I t seems like years, but it’s only a few months since the February 28 mugging of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, surely a low point in Western history, though we’ve seen lower since. The sneak attack by Trump and Vance has, of course, disappeared down the memory hole already. Nobody wants to remember their historic betrayal, not just of Ukraine, but of American values writ large. Nobody wants to remember how they ambushed Zelensky right out in public, on live television, so we could all be ashamed of our country at once. The video isn’t really worth a second look. Honestly, I never looked the first time — it was the kind of thing I’d rather read about than see, and what I’d read was bad enough. But in light of new information, I went back and watched it anyway. A horrifyingly juvenile display of playground bullying by purportedly grown men, my overall take was mortification that I live in a country that could give these two swine the keys to the men’s r...
F or my next trick, I’d like to indulge in a linguistic conceit of sorts. I’d like to use the current political nightmare to speculate about a matter of grammar, of all things, that has long intrigued me: Namely, why do so many languages codify the conditional mood — also known as the conditional tense — in their grammar? Why do we use ‘should,’ ‘could,’ and especially ‘would,’ in so much of our speech? Why do we hedge our conversations this way? Why is it more acceptable to say “I would like a cup of coffee” than “Give me a cup of coffee.” Why is one deferential and the other pushy? Why has history passed down this polite form to multiple language groups, in such a similar way? Why is it bad form to use “I want” in a non-confrontational situation? And why does the MAGA crowd insist on such bad form? I have a speculative answer to these questions, but first let me cavalierly divide the world into two groups of people: Decents and Deplorables . Goods ...