‘Good Czar, Bad Boyars,’ &c.

On Trump and the GOP; Mamdani and the Left; the pen of Winston Churchill; and more

Czar Mikhail Feodorovich at a Session of the Boyar Duma (1893), by Andrey Ryabushkin (Wikimedia Commons)

Last week, President Trump held a summit with Xi Jinping of China. (“Summit” is probably too grand and serious a word for what took place.) Also, Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the meeting of the G20 in Florida this December.

I will have more to say about these things soon. For now, I would like to recall Nancy Astor, who, on meeting Stalin in 1931, said, “When are you going to stop killing people?”

That, to me, seems the best question for Xi and Putin.

***

Here is a statement from Daniel Hannan, the British Conservative, and conservative:

The US wages economic war against Canada while cosying up to Russia and, now, China. There was a time when this would have shocked the world. How our expectations have sunk.

Yes. To regain a sense of shock—the ability to be shocked—is a high aspiration. Numbness is an enemy.

***

I sometimes forget that 25-year-olds were born in the 21st century. To me, it seems like the 21st century started yesterday. Young Americans have known no Republican Party except Trump’s, and barely any conservatism except for the Trumpified one.

Before 2016, we often decried “moral equivalence,” by which we meant a false moral equivalence—between democracy and dictatorship, aggression and defense, right and wrong, good and evil.

I thought of this when listening to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations—a Republican who holds the position that Jeane Kirkpatrick, Vernon Walters, and distinguished others once held:

There is a difference between invader and invaded, persecutor and persecuted, occupier and nation, murderer and murdered.

***

The American president is now circulating material that labels the Strait of Hormuz “Trump Strait.” (For a news story, go here.) Trump is an inveterate renamer.

Instead of renaming the strait, or doing push-ups in front of our troops, as the secretary of defense does, or quoting Scripture at them, as he also does—how about winning the war?

Of course, Trump, his officials, and many other Republicans won’t even call it a war. One curious thing about this is that the secretary of defense insists on calling himself the “secretary of war.”

Well …?

***

This is Trump, speaking in Ireland: “We had a rigged election. As you know, it was totally rigged. Because I won three times. I didn’t win twice. I won three times.”

If the American president himself is saying that our democracy is a sham—and saying it on foreign soil, no less—what need is there for the propaganda of our enemies, such as Russia, China, and Iran?

***

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani circulated something bizarre: this video. It shows Mamdani and the prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, shooting crumpled-up pieces of paper into a wastebasket. The caption reads, “Being a leftist means taking big shots. And making them.”

A lot depends on what you mean by “leftist.” Medicare for All? “Free false teeth,” as Bill Buckley would say? When I was coming of age, Mao, Brezhnev, Castro, and Pol Pot were taking “big shots” and piling up the corpses.

Elie Kedourie told David Pryce-Jones, who told me: “Keep your eye on the corpses.”

***

You may know this expression: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.” The headline reads, “Germany’s AfD partners with radical Italian ‘sister party.’” For the article, go here.

That sister party, in Italy, is the Futuro Nazionale, meaning “National Future.”

Uh-huh. There is a song from a musical: “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” Let’s hope it doesn’t—belong to them (again).

***

As I and many others have noted, Republicans have come up with a technique for criticizing President Trump, if such criticism is ever strictly necessary, in mildest form: they blame his advisers. “The president is getting bad advice.” “The president has not been well advised.”

Some refer to this technique as “Good czar, bad boyars.”

I think of a story from William Safire. Nixon liked to say, “Some have counseled that I take the easy way. But …”

His staff used to joke, “Maybe a few of us should counsel the easy way, so that what he says is true.”

***

The Bayeux Tapestry has arrived in London, making a big splash. I have been splashing in the history of the Norman Invasion and Conquest. And I would like to make one point, here and now. (It is a point that has been made by many over the years.)

If Winston Churchill had not spent one day in politics, he would still be known as a great—truly great—writer. (I’m thinking in particular of A History of the English-Speaking Peoples.)

His Nobel prize, in literature, was well deserved.

***

This is a story that a lot of people would snort or snicker at. “Do-gooders.” “What about all the human needs? The needs of people?” But I think it says something remarkable, and great, about our species:

Muddy, sweat-soaked and occasionally bloody, the dedicated staff at a Mississippi wildlife center are drill sergeants. And their soldiers? Baby raccoons.

Welcome to raccoon boot camp, where the goal is to help sick or injured animals learn to survive in the south Mississippi wilderness—a skill set they would have learned from their mothers, most of whom died or were separated from their kits by storms, traffic accidents or other traumatic events.

***

A little language? I have written to Santa—months in advance:

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is that people stop saying—and professional writers stop writing—“the reason is because …” (instead of “the reason is that …”). I don’t ask for a shiny red fire truck or a baseball mitt or anything else.

Thank you!

***

This is mighty good:

***

I had a very strange encounter a few days ago. I was leaving a medical center, having visited a friend. This was in New York. And a little girl was standing outside the entrance—by herself.

She said, “Hi, would you like to buy some lemonade? Or maybe you’d like to contribute a couple of dollars to get me closer to my goal?” Obviously, she was repeating lines that she had been given. I did not see any lemonade. I was confused, frankly—but I decided against asking any questions.

I reached into my wallet. She was looking at something in her hands—it might have been a piece of discarded costume jewelry. Like a hair clip. A little rusty. She said, “My brother found this in the park.” She said it in her genuine, little-girl voice—not the voice in which she had spoken her lines.

I said, “It’s sparkling and nice, just like you.”

I gave her a couple of dollars and looked around. She joined a group that was probably a family—her family. Couple of adults, a few kids. The mother was holding a gross-looking jar of lemonade. The group spoke in what might have been an Appalachian accent.

Man, was it bizarre. I wonder what will become of those children.