Tag Archives: Trump

Slaying the Gender Binary – with E!

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(The new novel, E Unum Pluribus, is narrated by Jack Shirley, an office intern whose gender behavior doesn’t always fit the expectations common in contemporary Amero-European culture.  Anticipating that Jack’s character may arouse comment, this is one in a series of posts sharing the author’s thoughts around those expectations.)

A previous post on this site* made the case that the best way to move beyond the simplistic convention of binary gender is not to start recognizing an array of new genders, each of which may desire its own names and terms – names and terms which could one day prove as dysfunctional as it would seem in this decade to call a group of people ‘beatniks’ because the males trim their beards into goatees and the females wear long, straight hair with blunt-cut bangs.

Rather than coming up with more ways to divide people from each other by slotting us into new groups, a more promising approach is to recognize and honor the deep truth that every individual is unique through use of gender-free nouns – person, human, individual – and gender-freeing pronouns as the initial and default assumption for all of us.

(I use the pronouns E, em and eir in my examples not because they are the only possibilities, but because I find them the most natural to speak.  I type the ‘E’ in upper case to make being referred to as ‘E’ feel every bit as respectful as referring to oneself using ‘I.’  Ultimately, of course, it is up to the entire community of English language users to decide what words become common, as it is with every other evolution of our shared language).

E is about everyone being an individual first and foremost, before they are a member of any group.

E means accepting that there will be some individuals who do not readily fit one’s own expectations for ‘man’ or ‘woman’ – or who actively choose not to aim for either of those expectations – and in those cases continuing to use gender-free language to facilitate respectful communication without any party feeling either dishonest or compelled against their principles.

E is about empowering every individual regardless of whether their appearance or behavior complies with anyone else’s idea of what they are ‘supposed to be.’  About treating persons equally regardless of how much they seem like us, or different from us.  About not assuming that the choices we make for ourselves would be better for them than their own choices. 

E is about treating all persons equally, regardless of their chromosomes, the reproductive cells their body puts out (or doesn’t), the secondary sex characteristics others see on them or how others may criticize those characteristics.

E isn’t about eliminating ‘man/men’ and ‘woman/women.’ It just means using those and their corresponding gendered pronouns only if/when it is clear that is how the individual in consideration wishes to be identified. 

E does nothing to prevent persons who wish to be recognized as ‘man’ or ‘women’ from using the multitude of possible cues to make that clear.  (Nor does it discourage persons making themselves recognizable as proud military veterans, as nerds or geeks or football fans or soccer moms; a prairie wife, Amish farmer, Orthodox Jew, Evangelical Christian, conservative, progressive, queer, jazzman, Deadhead or… the list goes on forever.) 

E is a reminder and a tool to treat any more specific identity as part of being an individual, a person, a human being; not a substitute.

E is for every one of us!  

*Previous post: Getting to Binary, https://robinandrew.net/2026/09/04/getting-to-binary/

P. S. – E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way in which our current ‘culture wars’ may bring an end to the U. S. A., and what might come in its wake. With a thrilling plot driven by politics and economics (as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith) the novel is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to thehome page of this wewbsite and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

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A Tale of Two Cities

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A novel reflection of its time – and of ours!

Ah, a ‘Classic.’  One of those volumes you pick up because, – well, because you were supposed to have read it long ago but didn’t and instead used the Classics Illustrated version to eke out a book report, and now that you’ve visited the cities where it takes place and the home of the author and are seeing history repeat itself every day all around you (and not in the good ways…).  Confession over, this just seemed like a good time to finally make the effort.

And an effort it is, given Dickens’ pacing – a simple statement by one of his characters may take a full page of text, or several.  There’s a frustrating prissiness, also, to the language: no one ever seems to say anything directly, they’re constantly alluding to the subject, circling around the point and adjectivizing till the cows come home too late for the ball.

