Lessons of History: Vietnam and the Loss of American Goodness

Bamboo hut in flames, Ben Suc, Vietnam (January 1967)

I was eight years old in 1967, living an insular, middle-class existence in the suburbs of New Jersey, a thoroughly American life in a country I believed was the beacon of freedom and a light unto the nations. I was taught at an early age that we were a virtuous nation who welcomed the poor and those yearning to be free. We had come to the aid of Europe in World War II and defeated the Nazis in a war that took the lives of my dad’s oldest brother and over 400,000 Americans. We were the land of the free and home of the brave. We were the good guys. 

Like most Americans of that era, I believed in the general goodness of the United States and viewed our military forces with the sort of reverence I feel when I tour the campuses of West Point and Annapolis. Although I was vaguely aware of a war in a far-off land where the government had sent American troops to fight, it had negligible impact on my young life. My political consciousness came of age in 1968, when I saw images of body bags of dead American troops lifted from military planes on the nightly news and learned of my father’s growing questions as a Lutheran pastor about the justness and morality of America’s involvement in the war. Within a year, the son of my dad’s secretary would be one of the young men in those body bags, and a letter I had sent to him overseas, full of baseball clippings and updates, was returned as undeliverable.

What I did not understand at the time was just how wrong America’s leaders were about what motivated the revolutionary forces of Ho Chi Minh, why and how Ho had defeated the French colonial forces a decade earlier that resulted in the country being divided into North and South, and why Ho and the forces in the north were winning the support of the peasant population throughout the southern portion of the country that we called South Vietnam. President Johnson was to blame for expanding America’s troop presence in Vietnam, which by 1967 was approaching 500,000. But he was not alone in accepting the simplistic dogma that dominated the Cold War thinking of U.S. political and military leadership, which believed in the now discredited “Domino Theory”—that if one country in a region came under the influence of the Communists, then other nations would fall like dominoes and succumb to Communism. 

The more I learned about American involvement in Vietnam, the more disheartened I became. As a young American patriot, I assumed we supported the good people in the conflict, people who like us believed in democracy and freedom. But then I learned that the leaders of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem and his brutal brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were not so good, did not embrace democracy, and had no legitimacy among their own people. Then and later, I would ask questions. If America was not defending a vibrant democracy, why were we sending our young men there? Why were they dying in a land they knew nothing about, fighting for a cause they did not understand? Why did American war planes drop bombs and napalm on Vietnamese forests, destroy the countryside, and kill a million people, including many, many civilians? Why did American bombers drop more tons of explosives in Southeast Asia than had been dropped on Germany and Japan combined during all of World War II?

These were questions without satisfying answers. In looking back on the conflict more than fifty years later, at least two things are evident. First, as stated in The Vietnam War, the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary, the war began “in good faith, by decent people, out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence, and cold war miscalculations. And it was prolonged because it seemed easier to muddle through than admit that it had been caused by tragic decisions, made by five American presidents, belonging to both political parties.” 

Second, the American war effort in Vietnam resulted from a fundamental failure of U.S. leadership and the American public to view the people of Vietnam as human beings and their land as a precious part of the Earth. Americans were not unique in failing to conceive of our perceived enemies as sub-human. If history is any guide, it is a fundamental flaw in the human condition. But for the first time since the start of the Cold War, the Vietnam War complicated our view of America as exceptional or special when compared to other nations.

This past week I read a reprint of The Village of Ben Suc (New York Review Books, 2024) by Jonathan Schell, originally published as a full-length article in the July 8, 1967, edition of The New Yorker. Schell was then a 24-year-old journalist who wrote a first-hand account of a single military operation in and around the South Vietnamese village of Ben Suc, which before American troops arrived was a prosperous village of around 3,500 people of mostly farmers who tilled the land bordering the Saigon River. The people of Ben Suc cultivated extensive orchards of mangoes and grapefruit and operated small shops run by merchants in the village marketplace. 

Schell embedded himself with a division of the U.S. military tasked with conducting search-and-destroy missions in the South. Their objective was to root out the Vietcong (people sympathetic to and supportive of the North Vietnamese forces), destroy their villages and tunnels, resettle the civilians who remained, and attempt to win their “hearts and minds.” American troops believed Ben Suc was in an area dominated by Viet Cong, and thus everyone who lived there was suspicious. Besides, one could not easily distinguish who among the civilian population was Viet Cong or simply happened to live there. The American troops did not speak the language and did not understand the culture, so simple things like what clothes someone wore were frequently interpreted as indicative of whether the person was Viet Cong or an “innocent” civilian. Not surprisingly, these clues could be unreliable indicators.

Schell described how, in January 1967, American forces attacked the village, killed two to three dozen people, and forced all the civilians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, from their homes and their land into a makeshift refugee camp. The American soldiers with which Schell was embedded then proceeded to torch the villagers’ homes, dousing the grass roofs with gas and lighting them on fire. As Schell described it:

The demolition teams arrived in Ben Suc on a clear, warm day after the last boatload of animals had departed down the river for Phu Cuong. G.I.s moved down the narrow lanes and into the sunny, quiet yards of the empty village, pouring gasoline on the grass roofs of the houses and setting them afire with torches. Columns of black smoke boiled up briefly into the blue sky as the dry roofs and walls burned to the ground, exposing little indoor tableaux of charred tables and chairs, broken cups and bowls, an occasional bed, and the ubiquitous bomb shelters. Before the flames had died out in the spindly black frames of the houses, bulldozers came rolling through . . . uprooting the trees . . . When the demolition teams withdrew, they had flattened the village . . . [and then] Air Force jets sent their bombs down on the deserted ruins . . . as though, having once decided to destroy it, we were now bent on annihilating every possible indication that the village of Ben Suc had ever existed.

The American operation, as Schell matter-of-factly described, destroyed the entire village to nothingness. U.S. forces would repeat this type of campaign in villages throughout the region with comparable results. 

Schell wrote mostly about the people involved—the peasants, now homeless, who were removed from the village and placed into camps, and the American soldiers who put them there. He described “the villagers crouched along the road with their bundles of belongings while American infantrymen ducked in and out of the palm groves behind them, some pouring gasoline on the grass roofs of the houses and others going from house to house setting them afire.” When he asked a captain why it was necessary to destroy the entire village and surrounding area, the captain explained that clearing out the area would allow them to see things more clearly. “From now on, anything that moves around here is going to be automatically considered V.C. and bombed or fired on. The whole [region] is going to become a Free Zone. These villages are all considered hostile villages.”

What to do with all the rounded-up civilians created problems of their own. Placing them in a confined area where shelter and facilities were yet to exist, caused sanitary and health issues. How exactly were American troops, now aided by the Army of Vietnam (ARVN), supposed to win over the “hearts and minds” of people who had just lost everything at the hands of the Americans who had destroyed their homes and way of life? Schell described what he saw at the Phu Loi refugee camp, where the villagers from Ben Suc were taken:

On the first day, over a thousand people were brought in. When they climbed slowly down from the backs of the trucks, they had lost their appearance of healthy villagers and taken on the passive, dull-eyed, waiting expression of the uprooted. It was impossible to tell whether deadness and discouragement had actually replaced a spark of sullen pride in their expression and bearing or whether it was just that any crowd of people removed from the dignifying context of their homes and places of labor, learning, and worship, and dropped, tired and coated with dust, in a bare field would appear broken-spirited to an outsider.

Villagers in the camp told Schell stories of their previous lives. “I was born in Ben Suc,” said an old man sitting on a mat, “and I have lived there for sixty years. My father was born there also, and so was his father. Now I will have to live here for the rest of my life. But I am a farmer. How can I farm here? What work will I do?” The man complained about the rice the Americans fed them, which was the same rice the villagers fed to their pigs. Schell explained that the Vietnamese, like most East Asians, were particular about the color, texture, and flavor of their rice, which went beyond taste and nutrition. To the victims of this conflict, even the trivial things mattered, something the American soldiers did not understand. How could they?

It is impossible to read The Village of Ben Suc and conclude that the Americans were the heroes in this story. And yet, Schell’s elegant, unemotional prose and nonjudgmental tone does not make you upset at the individual soldiers he describes and quotes in the book. These were mostly 19 and 20-year-old men caught up in a war they did not ask for, in a land they did not even know existed a few years earlier. They were interacting with people whose language and culture they did not understand. They did what they were trained to do, followed orders and commands they were required to follow, and performed their jobs as soldiers caught in a dangerous and morally ambiguous war. As described by Wallace Shawn in the book’s introduction:

They were fairly nice young men. The problem was only that they knew basically nothing about the place to which they’d been sent, they had no idea why they were there, and they didn’t really know what they were supposed to do there; they had no idea what sort of danger these Vietnamese peasants could possibly pose to their own American families back home; they had no idea what their “enemy” was fighting for; and they had no idea why they were supposed to kill certain Vietnamese peasants but not others, and what exactly it was about those they were assigned to kill that made them worthy of death.

