Iran’s military announced it has closed the Strait of Hormuz just a day after the country declared the waterway open, claiming the U.S. had breached Tehran’s trust by maintaining its blockade in the region.
The Strait of Hormuz had “returned to its previous state” and “is under the strict management and control of the Armed Forces,” Iran’s military command said Saturday, according to a statement published by Iranian state-backed media.
“Trump keeps claiming victory in Iran,” a headline at Politico reads. “Our new poll shows voters aren’t buying it.”
Iranian officials did not confirm most of Mr. Trump’s claims and disputed several of them. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator and the speaker of its Parliament, said on social media Friday evening that Mr. Trump made several false claims.
“The president of the United States made seven claims in one hour, all of which are false,” said Gen. Ghalibaf, a military and political influential figure in Iran leading negotiations. “They did not win the war with these lies, they will certainly not get any where in negotiations either.”
Who is buying Trump’s total victory BS? The stock market. The Washington Post reports that investors most distant from the oil production and processing business seem less concerned about the realities of what’s been damaged and how long “it will take for things to return to normal — if they ever do,” said Gerry Morton, oil and gas co-chair at the law firm Baker Botts. Underlying problems signal “a reckoning in the not too distant future,” the Post reports.
Thirty years ago, then-Federal Reserve Board chairman, Alan Greenspan, described that kind of investor behavior as “irrational exuberance.” Under a Trump administration, one might call it market manipulation. Somewhere close to Trump’s inner circle (and to the buffet line at Mar-a-Lago), bandits are making outlike bandits.
I’m still traumatized by the “Shakespeare” heartbreak on Meerkat Manor, so I’ve been reluctant to follow the meerkat world. But this pulls me back in. They are incredibly cute.
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