Character development is fairly rudimentary here as well. The eventual hero, Sydney Carton, seems to have accepted himself from the start as a dishonorable failure, for no documented reason. That the others tolerate his sullen and self-pitying presence must be assumed to reflect their Good Christian Upbringing and duty of charity (granted, attorney Lorry also finds him a cheap and useful lackey).  Romantic lead Charles Darnay, clearly intended to be a decent man wrongly accused and sentenced, is little more than a cipher; too honorable to be credible and yet very happy to passively accept the good fortune others keep shoving his way.  Lovely Lucie Manette is given little to do but swoon and faint and stand by her man Darnay, while her father, “the Good Doctor” Manette, comes off as Mother Theresa in tweeds.  Perhaps the most fully conceived character is Ernest Defarge, Manette’s former servant and now wine merchant/revolutionary, whose dueling loyalties to his old master and to The Revolution cause him more internal conflict (and this reader more extended interest) than any of the others.  Ernest’s wife, the infamous Madame Defarge, is as bloodily single-minded as he is conflicted, making their odd coupling far more intriguing than Darney and Lucie’s butterflies-circling-round-the-head romance can ever be.

Dickens does paint a vivid picture of a nation tearing itself to pieces, effectively contrasting the arrogant inbred presumptuousness of French aristocracy with the abject poverty and hopelessness of the nation’s peasants and slumdwellers. That the aristocrats of his native Britain come off more sympathetically may be due to nationalist pride, or the fact that their system started working toward a semblance of equality nearly six hundred years before the start of the French eruption.  Either way, this is fiction with a social conscience and Dickens clearly hoped to educate his 1859 audience to the very real issues behind the headline excitement of guillotine and barricades. Dickens wrote this roughly 70 years after the Reign of Terror; George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London came roughly sixty years after that and we are now about a hundred years after Orwell watching the rise of a new aristocracy fueled by private equity and technology monopolism suggest that neither France, nor once-great Britain nor the smoldering USA have learned much from Paris’ example.

Knowing all along how the story is going to end (thank you again, Classics Illustrated) does take away some drama its original audience would have experienced.  Even allowing that, the genteel way in which this tale circles to its last page, the very late injection of a poor damned damsel to ease Carton’s heart, and even Carton’s final oration amount more to a tailing-off than a climax. That the famous “It is a far, far better thing I do…” speech turns out to have been an unspoken exercise in self-praise colors its inspirational value with a heavy dose of narcissism; a coloration the more striking given that today’s most prominent nouveau-aristocrat makes daily display of the very same failing.

Charles Dickens is too long gone from this earth, and his place in literary history far to secure, for anything I say to harm his emotions, legacy or purse. In full expectation, then, that the world will forever rate A Tale of Two Cities a far, far better novel than any I may ever write, I’ll settle for confirming that it is a classic, but largely a period piece. Valuable more for what it shows of the era in which it was written and acclaimed – and perhaps as a nineteenth-century equivalent of today’s on-line influencer marketplace by having first been self-published in serial format – than for the actual experience of reading it.

P.S. – speaking of serialization: the new speculative fiction, E Unum Pluribus, is currently available online, in six free installments.

Packed with intrigue and fueled by politics, economics and murder (as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith), E Unum Pluribus imagines how the USA’s current ‘culture wars’ may bring about its end, and what sort of institutions might rise from its rubble.  Anyone can read this novel totally for free simply by navigating to the home page of this website and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

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Wall Street Journey – an uber-capitalist’s eyes are opened, at last

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BREAKING NEWS! Gerard Baker, ex Editor in Chief and now Editor at Large of the Wall Street Journal, in a recent Opinion piece in that paper*, has concluded that the current workings of the American financial and governing system are rigged in favor of wealthy citizens and institutions!

Duh-uh!

Throughout known history, starting even before the days of kings and empires, the vast majority of governments have had one overriding purpose: to preserve the power and wealth of their rulers.

From its founding, the USA was intended to be profoundly different: a representatively-democratic republic whose government would serve the interests of all its people. Today, after more than two centuries of striving, stumbling and revising toward that goal, it is clear to most observers that our economic and electoral systems – and especially the current administration’s twisted vision for them – have been perverted to a degree which threatens the very survival of our nation and legacy. The only thing newsworthy about Mr. Baker’s opinion is that it comes from such an entrenched member of the financial elite as himself.

For decades, people like Mr. Baker and institutions like the WSJ have decried progressive policies as governmental ‘transfers of wealth’ even as the record of income and asset distribution shows their prolonged application of ‘supply side’ and ‘market driven’ policies have been relentlessly transferring a vast portion of the nation’s wealth (and thus its power) away from the masses who live paycheck to paycheck and into the hands of the most wealthy few, the owners of corporate and property assets.

