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Three Pieces From the New YorkerThe May 5 issue of the New Yorker magazine (they date it about a week ahead of its publication so it isn't 'stale' on the newsstands) was a good one. Don’t be scared off by its high price printed on its cover. It is much, much less expensive by subscription or online.
It started with the following comments in its ‘Talk of the Town’ section by its editor, David Remnick, entitled ‘100 Days of Ineptitude’:
'100 Days of Ineptitude' - David Remnick
"Eight years ago, in this space, a survey of the first hundred days of the initial Trump Presidency described just how “demoralizing” the Administration had already proved for any citizen concerned with the fate of liberal democracy. In both rhetoric and action, Donald Trump had undermined the rule of law, global security, civil rights, science, and the distinction between fact and its opposite.
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| Cover of May 5, 2025 New Yorker |
As we noted,
The hundred-day marker is never an entirely reliable indicator of a four-year term, but it’s worth remembering that Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama were among those who came to office at a moment of national crisis and had the discipline, the preparation, and the rigor to set an entirely new course.
Impulsive, egocentric, and mendacious, Trump has, in the same span, set fire to the integrity of his office.
Trump never concealed his motives or his character. He came to office in 2017 celebrating the illiberalism of Andrew Jackson and William McKinley and waving Charles Lindbergh’s banner of “America First.” At the Inauguration, he took in the spotty attendance on the Mall and instructed his press secretary to declare the crowd the “largest ¬audience to ever witness an Inauguration - period.”
Trump went on from there, demagogue and fantasist, striving to ban travellers from predominantly Muslim countries and to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Media-drunk, he tweeted at Kim Jong Un, Hillary Clinton, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, while hate-toggling between CNN and MSNBC.
He appointed Michael Flynn, a QAnon favorite, as his national-security adviser––until he regretfully had to fire him three weeks into the term. He amused himself by antagonizing close European allies and declaring NATO “obsolete.”
There were many more moments of chaos and cruelty to come, but now we know that Trump’s first term, his initial attempt at authoritarian primacy, was amateur hour, a fitful rehearsal. The reflexes and ambitions were all there; he just didn’t know yet what he was doing. His victory over Clinton had been a shock, so when he frantically prepared for office he threw together a motley staff of bug-eyed ideologues, silver-haired establishmentarians (who “looked the part”), and family members and retainers who hoped to profit from the job while getting off on all the super-cool trappings of power.
As a result, his first term was characterized by an ambient contempt for him inside his own Administration. His first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was reportedly convinced that Trump was a “moron,” and both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, and the chief of staff, John Kelly, eventually concluded that the Commander-¬in-Chief was, in a word, a fascist.
Trump still managed to exact plenty of damage, yet the feuding in his midst, along with the episodic flashes of congressional opposition, popular protest, and resistance in the courts, forestalled some of his fondest ambitions from being realized. Time ran out. He lost re-election. His insurrection failed.
But he was not done.
During his four-year interregnum at Mar-a-Lago, Trump gazed down the fairways and concluded that Joe Biden was too diminished to win again. On this, he was right and the Democratic leadership deluded. What’s more, Trump resolved to be himself, only more so: Trump Unbound. While the commentariat saw his increasingly bizarre improvisations at the lectern as no less disqualifying than Biden’s confusion during the fatal debate, Trump kept faith with his dominant source of inspiration––retribution. With a wink, he denied any knowledge of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s vision for the exercise of executive power, but few doubted that he would enact its plans. For would-be advisers and Cabinet officers, obedience was the sole qualification.
The Administration is now stocked with the greasily obsequious. Rank incompetence also seems no impediment to employment. How else to explain Pete Hegseth’s move from the weekend desk at Fox News to the big office at the Pentagon? And in what other Administration would bulbs as dim as Howard Lutnick or Peter Navarro be called upon to craft the future of the world’s largest economy?
The record of failure after a hundred days is, at once, astonishing and predictable. With no evident purpose, Trump has alienated Europe, Japan, Mexico, and Canada, further undermined NATO, and made even more plain his affection for Vladimir Putin. He has sanctioned his benefactor Elon Musk to hoist a chainsaw and commit mayhem against government agencies that save countless human lives.
With evident pleasure, Trump has deported more than two hundred -people (nearly all of whom have no criminal record) to a Salvadoran gulag. With his tariff proposals, he managed to destabilize the global economy in a flash, perhaps the worst own goal in history. As part of his revenge campaign, he has waged a war of intimidation against dozens of scholarly, commercial, and legal institutions. Some, like Columbia University, Amazon, and Paul, Weiss, have caved, choosing the path of obedience over principle. Shari Redstone, of Paramount, would rather trash the independence of “60 Minutes,” the most respected investigative outlet on television, than resist the absurd attacks of Trump and his lawyers.
