Dwain Northey (Gen X)

I’m having a little trouble understanding the new definition of “protecting America,” because apparently the dictionary has been rewritten in permanent Sharpie.

Donald Trump and his would-be Secretary of War—because apparently “Secretary of Defense” sounded insufficiently aggressive—seem to believe that national security means preparing for another confrontation with Iran while simultaneously pulling American forces away from exercises with one of our most important allies in South Korea.

Because nothing says strategic consistency quite like telling the world, “We need to be ready for war over here, so naturally we’re going to reduce our military cooperation over there.”

And then there is Russia.

We have intelligence indicating that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is providing weapons and military assistance to Iran. Russia, of course, is not exactly known for giving away military hardware as a gesture of international friendship. Yet somehow Putin remains someone Trump treats less like a geopolitical adversary and more like the guy he hopes will invite him over for barbecue.

So let me see if I have this straight.

Iran is supposedly an existential threat.

Russia is helping Iran.

Russia is also one of America’s principal geopolitical adversaries.

Yet somehow the guy helping the supposed enemy remains in the “trusted buddy” category.

But a woman and her three-year-old child walking across the southern border?

RED ALERT. NATIONAL EMERGENCY. CALL THE PENTAGON.

Apparently the greatest threat to the United States is not a nuclear-capable adversary, hostile governments transferring weapons, cyberattacks, foreign interference, terrorism, or an increasingly unstable international security environment.

No.

It’s María from Guatemala carrying a toddler.

Because apparently the toddler is a sleeper agent.

Maybe the kid has a tiny AK-47 hidden in the diaper bag.

We have somehow reached the point where American national security is being measured by how many frightened families we can keep from asking for asylum while simultaneously playing geopolitical chess with countries possessing missiles, drones, nuclear ambitions and actual armies.

And this is where the word “security” becomes almost comical.

Real national security is complicated. It requires intelligence, diplomacy, alliances, logistics, economic stability, military readiness and an understanding that sometimes the best way to prevent a war is to make sure everyone understands you are capable of winning one—but would really prefer not to have to prove it.

It requires maintaining alliances.

It requires knowing who your friends are.

It requires understanding who is arming your adversaries.

It requires looking at the entire chessboard rather than obsessing over one square because it happens to contain a brown-skinned family.

But apparently the new doctrine is:

Iran: WAR!

Russia: Maybe we can work something out.

South Korea: Sorry, we’re busy.

Venezuela: Sharpen the Sharpie.

Migrants: SEND EVERYONE.

And somewhere in the Pentagon, an actual military professional is presumably staring at the ceiling wondering when national-security strategy became a reality television show.

The irony is almost too perfect.

The people who constantly accuse everyone else of being weak are pursuing policies that can simultaneously alienate allies, complicate military readiness, escalate tensions with Iran, tolerate Russian assistance to Iran and obsess over immigration as though a six-year-old crossing the Rio Grande represents the opening salvo of World War III.

That’s not a coherent national-security strategy.

That’s a collection of anxieties wearing camouflage.

And perhaps that’s the most disturbing part.

Because protecting America shouldn’t mean finding something—anything—to be afraid of.

It should mean identifying the threats that actually matter, preparing for them intelligently, maintaining the alliances that multiply our strength, using diplomacy when diplomacy can prevent bloodshed, and employing military force only when the national interest genuinely requires it.

Instead, we seem to be building a security policy around the political equivalent of a toddler screaming, “Look over there!”

Iran!

Immigrants!

South Korea!

Russia!

Greenland!

Venezuela!

Pick one.

Actually, apparently we picked all of them.

Because nothing says “America First” quite like having absolutely no idea which direction we’re supposed to be looking.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

God’s Will, Apparently: The Ultimate Get-Out-of-Responsibility Card

There is a phrase I have always found simultaneously fascinating and profoundly frustrating: “It’s God’s will.”

An earthquake kills thousands? God’s will.

A hurricane destroys an entire community? God’s will.

A child is born with cancer? God’s will.

A school shooting murders innocent children? Apparently, God’s will.

And therein lies the problem.

