Stabbed in the back.
Americans are betraying their Constitution, their international commitments, and each other, with nothing to gain from it.
In June of 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned that, contravening the “ideal[s] of individual liberty, … free franchise, … [and] peace through justice,” “a belief in force—force directed by self-chosen leaders—is the new and vigorous system which [is] overrun[ning] the earth.” History has taken on an ugly rhyme, because that evil “machine age” which vexed him then returns now, in the forms of Presidents Donald Trump and Elon Musk: “[M]astery of the machine is not in the hands of mankind. It is in the control of infinitely small groups of individuals who rule without a single one of the democratic sanctions that we have known. The machine in hands of irresponsible conquerors becomes the master; mankind is not only the servant; it is the victim, too. Such mastery abandons with deliberate contempt all the moral values to which even this young country for more than three hundred years has been accustomed and dedicated.” Mr. Roosevelt was describing the rise of fascism in Europe, but he could have been describing America today. So, when he says: “the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of his neighbor,” understand that in this new, horrible context, it is the American hand that is readying and using the weapon.
I hesitated before entitling this editorial “stabbed in the back” because it is cliché, idiomatic language, evokes terrible history, and is vague. My anger demands unique imagery. After news broke that Cal Fire captain Rebecca Marodi was stabbed to death in her home on February 17, that tired phrase felt suddenly visceral.
On social media, some people claim Mr. Marodi was “targeted by right-wing extremists” after a smear campaign called her a “’DEI hire’ and blamed her for the LA fires.” This appears to be untrue; I can find no proof her name was ever in a conservative’s mouth. Police say that the “victim knew the suspect” and that it is being “investigat[ed] as a potential domestic violence case,” and until we know more, I will trust that.
I have no doubt that my progressive friends believe earnestly that she was the victim of a smear campaign and hate crime. I hope this does not become an enduring falsehood. But that dark fantasy also tells me something true: people are afraid of Republicans acting on their worst malice. MAGA lunatics have made too many threats to too many scapegoats and villains-of-the-day, believe too many conspiracies, and expressed too much murderous intent. Stochastic violence is real, and the terroristic vibes from the right are too saturated for society to function reasonably.
Ms. Marodi was likely not the target of a fake conservative narrative blaming her for the LA fires. But other firefighters were, and it is legitimately difficult for normal people to track the number of “enemies,” who need not be enemies, the Republican subculture wants to see destroyed.
We should be troubled by the way the GOP has responded to the wildfires in California. I understand that the state’s tax rates are not popular, its socially progressive leanings may not be to a Heartlander’s tastes, and the environmental regulations can seem economically stifling (although nobody ever seems to remember just how badly California’s air quality was fucked up before they got serious about their emissions.) This hardly seems reason to gloat and mock people while their homes burn.
That evil, pointless cruelty will never breed anything good. If a Hell exists, Republican President Donald Trump and other conservative lawmakers and commentators risked it to get a good dunk on the Golden State. Fuck them for that.
This is who Americans have become. With Mr. Trump’s leadership, half the nation does not feel sorrow when their countrymen hurt. We are a nation of traitors, and many people will be harmed going forward until we reclaim some national honorability. It is clear we are on a bender of backstabbing.
The brave men and women fighting for their own freedom in Ukraine are braced for an inevitable American betrayal. In 1991, the land of the steppes possessed thousands of leftover Soviet nuclear weapons; in 1994, they “eliminated all nuclear weapons within [their] territory” and signed onto the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances non-proliferation treaty. In exchange for surrendering an entire nuclear arsenal, they received from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom a guarantee of their security and sovereignty.
Russia, obviously, broke that compact. The U.S., as we have promised and are obligated, has supported their defense against the aggression, but under Mr. Trump, we have suddenly reversed course and are preparing to abandon or sell them out to Russia. We have demanded their mineral rights as protection money, accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of being a dictator, blamed Ukraine for its own invasion (perhaps it was dress too seductively?), and co-signed Russia’s demands and narratives. Not only will we have betrayed them, but by abandoning those treaty obligations, we are telling the world that perhaps it would be smarter to invest in nuclear weapons again, instead of trusting that we will honor our agreement. The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last wrote a harrowing piece laying out the inevitable nuclear proliferation.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly pledged he would not touch Social Security or Medicare. He has also included Medicaid in this litany, although he sometimes forgets this. His promise meant something to working-class voters, who either rely or will eventually rely on these programs. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson is gleefully working on a budget that will sharply cut, if not starve, Medicaid. If Mr. Trump signs a bill containing cuts to Medicaid, he will have betrayed his poorest, sickest voters—the ones who most desperately believe in him.
For my readers on Capitol Hill: this is where you must stand to the end. If Mr. Johnson’s shameful budget—which cuts taxes on the richest, gives the middle class an extra twenty or thirty bucks a pay period, and savages the social safety net—makes it through reconciliation and Trump supporters who need Medicaid are not howling with rage in the street, any so-called Democratic leader or strategist who failed to warn and alert them to their miserable future should resign. Protecting the safety net must be the number one priority, or Americans will suffer.
“Inflation is back,” Mr. Trump now says, contradicting his campaign promise to lower grocery prices “on day one” (which was a lie). He knew it was a lie—knew that inflation is, in the best case, a one-way street and that its reversals, deflation and recession, would be catastrophic. Once elected, Mr. Trump instead began to celebrate “economic pain” as a “price that must be paid [by his voters],” and then threatened tariffs and monetary policy that will raise costs further. Betrayal.
Mr. Trump’s co-president, Mr. Musk, spammed federal employees with strange, taunting, and “harassing” e-mails to encourage them to resign. He first guaranteed that, “should [workers’] position be eliminated[,] [they] will be treated with dignity.” Then, he took to Twitter to call thousands of federal employees (or perhaps aid recipients?) “parasites.” Betrayal.
Mr. Trump promised to be the “law and order” president. He then, quoting a fictional Emperor Napoleon, declared himself above the law. Betrayal.
Mr. Trump broke his oath to the Constitution of the United States of America, and then called himself a king.
Under this regime—one that history will remember as tyranny—America has broken its commitments abroad, betrayed its own citizens and civil servants, abandoned basic moral principles, and does so with a disturbing glee. In return for this chaos, our enemies will be rewarded, our poor will be made poorer, and the richest may profit. Instead of prosperity Mr. Trump’s America has delivered neighbors knives and told them to hurt each other and to enjoy the suffering. After promising, falsely, a “golden age” and unity, Mr. Trump will instantiate the very American Carnage he campaigned against.