When Schell asked a young soldier whether he was concerned with killing innocent civilians, he said, “What does it matter? They’re all Vietnamese.” It was a common feeling among the troops who perhaps needed to justify what they were doing, at least to the extent they gave it any thought.

I have discovered over the years that many Americans often give the Vietnam War perfunctory treatment because it does not fit the narrative of unambiguous American goodness. It may explain why our country never quite came to terms with Vietnam, and why we continue to struggle with discussing other troubling aspects of our history. 

U.S. armed forces in Vietnam destroyed entire villages and often shot civilians indiscriminately. Most Americans were shocked to learn in 1968 of the My Lai massacre, in which U.S. soldiers rounded up and murdered over four hundred civilians in a four-hour stretch in the Quang Ngai province of South Vietnam. U.S. soldiers shot groups of women, children, and elderly men at close range, raped Vietnamese women, and executed 150 civilians after herding them into an irrigation ditch.

As revealed in subsequent investigations into America’s role in the war, My Lai was not an isolated event. In late 1968, General Julian Ewell, who earned the nickname Butcher of the Delta during his time in Vietnam, led Operation Speedy Express, an effort to eliminate North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong in a show of overwhelming force within the Mekong Delta. A whistle blower reported having observed U.S. artillery indiscriminately attacking civilians, U.S. helicopter gunships shooting at frightened farmers as they ran away, and troops on the ground attacking and killing countless women and children. U.S. troops killed an estimated 7,000 civilians in the operation, equivalent to a "My Lai each month" as described by the whistle blower. Although General William Westmoreland ignored the report, an internal Pentagon investigation later confirmed the allegations. And yet, not a single American was ever held to account.

The young Americans who committed atrocities in the Vietnam War were not inherently bad or immoral people. Indeed, most were “fairly nice young men.” They performed the tasks their superiors ordered, and did so in a land and a war they did not understand. But they did so with a brazen indifference to the humanity of the Vietnamese civilians whom they killed. Thoughtlessness, complacency, and overconfidence in American goodness, not evil young soldiers, were the primary culprits. As Wallace Shawn explained:

At least until relatively recently, most Americans have liked to think of themselves as well meaning, friendly, basically decent people. That wasn’t an entirely false belief in 1966, and it’s not even entirely false now. But reading this book today, over half a century after it was written, over half a century since the village of Ben Suc was obliterated, and over ten years since Schell’s death, I feel Schell’s steady, questioning eye still staring at all the innocent people maimed and killed around the world by the possibly overconfident friendly Americans.

Nations that believe too much in their own exceptionalism and goodness can quickly suffer a loss of moral clarity, especially in times of conflict and war. And when belief in one’s goodness is combined with indifference to the humanity of the perceived enemy, there is a heightened risk that otherwise decent people will commit terrible deeds. 

It has always been more popular to divide people, groups, and nations into good and bad, moral and evil. This tendency is not a uniquely American trait, but it is nonetheless an American characteristic. Despite the American tendency to think of ourselves as always siding with goodness, our actions during the Vietnam War caused Americans to appropriately question the justness and righteousness of our cause. But the more we learn of America’s actions during the Vietnam War, the more we must conclude that Americans did not wear the white hats in that conflict. It is a lesson of history we should take to heart so as not to repeat past mistakes. 

Antiwar rally, Washington, D.C., 1971

Robert Caro’s Epic Tale of Robert Moses and the Love of Power Remains a Tour De Force

Bob Moses had learned what was needed to make dreams become realities. He had learned the lesson of power. – Robert Caro, The Power Broker

Fifty years after its publication, I finally read The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Vintage Books 1974), the Robert Caro masterpiece widely considered among the best nonfiction books ever written. A large and dense 1,162 pages excluding notes, when I suggested to Andrea that I should bring The Power Broker with us on our two-week trip to France in October, she responded with a hint of sarcasm, “Why don’t you just pack a bowling ball?” When I finished the book in December, I felt a distinct sense of accomplishment, the bookworm’s equivalent to hiking the Appalachian Trail. 

Having grown up in central New Jersey, the dominant presence of New York City was always in the background. My dad grew up in Jersey City and frequently crossed the Hudson River into the city as a young man to work summer jobs and to attend baseball games at the Polo Grounds. Even when he grew older and we lived in central Jersey, he remained fascinated with New York’s public infrastructure, its magnificent skyline and its many bridges, tunnels, and expressways. On the few occasions my dad and I drove across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from the Staten Island Expressway and then onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, he would express a sense of awe for what it must have taken to build and connect all of the major thoroughfares of New York and surrounding areas.

Verrazano Narrows Bridge

I had no idea then the role Robert Moses had played in the design, building, and oversight of almost all the public infrastructure of New York. Although he never held elected office, Moses did more to shape and mold modern day New York than anyone who ever lived. In The Power Broker, Caro provides a definitive and engaging account of the life and times of Robert Moses. But his book is primarily a dissertation on power—how Moses obtained it, kept it, and used it as a weapon for over four decades.

Moses wielded unchecked power for decades while holding a series of unassuming positions in New York state and local government—New York City Parks Commissioner,  New York State Council of Parks, Chair of the Long Island State Park Commission, New York City Planning Commission—at one point holding twelve titles at once. Caro said that, when he started the book, he did not really know anything about how power worked in New York. And when he talked with the politicians, they did not know how Moses acquired his power. They knew only that he had it. 

It was not always so. As a young man, Moses dreamed of a city with parks and scenic drives and great beaches accessible to the people who lived there. He also was a public minded idealist determined to use his Yale and Oxford education to reform New York City’s civil service system. Although Moses failed to make a mark in those early years, early failures taught him important lessons, just as later successes confirmed what he eventually took to heart. Without power, you accomplish nothing. 

As Caro explains, it was through the creation of independent public authorities (historically, entities that sell bonds to finance public projects), and Moses’ role in heading them, that gave Moses the means to obtain and hold onto power through countless Governors and Mayors. As Chair of what became the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, from 1934 to 1968, Moses controlled hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The Authority’s quasi-governmental and independent nature enabled Moses to fund dozens of new infrastructure projects with almost no outside input or oversight. As head of Triborough, Moses had absolute control over the revenues collected from the bridges and tunnels in New York City, and these revenues dwarfed any money the city could raise on its own. With that money came the power to control how to spend it and what public projects to fund.

Once Moses obtained power, he commanded any room he entered with a combination of charisma and intimidation, and he used power to design and build important things—parks, highways, bridges, playgrounds, housing, tunnels, beaches, zoos, civic centers, and exhibition halls. During the Depression, his projects employed 84,000 laborers who added skating rinks, boathouses and tennis courts, baseball diamonds and golf courses to every park in the city. Over time, he built 658 playgrounds in New York City when most cities had almost no parks and playgrounds. He built thirteen impressive bridges that distinctively mark the New York landscape. He oversaw the construction of two tunnels (Queens-Midtown and Brooklyn Battery). He built 627 miles of roadways and thoroughfares that allowed millions of people to drive into and through the city every day. And he oversaw massive urban renewal projects that replaced poor neighborhoods with huge public housing structures. In so doing, Moses radically transformed the physical fabric of New York and inspired cities throughout America to implement similar development projects. 

Moses’s achievements in building housing projects and highways were comparable, in the words of Caro, not to the achievements of an individual person, but to an era, equivalent to the Age of Skyscrapers and the Age of Railroads.

But Robert Moses did not build only housing projects and highways. Robert Moses built parks and playgrounds and beaches and parking lots and cultural centers and civic centers and a United Nations Building and Shea Stadium and a Coliseum and swept away neighborhoods to clear the way for a Lincoln Center and the mid-city campuses of four separate universities. He was a shaper not of sections of a city but of a city. He was, for the greatest city in the Western world, the city shaper, the only city shaper. In sheer physical impact on New York and the entire New York metropolitan region, he is comparable not to the works of any man or group of men or even generations of men. In the shaping of New York, Robert Moses was comparable only to some elemental force of nature.

Moses’ power stemmed in part from his reputation as the man who could Get Things Done. He knew every provision in every law because he had drafted the very laws that created his positions and gave him unbridled authority with no public accountability. In his early years, while working for Governor Al Smith in the 1920s, Moses developed a reputation as the best drafter of legislation in the State. Later, when he became the head of the Triborough Authority, he could spend public money with little transparency and no accountability because that is how Moses designed it. 

During the New Deal, the federal government was looking to spend substantial amounts of money on public works projects, but they needed shovel ready projects that would put people to work immediately. Before other cities and states had developed such plans, Moses masterfully created them, complete with engineering blueprints and all the required documentation, which made it easy for the Works Progress Administration and other New Deal agencies to approve and fund his projects. He was so good, in fact, that New York received a disproportionately large share of the public works money appropriated during the New Deal. 