Because if you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God—an all-powerful being who knows everything that has happened, everything that will happen, and presumably has the ability to alter any of it—then eventually you have to confront the rather uncomfortable question:

How much control do human beings actually have?

Because “God’s will” can become the theological equivalent of throwing your hands in the air and saying, “Well, apparently somebody else is driving.”

And if that is the case, what exactly are we doing here?

We like to talk about free will as though it is one of the great defining characteristics of humanity. We make choices. We make mistakes. We learn. We accept responsibility. We change things. We build civilizations, cure diseases, invent vaccines, prevent disasters, pass laws and occasionally figure out that maybe putting lead in gasoline wasn’t such a spectacular idea.

But if every significant event is ultimately “God’s will,” then what exactly does free will mean?

Did the person who decided to pull the trigger exercise free will?

Or was that also God’s will?

Did the person who invented the vaccine exercise free will?

Was that God’s will too?

Did the scientist who discovered a treatment for childhood cancer exercise free will?

If so, why wasn’t the cancer itself prevented in the first place?

This is where the philosophical machinery starts making some rather uncomfortable noises.

Because if God has a plan for everything, then we are left with the cosmic equivalent of a predetermined screenplay. The characters may believe they’re improvising, but apparently the ending has already been written.

Which makes us less like human beings navigating existence and more like extras wandering around inside an exceptionally complicated television program.

And honestly, if that is the case, I have some notes for the writer.

Because this is not exactly a tightly constructed screenplay.

We’re talking earthquakes, childhood cancer, famine, genocide, hurricanes, pandemics, wars, plane crashes, murder, dementia and school shootings.

And then, occasionally, somebody wins the lottery.

Great writing.

Five stars.

No notes.

Except approximately all of the notes.

The Matrix analogy almost writes itself. We are Neo, except there is no red pill, no Morpheus, no escape hatch and apparently no choice between realities. The program was written before we arrived, the parameters are fixed, and we’re simply wandering around inside it trying to convince ourselves that choosing between chicken and beef for dinner constitutes meaningful autonomy.

And yet, strangely enough, the same people who say everything is God’s will often become extremely passionate about human responsibility when it suits them.

A criminal commits a crime? Personal responsibility.

A politician screws something up? Personal responsibility.

Someone makes a bad financial decision? Personal responsibility.

But a catastrophic natural disaster occurs?

God’s will.

A child suffers?

God’s plan.

Something completely incomprehensible happens?

We aren’t meant to understand God’s ways.

Convenient.

Because “God’s will” is an explanation that cannot really be disproven. Whatever happens becomes evidence of the plan. If something wonderful happens, God did it. If something horrible happens, God had a reason. If something completely inexplicable happens, God’s ways are mysterious.

It’s a theological Swiss Army knife.

It can explain absolutely everything because it doesn’t actually have to explain anything.

And perhaps the most frustrating part is what this philosophy can do to human responsibility.

If everything is predetermined, why fight injustice?

Why cure diseases?

Why prevent climate disasters?

Why regulate dangerous products?

Why build stronger buildings in earthquake zones?

Why improve emergency response?

Why protect children?

Why try to make the world better at all?

If the response to suffering is simply, “Well, it’s God’s will,” then we have essentially surrendered the steering wheel and congratulated ourselves for being passengers.

But maybe there is another way to look at it.

Maybe the existence of suffering isn’t evidence that we are powerless.

Maybe it is precisely the opposite.

Maybe the responsibility to do something about suffering is ours.

Maybe when an earthquake destroys a city, our job isn’t to shrug and declare divine intent. Maybe our job is to build better buildings.

When hurricanes become increasingly destructive, perhaps our response should be understanding why and figuring out how to protect people.

When a child develops cancer, maybe the appropriate response isn’t “God has a plan.”

Maybe it is “Let’s find the cure.”

And when someone walks into a school carrying a gun, perhaps the answer isn’t to declare that God allowed it to happen for reasons beyond our understanding.

Perhaps the answer is to ask the profoundly unspiritual question:

“What the hell can we do to stop this from happening again?”

Because maybe free will isn’t about having complete control over everything that happens to us.

