Slow-Motion Munich

 Ever since Trump came back into office, people have been warning that it seems like he is planning to betray Ukraine. But, no matter how inevitable it seemed that Trump would eventually pull a Neville Chamberlain and cut a deal with Putin to hand our ally over to the country that was invading them, the decisive moment never quite came. Instead, Trump would at times appear to suddenly and radically undermine our relationship with Ukraine; but then, the next day, he would backpedal. And so the cycle would continue. 

For all we know, Trump's remarks yesterday may not have been his final word on the subject either. Mere days from now, he may patch things up with Zelensky yet again and pivot to offering another round of halfhearted praise for our ally. Whatever Trump may do from day to day, however, the larger pattern is unmistakable at this point: he really is walking away from Ukraine, by whatever fits and starts. He may be acting less precipitously than Neville Chamberlain did in 1938—but this is still a Munich in slow motion. 

Hegseth's Snuff Film Studio

 Last week, following the horrific botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, I repeated as a sort of thought experiment Albert Camus's argument (in Reflections on the Guillotine) that every government that really claims to believe in the death penalty ought to broadcast footage of its executions as widely as possible, since they claim that the whole point of the killing is to "send a message." 

Be careful what you wish for, I guess. Because just days later, the Trump administration announced that they do indeed plan to livestream the public execution by firing squad of a man convicted for his role in a 2009 mass shooting (convicted, we should add, in the military justice system—a parallel legal system with fewer constitutional protections for defendants; though there seems little doubt of his guilt). 

Good Samaritans

 In a recent podcast interview with Ezra Klein, Michigan Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed was trying to explain what motivates his sense of mission to try to expand access to healthcare in this country. He told the story of a former patient of his—a woman struggling with homelessness and substance abuse—whom he encountered in the emergency room. 

After ordering the usual round of tests and treatment, he said he tried to convince her to stay in the hospital system for rehab. He prepared a whole treatment plan for her, and the hospital would have covered it. She refused these multiple offers of help, however, and left, claiming that her daughter was picking her up. 

Bloody Hands

 Just days after the horrific botched execution of Christa Pike reminded all the world of the inhumanity of capital punishment—and stripped away any lingering illusion that lethal injection is an especially "painless" or "humane" means of taking a person's life by force—Texas apparently proceeded last night with yet another state murder. 

Jamaal Howard was taken to the death chamber last night in Huntsville, where he was administered a fatal dose of pentobarbital. Multiple courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, declined to spare his life at the 11th hour, despite claims he is intellectually disabled. According to the Associated Press, he was "pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m." 

Are We Guilty?

 Over the summer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney indelibly (and correctly) said that the U.S. had essentially "attacked" his country in an unprovoked act of trade aggression. "America has changed, [...] and we will not return to our old relationship," he said. 

I was of course entirely with him on the merits. The Trump administration had started harassing Canada, belittling its nationhood, threatening to annex its territory, and using strong-arm trade war tactics to try to force it to cede sovereignty—all totally without provocation. It was and is an insanely gratuitous sabotage of a centuries-old friendship and alliance. 

Acte Gratuit

 I spent a lot of time last month, as part of the reflections around the 25th anniversary of 9/11, trying to pinpoint exactly what the difference was between the Bush and Trump administrations. 

After all, every Trump-era human rights abuse has its rough analogue from the Bush and Obama–led War on Terror. 

"It Doesn't Really Hurt"

 Up there with the notion that "everyone goes to the death chamber with great dignity and decorum," another great myth about capital punishment is that the state can somehow murder people "humanely."

As Arthur Koestler writes in his classic Reflections on Hanging, "the defense of a savage method of execution on the grounds that 'it doesn't really hurt,' is another leitmotif down to our day."