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State of the union

Friday 19th of April 2024

State of the union The 23-page document, which also features an appearance by Richard Nixon, confirms the old truism that, sooner or later, everything in American life comes back to The Godfather. Financial Times, January 20, 2019, on Mueller's indictment of Roger Stone, which revealed that Stone encouraged a witness to “do a Frank Pentangeli” like the character in The Godfather II who provided a sworn affidavit and then stymied Senate investigators by telling them “I don't know nothing about that!” © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union c 10% pissers, 90% pissed-upons © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union About 78 per cent of US workers live pay cheque to pay cheque, according to a 2017 study by CareerBuilder, a jobs portal. A survey the same year by the Federal Reserve found that nearly half of American families could not cover a $400 emergency expense without borrowing or selling something to do so. Financial Times, January 20, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union According to Gallup polling data,  the last time a majority of U.S. respondents believed that their country was headed in the right direction was January 2004. Daniel W. Drezner, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union c All four of the narratives I've described emerged from America's failure to sustain and enlarge the middle-class democracy of the postwar years. They all respond to real problems. Each offers a value that the others need and lacks ones that the others have. Free America celebrates the energy of the unencumbered individual. Smart America respects intelligence and welcomes change. Real America commits itself to a place and has a sense of limits. Just America demands a confrontation with what the others want to avoid. … They all anoint winners and losers. … I don’t much want to live in the republic of any of them. George Packer, The Atlantic, July/August 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union All of this raises a larger question currently being discussed by some investors. When it comes to issues of political risk and volatility terms, is the US starting to more closely resemble an emerging market than a developed economy? Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, February 21, 2022 [“All this” includes overturnig Roe v. Wade, curbing federal agencies' ability to apply rules nationwide, mass shootings, making it easier to carry concealed weapons, rampant inflation, armed insurrection] © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union All right, we are two nations. John Dos Passos, August 23, 1927, following the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian. Pat Paulsen © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union All this — the disillusionment, the braggadocio, and the advertised and cultivated emancipation from the ideas and conventions of the nineteenth century, the half-hearted hankering after strange foreign gods — was an indication that the spokesmen for the people of the United States were losing some of the old instinctive confidence in themselves, were no longer altogether sure of the high significance of the nation's history, of the superiority of its institutions, or  of the essential rightness of what the nation had  done, was doing, or would in the future be doing. Carl Becker, "What We Didn't Know Hurt Us A Lot" © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union America appears to be becoming the Saudi Arabia of the West, with nepotism running rife. Arwa Mahdawi © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union c America Foist © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union America has a serious “We” problem – as in “Why should we  pay for them ? Robert Reich, Christian Science Monitor, February 15, 2014 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union America is already virtually a binational state,, with  two sharply opposed national communities comparable in size and political strength  that effectively operate as confederations. The Republican Party is mostly white and marginally increasing its Latino membership, the Democratic Party an ethnic and racial mix. Although Democrats occasionally reveal impulses toward reconciliation, Republicans largely do not. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union America seems to have lost its gag reflex. Armistead Maupin, quoted in Financial Times, October 28/29, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union c  America survives its chronic apocalypses. John Updike, Introduction to Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union America's economic and civic prospects could hardly be more divergent. The war against cliché stops me reciting the first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities. But Americans really can claim to have “everything before us” and “nothing before us”, to be savouring spring and enduring winter all at once. Their nation has arrived at a sort of affluent dysfunction. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, July 6, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union America's chronic failure to turn its economic strength into social progress is a huge drag on American influence. Europeans may envy America's corporate dynamism but can comfort themselves that they are doing a much better job on a host of social outcomes, from education to health to the environment. Rivals like China may see the fraying of America's social fabric as a sign of strategic weakness. Emerging economies, whose citizens are starting to enjoy quality of life ever closer to that of Americans, may be less willing to take lectures from the U.S. government. Michael Green, CEO of Social Progress Index © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union An adviser allegedly involved in a plot to force a migrant to return to his home country. An attorney general who seems conveniently forgetful when testifying before Congress. A president's son exchanging messages with an agent of a hostile foreign power. In past administrations any of these things would have caused shock, hand-wringing and, probably, Congressional hearings and sackings. But it's just another week in Donald Trump's America. The Economist, November 18, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Anal sex has come into its own © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Another Pew [Research Center] survey, published in June, showed that the prevalence of favourable views of America has fallen in 30 out of 37 countries since Barack Obama left office. The only country in which views of America have improved markedly is Russia, where 41% now see it favourably, up from 15%. The Economist, November 15, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union The anti-democrat-in-chief asked, “Where's my Roy Cohn?” Anti-tyrants responded, “Where's our Gavrilo Princip?” © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union The anti-democrat-in-chief asked, “Where's my Roy Cohn?” Republicans responded, “Here, boss!  