Maybe free will is about what we do with the things we cannot control.

We can’t stop every earthquake.

We can’t prevent every hurricane.

We can’t eliminate every disease.

We can’t guarantee that no terrible human being will ever do something terrible.

But we can make choices.

We can reduce suffering.

We can prevent some disasters.

We can cure some diseases.

We can save lives.

We can build better systems.

We can learn from our mistakes.

And perhaps most importantly, we can refuse to use “God’s will” as an excuse to stop trying.

Because if there really is an all-powerful God running the universe, perhaps the greatest insult to the gift of human intelligence would be to spend our entire existence refusing to use it.

And if there isn’t?

Well, then we’re definitely driving.

Which means there is nobody coming to save us from the Matrix.

No cosmic programmer is going to suddenly appear and hit the reset button.

No divine administrator is going to patch the software.

It’s us.

Just us.

Which is simultaneously terrifying and strangely liberating.

Because if the script isn’t written, then maybe we get to write some of it ourselves.

And if there is no predetermined ending, then perhaps the point of being here isn’t figuring out what God’s plan is.

Perhaps the point is deciding what our plan should be.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

There is a strange political philosophy taking shape in America, and it can be summed up rather simply: democracy is wonderful, provided too many people don’t participate in it.

At some point in the 1970s or ’80s, Paul Weyrich famously argued that conservatives did not need more people voting. The idea was brutally straightforward: when voter turnout goes up, Republicans don’t necessarily benefit, so why encourage more people to participate? It was one of those rare moments in politics when somebody apparently decided to skip the decorative wrapping and just say the quiet part out loud.

And here we are, decades later, watching that philosophy being dressed up in the respectable clothing of “election integrity.”

Because apparently the greatest threat facing American democracy isn’t foreign interference, political corruption, billionaires pouring money into elections, or candidates lying to voters. No, apparently it is some mythical army of millions of undocumented immigrants secretly voting, hordes of dead people casting ballots from beyond the grave, and women somehow becoming suspicious because they had the audacity to get married and change their names.

The evidence for these sweeping claims is remarkably difficult to locate.

If millions of undocumented immigrants were voting, you would think prosecutors would occasionally encounter one. If hundreds of thousands of dead people were voting, one might reasonably expect an army of election officials, investigators and prosecutors to have stumbled across the phenomenon. Yet the spectacular claims routinely seem to produce remarkably unspectacular evidence.

There have been isolated cases of voter fraud. There always will be. Humans commit fraud. Humans cheat. Humans occasionally do incredibly stupid things. But isolated examples are not evidence of a massive conspiracy.

And here’s the really fascinating part: when people have actually been caught attempting things like voting twice or casting a ballot on behalf of a deceased relative, the political affiliation of the accused hasn’t exactly supported the grand narrative that Democrats are secretly stuffing ballot boxes with corpses.

But never mind the evidence. We have a narrative to maintain.

Enter the increasingly creative machinery of voter restriction.

The proposed SAVE America Act and similar efforts are presented as efforts to “protect” elections. That sounds wonderful. Who could possibly oppose secure elections? The problem begins when “security” becomes a euphemism for creating enough bureaucratic obstacles that perfectly legitimate voters begin wondering whether exercising their constitutional rights is worth the hassle.

Because if you make voting complicated enough, you don’t actually have to tell anyone they can’t vote.

You simply make them prove who they are, prove where they live, prove what their name used to be, prove what their name is now, produce the correct documents, navigate increasingly restrictive registration requirements, and hope they haven’t recently gotten married, divorced, moved, lost a document, or otherwise participated in the inconvenient activity known as having a life.

And then there are the poll watchers.

Now, legitimate election observers have existed for generations. Transparency is not inherently authoritarian. Watching elections can be perfectly reasonable.

But there is a profound difference between observing an election and creating an atmosphere in which voters feel watched, challenged, questioned or intimidated.

Imagine being a perfectly legal American citizen walking into a polling place and wondering whether somebody is going to challenge your eligibility because of your name, your address, your appearance, or simply because you don’t look like what somebody has decided an American voter is supposed to look like.

