On the Eve of the 88th Anniversary of Kristallnacht

Posted on November 8, 2026 by 34orion

This is a difficult issue for me to write about.

It is deeply personal, and I know that some of my friends—and even some members of my family—will disagree with what I have to say. My inclination has been to keep my opinions and emotions to myself unless I can have a quiet, face-to-face conversation. Preferably one in which nobody feels compelled to shout.

But tomorrow marks the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Every year, I publish my father’s recollection of that terrible night and ask people never to forget what happened or what it represents. This year, I don’t feel I can do that without first addressing what is happening around us.

In Jewish tradition, the number eight can symbolize what comes after completion: renewal, a new beginning, something beyond the familiar cycle. I don’t put much stock in numerology, but on this 88th anniversary, I’m willing to borrow a little of that hope. I’d like to see a new beginning in Israel: a government without Benjamin Netanyahu and one willing to bring Arab parties into its governing coalition.

Which brings me to Netanyahu.

The nicest thing I can say about him is that he speaks excellent English. My list of compliments ends there.

For years, he has maintained power by depending on hard-right and religious parties, exploiting divisions and making the prospect of peace feel perpetually just out of reach. I believe his leadership has been disastrous. His embrace of Donald Trump as a political soulmate doesn’t exactly improve my opinion of him.

Israel’s military response to Hamas after October 7 was understandable. But Netanyahu’s government has too often treated the devastating consequences for Palestinian civilians as something to be managed rather than prevented. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been reported killed in Gaza. That is a human tragedy.

I also believe Netanyahu’s policies have handed antisemites around the world a fresh supply of excuses. That does not make him responsible for their hatred. They own that. But it doesn’t absolve him of responsibility for his decisions, either.

And yet there is another part of this story that too often gets left out.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attackers murdered approximately 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages. Any country subjected to an attack of that magnitude would have responded militarily. Hamas has also operated in and around civilian areas, putting Palestinian civilians at enormous risk. Deliberately using civilians to shield military objectives violates the laws of war.

Pretending Hamas bears no responsibility for what happened after October 7 is deliberate ignorance.

War is ugly, and history offers some awful reminders. In March 1945, American bombers firebombed Tokyo, killing upwards of 50,000 civilians in a single night. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more than 200,000 civilians. The United States defended its campaign against Japan as necessary to bring the war to an end and save American lives. History can help us understand how governments justify wartime decisions. It does not make every decision just.

I am not offering Israel a blanket defense. Far from it. Palestinian lives matter. Israeli lives matter. The law of war matters. And acknowledging one of those truths should not require pretending the others don’t exist.

Then there are the words we use.

Apartheid is one of them. Using it as a shorthand for Israel’s relationship with Arabs is inflammatory and wrong.  Arab citizens of Israel vote, serve in the Knesset, and participate in public life. That doesn’t erase discrimination, inequality, or the grave questions raised by Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank. But it is not apartheid.

Genocide is another word that gets thrown into almost every argument about Gaza. It has a specific meaning: acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. I do not believe it should be used casually. I believe doing so belittles what happened in Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, and the Holocaust.

What is happening in Gaza is an epic human tragedy. We should treat it as such. But we should be very careful about the words we choose to describe it.

And we should not forget who Hamas is. Its 1988 charter called for Israel’s destruction and contained openly antisemitic language. Its leaders have repeatedly spoken of eliminating Israel. Whatever arguments people make about the Israeli government, Hamas is not some misunderstood neighborhood association with a public-relations problem.

So why am I writing all this? Because we need to make distinctions, and lately we seem determined not to.

You can condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza or the West Bank without being antisemitic. You can despise Netanyahu without being antisemitic. You can demand Palestinian rights and statehood without being antisemitic. I may disagree with parts of your argument, but I understand why you feel strongly about it.

Hating Jews because they are Jews is different. So is holding Jewish people in Philadelphia, New York, or anywhere else personally responsible for the decisions of the Israeli government.

And the same principle applies to everyone. Hating Muslims, Christians, Hindus, or Jews because of how they worship is wrong. Full stop. It is dangerous, and it is contrary to what we should stand for as human beings and as Americans.

Which brings me to Philadelphia.

A pro-Palestinian cycling group has organized a November 8 boycott ride targeting six Jewish-owned restaurants. The organizers say they are protesting the owners’ support for Israel, not their religion. But the public call to drive these establishments out of the neighborhood is alarming, and the timing—on the eve of Kristallnacht—makes it impossible for me to shrug off.

If you object to something a business owner has actually done, make your case and apply the same standard to everyone. But if the message is that Jewish-owned restaurants don’t belong in your neighborhood, don’t insult our intelligence by calling that justice. Call it what it is: antisemitism.

Tomorrow, I will share my father’s account of the night when Jewish businesses were attacked simply because Jews owned them. I am not suggesting a bicycle boycott is Kristallnacht. It isn’t.

But 88 years later, if you cannot hear the echo, you aren’t listening.

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Thanks America

Posted on November 7, 2026 by 34orion

For too long a period, I have written about whathisface in the White House and the orange stain he has left on this country.

It hasn’t exactly been a cheerful undertaking.

There have been mornings when I have sat down at my computer, coffee in hand, determined to write about something uplifting, only to discover that the administration had managed to commit three fresh outrages before breakfast. At some point, you begin to suspect that the national motto has been quietly changed from E Pluribus Unum to Non Possumus Makeus This Shittus Uppus.

Watching the country suffer the slings and arrows of this administration has been painful. Not merely because of the policies, the cruelty, the corruption, or the daily assault on the English language, although God knows there has been plenty of each.

For me, the most painful aspect has been the growing suspicion that we might never recover.

I feared that something fundamental had changed. The America I grew up believing in, albeit an imperfect country with a rather impressive collection of historical sins, had somehow decided that decency, honesty, and basic human dignity were no longer part of the national ethos. (For the record, Musk-rat, empathy was considered a virtue long before Independence.)

And perhaps the damage was permanent. That we would never find a solvent capable of removing the orange stain MAGA has left on our Constitution.

Then came Tuesday.

I have spent the days since trying to identify the feeling that came over me as the returns rolled in.

Relief? You betcha.

Satisfaction? Come on now!

Schadenfreude? Oh yeah. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a generous helping of that. I am only human, and apparently not a particularly charitable one.

But there was something else.

Something I hadn’t experienced in quite some time.

Hope.

Not the town in Arkansas, or the disingenuous stuff peddled by politicians who promise to change the world while quietly making side deals with their donors.

The real thing. The kind that sneaks up on you when you have nearly convinced yourself that optimism is a character flaw.

Tuesday gave me hope.

And rather than immediately returning to our regularly scheduled programming of political outrage, I would like to suggest something unusual.

Let’s sit back, relax, and enjoy the moment.

We do not need to spend today speculating about the next Speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, or the 10,000 ways the Democrats might find to fuck this up.

