We Almost Made It, America

We Almost Made It, America

It’s been two weeks since the election, and we now wait with dread for the MAGA regime to take over and reformat, or at least attempt to reformat, American society. I’ve already written one post – I called it an election post-mortem, but it was really more of a reaction to the gut punch, immediate thoughts post. Like many of us, I’ve been consuming tons of post-election content as we all process this historic event. Here are some deeper thoughts, bringing in a little social theory.

Now that the votes are mostly counted, it is plain that Trump will beat his 2020 popular vote, by 3 or 4%. Harris will fall far short of Biden’s 2020 vote, which is the essential story of her loss. It’s a shame, given that she will have the fourth highest total of votes in Presidential election history, after her opponent in this election, and both candidates in the 2020 election. As I put it earlier, she wasn’t unpopular – she just wasn’t quite popular enough, for a post-2020 candidate.

Assuming that there was no fraud (let’s not go down that conspiracy hole), the problem for Harris was clearly turnout, which then intersected with the brutal equation of the swing states and the electoral college. Where did those millions of Biden 2020 votes go, that might have tipped the balance?

One answer I’m reading goes back to that famous quote from 1992, “it’s the economy, stupid.” The narrative goes something like this: neoliberalism and globalization have hollowed out the middle class, and those corporate Democrats just don’t offer any solutions, instead pushing a bunch of woke nonsense.

This narrative doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, given that Harris did actually offer solutions, with specifics, clearly addressed at helping the middle class. Some examples, listed on her campaign web site, are a $6,000 Child Tax Credit, and up to $25,000 assistance for down payments for first-time home buyers.

On top of that, Democracts, including Harris, ran decidedly un-woke campaigns this cycle. I’ll let Jon Stewart explain it.

The fact is, President Biden handled the economy well, considering that his administration started in the midst of a global pandemic. As this MSNBC article puts it:

In what will be a generous gift to his successor, President Joe Biden beat inflation, brought down gas prices, created millions of jobs, spurred strong growth, boosted retirement savings and revived American manufacturing — just in time for Donald Trump to take credit for all of it.

But MAGA partisans on social media and the pundits in Jon Stewart’s video alike are echoing this “Democrats are too woke” idea. Why are they falling for it? The answer in one word could be: misinformation. As the MSNBC article puts it: “Democrats need to realize that they have less a policy problem than a propaganda problem” – in other words, their messaging just doesn’t resonate.

Democrats have earnestly tried to steer away from identity politics and focus on the material needs of voters, but unfortunately for them, MAGA Republicans have been able to make the “too woke” label stick. As this excellent substack essay points out, Trump is the one who ran on identity politics, and for him it worked. His promise to his base is a future that is white and Christian, just like in the good old days. Nothing could be more identitarian.

Let’s face it, the partisan conflict was always about the right-wing backlash to the emancipation of women and minorities, and to the rise of multiculturalism, that came in the wake of the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s. As another substacker starkly puts it, this race was about race. Whites will lose their majority status in the United States in the next couple of decades, and for many millions of them, that is too much to take. Hence their slogan, “take America back,” which they will now proceed to do, with a vengeance.

But then why did Trump gain support compared to 2020 from almost every demographic group, including non-whites? Even including undocumented immigrants, who presumably know he wants to have them deported. Could it be that misinformation thing – all that money poured into ads to undermine the Harris campaign’s messaging and the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration, with the help of Trump’s billionaire mascot (or is it co-President?), who owns one of the Internet’s largest social media platforms? But then what about all the money poured into the Harris campaign – she both outraised and outspent her opponent – was it not applied effectively?

Was it just a case of tactical errors in the info wars? I’ve argued on this blog before that in this partisan age, when most voters know where their loyalty lies, political messaging is largely about rallying the troops, so to speak. The specifics don’t much matter. Except they might, when it comes to those crucial swing voters, who are the ones who actually decided the last three elections. Trump’s crude identity attacks and simplistic points (he literally just called Biden and Harris “the worst” and “failures” and left it at that) might amount to a blunter but better instrument of information delivery. People have thick heads, after all.

Let’s allow, however, that average folks, while maybe not intellectual giants, are not complete morons, and understand what their interests are. As this election post-mortem article puts it, “politics are material and people actually do know their conditions.” Yes, the Biden-Harris administration made great strides in improving the U.S. economy. By the standards that are conventionally used to measure the economy – inflation rate, employment rate, economic growth – we’re on the right path.

But people are still feeling the pain of high prices: it was the rate of price increase that was tamed, not prices, which are still higher than four years ago. And young people – the demographic whose loss may well have been the hardest for the supposedly Gen Z-appealing Harris – face a future where jobs do not pay enough to achieve major life milestones such as buying a home or raising a family. In the face of this hard reality, rosy economic statistics are not much of a palliative.

