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We know now that touching things, being with other people and breathing the air in an enclosed space can be risky. How quickly that awareness recedes will be different for different people, but it can never vanish completely for anyone who lived through this year

The comfort of being in the presence of others might be replaced by a greater comfort with absence, especially with those we don’t know intimately

he paradox of online communication will be ratcheted up: It creates more distance, yes, but also more connection, as we communicate more often with people who are physically farther and farther away—and who feel safer to us because of that distance.

When all is said and done, perhaps we will recognize their sacrifice as true patriotism, saluting our doctors and nurses, genuflecting and saying, “Thank you for your service,” as we now do for military veterans. We will give them guaranteed health benefits and corporate discounts, and build statues and have holidays for this new class of people who sacrifice their health and their lives for ours. Perhaps, too, we will finally start to understand patriotism more as cultivating the health and life of your community, rather than blowing up someone else’s community. Maybe the de-militarization of American patriotism and love of community will be one of the benefits to come out of this whole awful mess.

Plagues drive change. Partly because our government failed us, gay Americans mobilized to build organizations, networks and know-how that changed our place in society and have enduring legacies today. The epidemic also revealed deadly flaws in the health care system, and it awakened us to the need for the protection of marriage—revelations which led to landmark reforms. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some analogous changes in the wake of coronavirus

The second reason is the “political shock wave” scenario. Studies have shown that strong, enduring relational patterns often become more susceptible to change after some type of major shock destabilizes them

But given our current levels of tension, this scenario suggests that now is the time to begin to promote more constructive patterns in our cultural and political discourse. The time for change is clearly ripening.

The COVID-19 crisis could change this in two ways. First, it has already forced people back to accepting that expertise matters. It was easy to sneer at experts until a pandemic arrived, and then people wanted to hear from medical professionals like Anthony Fauci. Second, it may—one might hope—return Americans to a new seriousness, or at least move them back toward the idea that government is a matter for serious people.

The coronavirus pandemic marks the end of our romance with market society and hyper-individualism. We could turn toward authoritarianism.

Religion in the time of quarantine will challenge conceptions of what it means to minister and to fellowship. But it will also expand the opportunities for those who have no local congregation to sample sermons from afar. Contemplative practices may gain popularity. And maybe—just maybe—the culture war that has branded those who preach about the common good with the epithet “Social Justice Warriors” may ease amid the very present reminder of our interconnected humanity.

The first is the “common enemy” scenario, in which people begin to look past their differences when faced with a shared external threat.

COVID-19 will sweep away many of the artificial barriers to moving more of our lives online. Not everything can become virtual, of course. But in many areas of our lives, uptake on genuinely useful online tools has been slowed by powerful legacy players, often working in collaboration with overcautious bureaucrats

The pandemic will shift the paradigm of where our healthcare delivery takes place. For years, telemedicine has lingered on the sidelines as a cost-controlling, high convenience system. Out of necessity, remote office visits could skyrocket in popularity as traditional-care settings are overwhelmed by the pandemic. There would also be containment-related benefits to this shift; staying home for a video call keeps you out of the transit system, out of the waiting room and, most importantly, away from patients who need critical care.

This crisis should unleash widespread political support for Universal Family Care—a single public federal fund that we all contribute to, that we all benefit from, that helps us take care of our families while we work, from child care and elder care to support for people with disabilities and paid family leave. Coronavirus has put a particular national spotlight on unmet needs of the growing older population in our country, and the tens of millions of overstretched family and professional caregivers they rely on. Care is and always has been a shared responsibility. Yet, our policy has never fully supported it. This moment, challenging as it is, should jolt us into changing that.

In other words, the power of the salute lies with the choice to salute, and the most repugnant form of censorship is compelled speech — the effort to force a person to state what they do not believe. Mandatory reverence isn’t reverence at all.

The Supreme Court’s words have a profound cultural meaning that resonates far beyond the letter of the law. The government cannot force a man to violate his conscience. Nor should it try to bully powerful, private entities into doing what the state cannot legally accomplish

Here’s the bottom line. If you’re participating in or justifying conduct you’d despise if the partisan roles were reversed, if you’re changing your views because “the people” have spoken and rejected an “elitist” embrace of individual liberty, or if you are not confident enough in your own views to embrace and defend a marketplace of ideas, then we’re just not on the same side. I’m not your culture warrior, and though we may have great respect for each other and agree on many things, on this issue I’m your opponent.

The UK’s foreign minister, Dominic Raab, was quick to criticise the move.

the decision will increase the number of seats in Hong Kong’s legislature from 70 to 90, and the election committee charged with choosing a chief executive from 1,200 to 1,500.

Li said the government would “solidify the foundations of basic research”, including by offering 100% tax deductions on R&D costs for manufacturers.

In the past year new laws and regulations in Hong Kong, including a draconian national security law and a concerted campaign of protest-related prosecutions, have resulted in almost every significant voice of opposition being in jail, on trial or in exile overseas.

The changes have drawn international condemnation. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told Congress on Wednesday that the Biden administration would “follow through on sanctions … against those responsible for committing repressive acts in Hong Kong”. The US and other countries have repeatedly objected to the crackdown with little effect.

Speaking to press after the sessions, the premier, Li Keqiang, praised the passage of the decision, and the approval of China’s 14th five-year plan, which included GDP growth targets of “above 6%” and a focus on boosting China’s tech industry.

The changes will also establish a vetting panel responsible for “reviewing and confirming the qualifications” of committee and political political candidates in line with the national security law and basic law.