We can postpone the declaration that MAGA is dead, buried, and awaiting resurrection on some obscure cable channel. Nor do we need to devote another thousand words to the news that Beelzebub has apparently been appointed White House chief of staff.

Let the political undertakers, consultants, television experts, and professional hand-wringers do all that. It is what they are paid for. Besides, most of them are incapable of enjoying a victory without immediately identifying seventeen ways it could become a catastrophe.

We should turn them off.

Because Tuesday was about far more than which political party controls Congress.

It was about what Americans did when given the opportunity to speak for themselves.

And what they said was extraordinary.

Consider the history that was made.

In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in American history.

Think about that for a moment.

In a country that has existed for 250 years, a Black woman had never been elected governor of a state. Not once.

Until Tuesday.

In New Mexico, Deb Haaland became the first Native American woman elected governor. A descendant of the people who inhabited this continent long before Europeans arrived will now lead one of its states.

One could make a fairly convincing argument that this particular milestone was overdue by several centuries.

Texas elected Gina Hinojosa, its first Latina governor. Minnesota elected Peggy Flanagan to the United States Senate, the first Native American woman ever elected to that institution.

Michigan elected Abdul El-Sayed, the nation’s first Muslim senator. New Hampshire elected Chris Pappas, the first openly gay man to win a Senate seat.

These are not merely entries in some future edition of the Almanac of American Politics.

These are doors opening. This is DEI in its natural habitat.

And behind every one of those doors are children who can now look at the people governing this country and recognize someone who looks like them, comes from a family like theirs, or understands something about their lives.

I find that rather wonderful.

There is also something deliciously American about the fact that so many of these breakthroughs occurred in places where conventional political wisdom insisted they couldn’t happen.

Conventional political wisdom, of course, is that peculiar branch of human knowledge in which people are paid enormous sums to explain, with absolute certainty, why yesterday’s predictions were wrong.

Tuesday was not especially kind to the profession.

Nor was it kind to the assumption that Americans had become permanently resigned to whatever Washington decided to inflict upon them.

They showed up.

Young voters, in particular, shifted dramatically. People who had been dismissed as apathetic demonstrated that they were paying attention.

And across the country, voters exercised the one power that remains stubbornly beyond the reach of presidential executive orders.

They voted.

It sounds almost embarrassingly simple.

But democracy is, at its heart, an enormously complicated system built around a remarkably uncomplicated proposition.

The people get to decide.

Not the billionaires. Not the television personalities. Not the fellows in expensive suits who have confused access to power with possession of wisdom.

The people.

And Tuesday, the people reminded Washington that their employment contracts are subject to renewal.

We are Americans, not characters in a Disney movie. There is no musical number at the end in which everyone embraces and the villain is transformed into a harmless woodland creature.

Although I would pay good money to see that particular transformation.

What Tuesday demonstrated was that the American experiment still has a pulse.

For years, we have been told that the country is hopelessly divided, that truth no longer matters, that institutions are powerless, and that the public has surrendered its capacity to distinguish leadership from performance art.

Tuesday suggested that those conclusions may have been premature.

I have lived long enough to understand that political victories are temporary. There will be disappointments. There will be compromises that make us uncomfortable, decisions that make us furious, and politicians who discover that power has a remarkable ability to diminish their acquaintance with principle.

But that is a problem for another day.

Today, I want to think about the poll workers who spent countless hours making sure ballots were properly counted. The candidates who entered races they were told they couldn’t win. The volunteers who knocked on doors, made telephone calls, and endured the peculiar pleasure of discussing politics with strangers.

And the millions of Americans who took time from their jobs, families, and daily obligations to participate in an act of faith.

Because voting really is an act of faith.

Faith that your voice matters. That the country belongs to its citizens. That tomorrow does not have to resemble yesterday.

For much of the past several years, I had begun to wonder whether that faith was misplaced.

Tuesday reminded me why I had it in the first place.

We have not solved our problems. We have not repaired every institution or healed every wound. And there are still plenty of people in Washington who should not be trusted with the combination to a bicycle lock, much less the machinery of government.

But perhaps we have rediscovered something important.

The capacity to surprise ourselves.

The ability to say enough.

And the possibility that the better angels of our nature, having apparently spent the last several years on an extended leave of absence, might be finding their way back to work.

I don’t know what happens next.

For once, I’m content not to know.

For the life of this Substack, I have spent an enormous amount of time writing about what is wrong with America.

Today, I would rather celebrate what is right with it.

Thank you, America.

I needed that.

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A D-Day Speech

Posted on November 2, 2026 by 34orion

On June 5, 1944, General Dwight David Eisenhower carried a heavy burden. For four years, he had planned, prepared, and practiced for the invasion of Europe. He had done all he could to secure success, but he knew that “even the best laid plans of man…often go asunder.”

Eisenhower wrote an inspirational message for his troops. It was stirring, confident, and appropriately grand. It spoke of liberty and sacrifice and began with the words, “The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”

Eighty-two years later, the eyes of the world are once again upon America.

Not because armies are preparing to storm the beaches of Normandy, but because Americans are preparing to enter voting booths in Summit, Selma, San Francisco, and thousands of other places where the fate of our democracy will be determined by people armed with the most effective weapon in a democracy: a vote.

And, hopefully, a resolute conviction that hate, fear, and lies, led by a man whose principal goal as president appears to be making his bank account great again, are not the right direction for our beloved country.

The sacrifices are different today. But the consequences of today’s election will reverberate far beyond our shores.

For much of the past century, the United States has presented itself to the world as democracy’s most prominent advocate. We have not always lived up to that billing. Indeed, we have occasionally demonstrated the remarkable ability to lecture other countries about democratic principles while treating our own as optional reading. This is especially true under the reign of Orange.

Nevertheless, the American experiment represents something important.

That a nation can govern itself. That power can be transferred peacefully. That no individual stands above the law. That the institutions of government belong to the people, not to whoever happens to occupy the White House or writes the largest campaign check.

To me, a Democratic victory in both houses of Congress would signal that those principles remain alive. That the light from our shining city upon a hill has not been extinguished.

It would prove that checks and balances are not merely decorative phrases gathering dust in eighth-grade civics textbooks.

It would demonstrate to our allies that America’s commitment to democratic institutions remains intact, even when our president spends more time pursuing retribution and helping his buddies get rich than addressing real problems such as affordability, health care, and education.

But if we falter, the consequences could extend far beyond the next two years.

The decisions made by the next Congress will influence the courts, federal spending, health care, civil liberties, foreign relations, and the balance of power between Congress and the presidency. Some decisions will be felt immediately. Others may shape the country our children and grandchildren inherit.

History has a nasty habit of charging compound interest on political mistakes.

