After Trump intervened with FIFA to overturn a red card, the USMT still lost. It was as though the Greek goddess Nemesis had intervened.
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Tag Archives: Donald Trump
U.S. Soccer and the Ancient Mariner’s Curse
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged F. Scott Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, U.S Men’s Team, World Cup Leave a comment
Trump’s Punishment
From early in Trump’s first term, I was comparing him to Milton’s Satan.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Anthony Trollope, Beowulf, Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, John Milton, Paradise Lost, resentment, ressentiment, Small House at Allingham Comments closed
DJT and Hegseth, Utopians of Violence
Think of DJT and Hegseth as (to cite Timothy Snyder) “utopians of violence.” Cormac McCarthy explores the phenomenon in “Blood Meridian.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy, Gunfighter Nation, January 6, Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove, Regeneration through Violence, Richard Slotkin, stochastic terrorism, utopia of violence, violence Comments closed
What to Make of the Resurgence of Macho
With Pete Hegseth’s over-the-top exhibition of macho, I look at the history of literary cuckold jokes, which reveal the anxieties of insecure men.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged As You Like It, Canterbury Tales, Christopher Marlowe, Country Wife, cuckold jokes, cuckolds, cuckservatives, Doctor Faustus, Geoffrey Chaucer, Miller's Tale, Othello, Pete Hegseth, William Shakespeare, William Wycherley Comments closed
“Parasite and Tool of a Proud Tyrant”
Dickens’s “Dombey and Son” captures the relationship between a tyrant and his sycophant—not unlike what we are seeing in the White House these days.
The Odyssey, U.S. Fascism, and the Iran War
Two recent applications of the Odyssey: Elon Musk complaining about a Black actress and Jay Kuo applying the poem to Trump’s Iran troubles.
The Loneliness of the Tyrant
Trump is a Richard III figure. A Robert Hayden poem tells us how to counter him.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Richard III, Robert Hayden, Stephen Colbert, William Shakespeare Comments closed
A GOP Pol Pays for Relinquishing the Ring
Tom Massie once warned quoted Tolkien on the corrupting nature of power. Unfortunately, Republicans enamored with power yesterday booted him from the House.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Power, Tom Massie Comments closed
It Was the Worst of Times: Gilded Age Redux
As the U.S. engineers a second Gilded Age and Trump fantasizes about ballrooms and monuments, it’s time to revisit Tale of Two Cities.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Charles Dickens, Gilded Age, Tale of Two Cities, wealth inequality Comments closed