The enduring emblem of this Administration and its duplicity is undoubtedly $TRUMP, a meme-coin scheme that has brought many millions of dollars in profits to the President and his fellow-investors.
Few seem to mind. Trump has normalized Presidential corruption. If one were forced to choose two representative events in the life of this Administration so far, they would surely be the White House meetings with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and, six weeks later, with the Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele. In the first, Trump treated a moral hero as an ungrateful scoundrel. In the second, he treated a sadistic dictator as a soulmate. It is hard to recall a scene in the Oval Office more revolting than that of Trump’s smiling request to Bukele to build five more prisons, because “the homegrowns are next.”
In recent weeks, there have been encouraging signs of opposition to Trump, on the streets and in the courts. Cory Booker, Chris Murphy, Alexandria Ocasio--Cortez, and Bernie Sanders are among the clearest voices of dissent on Capitol Hill. But accommodation and cowardice remain the norm. “We are all afraid,” the Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, said to a gathering in Anchorage. No doubt. The threat of retaliation is no joke, but the Senator’s plaintive cry does not exactly meet the demands of the moment. This is not primarily a matter of competence or a clash over policy. The Trump Administration is carrying out a coordinated assault on first principles.
“The limits of
tyrants,” Frederick Douglass said, “are prescribed by the endurance of those
whom they oppress.” The President will persist in his assault until he feels the resistance of a people who will tolerate it no longer."
(Published in the New Yorker’s print edition dated May 5, 2025, issue, with the headline “100 Days of Ineptitude” as well as in the magazine’s Daily online Newsletter.)
JL
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Is It Happening Here?
That issue of the New Yorker also featured a lengthy piece by New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz entitled ‘Is It Happening Here,’ leading off with a subtitle summary that read ‘Many democracies have gradually slid into autocracy. That may be where we are headed – or where we are.’
Marantz starts off by referring to several ‘anti-Trump’ books, including ‘How Democracies Die’ by two Harvard political scientists. Mostly, Marantz chronicles what happened, and is still happening to democracy in Hungary, as a parallel to the Trump presidencies in the United States.
Marantz’ thesis is that the change from democracy to autocracy is rarely a sudden one but takes place gradually, step by step, in full view of its citizens.
As an example, he cites a Hungarian social scientist whom he quotes as saying at lunch, “Before it starts, you say to yourself, ‘I will leave this country immediately if they ever do this or that horrible thing, … and then they do that thing, and you stay.”
He also describes the liberal post-communist Central European University abandoning its Budapest location for Vienna, unhappy with the changes and subtle pressures of the Hungarian government.
But that’s enough of a preview. To read the full article, copy and paste https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/what-its-like-to-live-under-autocracy on your browser line or CLICK HERE.
(The article also appeared in the New Yorker’s Daily Newsletter with the title ‘What’s it Like to Live Under Autocracy.’)
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In Case of Emergency
Finally, Jill Lepore, a professor of history and law at Harvard, finds solace from the vicissitudes of the Trump Administration in snippits of philosophy and poetry that she keeps handy. She closes the article, 'In Case of Emergency,' which you can find by copying and pasting https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/in-case-of-emergency-break-open-a-book on your browser line or by CLICKING HERE, with a quote from Walt Whitman on the eve of the Civil War in 1860:
“I assert that all past days were what they must have been, And what they should no-how have been better than they were, And that today is what it must be, and that America is, And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.”
I would interpret ‘no-how’ to mean ‘no way’ in today’s usage, or as Connie Francis sang a century later, ‘Que Sera, Sera.’
JL
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Hello, Singapore!
Viewership of Jackspotpourri is up again in Singapore. A few postings ago, I ventured a guess that it probably represented Chinese monitoring of the Internet, understandable because China has a significant presence in Singapore.
Why are they watching Jackspotpourri? I think they are confused by the chaos in our economny, brought about by our President, and groping to gather anything and everything they can find out about it, including what you read here.
JL
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A Fact-Filled Posting
Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ posting of May 4 makes it easy to conclude that at last, insofar as our government is concerned, the inmates are running the asylum. Check it out at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/
JL
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Our President – Wiser than His Supporters
On ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, when asked whether he needs to uphold the Constitution, President Trump answered ‘I don’t know.’ Kristin Welker later pushed further by asking, ‘Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?’ Trump again answered, ‘I don't know. I have to respond by saying again I have brilliant lawyers that work for me.’