You don’t actually have to prevent that person from voting.

You just have to make them uncomfortable enough to decide they would rather go home.

Congratulations. The suppression worked without anyone technically suppressing anything.

That is the clever part.

Authoritarianism doesn’t always arrive wearing jackboots. Sometimes it arrives carrying a clipboard and explaining that it is merely concerned about election integrity.

And then we get to the curious case of mail-in voting.

For years, Republicans have warned that voting by mail is somehow inherently suspicious, dangerous, fraudulent or practically an invitation for democracy to collapse into anarchy.

Except when Republicans vote by mail.

Donald Trump himself has used mail-in voting.

Apparently the ballot becomes suspicious only when the other guy is using it.

That’s the thing about democracy: it is supposed to belong to everybody.

The whole point of voting isn’t to create a system where one political party gets to decide who is sufficiently trustworthy, sufficiently documented, sufficiently recognizable, sufficiently stationary, or sufficiently enthusiastic to participate.

The point is that citizens vote.

Period.

If there is legitimate evidence of fraud, investigate it. If someone commits a crime, prosecute them. If an election system has a genuine vulnerability, fix it.

But don’t manufacture an imaginary epidemic of voter fraud and then use the fear of that imaginary epidemic to justify making voting harder for millions of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

Because eventually we have to ask the question that apparently nobody wants to ask:

If your political philosophy requires fewer people to vote in order to win, what exactly are you trying to protect?

The answer cannot honestly be “democracy.”

Democracy is not supposed to be a private club where the membership committee gets to decide who is allowed through the door.

It is supposed to be loud. Messy. Inconvenient. Occasionally infuriating.

It is supposed to include people you don’t like.

People who disagree with you.

People who don’t look like you.

People who speak differently.

People who vote against you.

And, most importantly, more people, not fewer.

Because if the solution to losing elections is to convince fewer Americans to participate in elections, perhaps the problem isn’t the voters.

Perhaps it’s the politics.

And maybe—just maybe—the answer isn’t to build a better mousetrap.

Maybe it’s to build a better argument.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

There is a little-known irony about living in a place like Phoenix, Arizona: sometimes the cleaner the sky looks, the easier it is to forget that the atmosphere is doing things you probably don’t want it doing.

Phoenix is famous for sunshine. We don’t merely have sunshine; we have industrial-strength sunshine. The kind of sunshine that makes you question whether the Sun has a personal vendetta against your windshield. And if you’re driving east in the morning, you already know the annual ritual: visor down, sunglasses on, squinting like you’re trying to read the fine print on a contract written by the Devil.

But here’s the part people don’t necessarily think about: a high-pollution day can actually make that glare worse.

It sounds counterintuitive. You would think pollution would block sunlight and make things darker. And technically, some particulate matter does reduce the amount of direct sunlight reaching the ground. But the atmosphere isn’t just a window. It’s more like a very dirty, poorly maintained lampshade.

Fine particulate matter—PM2.5, dust, smoke and other aerosols—scatters sunlight. Instead of all that sunlight traveling neatly from the Sun to your windshield, some of it gets bounced around the atmosphere and redirected toward your eyes. The result can be a bright, hazy field of scattered light surrounding the Sun.

So there you are, driving east at 7:30 in the morning, staring directly into the sunrise, thinking, Well, this is pleasant.

Except now the entire sky around the Sun can become a giant diffuser.

The problem isn’t necessarily that the Sun itself has gotten brighter. It’s that there is more stray light coming at you from the atmosphere, reducing contrast and making it harder for your eyes to adjust. The bright sky becomes a giant glowing backdrop, while everything you’re actually trying to see—the road, traffic lights, pedestrians, other cars—can become harder to distinguish.

And Phoenix has a particularly interesting relationship with this phenomenon because we already have plenty of ingredients for atmospheric haze: desert dust, vehicle emissions, industrial pollution, construction, and, depending on the season, smoke from regional wildfires. Add a nearly cloudless sky and a low morning Sun directly in front of you, and you’ve basically created nature’s worst possible lighting configuration for commuting.

