THE THREE Rs

Revenge. Retribution. Recrimination.

Today, October 2, is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The US government is fasting. In  Manchester, England two (so far) are dead in an attack on a synagogue.

Here, The Great Bloviator and his lickspittles continue to savage the nation. I enter my 92nd year in a few weeks fearing I will be dead before the country even partly recovers from Trump 2.

Given the worst opinions of the Supreme Court, it could well take a generation.

The present assault on free speech is horror enough. The attacks on colleges and universities, that lean left as they should, are intended to straighten them up through extortion, pure and simple. Even worse is that some number of the people those most dependent on Medicaid, legions of them Trump voters, will soon find out they’re b-l-e-e-p-e-d. I  toggle between they deserve it/no they don’t.

The  Icicles are out there, stopping anyone who even looks Hispanic. Among the masked and hooded goons are those of Hispanic heritage themselves. Pulling up the gates, and the bridges over the moats, has long been common behavior among the next generation of the newly arrived in a society based on caste and class.

This is not a government. It is the vindictiveness of one aggrieved man, turning everything upside down and attacking anyone who has tried to stop him. Jonathan Mahler’s new book, The Gods of New York, is a sharply pictured city from 1986-1990, marked by the end of the Koch mayoralty and the rise of Trump. Most interesting is Trump’s consistency. Everything he trots out now he believed back then. Indeed, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Trump descended from an escalator in 2016 and got stuck on one in 2025. There is symmetry in the universe.

Photo: The London Times, Oct. 2 2025