That last article from The Guardian makes another point, one I have not seen anywhere else, but it rings true to me:

I propose a different explanation than inflation qua inflation: the Covid welfare state and its collapse. The massive, almost overnight expansion of the social safety net and its rapid, almost overnight rollback are materially one of the biggest policy changes in American history. For a brief period, and for the first time in history, Americans had a robust safety net: strong protections for workers and tenants, extremely generous unemployment benefits, rent control and direct cash transfers from the American government.

Despite the trauma and death of Covid and the isolation of lockdowns, from late 2020 to early 2021, Americans briefly experienced the freedom of social democracy. They had enough liquid money to plan long term and make spending decisions for their own pleasure rather than just to survive. They had the labor protections to look for the jobs they wanted rather than feel stuck in the jobs they had. At the end of Trump’s term, the American standard of living and the amount of economic security and freedom Americans had was higher than when it started, and, with the loss of this expanded welfare state, it was worse when Biden left office, despite his real policy wins for workers and unions. This is why voters view Trump as a better shepherd of the economy.

It’s like the American people got a taste of life in a Scandinavian-type socialist society, then had the rug pulled out from under them, and for that they punished the incumbent. We almost got there, people! We were on our way to fully automated luxury communism! But then Biden did the bidding of his corporate masters, and back to normal it was. Only someone forgot to tell him that for most Americans, “normal” sucks.

For most Americans, normal sucks so bad that they were willing to vote in a convicted felon and known degenerate who is probably also a national security threat. Like some kind of Hail Mary play to shake things up and maybe, somehow, end up better off on the other side.

The Guardian article has an even more depressing take:

Perhaps most emblematic of this is at the heart of Trump’s campaign: his embrace of extremely online tech billionaires, crypto currency and online influencers. If the archetype of Trump’s win in 2016 was the left-behind post-industrial Rust belt manufacturing worker – or, perhaps more accurately, the car dealership or McDonald’s franchise owner in a left-behind post-industrial Rust belt town – this year it is the crypto scammer, the dropshipper, the app-based day trader, the online engagement farmer.

That embrace was Trump’s message, and at the core of his gains, especially with young men. Without civil society and without strong unions, people believe the only path to success is getting one over on someone else. And who is better at that than Trump?

While the core of the resurgent-left generation of Sanders was downwardly mobile college-educated professionals, selling their labor for wages without the prospect of buying a house or retiring on a pension, the second wave of newly aging-in Trump voters entered adulthood without even those prospects, hoping only to grind out a living through scams. But this is fundamentally an anti-social and anti-humanist mode of economic activity that contributes nothing to society and offers nothing but alienation to its victims. The result is people willing to vote for someone they know will cause immense harm to others, hoping it will help them personally.

In other words, America has thrown up its collective hands and declared, “fuck it, let’s all be criminal degenerates now.” If a toxic mashup of white supremacy and billionaire kleptocracy is the best we can get, then let’s tap into our inner Joker, embrace the breakdown of society, and get on with the Purge.

That’s a dark view of the American electorate, and the sense that it might be true contributes to the dread that Harris voters like me feel. It’s the real kick in the face to the almost 50% of voters – almost! – who rejected Trump. We thought our society could be both civil and multicultural. But enough other Americans decided, I guess, that those two ideas are incompatible.

I will now turn to generations and turnings theory. I note that the brief experience of the Covid welfare state came about because of an emergency. In the Crisis Era or Fourth Turning, the perception of emergency creates urgency and acceptance of the need for drastic measures, shifting power from the market to the state. This reshapes society, and lays the foundation for a new understanding of civic community.

If the public indeed got a taste of that during Covid and liked it, that just shows how receptive the living generations are to radical change, as well as to authoritative leadership taking control. It could simply be that Republicans prevailed in the election because they are promising both of these things – radical change and authoritative leadership.

The Democrats offered sensible policies that have a track record of actually working – but to a majority of voters, that wasn’t satisfactory. They wanted sweeping reform of the system. I’ll let Jon Stewart make the point for me again. He might be the commentator out there who gets it the most.

If our government is indeed, as Stewart puts it, “an overly regulated system that is no longer responsive or delivering for the needs of the people,” then no wonder the party that shows that it is willing to break the rules is the one that got the most votes. The MAGA Republicans are more attuned to the social mood, and more aligned to where we are in the generational cycle – whether by craft or by instinct, who knows.

But wait! Wasn’t the Biden-Harris administration improving the economy – what could be more responsive to the people’s needs than that? That’s all we expect from a government these days, right? Listen to historian Heather Cox Richardson; she explains that Biden was actually stepping away from neoliberalism, and that Trump will take us back. Under Trump, the rich will keep getting richer and working class Americans will get the shaft.

Why couldn’t voters see this? Maybe the people are just dumb and easy prey for a grifter, after all. In the “informational market state” wars between the red zone and the blue zone, the red zone prevailed in the end. It came down to their superior media ecosystem.

Or maybe, to circle back to earlier points, the good work the Democrats were doing just wasn’t the “radical change” the people demanded. It could be a matter of perception. This is where the attitude of the MAGA faction gave them an advantage: they just come across as more forceful and decisive. Voters either didn’t understand or didn’t care what their decisions would be.

