Group items tagged

if the president is unable to complete his term—either by removal, death, resignation, or inability to discharge the office’s duties—the vice president would assume the post. The lack of details raised questions—notably, who determines if the president is unable to serve? In addition, no provisions were made for a case in which the vice president could not take office

Congress passed the Presidential Succession Act in 1792. The legislation placed the president pro tempore of the Senate and then the speaker of the House of Representatives as next in line after the vice president

The secretary of state was bypassed largely because Federalists of the time opposed that office’s holder, Thomas Jefferson, a vocal anti-Federalist.)

when Pres. James A. Garfield was shot in July 1881, doubts arose over who should be president. Although severely incapacitated, Garfield lived for 80 days. During this time, it was uncertain if Vice Pres. Chester A. Arthur should serve as acting president or if he should officially replace Garfield

Congress set out to resolve some of these issues, and a new Presidential Succession Act was officially enacted in 1886

Later notable modifications included the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which was ratified in 1967. It explicitly stated (unlike the Constitution) that if the vice president assumes the Oval Office, he or she would be the president—not the acting president

Despite such arguments, recent proposals to change the order have been resisted.

hence doubling down in Afghanistan and re-intervening in Iraq, in part out of fear that if he didn’t, and we got hit with a terrorist attack, he’d be blamed.

Fear of being blamed by the fearful has become a potent force in our politics. We’ve now spent over a decade, Rothkopf added, “reacting to fear, to a very narrow threat, letting it redefine us, and failing to rise as we should to the bigger challenges we face — whether those involved rebuilding at home, the reordering of world power, changing economic models that no longer create jobs and wealth the way they used to” or forging “new international institutions because the old ones are antiquated and dysfunctional.”

the focus on terrorism, combined with our gotcha politics, has “killed creative thinking” in Washington, let alone anything “aspirational” in our foreign policy.

the key threats come from crumbling states that can be managed only by rebuilding them at a huge cost, with uncertain outcomes and dodgy partners. Americans don’t want that job. Yet these disorderly states create openings for low-probability, high-impact terrorism, where the one-in-a-million lucky shot can really hurt us. No president wants to be on duty when that happens either.

I don’t think Obama has done that badly navigating all these contradictions. He has done a terrible job explaining what he is doing and connecting his restraint with any larger policy goals at home or abroad.

9/11 has distracted us from building resilience the way we used to, by investing in education, infrastructure, immigration, government-funded research and rules that incentivize risk-taking but prevent recklessness.

“We used to invest in those things more than anyone,” said Mukunda, “because they offered high-probability, high-impact returns.” Now we don’t, and we are less resilient as a result

We’re also not investing enough in the low-probability, high-payoff innovations — like the Internet or GPS

Today, after seven eventful years, attitudes toward President Obama will shape the selection of his successor.

Beyond specific issues, however, many Republicans view dimly the very qualities that played so well for Mr. Obama in 2008. Deliberation is seen as hesitancy; patience as weakness. His call for tolerance and passionate embrace of America’s growing diversity inflame many in the Republican base, who view with suspicion and anger the rapidly changing demographics of America. The president’s emphasis on diplomacy is viewed as appeasement

who among the Republicans is more the antithesis of Mr. Obama than the trash-talking, authoritarian, give-no-quarter Mr. Trump?

Mr. Trump has found an audience with Americans disgruntled by the rapid, disorderly change they associate with national decline and their own uncertain prospects

Relentlessly edgy, confrontational and contemptuous of the niceties of governance and policy making, Mr. Trump is the perfect counterpoint to a president whose preternatural cool and deliberate nature drive his critics mad.

As private business owners, the owners may negotiate a contract with their players—including one that requires the players to stand during the anthem. Whether the NFL players’s agreement gives the owners that power may very well wind up in court—but as a matter of contract, not constitutional, law.

Trump’s attack on free expression, if nothing else, represents an upraised middle finger directed at the First Amendment. Powerful private parties might want to hesitate before they say amen.

But the efforts to slow action on the Senate floor to a crawl are expected to have little effect on the final legislation.