Tardy as Mr. Baker’s conversion is, it can yet serve a useful purpose by reminding us all that from now through November Third – and thereafter, at least through the crucial election of 2028 – thoughtful voters must support candidates who will work to dilute the power of corporations, proto-monopolies, venture capital, hedge funds and the ultra-wealthy. We must stop electing legislators who will promote anti-worker and anti-household policies in spite of the repeated and continuing failure of those policies to achieve their stated objectives.

(Remember: the real reason supply/market policies are perennially pushed and enacted by the power brokers is that they are actually achieving their unstated objectives: to ensure and increase the wealth and power of the already wealthy and powerful.)

P. S. – To explore a different way in which our current ‘winner take all’ politics may play out and just how extensive the resulting damage would be, read E Unum Pluribus. This new speculative fiction is offered as a cautionary tale, while there is still time to avoid anything like the events it imagines. E Unum Pluribus is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to the the home page of this website and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

*Link to Mr. Baker’s piece: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-to-cure-what-ails-american-capitalism-52d97161?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

**Special thanks to Robert Reich, without whose Substack I’d be unaware of Mr. Baker’s sudden conversion, seeing as how I am not normally a WSJ reader. See robertreich@substack.com, 2026-08-20, ‘Corporate America EXPOSED! (In the most unlikely place)’

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e ain’t Woke – (You can’t diversify, equitize or inclusive-ize what you don’t first label).

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Between a recent post emphasizing the distinction between a person’s ‘sex’ and that same person’s ‘gender’*, the earlier post entitled ‘e is an Enabler’**, and a few passages in the novel E Unum Pluribus, (currently being serialized online, for free***) it’s possible some readers might dismiss this site as just one more hotebed of Identity Politics; the tyranny of a woke liberal elite telling everyone else what to do and say and even think…

First off, labelling every person all the time as either a man/boy or a woman/girl and insisting that those labels are eternal, unchangeable and mutually exclusive – as our current Chief Executive attempted to due shortly after assuming office for the second time –  has got to be the most profound and ubiquitous instance of Identity Politics in history! 

Across uncountable generations, geography and cultures, such gender identification has served as excuse to apportion rights differently to the genders (almost always to the detriment of women…), to justify unequal treatment (ditto), to write laws (wives classified as the property of husbands, women unable to inherit and restricted in travel, dress, voting, etc.) to justify unequal prosecution, judgement and sentencing for affronts against a man versus the same affront committed on a woman, and on and on.  On that basis alone, anyone who professes to believe in stamping out ‘diversity,’ ‘equity’ and ‘inclusion’ (DEI) because they result in unequal treatment on the basis of identity should be totally on board with using non-gendered language for all official purposes.

That last phrase, ‘official purposes,’ highlights another important point: nothing written here suggests or advocates that people stop using gendered pronouns entirely.  There are plenty of instances where ‘he’, ‘she,’ ‘him,’ her’ and all their derivatives are useful and convenient because the desired gender identity of a subject person is a known fact or has been made abundantly clear by the subject’s voluntary choices and acts.

True as that is, though, it is also true that there are instances where the gender self-identity of a subject is not readily determinable except by an observer applying their own stereotypes, prejudices or preconceptions. For those instances, the use of non-gendered pronouns (e, em eir and so on, or something similar) is a simple and effective way to avoid the ‘woke’-ness of sorting individuals into identity groups and treating them differently as consequence. 

Even as English-language speakers continue to use gendered language in many or even most instances, there is real freedom and justice to be gained by using non-gendered language when drafting laws and policies whose intent/content do not truly depend upon a person’s gender expression (which is very nearly all laws and policies, really).  And also, to use such non-gendered language whenever one does not yet know the gender self-image of a person or where a person has made clear that e does not choose to conform to the ‘gender’ stereotypes of others. This small addition to our quiver of words is actually a worthy way to avoid and reduce Identity Politics.

Using ‘e’ ain’t woke, it’s a path to more effective communication, an enabler of individual freedom and simply one tiny increment in the ongoing and perpetual evolution of perhaps the most useful tool we’ve inherited from generations before us: the English language.