Recognizing the importance of this election, and with the utmost respect for General Eisenhower, I have decided to borrow his famous Order of the Day and adapt it for the millions of Americans who have worked, organized, volunteered, contributed, argued, and occasionally sacrificed their remaining faith in human intelligence to reach this moment.

With apologies to Ike, here is my own D-Day communiqué.

Order of the Day — November 3, 2026

To the Volunteers, Organizers, Voters, and Defenders of the American Experiment:

You are about to embark upon a great democratic undertaking, toward which we have striven for these many months.

The eyes of the world are upon you.

The hopes of liberty-loving people everywhere accompany you. From Europe to Asia, from the Americas to the Pacific, people are watching to see what the United States intends to make of itself.

Your task will not be an easy one.

You have faced powerful political organizations, enormous financial resources, and an information environment in which the truth is frequently treated as the equal of the conspiracy du jour. And, regrettably, the conspiracy theory often has a better publicist.

You have endured endless political advertisements, fundraising emails, unsolicited text messages, idiotic social media posts, trolls, and television commentators whose principal interests are ratings rather than accuracy and who have somehow managed to turn the simple act of counting votes into a seven-month sporting event.

But this is the year 2026!

You have organized communities across the country. You have knocked on doors, made telephone calls, registered voters, worked polling places, and defended the principle that government derives its authority from the consent of the governed.

You have argued for a Congress that will exercise its constitutional responsibilities, scrutinize and hold the executive branch accountable, protect the public purse, and remember that the words public servant are supposed to describe a job rather than a particularly sophisticated form of self-enrichment.

You have demonstrated that American democracy is not merely a collection of marble buildings in Washington, but a system of living institutions sustained by citizens willing to participate in them.

The tide of history does not turn by itself. It is moved by the actions of ordinary people who refuse to become indifferent.

I have full confidence in your dedication, perseverance, and commitment to the principles upon which this republic was founded.

Today, do your part. Make your voice heard. Respect the process, make them respect the process and remember (Donald are you paying attention) that democracy depends as much upon accepting the legitimate outcome of elections as upon participating in them.

Good luck. And may we prove ourselves worthy of the extraordinary experiment in self-government that was entrusted to us 250 years ago.

There. My version of Eisenhower’s first message.

Admittedly, the General was considerably more concise. But then, he didn’t have to contend with the Orange-in-Chief, the cult of MAGA, cable news, social media, or billionaires who don’t want to pay taxes but are more than happy to spend millions getting their toadies elected. Apparently, buying politicians is a perfectly acceptable investment, provided nobody asks them to pay capital gains.

Eisenhower also prepared a second message, one he intended to release if the invasion failed. It was a remarkable document in which he accepted personal responsibility for the defeat. No excuses. No finger-pointing. No blaming the weather, the generals, or the French. Imagine that. A leader accepting responsibility for failure without first consulting his lawyers or posting in ALL CAPS.

Thankfully, it was a message he never had to use.

And that brings me to Wednesday.

For my sake, and for the sake of the country I love, please let me spend Wednesday posting pictures of my kittens, my dog, and the orchids blooming here in Rio rather than writing my own version of Eisenhower’s second message.

After all, my kittens are already perfectly capable of making a mess of things without any assistance from Washington. And unlike certain politicians, there’s still a reasonable chance they’ll eventually be house-trained.

Go Blue.

Also Go Green:

If you’ve enjoyed this little excursion tyou might enjoy my new novel, The Green Flash. It’s a story about friendship, love, loss, and the people who never quite leave us. Unlike American politics, it features characters you might actually want to spend time with. Available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle. Click here to buy The Green Flash. You’ll be supporting an independent author, which is considerably more rewarding than supporting a billionaire. At least this one says thank you.

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Posted on November 1, 2026 by 34orion
My Regan Hangover: Four Hurricanes, forty-six years, and a political headache that never quite went away.
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My Regan Hangover: Four Hurricanes, forty-six years, and a political headache that never quite went away.

Posted on October 31, 2026 by 34orion

On the night of November 4, 1980, I got very drunk.

I don’t normally drink much. In fact, I can count on the fingers of both hands and the toes of one foot the number of times I’ve been drunk. But that night, I was more spectacularly intoxicated than I had ever been before—or have been since.

There were two major reasons for my inebriation and one minor one.

The minor reason was that I was vacationing in Key West, Florida, with my best friend, Rich. Key West was a Jimmy Buffett-approved party town, a place where sobriety was generally regarded as an eccentric hobby. People came to play, and at our age, playing was practically a full-time profession. Which explains why the evening began with some Afghan weed we’d brought along.

We were ready to go before we were ready to go.

The first major contributor to my intoxication was my inexperience with a particularly treacherous tropical libation: the Hurricane. For anyone unfamiliar with this instrument of neural destruction, here’s what goes into one:

THE HURRICANE | ONE DRINK

•  2 oz light rum

•  2 oz dark rum

•  2 oz passion fruit juice or purée

•  1 oz fresh orange juice

•  ½ oz fresh lime juice

•  ½ oz grenadine

•  ½ oz simple syrup (optional, for extra sweetness)

•  Ice

•  Orange slice and maraschino cherry, for garnish

HOW TO MAKE IT

1.  Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.

2.  Add both rums, the fruit juices, grenadine, and optional syrup.

3.  Shake vigorously for 10–15 seconds.

4.  Strain into a large Hurricane glass filled with crushed ice.

5.  Garnish with an orange slice and a maraschino cherry.

Here’s the problem: Hurricanes taste great. Drinking them is easier than virtue on Duval Street after midnight. And they pack a wallop. Four ounces of rum in a single drink will get you where you want to go at warp speed.

Which, if I’m being honest, was exactly where I wanted to go.

No, I hadn’t discovered that my girlfriend was cheating on me. I hadn’t lost my job or failed at some grand personal quest.

Ronald Reagan had just been elected president.

Don’t get me wrong. I knew Jimmy Carter’s presidency had been battered by failure. The economy was mired in stagflation, with inflation averaging roughly 13 percent that year. Americans were being held hostage in Iran, the rescue attempt had ended in disaster, the energy crisis had worn everyone down, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had made an already grim picture worse. Bad news seemed to be working overtime.

Still, Carter had been dealt a lousy hand. And I believed he was a good man who put God and country first.

And how many times in our lives have we voted for an imperfect candidate because we thought the alternative was far worse?

For the record, I didn’t think Reagan was a bad guy. He was amiable, funny, and good-looking in a retro, old-Hollywood sort of way. And he could deliver a speech better than most. He could make a sales pitch sound like a benediction, which is useful when the customer neglects to read the fine print.

But I thought he was selling snake oil. Supply-side economics sounded to me like trickle-down economics with a better marketing department—the same old idea in a freshly pressed suit, designed to convince working-class Americans that cutting taxes for the rich was their patriotic duty. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to be skeptical. Just over a year later, Reagan’s own budget director, David Stockman, described the Kemp–Roth tax proposal as a “Trojan horse” for lowering the top income-tax rate.