By securing the funding, Moses then hired people to perform the projects, which put him in great stead with the unions. He awarded lucrative contracts to the construction companies and the concrete, pavement, and steel suppliers needed to build playgrounds, parks, roads, and bridges. He hired the best and brightest engineers, architects, and designers, and he pressured everyone to meet inhuman deadlines. He spread around the massive revenue he controlled and gained the loyalty of the most powerful institutions in the city and the country – the banks, the unions, the construction companies, the major law firms, the insurance companies – everyone with the power and influence to pressure any politician who might wish to change how Moses did things. One call from Moses to the key influencers would flood a council member’s or mayor’s office with calls and demands to retreat. And they always did.

Caro brilliantly describes Moses's evolution from a public-spirited man of ideals to a man singularly consumed by power for power's sake. The book captures the many dimensions of Moses's personality, from the charming host of extravagant parties—which helped him curry favor with the politicians, the press, the moneyed interests, anyone who could help him obtain and hold onto power—to the mean-spirited and vindictive person he would become to anyone who questioned or opposed his projects and designs. He employed McCarthyite tactics before McCarthyism was a thing, employing gossip, false rumors of scandals, and spies to destroy the reputations of anyone who dared challenge him. 

Moses’s arrogant refusal to consider alternative proposals, even if they could more efficiently achieve a project’s aims without destroying an entire neighborhood or enable the city to economically expand or improve the regional rails and subways, were legendary. As Caro writes, Moses was “blind and deaf to reason, to argument, to new ideas, to any ideas except his own.” Under Moses’s reign, New York became a city of traffic jams and congested roads and expressways while ignoring desperately needed improvements to the city’s subways, commuter rails, and buses. 

Moses did not foresee America’s growing reliance on the automobile, which in the most populated metropolitan area in the country became exponentially worse each year. Each new expressway was supposed to solve New York’s growing traffic problems. But with every new road and highway, the traffic only became worse. No matter how many smart people recommended that the millions of people who needed to commute in and out of the city every day could do so more easily and in less time with more and better rail systems, subways, and buses, Moses would not listen. 

To Caro, the reason for Moses’s intransigence was simple. The roads and bridges Moses built as head of the Triborough Authority meant more revenue and thus more power for him to wield. Mass transit, which he did not control, would diminish his power. And so, for decades New York severely neglected its subways and railroads, which inconvenienced millions of people and made the traffic, pollution, congestion, and noise all the worse. Moses thereby condemned generations of people to sit for hours in traffic rather than commute by rail.

The mayors, the governors, the council members, the people who in theory had the legal authority to override Moses’s totalitarian application of power, were scared to challenge him. As he continued to hold a monopoly on power in New York, Moses’s disregard for poor and nonwhite residents, and his refusal to understand or listen to their needs and concerns, permanently contributed to the inequality and systemic racism that continues to infect the city’s landscape to this day.

Yet Moses effectively cultivated a mythological reputation as an incorruptible public servant that the press was only too happy to promote. Because he had a reputation as the one person who got things done, who cut through red tape and any rules or laws that stood in the way, the politicians allowed him to take control of the city’s urban renewal efforts and oversee public housing, an area with which he had no expertise. Moses lacked empathy, especially for the poor and working class. He grew up in an affluent, privileged environment, attended private schools, graduated from Yale and Oxford, and drove around the city in a chauffeured limousine. He had no experience with, understanding of, or consideration for the people in need of public housing, the poor, people of color, and those with no political power. 

Caro understood that any study of power must examine not only how power is exercised and the good it accomplishes, but also who is hurt by it. Caro performed meticulous research and interviewed hundreds of people, including people negatively impacted by Moses’s decisions in the least powerful neighborhoods of New York. Moses designed the roads to transport large numbers of people in and out of Manhattan, but his focus was on benefiting certain types of people. Every road and expressway he built resulted in mass evictions and displacement of the city’s mostly poor and working-class residents. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes at a time when New York was in desperate need of affordable housing, all to make room for one of Moses’ thoroughfares.

Cross-Bronx Expressway

In one particularly compelling chapter of the book, entitled “One Mile,” Caro describes how Moses ignored the concerns of the people living in the East Tremont section of the Bronx as he planned the layout of the seven-mile Cross-Bronx Expressway. After World War II, East Tremont was a working-class Jewish neighborhood consisting mostly of refugees from the ghettos of Eastern Europe. These were not wealthy or powerful people, nothing like the successful, far more affluent Jews who lived by then in Central Park West. But they were industrious, law-abiding people who had built a stable and friendly neighborhood that was conveniently located to everything they needed. The nearby subway lines made it easy to get to the Lower East Side and the garment district, where a sizable number of them worked. The neighborhood had plentiful shops and businesses and jobs, good schools and nearby parks for the children, movie houses, and the Bronx Zoo, all within walking distance. To the people of East Tremont, the neighborhood was like a family. 

But Moses wanted to build the Cross-Bronx Expressway straight through the heart of the neighborhood. He sent eviction notices to over 1,500 families (affecting over 5,000 residents) with immediate instructions to vacate their homes and find new, mostly unaffordable housing in other less convenient, crime-ridden neighborhoods, where they knew no one and were not always welcome. Neighborhood activists raised objections with local leaders and city council members, all of whom agreed that Moses’ plans were crazy and said they would help. But nobody could help. Robert Moses had no tolerance for opposition and no interest in changing his plans, even though there were better alternatives. When others pointed out that all Moses had to do was move the proposed expressway two blocks south, where almost no one lived, and thus save the neighborhood and avoid evictions, Moses dismissed outright such “nonsense.” Even when it was shown that re-routing the expressway would save money and keep the expressway straighter than Moses’s proposed route, he still refused to listen. As Caro explained:

Neighborhood feelings, urban planning considerations, cost, aesthetics, common humanity, common sense—none of these mattered in laying out the routes of New York’s great roads. The only consideration that mattered was Robert Moses’ will. He had the power to impose it on New York.

In the end, Moses was not interested in preserving things. He only wanted to build things. Grandiose things. He simply did not care how his projects affected individuals, how many people they displaced, or how his plans negatively impacted neighborhoods. What type of park a particular neighborhood needed or wanted was uninteresting to Moses. He dismissed the opinions of others outright. Caro details countless occasions when one of Moses’ bright engineers and designers proposed easy fixes to neighborhood concerns, only to be at the receiving end of an angry, mean-spirited rant by Moses. Indeed, over the years, loyal staff members lost their jobs simply because they suggested minor improvements to a shovel ready project that Moses wanted to push through.

By the end of The Power Broker, it was difficult to find much to like about Moses the man. When in 1968 Moses finally met his match in Governor Rockefeller and was forced to resign, I felt a sense of relief, even satisfaction. “The age of Moses was over,” writes Caro. “After forty-four years of power, the power was gone.” 

And yet, Caro’s writing is so good that, by the final pages, one almost feels sorry for Moses when no one takes his phone calls, and he perceives nothing but ingratitude for all the "great" things he has accomplished. The book sadly ends with the words, “Why weren’t they grateful?” 

There is a reason The Power Broker won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 and is, as described by "The Power Broker Breakdown" podcast on 99% Invisible, “perhaps the most important and complete explanation of how cities are formed, how neighborhoods are destroyed, bridges are erected, roads are laid down, parks are designed, fortunes are made, lives are ruined, and power is amassed.” Even after fifty years, Caro deserves all the accolades he has received for writing The Power Broker. Despite its length and crushing density, it remains a compelling and masterful history of Moses, the workings of power, and the shaping of modern New York.

Robert Moses Statue - Babylon, New York

From McCarthy to Trump: The Right's 75-Year Crusade Against Government

Ever since I participated in the Economic Policy Semester at American University in the Fall of 1980, I have been interested in the role of government in American society. As a 21-year-old college student, studying in Washington during the 1980 elections was an exciting time. As one of several hundred students from around the country with politically diverse viewpoints, I engaged in many lively conversations that continue to resonate with me today. My classmates and I debated the social worth of government, the importance of regulatory agencies, the benefits of public housing, job training, and poverty programs, the need for U.S. foreign aid, and whether myriad other federal programs benefited society. 

Forty-five years ago, Republicans and Democrats were frequently but not always on opposite sides of these debates. The two parties each had a healthy mix of liberals, moderates, and conservatives so the lines were not always clearly delineated. Most of the arguments were between self-identified liberals (including me), who believed that the role of government was to facilitate a better and more equitable society while protecting individual liberties, and conservatives, who wanted less government and advanced the virtues of unfettered free markets and rugged individualism.

In college, these liberal-conservative debates were mostly about the means to achieving common goals that we all shared. Although a few classmates on the left wanted to overthrow the chains of capitalism and a few on the right wanted to dismantle the federal government and return to an agrarian economy of the 1700’s, most of us fell within a reasonable centrist sphere of liberal to conservative thought.