*Humans Got Gender, https://robinandrew.net/2026/06/28/humans-got-gender/

**’e’ is an Enabler, https://robinandrew.net/2026/03/01/e-is-an-enabler/

*** E Unum Pluribus is speculative fiction, and a warning that states’ rights, religious nationalism and intentionally divisive political tactics may soon bring about the end of what George Washington termed the American nation’s “Great Experiment.”  Shining its light on what we stand to lose if we do not come together, what could rise in its place and what it would take to begin repairing the damage, this cry of alarm is currently being serialized online and is available to anyone, for free by navigating to the homepage of robinandrew.net and selecting E Unum Pluribus frmthe home page’s top menu, or via the following link:

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Humans Got Gender!

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(The new speculative fiction, E Unum Pluribus, is narrated by Jack Shirley, a bureaucratic intern whose behavior transcends gender expectations of present day Amero-European culture.  Anticipating that the character of Jack may generate comments, this and future posts will share some thoughts around those expectations.)

Look up ‘gender’ on the Internet these days and you may well encounter vehement statements to the effect that ‘gender does not exist’ or ‘there is no such thing as gender.’  What these claims seem to intend is that the concept of ‘gender’ in human beings is an imagined construct foisted on us by radical academics and activists to confuse or obscure what the commentator believes to be a real and eternal truth: that being ‘a man’ or ‘a woman’ is simply and absolutely a matter of one’s fixed and binary biological sex*. 

To that point, on the first day of his second term, Mr. Trump issued an Executive Order purporting to set the record straight on “Gender Ideology” and “Biological Truth**.”  Sex, as defined by the Order, is determined by the reproductive cells which one’s body may produce, which means it can be confirmed only by some fairly invasive medical examination and so is of no use in common daily life.  Even if we allow that the authors of that Order were just searching for a more legally-defensible way to avoid saying what they really meant – that any person who was born with an apparent penis is absolutely and forever ‘a man’ and anyone born with genitals that did not look like a penis is absolutely and forever ‘a woman’ – the same limitation is true. What sort of genitals a person carries – and even more, what their genitals looked like at birth! – is simply not determinable in any normal sort of public interaction. 

Despite that, we regularly refer to or address even total strangers as him or her, Mr., Miss, Mrs, Ms, Ma’am or even “hey Dude!”  Every time we do so, we are making assumptions based upon a variety of cues other than the form of their genitals or the reproductive cells which might issue therefrom.  What we do use in making those assumptions are a wide variety of stereotypes accumulated over the course of our lives.  A short list of attributes that can influence whether we identify an individual as man or woman might include the configuration of their garments (dress, skirt or pants; and if the latter, their fabric, colors, trim, tailoring and tightness), length and shape of one’s hairstyle (and the naturalness or artificiality of the hair’s cut, color and styling), bodily characteristics (height, bulk, proportions, muscular definition), carrying a purse in hand or a wallet in a pocket, use of cosmetics or scents (and which scent!), how they move (or throw a ball…), how they speak, what tasks they perform in the family, what outside occupation they do or do not have and even which emotions they readily express or how they express them.

Since none of those deciding factors actually involve knowledge of the person’s sexual organs/cells, the resulting assumptions about a person’s identity cannot be based upon their ‘sex’ as defined by Mr. Trump’s order and similar doctrines. For that reason, it is customary to refer to that complex of factors and the summary judgements based upon them as ‘gender’ and that is why conscientious conversation, writing or legislation uses different words for a person’s sex – ‘male,’ ‘female’ – than for public gender – ‘man, woman, boy, girl’.  Humans developed language because it facilitates useful communication and effective language around gender reflects the way we make assumptions, thereby serving the needs of speakers and listeners, writers and readers.

Human gender exists. If it did not, our everyday language wouldn’t employ gendered words and presumptions to address issues which are not actually sexual.  Future posts in this series will share more thoughts on some of those issues.

* Since these posts are about gender, not sex, they won’t delve into the scientifics of the latter.  Suffice to say, nothing here or which follows is intended to accept that the biological ‘sex’ of humans is as simple, absolute and binary as sometimes claimed.

** https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202500135/html/DCPD-202500135.htm provides the text of Mr. Trump’s proclamation.

(Illustrations in this post taken from The Standard Bearer, an 1664 painting by Vigor Boucquet, in the collection of The Louvre, Paris.)