“The horrific events of January 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ unlawful actions,” asserts the civil suit, filed for Mr. Swalwell in Federal District Court in Washington. “As such, the defendants are responsible for the injury and destruction that followed.”

A House Democrat who unsuccessfully prosecuted Donald J. Trump at his impeachment trial last month sued him in federal court on Friday for acts of terrorism and incitement to riot

If the sweeping pandemic relief package makes it to Mr. Biden’s desk, it will mark the first major legislative accomplishment of his administration.

The suit brought by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, accuses Mr. Trump and key allies of inciting the deadly attack and conspiring with rioters to try to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s election victory.

Though not a criminal case, the suit charges Mr. Trump and his allies with several counts including conspiracy to violate civil rights, negligence, incitement to riot, disorderly conduct, terrorism and inflicting serious emotional distress

A majority of the Senate, including seven Republicans, voted to find Mr. Trump “guilty” based on the same factual record last month, but the vote fell short of the two-thirds needed to convict him.

In a statement, Jason Miller, an adviser to Mr. Trump, blasted Mr. Swalwell as a “a lowlife with no credibility” but did not comment on the merits of the case.

During the Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers flatly denied that he was responsible for the assault and made broad assertions that he was protected by the First Amendment when he urged supporters gathered on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” to “stop the steal” he said was underway at the Capitol.

Prosecutors say Andries, 35, breached lightly-protected barriers outside the Capitol and entered the building through a broken window. Video footage shows him facing off with police inside the Crypt, in the basement of the complex, getting "within inches" of officers but not physically engaging with them, prosecutors said.

He has pleaded not guilty to five federal crimes: entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct, violent entry into the Capitol, impeding passage through the Capitol and unlawful demonstration at the Capitol.

The Justice Department did not seek his detention and a federal judge released him shortly after his arrest last month. He isn't charged with any violent crimes, and the five counts against him are misdemeanors.

Veterans are disproportionately represented among the nearly 300 people facing charges in connection with the Capitol attack. At least 29 current and former servicemembers have been charged so far, and several are allegedly part of extremist groups, according to a CNN analysis of Pentagon records and court documents.

No clear data is available about vaccine hesitancy among evangelicals of other racial groups. But religious reasoning often spreads beyond white churches.

“If we can’t get a significant number of white evangelicals to come around on this, the pandemic is going to last much longer than it needs to,” said Jamie Aten, founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College, an evangelical institution in Illinois.

There are about 41 million white evangelical adults in the U.S. About 45 percent said in late February that they would not get vaccinated against Covid-19, making them among the least likely demographic groups to do so, according to the Pew Research Center.

Many high-profile conservative pastors and institutional leaders have endorsed the vaccines. Franklin Graham told his 9.6 million Facebook followers that Jesus would advocate for vaccination.

Dr. Simone Gold, a prominent Covid-19 skeptic who was charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct in the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, told an evangelical congregation in Florida that they were in danger of being “coerced into taking an experimental biological agent.”

Some evangelicals believe that any Covid restrictions — including mask mandates and restrictions on in-person church worship — constitute oppression.

“Fear is the motivating power behind all of this, and fear is the opposite of who God is,” said Teresa Beukers, who travels throughout California in a motor home. “I violently oppose fear.”

“Go ahead and throw us in the lions’ den, go ahead and throw us in the furnace,” she said, referring to two biblical stories in which God’s people miraculously survive persecution after refusing to submit to temporal powers.

The vaccines do not include fetal tissue, and no additional abortions are required to manufacture them. Still, the kernel of a connection has metastasized online into false rumors about human remains or fetal DNA being an ingredient in the vaccines.

White evangelicals who do not plan to get vaccinated sometimes say they see no need, because they do not feel at risk. Rates of Covid-19 death have been about twice as high for Black, Hispanic, and Native Americans as for white Americans.

There has been a “sea change” over the past century in how evangelical Christians see science, a change rooted largely in the debates over evolution and the secularization of the academy, said Elaine Ecklund, professor of sociology and director of the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Anthony Fauci are not going to be able to persuade evangelicals, according to Curtis Chang, a consulting professor at Duke Divinity School who is leading an outreach project to educate evangelicals about the vaccine.