What I feared—and what prompted the first two of my four Hurricanes that night—was a country where working people and the poor would be squeezed while the wealthy accumulated more money and more influence over the government. The promise was that prosperity would eventually trickle down. “Eventually” has always been a marvelous word for people who already have theirs.

Not to brag—much—but I was spot on.  Consider the numbers. From 1978 to 2025, U.S. productivity increased 86 percent, while typical worker compensation rose just 28 percent and CEO compensation at the 350 largest U.S. companies soared 1,316 percent.

Ah, the American Dream style middle class and poor people need not apply.

Did I know that Reagan’s shining city on a hill would, in my view, give way to an oligarchy in which billionaires spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to shape elections and policy—and drown out the voices of ordinary Americans? No. But then again, I never dreamed I’d carry a computer in my pocket or live in Rio de Janeiro.

The reason for my other two Hurricanes was Reagan’s embrace of the Religious Right and its so-called family values. I knew enough history to be wary when politicians made religion part of the machinery of government. It rarely ended well for people whose beliefs differed from those of the majority.

Phyllis Schlafly’s campaigns against the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights, and her insistence on traditional roles for women, combined with Jerry Falwell’s opposition to gay rights, feminism, and secularism in public life, rubbed me the wrong way. I hear echoes of those ideas today in what I regard as the growing influence of white Christian nationalism. What still gets me is the contradiction: some of the loudest people invoking Christianity in politics seem to treat empathy and kindness as optional electives.

By the end of that epic drunk, I was lying on the hood of our rented red Chrysler LeBaron, smoking a Marlboro and bitching to my ride-or-die, Rich, about the horrors I believed this election would bring upon the country. I’ll never forget his response.

“Paul, it’s going to be a helluva party, but the hangover is going to be a bitch.”

There’s a small possibility he was talking about that particular evening. I prefer to think he was predicting the future.

For me, the election of 1980 was the Republican Party’s original sin. Reagan didn’t invent America’s darker instincts; he gave some of them a winning coalition. The tax-cutting faithful got their supply-side gospel, the Religious Right got a seat at the political table, and the wealthy got a government increasingly willing to confuse their interests with the national interest.

A marriage of convenience, performed in front of the flag, with the bill sent to everyone else.

Forty-six years later, I see the offspring of that bargain in a MAGA-dominated party increasingly comfortable with grift, devoted to protecting wealth, and hostile to queer Americans, immigrants, and religious freedom for anyone outside its preferred pews. The party that promised less government has become remarkably enthusiastic about putting it in bedrooms, classrooms, libraries, and houses of worship. Apparently the problem was never big government. It was who got to use it.

Forty-six years ago, I got drunk because I feared for the future of my country. This Tuesday, November 3, I hope to get drunk again—this time for its salvation. Only now it’ll be caipirinhas, not Hurricanes. Hey, we all have to evolve.

Vote blue.

Also Go Green:

If you’ve enjoyed this little excursion through my memories, politics, and questionable drinking habits, you might enjoy my new novel, The Green Flash. It’s a story about friendship, love, loss, and the people who never quite leave us. Unlike American politics, it features characters you might actually want to spend time with. Available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle. Click here to buy The Green Flash. You’ll be supporting an independent author, which is considerably more rewarding than supporting a billionaire. At least this one says thank you.

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A Stranger in a Wonderful Land

Posted on October 27, 2026 by 34orion

I promise you this Substack is not about Vivek Ramuswanky and his despicable campaign ad.

It is not about the vice president of the United States giving that ad his seal of approval, even though it features Amy Acton’s estranged mother attacking her daughter, whose stepfather was indicted by a grand jury for allegedly raping her when she was 12. A mother who chose her pedophile husband over her children.

Nor is it about the Orange in Chief—the adjudicated rapist and protector of the most infamous pedophile—telling Ramaswamy to keep running the ad.

I could have written about the Republicans who spoke out against the vile ad. Nancy Mace, for example. But they have so sullied their brand with their blind support for the Abuser in Chief that I can’t bring myself to do it.

Instead, I want to tell you about another election, one taking place far from the United States but carrying uncomfortable echoes of our own politics, with consequences that will reach well beyond its borders.

Tomorrow, Sunday, October 25, Brazil goes to the polls for a presidential runoff between incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. The family name should sound familiar. So, unfortunately, will some of the politics.

Before we get into it, a disclaimer: I am watching all of this through a gringo’s eyes. I am not an expert in Brazilian politics. That would be my wife, who consumes more news than most AI bots and has the distinct advantage of being smarter than any of them.

Let me begin with how Brazil’s electoral system differs from ours and, dare I say it, how some of those differences make it better.

First, Brazilians vote on Sunday, a day many workers have off. The idea is to give people a chance to cast a ballot without sacrificing a day’s wages. It makes sense. The purpose of democracy, after all, is to give everyone a voice, not merely those who can afford to take Tuesday off.

Also, Brazil does not elect a president who wins less than half the valid vote. If no candidate clears 50%, as happened in the first round this year, the top two face each other in a runoff. It means the winner needs an actual majority rather than benefiting from a fractured field. Better for legitimacy. Better for governance. A surprisingly uncomplicated concept.

Third, Brazil counts votes remarkably quickly using its electronic voting system. In the first round, results emerged within hours of the polls closing. Now, Mike Lindell, before you get your pillow in a twist, the system includes digital signatures, printed polling-place tally reports and multiple layers of auditing. It turns out that speed and safeguards can coexist. Who knew?

Finally, voting is mandatory for most literate Brazilians between 18 and 70. If you miss an election without an accepted justification, the fine can be as little as R$3.51—less than a dollar. Hardly enough to send anyone into bankruptcy. But leave your electoral status unresolved and the bureaucracy can make life uncomfortable: passport applications, certain public jobs and enrollment renewals can all become problems. Brazil has managed to turn civic duty into something more consequential than a slogan on a bumper sticker.

Nearly 80% of registered Brazilians voted in the first round this year, compared with about 64% of eligible Americans in the 2024 presidential election. Those figures use somewhat different voter populations, but the contrast is striking. I can make a reasonable argument for the American approach, in which candidates must motivate people to vote. Still, a democracy in which more people participate seems preferable to one that leaves so many voices unheard. Even when some of those voices insist on voting for people I wouldn’t trust to pick up Rosie’s poop.

Which brings us to the two men on tomorrow’s ballot. This is where the similarities with American politics become less an echo than a tribute band.

Flávio Bolsonaro is the candidate, but his father, Jair, is the brand. Jair was once dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics.” Both men built political identities on grievance, cultural warfare, contempt for inconvenient institutions and the conviction that losing an election is something that happens only when somebody cheats. Jair took that last belief far enough to earn a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup after his 2022 defeat. Family values apparently include an unusually expansive definition of peaceful transitions of power.