P. S. – E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way in which the political overreach of our current leadership may bring an end to the U. S. A., and what might come in its wake.  With a thrilling plot driven by politics and economics (as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith) the novel is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by returning to this website’s home page and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

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‘Farewell to the Troops’?  Don’t bet on it!

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Heather Cox Richardson used her newsletter on this year’s Flag Day to remind us all just how tenuous was the Continental Army’s 1783 victory over the larger and more established British forces. Her comments on General George Washington’s leadership bring up another momentous and improbable triumph which was crucial to our nation’s founding: Washington’s choice a few months later to voluntarily resign his leadership of the army and with it the near-certain opportunity to have reigned as autocrat over the territories he had done so much to free from Kingly rule. 

By that act of humility and principle, he granted the newly-ex colonies critical time to mature into what the USA has been – imperfectly but earnestly – until very recently: a nation of the people, governed for the people by the people’s chosen representatives.

Many watching today fear we shall not see such a transition to representative rule when the current administration’s tenure ends in January 2029.  A man who has deceptively denied the results of one election and appeared to encourage his followers attempt to overthrow its result, who seems to regularly ignore the rule of law and aggrandizes his own birthday through a grotesquerie of brutality, defacing a landmark of which he is at most temporary steward, is unlikely to accept even the clearest electoral defeat with graciousness, humility or respect for tradition, law and Constitution. 

Such a man cannot be trusted to follow in the footsteps of one like General – later, President – George Washington. 

E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way in which a President’s determination to hold onto power might play out and just how extensive the resulting damage might be.  The novel was written and is offered as a cautionary tale, while there is still time to avoid anything like the events it imagines. 

To those ends, E Unum Pluribus is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to the home page of this website and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the page’s top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

That is not Democracy!

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Word recently that the US Postal Service is attempting to take nationwide control over who can receive vote-by-mail ballots brought to mind an image begun back in 2020 but set aside when the 2020 Election suggested (prematurely, it turns out) that our nation’s red vs. blue fever had broken.

Viewed in conjunction with continuing efforts by ‘red’ states to gerrymander dissenting citizens into insignificance, this new tactic makes clear that Mr. Trump and his MAGAminions have abandoned any pretense of winning over the majority of Americans to their views and aim instead to silence all opposition in order to ensure perpetual Republican control of the Federal government.

No doubt some critics will point out that the U. S. has never been an absolute democracy, governed by plebiscite of every citizen on every issue, but a republic, or a representative democracy, or however they prefer to state it. All true, but however you characterize their hard-fought compromises, our founders and the imperfect Constitution they handed down to us certainly intended perpetual competition between varying points of view under accepted rules that allowed a naturally eterogenous polity to choose and change directions at set intervals.

Changing electoral rules in order to lock in a minority’s power are about as ‘un-American’ as anything can be and totally inconsistent with any ‘originalist’ reading of the documents.

Another point that quote leaves unspoken is that, notwithstanding Stephen Miller’s pompous pronouncements, tyranny never lasts. Throughout history, tyrants have trumpeted their power only to be brought down hard, whether through revolt of the tyrannized, invasion by outsiders jealous of their stolen wealth or by the sly knives of their own ambitious underlings.

That is small comfort though, as the longer tyranny reigns, the greater the burdens it inflicts upon the tyrannized. How much better our future and our children’s future will be if enough voters, including Republicans (of which I count myself one), will choose to foil MAGA’s takeover attempt in this year’s elections, and especially that of 2028!

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P. S. – E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way in which power-hungry monomania could bring an end to the U. S. A. – and what sort of world might be left in its wake. With a thrilling plot driven by murder and conspiracy (as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith) the novel is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to this website’s home page and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

Big Plans, Big Questions

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The Kingdom – of Saudi Arabia, that is – illuminates MAGA ambitions.

BBC online had a valuable article yesterday* about retrenchment on some of the megaprojects previously announced by the Saudi government and its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al Saud (MbS for ease).  Predictably, it has proven easier to commission breathtaking renderings, simulations and press releases than to execute incredible (literally, as it turns out) projects that challenge the limits of environment, resources, technology and economics.  Given that the USA’s current leadership so clearly aspires to emulate MbS and other autocrats down through history, this brought to mind their own Napoleonic building endeavors.