Mr. Rainey helped his own Southern Baptist congregation get ahead of false information by publicly interviewing medical experts — a retired colonel specializing in infectious disease, a church member who is a Walter Reed logistics management analyst, and a church elder who is a nurse for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“It is necessary for pastors to instruct their people that we don’t always have to be adversaries with the culture around us,” he said. “We believe Jesus died for those people, so why in the world would we see them as adversaries?”

Keller, 38, was part of U.S. Olympic teams in 2000, 2004 and 2008. He is perhaps best known for holding off Australia's Ian Thorpe while swimming the anchor leg of the 4x200 freestyle at the 2004 Athens games to help his team win by 0.13 seconds.

According to court documents, he was wearing a blue jacket with "USA" on the back and a "red and white Olympic patch on the front left side."

Investigators also noted Keller's striking height. He stands at 6 feet and 6 inches.

Investigators said conservative news site Townhall Media posted a video of a crowd at the Capitol. Then, outlets such as SwimSwam, which follows competitive swimming, said it appeared Keller was in the video, according to the charging documents.

Federal authorities said they confirmed his identification by comparing screen shots of Keller with his driver's license with his image from Colorado's Department of Motor Vehicles.

USA Swimming, the U.S. governing body of competitive swimming, said in a statement to its membership Wednesday that "while we respect private individuals' and groups' rights to peacefully protest, we strongly condemned the unlawful actions taken by those at the Capitol last week."

"Mr. Keller's actions in no way represent the values or mission of USA Swimming. And while once a swimmer at the highest levels of our sport — representing the country and democracy he so willfully attacked — Mr. Keller has not been a member of this organization since 2008."

The direct result of last Wednesday's Capitol riots, where some Trump supporters overwhelmed Capitol Police checkpoints and occupied and defiled our national seat of government, should distress us all.

But what was the Capitol attack and the dark forces it embodied but an emergency? Angry protesters carrying American flags and screeching "stop the steal" abounded. The silly coup attempt -- exemplified by the "QAnon Shaman," shirtless and replete in horned headgear, and the cad who attempted to make off with Nancy Pelosi's lectern -- should embarrass us all.

Nothing will impede the peaceful transition of American power that has been so central to our democracy since George Washington handed over the reins to John Adams in 1797 -- 223 years ago. Nothing.

Make no mistake about it -- this was an insurrection. I fully understand the precision of language required by our criminal justice system. Title 18 U.S. Code § 2383 defines it this way: "Whoever incites, sets on foot, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof..." Storming the meeting place of our nation's legislature meets this definition.

The thing about mobs is that they are not precise, controllable instruments. Once you roil up an instigator or agitator or two, they act as the catalyst for mobilization -- what results then transforms into a singular, dangerous vessel -- and otherwise sober or reasonable folks get caught up in frenzy.

These weren't patriots. They were part of a seditious action that resulted in a police officer's death. They were part of the rabble that included a cop killer. The murdered officer, Brian Sicknick, was also an Air National Guard veteran.

The incitement and execution of mob violence on Congress is a horror unto itself but, sadly, disorderly crowds bent on destructive action have also become all too familiar over these paralyzingly long past eight months.

James Sullivan is an ardent Trump supporter, according to his Facebook page. He is also the co-founder of Civilized Awakenings, a civil rights organization that seeks to help Black conservatives "find real solutions to the problems the Black Americans are facing." In a brief interview with CNN, a spokesperson for Civilized Awakenings confirmed Sullivan had spoken at a Proud Boys rally in Portland but stressed neither he nor Civilized Awakenings are part of that group. The spokesperson also confirmed Sullivan has been in contact with Rudy Giuliani, but declined to discuss the details.

In the now-removed Tweet, Giuliani included a screenshot of a text purportedly from Sullivan's brother James in which the sender claimed to be working with the FBI "to expose and place total blame on John" and more than 200 members of Antifa.

The "Antifa" argument is just one of a number conspiracy theories Giuliani has pushed on behalf of Trump since the November election. Giuliani, who is still expected to play a role in Trump's impeachment defense even though the President has told staff not to pay him, did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.