The is a terrible tragedy for our nation. Unlike in 2016, the MAGA regime now comes to power controlling all three branches of the United States government. There will be no “guardrails” or “checks and balances” to contain it. The Constitution is about to get a major stress test which it might not survive, at least not in its current form.

In 2016, Trump’s election galvanized the Democratic opposition, which launched a “resistance” movement, so that partisan conflict was always in the background during Trump’s first administration. Today, the mood among Democratic partisans is one of retreat to nurse their wounds. We’re all over on Bluesky, sharing tips on how to manage life under tyranny. I don’t see much coming from the Democratic party’s leadership, if they even have any at this point. Is it possible they will cave, and give the Heritage Foundation the bloodless revolution it wants?

I suspect not, given how radical the MAGA agenda is. MAGA’s definition of the emergencies which require an empowered state (immigrants! gays! reproductive rights!) mean they are prescribing fixes that roll back civil rights that have been hard-won over this generational cycle. Not to mention some really atrocious Nazi-type shit like rounding people up in concentration camps. It’s hard to imagine that will proceed without friction.

The future can’t be known; we only see through a glass darkly. Somewhere ahead comes the climax moment. God help us.

This is probably the longest post I have ever written on this blog. I keep going back to it and tweaking it here and there. It’s been a lot to process these past weeks. Thanks for bearing with me, dear reader.

Welcome to the Club, Ricky

Welcome to the Club, Ricky

I am interested in theories of historical cycles, particularly as they apply to this land of freedom in which I live, the United States of America. One idea I’ve come across is that as the U.S. has gone through its cycles of evolving regimes, it has gradually expanded the number of ethnic groups that get to be considered bona fide Americans.

In his book, The Next American Nation, which I’ve reviewed here already, Michael Lind is explicit about it. In the beginning, only Anglo-Americans counted – that is, the original Mayflower-descended W.A.S.P.s. Gradually, other northern Europeans got included, and then all Europeans (the melting pot). This is where it makes sense to think of an expanding concept of “whiteness” – “white” didn’t include Southern and Eastern Europeans at first, but then it did, and Italian and Polish surnames came to be thought of as American surnames.

In this cycle, with the Civil Rights revolution, we were on our way to a multiracial, multicultural definition of “American” that might have lived up to Martin Luther King Jr’s color-blind ideal. But then MAGA happened, which is not a racially inclusive movement, and if they win this time around, we might not be expanding the definition at all.

Except in one small way, perhaps. Take a look at Trump’s cabinet picks; there’s one member of an ethnic group famous for being staunchly Republican and anti-Communist:

That’s right, the Cuban-Americans might get into the club this cycle. Hell, if they were good enough for Lucille Ball, then they must be good enough for America.

Subreddit of the Week: LeopardsAteMyFace

Subreddit of the Week: LeopardsAteMyFace

The LeopardsAteMyFace subreddit has a simple purpose, which I repeat verbatim from its description:

‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party. Revel in the schadenfreude anytime someone has a sad because they’re suffering consequences from something they voted for or supported or wanted to impose on other people.

As you can imagine, the subreddit is now filled with posts exulting in the shock of Trump voters who suddenly realize the consequences of what they’ve done.

Wait – you voted for Trump and now you’re worried about a relative being deported?

Muslims who voted for Trump really thought they were going to improve the lot of Palestinians??

Maybe research a candidate’s policy proposals before voting for them???

It’s almost like people were voting to make a statement, but didn’t think he would actually win. Like we’re in a real life version of Putney Swope.

Well, probably not. But the schadenfreude is running thick in this subreddit these days.

Liberalism Gets Kicked in the Face

Liberalism Gets Kicked in the Face

Obligatory election post-mortem post.

Like every blue zone household in America this past week, ours is reeling from the MAGA takeover in last Tuesday’s election. I am having a hard time coping as I find myself doomscrolling and contemplating the horrors to come. I’m not sure what stage of grief I’m in – possibly still denial. Maybe moving on to anger.

I don’t know if I can write my way out of this, but I’m posting this anyway, if only to get my thoughts down.

I’ve written a lot about the red v. blue wars on this blog, and clearly identified myself as a blue zone partisan. I’m not interested in living under a white supremacist Christian theocracy. I’m not entirely sure everyone who voted Republican this week realizes that’s what they voted for, but so it is in our klunky electoral system that offers so few options.

In a post I made in 2022, I invoked Ibn Khaldun‘s idea of “group feeling” (solidarity within a faction) to describe the ongoing partisan divide. Back then, I felt (hoped) that MAGA’s group feeling was waning.

Which faction is currently favored in the conflict? A few years back I would have speculated that the red zone faction, rallying around former President Trump, had a stronger group feeling. They really seemed to have a greater solidarity of purpose than the blue zone faction, split between its progressives and moderates. But after the failed coup attempt in early 2021, my sense is that the strength of their faction just wasn’t quite enough to achieve superiority, and now they are on the defensive. However, I would note, as Khaldun might put it, that the red zone has been more clever at manipulating the laws of royal authority to favor their faction.