Ahead of a high-level bilateral meeting in Alaska next week, Li also urged improved relations with the US, but signalled China had no intention of conceding to criticisms of its actions in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and towards Taiwan.

One kindergarten in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou interspersed its lessons in September with four days of what it called “military training” for its 5- and 6-year-olds. The children, dressed in military fatigues, held Chinese flags and performed salutes, according to the school’s official WeChat social-media account.

In 2016, the party issued what it said were reform guidelines calling on its Communist Youth League to help lead on social media. The Youth League began opening accounts on platforms including Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. It also started an official account on Bilibili, a video-hosting platform akin to China’s YouTube whose users are mainly under 25. The Youth League and its regional arms now have almost 11.5 million followers there.

Patriotism is a form of nationalism. They are ideological brothers, not distant cousins.

members of the nation, understood as a group of equal citizens with a shared history and future political destiny, should rule the state, and second, that they should do so in the interests of the nation.

Nationalism is thus opposed to foreign rule by members of other nations, as in colonial empires and many dynastic kingdoms, as well as to rulers who disregard the perspectives and needs of the majority.

Trump’s nationalism involves the adoption of immigration and trade policies “with our own interests foremost in mind,” he writes. America should protect itself “with the utmost vigilance” from external threats. And finally, Lowry asserts, “our country, not any other nation or international body or alliance, should always come first.”

Lowry is disdainful of the notion that America is an idea, one based on those self-evident truths of the Declaration. No, he counters: “America is a nation, whose sovereignty and borders are dear to it, whose history and culture are an indispensable glue, whose interests guide her actions (or should).”

Lowry distances himself from the unsavory aspects of nationalism by defining them away

The role of nationalism in bloody European conflicts? No big deal. “When Europe went off the rails in the early twentieth century, nationalism as such didn’t cause its crash so much as social Darwinism, militarism, and the cult of charismatic leadership,”

Fascism may “appeal to nationalistic sentiment,” he admits, but it is a “distinct phenomenon.” Racism can “infect” nationalism, he acknowledges, but they are not the same thing. He frequently resorts to this slippery formulation, suggesting that because two things are not synonymous, none should dare point out their links.

He worries that the country is too divided over individual and group recognition to embrace a truly national identity. But if unity is your overriding concern, why promote a vision of the nation so heavy on exclusion?

Lowry decries as a “smear” the notion that “nationalism inevitably leads to fascism or other forms of authoritarianism.”

He quickly dismisses dissenting views as “nonsense” or “foolish” or “frankly absurd.” Nationalism cannot be bad because Lowry has defined it as good, rendering “The Case for Nationalism” a book-length study in begging the question.

the founding is reinterpreted as a nationalist project in which ideas and ideals mattered far less than the specific “religio-cultural attributes” of those who came here.

He concludes that the civil-rights movement succeeded because it had “such ready access to our national identity and made such a compelling appeal to it,” sidestepping how the movement had to appeal precisely to the nation’s professed ideals to show the hypocrisy of its practices.

while Lowry defends nationalism as the “opposite” of the quest for dominion over people and territories, he looks back approvingly on America’s westward expansion. “It was a stupendous boon to our nation, to our people, to our interests, to our wealth, and to our power,” he writes, despite some “regrettable” treatment of Native Americans. Lowry stresses that American Indians weren’t “the peace-loving innocents of contemporary popular imagination.”

Lowry, who says he finds little “practical distinction” between patriotism and nationalism, does not leave space to quote the distinction Lepore makes in her book. “Nationalists pretend their aims are instead protection and unity and that their motivation is patriotism,” she writes. “This is a lie. Patriotism is animated by love, nationalism by hatred.”

Inherently. Intrinsically. Inevitably. Those words seem to add authority to Lowry’s statements but actually leave them hollow. Just because nationalism isn’t always racist or violent or militaristic, that hardly offers license to disregard how it often stokes those sentiments

Lowry trashes intellectuals on the left and corporate and political leaders holding anti-nationalist views as not just misguided or wrong, but as treasonous.

“The Case for Nationalism” seems part of a larger effort on the right to create an after-the-fact framework for Trumpism, to contort the president’s utterances and impulses into a coherent worldview that can outlast him

It risks turning conservatism into an ever more exclusionary and yet malleable concept, with limited appeal and even more limited principles.

Social media’s scale and searchability is such that anybody looking to believe almost anything can quickly and easily find what seems like evidence to support that belief, then push it out to a wider and wider circle. In the past few days, factions of political factions have coalesced around cherry-picked pieces of reality or fondly held bits of delusion.

It should be simple: antifa or “patriots”? The choice between claiming responsibility and passing it off is an ideological line in the sand for each person who makes it. At the same time, the online MAGA world’s stutter step in this moment illustrates just how flexible reality can appear online, particularly in the thick of a breaking news event. And particularly in the hands of people who don’t care what the truth is, and are interested only in whether it can serve them.

As she marched through Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon, an Instagram parenting and travel blogger who goes by @thatboldmama asked her followers why they were mad at “Americans fighting back,” insisting that “storming the US Capitol is NOT violent.” She seemed surprised to be receiving pushback. By yesterday morning, she was fully on board with the antifa theory, and sharing posts about how the event must have been staged. When I reached out to her, she referred me to one of her posts: “Don't let the news media FOOL you,” she wrote. “It was a great day until NON Patriots breached” the Capitol.