During the siege, John Sullivan recorded the mayhem and provided commentary on what was going on. He was charged with disorderly conduct, interfering with law enforcement, and knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building, according to a criminal complaint. He was taken into custody in Utah, where he lives.

According to the complaint, Sullivan told the FBI he was an activist and journalist who filmed protests and riots, "but admitted that he did not have any press credentials."

Once inside, he can be heard on audio arguing with police and telling them to stand down or that they might get hurt, according to the affidavit.

"You are putting yourself in harm's way," he allegedly told officers. "The people have spoken."

Federal authorities have not identified John Sullivan as a member of Antifa, and he denied supporting Antifa in an interview with a Utah newspaper last week. Sullivan said in the same interview that he didn't encourage violence or vandalism.

The paper, The Deseret News, also reported in July that Sullivan is part of a group called "Insurgence USA" and took part in a protest in June in which he and others demonstrated in opposition to a scheduled pro-law enforcement demonstration.

"We [expletive] about to burn this [expletive] down," he told the crowd. "We got to rip Trump right out of that office over there."He then led the crowd in a chant of, "It's time for a revolution."

"By no means am I there on the Trump side or the Biden side," he told Anderson Cooper.

Another defendant, 24-year-old Colorado resident Robert Gieswein, appears to be affiliated with the Three Percenters, according to another affidavit filed Saturday seeking his arrest on federal charges.

Prosecutors say Mr. Betancur scaled scaffolding on the Capitol, posed in a photo with a Confederate battle flag, and “has voiced homicidal ideations, made comments about conducting a school shooting and researched mass shootings.”

The Jan. 7 post was copied and pasted on another social-media site, where it was viewed by others at least 54,000 times, prosecutors said.

A retired firefighter from Chester, Pa., was also arrested on Thursday after he was identified as the man seen in a video throwing a fire extinguisher at police officers during the riot. The man, Robert Sanford, is charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer engaged in the performance of official duties and civil disorder among other crimes.

Another man was charged on Thursday after law enforcement officials identified him as the person seen repeatedly striking an officer with a flagpole on the stairs of the Capitol in a video posted on Twitter. That man, Peter Stager of Arkansas, was charged with obstructing law enforcement, according to the criminal complaint.

The two men are among the more than a dozen people charged by federal authorities in connection with the attack on Congress. Internet researchers pieced together what was thought to be their identities in the days after the siege. Investigators in Washington, Tennessee and Texas are working on the cases; and the cases will be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington and the counterterrorism section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

But Mr. Munchel also said that he and his mother “wanted to show that we’re willing to rise up, band together and fight if necessary,” and he compared himself and his mother to the Founding Fathers.“I’d rather die as a 57-year-old woman than live under oppression,” Ms. Eisenhart told The Times of London. “I’d rather die and would rather fight.”

Dozens of insurrectionists have been arrested in the days following the violent raid on the Capitol. Officials have levied charges against the man seen with his feet on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, the conspiracy theorist wearing a fur headdress, and the man seen lugging Pelosi’s lectern through the Rotunda while wearing a “Trump 45” hat.

Goni was the 18th tropical cyclone to hit the country this year, which faces an average of 20 typhoons annually. And number 19 could come later this week: Tropical Storm Atsan, officials said, entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility early Sunday.

Citing local officials, Reuters reported that the 10 recorded fatalities and three people reported missing were all in the region of Bicol, which encompasses the southern part of Luzon. Nine of those deaths were in the province of Albay.

The AP reports that in one Albay community, the typhoon triggered volcanic mudflows that "engulfed" about 150 houses.

Philadelphia officials issued a citywide curfew on Wednesday after consecutive nights of protests — which at times turned violent — following the fatal police shooting of a 27-year-old Black man, Walter Wallace Jr. He was holding a knife when police shot him.

"By looting, people are not only hurting retail businesses that have struggled in the midst of the pandemic, but they're doing a great disservice to the many others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting,"

City officials said Wednesday afternoon that 81 people had been arrested during the previous night's demonstrations, including 53 for burglary, seven for disorderly conduct and eight accused of assaulting police.