As 2024 crept on and Trump ascended again, I joined the chorus of voices warning about Project 2025 and the dangers of giving the MAGA faction power. Their group feeling was clearly back, and they had a shot at returning to power.

The Supreme Court decision granting the former President immunity from criminal prosecution was just such a manipulation of the laws, as was the way they maneuvered their judges into position in the court in the first place. This does not bode well for the blue faction. Luckily, awareness of this seems to have galvanized Democrats, and Project 2025 is now all over the media. But awareness and fear are not enough; they must translate into action at the ballot box. We must not allow ourselves to be cowed by negativity from profit-seeking media outlets.

And still that hope was alive in the back of my mind – surely the majority would not be for mass deportations, the end of the Affordable Care Act, a federal ban on abortion, and the whole awful white Christian nationalist agenda. Surely the Democrats could muster enough group feeling to eke out another 2020 victory, and avoid a 2016 disaster.

What a kick in the face to be proven wrong.

The pundits are telling me the Democratic leadership screwed up the campaign in a myriad of ways, and eroded their base. They’re not responsive to the working class, which wants populism, not more of the same old corporate liberalism. The Democrats lost their chance when they rejected Bernie Sanders.

I really hoped that enough people would see the dangers of MAGA as a greater problem than the Democrats’s waffling inability to reform themselves. I guess I was in a bubble. Gee, thanks for bursting it, America.

The worst past is knowing that Trump grew his popular vote, and that he gained in all demographics. Was it really because of ignorance and misinformation campaigns on social media? Or have that many people given up on respect for the dignity of others and for the rule of law, following Trump’s example? That’s an awful thought to contemplate.

There is some consolation in knowing that over 70 million of us voted for Harris. She is the third most popular candidate in Presidential election history. Her popular vote total surpasses both Clinton’s from 2016 and Obama’s from 2008 (which was a record until 2020). She wasn’t unpopular. She just wasn’t popular enough.

So now we get right wing populism, run by billionaires and theocrats, a new brand of fascism. And the corporate media, which values money over truth, is ready to bend the knee.

The sexists, racists, homophobes and transphobes are already out there terrifying women and minorities. Aren’t women and minorities working class too, or do the pundits mean something else by “working class”? Makes you wonder.

Onward through the gates of history, which now look like the gates of Hell.

Two More Board Games from the Top 10 List

Two More Board Games from the Top 10 List

Here are two more games for my GeekList about the top 10 games on my BGG user profile. They are both “old school” games that younger generations might not recognize, but that gamers my age would possibly remember from their youth.

Why am I making this list? Simply put, because I want to dig up my gamer past and put it on the Internet. I have all these artifacts that are like a record of my gaming life: beat-up old copies of games with customized rules and components, and piles of notes and ideas.

Obviously I’m not going to scan and digitize all of that, but I can at least put together some online content that captures that information – frankly, for posterity. Then, when I’m gone, you can still go to my profiles and get an idea of what it was like to be a game enthusiast in the late 1900s and early 2000s, should that interest you.

So, without further ado, two more games from my top 10:


#8 Illuminati

In my teen years, I was one of a certain breed of nerd who obsessively read The Illuminatus! Trilogy, the conspiracy theory novels by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. You could spot us carrying our dog-eared copies of the big red omnibus edition in the hallways of my high school. We all fancied ourselves fringe intellectuals with a keen understanding of the world denied to our mundane peers. We were resonating with the countercultural vibe of that time period.

How far down the conspiracy rabbit hole I really fell I could not say. Probably I enjoyed the genre with tongue firmly in cheek. But one part of Illuminatus! fandom was playing a card game called Illuminati, published by Steve Jackson Games. I know I played it in high school, because I have a fond memory of playing at one of the old GenCons, where I actually won a copy of the game in a tournament. I wrote about it in this sesson report, where you can see a picture of the copy I won, which I still own: The Gnomes of Zurich Take Over the World Sometime in the Early 1980s.

This was also a popular game at the WarGamers Club in college. The game came with blank cards so you could make up your own, and I still have those in my old copy. Here’s a couple of examples (I have others but they are not in great shape):

In the late 80s one of my friends ran a really cool play by mail (PBM) version of the game. He printed out a set of rules (which I still have) on perforated computer paper, written up as a roleplaying game he called “The Secret Wars.” The way it worked was your PC was the head of a conspiracy (which you could make up and could be anything you wanted) and acted as an agent. You could recruit more agents as NPCs, and build up a conspiracy power structure using rules like in the Illuminati card game.

Each turn, each agent and each group would get an action. All of this was submitted by mail, and after a bit you’d get back the results. What was so great about it was, since it was all done by mail, you actually had no idea how many players were in the game and what the big picture was. You had to slowly figure it out based on your correspondence with the gamemaster.