Flávio presents himself as a more disciplined version of his father. Beside a man who treated the presidency like an argument with civilization, that may be true. But the son has accumulated his own baggage. Prosecutors accused him in the so-called rachadinha affair, involving alleged kickbacks from staff salaries. The case was shelved after courts invalidated key evidence, without a trial resolving the accusations. Not a conviction. It is also not the kind of episode one generally highlights in a campaign biography. More recently, he has faced an investigation into funding for a film about his father that was actually an illegal campaign donation; he denies wrongdoing…of course he does.

Flávio proposes spending cuts, deregulation and renewed privatizations, and draws support from big business and agribusiness. Wealthy investors could be forgiven for feeling especially well represented. But when a politician promises to rescue ordinary people by loosening the rules governing powerful interests, it is worth asking who gets rescued first. My guess is the people with lobbyists, not bus passes.

Then there is Lula. At 80, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is not a fresh face, unless you define fresh as somebody who has been in national politics since most of us still owned rotary telephones.

But Lula seems to view the presidency as something larger than a domestic culture war. He wants Brazil to have a larger voice in world affairs: in the United Nations, through BRICS, across the Global South, and in negotiations with powers that have occasionally mistaken Latin America for an annex. He wants Brazil trading with the United States, China and everybody else without having to ask any of them for permission. A country of Brazil’s size and resources should not be treated as a supplier of raw materials with a flag attached.

The Petulant Orange provides perhaps the clearest contrast. When Washington hit Brazilian exports with new tariffs, Lula objected, sat down with Trump at the White House, and kept negotiations going without pretending Brazil was available for purchase. He has said he prefers a deal to a trade war but will retaliate if necessary. In other words, diplomacy without kneepads.

The Bolsonaro boys have chosen a different strategy. Kneepads. Eduardo went to Washington seeking U.S. sanctions against Brazilian judges involved in his father’s prosecution—and claimed credit for tariffs that landed on Brazilian exporters. Flávio later made his own Oval Office visit, Eduardo in tow, where Dad’s legal troubles were among the topics. Perhaps this passes for patriotism in the family: inviting a foreign president to punish your own country until your father gets what he wants.

Lula may not get everything he wants from Trump, but at least he seems to remember whom he’s supposed to represent. The Bolsonaros appear to believe Brazilian sovereignty ends at the Mar-a-Lago coat check.

The Amazon is not a vacant lot awaiting a developer with a bulldozer. Under Lula, deforestation has fallen dramatically, reaching its lowest annual level since satellite records began in 1988. He argues that Brazil’s forests, water and strategic minerals should benefit Brazilians and remain under Brazilian control. His support for oil exploration complicates the environmental halo, as it should. Protecting nature while looking for more petroleum is a contradiction, not a magic trick. Still, there is a difference between wrestling with that contradiction and pretending climate change is a rumor started by people who dislike cattle.

Education may be the clearest measure of his ambition. Lula has backed more full-time schooling, financial support to keep lower-income teenagers enrolled, and an expansion of federal technical and vocational campuses. He signed a new ten-year national education plan this year. He wants Brazil to export ideas, engineering and technology rather than just commodities. Apparently, developing the next generation is also a form of economic development. Someone should notify the consultants.

To me, it is a simple choice. The Bolsonaros, like Trump, want to exploit Brazil for their own political and financial gain. Under them, Brazil would not be for Brazil but for the United States and corporate interests. Lula’s vision is of Brazil as a global leader, where the state works to benefit all its citizens, not just the wealthy and powerful. Where education, not ignorance, is Brazil’s guiding star.

I am a stranger in a wonderful land. I don’t pretend to know everything about Brazilian politics. But I know enough to believe that if Brazil wants a destiny of its own choosing, Lula offers the better path forward. The world has enough Trump imitators. Brazil doesn’t need one with Portuguese subtitles.

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Uncle Sam-ba

Posted on October 27, 2026 by 34orion

I’ve said it before.

I am a stranger in a wonderful land. I don’t pretend to know everything about Brazil, its politics, or its election laws. But I’ve been coming here for almost 15 years, and I’m married to a woman who is not only far smarter than I am but also reads everything and talks to some of the smartest people in the country. It’s an arrangement that has done wonders for my education and very little for my ego.

So I’ve learned a few things by listening, observing, and practicing auditory osmosis.

Watching Sunday’s Brazilian election was terrific. We Americans are so accustomed to our own electoral circus that watching another democracy do its job was fascinating, fun, and, frankly, joyful. Then again, my wife’s candidate won, which added considerably to the joy around our house.

Here are a few things Brazil got right—and a few things the United States might consider borrowing before we invent another 400-page plan to study the problem.

First, voters must identify themselves with an official photo ID, and Brazil maintains a national voter registry. That isn’t quite the same as requiring one universal national ID card, but it does mean the system knows who is eligible to vote. We can debate the merits of a national identification system in America—or, for that matter, whether IDs are needed to vote. But what Brazil has done is marry identification to an actual, functioning voting process.

Then there’s electronic voting. Brazilians cast their ballots on electronic machines, and the totals arrive fast. Within a few hours of the polls closing, the country knew who had won. No weeklong television vigil. No counties counting until the next lunar cycle. Which is nice, especially for those of us who like to go to bed early. Don’t hate me because I need my beauty sleep. At my age, it’s more of a capital-improvement project.

Brazil also has the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, or Superior Electoral Court. Seven judges oversee the national election system and resolve electoral disputes quickly. That’s right, sports fans: a court specifically devoted to elections. Compare that with our system, where electoral litigation can move at the speed of a sloth on a coffee break. Yes, I know. An ironic metaphor.

And Brazil has no Electoral College. To become president, a candidate has to win a majority of valid votes, with a runoff if nobody does so in the first round. Imagine that: the person who gets the most votes—and clears 50 percent—wins. Somewhere in America, a constitutional scholar just dropped his powdered wig.

Here’s another idea worth stealing: Brazil holds national elections on Sundays. Voting is compulsory for most literate adults ages 18 through 70, with exceptions and a way to justify an absence. And public transportation was made available free of charge for voters in this election. We, meanwhile, hold federal elections on a Tuesday—not even a federal holiday—and expect people to fit democracy between a staff meeting, a doctor’s appointment, and picking up the dry cleaning. Then we express deep concern about turnout.

Am I suggesting compulsory voting? I’m on the fence about that. Candidates and parties should motivate people to vote. And we Yankees don’t like to be told we have to do anything. What we do love is an excuse not to vote: too busy, too tired, too much traffic, lousy weather, lousy candidates, and, of course, the ever-popular ‘my vote won’t matter.’ We spend months complaining about government and then treat the chance to change it like an invitation to help somebody move. Maybe there is something to be said for making people pay a price for not exercising their franchise. At least we’d find out how much an excuse is worth.