Police will soon release 911 tapes, body camera footage

City officials urged residents in certain districts to remain indoors Tuesday night due to "widespread demonstrations that have turned violent with looting."

A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.

The gathering featured speeches and preceded a march, Philadelphia member station WHYY reported, adding that one speaker noted there were "far too many comfortable white people here tonight."

"Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN. "It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.

Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police

A police spokesperson said Monday that officers were responding to a report of a man with a knife. They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers." Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police will soon release 911 tapes, body camera footage

Community members gather in West Philly

A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.

"far too many comfortable white people here tonight."

"Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN.

"It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.

Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police

Wallace's wife told the officers when they arrived that her husband had bipolar disorder and urged the officers to stand down.

They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers."

Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"I and our organization, marchers, demonstrators and potential voters left here sunken, sad, traumatized, obstructed and distracted from our intention to lead people all the way to the polls," said the march organizer,

"Let me tell you something: We were beaten, but we will not be broken," he added.

Video published by the Raleigh News & Observer appears to show demonstrators and law enforcement scuffling over sound equipment outside the Alamance County Courthouse. Alamance County sheriff's deputies wearing gray uniforms soon deploy pepper spray, and at least one deputy is seen spraying a man in the face. Others spray toward demonstrators' feet.

Lt. Sisk said Sunday officers allowed the march to pause for about 8 minutes and 40 seconds, but after 9 minutes marchers were told to clear the road.

"They started arresting people before our rally began,"

The Alamance County Sheriff's Office said it made arrests at the demonstration, citing "violations of the permit" Drumwright obtained to hold the rally.

"As a result, after violations of the permit, along with disorderly conduct by participants leading to arrests, the protest was deemed an unlawful assembly and participants were asked to leave."

The rally was scheduled from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET starting from Wayman's Chapel AME church, with an expected stop at the Confederate Monument at Court Square, before ending at a polling place on Elm Street, according to the flyer for the event.

At least eight people were arrested during the rally on various charges,

After five minutes, several people remained and officers again pepper sprayed the ground, authorities said.

Later, a Graham officer was assaulted, Sisk said, and the rally was deemed unsafe and unlawful and law enforcement officers dispersed the crowd.

"At no time during this event did any member of the Graham Police Department directly spray any participant in the march with chemical irritants,"

Sisk called the irritant a "pepper fogger" similar to OC spray, commonly referred to as pepper spray

"they suffered the same effects" of the pepper spray.

Sisk disputed that the march was "scheduled to go to the polls," saying the event was meant to stop at the courthouse where a rally would be held.

"We need the public to understand that we made every effort to coordinate with the planner of this event to ensure that it was successful," Sisk said, alleging it was organizers' intent to block the road, but authorities aimed to ensure safety of both demonstrators and others in downtown Graham.

the "peaceful protests" became violent "because law enforcement tried to take the sound equipment," he tweeted.

Rain Bennett, another attendee, told CNN that demonstrators stopped at Court Square for an eight-minute moment of silence for George Floyd following the march, and that "police presence was there and they had no problem with that."

"Everybody is coughing and kind of running away," he said, adding that it was "really confusing because it'd been fine."

The incident was criticized by a number of officials and civil rights groups, including the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights, the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, whose executive director likened it to "voter intimidation."

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper shared the Raleigh News & Observer's article about the march on Twitter and called the incident "unacceptable."

"This is extremely concerning, and we need to get to the bottom of it," he said.

North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin issued a statement condemning the actions of law enforcement, calling them "completely unwarranted police hostility and voter suppression."

"We thought there would be tons of people coming in after this event," Peppler told CNN. "We had extra people come on hand because the idea of this was that this gathering would end at the polls, but they broke it up over there at the courthouse before they ever got here."

Trump wanted to bring down the hammer, but he couldn’t get his people to actually do it. To put it in terms the president would understand: Weak!

Much of this poor electoral performance stems from the reality that, as we argued back in March, Trump’s playbook is deeply ill-suited to the current crises: a virus that can’t be intimidated, economic fallout that won’t correct itself in response to Trump’s personality or bullying, and now protesters who don’t go away when he plays the strongman. So in addition to being a weak leader who can’t get his people to break the law or crack down on protesters, and in addition to being electorally weak, Trump now looks ineffectual, even ridiculous, in the face of circumstances that just aren’t cooperating and can’t be ordered around.