This guy has a short memory. When inaugurated three months earlier, of course, he swore an oath to ‘preserve, protect, and defend, the Constitution.’
Referring to his ‘brilliant lawyers’ reminds me of his past refusal to reveal his income tax information by saying he was ‘under audit.’ Trump seems to think any answer, however preposterous, suffices to avoid the truth. Trump may not be very bright but he is wiser than those who support him.
The tragedy of this is that despite what President Trump has done during the first hundred days of his term, damaging the economy, losing the trust of our allies, and showing disrespect for our laws, the vast majority of those who voted for him have no regrets about doing so, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll reported by MSNBC.
This is the Achilles Heel of our democracy: misinformed and misled voters! Thomas Jefferson thought an educated population would solve the problem, which has grown with more and more Americans becoming eligible to vote over the years.
It hasn’t. The result? Donald Trump in the White House.
JL
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Tampa General Hospital Becoming More Local
Thursday’s Palm Beach Post front page carried a headline announcing that management of the Lakeside Medical Center in Belle Glade, presently run by Palm Beach County, would be taken over by Tampa General Hospital. That choice speaks a lot about the many more local hospitals in Palm Beach, Broward, or Dade Counties, of which none was ready to step in and take over the job.
The article also pointed out that this was the latest effort by Tampa General, the largest hospital system on Florida’s west coast, to expand into Palm Beach County, a lucrative healthcare market.
In recent years, Tampa General has partnered with physician practice groups in Palm Beach County to create 18 medical offices stretching from Palm Beach Gardens to Delray Beach. It also has joined with Mass General Brigham, the teaching hospital system for Harvard Medical School, to build medical offices in Palm Beach Gardens.
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This brings to mind a Jackspotpourri posting dated January 14, 2019 (go check it out on the archive over to the right) about hospitals specializing in cancer research and treatment that were at that time listed as Cancer Centers by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Again, the institution then listed there nearest for Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade County residents turned out not to be a local one, but the one at the University of South Florida: Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, with which Tampa General Hospital is affilliated, along with the Morisani School of Medicine there.
Since that 2019 posting, the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center has indeed been added to the list of NCI/NIH Cancer Centers, but not with the coveted ‘Comprehensive Cancer Center’ designation, despite their including the word ‘Comprehensive’ in their name. My guess is that the reason for NCI/NIH not listing Sylvester as ‘Comprehensive’ is that its research programs are mostly demographic and statistical ones involving cancer patients rather than ones directly aimed at developing cures for specific cancers.
Again, Tampa General’s new involvement with Lakeside Medical Center is reason to compare the medical care available locally with that in the Tampa area. Is the Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach area second-tier when it comes to medicine? The Tampa-oriented future of Lakeside Medical Center points to an answer; this problem must be addressed.
JL
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Reform Rabbis in Israel Called it a ‘Pogrom’
The other day In Israel, Orthodox rioters attacked a Reform synagogue in Ra’anana where an annual joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial service was being screened. Right-wing Israelis, who dismiss any idea of a ‘two state’ solution, or any cooperation with Palestinian groups, are mostly Orthodox in their religious belief.
Israelis have yet to learn that it is wrong for such political disagreements to be reflected in how Jews practice their religion.
While freedom of religion exists in Israel where there are some Conservative and Reform congregations, they are far outnumbered by the Orthodox.
Orthodoxy is dominant among government leaders, and little was done to protect the synagogue in Ra’anana other than the inadequate presence of one police car parked there.
Most American politicians support a ‘two state’ solution for the Israeli-Palestinian problem, without taking sides from a religious standpoint. In Israel, however, the government is mostly Orthodox and generally does not interfere with the primarily Orthodox ‘settlers’ in the West Bank.
This is damaging to the continuing of Israel remaining a strong democratic nation. I suspect that most Israelis recognize this but they seem to be insufficiently vocal.
JL
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Poetry Corner
Here’s a poem of mine that just might appear in the next issue of my community’s magazine.
Life’s Laundry
Folding the laundry,
A most disliked chore,
Remains as one task
We cannot ignore.
I try to avoid
A loud profane shout
When I grasp a shirt
That’s turned inside out.
And with each fresh load,
I become meaner,
Swearing that next time,
I’ll use a dry cleaner.
But life’s laundry won’t wait,
And as we grow older,
You cannot resign from
Your task as its folder.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps. 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open.
Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified to me still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.)
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There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
JL
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