Right here!”  © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Anti-social It's-funny-you-think-I'm-listening T-shirts abound  © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Arguably, the real problem for the U.S. is not that it can be torn apart by political violence, but that it has learned to live with it. Fintan O'Toole, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union At the core of the US binational character is a deep and durable tension between a Christian white-supremacist ideology that evolved to justify slavery and a broad-based multiethnic resistance to it. Reinforcing this tension are cultural divisions between the rural and urban populations, including divergent values on education and immigration. The split between the two halves of the nation — red and blue, right and left — increasingly appear irreconciliable. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union c  Banana republic is not just a store © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Before economic reform there will have to be political reform. Joseph Stiglitz, People, Power and Profits © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”  © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union  The bigget political divide in America today  is not between Republicans and Democrats. It's between democracy and oligarchy. Hearing and using the same old labels prevents most people from noticing they're being shafted. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Brian Pannebecker, a 58-year-old autoworker with a presidential inauguration coffee mug and T-shirt, says President Trump is “a flawed human being, a narcissist, an egomaniac, he exaggerates, embellishes, but we true Trump supporters don't care, we just don't care, because . . . they are all liars and perverts and sex maniacs, Congress is full of them”. Financial Times, December 30, 2017, reporting on Macomb County, Michigan, voters who helped make Trump president © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union [A] broad sweep of statistics reveals a peculiar weariness spreading through the economy. Belying breathless headlines about the fabulous opporunities that technology is about to bestow on society, it suggests that many rich market democracies have lost much of their dynamism. Their companies are getting old, and their labor markets are getting stuck. Productivity growth has slumped. And many workers in their prime are peeling off from the labor force. Eduardo Porter, New York Times, February 6, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Business practices aimed at boosting shareholder value – like outsourcing, offshoring, automation, union-busting, predatory lending, and a range of anti-competitive abuses – have undermined the security of large swaths of the country. In turn, a flood of business dollars for campaign donations and lobbying over decades has helped thwart effective government responses to rising pain on Main Street. David Callahan © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union But a way forward that tries to make us Equal Americans, all with the same rights and opportunities — the only basis for shared citizenship and self-government — is a road that connects our past and our future. George Packer, “How America Fractured Into Four Parts,” The Atlantic, July/August 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union But anocracy, not autocracy, is our most immediate threat. Anocracy is usually transitional  — a repressive government allows reforms, or a democracy begins to unravel — and it is volatile. When a country moves into the anocracy zone, the risk of political violence reaches its peak; citizens feel uncertain about their government's power and legitimacy. Compared with democracies, anocracies with more democratic than autocratic features are three times more likely to experience political instability or civil war. Barbara F. Walter, Washington Post, January 24, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union By allowing an ecosystem of gargantuan companies to develop, all but dominating the markets they serve, the American economy shut out disruption. And thus shut out change. Eduardo Porter, New York Times, February 6, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Call it the Tribe/Matz Hypothesis: As discussion of US politics continues in the early twenty-first century, the probability that someone references presidential impeachment approaches 1.0. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, To End a Presidency  © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Central America is our Syria © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union The challenge for the Democratic party is whether it can win back white working class voters faster than Republicans win over non-white voters. At the moment that is an open question. The fate of Mr Biden's presidency – and his party – may rest on the answer. Edward Luce, Financial Times, December 15, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Citizenship for sale! c Green cards for as low as $500,000 No questions about the money No military service required No lining up behind the hoi polloi Unmarried kids under 21 get cards too c Act fast! c Limited to 10,000 buyers per year © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Class-based segregation transcends race-based segregation © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Companies paying billions in fines without acknowledging any guilt; executives staying in place, immune to prosecution © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Companies urging workers to create a “culture of candor” by “front-stabbing” each another  © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union The country is like a man with a badly upset stomach who has not yet vomited enough. Albert Einstein commenting on Germany following a 1919 right-wing putsch in Berlin © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union  [A] country needing constant reassurance that it is a nation and not just a market with a flag on it. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, July 17, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union  The crisis of the American mind these days is looking at a Chinese future and a British past, and feeling a sort of moral panic. Jed Esty © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union Cut costs, consolidate, do more with less, play to not lose, struggle on © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Death rate of middle-aged whites surging atop drug and alcohol abuse, liver disease, suicide © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Declinism is no longer just a trope of current affairs non-fiction. It is the national mood, and it predates Mr Trump. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, January 1, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c The “deep state” of c right-wing billionaires with their money, think tanks, institutes and foundations; financial and industrial elites with their money and “revolving door” roles as regulators ensuring regulatory capture; and the military-intelligence bureaucracy with its money and cost-plus contractors c rules from behind the scenes regardless of who's elected © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union The delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. Bill Moyers, 2005 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Democrats and Republicans agree: without the Cold War, there's no reason to promote democracy abroad © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Democrats work to raise the bottom and cap the top Republicans work to push most middlers to the bottom and raise the remnant to the top  © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union “Diplomacy” a dirty word © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union E pluribus ad paucos © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Donald Trump has always benefited from the inability to imagine Donald Trump. It was unimaginable that a man who talked in public about having sex with his daughter would be the Republican nominee for president or that he would win. It was unimaginable to me that Republican Senators and elected officials would not concede an election that wasn't even close. North of 300 electoral votes, eight million more votes, but that's what happened. Stuart Stevens, April 20, 2022, once a Republican campaign adviser © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people –does not even pretend to try. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. James Mattis, The Atlantic, June 3, 2020, 69-year-old former Secretary of Defense commenting on Trump's threat to deploy active-duty military to "dominate" protesters protesting George Floyd's 9-minute suffocation by four policemen in Minneapolis © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union E pluribus duas © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Employers assuming workers have no other responsibilities © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Entry-level jobs now the best job many will have in their lifetime © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Envoys in Washington compare the Trump children to princes and princesses in a royal court. That is a bit unfair to princes: such modern examples as William and Harry in Britain talk of duty, of humility, and of shunning politics precisely because they are unelected. The Economist, July 15, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union  Everybody knows the game's been rigged © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Everyone is distracted. All of the time. Justin Rosenstein, creator of Facebook's “like” button © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union Everyone's entitled to their own facts © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Everything here is great. By “here”, I mean America. By “great”, I mean crackers. “Great” is America's favourite adjective. Her outdoors is not merely the outdoors – it is the Great outdoors. Her depression not merely a depression – it was Great. And so on. Great Lakes. Great Escape. Great Balls of Fire. Not to mention the Great White Hope and his MAGA franchise. Jenny Lee, Financial Times, October 12, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Expecting little, making do © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Family life? You don't need a family life © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union A fish rots from the head down Crux of the Trump era © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union For a Daily Beast  column back in 2011 I compared opposition-party levels of support in Congress for George W. Bush and Barack Obama on four of each president's major initiatives. The average Democratic support for Bush on those four bills was 41.1 percent. The average Republican support for Obama on his four bills was 5.75 percent. The two parties are  just different species.  Michael Tomasky, 2017/11/09  © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union For Europeans, today's America serves a useful function: a model for how not to run your society. The US has already demonstrated how easy it is to lurch into plutocracy, or to split a country into two hostile tribes. Now it is offering another cautionary lesson: how to let Russian interference succeed  by turning it into a partisan issue. Most Republicans are acting as if the problem isn't Russian meddling in the 2016 election but the FBI's handling of it. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, Feb. 8, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union For the first time in history, we are living through a time period where we're learning about the presidency at the same time as the president. Trevor Noah, 2017 © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Geographic intermingling of America's homegrown hostile tribes guarantees continuation of its domestic Cold War in perpetuity or until death do them part © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Getting a job requires more work and time than ever © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Go voluntarily and we'll say we laid you off © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Grandparents parenting grandchildren  © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Great power joined with great stupidity © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union The greatest threat to the United States today is not the rise of the hard right. It is the general decline in legitimacy of government that underlies the rise of the hard right. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union Greeks have higher high school graduation rates. CHileans live longer. Fifteen-year-olds in Russia, Poland, Latvia and many other countries are better at math than their American counterparts — perhaps a metric for where nations will stand in a generation or two. As for reading, one-fifth of American 15-year-olds can't read at the level expected of a 10-year-old. How are those millions of Americans going to compete in a globalized economy? As I see it, the greatest threat to America's future is less a surging China or a rogue Russia than it is our underperformance at home. Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 2021/06/23 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Hasta la vista middle class © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Hasta la vista mom & pop Abercrombie & Fitch . Aeropostale . Albertso ns . Amazon . American Eagle Outfitters . Ba rnes & Noble . Bath & Body Works  .  Bed Bat h & Beyond  .  Best Buy . Burger King . Chick- fil-A . Chipotle . Costco . CVS . Dillard's . Doll ar General . Dollar Tree . DSW .  Dunkin' Don uts  . Family Dollar . Foot Locker . Gap . H&M Home Depot . IKEA . J.C. Penney . J. Crew . J os. A. Bank . Kohl's . Kroger . LongHorn Stea khouse .  Lowe's .  Macy's .  Marshalls . McDo nald's  .  Mens Warehouse   .  Michaels Stores Nieman Marcus  .  Nordstrom  .  Olive Garden Payless Shoesource  .  Pink . Publix . Rite Aid Ross Stores  .  Safeway .  Saks . Sears .  Stapl es . Starbucks . Subway . T J Maxx . Taco Bel l . Target . Toys “R” Us . Victoria's Secret . W algreens  . Walmart . Wendy's . Whole Foods © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union He has shown that inspiring revulsion in one half of a split country is a workable strategy. For it seems that my revulsion, and that of those like me, does not merely correspond to enthusiasm on the other side, it adds to enthusiasm on the other side. Robert Armstrong, on Trumpism, Financial Times, November 6, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c A higher education paves the way to prosperity —————– —————– student debt and unpaid internships © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union c I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. … Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues; issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation. Lyndon Johnson, March 15, 1965, calling for passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union  How did the salt-of-the-Earth people get hooked up with with the salt-in-the-wound people? Bill Maher © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Human cockfighting attracts billionaire investors glad to profit from hoi lolloi pugilists pounding one another into submission © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union c  I do think our future is in jeopardy. John Brennan, C.I.A. director from 2013 to 2017, commenting on the Trump presidency © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union c The I's have it: Inequality, Injustice, Insecurity, Instability  © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union If America was a summer blockbuster, it would be called “Democracy: Endgame.” Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, May 3, 2019, after Attorney General William Barr lied to Congress and president Trump and the Department of Justice refused to honor subpoenas issued by Congress © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. Abraham Lincoln, “House Divided” speech (1858) © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union If you take into account all these interest groups and affluent individuals, average citizens have no detectable influence at all upon federal policy. Rather amazing. Benjamin Page © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me; they can. Michelle Obama, August 17, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union If you want a picture of the future, imagine Donald Trump, Jr, yelling about America's bright and beautiful future – forever. Edward Luce, Financial Times, August 26, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c If you were looking for a three-sentence  summary of American politics in recent years, I think you could do worse than this:  The parties are so different that even seismic events don't change many American minds.  The parties are so closely matched that even minuscule shifts in the electoral winds can blow the country onto a wildly different course. And even in a time of profound economic dislocation, American politics has become  less about which party is good for your wallet  and more about whether the cultural changes of the past 50 years delight or dismay you. Ezra Klein, New York Times, November 12, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union  Imagine a Trump nominee dropping out because they didn't pay taxes on their car and driver. A senior advisor to Hillary Clinton referring to Tom Daschle, Obama's nominee as secretary of Health and Human Services, who withdrew from consideration when it was revealed he failed to pay taxes on chauffeur services provided by a former employer © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Imagine two kinds of threat: one where a bear breaks into your cabin, the other where termites eat it from within. Mr Trump is the bear. Edward Luce, Financial Times, November 7, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Imbecilic analogies to Hitler and the Nazis abound © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union In ordinary times, when a public figure is caught in a lie or simply reveals blatant ignorance of the truth, his standing is diminished. But these are not ordinary times. Stephen Greenblatt, Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union In the system we now have, power and wealth are inseparable. Great wealth flows from great power; great power depends on great wealth. Wealth and power have become one and the same. Robert B. Reich, The System © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union In 2011, only 8 per cent of Americans believed “there are other countries that are better than the US”, according to the Pew Research Center. But that proportion rose to 21 per cent in 2019, says Pew, and it is even higher – 36 per cent – among 18 to 29-year-olds (up from 12 per cent in 2011). For young voters on the left, it rises to 47 per cent. (The two surveys were conducted by different methods so might not be directly comparable.) Katrina Manson, Financial Times, May 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Is our democracy in danger? It is a question we never thought we'd be asking. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union The issues that we face today are very different from those of the last century and a half. The difference, I think, might be summed up roughly this way: those who went before inherited a conservatism and overthrew it; we inherit freedom, and have to use it. The sanctity of property, the patriarchal  family, hereditary caste, the dogmas of sin, obedience to authority — the rock of ages, in brief, has been blasted for us. Those who are young to-day are born into a world in which the foundations of the older order survive only as habits or by default. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  [1914] © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union [I]t's starting to seem like it was an accident that the country worked as long as it did. David H. Mandel, following the Senate Judiciary Committee showdown between Christing Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Just as a herd of elephants leaves behind traces of its passage, so will the Trump team. Madeleine Albright, Financial Times, October 11, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Labor can't strike, but capital goes on investment strikes by threatening to move if its demands for wage cuts, tax cuts, subsidies, union-free workplaces and/or business-friendly judges aren't met © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Left-behinders — America's fastest-growing demographic © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Left-wing and right-wing political correctness running amok © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Let's just admit that this arranged marriage isn't really working anymore, is it? … If we are already living in two political geographies, why not generate a system of government to match? Sasha Issenberg, “Divided We Stand,” New York magazine, November 12-25, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union A lifetime of temporary work becoming the new normal © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union  Like pumpkin pie and the bald eagle, the con game is so utterly American that it probably deserves its own series of postage stamps. But something is different today. The quacks and the mountebanks own the place, and everyone knows it. The con game is our national pastime. Everyone either is in on it or has a plan for getting in on it soon. Thomas Frank, Rendezvous with Oblivion © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Living paycheck to paycheck now the norm © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Longer hours, lower pay © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Making the Great Leap Backward Corporatism Hierarchy Privilege ◀ Liberty Equality Fraternity © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union A man cannot be angry at his own time without suffering some damage. Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities, Vol. 1 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union Mass shootings increase gun sales, help investors make a killing © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union [M]en have to substitute purpose for tradition: and that is, I believe he profoundesst change that has ever taken place in human history. We can no longer treat life as something that has trickled down to us. We have to deal with it deliberately, devise its social organization, alter its tools, formulate its method, educate and control it. In endless ways we put intention where custom has reigned. We break up routines, make decisions, choose our ends, select our means. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  [1914] © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. Daniel 5:25 © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable. Bill Moyers © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union  More a market, less a democracy  © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union The most dramatic shift away from religion has taken place among the American public. From 1981 to 2007, the United States ranked as one of the world's more religious countries, with religiosity levels changing very little. Since then, the United States has shown the largest move away from religion of any country for which we have data. Near the end of the initial period studied, Americans' mean rating of the importance of God in their lives was 8.2 on a ten-point scale. In the most recent U.S. survey, from 2017, the figure had dropped to 4.6, an astonishingly sharp decline. … the United States now ranks as the 11th least religious country [of 49] for which we have data. Ronald Inglehart, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union The nation is moving toward two societies, one white, one black – separate and unequal. The Kerner Report: The 1968 Report of the NationalAdvisory Commisson on Civil Disorders © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union No longer the land of opportunity © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union No longer a middle-class nation © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union No other democracy is heading towards a majority-minority future. The world has yet to see what happens to a society when its majority ceases to be one. Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 25, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Oligarchy in government, monopoly in business, inequality in society  © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Once again wealthy Americans and business interests have a great deal of political power. Once again the Senate is filled with multimillionaires; the Supreme Court is overturning popular legislation; and both major parties appear to be swayed by the wishes of the business and financial communities. Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America? © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union Our current trauma is the culmination of our history, the logical outcome of the stories we tell ourselves, the myths we embrace, and the lies we perpetuate. Mary Trump, The Reckoning  [2021] © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Our democracy is in serious danger. President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, February 18, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal. Kerner Commission report [1968] © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Our thoughts and prayers blah blah blah © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Peeping-tom, gotcha journalists and telephoto-toting sidekicks are the people's choice, by far © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union People are continually pointing out to me the wretchedness of white people in order to console me for the wretchedness of blacks. But an itemized account of the American failure does not console me and it should not console anyone else. James