The Fortnightly Rant

We can’t speak for our two dozen predecessors, but since assuming the throne—editors traditionally use the royal “we,” why shouldn’t regal nomenclature extend to office furniture?—our natural condition has been existential dread. That yawning abyss which strikes terror in most hearts, is like an Olympic pool to Katie Ledecky. Existential dread is our natural habitat. Perhaps it comes from having survived 267 years—so far!—despite revolution, civil war, and capitalism. Expecting the worst, we’re surprised and amused on those occasions when it does not arrive. We bring this up because we fear we may now have to prepare for something for which we know we’re not …

Read more

What a difference a fortnight and a half can make. The past three weeks have raised the possibility that we, the people, may not, in fact, be strapped into cheap seats at the glacier races. To the contrary, we now have evidence that if certain people in strategic positions do the right thing, conditions may change. What’s more, these changes—at least so it appears at the moment, let’s not get ahead of ourselves—might move the nation away from, rather than toward, utter catastrophe. Obviously, any such bold pronouncement demands extraordinary evidence. Here ’tis: On the one hand exuberant Democrats, their internecine animosities forgotten in the …

Read more

There once was a time when summer meant reporting on meaningless little oddities that might amuse a reader swinging in a hammock in the shade. Those were the days, as a famous fictional televised bigot used to sing. Now the nightmares come around the clock. These are ugly times, but they’re our times, so let’s get on with them. At least we’re not bored. The fortnight began with a literal bang. Actually, eight bangs, from—spoiler alert!—an AR-15, aimed at former-and-possibly-future president Donald J. Trump. Democrats had been hoping for some kind of game-changing event that would divert attention from President Biden’s age. They got that, …

Read more

It’s been a hell of a fortnight—one that deserves to live in infamy. Thursday, June 28th, presented a great opportunity: all that was needed was a clear, calm, explanation of the actual Republican agenda. That alone should have been enough to bury forever the threat of a second Trump term. Yes, there is a sector of the electorate that is eager to deep-six democracy and replace it with a fascist dictatorship—though they would, of course, obscure that unseemly truth with yards of obfuscatory patriotic blather. That group of voters will earnestly swear allegiance to a gibberish-spouting goon, though his allegiance is only to himself. For …

Read more

The convicted felon who sent a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol in a vain attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election returned to the scene of the crime on Thursday, June 13th. There he was welcomed with open arms by House Republicans, some of whom had fled in panic three years ago last January. The Associated Press, in a tweet, chose to put a benign spin on the bizarre event: “AP: Donald Trump made a triumphant return to Capitol Hill on Thursday, his first with lawmakers since the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks, embraced by energized House and Senate Republicans who find …

Read more