It’s one of those things you don’t necessarily notice until you notice it.

You might think, Why is the glare so damn bad today?

Maybe the answer isn’t simply, “Because the Sun is in front of me.”

Maybe it’s because you’re looking through an atmosphere full of tiny particles that are scattering sunlight in every direction.

And that’s the strange little paradox of air pollution: sometimes pollution doesn’t make the day look darker. Sometimes it makes the world look brighter, hazier, flatter and harder to see.

So the next time you’re driving east through Phoenix in the morning, squinting through your windshield while wondering why the sunrise appears to have been upgraded to the world’s largest flashlight, remember:

It may not just be the Arizona sunshine.

It might be the atmosphere helping the Sun with the special effects.

Because apparently, in Phoenix, even the pollution wants to make sure you get the full Arizona experience.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The Destroyer-in-Chief and the Republican Memory Hole

It is fascinating how quickly the Republican Party can develop a case of selective historical amnesia.

Remember George W. Bush?

Of course you do. Well, some of you do. Others apparently underwent the political equivalent of a factory reset.

There was a time when George W. Bush was the Republican president who could do no wrong. He was the strong leader, the cowboy, the guy who would stare down America’s enemies and protect the homeland. Then came Iraq. The weapons of mass destruction that somehow remained permanently invisible. The intelligence that turned out to be spectacularly wrong. The invasion. The occupation. The hundreds of thousands of dead. The trillions of dollars spent. The destabilization of an entire region.

And then, almost magically, Republicans discovered that George W. Bush was no longer their problem.

Funny how that works.

The party that once wrapped itself in the flag and defended every decision of the Bush administration eventually learned the ancient Washingtonian art of pretending that uncomfortable history happened to somebody else. Bush became the political equivalent of that embarrassing uncle everyone remembers fondly only after carefully removing the decade from the family photo album.

Which brings us to Donald Trump.

Because apparently the Republican Party has decided that if one president can eventually be memory-holed, why not another?

Trump has already accumulated a legacy large enough to require its own wing at the Smithsonian—or at least several dumpsters behind the National Archives. Yet his supporters continue to behave as though history is merely a suggestion and accountability is something that happens to Democrats.

He takes credit for successes that existed before he arrived, blames predecessors for failures that occur on his watch, declares victory whenever reality refuses to cooperate, and apparently believes that if he says something loudly enough, history will eventually update itself.

And Republicans applaud.

But here is the interesting question:

How long does the loyalty last?

Because eventually every political movement reaches the moment when the leader who was once considered indispensable becomes inconvenient.

It happened to Nixon.

It happened to Bush.

And eventually, whether Republicans like it or not, it will happen to Trump.

The question isn’t whether Trump’s legacy will eventually be reassessed. It will. History has a nasty habit of outliving political loyalty. The question is whether today’s Republicans will have the courage to acknowledge what they supported—or whether they’ll perform the traditional Washington ritual of suddenly discovering that they were never really that enthusiastic about the guy in the first place.

You can almost hear it now:

“Well, I always had concerns.”

“I wasn’t actually one of his biggest supporters.”

“I voted for him, but I didn’t agree with everything.”

“Let’s not rewrite history.”

Oh, absolutely.

Let’s not rewrite history.

That’s the problem.

History is already being written. The only question is whether we’re going to use permanent marker or the Republican Party’s preferred political medium: disappearing ink.

And perhaps that’s Trump’s ultimate contribution to the GOP. Not Make America Great Again, but Make Republicans Forget Again.

Because if George W. Bush can go from wartime president to awkward historical footnote, there is no reason Donald Trump can’t eventually make the same journey.

The only question is how many Republicans will still be standing around holding the Sharpie when the music stops.

And whether they’ll admit they helped draw the picture.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

There was a time when a Sharpie was simply a writing instrument. You used one to label a box, sign a birthday card, or write “DO NOT EAT” on the leftovers in the refrigerator. Under Donald Trump, however, the Sharpie has apparently evolved into something considerably more powerful: a geopolitical weapon, a cartographic wand, and perhaps the most powerful instrument in the United States government.