I’m the daughter of a career military man. My patriotism is unwavering. I stand for the national anthem. I wear red, white and blue for every national holiday. I respect every branch of the military and those who have served. Most importantly, I hold my country in my heart and thank God every single day that I’m an American.

I’m a survivor of domestic violence and pervasive sexism that has periodically and unjustly crushed my American dreams for over five decades. Yet I still yearn for my freedom and am linked to others who have been unjustly judged, abused and oppressed. The promise of freedom and equality in our founding and our people’s struggles needs a rebirth that stretches deeper and farther than ever before. I love this land, its beauty, its bounty and all the wild creatures I have seen when visiting wild spaces. We need to embrace the protection of life and liberty for the planet, our fellow creatures and all of humanity. — Kara Steffensen, Eugene, Ore.

To me, love of country is to be gladly anchored to values and customs that are shared by fellow citizens. It is to yearn to try shrimp and grits in South Carolina, seeing a game at Fenway, taking in some jazz in Chicago and watching waves crash against a West Coast shore.

Ms. Maddock helped fill 19 buses to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally and defended the April armed intrusion into the Michigan Capitol. When Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, suggested at the time that Black demonstrators would never be allowed to threaten legislators like that, Ms. Maddock wrote on Twitter, “Please show us the ‘threat’?”“Oh that’s right you think anyone armed is threatening,” she continued. “It’s a right for a reason and the reason is YOU.”

The lead organizer of the April 30 armed protest, Ryan Kelley, a local Republican official, last week announced a bid for governor. “Becoming too closely aligned with militias — is that a bad thing?” he said in an interview.

In the first major protest in the country against stay-at-home orders, thousands of cars, trucks and even a few cement mixers jammed the streets around the Statehouse in Lansing, in what Ms. Maddock called Operation Gridlock. About 150 demonstrators left their vehicles to chant “lock her up” from the Capitol lawn — redirecting the 2016 battle cry about Hillary Clinton against Ms. Whitmer. A few waved Confederate flags. About a dozen heavily armed members of the Michigan Liberty Militia turned up as well

woven through Michigan’s militia timeline is a persistent strand of menace. In the early 20th century, the Black Legion, a paramilitary group that included public officials in Detroit and elsewhere, began as an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan and was linked to numerous acts of murder and terrorism.

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing, were reported to have associated with militia members in Michigan, though Mr. Olson said they had been turned away because of their violent rhetoric. In the aftermath, militias were largely exiled to the fringes of conspiracy politics, preparing for imagined threats from the New World Order.

in recent years, as the Republican Party has drifted further to the right, these groups have gradually found a home there, said JoEllen Vinyard, an emeritus professor of history at Eastern Michigan University who has studied political extremism. Much of their cooperation is centered on defending gun ownership, she said

epublicans have controlled both houses of the Michigan Legislature for a decade and held the governor’s mansion for the eight years before Ms. Whitmer took office in 2019. Mr. Trump’s brash nationalism had alienated moderate Republicans and independents while pushing the party to the right.

Surrounded by militiamen about two weeks later in Grand Rapids, at an event also organized by Mr. Howland and Mr. Kelley, the senator said in a speech that they had taken him to task for his “jackasses” comment and he effectively retracted it.

Ms. Maddock declared Michigan a “tyranny” that night on the Fox News Channel, though she later distanced herself from the armed men. “Of course the militia is disappointing to me, the Confederate flag — look, they’re just idiots,

When local armed groups in Michigan began discussing more demonstrations, most Republicans shunned them at first. “They were scared of the word ‘militia,’” recalled Phil Robinson, a member of the Liberty Militia.

As the Legislature met on April 30 to vote on extending the governor’s restrictions, Mr. Kelley and his militia allies convened hundreds of protesters, including scores of armed men, some with assault weapons. One demonstrator hung a noose from the back of his pickup. Another held a sign warning that “tyrants get the rope.” Dozens entered the Capitol, some angrily demanding entrance to the lower chamber.

“We were harassed and intimidated so that we would not do our jobs,” said Representative Donna Lasinski, leader of the Democratic minority. Lawmakers were terrified, she added.

Mr. Maddock, the Republican legislator and Ms. Maddock’s husband, recognized some of the intruders and left the House floor to confer with them. “I like being around people with guns,” he later told The Detroit News.

Mr. Trump sided with them, too. “The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire,” he tweeted. “These are very good people.”

Roughly a dozen to 18 armed groups are scattered across Michigan in mostly rural counties, their membership fluctuating with political and economic currents. Estimates of active members statewide are generally in the hundreds.

“I was able to see that they are patriots that love their country like the rest of us,” she said, adding that they are “all Republicans.”

Other Republicans also came to accept the presence of armed activists. Ms. Gatt, who took part in protests organized by Mr. Kelley and Ms. Maddock, said she felt “intimidated by the militia when I first started getting involved,” but soon changed her mind.

The state G.O.P. quickly jumped into the fight. In June, a nonprofit group linked to the Republican Party began providing more than $600,000 to a new advocacy group run in part by Ms. Maddock that was dedicated to fighting coronavirus restrictions. A charity tied to Mr. Shirkey kicked in $500,000.

Critics argued that race was an unstated factor in the battle over the stay-at-home order. The Republicans who rallied against the rules were mostly white residents of rural areas and outer suburbs. But more than 40 percent of the deaths in Michigan early on were among African-Americans, concentrated in Detroit, who made up less than 15 percent of the state’s population

The Black Lives Matter protests in Michigan were rarely violent or destructive, and the largest took place in Detroit. But Republicans in the rest of the state reacted with alarm to the flashes of violence elsewhere around the country, and President Trump reinforced their fears with his warnings about “antifa.”