Of course, American politics has always had fringe elements on the Right and Left. Other than the first three years of LBJ’s Great Society in the mid-1960s when the governing coalition leaned left on social and economic issues, since World War II, American presidential administrations from Truman to Carter have governed from the pragmatic center. During most of this era, conservative public intellectuals ranging from William F. Buckley, Jr., to George Will and Irving Kristol, and publications like The Public Interest and The National Review, protested from the sidelines what they viewed as the excesses of the New Deal and Great Society. They argued for a smaller, less bloated federal bureaucracy and advocated private solutions to the nation’s ills. And yet, they understood and did not dispute that government provided many essential services for people in a complex and dynamic economy. 

As President Kennedy stated at a 1962 press conference, although Americans had been “conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint—Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate,” most of the nation’s problems are “technical problems, administrative problems” that “do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past.” When it came to preserving and protecting the institutions of our democracy, the Liberal Establishment was a pretty conservative bunch.

Back then, the Republican Party expressed concern for fiscal responsibility and used phrases like “sensible limits,” “shared sacrifice,” and “common ideals.” They discussed the balance between “mutual obligation” and “individual responsibility.” But that is no longer true. Today, so-called conservatives are mostly silent on these concepts – in fact, it is not unusual for the Right to accuse as socialist anyone who utters “common ideals” or “shared sacrifice.” In President Trump’s recent address to a joint session of Congress, we heard no such phrases and instead listened to boastful praise for the massive dismantling of the federal government led by Elon Musk and his band of 20-year-old technocrats. How did we get here?

In The Death of Conservatism: A Movement and Its Consequences (Random House 2010), Sam Tanenhaus asserts that today’s increasingly polarized politics and radical rightward shift within the Republican Party that led to the rise of the Tea Party (where his book ends)—and, by logical extension, to Trumpism—originated during the advent of the Cold War in the late 1940s, when talk of the “enemy within” and congressional witch hunts into allegedly “secret” Communist cabals within the federal government were the regular subject of news reports. 

Starting in 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin led a series of high-profile investigations into the Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a failed attempt to expose subversive elements in the upper echelons of government, including the U.S. Army, State Department, and CIA. Along with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which investigated subversive elements in Hollywood and among the ranks of American artists, professors, writers, and intellectuals, a lot of people were harmed and some ruined with scant evidence of Communist infiltration. By the time McCarthy had been exposed as a drunkard and a fraud, the John Birch Society (JBS) picked up where McCarthy left off, even accusing President Eisenhower of being a Communist agent. On the day President Kennedy visited Texas in November 1963, former General Edwin Walker, a prominent JBS member, printed and distributed thousands of leaflets all over Dallas accusing the President of treason against the United States. 

Although they lacked legitimate power, McCarthy’s and the Birchers’ true accomplishment was to fuel the Right’s antigovernment crusade and hatred of “Washington bureaucrats” that continues to this day. That the government was perceived as the “enemy” of the people would increasingly become a staple of Republican politics over the next half-century. Respectable conservatives like Buckley, Will, Kristol, and other philosophically minded types understood that such denunciations primarily came from “crackpots” and amounted to an attack on America itself. Indeed, Buckley tried to purge the Birchers from the conservative movement and, post-McCarthy, thoughtful conservatives rejected extremism and sought a more pragmatic and realistic examination of government. 

Politicians who attempted to upset the consensus politics of the time did not fare well. When Barry Goldwater was nominated as the Republican candidate for president in 1964, the outcome proved that far-right conservatives were out of touch with most Americans. Through his book, The Conscience of a Conservative (ghostwritten by Brent Bozell, a strong supporter of Joseph McCarthy and a member of the John Birch Society), Goldwater promised a total dismantling of the welfare state. “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size,” wrote Goldwater. “My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them.” Voter’s rejected Goldwater’s candidacy by huge numbers. Lyndon Johnson won the 1964 presidential election by a landslide, winning 44 states to Goldwater’s six (the electoral college tally was 486 – 52 in favor of LBJ) and the popular vote by 61.1% to 38.5%. (Unlike 2024, that was an actual landslide and mandate.)

Goldwater’s humiliation at the polls temporarily moderated the Republican Party and helped elect Richard Nixon in 1968. Nixon came to fame during his HUAC days and was known for playing dirty politics. But as William Safire noted, Nixon was a politician “willing and even eager to surprise with liberal ideas” in the tradition of former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, a Conservative Party leader who outmaneuvered his opposition by governing with liberal innovation. As Tanenhaus explains, “Nixon consistently departed from movement antigovernment doctrine.” He created the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, instituted affirmative action programs, and endorsed expansionist Keynesian economic stimulus programs, all things that are anathema in Republican circles today. 

Ironically, Nixon’s downfall at the behest of Watergate may have helped spark the Right’s burning suspicion of the “dark liberal forces” and media elites arrayed against Nixon. “The argument that political power emanated from an alliance of liberal government bureaucrats and a sympathetic press,” writes Tanenhaus, “became a favorite theme in the movement’s next phase.”

Over the next decade, a growing antigovernment animus broadened within the Republican Party that reached a pinnacle in the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s. Reagan was the first president in my lifetime who ran and won on an explicitly antigovernment platform. Photogenic with an amiable personality, Reagan preached that government was the enemy and not the solution. He represented a strain of conservatism that wished to upset the New Deal coalition that had retained power for the previous 50 years. 

Reagan gave voice to a long-standing belief among the more conservative wing of the Republican Party that an elite corps of salaried, mid-level managers and government administrators had amassed unprecedented authority and shifted power from private business interests to an unelected administrative state. It would not be long before terms like “good vs. evil” began to emerge on the Right when discussing social programs, environmental regulations, foreign aid, and many areas of federal governmental action. Reagan was particularly skilled at exploiting a pent-up anger towards government programs that Reagan charged took money from hardworking Americans and re-distributed it to the undeserving poor through entitlements and welfare programs.

But although Reagan promoted an antigovernment philosophy, he did not actually govern that way. As David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, has noted, “not one major spending program was abolished during the Reagan presidency.” Although Reagan promoted the virtues of the private sector and free markets, he understood, as George Will has written, that government, “unlike an economic market, has responsibilities” that included aiding those for whom the market does not provide through “policies that express the community’s acceptance of an ethic of common provision.” 

According to Tanenhaus, “conservatism entered its most decadent phase” during the 1990s, when the Right went all in on the “culture wars.” Rush Limbaugh replaced George Will as a spokesperson for the conservative cause. Republicans started to place loyalty to the “movement” above civic responsibility. They began rejecting notions of the common good and consensus politics. Republican politicians who dared to compromise or find common ground with the “enemy” were shunned. When the country elected Barack Obama in November 2008, Republicans made it their mission to limit Obama to one term (it failed) and uniformly opposed his major initiatives, even though many of Obama's proposals adopted conservative ideas.

The Right’s shared disdain for government, combined with a distaste for compromise, has only metastasized with the rise of Trump. They are more interested in destroying, rather than conserving, the institutions, traditions, and mutual obligations of civil society. As recently as three decades ago, moderate Republicans formed a sizable and influential segment of the party. Today, the party’s House and Senate caucuses are firmly committed to the politics of polarization and destruction – a pro-Trump orthodoxy that does not allow dissent or independent thought. 

“Therein lies the paradox of the modern Right,” writes Tanenhaus. “Its drive for power has steered it onto a path that has become profoundly and defiantly un-conservative—in its arguments and ideas, in its tactics and strategies, above all in its vision. . . . Classical conservatives have all either deserted the Right or been evicted from it.” This has become most prominent in the resurgence of the John Birch Society and its legacy of conspiracy theories that has become a dominant strain on the Right. Opposition to big government has become opposition to government itself, and the social institutions that sustain democracy. The current White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, has publicly equated federal workers with “radical left Communists” and “criminal cartels.”

Although Trump personally has no firmly held political convictions other than a fervent belief in his own aggrandizement, the movement he leads has finally, after many decades in the political wilderness, attained true power. While most of its proponents identify as conservative, the policies being enacted are anything but conservative in the classical sense. Trumpism is a non-ideological movement, consisting of right-wing evangelicals, isolationists, America Firsters, Christian nationalists, an assortment of libertarians, and a large collection of conspiracy theorists and alternative reality types who reject traditional news reporting. They perceive the institutions of democracy, government, education, media, and international diplomacy as hostile forces out to destroy the “real America,” which under Trump's worldview includes only Trump loyalists.

In just six weeks, Trump and Elon Musk have sought to eliminate dozens of long-standing and essential federal programs and agencies. Little thought is put into the proposed cuts other than personal revenge. The whole purpose seems to be to radically dismantle the federal government and reverse all the progress we have made over the last 100 years in civil rights, the environment, workplace safety and health, the social safety net, diplomacy, and the building of the post-War alliance. 