Baldwin, “Fifth Avenue, Uptown” © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union The “people” Congress represents AbbVie Allergan Altria Amazon Amgen Annheuser-Busch Apple Bank of America Berkshire Hathaway BP CEMEX Chevron China Mobile Cisco Citigroup Coca Cola Comcast CVS Caremark Exxon Mobil Facebook General Electric Gilead Sciences Home Depot IBM Intel Johnson & Johnson JPMorganChase Medtronic Merck Microsoft Novartis Oracle Pepsico PetroChina Pfizer Philip Morris Proctor & Gamble Royal Dutch Shell Taiwan Semiconductor Total Unilever UnitedHealth Group Verizon Visa Wal-Mart Walt Disney Wells Fargo Thanks, Citizens United © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Police cars being festooned with “In God We Trust” bumper stickers © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Police, militarized, viewed by many as an occupying army © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union c “Politics” is a dirty word © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union The poor state of so many Americans is in part a product of plutocratic politics: a relentless and systematic devotion to the interests of the very rich. … a politics of low taxes, low social spending and high inequality is sustainable in a universal suffrage democracy only with a mixture of propaganda in favour of “trickle down” economics, splitting the less well off on cultural and racial lines, ruthless gerry- mandering and outright voter suppression. All this has indeed happened. These are the politics of “pluto-populism” or of “greed and grievance”. They have been stunningly successful in making Republicans attractive to many in the white working class. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 2018/07/17 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Present tense © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Prime-aged workers being displaced by younger and older ones © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union The problem is not just that with politics no longer stopping at the water's edge, U.S. foreign policy could veer unpredictably from administration to administration. It is that the United States is taking on water itself. The country has entered what can only be characterized as an age of unreason, with large swaths of its population embracing wild conspiracy theories. The United States today looks like Athens in the final years of the Pelopponnesian War or  France in the 1930s: a once strong democracy that has become ragged and vulnerable. Jonathan Kirshner, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Rising stocks and rock-bottom interest rates have delivered a big perk to rich Americans: cheap loans that they can use to fund their lifestyles while minimizing their tax bills. Banks say their wealthy clients are borrowing more than ever before, often using loans backed by their portfolios of stocks and bonds. …  The loans have special benefits beyond the flexible repayment terms and low interest rates on offer. They allow borrowers who need cash to avoid selling in a hot market. Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Rome wasn't deconstructed in a day. Edward St Aubyn, Lost for Words  © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union The Russsians did not create the things that divide us – we did. Alex Younger, retiring head of MI6, the UK's Secret Intelligence Service © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union  Sadly, doing things that disqualify you from being taken seriously doesn't really seem to be much of a thing anymore.  John Oliver © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union Separate ethnic identies are emerging: America as a white settler republic; America as a multicultural democracy. You can have one or the other. Both cannot survive except as distinct countries Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union The simple fact of the matter is that the world has never built a multiethnic democracy in which no particular ethnic group is in the majority and where political equality, social equality and economies that empower all have been achieved. We are engaged in a fight over whether to work together to build such a world. Danielle Allen, Washington Post, August 13, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union So let me repeat: The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe. And it is not simply a moral claim I'm making here. There are practical consequences to rising inequality and reduced mobility. Barack Obama, 2013 © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union Some men just want to watch the world burn.  Alfred in The Dark Knight, writtn by Jonathan Nolan et. al., directed by Christopher Nolan © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union Stagnant wages © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Starting wage becoming ending wage as incremental wage raises are replaced by occasional cash or non-cash “bonuses” © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Sudden, widespread alarm at Russian attempts to sow doubt about America's leaders, institutions and electoral integrity, coming after decades of well-funded, comparable, widely-applauded Republican efforts led by groups like Breitbart News, Fox News and Judicial Watch, and by party leaders like Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Superstars and superheroes, a dime a dozen © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union The Supreme Court has weakened the conflict- of-interest laws we have on the books. Trump and his Republican wrecking crew are ripping out the floorboards under the government ethics porgram. His administration has taught us the difference between theory and application and shown us what immunity to accountability looks like. What good are laws if no one in power will enforce them? Before Trump, our nation was admired for its anticorruption mechanisms, and its ethics program was considered the gold standard. No more. Once a model for other nations, we are now an object lesson for them. Walter M. Schaub. Jr. New York Review of Books, Juky 2, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union There are popular laws, beloved laws and President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan … [which] entails $1.9tn of public spending amid a growing economy, under a president of wrongly but widely impugned legitimacy, after two lavish bills to the same end in 12 months. The debate over the wisdom of such largesse  is everywhere except in the general public. … The pandemic has crystallised a thought for which there was once only scattered evidence. But at some point in this century, the US became a mildly social democratic country, in its attitudes if not the reality of its welfare state. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, 2021/03/02 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union There are two words for those who think the US republic is teetering: Donald Trump. There is also a two-word riposte: Robert Mueller. While Mueller stays in his job, the US system is working as it should. Edward Luce, Financial Times, November 2, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union There is a clear and present danger that American democracy will not withstand the destructive forces that are now converging on it. Our two-party system has only one party left that is willing to lose an election. The other is willing to win at the cost of breaking things that a democracy cannot live without. Barton Gellman, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union  There is cheering and distressing news here.  Even if a tyrant could seize power in a coup, no country so fractious and ornery would remain under his or her thumb for long. The far more plausible future is an ungovernable America. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, June 21, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union There's mourning in America © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Thomas Paine, The American Crisis   © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union They’ve kind of had it with wars and forever wars. Mark Milley, on Americans, quoted in Financial Times, March 1, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
State of the union This country is in quite a pickle. Conservatives govern without shame and liberals shame without governing. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, June 8, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, February 18, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union To have a professional politician beat up on a reporter — this is the kind of thing you would see in a totalitarian state. This is not America. Lucy Dalglish, dean of the journalism school at the University of Maryland © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union Today, we may be witnessing a collision between the power of a remedy meant to curb presidential misconduct and the power of faction determined to defend against the use of that remedy on a president of the same party. But perhaps even more corrosive to our democratic system of governance, the President and his allies are making a comprehensive attack on the very idea of fact and truth. How can a democracy survive without acceptance of a common set of experiences? Adam Schiff, preface to Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union Too little living-wage work, too much overwork © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union Toodaloo security from harm and want © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Trump is busy clearing the way for a new American oligarchy. Sean Wilentz, Rolling Stone, December 14-28, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union The Trump movement was always authoritarian and illiberal. It indulged periodically in the rhetoric of violence. Trump himself chafed against the restraints of law. But what the United States did not have  before 2020 was a large national movement willing to justify mob violence to claim political power. Now it does. David Frum, The Atlantic, July 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Trump's lawyers  don't want him to testify under oath  before special council Robert Mueller because, they say, he's incapable of not lying and not committing perjury  Gist of “In Russia Inquiry, Lawyers Tell  Trump to Refuse Mueller Interview,” New York Times, February 5, 2018  © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Trust is a problem © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union The truth of the first decades of the 21st century, a truth that helped give us the Trump presidency, but will still be an important truth when he is gone, is that we aren't entering a 1930-style crisis for Western liberalism or hurtling forward toward transhumanism or extinction. Instead, we are aging, comfortable and stuck, cut off from the past and no longer optimistic about the future, spurning both memory and ambition while we await some saving innovation or revelation, growing old unhappily together in the light of tiny screens. Ross Douthat © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”  © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union c US politics is just getting worse  at a slower rate than those of its adversaries. This makes it the world’s tallest dwarf rather than a giant among nations. Edward Luce, Financial Times, October 14, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union Under Donald Trump, America looks like a dangerous nation. Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, August 15, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union The “United” States © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union The United States is an anocracy for the first time in more than two hundred years. Let that sink in. We are no longer the world's oldest continuous democracy. That honor is now held by Switzerland, followed by New Zealand and then Canada. We are no longer a peer to nations like Canada, Costa Rica, and Japan, which are all rated +10 on the polity index. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start [The Polity Score rates countries from -10 (most autocratic) to +10 (most democratic). Countries with scores between -6 and -10 are considered to be autocracies. Countries with  scores between +6 and +10 are considered to be democracies. Anocracies have scores between -5 and +5 (the U.S.'s 2020 score). Citizens have some democratic rights; leaders have lots of authoritarian powers. Civil strife is likely.] © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union  The United States is coming to an end. The question is how. … Trump is far less meaningful than either side understands. The smartest thing he himelf ever said about his political career was in a 2017 press conference: “I didn't come along and divide the country. The county was already divided before I got here.” Trump is, at most, a sympton. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The warning signs may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial. Robert Kagan, Washington Post, September 23, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union United we stood © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Wall Street is not primarily  a helpmeet to Main Street, as it once was. It’s the tail that wags the dog. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, February 13, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union c War — our biggest jobs program © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union We are barely two months into the republic’s year from hell. In 2024, US politics is hitting a perfect storm of partisan loathing in a society where algorithms become ever more skilled at generating outrage among the exhausted majority. Conditions are as good as they get for an outrage entrepreneur like Trump. The rest of this year promises to be nastier than anything we have seen. Edward Luce, Financial Times, February 29, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