“Liberals look for trouble and civil unrest and conservatives PREPARE for it,” Gary Eisen, a Republican state legislator and owner of a concealed-weapon training business, wrote on his Facebook page. “I thought maybe I would load up a few more mags,” he added, later saying he had been joking

He accused Democrats of encouraging violence. “The Democrats have got antifa; they have got BLM,” he said. “The Democrats championed all of this stuff from a leadership level.”

More prominent Michigan Republicans portrayed the Black Lives Matter movement as a looming threat, too. Ms. Maddock told the news site MLive.com that the “destruction” caused by the protests was “absolutely devastating” and “inexcusable.”

At the peak of the protests against police violence, though, Mr. Kelley’s American Patriot Council still aimed its sharpest attacks at Governor Whitmer and her stay-at-home order. It released public letters urging the federal authorities to arrest her for violating the Constitution by issuing a stay-at-home order. “Whitmer needs to go to prison,” Mr. Kelley declared in a video he posted on Facebook in early October that was later taken down. “She is a threat to our Republic.”

A few days later, federal agents arrested more than a dozen Michigan militiamen, charging them in a plot to kidnap the governor, put her on trial and possibly execute her.

It was the culmination of months of mobilization by armed groups, accompanied by increasingly threatening language, and Mr. Trump declined to condemn the plotters. “People are entitled to say, ‘Maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn’t,’” he declared at a rally in Michigan.

Hours after the Nov. 3 election, Ms. Maddock wrote on Facebook: “35k ballots showed up out of nowhere at 3 AM. Need help.” She urged Trump supporters to rush to “monitor the vote” at a ballot-counting center in Detroit. “Report to room 260 STAT.”

Mr. Kelley, with Mr. Howland and their armed militia allies, showed up for a rowdy protest outside the ballot counting. Later that month Mr. Kelley told a rally outside the Statehouse that the coronavirus was a ruse to persuade the public to “believe Joe Biden won the election,” The Lansing State Journal reported. One woman held a sign saying “ARREST THE VOTE COUNTERS.”

When attempts to stop the counting failed, Ms. Maddock in December led 16 Republican electors trying to push into the Michigan Capitol to disrupt the casting of Democratic votes in the Electoral College. During a “Stop the Steal” news conference in Washington the next day, she vowed to “keep fighting.”

Mr. Kelley and Mr. Howland were filmed outside the U.S. Capitol during the riot. Both men said they did not break any laws, and argued that the event was not “an insurrection” because the participants were patriots. “I was there to support the sitting president,” Mr. Kelley said.

Mr. Shirkey, the Michigan Senate leader who came around to work with the militias, declined to follow the movement behind Mr. Trump all the way to the end. Summoned to the White House in November, Mr. Shirkey refused the president’s entreaties to try to annul his Michigan defeat.

But in an interview last week, the lawmaker said he nonetheless empathized with the mob that attacked Congress.“It was people feeling oppressed, and depressed, responding to what they thought was government just stealing their lives from them,” he said. “And I’m not endorsing and supporting their actions, but I understand where they come from.”

“I said, ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Mr. Tuberville recounted to Politico.

A short time later, at 3:13 p.m., Mr. Trump added a note, “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”

Finally, at 2:38 p.m., Mr. Trump tweeted, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

This was a significant new piece of information. House prosecutors used it to argue that Mr. Trump was clearly aware that the vice president was in danger and that he had a callous disregard for Mr. Pence’s safety. On Friday, Mr. Trump’s defense team had insisted that Mr. Trump was not aware of any peril facing Mr. Pence.

Ms. Trump quoted her father’s tweet when she sent out her own, telling “American Patriots” to follow the law. She quickly deleted it and replaced it when she faced blowback on Twitter for appearing to praise the rioters as “patriots.”

Fitzgerald once floated “Under the Red White and Blue” as a possible title for Gatsby

readers have often seen in The Great Gatsby an allegory that critiques the American experiment

what does Fitzgerald’s heartbreaking novel have to say to us today? It’s a portrait of a tremendous crash — some have read it as a prophecy of the crash that sparked the Great Depression

Marcus starts there, and proposes that Gatsby himself represents the conflicted nature of America: big, transcendent dreams yoked to sordid violence and greed.

but it deals with a deeper crisis than any stock-market plunge. The people of Gatsby’s America have built a fragile world of distraction to numb their existential emptiness. They’re trying to live without the permanent things: without real love, without family, without sacrifice, without transcendent meaning

Even Gatsby’s lofty dream is just an egoistic project of self-fulfillment, an attempt to relive his own emotions from the past. It’s a world in which “there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.” That is, it’s a world built on the false premise that too many of us — if we’re honest — have accepted: that our life consists of busily avoiding pain and seeking pleasure.

The party was over. As I sit rereading The Great Gatsby amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, that phrase sticks with me. A lot of modern life has ground to a halt. The death toll rises; the shelter-in-place orders drag on. The economy shudders. The party is over, and we’ve all got a chance to do some soul-searching about what really matters, a chance to reflect on just exactly what the “party” was and whether we want to resume it when life returns to normal

He painted the glittering escapism of an age, but Fitzgerald was too true an artist to accept shallow substitutes for the deepest things. As he once wrote in an autobiographical essay about the Roaring Twenties, “I was pretty sure that living wasn’t the reckless, careless business these people thought.”