I don’t think the game ever officially ended, just sort of faded out. I ran my own game in the early 90s with new friends I had made in college, and still have all those notes and papers. It too faded out after a while. It’s hard keeping up with a play by mail game. With permission from my friend who gave me the rules back in the 80s, I’m planning to transcribe them into a digital document and upload them to BoardGameGeek and to my personal web site (it’s a medium term project of mine).

I’m not sure I would want to run another PBM Illuminati game in today’s political climate, with conspiracy thinking actually being an existential threat instead of a mere countercultural affectation. But it sure was fun when I did it before.

In the late 90s/early 00s collectible card games were the rage (I guess they still are), and an Illuminati-themed version was made called Illuminati: New World Order. I briefly got into it, but I never had enough cards to make a really competitive deck. I remember liking it though.

Although it’s been 20 years since I’ve played any version of Illuminati, this game will always have a special place in my heart for all the zany, subversive fun it has provided.


#6 Cosmic Encounter

This is a game that was hugely popular in my college years. It is very chaotic and luck based, unlike the kinds of games that are popular today. It also has a storied history, with many different editions published as the rights passed from game company to game company.

Back in those days, we would have considered this game, and games like Illuminati and Nuclear War, to be “medium weight,” or games to play when you only had a couple of hours, not a whole day. They were all random and chaotic, too, but that was how we liked our games back then.

I first played the original Eon edition with a group of college friends. The game has a goofy space conquest theme, and each player has one or two Alien powers. Each power comes with a matching card called a Flare. In this edition, you didn’t discard the Flares when you played them, which made them more powerful (and also made sense given the name). Later editions made it so that the Flares were one time use.

I know I’ve played the West End version, but the one that I’ve played the most is the Mayfair edition. I own a copy, with all the expansions stuffed into the main box, well worn from many, many plays. Even after I graduated from college, I was able to find players throughout the 1990s.

We had a game group at one my old jobs where we played at lunch time every Wednesday. This was actually at the dawn of the Eurogame era, and we played games like Settlers of Catan as well, but since we were older generation, we were comfortable with a game in the older style. When we played Cosmic, in order to expedite game play we would pick our Alien powers ahead of time. One of the guys in our group created a Unix program that generated random powers. Once we each picked our powers, then he would set the game up, including the Flares, so it would all be ready to go when our lunch break began.

In the 2000s, I haven’t had as much luck getting this game to the table. I played the Fantasy Flight version once but wasn’t thrilled, probably because I only played the base game. The few times that I’ve brought Cosmic to the table in recent years, it hasn’t caught on. I think it is too chaotic for today’s gamers, who are used to games which accomodate sure-footed strategizing. In Cosmic Encounter, the luck of the draw can overwhelmingly favor one player over the others. Some combos are insanely powerful, and others weak and ineffective. But I’ve always loved how frenzied and chaotic this game is, and would gladly play it, with all expansions, any time anyone asked.

I Can’t See Good and It Makes Me Cranky!

I Can’t See Good and It Makes Me Cranky!

My vision started deteriorating when I turned 50 years old. Before that, I had never needed any kind of visual correction. But, almost as if a switch got flipped on my 50th birthday, and the warranty on my eyes expired, my eyesight got progressively worse as I aged into my fifties. It got to the point that I needed corrective lenses to drive safely. I also needed reading glasses to read, including reading small text like preparation instructions on food packaging. I’m sure you other oldsters are familiar with this experience.

Now I constantly juggle among three sets of glasses: a prescription pair for getting about in the space of life, and essential for both driving and watching TV; another prescription pair for the computer (with the blue light filter); and then generic reading glasses for books and sometimes the cell phone. I should probably use the computer glasses with the cell phone, but some apps have such small fonts that I need better magnification to clearly read the text. It seems the only time I’m not wearing glasses is when I’m showering, or when I’m sleeping.

The worst part of it is that I have terrible double vision at medium and long distances. My prescription actually doesn’t do much for the focus of my eyes, but it has a feature called prism which bends the light going into one eye, fixing the double vision. Without it, I see double, which is incredibly annoying, and also makes it impossible to drive a car. So I’d better not lose those glasses.

It’s so bad, and so frustrating, that I’ve started seeing a visual therapist. My diagnosis is a turned eye – technically ‘esotropia,’ meaning the eye turns inward. My therapy consists of exercises to train my eyes on convergence and divergence (turning in and turning out), and also to work on my hand-eye and foot-eye coordination. My therapist wants to build new neural paths in my eye-brain system, and believes that working on my overall physical coordination is an important part of that.

So now our house has eye charts and patterns of shapes taped to the walls, and the family gets to watch me do fun, goofy exercises, and hear me reciting letters to the beat of a metronome. So far, I have noticed only a slight improvement; I seem to be able to fix my double vision at some distances, so long as I strain my eyes. But that’s still annoying, and my eyes are tired all the time, which I know is because I spend so much time looking at a computer screen, but that’s my work and my life, so what am I supposed to do?

