Countries can work with a president they dislike. They cannot organise defence, trade, finance and diplomacy around a government whose commitments may change without warning.

America’s 250th anniversary speech shows how old anti-communist language can return to public life, narrowing political disagreement and turning opponents into internal enemies.

America’s weak center is giving way to energized populist edges, as Trump nationalism and Mamdani-style left politics expose a deeper collapse of trust in the old political machinery.

Trump’s claim to mediate the Iran‑Israel war is mocked: the United States is a combatant, conducting strikes and widening the conflict.  Combatants cannot mediate; their rhetoric conceals their role.

The note exposes the hollowness of Trump’s “ceasefire” claim: U.S. forces bombed a girls’ school, blockaded ports and issued threats; there is no ceasefire, only rebranded war.

Referencing Weyl, the essay rejects myths of a bygone golden age, saying Trump’s MAGA exploits nostalgia and scapegoating and lets people ignore past injustices and avoid thinking about building future.

A Pope urges humanity and peace amid Israel’s bombing of Lebanon, while Trump attacks him, shares an AI image of himself as God and boasts he could destroy Iran.