Fitzgerald’s book may speak to the American condition, as Marcus rightly sees; but it speaks louder to the human condition. Gatsby and the Buchanans and the Wilsons reap death or existential emptiness not because they have been bad Americans or because of the failure of American ideology, but because they have been bad humans — because to the last pages of the story they lived selfishly.

Celebration of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II — referred to as the Great Patriotic War in Russia — has played the most important role in that conditioning. Rather than promoting only a culture of remembrance of Soviet heroism and 27 million lives lost, the Kremlin applies the World War II narrative to the present day, positioning Russia as once again threatened by enemies bent on its destruction.

A popular World War II bumper sticker reads, “We can do it again.

“We’re doing a bit of propaganda, too,” the section leader quipped, declining to give his name.

no more than 4 percent — across all age groups — said Russia was at fault.

“Right now, the idea is being pushed that Russia is a peace-loving country permanently surrounded by enemies,” said Anton Dolin, a Russian film critic. “This is contradicted by some facts, but if you show it at the movies and translate that idea into the time of the Great Patriotic War, we all instantly get a scheme familiar to everyone from childhood.”

Polls show that young people have a more positive view of the West than older Russians, and the pro-Kremlin sentiment prompted by the Crimea annexation appears to have dissipated amid economic stagnation.

Veronika Osipova, 17, from the city of Rostov-on-Don near Ukraine’s border, won the award for best female student. For years, she played the harp, graduating with honors from an elite music school. But in 2015, she started learning how to shoot a machine gun and throw grenades. She resolved to join the Russian military to protect the country against its enemies.

“I follow the example of girls who, under bullets and grenades, went to fight during the Great Patriotic War,” Ms. Osipova said. “They had no choice, but we do have it, and I choose the army.”

In the American system, it is the voters, the courts, and Congress that are meant to serve as checks on a president’s behavior, not the generals. Civilians provide direction, funding, and oversight; the military then follows lawful orders.

“As chairman, you swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, but what if the commander in chief is undermining the Constitution?” McMaster said to me.

“General Milley has done an extraordinary job under the most extraordinary of circumstances,” Gates said. “I’ve worked for eight presidents, and not even Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon in their angriest moments would have considered doing or saying some of the things that were said between the election and January 6.

Trump called Gallagher a hero and said he didn’t understand why he was being punished.“Because he slit the throat of a wounded prisoner,” Milley said.“The guy was going to die anyway,” Trump said.

Milley answered, “Mr. President, we have military ethics and laws about what happens in battle. We can’t do that kind of thing. It’s a war crime.” Trump answered that he didn’t understand “the big deal.” He went on, “You guys”—meaning combat soldiers—“are all just killers. What’s the difference?”

There’s a little bit of a ‘There but for the grace of God go I’ feeling in all of this. What happened to Gallagher can happen to many human beings.” Milley told me about a book given to him by a friend, Aviv Kochavi, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. The book, by an American academic named Christopher Browning, is called Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.

“It’s a great book,” Milley said. “It’s about these average police officers from Hamburg who get drafted, become a police battalion that follows the Wehrmacht into Poland, and wind up slaughtering Jews and committing genocide. They just devolve into barbaric acts. It’s about moral degradation.”

During Milley’s time in the Trump administration, the disagreements and misunderstandings between the Pentagon and the White House all seemed to follow the same pattern: The president—who was incapable of understanding or unwilling to understand the aspirations and rules that guide the military—would continually try to politicize an apolitical institution.

The image of a general in combat fatigues walking with a president who has a well-known affection for the Insurrection Act—the 1807 law that allows presidents to deploy the military to put down domestic riots and rebellions—caused consternation and anger across the senior-officer ranks, and among retired military leaders.

According to Esper, Trump desperately wanted a violent response to the protesters, asking, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” When I raised this with Milley, he explained, somewhat obliquely, how he would manage the president’s eruptions.“It was a rhetorical question,” Milley explained. “ ‘Can’t you just shoot them in the legs?’ ”“He never actually ordered you to shoot anyone in the legs?” I asked.“Right. This could be interpreted many, many different ways,” he said.

Milley and others around Trump used different methods to handle the unstable president. “You can judge my success or failure on this, but I always tried to use persuasion with the president, not undermine or go around him or slow-roll,” Milley told me. “I would present my argument to him. The president makes decisions, and if the president ordered us to do X, Y, or Z and it was legal, we would do it. If it’s not legal, it’s my job to say it’s illegal, and here’s why it’s illegal. I would emphasize cost and risk of the various courses of action. My job, then and now, is to let the president know what the course of action could be, let them know what the cost is, what the risks and benefits are. And then make a recommendation. That’s what I’ve done under both presidents.”

He went on to say, “President Trump never ordered me to tell the military to do something illegal. He never did that. I think that’s an important point.”

For his part, General Chiarelli concluded that his friend had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Quoting Peter Feaver, an academic expert on civil-military relations, Chiarelli said, “You have to judge Mark like you judge Olympic divers—by the difficulty of the dive.”

That summer, Milley visited Chiarelli in Washington State and, over breakfast, described what he thought was coming next. “It was unbelievable. This is August 2, and he laid out in specific detail what his concerns were between August and Inauguration Day. He identified one of his biggest concerns as January 6,” the day the Senate was to meet to certify the election. “It was almost like a crystal ball.”