Of course, even a system that works cannot protect itself entirely from politicians who don’t like the answer.

On Sunday night, Flávio Bolsonaro claimed the election was illegitimate and demanded that it be annulled. His complaint centered on transportation problems, heavy rain, and a two-hour extension for polling places that were still open. Here’s the delicious part: both campaigns had asked for more voting time to address access problems. The judge ruled on Lula’s petition, so Bolsonaro’s feelings got hurt—even though the outcome was the very one he had requested. He got what he wanted and complained anyway. In the Bolsonaro household, apparently even getting your way is grounds for a recount.

Lula won by more than 4.4 million votes. Flávio can seek legal review; that’s what courts are for. But announcing that an election was stolen is not the same thing as proving it. Brazil has already demonstrated that there can be a price for turning an unsupported accusation into a lawsuit. In 2022, after Jair Bolsonaro lost, the Electoral Court fined his Liberal Party nearly 23 million reais for a bad-faith challenge to the voting machines. It turns out that shouting ‘fraud’ is free; trying to pass it off as evidence is expensive when your proof is hot air.

The theme of Flávio’s campaign was ‘Vote for me because I’m just like Dad.’ Turns out he wasn’t lying about that—an unexpected breakthrough in the family’s relationship with the truth. After losing in 2022, Jair Bolsonaro flew to Florida rather than remain for Lula’s inauguration and the peaceful transfer of power. Apparently, in the Bolsonaro family, a concession speech is something you deliver from the departure lounge.

Now Flávio’s whereabouts have become a story of their own. There are reports that he may have crossed into Argentina after his defeat, although authorities have not confirmed that he left Brazil. What is confirmed is that he missed the deadline to surrender his passports, and federal police canceled them. For a family that prides itself on standing and fighting, there does seem to be an unusual interest in frequent-flyer miles. Perhaps ‘stand and fight’ is just what they call priority boarding.

For the record, don’t even think about it, Junior.

Back to the point. Think about what financial consequences for baseless election litigation might do in the United States. Demented Don can file claims, throw around conspiracy theories, and keep the grievance industry humming. But attach a serious price tag to frivolous claims, and the Great Pumpkin might suddenly discover a touching reverence for judicial restraint. He loves a good lie, but he loves his money more. Even Tommy Flanagan, Jon Lovitz’s pathological liar, would have to admire the performance. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Finally, this election reminded us that experts, polls, and betting markets can all be wrong. When I checked Kalshi, the prediction market had Bolsonaro favored by roughly 85 to 15. That’s not a poll, but it was a remarkably confident forecast for a man who lost. Prediction markets are wonderful at explaining the future—right up until the future happens.

Here at home, people are already talking about a blue tsunami next Tuesday. Lovely. But predictions don’t vote. Markets don’t vote. Pundits, despite the noise, still get only one ballot apiece.

We do.

So don’t sit at home admiring the forecast. Vote. Get your friends to vote. Check on your neighbors. Help someone get to the polls. Democracy is not a spectator sport, and it certainly isn’t a betting market. It’s a responsibility that belongs to the people who bother to show up.

Brazil showed us how to count the votes, accept the arithmetic, and keep the country moving—even when a losing politician would rather argue with the calculator.

Next Tuesday, let’s give America something worth counting.

Let’s teach America how to samba again.

One last shameless plug: I also wrote a novel, The Green Flash. It’s about friendship, love, loss, and the people who never quite leave us. Unlike this essay, it contains considerably fewer politicians. If you’ve enjoyed reading me for free, please buy a copy.

Buy The Green Flash on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4i9H8vr

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Well, I Went and Wrote Another Novel.

Posted on October 21, 2026 by 34orion

Apparently, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time.

In 2021, I published my first novel, Tomahawk and Crown. It was an interesting experience. I discovered that writing a book is difficult, publishing one is even more difficult, and convincing people to buy one requires a degree of shameless self-promotion for which even I was inadequately prepared.

Of course, I decided to do it again.

On October 21, my second novel, The Green Flash, will be published.

This officially makes me a repeat offender who like others in their category didn’t learn their lessons the first time around.

The Green Flash will be available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions, giving complete strangers yet another opportunity to criticize my work. A privilege my friends and family have enjoyed for decades.

The book is about friendship, loss, love, regret, and the peculiar business of growing older in a world that seems increasingly determined to make the experience unpleasant.

It’s also about the pandemic and the time it gave us to confront our “ghosts.”

Much of the story takes place in Hawaii, where the protagonist travels carrying the ashes of people he loved and a considerable amount of emotional baggage. The airlines, mercifully, don’t charge extra for the latter.

There are moments of humor. There are moments of sadness. There are a few observations about human behavior that probably won’t earn me any new friends. And there is, I hope, something worth saying about the people who shape our lives and never really leave us, even after they’ve gone.

If you are wondering about the title and why the story is not about an alternative universe super hero it refers to a rare optical phenomenon that occurs just as the sun disappears below the horizon. For an instant, under the right conditions, a flash of green appears.

It’s real. Look it up.

Different cultures and storytelling traditions have attached their own meanings to the green flash. In some maritime folklore, it’s a sign of good fortune. In literature and legend, it’s been associated with love, revelation, and the fleeting moment when the ordinary world brushes up against something mysterious. Jules Verne even built a novel around the notion that witnessing it could reveal the truth of one’s heart.

Personally, I like the idea that something extraordinary can happen at the precise moment something else disappears. That endings aren’t necessarily endings. Sometimes they’re just the briefest glimpse of something we don’t yet understand.

Writing this book took longer than I care to admit. There were revisions, rewrites, second thoughts, third thoughts, and the occasional suspicion that I might have been better off taking up Tai Chi. At least with Tai Chi makes you seem graceful.

But here we are.

I didn’t write The Green Flash because I believed the world was desperately awaiting another novel by a man of a certain age with opinions about practically everything. The market for that particular product is already oversupplied. A quick doomscroll on Facebook, YouTube or your podcast app would show you that.

I wrote it because it was a story I wanted to tell, people I wanted to remember, and things I wanted to understand. Somewhere along the way, it became a novel.

And now I’m asking you to buy it.

I recognize the audacity of that request. Particularly since you’ve been kind enough to read my Substack for free, and now I’m proposing to charge you $17.99 for a paperback or $26.99 for a hardcover. There’s also a Kindle edition for those who prefer their literature without the inconvenience of paper.

Apparently, I’ve discovered capitalism rather late in life.

If you do buy it, thank you. If you read it, an even bigger thank you. If you enjoy it, please tell your friends. If you don’t, I’d appreciate your exercising the sort of discretion normally reserved for discussing a friend’s unfortunate second marriage.

And if you feel inclined to leave an Amazon review, I won’t object.

But beneath all the jokes, there is something I want to say.

This book means a great deal to me.