Mr. Trump likes to describe himself as a master developer, but considered on an international, or even a national scale, the projects his multiplicity of accounting entities have actualized are hardly ambitious.  Where others might develop an entire urban neighborhood (Hudson Yards, in New York for just one example of many) combining multiple uses, extensive civic infrastructure and multi-tiered approval processes open to public scrutiny, Trump branded properties seem to consist of single-tower condominiums (for the reliably lucrative luxury market), golf clubs (ditto) or hotels (ditto – and neither particularly large nor grand for today’s hospitality industry). Not to mention refurbishment and rebranding of existing properties or application of TRUMP identifiers to properties developed and/or managed by others.  Innovative solutions to thorny challenges; years of diligent project development and phased execution; navigating a complex mix of users, stakeholders, overseers and sophisticated lenders to meet the requirements of customers not predisposed to dispose of excess wealth?  Not so much.

All of which makes one wonder just how well thought out the current White House Ballroom project really is.  Aside from ballooning cost – $200 million at announcement, to $400 million supposedly raised at no taxpayer expense to now $1 billion discussed in a request for funding out of public pockets by his Republican congress – has his ever-changing design team really worked out the structural issues of spanning such a large space in a traditional architectural style and roof height clearly suited to short spans?  How about the issues of HVAC and acoustics for such a large space – with no evidence of supply pathways and registers, rooftop equipment/penthouse, cooling towers, boiler plant, exhaust and intake airways?  For that matter, is there adequate site space for parking, queuing, shipping and receiving to serve such a space, or trash and recycling for a top-quality food service operation of the magnitude described?  Site design, multi-discipline engineering and value engineering on a project such as this normally consumes months of work after selecting and assembling a large and well-coordinated team and nearly always requires adjustments to early visual design concepts.  Doing all that while earthwork and foundations are already being placed is a sure path to expensive over-design or even-more-expensive change orders during the procurement, construction and commissioning process. 

The projected 250 ft tall Arch de TRiUMPh is another very large question mark, regardless of what one thinks of its visual design or true promotional intent. 

Unlike a common hotel or condo building, such a behemoth will require bespoke geotech/structural engineering to support and stabilize its mass on the sedimentary soils likely present on such a riverine site.  The stated intent to have it designed and constructed by July of next year precludes proper attention to this and many other issues, leading one to anticipate significant changes, delays, overages or failure over time (‘Pisa’ comes to mind….).

All of which brings us to the ‘Trump Class Battleships’ announced with great fanfare earlier this year. 

Foregoing questions about the applicability of ‘Battleships’ to contemporary and future warfare (a really big forego according to commentators with insight into military matters) such a state-of-tomorrow’s-art weapon requires years of study and proof-of-concept testing, development of new technologies and systems and establishment of unique production facilities and supply chains.  Nothing in Mr. Trump’s behavior (or that of those serving his whims) suggests such an in-depth effort has been thought through. To the contrary, the public talk of how soon the first ship is to be built and commissioned suggests it has not. 

‘Waste fraud and abuse,’ the mantra of Mr. Trump’s now abandoned DOGE debacle, tends to be a self-actualizing cry – the louder one claims to be attacking that triumvirate of supposed sins, the more likely it is that one‘s own efforts will actually perpetrate them. The American public should thus be prepared to learn in future that these and other such grand projects are either cancelled, scaled back or revealed as boondoggles, their flaws predictably disowned by those who proposed and sold them. 

As Saudi megaprojects are going today, so shall this administration’s MAGAprojects go tomorrow.

P. S. – E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way in which the parallel political overreach of our current leadership may bring an end to the U. S. A., and what might come in its wake.  With a thrilling plot driven by politics and economics (as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith) the novel is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to the website robinandrew.net and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the home page’s top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

*‘How Saudi Arabia’s spending spree reached the end of the line,’ Sebastian Usher, BBC Global affairs correspondent, BBC online, 2026-05-24.

We don’t need no stinking election!

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Where this administration – and our nation – may be headed.

Thomas B. Edsall has a column in today’s N Y Times titled ‘When you think of it, We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’ – a direct quote from a recent Reuters interview of Mr. Trump.  The piece goes on to summarize all the ways in which Mr. Trump and his enablers in the Executive branch, Congress and the highest courts are working to either swing the upcoming elections their way or, if that is not successful, to justify invalidating the results so that they may hold onto power indefinitely. 