Chiarelli said that Milley told him it was possible, based on his observations of the president and his advisers, that they would not accept an Election Day loss. Specifically, Milley worried that Trump would trigger a war—an “October surprise”­—to create chaotic conditions in the lead-up to the election. Chiarelli mentioned the continuous skirmishes inside the White House between those who were seeking to attack Iran, ostensibly over its nuclear program, and those, like Milley, who could not justify a large-scale preemptive strike.

In the crucial period after his road-to-Damascus conversion, Milley set several goals for himself: keep the U.S. out of reckless, unnecessary wars overseas; maintain the military’s integrity, and his own; and prevent the administration from using the military against the American people. He told uniformed and civilian officials that the military would play no part in any attempt by Trump to illegally remain in office.

The desire on the part of Trump and his loyalists to utilize the Insurrection Act was unabating. Stephen Miller, the Trump adviser whom Milley is said to have called “Rasputin,” was vociferous on this point. Less than a week after George Floyd was murdered, Miller told Trump in an Oval Office meeting, “Mr. President, they are burning America down. Antifa, Black Lives Matter—they’re burning it down. You have an insurrection on your hands. Barbarians are at the gate.”

According to Woodward and Costa in Peril, Milley responded, “Shut the fuck up, Steve.” Then he turned to Trump. “Mr. President, they are not burning it down.”

In the weeks before the election, Milley was a dervish of activity. He spent much of his time talking with American allies and adversaries, all worried about the stability of the United States. In what would become his most discussed move, first reported by Woodward and Costa, he called Chinese General Li Zuocheng, his People’s Liberation Army counterpart, on October 30, after receiving intelligence that China believed Trump was going to order an attack

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley said, according to Peril. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you. General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise … If there was a war or some kind of kinetic action between the United States and China, there’s going to be a buildup, just like there has been always in history.”

Milley later told the Senate Armed Services Committee that this call, and a second one two days after the January 6 insurrection, represented an attempt to “deconflict military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers that are armed with the world’s most deadliest weapons.”

Milley also spoke with lawmakers and media figures in the days leading up to the election, promising that the military would play no role in its outcome. In a call on the Saturday before Election Day, Milley told news anchors including George Stephan­opoulos, Lester Holt, and Norah O’Donnell that the military’s role was to protect democracy, not undermine it.

“The context was ‘We know how fraught things are, and we have a sense of what might happen, and we’re not going to let Trump do it,’ ” Stephanopoulos told me. “He was saying that the military was there to serve the country, and it was clear by implication that the military was not going to be part of a coup.” It seemed, Stephanopoulos said, that Milley was “desperately trying not to politicize the military.

“The motto of the United States Army for over 200 years, since 14 June 1775 … has been ‘This we will defend,’ ” Milley said. “And the ‘this’ refers to the Constitution and to protect the liberty of the American people. You see, we are unique among armies. We are unique among militaries. We do not take an oath to a king or queen, a tyrant or dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. No, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe, or religion. We take an oath to the Constitution … We will never turn our back on our duty to protect and defend the idea that is America, the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

He closed with words from Thomas Paine: “These are times that try men’s souls. And the summer soldier and the sunshine Patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country. But he who stands by it deserves the love of man and woman. For tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”

“World War II ended with the establishment of the rules-based international order. People often ridicule it—they call it ‘globalism’ and so on—but in fact, in my view, World War II was fought in order to establish a better peace,” Milley told me. “We the Americans are the primary authors of the basic rules of the road—and these rules are under stress, and they’re fraying at the edges. That’s why Ukraine is so important. President Putin has made a mockery of those rules. He’s making a mockery of everything. He has assaulted the very first principle of the United Nations, which is that you can’t tolerate wars of aggression and you can’t allow large countries to attack small countries by military means. He is making a direct frontal assault on the rules that were written in 1945.”

“It is incumbent upon all of us in positions of leadership to do the very best to maintain a sense of global stability,” Milley told me. “If we don’t, we’re going to pay the butcher’s bill. It will be horrific, worse than World War I, worse than World War II.”

If Trump is reelected president, there will be no Espers or Milleys in his administration. Nor will there be any officials of the stature and independence of John Kelly, H. R. McMaster, or James Mattis. Trump and his allies have already threatened officials they see as disloyal with imprisonment, and there is little reason to imagine that he would not attempt to carry out his threats.

There are many people who assume that liberalism and nationalism are opposites. Liberalism, in their mind, is modern and progressive. It’s about freedom of choice, diversity and individual autonomy. Nationalism, meanwhile, is primordial, xenophobic, tribal, aggressive and exclusionary.

it has become clear that there are two kinds of nationalism: the illiberal nationalism of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and the liberal nationalism of Zelensky. The former nationalism is backward-looking, xenophobic and authoritarian.

The latter nationalism is forward-looking, inclusive and builds a society around the rule of law, not the personal power of the maximum leader. It’s become clear that if it is to survive, liberalism needs to rest on a bed of this kind of nationalism.

Nationalism provides people with a fervent sense of belonging. Countries don’t hold together because citizens make a cold assessment that it’s in their self-interest to do so. Countries are held together by shared loves for a particular way of life, a particular culture, a particular land

Nationalism provides people with a sense of meaning. Nationalists tell stories that stretch from a glorious if broken past forward to a golden future

Democracies need nationalism if they are to defend themselves against their foes. Democracies also need this kind of nationalism if they are to hold together.

Yascha Mounk celebrates the growing diversity enjoyed by many Western nations. But he argues they also need the centripetal force of “cultural patriotism,” to balance the centrifugal forces that this diversity ignites.

