News Vérité

In the spring of 1861, as Abraham Lincoln assumed the presidency of a fracturing nation, the Charleston Mercury declared him a “reckless, unscrupulous, and unprincipled demagogue.” By 1863, opposition newspapers routinely depicted him wearing a crown, trampling the Constitution beneath military boots, his lanky frame caricatured as simian and grotesque. The Crisis, a prominent Copperhead newspaper in Ohio, called him “King Abraham I” and accused him of establishing “a dictatorship as absolute as that of any despot on earth.” Fast-forward 150 years. In December 2016, as Donald Trump prepared to take office, The Washington Post adopted the motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” By 2020, major publications routinely featured op-eds with titles like “Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook” and “The Fascist Threat.” A giant inflatable “Baby Trump” balloon—depicting the president as an orange-skinned infant in diapers—became a fixture at protests worldwide. Historians and political scientists publicly debated whether American democracy could survive his presidency. The parallels are striking, even unsettling. Separated by more than a century and a half, two American presidents faced opposition movements that deployed remarkably similar rhetorical strategies: accusations of tyranny and dictatorship, visual caricatures designed to dehumanize and mock, apocalyptic warnings about constitutional collapse, and systematic efforts to delegitimize

When Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, political observers scrambled to find historical precedents for his unconventional executive style. But the answer may have been hiding in plain sight all along—not in presidential history, but in the owner’s box at Yankee Stadium. Donald Trump and former New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (“The Boss”) shared a well-documented relationship forged in 1970s Manhattan nightlife and sports culture. Trump frequently cited Steinbrenner as a mentor and close friend, drawing heavy inspiration from Steinbrenner’s public executive persona. The question isn’t whether Trump admired Steinbrenner’s approach—it’s whether he simply transplanted it wholesale from baseball operations to the executive branch of the United States government. Personalities: Larger-Than-Life Outer-Borough Titans Similarities Brash New York Personas: Both built dominant public identities centered on raw willpower, tough-guy aesthetics, and an obsession with winning. Their outer-borough roots (Trump from Queens, Steinbrenner from Cleveland but adopted by the Bronx) shaped a particular brand of aggressive, unapologetic ambition that became their calling card. Pop Culture Mainstays: Each crossed over from business into mainstream media—Steinbrenner became a recurring caricature on Seinfeld and hosted Saturday Night Live; Trump embraced reality television with The Apprentice and hosted SNL. Both understood that celebrity amplified power,

After news over the weekend that President Trump was stopping his planned bombing attack on Iran because a deal looked imminent, Iran held a press conference denying it was in any negotiations with the U.S. Trump even went so far as to announce that he had the “perimeters” of a deal with the Islamic Republic, when he clearly meant parameters. Iran is notorious for covering up what’s really going on, so we can choose to believe or dismiss their denial of talks. However, the sad truth is that our president is also quite comfortable with making stuff up to put a good spin on things. According to Trump, talks were to begin today. He announced yesterday: “Now, what we’re doing is talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon.” I haven’t read any news about Steve Witkoff or Jared Kushner catching flights to the Middle East to resume negotiations, so it’s anybody’s guess what he meant. Iran does admit to ongoing talks with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz, but even in that case, I read a report last week saying that Iran had ended the talks because the two sides couldn’t come to an