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And So, Dear Friends
War
And So, Dear Friends
You’ll just have to carry on.
(BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The dream is over. Since my last column the Trump administration has bombed Iran, incurring goodness knows how many years of ill will among the otherwise aloof and cynical Iranian population while setting back the country’s nuclear program by about five minutes. Blowback? This is more like “blowing it forward,” making sure that every stupid thing our government does will be repaid in kind—not to us directly, of course, but to our troops stationed in other countries half a world away, to say nothing of our allies who find themselves in much closer proximity to the mullahs’ rockets.
Calling foreign policy in Trump’s second term disappointing is a ridiculous understatement, like saying that Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror is “slightly worse” than the original or finding Ringo Starr’s 21 solo albums “somewhat inferior” to Revolver. As I write this, the administration is floating the possibility of an actual honest-to-goodness American occupation of Gaza. Could this be what “American First” actually meant?
Seriously, though—we all knew better, didn’t we? Most Republicans in office don’t believe in “realism and restraint” any more than they did balanced budgets when those were a thing (very briefly) under Obama. The short-lived intellectual Trumpist movement currently has about as much influence now as the Freemen’s Protective Silver Federation.
Instead the actual non-interventionist coalition is made up of exactly the same people who belonged to it 20 years ago. Real ones remember: cranky academic New Left holdouts, minarchists, seasteading freakazoids from the Society for Creative Anachronism, aging hippie types, guys with HAM radio setups, subscribers to the Whole Earth Catalog, regional rail enthusiasts, compulsive repairers of vacuum tubes, the occasional WASP diplomat with impeccable sailing hair. This is to say nothing of the genuine paleos—hopeless, blinkered dead-enders—still trying to revive the economic and social policies of the Mesozoic Era, and writing with tragic sincerity about colloidal silver and the virtues of front porches. God bless you all.
As I said, the overwhelming majority of Republicans don’t care about these things. Instead, well—have you heard of Sydney Sweeney? The actress (with whose oeuvre I am sadly unfamiliar) recently appeared in an advertisement for American Eagle, the mall store where some of you might remember buying jeans back when there were malls. For a few heady days there I wondered whether any of the MAGA heads talking about the restoration of “civilizational confidence” or whatever would think to mention that these “all-American” jeans are made in places like Bangladesh. Stupid of me, I know.
The single most irritating thing about conservatives is not their sub-five-second attention spans or their inability to name a country on a map; it’s that they think everything is supposed to be some kind of “turning point.” The current one is what they call being “post-woke,” by which they seem to mean a world in which we lost the culture war to Howard Stern (who himself just lost his radio show) rather than Hillary Clinton.
I first noticed this a few years ago, after the release of the new Top Gun. “Finally,” a million brave ones announced simultaneously, “We’re going to have fun again.” I myself skipped this exercise in compulsory mirth, but three years later I cannot help but observe how eerily similar the response is to another ’80s IP revival, the Liam Neeson Naked Gun. “Finally,” they moo, “we’re going to laugh again.” Excuse me? Who wasn’t laughing in 2024? Next year, when the inevitable Revenge of the Nerds remake arrives, complete with tired jokes about pronouns and AI and perhaps even a towel scene cameo from Miss Sweeney, it will be more of the same. “Finally,” they’ll say, “we’re going to be cool.” Wrong, Albert (that’s a quote). Conservatives will never be cool. Was Nixon cool? Is having nuanced opinions about the Jones Act cool? Is it cool to write a monograph about Woodrow Wilson? Is it cool to stand up in a room full of frat boys and say, in all seriousness, “The good jeans are not made in Bangladesh”?
The above musings probably suggest that I am about as fun as cancer. The truth is just that, like all millennials, I’m getting old. Not long ago I turned on American Idiot in the hope of channeling some of the old “No Blood For Oil” energy. Would you believe me if I said that this surprisingly decent collection of pop-punk suites which defined the Bush years for a certain kind of person is now older than Born in the U.S.A. was when American Idiot came out? Tempus fugit &c.
I am afraid that this column must end on an elegiac note. After seven hale and hearty years as the best bar in downtown Three Rivers, Michigan, Rooster’s Wing Shack is closing its doors. Since the announcement was made a few weeks ago, I have attended at least three going away parties for various members of the staff. Part of me hopes that these will continue indefinitely. Elton John announced his final show at Wembley Empire Pool, London, in 1977, a few months after the release of the first Star Wars film. That was something like 40 tours and two Vegas residencies ago.
Either way, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the owners and staff for everything—especially the serial loans of phone chargers, the gift of various Wi-Fi passwords, and the surprisingly excellent acoustics of the men’s bathroom from which I have given countless radio interviews. Goodbye Bud Light Lady, goodbye Boring Bicycle Man, goodbye Z., goodbye “Pig’s Boy” Brady, goodbye Jack, goodbye S. and J. and M. These are the saddest words I can imagine typing.
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