Trump also seeks to impose a rigid orthodoxy within government that puts fealty to Trump above the Constitution. He is radically eviscerating the independence of all executive branch agencies. He has openly politicized and imposed loyalty tests on traditionally non-political, independent institutions such as the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA. He fired 18 Inspectors General whose job was to independently monitor federal agencies and ferret out actual waste, fraud, and abuse. Although the courts may yet have their say, the Trump administration intends to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Education Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and numerous other departments. He has fired thousands of government workers in every agency throughout the government and has vowed to drastically reduce the size of the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the Veterans Administration. He repeatedly attacks the country’s most elite universities and wishes to eradicate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives from public and private life. 

None of these actions have included careful study and debate, for they are designed to produce random chaos and destruction. The result will predictably wreak havoc on the economy and detrimentally impact the lives of millions of Americans, many of whom voted for Trump.

We have always had strands of far Right, antigovernment extremism on the fringes of American society. As a lone senator, McCarthy could only do so much damage and the Eisenhower faction soon controlled the Republican Party. The Birchers, the conspiracy theorists, and other peripheral elements made noise, but they existed on the sidelines. That is no longer the case. The antigovernment extremists are currently in power, and the damage they are doing to the country, the economy, and the social fabric of America, is profound and potentially unlimited. We are living in dangerous times.

The need for responsible government, which used to be a high ideal of conservative philosophy, has never been greater. The current crop of spineless Republicans who used to claim allegiance to our democracy now slavishly support an authoritarian patriarchy akin to monarchy. Now is the time for true conservatives to stand up to speak. It may be the only hope we have to preserve the Constitution and the foundations of our Republic.

Remembering Gene Hackman

A man who comes to a place like this, either he's running away from something, or he has nowhere else to go. – Myra Fleener (Barbara Hershey) on Coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman), Hoosiers

As iconic figures extolled and venerated by the rest of us, movie stars have the advantage of immortality. Even after departing life, they leave behind a body of work we may continue to explore. With the recent death of Gene Hackman, we have lost one of the great actors of my lifetime. I do not generally mourn the loss of famous people. After all, I don’t know them personally, and I don’t know if they were kind and decent human beings in their everyday lives. It is misguided to assume that an actor’s on-screen characters are a true reflection of their personal character. It is, after all, their job to play an assigned role and not themselves. The best actors are good because the characters they play have no relation to their personal likability or moral worth as human beings.

As I grow older, and this may be something I need to get used to, the obituary pages are more frequently filled with people I grew up with, even if I did not know them personally. With Gene Hackman, however, I feel a sense of loss because many of the roles he played so well were so relatable. Hackman was an everyman. He was the bus driver and train operator you said hello to on your daily commute, the coach or teacher you looked up to, the military commander you feared and respected, the flawed detective caught in an ethical dilemma. He could be serious, funny, authoritative, sensitive, arrogant, humble, likeable and mean, and sometimes many of these things all at once.

I have not seen all of Hackman’s movies, and I had to research his forty-year body of work as a reminder of how accomplished and varied his roles were. Three of my favorite Hackman characters were the gritty, rules-be-damned FBI agent in Mississippi Burning, the coach in need of redemption in Hoosiers, and the conflicted clergyman, devoid of faith, battling to save a handful of survivors in The Poseidon Adventure. But he had so many great roles, including as “Popeye” Doyle, the crass and relentless narcotics detective in The French Connection, for which he won an Oscar for best actor in 1971. 

“There’s no identifiable quality that makes Mr. Hackman stand out,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times in 1988. “He simply makes himself outstandingly vital and real.” Hackman played widely diverse roles with equal skill and proficiency. From the delightfully playful villain Lex Luthor in Superman to a mean-spirited, corrupt sheriff in Unforgiven, he was semi-likeable and evil at the same time. He was surprisingly funny in several understated comedic roles, including as a morally uptight, conservative senator in The Birdcage, as a former president running for mayor of a small town in Welcome to Mooseport, and as the estranged family patriarch in The Royal Tenenbaums. And he mastered the roles of complex men internally conflicted by professional and ethical discord, such as a paranoid surveillance expert in The Conversation and a widowed college professor with an overbearing father in the 1970 film I Never Sang for My Father. His many good roles in so many good films over the years make it difficult to compose a definitive top ten or twenty list.

But for me, the film that best captures the subtle quality of Hackman’s screen presence is Hoosiers, the story of a small high school’s triumph against all odds to win the Indiana High School Championship in 1952. Hackman played Norman Dale, the coach with a tarnished past who is given one last chance at redemption. Although a small budget movie, Hoosiers is among a select list of highly memorable sports films, and it resonated with me entirely because of the understated manner of Hackman’s performance. 

We learn early in Hoosiers that Coach Dale is a flawed man. He is desperate to save his career, while atoning for a past mistake. Slightly contemptuous of the small midwestern town in which he finds himself, Dale is a stubborn, uncompromising, strong-willed coach in a place that treats high school basketball as the most important thing in the world. As an outsider with a mysterious past, the townsfolk lack faith in Dale. Many of the town’s outspoken boosters want the coach fired after an underwhelming start to the season and because he stubbornly refuses to adapt to their way of doing things. 

But Dale perseveres in the face of adversity and refuses to give up even when most of the town has given up on him. Dale gradually bonds with his players and helps them come together as a team and win against all odds. In time, the coach’s willingness to be vulnerable, and his ability to empathize with the complex lives of his players and the community to which he was exiled, helps him achieve quiet salvation. 

As someone who played high school sports, including basketball for a less-than-mediocre team in central New Jersey, I believe that Hackman’s understated yet complex performance in Hoosiers showed what a good coach should and should not be. Like many of Hackman’s roles, his character in Hoosiers combined likability with complexity. His character evolved from a man set on his coaching ways, to a more understanding and empathetic coach who listened to his players and welcomed the contributions of others. 

But it is more than Hackman’s skillful acting that saddens me most with his passing, for I can continue to watch his films and appreciate his acting skills. No, it is a combination of how he carried himself, the sensitivity he displayed, the complexity of his characters, and his general demeanor that I will miss the most. In many of his films, and especially his role in Hoosiers, Hackman reminded me of my older brother Steve, who died at 61 more than seven years ago. Hackman even looked a little bit like a younger Steve and many of Hackman’s characters displayed Steve’s similar mannerisms, a rough and slightly rugged edge combined with the vulnerability and humility of someone who makes a lot of mistakes and keeps on going. 

Some of Hackman’s appeal may also be that, like my brother, life was not always easy and smooth sailing. Hackman was 13 years old when his father left the family. As the young teenage Hackman played in the street, his father merely waved at his son as he drove away. It was the last time Hackman ever saw his father. Hackman was 36 before he got his first real break in Hollywood as Warren Beatty’s sidekick in Bonnie and Clyde. Before then, he had served in the Marines and worked odd jobs in California and New York, from truck driver to doorman, until finally achieving any success as an actor. Much like my brother Steve, Hackman didn’t have the typical looks of a leading man, and yet he was appealing and relatable in ways that connected with people. He was full of grit and honesty and possessed a distinctive understanding of the many flawed, conflicted men he played. 

The teenage protagonist of The Wonder Years once said, "Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose." If for no other reason than he reminds me of my older brother, I will continue to watch films starring Gene Hackman and keep him as a presence in my life through the gift of film, just as I do with Steve, through the gift of memories. 

The Coming of Spring

     

I know, of course, that spring ball games in Florida and Arizona are meant to be forgotten. March standings and averages are written in the sand; winning is incidental. Many ballplayers hate spring training—rookies because of the anxieties of trying to win a job, the regulars because of the immense labor and boredom of physical conditioning, the fear of injury, and the threat, heavier each year, of losing a starting position. Only the fan—and perhaps only the big-city fan, at that—is free to savor the special taste of this time and place. – Roger Angell, March 1968

When I first sat down to write this, snowflakes gently fell in eastern Pennsylvania as the sub-freezing temperatures of the past two weeks stubbornly refused to yield. Meanwhile, in the sun-filled ballparks of Florida and Arizona, baseball has begun. Pitchers and catchers reported to spring camp less than two weeks ago, followed by position players. For the next thirty days, mornings are devoted to fielding drills and batting practice, to outfielders chasing down flyballs hit by coaches with fungoes, to wind sprints and physical conditioning. The afternoons surrender to exhibition games and a chance to examine fresh talent and new arrivals. For the returning players, spring training is all business, a necessary part of honing their craft and ensuring they fulfill their end of multi-million-dollar contracts. For the rest of us, it is about the hope and anticipation of a new season.