It’s about the people who come into our lives and change them, sometimes for the better, occasionally for the worse, but almost always in ways we don’t fully appreciate until they’re gone. It’s about the conversations we wish we’d had, the things we wish we’d said, and the peculiar way memory can make someone who’s been gone for years feel as though they’ve just stepped out of the room.

And it’s about discovering that grief and gratitude are not opposites. More often than not, they’re traveling companions.

I hope some of that comes through in the pages.

I hope you’ll give it a read.

And to everyone who encouraged me to finish the damn thing, thank you.

You have no idea what you’ve unleashed.

THE GREEN FLASH

A novel by Paul D. Rothkopf

Publication Date: October 21, 2026

Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4i9H8vr

  • Paperback: $17.99
  • Hardcover: $26.99
  • Kindle: Available digitally

If you buy it, read it, and like it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It makes an enormous difference to independent authors.

And if you made it this far, thank you for paying attention to my nattering’s.

Paul Rothkopf

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Debatable

Posted on October 17, 2026 by 34orion
An illustrated scene depicting Senator Susan Collins dressed regally, seated on a throne surrounded by bags labeled 'ROAD SALT', while addressing a crowd with a speech bubble saying, 'Let them eat rock salt.' The crowd appears frustrated, holding signs like 'GROCERY BILL' and 'MAINE'.

The news this week has not been the kind that allows for a good night’s sleep.

Elon Musk and the Great Pumpkin in the White House each denied responsibility for restrictions on the satellite services Ukraine relies on for its national defense. Each pointed at the other while Putin, one imagines, laughed like a Bond villain. All that was missing was the white cat.

Crude oil prices surged as two ships sank and others came under attack near the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the supposed Ukraine–Russia energy truce appeared to have all the substance of another one of Dementia Don’s hallucinations.

And in an episode that might impress his dictator friends, federal agents searched a sitting congresswoman’s home. California was given 48 hours to respond to a thumb drive supposedly containing the names of ineligible voters. Side note: A similar thumb drive provided to Pennsylvania contained 18,000 names; according to the review, not one was an illegal voter. All in service of a voter-fraud theory that has been disproved so many times it would be funny if it weren’t so pathetically sad.

I was desperate for a reason to laugh. Not because any of this is funny, but humor is my way of deflecting the sting of reality. Unexpectedly, I found it in this week’s political debates. Jon Stewart ought to have a field day on Monday. Meanwhile, some of my literary heroes—Mencken, Twain, Vonnegut, and P. J. O’Rourke—might have enjoyed themselves, too.

“It’s very important that you guys are able to hear from both of us tonight.”

On paper, that sounds like a nine-year-old complaining that his friends won’t stop talking.

The speaker was Dan Schwartz, the Democratic candidate for Maryland’s 1st Congressional District, debating Republican incumbent Andy Harris on October 13.

Harris had been asked about rising diesel prices and the Trump administration’s decision to ease sanctions on Russian diesel. He began explaining that the real culprit was Democratic environmental regulations.

The audience laughed. Not a polite chuckle, either. The sort of laughter that escapes when an explanation collides head-on with common sense.

Harris was not amused. Apparently, laughter required permission. He scolded the audience, invoked his First Amendment rights, and informed a woman that she was rude. Twice.

Schwartz, meanwhile, calmly reminded everyone that they needed to hear both candidates. Harris then assured the moderator that his own supporters weren’t interrupting anybody.

There was something wonderfully theatrical about a congressman invoking the First Amendment while lecturing his constituents for laughing at him.

To be fair, audiences should let candidates finish their answers. But the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, not freedom from ridicule.

Across the country this past week, candidates for Congress, the Senate, and governorships gathered beneath unforgiving television lights to explain the inexplicable, defend the indefensible, and occasionally stumble into something genuinely funny.

Not necessarily jokes. Something better. Irony.

Consider Alaska.

During Thursday’s Senate debate, Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan noticed that his Democratic opponent, Mary Peltola, was consulting notes while answering questions. This apparently struck him as suspicious.

Sullivan asked whether the candidates had been given the questions in advance. The moderators assured him they had not. Peltola had a two-word explanation: “Just prepared.”

There is something deliciously American about a politician treating preparation as probable cause. In MAGA-world, apparently, you shoot first, gather the facts later, and regard the person who brought notes as a possible criminal mastermind.

Call me peculiar, but implying that your opponent cheated because she came prepared is a strange argument to make in what is, after all, a job interview.

In Maine, Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson had debated Republican incumbent Susan Collins over tariffs earlier this month.

Collins highlighted her success in getting Canadian road salt removed from the tariff list. Fair enough. Road salt matters in a Maine winter.

Jackson was unimpressed.

“We can’t eat road salt.”

True. It is useful on an icy road, less so between two slices of bread.

Then there was Massachusetts, where Senator Ed Markey debated Republican John Deaton, who emphasized his independence from party orthodoxy despite running on the Republican ticket.

Markey compared the arrangement to being a “carnivorous vegetarian.”

Somewhere, a MAGA political consultant is charging six figures to explain how that’s perfectly consistent.

Massachusetts, however, was hardly alone in its descent into political vaudeville. In Georgia, a gubernatorial debate managed to proceed without one of the gubernatorial candidates. In Arkansas, one candidate expressed relief at being physically situated between his opponents. And in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul discovered that her opponent had managed to secure the support of at least two Democrats. Democracy, it seems, was having a particularly entertaining week.

Georgia was the most literal. Republican Rick Jackson declined to attend the Atlanta Press Club debate, leaving Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms beside an empty podium. It was the rare political contest in which one side was represented by office furniture, with no discernible loss of substance.

Then the moderator announced: “Mayor Bottoms, you may now ask a question to your opponent, represented by the empty podium.” She was allowed 30 seconds to ask it and another 30 to rebut the answer she imagined her absent opponent might have given.

I would have liked to hear the podium’s position on health care. Or education. As far as we know, it was the only participant that night to make no claims it couldn’t substantiate.

In Arkansas, Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Libertarian Colt Shelby traded barbs about agriculture. Democrat Fred Love, stationed between them, offered a candid assessment: “I’m glad I’m between these two.” It was like being seated between feuding relatives at Thanksgiving, except nobody could pretend they needed to check on the turkey.

In New York, Republican Bruce Blakeman invoked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Hochul replied: “Who Donald Trump actually thinks is a great mayor.” So much for guilt by association.

And in Illinois, Republican Darren Bailey discussed the prospect of the Chicago Bears moving to Indiana with Governor J. B. Pritzker. Bailey sounded quite certain the team was leaving. “It’s like you’re wishing for it,” Pritzker interjected. Rooting for a football team to leave your state is a curious strategy when you’re asking to govern it.

In all four states, the humor came from the same place: a politician’s grand story colliding with the inconvenient facts of the moment. Sometimes it was two endorsements. Sometimes an NFL franchise. And sometimes a lectern with a more disciplined communications strategy than the candidate who should have been standing behind it.