I wake up with tired eyes, and can’t see straight, and stumble through my morning routine. When I need to find things, I have to strain my eyes, and turn my head, in an attempt to correct my double vision. It can make me quite cranky sometimes.

I’ve thought about how my double vision might relate to chakra health. Vision is connected to Ajna, the third-eye chakra, which is the seat of the intellect (the mind’s eye, as they say).

Maybe I see double because I can’t discern the future well. Two possible realities float in my visual field, but which one is the accurate image? What does it look like when it comes together? My vision reflects my mind’s confusion and uncertainty over the state of the world, in these uncertain times.

That could just be me overthinking things. Also not good for the third-eye chakra, I’m sure.

Apologies for the whiny post, but I am here to chronicle the changing times, which includes chronicling my own deterioration with age, as I already began to do years ago.

Why Did You Give Up, America?

Why Did You Give Up, America?

aka: Barnett is back!

Twenty years ago (was it really that long ago?) a geostrategist named Thomas P. M. Barnett pubished a book titled The Pentagon’s New Map. He introduced a new way of thinking about geostrategy in the post-Cold War era. Instead of seeing the world as divided between East and West – the old Soviet bloc vs. U.S. bloc – it made sense to see the world divided between the “Core” of functioning globalized states and the “Gap” of disconnected, poorly governed (or ungoverned) states that weren’t (yet) integrated with the global economy.

Barnett’s book emerged out of a famous (in some circles) presentation on C-Span in 2004. The new map in question was based on a look at all the places where the U.S. military had intervened since the fall of the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s. They were all places in the Gap, essentially the part of the world that was most in need of security. The U.S., as the sole superpower to survive the Cold War, was the planet’s premier provider of security.

Logically, the strategic mission of the United States should be to “shrink the Gap” by working to economically integrate these failed states with the rest of the world. This would mean fewer military interventions in the long run. It would fulfill the post-World War II promise of the U.S. using its formidable military power to protect free markets around the globe.

You can see how this line of thinking might have dovetailed with Bush’s Iraq War, ostensibly an effort to replace a dictatorship in the Gap with a democratic state. Barnett was a rising star in the Bush era, and I followed him closely, including reading all of his books. I reviewed The Pentagon’s New Map here on this blog back in 2018, noting at the same time that with the failure of the nation-building efforts in SW Asia (mission not accomplished), his whole line of thinking kind of fell to the wayside. He didn’t post as much on his blog any more, and I lost track of him.

Then I discovered that he is on Substack now, and is promoting a new book. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to have found him there – Substack seems to be where all the intellectual Gen Xers and Boomers have gone to publish and promote their work, now that the other platforms have devolved into A.I.-generated troll farms. Barnett is in fact an Xer, born in 1962.

Here is the post I encountered: The case for Chinese global leadership.

From what I can tell, he is arguing that while the U.S. has withdrawn from the world since the Crisis Era began, China continues the process of integrating with the economies of the Gap (now called the Global South). The Global South welcomes, indeed depends upon, this integration, and so China is emerging as a new global leader, now that America has given up. Barnett, of course, doesn’t refer to the Crisis Era of turnings theory as I just did, but he does mark the 2008 Global Financial Crisis as the turning point, so he is essentially in agreement with the timeline of the generational theory, if not the underlying model.

Here’s a quote from his post:

As I have noted here in the past: America was the market-maker in the system from 1945 to 2008’s Great Recession. Since then we have elected nation-building-at-home presidents (Obama, Trump, Biden) and have largely eschewed any role in promoting global trade integration — just the opposite. Instead of re-injecting just enough market-playing, I’m-in-this-for-myself vibes to rebalance our global posture between looking out for the world and looking out for ourselves, we Americans naturally go overboard in our reaction. We cannot merely adjust; we must pull a 180 and denounce all that came before (Globalization was a lie!). It’s just how we be.

So why did we go overboard (as Barnett puts it) in this country, becoming so obsessed with our Culture Wars divisions that we can’t even form a stable government or coherent national strategy? Overreacting to trends and overcorrecting, I think, comes with the generational cycle, and we might be more vulnerable to this cycle because we are a young settler nation that emerged from radical ideas of freedom and equality, and not bound by any long tradition.

We are also saddled with a Constitutional system that doesn’t work with an even two-party split. The checks and balances lead to paralysis when there is no majority party to assert its agenda. How we got to a 50-50 split, rather than a more workable 60-40 split, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s some natural law of partisanship, a strange attractor in the chaotic system that is modern society. Worst case scenario, a shadowy group is orchestrating it – but that’s just conspiracy thinking.

It also occurs to me that the U.S., being the wealthiest and most secure nation on Earth, can afford to brush off the rest of the world if it wants to. We can take our toys and go home, unlike nations that are caught in conflict regions or heavily dependent on trade. We can obsess on our internal problems, since we don’t realistically face much pressure from the external world. That we choose to do so is us exercising a kind of privilege.