For true baseball fans, the calendar year takes on a different dimension than it does for other less passionate souls. The year begins in mid-February, when pitchers and catchers report south and begin tossing white baseballs through the Florida air. Within a few days, the position players arrive and surround batting cages, chat with each other about their craft and off-season endeavors, while teammates gracefully swing wooden bats that crisply strike pitched balls with eye-catching splendor. On the backfields, rows of pitchers throw dart-like fastballs into the pockets of catcher’s mitts with blinding speed and precision.

It is at this time of year when the game comes alive. A new season is born. It matters not whether these images leave lasting memories, because it is the anticipation of opening day and the fresh start of a newborn season that brings us feelings of joy and renewed hope. It is a sentiment experienced by baseball fans everywhere, and it arrives just in time, when the depression of a cold harsh winter has not yet conceded defeat to the warmth of spring. For it is only then that the season begins in earnest. 

On Saturday, I streamed the audio of the first Cardinals pre-season game and, for the next two hours, imagined myself in the stands of Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida, where visions of a blue sky and sunshine transported me to another place and time. I imagined a younger, more innocent time, when the open expanse of a sun-drenched ballfield conjured dreams of glory. For fans who live in cold, northern cities and towns, visions of green grass, palm trees, and sunshine allow us to breathe a sigh of relief and entertain memories of a more virtuous time, when the smell of peanuts and cigar smoke on a warm summer twilight at the ballpark was the most beautiful thing in all the world. 

As a lifelong Cardinals fan, who lives and dies with the outcome of every game, follows their day-to-day progress, examines the box scores, and analyzes the daily statistics, I have a distinct perspective than more passive sports fans. For a few weeks in early March, when the pre-season games are well under way and the annual baseball previews fill the eternally optimistic fan with hope, the world seems like a brighter place. It is before the games count, when we convince ourselves of how good our beloved team will be if only that new star emerges from the minor league system, the young Japanese standout takes root, and if the health of the starting pitchers does not betray them. 

The Cardinals have been uninspiring for the past two seasons, finishing in last place in 2023 only to improve to a lackluster 83-79 finish in 2024. This year, they are in a “re-set” as their maddeningly emotionless and soft-spoken general manager calls it, not exactly giving up on a competitive season but lowering expectations as they re-establish their minor league player development. But I refuse to give up entirely, for that would defy all elements of my baseball-loving character. 

In these upbeat and reassuring days of spring, I see signs of optimism, as the Cardinals young manager Ollie Marmol and up-and-coming stars to be—Masyn Winn, Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman, Ivan Herrara, Lars Nootbaar, and Brendan Donovan—talk about a team that may surprise people. The baseball pundits are not buying it. They question the quality of the bullpen and see few bright spots in a starting rotation that includes a washed-up Miles Mikolas and injury-prone Steven Matz. Cynical sportswriters notwithstanding, I have no choice but to believe in these young men who believe in themselves. The alternative is too depressing with such a long season ahead.

For fans of good teams with winning histories and talent-filled rosters, spring baseball inevitably brings visions of a glorious finish, or at least thoughts of what once was and what could be again. I have had the pleasure of that feeling for most of the past two decades. But even now, when the Cardinals are struggling to find out who they are and looking to shed payroll (ahh, the dreaded business side of things), I cannot help but envision the possibility of everything coming together. Oh, how splendid it would be if the Redbirds silenced their critics and competed with the overpriced teams in New York, Los Angeles, and a handful of other cities. Indeed, I would not be a devoted fan if I could not dream a little.

Of course, in February and March, when our baseball senses awaken from the slumber of winter, it is easy to be filled with thoughts of a splendid and magnificent summer. But in less than thirty days, opening day arrives and the bright and cheerful predictions of a new season fade into the abyss of an anxiety-filled 162 game schedule. Sadly, for me, the next six months will define the calendar year as one of celebration or disappointment. Little else will matter as each day brings forth a fresh battle of good versus evil. All else in life becomes secondary.

In following the Cardinals during Grapefruit League play, I am relaxed and carefree. The outcome of each game means nothing, and I can vicariously experience the sights and sounds of baseball in the same manner as my Uncle Joe, a gentle soul who took me to the ballpark when I was a young child and who watched spring training games in the Florida sunshine many years ago. He never seemed upset or overly excited about anything that happened on the ballfield, and his relaxed demeanor was contagious. As I grow older, if truth be told, I cannot fully emulate the moderate temperament of my Uncle Joe. I much prefer it when the Cardinals do well in these meaningless games, but even when they do not, my day continues without feelings of solicitude.

All of that will change when opening day arrives. For now, I am content to watch or listen to two hours of old-style baseball played in the sun on a Winter afternoon. The games will become competitive and serious soon enough. And while my insane passion for the Cardinals may be inexplicable to some people (yes, I know the look) and cause me a great deal of agony in the coming months, whatever happens, my love of baseball will remain a deeply embedded part of my soul. The smell of grass on a summer afternoon and the feel of a leather glove, the seams of a baseball, and the smooth handle of a wooden bat, will remain timeless remnants of my childhood. 

The professional game is so much more advanced and sophisticated than when I was young, a more complex blend of analytics, video, physics, and strength training. It has become a highly specialized sport, and success requires committing at an early age to developing advanced baseball skills at the expense of all else. Professional baseball is about money, endorsements, press relations, high-priced tickets in stadiums filled with loud music and noise. And yet somehow, through it all, the history and romance of the game has not left me. I still love the game and how it makes me feel. For two or three hours on a summer night, time slows down, and we get to experience and watch young and graceful athletes doing something that only a small segment of humanity can do at such an elevated level. 

There remains an awareness that the game itself is timeless. From Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth to the Negro Leagues, from Mel Ott and Bobby Thompson and the players my dad watched at the Polo Grounds in his youth, to Lou Brock and Orlando Cepeda and the heroes of my childhood, to Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge and the great players of today’s game, the players move with the same easy flow of cadence and pace. “That is how the game was played in our youth and in our fathers’ youth,” writes Roger Angell, “and even back then—back in the country days—there must have been the feeling that time could be stopped.”

In Defense of Campus Speech and the Need to Build Bridges

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job at a global investigations firm over the past eighteen years has been working with colleges and universities on a variety of concerns. In many of these matters, I observed first-hand how university presidents must delicately balance the conflicting pressures and demands they face from major donors and powerful alumni, upset parents, headline-grabbing politicians, and government oversight bodies. Nothing compares, however, to the difficulty university presidents have faced since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in trying to balance concerns over academic freedom and free speech with the university’s duty to protect students from intimidation and harassment.

On October 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip launched a murderous onslaught against the people of Israel. The scope and brutality of the attack shocked Israel and the world. Hamas killed over 1,200 Israelis, injured thousands more, and took hostage over 240 people, including dozens of children and elderly citizens. The attack was the deadliest single attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. 

Colleges and universities across the United States deeply felt the impact of October 7, especially universities with substantial Jewish and Arab student populations. Many Jewish students have strong family ties and deep attachments to Israel. The Arab and Muslim communities likewise have family and history directly tied to the traditional land of Palestine. Accordingly, when news reports of the massacre and brutality of the killings and kidnappings filtered in on October 7 and the days and months that followed, and as the Israeli military response resulted in the deaths of over 45,000 Palestinians and the near complete destruction of Gaza, substantial segments of these university communities were emotionally devastated and traumatized.

During the past sixteen months, as the nation’s colleges and universities have experienced increased levels of student activism and protests, we have seen increased levels of antisemitism and Islamophobia worldwide. Accompanying this has been a disturbing increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic comments on social media; violent online threats against the Jewish and Palestinian Arab communities; and widespread concerns over doxing and the suppression of free speech. 

Although most student protest activity has been peaceful and nonviolent, university presidents and their administrations have faced intense pressures to discipline and remove students who engaged in protest activity or participated in Palestine Solidarity encampments. Congressional oversight panels and media outlets have frequently accused universities of tolerating antisemitism and rendering their campuses unsafe for Jewish students, while in most cases ignoring similar concerns expressed by Muslim and Arab students.

Within the past three weeks, the Trump administration has threatened universities with the loss of federal funding if they fail to hold pro-Palestinian protesters accountable for allegedly antisemitic behavior. A recent executive order requires universities to monitor and report international students who participated in anti-Israel protests, and Trump has repeated his campaign promises to deport international students who participated in the protests. According to a White House fact sheet, the administration intends to target “pro-Hamas aliens and left-wing radicals” in “leftist, anti-American colleges and universities” and “demands the removal of resident aliens who violate our laws.” A Justice Department press release announcing the formation of Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said the group’s priority would be “to root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.”

The past year has also seen an unprecedented flurry of civil rights lawsuits and Education Department investigations alleging that anti-Zionist and anti-Israel speech displayed or chanted during campus protests is inherently antisemitic and creates a hostile environment for Jewish students. These Title VI lawsuits and investigations rely on a legal theory that equates anti-Zionism and intense criticism of Israel with antisemitism, a theory premised on the belief that many Jews strongly identify with Israel as part of their shared ancestry.

