“A DAMN GOOD IDEA” April 27, 2026April 27, 2026 JIM STEWARTSON In America’s Defense: . . . The entire purpose of the nation’s founding was to prevent a Donald Trump from attaining power. . . . America was founded on the genocide of Native Americans. It was founded on the slavery of African Americans. It was founded in a time where colonialism and war were the norm, and where exploration of the Earth was nowhere near complete. But within the American Revolution was the core idea of the Enlightenment, that justice should come from law, and that law should come from humans, not gods—or kings. This core idea has been pushed back against historically, over and over again—by Southern slaveowners, robber barons, Wall Street oligarchs, fascist ideologues, and religious extremists. And each time the idea has withstood those tests and grown more entrenched. . . . The core contract between “America” the idea, and the people who were either born into it—or sought it out—is that when you live here, you may not get what you want but you’re not going to be living in a dictatorship. That’s basically the only guarantee. Donald Trump is not only breaking the contract, he’s ripping it up . . . But time after time, from Minneapolis, a city picked for militarized assault based on a racist meme about Somalis, to my home of Los Angeles, the first target of the Trump gestapo, to small towns and neighborhoods across the country, the reaction to the regime’s attempt to instill state terror has been justifiably, righteously hostile. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were avatars for something much deeper. The United States must never be mythologized. It has been party to untold crimes. Its founders were imperfect men, and its leaders have been a very mixed bag. But underneath is a basic promise that cannot be erased by one man, or one regime: This is not a monarchy. We don’t do dictators here. I’ve spent six years documenting everything going wrong in America. I’ve studied our predicament from every conceivable angle—from psychology, to science, to philosophy, to geopolitics, to metaphysics. It’s bad. And it’s going to get much worse before it gets better. But despite the damage that will result from this catastrophe, it will never eliminate that American promise from the minds of more than 300 million people. That is the fatal flaw in the plan of our would-be destroyers. I’m angry at our government. And I’m disgusted with our political leadership—in both parties. But I’m not angry with America. It was a damn good idea, a remarkable project that two centuries after its establishment gave me the chance to raise three boys into men. It is my home and I will defend her, and demand that we keep her promise to my grandchildren. AWKWARD The president said it was “horrible” and “a disgrace” that Norah O’Donnell read the words ‘rapist,’ ‘pederast,’ and ‘traitor‘ from the would-be assassin’s manifesto on 60 Minutes last night. And, yes, it’s all but unthinkable that words like that would be used in a televised presidential interview. What’s awkward is that — while grabbing women by the ****y does not constitute rape — a jury, a judge, and a highly credible book corroborate the first word; 38,000 references in the heavily redacted Epstein files released thus far (plus the special treatment Ghislaine Maxwell is receiving) suggest there may be something to the second; and we all saw the Capitol breached for the first time since 1814 while the president sat watching for hours without coming to its defense, which could be construed to justify the third. In any event, O’Donnell was not making these claims; she was asking the president’s reaction to the would-be assassin. And if her question was undignified, what level of dignity are we to ascribe to a president who regularly uses words like “vermin” and “scum” and “low IQ” to describe his opponents, who calls the Pope “terrible,” and . . . well, the list is long, F-bombs and all. > None of this, needless to say, should keep the would-be assassin from being sentenced to a very long prison term. Nor should he be pardoned after a year or two, like those who stormed the Capitol hoping to kill the Vice President. WHO NEEDS ALLIES? The costs of Trump’s contempt are starting to show — Fareed Zakaria In the United States, President Donald Trump’s periodic insults hurled toward Europe tend to get treated as routine tantrums, part of the reality TV show that is now the White House. But in Europe, the accumulation of abuse has reached a tipping point. . . . Europe and Canada are not about to embrace China. They have serious conflicts with Beijing over Ukraine, subsidies, electric vehicles, critical minerals and market access. But both will play nicer with China where they can. They will hedge. They will deal with Washington when they must, Beijing when it suits them and others whenever possible. A recent Foreign Affairs essay by Chinese scholar Da Wei argues that for Beijing, the great new geopolitical fact is that there is now a deep Europe-America divide — ready to be exploited. We will get through this. Though Trump Putin is hoping we won’t.