As for our little internal thing that we’re struggling with, well, I think Barnett nails it with this post: The radical-acceptance election – A very uncomfortable truth is that this race is all about race.

He just puts it bluntly: the MAGA movement, with its Hitlerian leader promising a violent cleansing of American society, is the last bastion of white Christian supremacy, trying to stop the tide of non-whites and non-Christians from rising up and claiming their share of freedom and equality and their part in the American dream. He gets the generational aspect of it, recognizing that with Boomers and Xers at the top, the internal struggle will continue. And he gets the high stakes of it – neither side is going to back down.

I’m just glad Barnett ends up on the same side as me, because if he had turned out to be a Trump supporter, I probably wouldn’t have subscribed to his substack.

Oh, who am I kidding: of course I would have subscribed, just to get this brilliant man’s take on current events from that perspective. He’s got a head full of ideas that go against the grain of conventional thinking, and his arguments are always eye-opening for me. I’ve ordered a copy of his new book, and look forward to reading more of his substack posts in the future.

My Sky-Watcher Life List Gets Two Checkmarks in One Week!

My Sky-Watcher Life List Gets Two Checkmarks in One Week!

I just wanted to post about this on my blog, for the record. I’ve already shared these pictures on social media, on the nights in question.

And it’s not that I actually have a sky-watcher life list where I’m checking off the things I’ve seen in the sky, it’s just interesting that in the space of one week I’ve seen two different celestial phenomena (doot – doo – doo – doo – do) for the first time in my life.


#1 was the Aurora Borealis, which I always figured I would first see on some trip to a northern latitude, if I ever got around to visiting Alaska or Iceland or somewhere like that. I’ve long wanted to witness what I imagined would be a surreal experience of waves and bands of vibrant color in the night sky, and I was excited to learn that, because of solar flares and the resulting geomagentic storms, the northern lights would be visible in lower latitudes.

People all over the U.S. were already posting pictures of them on social media, but any time there was a heads up that it was a particularly good night for viewing them where I live, it would turn out to be overcast, or I might not get the info in time. Then, last Thursday, when Aileen and I were at an invited dress rehearsal, I overheard people in the audience mentioning the northern lights during intermission. At the end of the show, out in the parking lot, I looked up but didn’t see anything.

But then on the drive home, we did see them! Aileen kindly pulled over at a spot that had a good vantage point and I got some pictures. It was a very cold night, so it kind of felt like I had achieved going to a northern latitude to see the Aurora Borealis without actually travelling anywhere.


#2 was Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS. I was so happy to get a look at it, because I remember the excitement I felt at the prospect of spotting Comet Neowise in 2020. We had all that free time because of the pandemic! But it didn’t come to pass, though Aileen and I did go out for looking for it that summer. Possibly it was too faint and we needed to get to a spot with absolutely no light, or possibly we needed a telescope.

When I heard about this new comet, I put the mid-October dates that were best for viewing it on my calendar. It would be visible about 40 minutes after sunset, not too far off the western horizon. On October 15, unfortunately, the western sky was filled with clouds and I knew there was no chance. But on October 16, the sky was completely clear.

At Gavin’s suggestion, I drove out a ways into farm country, and pulled off at a side road where I had a nice view of the sky. It was 40 minutes after sunset, but I didn’t see anything. Based on an article I had saved, I figured out where the comet should be roughly, based on the position of Venus. While I was away from the light pollution in our town, there was also a full moon, which lit up the sky quite nicely, complicating the viewing for me.

As time passed, the sky darkened and stars began to appear. I noticed what looked like a faint streak in the sky at about the right place. When I examined the spot with my binoculars, it turned out to be the comet! Through the binoculars, I had a really nice view. It wasn’t terribly bright, but it was distinctly a comet, with a lovely, long tail. I relished looking at it for a long while, despite the cold.

Though it was only barely visible with the naked eye, my smartphone picked it up well enough with its night vision mode.


Well, there you have it. In the space of a week, I witnessed the northern lights and a comet, both for the first in my life.

Who knows what wonders lie ahead?

SNL 50, Featuring the Prophet Archetype in the Crisis Era

SNL 50, Featuring the Prophet Archetype in the Crisis Era

Last weekend we watched the latest episode of Saturday Night Live, proudly in its 50th season. We didn’t watch it live, but on the Peacock streaming service, on Sunday evening. The host was the very talented Arianna Grande (b. 1993), of the Millennial generation, and the musical guest was Baby Boomer Stevie Nicks (b. 1948).

In her opening monologue, Grande joked about not wanting to upstage the musical guest, but then promptly burst into song. She is an amazing singer, as well as an amazing actor, and I was honestly worried she would be a hard act for the septuagenerian musical guest to follow.

Well, I shouldn’t have been worrying, because Nicks stepped up with a powerful performance of her song “The Lighthouse,” a political anthem and call-to-action, written after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Dressed all in black, on a barely lit stage, she embodied the dark and foreboding mood of her generation, which has always been at the forefront of angry political protest.