None of these remarks will reduce the national debt, lower grocery prices, end a war, improve the quality of congressional legislation, or help me sleep at night.

But a good laugh can expose a contradiction faster than a 40-page policy paper, three charts, and a panel of cable-news hosts shouting over one another.

I suspect Mencken, Twain, and Vonnegut would have enjoyed these exchanges. Nobody appreciated a puffed-up politician being deflated more than those three. They might have laughed all night. Then they’d have remembered that the people onstage are asking us to put them in charge.

We live in an age when politicians employ armies of consultants, pollsters, opposition researchers, and social-media specialists to construct the perfect message.

Yet the memorable moments come when the machinery breaks down and an actual human being says something unexpectedly simple.

Or when an audience begins laughing.

The most revealing political statements aren’t always the ones candidates rehearse for weeks. Sometimes they’re the ones that escape before anyone can stop them.

And sometimes the punchline comes from the audience.

Which brings us back to Maryland, where a congressman was offended that his constituents laughed at him, and his opponent politely asked them to listen.

Somewhere, Mencken is reaching for his notebook. Twain is lighting a cigar. And Vonnegut is shaking his head.

So it goes.

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MAGAnimity:

Posted on October 10, 2026 by 34orion

The Ninety-Dollar Bribe

Donald Trump tried to bribe me this week.

Not with a suitcase full of unmarked bills. That would have suggested a certain respect for the transaction. No, the president offered me ninety dollars. A one-time Medicare rebate, payable to some 20.8 million Americans, conveniently arriving less than a month before the midterm elections.

I was outraged, naturally. I have reached an age at which a man should be able to take offense at being purchased with his own money.

The money comes from the Medicare Improvement Fund, established by Congress to improve Medicare. The administration says that handing the money directly to beneficiaries is itself an improvement. (Tell that to the 2.6 million who lost health care under this admin.)  It is an argument with the elegance of a landlord insisting that repainting the lobby counts as fixing the elevator.

Some will object to my use of the word “bribe.” Mainly the ignorati, for whom a red hat has apparently become a substitute for critical thinking. Fair enough. Nobody has demanded a photograph of my Republican ballot in exchange for the payment. But even the ignorati ought to recognize that the timing is peculiar, and the president followed the announcement with an email to Medicare enrollees congratulating himself on his health-care achievements. It takes a practiced politician to put his name on a government benefit and then send the recipient the campaign literature.

The arithmetic is less charming. Ninety dollars multiplied by 20.8 million recipients comes to $1.872 billion. Nearly $1.9 billion in public money, extracted from a fund of a little over $2 billion. KFF says the payments will largely empty it. Should Medicare require those resources for actual improvements later, someone will have to find new money or abandon the improvements. The nation’s seniors get a check today; their children will get the invoice tomorrow.

And that is before the more immediate double whammy. The standard Medicare Part B premium is $202.90 a month, meaning my presidential benefactor has not even offered to buy half a month. KFF projects that annual premiums will rise by $79 in 2027. If that projection holds, the grand ninety-dollar gesture will leave eleven dollars after next year’s increase. Eleven dollars! Enough to purchase a heartfelt thank-you card, provided you do not insist on very fine stationery.

Yet none of this is what offended me most.

What offended me was the size of the bribe.

Ninety dollars? Really? I realize inflation has made everything more expensive, but it appears to have spared the price the White House places on an American citizen’s gratitude.

Consider what ninety dollars buys in the United States today. Four people going to the movies in New Jersey, where the average ticket is about $18.49, will spend nearly $74 merely getting through the door. That leaves sixteen dollars for popcorn and four drinks. Perhaps the children can share a straw and inhale the aroma of popcorn carried over from the next row.

Gasoline? At roughly $4.37 a gallon, filling a twenty-gallon tank consumes almost the entire presidential windfall. Drive an SUV with a twenty-five-gallon tank and the ninety dollars will not finish the job. You can either get home or celebrate your new prosperity by running the air conditioning. Choose wisely.

Then there is the electric bill. The average American household’s monthly bill is around $158. The ninety dollars won’t cover it. Meanwhile the data centers required to power our glorious AI future are helping drive demand higher, so machines can write increasingly convincing emails telling us to consume less electricity.

Ninety dollars will also buy a few bags of groceries, a mediocre dinner for two (if neither diner orders drinks and you split dessert) or a surprisingly short encounter with a plumber. The American dream is alive and well, though increasingly available only in trial-size packaging.

Normally I would not complain about free money. If somebody presses ninety dollars into my hand, I don’t lecture them on fiscal policy until after I have counted the money and put it in my pocket. But this isn’t free money. It is ours to begin with, and the president is offering to return a sliver of it as though he’d discovered a forgotten twenty in his tuxedo.

And what makes this ninety-dollar exercise in presidential generosity especially galling is how magnificently the people distributing it have been doing for themselves.

Forbes estimated Donald Trump’s personal fortune at $7 billion in September, about $2.7 billion more than when he won the 2024 election. His extended family’s combined wealth, including Jared Kushner, was estimated at roughly $10 billion in September 2025—nearly twice its pre-election level. Call that an increase of about $5 billion, give or take a yacht.

And Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick? Forbes estimated his family’s wealth at approximately $7.3 billion this September, more than double its level when he entered government. Using an early benchmark of roughly $3.5 billion, that is another $3.8 billion in estimated appreciation.

Now I know that valuations are not bank balances. Some of this wealth exists on paper; some is held in family trusts. And calling all of it illegal graft would require evidence a columnist cannot manufacture. But there are questions worth asking when fortunes swell alongside ventures in cryptocurrency and businesses whose prospects can be affected by the very government these men help run.

Add the roughly $5 billion increase in Trump’s family wealth to Lutnick’s roughly $3.8 billion. That gives us about $8.8 billion. Divide it among the 20.8 million people eligible for the Medicare payment, and each person gets approximately $423.

That is about 4.7 times the ninety-dollar presidential offering. And it would not require raiding the Medicare Improvement Fund. It would merely require our public servants, and the families around them, to part with the wealth that has accumulated while they served.

And no, before the Republican talking points arrive by overnight delivery, this isn’t socialism. It is merely suggesting that people who have profited so handsomely during their time in public service might consider financing their own generosity instead of sending the bill to the taxpayers.

I do not expect this to happen. The rich have always been eager to teach the poor the virtues of sacrifice, preferably by providing demonstrations the poor can perform themselves.

So I suppose I should be grateful. I have been offered ninety dollars, a presidential message, and a splendid demonstration of MAGAnimity. The public finances the generosity, the well-connected count their billions, and the rest of us are expected to applaud.

My vote is not for sale. But if you’re determined to insult me with an offer, at least make it enough to take the family to the movies.

And buy the popcorn.

Click here for a surprise coming attraction: https://bit.ly/4e1fRKu

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