Finally, democracies need this kind of nationalism to regenerate the nation. Liberal nationalists are not stuck with a single archaic national narrative. They are perpetually going back, reinterpreting the past, modernizing the story and reinventing the community.

Over the past decades this kind of ardent nationalism has often been regarded as passé within the circles of the educated elites

The first problem with this posture is that it opened up a cultural divide between the educated class and the millions of Americans for whom patriotism is a central part of their identity

Liberal nationalism believes in what liberals believe, but it also believes that nations are moral communities and the borders that define them need to be secure

It believes that it’s sometimes OK to put Americans first — to adopt policies that give American workers an edge over workers elsewhere. It believes it’s important to celebrate diversity, but a country that doesn’t construct a shared moral culture will probably rip itself to shreds.

It shows what a renewed American liberal nationalism could do, if only the center and left could get over their squeamishness about patriotic ardor and would embrace and reinvent our national tradition.

“Self-centered individualism must therefore be replaced with a more collectivist spirit that nationalism knows how to kindle.”

If it just means that Americans have believed their country is special, then (as a British skeptic writes) there is “nothing exceptional about this exceptionalism. All great nations cherish national myths.”[1] If it means that the U.S.A. was exceptionally virtuous given its precocious dedication to civil and religious liberty, equality, justice, prosperity, social mobility, and peace and harmony with all nations, then ipso facto the U.S.A. is exceptionally vicious for falling so short of those ideals. If the term means rather that Americans are somehow exempted from the laws of entropy governing other nations—that (as Bismarck reportedly quipped) “God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America”—then such exceptionalism can only be proven sub specie aeternitatis. Indeed, the very illusion that a nation is under divine dispensation may perversely inspire the pride that goeth before a fall (“thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”) or the many bad ends to which reckless adolescents are prone. Finally, if American Exceptionalism means that its power, values, and “indispensable” status render the United States exempt from the rules of behavior it makes and enforces on other nations, then enemies, neutrals, and allies alike are sure to push back.

he concluded that “these distortions should not blind us to the valid elements in the theory of exceptionalism.... America represents, as I have stressed above, the naked embodiment of the most dynamic elements of modern Western history

it was probably just a matter of time before somebody turned the Stalinist term of derision into a patriotic badge of honor and ait stamped it over all of American history. As it happened, that somebody was Max Lerner, a former editor of The Nation turned Cold War liberal and author of the one-thousand page America as a Civilization (1957).

Exceptionalism dovetailed perfectly with a new orthodoxy among political scientists that extolled what Harvard professor Louis Hartz called America’s Liberal Tradition.

the idea of an America set apart by Providence and endowed with a special mission to reform (not to say redeem) the whole human race dovetailed perfectly with the political rhetoric needed to rally Americans to lead the Free World in what amounted to a “holy war” against “godless Communism.”

Those were the years when the “Judaeo-Christian tradition” became a civilizational motto

how come computerized word-searches show that references to American Exceptionalism exploded—literally from hundreds to tens of thousands—only after the Cold War was over?

Those were the years when presidential rhetoric became steeped in what sociologist Robert Bellah called “God-Talk,”

the Cold War was over, globalization and multiculturalism were the new trends, and American identity got contested as never before. What made exceptionalist rhetoric ubiquitous was the fact it was now contested

the myth of American Exceptionalism, ironically inspired by Roman Catholics and Marxists, entered our lexicon as historical gloss for the campaign to persuade a skeptical, war-weary people that global commitments such as the UN, Truman Doctrine, and NATO were not really a break with tradition, but a fulfillment of the nation’s hoariest, holiest calling.

As early as 1630, Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop implored his people ‘to Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us.’”[12] I took for granted that my teachers and textbooks were right when they traced our national identity back to the Puritans beginning with Winthrop’s Model of Christian Charity. Composed on board the ship Arbella bound for the New World, it seemed the elegant spiritual companion to the Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact.

he borrowed a New Testament image when he imagined New England as a city on a hill called to inspire the whole human race by its example.

the dogged literary excavations of historian Richard Gamble have now exposed it as myth. It turns out that Winthrop’s manuscript, far from serving as keynote address of the American pageant, was either unknown or forgotten until it turned up in the family archives in 1809. Donated to the New York Historical Society, it slept for another three decades before publication in a Massachusetts collection of colonial documents in 1838

The famous “City on a Hill” passage appears in the Sermon on the Mount as one in a list of metaphors Jesus uses to describe his disciples. He speaks of them as the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city on a hill, and a lamp not hidden under a bushel. The passage served as text for many a sermon preached by colonial divines, not least Jonathan Edwards. But those pastors were quoting the Bible to make theological points to Christian audiences; none was quoting Winthrop to make political points to American audiences. What has been lost “in the fierce crossfire of the battle to define the American identity,” Gamble writes, is “the story not of how the metaphor helped make America what it is today but the story of how America helped make the metaphor what it never was.”

not even the Puritans were “impelled by a unique or exceptional American impulse. On the contrary, they were products of European education, European culture, European piety, and they were engaged in a great European quarrel.

Americans have always been tempted to think that because they live in God’s Country they must be God’s Elect. Such faith has its uses, for instance to motivate a free and disparate people to rally and sacrifice in times of crisis. But it verges on idolatry from the standpoint of Biblical religion and—if exploited for partisan purposes—verges on heresy from the standpoint of civil religion.

