You're reading the Today's Opinions newsletter: Sign up to get it delivered to your inbox.
I hope history doesn't repeat itself
During D-Day commemorations like Thursday's 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, it's easy to imagine the United States at that time free of all the divisions that plague the country today.
Not so, Jean Robinson reminds us. During World War II, the country was still recovering from the Great Depression and bitterly fighting over the New Deal. Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to run for a third term as president provoked cries of “whatever rage and apocalypticism we will hear in 2024,” Jean writes. The America First movement (sound familiar?) vociferously opposed U.S. entry into the war.
And D-Day itself was riven by America's social divisions: look at the all-black 320th Air Defense Artillery Battalion.
Only fighting abroad has brought the country together at home. Next time, Jean writes, we will simply chafe at our differences, for “it is inconceivable that a world war will again be the furnace that brings the nation together.”
One of the essentials to avoiding a global war is to avoid one in the Taiwan Strait, where China has become increasingly creative and ambitious in its efforts to impose a “one country, two systems” model on Taiwan similar to the one it adopted with Hong Kong.
Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd has said these efforts lie in the “grey zone” between peace and war, while China is openly preparing for war. Rudd has outlined a broad “total deterrence equation” that the world must solve to maintain peace in the region.
So here we are again, at the anniversary of the Great Depression. Sunday marked five years since a million people in Hong Kong peacefully took to the streets to protest a proposed law that would allow the extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China. Keith Richburg watched the protests from one of the city's footbridges, and what he saw was moving, even beautiful.
Protesters won a halt to the Hong Kong National Security Law, but at a great cost, Keith writes from Hong Kong: “These demonstrations, and the more violent protests that followed, sparked a remaking of Hong Kong in China's authoritarian image and the enactment of a draconian national security law.”
Five years on, Keith is filled with questions of “what if?” Would Hong Kong have been saved from its current suffering? Five years on, are we asking the same questions about Taiwan, and about America?
From David Von Drehle's column on the giant's newly reported annual losses – its first of the 21st century, but certainly not its last. David writes that the economic collapse is both Vladimir Putin's fault and evidence of his “catastrophic stupidity.”
Gazprom was Russia's “one economic light,” David said, and no leader who is fully aware that Russia is (in Sen. John McCain's famous words) a “gas station disguised as a state” would allow Gazprom's aggression to spread and snuff it out.
David predicts the pain that awaits the Russian people, analyzes what it means that even Russian insiders are admitting this failure in the Western media, and concludes with suggestions for what President Biden should do with this opportunity. Hint: The world needs natural gas right now, and the United States has it.
The Chaser: In a move that seems like a shot in the foot for moneymakers, Katherine Rampell writes that Republicans are once again trying to defund the IRS by pursuing tax policies that are nearly the opposite of what voters want.
While Biden was effusively singing praises on the beaches of Normandy, former President Donald Trump was in Phoenix calling the United States a “failed nation.”
You can't blame him. As Dana Milbank writes, “Lofty ideals are foreign to Trump; he only serves causes bigger than himself.” Remember when, as president, Trump refused to visit the American military cemetery in France because it was full of “idiots” and “losers”?
Unfortunately, Dana writes, his perspective has narrowed since then, and “his message has only grown more vulgar.” The rest of Dana's column is a nauseating chronicle of the revenge and blame that Trump and his supporters have promised this week.
The university committed itself to progressive politics, but Israel is now prompting a rethink, writes Jason Willick. The editorial board presents a better way than Biden's executive order to fix the border. The Biden administration is the most progressive in U.S. history, writes George Will. (And he doesn't mean this as a compliment.)
It's goodbye. It's a haiku. It's… “goodbye.”
Plus! A Fri-ku! from reader Leonora O.
Power is not justice
Have a newsy haiku of your own? Please email me with any questions, comments, or concerns you may have. Have a wonderful weekend of reflection.