If the above legal actions applied only to students who engaged in physical assaults or intimidation tactics, vandalized Jewish-owned stores, stole mezuzahs from a student’s doorways, discriminated against individual Jews by prohibiting “Zionists” from public spaces on campus, and similar violative behavior, there would be little cause for concern. Students that engage in these sorts of actions should be disciplined and punished. But when the intended targets are students who merely exercised their rights of free speech and lawful protest, these official actions and legal remedies threaten democracy.

By using terms like “pro-Hamas,” “left-wing radicals,” and “leftist” universities, Trump’s rhetoric raises two concerns. First, painting all pro-Palestinian protestors as “pro-Hamas” has been a standard talking point on the right to tarnish the student protestors falsely and unfairly, the vast majority of whom have no sympathy for Hamas. At two separate universities at which I assessed campus protest activity, none of the protestors expressed support for Hamas and the student organizations involved implemented strict rules prohibiting any expressions of antisemitism. The protests at both campuses included a significant number of Jewish participants, and it was common to see a Shabbat service held in the middle of an encampment and similar acts of solidarity. These are not the actions of “pro-Hamas” students or “left-wing radicals.”

Second, Trump’s pronouncements do nothing to combat antisemitism. For instance, the administration has offered no additional resources to enhance security for synagogues and Jewish institutions that have long been targets of anti-Jewish violence from homegrown right-wing extremists, whom Trump has often enabled. And the administration has said nothing to counter the mostly right-wing antisemitic tropes and propaganda trending on social media. Instead, his efforts will only serve to increase anti-Muslim bias and Islamophobia which, along with increased levels of antisemitism, reached record levels in the United States last year.

Trump’s ill-advised approach to combat antisemitism, and legal efforts to conflate anti-Israel speech with antisemitism, threaten free speech and academic freedom. In a free society, the university is a place for wide-ranging expression and debate, where students can explore and analyze provocative theories and express views that others may find misguided or objectionable. It is a place to be challenged and exposed to differing perspectives, even at the risk of discomfort. The appropriate response to disagreeable speech is not to censor or punish, but to challenge, criticize, educate, and persuade. 

Of course, universities may and do impose content-neutral restraints on the time, place, and manner of student protests. Students have no right to interfere with other students’ ability to attend class or study, to defame or threaten, to intimidate or harass, or to incite violence.

For many students and others navigating the Israel-Palestinian conflict, it can be difficult to identify where the line between legitimate political speech and antisemitic hate speech is drawn because many people, including the head of the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks incidents of antisemitism around the world, equate broad criticisms of Israel and anti-Zionist rhetoric with antisemitism. The use by some pro-Palestinian protestors of certain words and phrases like “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free,” comparisons of Zionism to genocide, references to Israel as a colonial settler movement, and calls for “intifada” are frequently targeted. Such slogans often trigger broad accusations of antisemitism and concern for Jewish safety. 

Like most politically-controversial speech, however, these phrases mean different things to different people. A helpful resource on this issue is The Nexus Leadership Project's A Campus Guide to Identifying Antisemitism in a Time of Perplexity, which was authored by several prominent Jewish leaders, rabbis, and scholars of Jewish and Israel studies. According to these authorities on the topic, the intent of the speaker and context is most determinative of whether the phrase constitutes discriminatory hate speech. These scholars explain that many of these commonly used protest slogans are not inherently antisemitic, however offensive they may be to certain individuals. 

When it comes to emotionally-charged debates on college campuses, efforts to effectively outlaw certain controversial slogans or to punish students who engage in non-violent forms of protest, is the wrong approach. In November 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the presidents of 650 universities to “reject calls to investigate, disband, or penalize student groups on the basis of their exercise of free speech rights”:

All students deserve equal access to education—free from harassment and discrimination on campus. Schools have a responsibility to address discrimination and harassment wherever it occurs. But the experience of our country’s universities during the McCarthy era demonstrates that ideologically motivated efforts to police speech on campus destroy the foundation on which academic communities are built. A college or university, whether public or private, cannot fulfill its mission as a forum for vigorous debate if its leaders initiate baseless investigations into those who express disfavored or even loathsome views. Such investigations chill speech, foster an atmosphere of mutual suspicion, and betray the spirit of free inquiry, which is based on the power to persuade rather than the power to punish.

People have different levels of tolerance for certain types of speech. Balancing the rights of free speech with the right of people to not be offended is precarious. But there are far better and safer ways to approach the issue than censorship and punishment. From a safety and security perspective, a university’s defense of freedom of expression, combined with increased efforts to educate and inform, to promote respectful dialogue, and to protect the physical safety of all students as they continue to pursue their education, is the most effective response. 

Universities have a responsibility to educate students on when certain speech crosses the line into antisemitism, Islamophobia, or racism. For example, when do expressions of anti-Zionism become antisemitism? How can students speak openly and freely about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other hot political topics in a manner that remains civil and educational? Using university resources to engage in a balanced and scholarly examination of antisemitism and Islamophobia—and when or whether certain speech crosses a line—can help facilitate productive conversations and promote dialogue. If done with nuance and sensitivity, it can also help student activists better understand what terms and phrases are potentially counter-productive to their cause and hurtful in unintended ways. 

Universities should also provide resources to support small group discussions, interfaith dialogue, and cross-political bridge building. These and similar efforts are far more productive than censorship and punishment. In my work at one university, I observed examples of  students and staff working together to promote understanding and dialogue around politically and emotionally charged issues. Effective bridge building typically occurs on a small scale rather than through large public events and forums. Students can benefit from guidance and direction in how to establish opportunities for understanding and to connect conflict resolution principles to politically volatile environments. 

While it is not the university’s responsibility to make students feel comfortable with differing historical narratives, efforts to promote understanding and provide support can help lessen anxiety over safety concerns. For example, in 2023, Dartmouth College held a series of successful panel discussions between professors from its Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Studies departments (including Susannah Heschel, a Jewish Studies professor and the daughter of Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Ezzedine Fishere, a Muslim professor of Middle Eastern Studies and a former Egyptian diplomat to Israel). Most universities possess similar in-house expertise and resources, including experts in Middle Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Studies, mental health counseling, and resources to support interfaith cooperation and dialogue. 

Most campus protests involve young men and women in their late teens and early twenties. Many students are for the first time being exposed to conflicting historical narratives and new and challenging perspectives. College is a time for personal and intellectual growth. Students should be allowed to express themselves freely without fear of punishment, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others. 

I have been deeply disturbed by the startling rise in antisemitism in recent years—from the right and the left—but there is a right and wrong way to fight anti-Jewish violence and bigotry. To properly counter antisemitism, it is important not to conflate legitimate forms of political protest, including critical speech directed at Israel, with antisemitism. Regardless of how strongly one disagrees with them, falsely accusing most pro-Palestinian protestors as “pro-Hamas” or antisemitic not only ignores the moral passion and sincerity of their cause—the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, the forcible displacement of two million people, and the destruction of Gaza—but it dilutes the meaning of antisemitism, undermines legitimate efforts to combat it, and threatens the very foundations of a free society.

 

Trump's Assault on the Federal Government Threatens All of US

Federal Safety Inspector for the Food Safety and Inspection Service

I devoted half my career as a lawyer for the Department of Justice, serving as an Assistant United States Attorney for eight years in the District of Columbia and ten years in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. As a criminal prosecutor in these two federal districts, I had the privilege of working with hundreds of dedicated public servants of all political persuasions, people who took seriously their ethical responsibilities and commitment to the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. From the moment I first took an oath as a federal prosecutor in 1988, I maintained a printed copy of a quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland in Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 88 (1935), which stated in part:

The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, [the prosecutor] is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.

Over the years, my colleagues and I were frequently reminded of the words of former Chief Nuremberg Prosecutor, Attorney General, and Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who told the Second Annual Conference of United States Attorneys in 1940:

A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizen’s safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.

Although the President appoints each U.S. Attorney, the entire staff at each office consists of non-political civil servants. In my eighteen years as an AUSA, I worked for Republican and Democratic administrations and served for five separate U.S. Attorneys appointed by four different presidents. I still have the handwritten notes from one of my early training sessions. On the topic of prosecutorial discretion, my notes reflect: “non-political judgments, enforce law – equal application; legislature decides what a crime is – prosecutor decides only whether crime [was] committed & sufficiency of evidence.” 

This dedication to fairness and objectivity was shared by all my colleagues (including my wife, who was a talented and devoted federal prosecutor for 31 years), and by the hundreds of federal law enforcement agents who investigated and developed the evidence in cases assigned to me. I worked closely with countless agents from the FBI, DEA, ATF, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Customs, Immigration, IRS, U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and many local and state law enforcement officers. 