Apparently, Donald Trump believes that if he draws something on a map with sufficient confidence, reality is legally obligated to comply.

We first witnessed the phenomenon during his first administration, when Hurricane Dorian was heading toward the United States and Trump famously presented an altered weather map showing Alabama inside the hurricane’s projected path. Because when the National Weather Service disagrees with you, apparently the appropriate response isn’t “perhaps I should reconsider.” It’s “Where’s my Sharpie?”

The lesson, apparently, was learned.

Why stop at hurricanes when there are entire continents and oceans just sitting there waiting to be renamed?

Greenland? Write USA across it.

Venezuela? Perhaps a little annotation in the margin: “Ours now.”

The Gulf of Mexico? Gone. With one presidential flourish, it becomes the Gulf of America, because apparently centuries of geographic convention can be defeated by the same technology normally used to write a phone number on a cardboard box.

And now we arrive at the latest masterpiece of cartographic statesmanship: the Strait of Hormuz.

Draw a circle around it.

There.

American.

See how easy that was?

This is the remarkable thing about Trump’s worldview: maps apparently aren’t representations of reality. They’re suggestions. And the president, armed with a Sharpie and an almost supernatural confidence in his own judgment, is apparently the editor-in-chief of reality itself.

If a hurricane is going somewhere he doesn’t like, draw a new line.

If a body of water has the wrong name, write a new one.

If another country possesses territory that looks interesting, write USA on it.

If a strategically important international waterway doesn’t appear sufficiently American, circle it.

Problem solved.

The only thing missing is a giant red crayon labeled “MAKE AMERICA BIGGER.”

Of course, the absurdity becomes considerably less funny when you remember that geography doesn’t actually work this way.

Hurricanes don’t care about presidential Sharpies. Atmospheric pressure, ocean temperatures, wind shear and atmospheric circulation determine where storms go. You cannot redraw a hurricane’s path any more than you can circle a tornado and tell it to make a left turn.

Likewise, countries do not become American because someone writes “USA” on a map. Oceans do not change names because someone with a presidential seal behind him decides the old name isn’t sufficiently patriotic. And international waterways don’t become American property because someone draws a circle around them.

Reality has this terribly inconvenient habit of refusing to acknowledge presidential stationery.

And that’s where the joke stops being merely funny.

There is something genuinely troubling about a worldview in which the distinction between claiming something and actually possessing something seems to disappear.

A map is not a magic spell.

A Sharpie is not a treaty.

A presidential proclamation is not a deed.

And drawing a circle around the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t suddenly cause the United States border patrol to materialize on the other side holding a sign that says, “Welcome to America.”

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t operate according to the rules of a kindergarten coloring book.

There are sovereign nations. There are international agreements. There are treaties. There are territorial waters. There are centuries of history, competing claims, military realities, diplomatic relationships and international law.

You can’t simply grab a marker and say, “Mine.”

Well, technically, you can.

You just can’t make everyone else agree with you.

And perhaps that’s the most Trumpian part of all.

He doesn’t seem to view the Sharpie as something that records reality.

He seems to view it as something that creates reality.

Draw the line, and the hurricane changes course.

Write the name, and the Gulf changes identity.

Write USA on Greenland, and Greenland presumably starts checking Zillow for American mortgage rates.

Circle a strategic waterway, and apparently the map itself is expected to salute.

It would be hilarious if the consequences of confusing personal declarations with actual geopolitical power weren’t so potentially serious.

Because nature doesn’t negotiate.

Maps don’t obey.

Borders aren’t suggestions.

And the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily recognize the authority of a Sharpie simply because the person holding it happens to be President of the United States.

There is, however, one thing Donald Trump may have genuinely accomplished.

He has elevated the humble Sharpie from office-supply-store merchandise to an instrument of presidential ambition.

NASA has rockets.

The military has aircraft carriers.

Diplomats have treaties.

Donald Trump has a marker.

And apparently, in his mind, that’s all the geopolitical infrastructure anyone really needs.

Somewhere, a cartographer is quietly staring at a map and whispering:

“Please, Mr. President. Put down the Sharpie.”