PREVAIL

I am on vacation. Beginning on July 26, I will run pieces from the PREVAIL archives every day until resuming new material on August 7. During those 12 days, new subscribers will receive 15 percent off the purchase of an annual subscription. With a paid subscription, you can join the lovely PREVAIL community and participate in the conversation.

After today’s post, I will be on break until Friday, August 7. To help me remember where we left off when I return, here is a quick survey of what’s happening in the United States right now. These are real things that are actually happening. Shit really is this crazy.

Todd Blanche should not and must not be confirmed as Attorney General. He is grossly unfit and manifestly unworthy. His confirmation would be a death knell for the rule of law in the United States. Blanche still thinks he’s Donald Trump’s defense attorney.

Dear Reader, Past a certain point, recorded history recedes into darkness, just as our individual memories of early childhood vanish into a twilight oblivion. If the siege of Troy by the Mycenaean Greeks isn’t a false historical memory—and I don’t think it is; I think it’s an actual historical event—then the war took place in a past so remote that its events have merged with fiction, mythology, and dream so as to be indistinguishable. How long ago was it?

Good morning! Here is my Friday ramble. Apologies in advance for all the f-bombs. Every piece at PREVAIL is free to read and always will be. No paywalls, ever. Your generous support keeps it that way. Thank you! Here is a transcript, edited for clarity: Good morning. As you’re watching this, it’s Friday morning, July 17th. I am recording on Thursday evening, July 16th. It is 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

What with Donald Trump losing wars to Iran, using the Justice Department and the FBI as his vendetta agencies, sic’ing his murderous ICE Gestapo on innocent residents, building concentration camps, hawking presidential pardons, fucking up the global economy, destroying our institutions, bulldozing the White House, bankrupting farmers, plundering on a galactic scale, withholding the money he owes to the woman he raped, fluffing Putin and Netanyahu, spewing crazy shit, and behaving every day...

Donald Trump—creature of organized crime, Kremlin stooge, Epstein BFF, racist, racist, coward, thief, and traitor to the country—is doing his level best to take a wrecking ball to the United States. In the case of the East Wing of the White House, that’s not even just a metaphor. But without his devoted inner circle of lickspittle lieutenants, Donald would just be another sundowning octogenarian FoxNews junkie bitching about reflecting pools.

Every piece at PREVAIL is free to read and always will be. No paywalls, ever. Your generous support keeps it that way. Thank you! Dear Reader, Madrid, the beautiful and vibrant city where I sit typing this, was founded in the mid-ninth century by the Emir of Córdoba. The name is a corruption of Maŷriţ, a derivation of the Arabic word for stream.

Greetings from Madrid! Here is the Friday ramble. Every piece at PREVAIL is free to read and always will be. No paywalls, ever. Your generous support keeps it that way. Thank you! And here is a transcript, edited for clarity: Good morning. As you’re watching this, it’s Friday morning, July third. I’m recording it at 5:30 in the afternoon on Thursday, July second.

I spoke on Sunday with Arthur Snell, the former British diplomat, host of the “Behind the Lines” podcast, producer of the “Not All Doom” Substack, and author of How Britain Broke the World.