State of the union We are entering Nixonian territory. … Not even Nixon fired the head of the FBI.  Edward Luce, Financial Times, May 9, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union We are now in a country in which major presidential candidates can gibe about the menstrual cycles of their interviewers and the penis size of their opponents. We are now in a society in which the childish desires of a reality-TV narcissist can insult the inheritance that Washington and Hamilton risked their lives to bequeath. We are now in a society in which serial insults to basic decency aren't automatically disqualifying. David Brooks, New York Times, October 21, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union [W]e do seem to be in a period of particular turmoil in which a resurgent populism in certain sectors is on a long- term collision course with many decades, if not centuries, of efforts to shore up policy-making based on technical knowledge designed by and for elites, with division rather than compromise the goal among their respective partisans. (This may also be one way that long- standing class-based and racial conflict get expressed in the twenty-first century.) Sophia Rosenfeld, Democracy and Truth © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union We're aging at home, alone © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union We're No. 1 in thinking we're No. 1. Bill Maher  © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union We're stuck in a negative feedback loop © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union c We're the world's leader in active shooter drills, by far and by necessity  © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union c We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. Barack Obama, inaugural speech, January 20, 2008 © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union We sell Mexicans guns, they sell us drugs © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union We've got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar. David Brooks, New York Times, May 15, 2017 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union c Wearing a suit standing in line applying for a low-wage job © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union What concerns me most as a military man is not our external adversaries, it is our internal divisiveness. James Mattis, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union What now rules is an individualistic liberal vision that celebrates consumer society and the freedom that the markets offer. Chantal Mouffe, For a Left Populism © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union What shared values? The Super Bowl? Discounts? Star Wars?   © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union What we've done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots. And so, I don’t look at it through the lens of, is this what I should do or what I shouldn't do. I look at it through the lens of, how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can't be partisan. ex-congresswoman Liz Cheney © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union What we have now could be called creeping authoritarianism. Marvin Kalb © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union When the federal system works democratically, it delivers median results. There are winners and losers, but the broad middle is satisfied.  Under such federalism, if Congress were to take up abortion rights, for example, some states would want to ban the procedure entirely and others to allow it far into the term of pregnancy. A bill that ultimately reaches the president's desk for signature might ban it after twelve weeks or twenty-four. In the current political environment, such a broad national acceptance of compromise is improbable. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, New York Review of Books, September 22, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
State of the union While US political risk in global comparisons is still relatively low (it ranks 85 out of the 127 countries tracked by [Mark] Rosenberg) [who has been tracking political risk on a daily basis since 2013], it is now by far the highest of any developed market. Only countries such as Turkey, Colombia, Mexico and Israel look anything like the US within the OECD nations. Even more worrisome is the fact that the change and volatility of key metrics, including the risks of social and government instability, political violence and even the risk to democracy, make the US look much more like a developing nation than a developed one — let alone the supposed leader of the free world. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, July 10, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union White-collar crime pays big time © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union c White parents don't have to have “the talk” © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union With the unions went the wages © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Within the particular domain of independent political advocacy the principle of free speech now trumps the principle that previously inspired congressional regulation of campaign finance, namely that there is a public interest in preventing the appearance of corruption in electoral politics. Richard M. Valelly, American Politics © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union The world is moving on from American hegemony. It is not moving on from the American spectacle. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, July 1, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
 
State of the union Xenophobic right-wing nationalism – in Germany of all places? The very fact that observers express surprise indicates how much Germany has changed since 1945. These days, we expect more of Germany than of ourselves. Timohty Garten Ash, New York Review of Books, December 12, 2017  © 2017 Kwiple.com