Both of France’s major political parties, Hollande’s Socialists and Sarkozy’s UMP, embrace this stance of “openness” to the world (as the political scientist Sophie Meunier phrases it). It only finds real opposition among the anti-capitalist radicals of the far left, and the reactionary nationalists of the far right. And openness to the world tends to prompt the rejection of narrowly chauvinist national pride, and a readiness to admit one’s own country’s faults and crimes.

anyone who strikes an overly contentious nationalist pose in French politics risks association with the far-right National Front, whose founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has predictably denounced Hollande, declaring that only God has the authority to recognize French guilt or innocence.

In France, in short, apologizing for your country can be good politics. It is in America where being a politician means never being able to say you’re sorry.

Cheered on by religious conservatives, the new government has defunded public assistance for in vitro fertilization treatments. To draft new sexual-education classes in schools, it tapped a contraceptives opponent who argues that condom use increases the risk of cancer in women. The government is proffering a law that critics say could soon be used to limit opposition protests.

Yet nothing has shocked liberals more than this: After a year in power, Law and Justice is still by far the most popular political party in Poland. It rides atop opinion polls at roughly 36 percent — more than double the popularity of the ousted Civic Platform party.

Trump is promising a tax code rework that could trigger a bonanza of cash rebates for Americans. In Poland, Law and Justice put cash in pockets in other ways, but always while merging social conservatism and nationalism with populist economics. The new government doled out money to families with children. They also slashed Poland’s retirement age — to as young as 60 for women and 65 for men.

Opponents call such actions the “buying” of support, moves that will only drive up Polish debt and masquerade a long-term power grab that could entrench Law and Justice for years.

In the land of Law and Justice, anti-intellectualism is king. Polish scientists are aghast at proposed curriculum changes in a new education bill that would downplay evolution theory and climate change and add hours for “patriotic” history lessons. In a Facebook chat, a top equal rights official mused that Polish hotels should not be forced to provide service to black or gay customers. After the official stepped down for unrelated reasons, his successor rejected an international convention to combat violence against women because it appeared to argue against traditional gender roles.

And the party’s views have never been more effectively disseminated. The national broadcaster in Poland would often tilt toward the party in power. But following its victory, Law and Justice launched an unprecedented purge of journalists at the channel, turning it into what opponents describe as a propaganda machine where conspiracy theories flourish. It recently ran a piece on the health risks of child vaccinations. 

The new government is also skeptical of the Paris climate change agreement to cut carbon emissions and has pulled support for Polish wind and solar farms. At the same time, it is pumping more money into coal.  “Who really knows what is causing global warming?” Pawel said. “And Poland needs the coal industry.”

There is no more talk in Poland, for instance, of offering any legal rights to same-sex couples. Earlier this year, the office of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group in Warsaw was badly vandalized. Police never caught the perpetrators. “Homosexuality was quiet before, then they tried to normalize it,” she said. “You don’t see that happening now.” 

Already, the new government has taken steps to limit the power of the constitutional court, chipping away, critics say, at checks and balances. A new draft law would also allow government-appointed governors the right to decide on future permits for demonstrations. 

“I’m here marching because it may be the last time we’re allowed to,” she said. “I don’t think many of us really understand what’s happening in Poland.”

Mizolebska said she is deeply concerned about what sees as an attack on women’s reproductive rights. A near-total abortion ban — women and doctors faced up to five years in jail — was defeated in October after a massive street protest. But she fears it may yet come back.

She is also concerned about a new proposed school curriculum the Polish Academy of Sciences says will marginalize evolution theory by reducing its prominence in some grades. Sciences more generally would receive less time, in favor of more hours for Polish history. 

Indeed, Thailand has endured 13 successful coups since 1932, the last year in which the nation (then called Siam) was directly ruled by monarchs.

This can involve several days of interrogation and re-education at an army camp. Failure to attend is a crime. “The United States has the Patriot Act to deal with the situation after 9/11,” Gen. Werachon said. “This is the same.”

Even less fortunate are those accused of Thailand’s most serious speech-related crime: disrespecting the royal family

But disrespect toward the king, who is now 88 and in ailing health, is hardly common. He is widely revered and his image is ubiquitous — on banknotes, gilded street portraits and glowing portrayals on television.

Though corruption persists and the economy is struggling, few are eager to risk confronting a military with near-absolute power.

A poll released six months ago by Thailand’s statistics office, which is beholden to the military government, dubiously suggests that 99% of Thais are happy under the junta.

“They made it clear from day one that they would not tolerate even the slightest dissent,” Sunai said. “Now these measures send a very clear signal that Thailand is falling deeper and deeper into military dictatorship.”

The public will vote on the junta’s favored constitution in August. But ahead of the referendum, debate is stifled. The penalty for those found guilty of “influencing a voter”? Up to 10 years in prison.

led Arendt to conclude that Eichmann could not “think” — not because he was incapable of rational intelligence but because he could not think for himself beyond clichés. He was banal precisely because he was a fanatical anti-Semite, not despite it.

Although Arendt was wrong about the depth of Eichmann’s anti-Semitism, she was not wrong about these crucial aspects of his persona and mentality. She saw in him an all-too familiar syndrome of rigid self-righteousness; extreme defensiveness fueled by exaggerated metaphysical and world-historical theories; fervent patriotism based on the “purity” of one’s people; paranoid projections about the power of Jews and envy of them for their achievements in science, literature and philosophy; and contempt for Jews’ supposed deviousness, cowardice and pretensions to be the “chosen people.” This syndrome was banal in that it was widespread among National Socialists.