Scary stuff that, and very credible to anyone whose been following the news. Our aspiring monarch, it seems, will stop at nothing to protect his power and secure himself a place atop Mt. Rushmore. All the more reason for every patriot to vote this November for candidates of any party with the courage to stand up to demagoguery and reestablish the role of Congress in making law, policy and appropriations of the public’s funds.*

P. S. – E Unum Pluribus is a speculative fiction exploring one way such subversion might lead to the end of the U. S. A. as we know it, and what sort of a world might take its place.  With a thrilling plot driven by politics and economics as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith, the novel is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to the home page of this website and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

*for one more small step each of us can take to resist polarization, see also: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/11/change-your-party-change-the-future/

The Last Debate, Jim Lehrer

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Lehrer, the late PBS anchorman, skewers his own profession in a tale of journalists run amok which, despite being over 30 years old, in many ways seems to reflect our current moment.

At opening, David Donald Meredith, a populist politician of little relevant qualifications or experience has just been polled as leading the Presidential election race on the strength of his racist, authoritarian, anti-elite, pro-religious and contra-constitutional rabble-rousing (sounds familiar…).  When several journalists are selected to question the two leading candidates during the one and only debate to which their respective campaign managers have agreed, they find themselves in an ethical dilemma: whether to act in a clinically objective manner and hope against all indications that the voters will recognize and select the one qualified candidate, or to use their position as moderators to skewer Meredith on a raft of unconfirmed accusations of bad and violent behavior and so ensure that a truly dangerous demagogue does not reach the White House.

Since the novel is told in the past tense, it is no spoiler to say the panel soon chooses the latter approach and so swings the election to Meredith’s oppponent. The remaining two thirds of the novel is spent recounting how they made that decision and the diligent effort it takes the narrator (an alt-universe tabloid-journalist version of Lehrer himself?), to document it for the narrative non-fiction book which The Last Debate pretends to be.  (Fwiw, with Meredith defeated, his opponent, the previously unimpressive Paul L. Green, turns out to be a pretty good Chief Executive, perhaps validating their risky choice and leaving only the credibility of the journalistic profession to die for what Lehrer clearly considers their sins.)

A few quibbles – since the outcome is disclosed so early, most of the book is occupied with details of the tabloid journalist’s work, unfortunately showing the reader just how tedious that can be.  Rather banal conversations are recounted line by line with neither enough individuality nor amusing detail to justify their length, especially since the plot structure has already taken much real drama out of them.  There are also troubling issues around names and pronouns.  Between the large cast of political characters and the questionable choice of having two women named Barbara interacting (and even sharing an apartment!), as well as a candidate whose last name invites confusion when used by itself (since Meredith is more familiar as a female first name) Lehrer is constantly identifying people by full first and last names to a degree that feels artificially formal and further impedes dramatic flow. 

A similar effect happens when the fictional first-person narrator must protecting the identity of a very famous informant, To avoid giving the clue of this persons sex/gender, Lehrer chooses to use “he/she,” “his/her”’ and similar clunky work-arounds which make the section feel more a bureaucratic document than the climax of a political thriller. (An excellent argument, BTW, for writers and speakers of the English language to adopt non-gendered pronouns as argued in the post ‘e is an Enabler’ which is available via this link:   https://robinandrew.net/2026/03/01/e-is-an-enabler/  or simply by going to robinandrew.net and scrolling down to the 03/01/26 post of that title.)

Overall, an imperfect but worthwhile read that today raises a very large question its author could not possibly have intended back when it was written and published: If Jim Lehrer could see the danger of a character like Meredith all the way back in 1995, how did so many of our fellow Americans end up falling for his doppelgänger in 2016 and 2024 and perhaps even thereafter…?

P. S. – ‘E Unum Pluribus’ is speculative fiction about a very different way in which America’s current political dramas may play out. With a thrilling plot driven by politics and economics as well as gender, class, language and even the origins of faith, the novel is currently being serialized online and anyone can read it, at no cost, by navigating to the home page of this website and selecting E Unum Pluribus from the top menu, or via this link: https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/