Author: Jim

********** How to Navigate the Era of Trump

Many friends, @EliotACohen has found, are despondent over Trump’s victory. “I respect their points of view but have decided to look elsewhere for advice, and so have turned to a different set of friends—those sitting on my bookshelves.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/12/navigate-trump-era-guide/681020/?gift=yGKGqaI9BMfIDuch_TrGYR6QfO0tV08jWciZW3fL5QM&utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social

For that, something more spiritual is indicated, and I find it in the Library of America edition of one of the previous century’s deep thinkers, Reinhold Niebuhr.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Serenity will be something we will need in the years ahead. If you ask me, a well-stocked library will be of more help getting there than tranquilizers, wide-eyed staring at one’s mobile phone, or scrambling to find out if an Irish ancestor qualifies you for a European Union passport.

****** The Crumbling Foundation of America’s Military

The obstacles the U.S. has faced in trying to supply Ukraine during the past two years have revealed a systemic, gaping national-security weakness, Mark Bowden writes. The vaunted American war machine is in disarray and disrepair.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/12/weapons-production-munitions-shortfall-ukraine-democracy/680867/?gift=yGKGqaI9BMfIDuch_TrGYfk8PlXjYcrzd0-wJ5yShIc&utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social

NYTimes.com: Democrats Don’t Have an Easy Way Out

Democrats Don’t Have an Easy Way Out

The party’s weakened condition leaves it ill prepared to defend itself against a Republican Party determined to eviscerate liberalism and the left.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/opinion/democratic-party-wilderness-trump.html?smid=em-share

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.