All of which makes this past week an important cautionary tale for the election itself if Trump does, in fact, lose. The authoritarian instinct will still be there, of course. So will the flailing weakness, we suspect, and the effort to get his administration to take wildly inappropriate, even illegal steps. His degree of panic will presumably be even higher then than it is now, as will the stakes—which will be nothing less than the peaceful transition of power.

We can only hope that, once again, the weakness will overwhelm the authoritarianism, the ineffectuality will triumph over the menace, and the president will emerge as a figure of contempt and ridicule, rather than of fear and consolidated power.

He didn’t match Mr. Trump’s volume. He often lost control of their exchanges. And the cross talk mostly kept him from building the emotional pitches to the audience that he relies on.

But it was also a clear, dismal and deafening reminder of what kind of country we actually do live in.

Looking through a political lens, James Piereson in “Shattered Consensus” observes a collapse of the postwar understanding of government’s role, namely to promote full employment and to police a disorderly world. He expects a “fourth revolution” around the end of this decade, following the Jeffersonian upheaval of 1800, the Civil War and the New Deal. Such a revolution, he writes, is required or else “the polity will begin to disintegrate for lack of fundamental agreement.”

In “The Fourth Turning Is Here,” published this summer, demographic historian Neil Howe arrived at a similar conclusion. His view springs from a conviction that human history follows highly predictable cycles based on the “saeculum,” or typical human life span of 80 years or so, and the differing experiences of four generations within that span. The next “turning,” he predicts, is due in about 2033

It will resemble those in the 1760s, 1850s and 1920s, Howe writes, that produced “bone-jarring Crises so monumental that, by their end, American society emerged wholly transformed.”

Others see disaster’s origins in economics

Failure to resume strong growth and to produce greater economic equality will bring forth authoritarian regimes both left and right. This year, in his book “The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism,” Financial Times editor Martin Wolf advocated for an array of reforms, including carbon taxation, a presumption against horizontal mergers, a virtual ban on corporate share buybacks, compulsory voting, and extra votes for younger citizens and parents of children. He fears that, absent such measures, “the light of political and personal freedom might once again disappear from the world.”

Unsettling as these forecasts are, the even more troubling thought is that maybe a true crisis is not just inevitable but also necessary to future national success and social cohesion.

Now, I’m grudgingly ready to surrender and accept that the cliché must be true: Washington will not face up to its duty except in a genuine crisis. Then and only then will we, as some would say, focus on the existential threats to our iconic institutions.

Now, market guru John Mauldin has begun forecasting a “great reset” when these unsustainable bills cannot be paid, when “the economy comes crashing down around our ears.” Writing in August, he said he sees this happening “roughly 7-10 years from now.”

Encouragingly, if vaguely, most of these seers retain their optimism. Piereson closes by imagining “a new order on the foundations of the old.” Confessing that he doesn’t “know exactly how it will work,” Mauldin expects us to “muddle through” somehow.

Howe, because he sees his sweeping, socially driven generational cycles recurring all the way back to the Greeks, is the most cavalier. Although “the old American republic is collapsing,” he says, we will soon pass through a “great gate in history,” resolve our challenges and emerge with a “new collective identity.”

Paradoxically, these ominous projections can help worrywarts like me move through what might be called the stages of political grief.

A decade ago, an optimist could tell himself that a democratically mature people could summon the will or the leaders to stop plundering its children’s futures, and to reconcile or at least agree to tolerate sincerely held cultural disagreements.

For a while after that, it seemed plausible to hope for incremental reforms that would enable the keeping of most of our safety-net promises, and for a cooling or exhaustion of our poisonous polarization.

Bowles called what’s coming “the most predictable economic crisis” — there’s that word again, aptly applied — “in history.” And that was many trillions of borrowing ago.

So maybe we might as well get on with it, and hope that we at least “muddle through.” I’ve arrived at the final stage: Crisis? Ready when you are.