Although my professional responsibilities focused on federal criminal prosecutions, over the years I have become friends and interacted with dozens of career federal employees, from foreign aid workers to diplomats, lawyers, doctors, scientists, economists, researchers, intelligence analysts, air traffic controllers, and many others. In every case, I have been impressed with how sincerely they believed in what they were doing, how much they loved serving their country and the public good. Many were highly specialized and possessed unmatched expertise in their fields. Almost all of them could have made more money in the private sector, but they were driven by a sense of mission and public service.

I point this out to emphasize how disheartening and devastating are the recent actions of Elon Musk and the Trump administration to purge or fire hundreds of experienced career federal employees, and their attempts to coerce the resignations of a large segment of the federal workforce. The day before the tragic air collision between an American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army helicopter that killed sixty-seven people, all air traffic controllers working for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received an email from the White House titled “Fork in the Road.” The memo, which was sent to federal employees throughout the country, encouraged the employees to resign and gave them eight days to accept a payout. The memo implicitly threatened that those who did not agree to resign could be fired, noting that “the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force. These actions are likely to include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will status for a substantial number of federal employees.”

As one FAA employee wrote in a letter to the Washington Post, “How do you think this letter would sit with anyone in any job? I will tell you that everyone at the Indianapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center was talking about that email Wednesday” [the day of the accident]. Only days earlier, Trump had fired the head of the Transportation Security Agency and all members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, froze hiring of new air traffic controllers, forced out the head of the FAA, and illegally fired the inspector general of the Department of Transportation (along with 17 other inspectors general), a non-partisan position with the sole responsibility of detecting “waste, fraud, and abuse” within federal agencies. Of course, rather than express concern for the victims or address any actual evidence of the accident’s causes, President Trump childishly blamed “DEI” (diversity, equity, and inclusion) on the accident. 

Unfortunately, the Trump/Musk effort to spur mass resignations is only one of many ongoing attacks on federal employees, as Trump seeks retribution against his perceived political enemies, which includes the professional civil service that he so often fantasizes constitute the “deep state.” Trump’s attack on the federal workforce is premised on the notion that the professional civil servants who perform the everyday work of government are either useless “bureaucrats” or people secretly aligned against him. He and Musk believe that they can get rid of most civil servants, regardless of their experience, dedication, and expertise, and permanently shrink the size of government without any consequences. He is gravely mistaken.

Hitting close to home for me is the recent firing of thirty career federal prosecutors by political hack Ed Martin who Trump appointed as the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin has never been a prosecutor and most recently served as head of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum (i.e., anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ, ultraconservative). For the past four years he falsely promoted Trump’s claims that he won the 2020 election. Martin dismissed these career prosecutors because they helped successfully prosecute and convict some of the January 6th rioters. He also ordered an internal review of all AUSAs in the office who had any involvement in the 250 cases that charged rioters with obstructing an official proceeding of Congress (a charge that was approved by nearly all federal judges who ruled on the issue until the Supreme Court overturned them on highly questionable legal grounds). Martin has threatened subordinates who criticize his actions, and he is determined to spur an exodus of veteran prosecutors, which will only serve to threaten public safety and create a more docile office less likely to resist Trump’s avowed desire to seek legal retribution against his perceived enemies.

Equally troubling was Trump’s firing of dozens of top-level FBI officials, including the six most senior FBI executives and dozens of Special Agents in Charge of field offices across the country. He has also threatened to purge potentially thousands of agents who had anything to do with the investigations that led to his indictments in Florida and DC or who worked on the investigations resulting in the prosecution of the 1,600 January 6th rioters whom Trump disgracefully pardoned (including 600 violent rioters who attacked and assaulted police officers).

The threats to our democracy, national security, and ability of the federal government to perform the everyday tasks that help ensure the health and safety of the United States, are so vast that they cannot be overstated. As Stacey Young, an 18-year veteran of the Justice Department told the New York Times, “The animus coming from the administration is unprecedented. . . employees are terrified about the stability of their jobs. They’re worried about being fired or transferred or demoted or demeaned or doxed. . . the fear and confusion is palpable and may only grow.” Young, who resigned from her DOJ position, recently formed Justice Connection, a non-profit organization that provides guidance to current employees on legal issues, whistle-blowing, and digital and physical security, among other concerns. 

Along with many Republicans, Trump has long sought to shrink the size of the federal government and restructure it to serve his purposes. He seeks to impose loyalty tests and remove anyone who might disagree with him from the ranks of the civil service. He has reclassified Senior Executive Service employees, some of the most experienced and important members of the federal workforce, as “at will” employees serving at the discretion of the President, thus attempting to strip them of civil service protections. He is attempting to eliminate the appeal rights of a whole range of civil servants should they be fired for no justification. As Joe Davidson of the Washington Post noted, “due process for feds facing discipline or termination is meant to protect not just individual workers from unfair actions, but more broadly and more importantly to protect the public from a government staffed with partisans loyal to a political party or individual instead of to the nation and its Constitution.” Indeed, the harmful narrative that seeks to turn dedicated civil servants into villains threatens the ability of government to function and endangers our democracy.  

The attempted workforce purge is being led by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and the “Fork in the Road” email mirrors precisely what he did when he took over and nearly destroyed Twitter/X. Unfortunately, Musk, like Trump, has a vendetta against government regulators and knows nothing of the complexity of the federal government or the importance of maintaining an apolitical workforce that includes a wide-range of technical expertise and experience. Musk intends to ruin the federal government the same way he ruined Twitter – only now the people he is targeting do things that benefit ordinary Americans.

Close to 16% of our federal workforce consists of health care professionals – physicians, nurses, physical therapists, pharmacists, dental officers, veterinarians, and many other public health occupations. Many of these professionals work for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs our VA Hospitals, and an assortment of agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services. The federal government employs a significantly higher number of people with advanced degrees than does the private sector. This includes biomedical and cancer researchers at the National Institutes of Health, safety inspectors at the Food and Drug Administration, epidemiologists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and doctors and nurses working for the Health Resources and Services Administration, which provides health care to people who are geographically isolated or economically vulnerable. 

Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency collect data on air, water, and land quality, identify pollutants, assess environmental risks, and develop solutions to mitigate these risks. Toxicologists, chemists, and product safety engineers at the Consumer Product Safety Commission help keep children’s toys and all the consumer products we buy safe. Safety managers at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration identify workplace hazards, implement preventative measures, train employees, investigate accidents, and promote a culture of safety within the workplace. Nuclear safety regulators have kept our nuclear energy facilities free of fatalities since 1961. The Social Security Administration and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services facilitate the services that allow millions of Americans to afford the necessities of life (72 million Americans receive Medicaid; 68 million receive Medicare; and 67 million receive Social Security). The Federal Emergency Management Administration responds to natural disasters. The list goes on and on. 

And it is not only people in the United States who are badly impacted by the Trump/Musk purges. Musk and Trump have set their sights on career staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), approximately one hundred of whom were suspended, with more severe personnel and funding cuts expected. President John F. Kennedy formed USAID in November 1961 to place all foreign aid functions under one roof. Since then, the agency has provided desperately needed and life-saving humanitarian assistance to the world’s poorest countries. The work it does supports many nonprofit organizations and enhances the reputation of the United States around the world. USAID provides disaster relief, health services, anti-poverty funding, and technical assistance on a host of issues, and promotes democracy and civil society efforts in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. More than three million lives are saved annually through the USAID Immunization Program.

USAID was an instrumental weapon in fighting the Cold War and has more recently helped stem the rising influence of China, which has been increasingly advancing its foreign aid efforts in the developing world. But Chairman Mao, I mean Musk, who has strong financial ties with China, has said that USAID is a “criminal organization” (of course, providing no evidence) and that it is “time for it to die.” Meanwhile, according to the USA Today, “Field hospitals in Thai refugee camps, landmine clearance in war zones, and drugs to treat millions suffering from diseases such as HIV are among the programs at risk of elimination.”

Efforts to enact good faith reforms and improve how efficiently the federal government is managed are always welcome. But it is the job of Congress to enact a budget and appropriate funds, and to approve federal programs. It is an essential function of the democratic process, one that the framers of the Constitution did not delegate to the President, and certainly not to an unelected vengeful billionaire with no security clearance, Congressional vetting, or any government experience. 

Most of the day-to-day work of the federal government is performed by career civil servants who are motivated not by politics, money, or fame but by public interest. When things work well, it is because of the committed and experienced professionals in our federal agencies. Their work is invisible to most people. But if no one prevents Trump and Musk from breaking things just for the hell of it, the damage to our economy, our society, and our way of life, will be immense and irreversible. As Ben Raderstorf of Protect Democracy writes: 

We should aim to make government work better — find ways to recruit more talent; better retain star performers; improve ways of operating and delivering services; enhance transparency and responsiveness. All of those things would make us safer.

That’s not what Trump’s team is doing with the civil service; they are instead working to "dismantle” it because it might stand in the way of their ability to consolidate power. That makes us less safe.

It also makes us much less democratic.