They’ll take your soul, they’ll take your power
Unless you stand up and take it back
Try to see the future and get mad

In the generational theory I often advocate on this blog, the Boomer generation, of which Nicks is a member, has the Prophet archetype – moralistic, values-obsessed, known more for words than for deeds. And with her long, flowing gray locks, Nicks sure looked like a Prophetess as she sang out her warning cry.

Now in elderhood, Boomers are facing their final chance to impress upon younger generations the importance of their message. You can feel the sense of urgency in Nicks’s lyrics.

It’s slipping through your fingers, you don’t have what you had
You don’t have much time to get it back

A video of the performance follows, with full lyrics (the closed captions on YouTube are a bit off). This is really just so Boomer generation.

I have my scars, you have yours
Don’t let them take your power
Don’t leave it alone in the final hours
They’ll take your soul, they’ll take your power
Don’t close your eyes and hope for the best
The dark is out there, the light is going fast
Until the final hours, your life’s forever changed
And all the rights that you had yesterday
Are taken away
And now you’re afraid
You should be afraid
Should be afraid
Because everything I fought for
Long ago in a dream is gone
Someone said the dream is not over
The dream has just begun, or
Is it a nightmare?
Is it a lasting scar?
It is unless you save it and that’s that
Unless you stand up and take it back
And take it back
I have my scars, you have yours
Don’t let them take your power
Don’t leave it alone in the final hours
They’ll take your soul, they’ll take your power
Unless you stand up and take it back
Try to see the future and get mad
It’s slipping through your fingers, you don’t have what you had
You don’t have much time to get it back
I wanna be the lighthouse
Bring all of you together
Bring it out in a song
Bring it out in stormy weather
Tell them the story

A Board Game that Takes All Day to Play: Yes, Please!

A Board Game that Takes All Day to Play: Yes, Please!

As already noted, I am putting together a GeekList of the top 10 games on my BGG user profile. This next one, Civilization, is #7 on my list, and is the third one mentioned on this blog that comes from game company Avalon Hill (the other two are Titan and Diplomacy). I should note that being #7 on the list does not make this my 7th favorite game; the list is ordered from newest game to oldest game. So it just means it’s a game I’ve been playing for a long time.

I don’t remember if I played Civilization in high school, but I definitely did a lot in college. There was a group of us guys from our gaming club, called the Wargamers Club, that would play all day on Saturday in our dormitory. Yeah, we were a bunch of nerds alright. While our peers were out in the sunshine doing sports or whatever, we would spend 10+ hours focused on a board game. Because that is how long a game of Civilization takes to play. But it’s such a good game, that it is worth the time. At least, to me it is. I actually enjoy playing a game that takes a whole day to finish.

This game, as its title and box art suggest, simulates the rise of ancient civilizations in the old world. The board is a map of the lands around the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the fertile crescent in the modern Middle East. You play one of the well-known civil societies or empires of ancient times, such as Egypt or Assyria. You spread across the world, build cities, trade resources, and develop techonologies. Sometimes you have a little conflict with other civilizations, but there is not much war in this particular game. However, there are calamities like earthquakes and civil disorder that alter the board.

Unlike the other older games on this list, Civilization is one I’ve kept getting back to through my whole life, albeit much less frequently than in college. It seems like once every few years throughout the 2000s, someone would host a game, including me sometimes. I even wrote a helpful post with advice on what was needed for a succesful game, in the form of a review: So you want to play Civilization…

I think a big part of what keeps me coming back to this game is that it is fun to play even if you fall behind and are likely to lose in the end. You know you will lose, and the game has hours left to go, but it’s still enjoyable to do what you can to build up your own civilization. Plus there’s the fun of seeing the calamities come out and reshape the board every turn.

There have been expansions to the game, which extend the map and add resources, as well as reimplementations which slightly alter the rules. Personally, I only own the original, base game, though I have played other versions on occasion. Most recently, when I’ve played, it has been one of these new versions where the map is extended to pretty much cover all of Eurasia and North Africa, and the game can accomodate a huge number of players.

There was a game convention some time in the 2010s where I first learned about these reimplementations. I found out some folks were playing Mega Civilization, and I wanted in! We played on the last day of the convention, a Sunday, for over 12 hours. I did not mind at all using up one entire day of the convention for this purpose.

Mega Civilization can accomodate up to 18 players, but we had about 12 or so, which was still a huge number and just made the game that much more fun, to me. I played again at the same con some years later. Then, after I moved to Pennsylvania in 2018, I played again at a convention in this region.

The last time I played was in 2023, though it was yet another reimplementation, Mega Empires: The West. Played for an entire Saturday, just like in the good old days. I was in last place, but still had a great time.

They keep tweaking the original game, but these new versions remain the same in spirit. They evoke the same joy while playing them – as well as requiring the same stamina – that I recall from my gaming youth.

Setting up a game of Mega Civilization at a gaming convention.