Bad Men from Bodie weren’t ordinary scoundrels, they came with the land, and you could no more cope with them than you could with dust or hailstones.

                                            Welcome to Hard Times, E.L.Doctorow

 

If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey, it will yield us bees.

                                             “Prudence,” First Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson,

In E.L. Doctorow’s novel Welcome to Hard Times, the eponymous town is destroyed in one day by a character known as the Man from Bodie who goes about murdering men and women for no apparent reason and then sets fire to the town.

I don’t believe it’s hyperbole to say that the Man from Bodie is the perfect metaphor for the 47^th President who has, from Day One of his second term, set about to destroy or allow the destruction of vital institutions and communities of shared interests with no apparent intention of replacing them—the U.S. Agency for International Development, scores of international trade agreements, health care for those who can ill afford it, due process and the rule of law, friendly relations with Canada, Mexico and the democratic countries of Europe, a sensible energy policy in the face of climate change, a stable economy, a reliable, responsive federal government, the East Wing of the White House and possibly NATO.

That’s only a partial list. We might also include tariff policies, reductions in medical and scientific research, attacks on the military leadership, threats to the Kennedy Center and certainly the stupid, costly Iran War.

We can see the foundation of a police state being laid, populated by roving goon squads, supposedly on the lookout for criminal, undocumented immigrants, but in reality charged with provoking protests to justify the declaration of martial law and the suspension of civil rights and liberties.

This is happening here, in the United States of America. It’s happening while elected federal officials either applaud it or swallow their disapproval out of fear or because their communities have not yet been affected.

Meanwhile, a mentally damaged and quite possibly demented president, continues to whimsically indulge his fantasies, saying yes one day and no the next. His stock in trade is chaos which has made it especially hard to comment on his activities. We have no way of knowing how permanent the destruction is.

Meanwhile, as oceans rise, the EPA has announced its intention to lift limits on greenhouse gasses emitted by electric power plants, the second leading polluter in the United States. Despite a pressing need for more electric power, the administration has cancelled solar and wind generation projects.

Interest rates are high and will doubtless remain high because the bond market as well as other countries have understandable qualms about the direction of the economy and our $40 trillion debt.

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/business/trump-debt-sanctions-global-economy.html)

While America’s domestic and international problems grow, Trump enriches himself and his family and billionaires. Americans struggle to make ends meet and Trump focuses on vanity projects, a latter-day Herod the Great: a triumphal arch, a helicopter landing pad on the White House lawn, his name on the Kennedy Center and a White House ballroom being built without authorization or approval using unappropriated taxpayer funds.

It’s difficult to overstate how demoralizing, bewildering and overwhelming it is to see the careful work of generations demolished by a heartless, cruel government. Any number of physical demolitions—the destruction of the White House’s East Wing, the botched repair of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the threatened leveling of the Kennedy Center—demonstrate the physical wreckage Trump has caused. Those demolitions also serve as symbols of the institutional devastation he has caused, not by himself alone sadly but with the willing, knowing acceptance and assistance of Congress and the Supreme Court.

Pete Hegseth, the unqualified secretary of Defense and a man with his own apparent grudge against the Army, has embarked on a campaign to purge independent thinking generals from their services along with women and African Americans in high command. With his chest thumping extolment of a “warrior” army, Hegseth is reaching back to a time that never was. While other countries are rushing to master the new technologies of warfare, Hegseth has disbanded the army unit developing drones for combat. He envisions a military of gladiators who win battles because of physical strength rather than intelligence, technology and innovation.

Trump continues to claim that foreign countries and especially our erstwhile allies aren’t laughing at us anymore. Apparently, no one has told him that they may not be laughing, but they certainly are scratching their heads in bewilderment.

We’re witnessing a kind of “I’m rubber and you’re glue,” moment here. Trump has a penchant for accusing others of doing what he is doing or intends to do: Biden weaponized the Justice Department; Washington is a swamp, full of corrupt actors; Biden and Obama, maybe W as well, should be in jail. Etc. Even the slogan Make America Great Again is ironic, given the national decline over which Trump is presiding.

For those of us born in the wake of World War II, we grew up in the best of times, led by men (mostly) who were not perfect but had America’s best interests at heart. We grew up in a relatively stable, prosperous country admired by much of the world. Those days may be coming to an end.

(https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/trump-iran-superpower-decline/688639/)

We are left to ask ourselves how this could have happened. One day is more absurd than the last, and the danger is that we become benumbed by the sheer volume and constant flood of outrages that we experience daily. It’s easy to turn away and shut down to avoid the despair that paying attention induces. Regardless, real damage is being done, and we can’t afford to ignore it. Our feeling of hopelessness makes it all the more difficult. Small consolation though it may be, I turn again to Frederick William Maitland for solace: “We should always be aware that what now lies in the past once lay in the future.” We can only hope to see that future.