A Look at American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump

Posted on September 27, 2026 by billmanzi

American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald TrumpAmerican Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump by Kai Bird

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Roy Cohn is one of those figures who repeatedly appears at the edges of major events in twentieth-century American history. He helped prosecute Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. He became Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the most notorious period of the Red Scare. He represented Mafia figures, cultivated politicians and celebrities, became a fixture of New York nightlife, and eventually served as lawyer, mentor, and political tutor to a young Donald Trump.

In American Scoundrel, Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark, make the case that Cohn should not be regarded merely as a colorful and corrupt character who happened to know important people. Cohn represented a particular way of acquiring and exercising power, and his influence survived him. You want to understand how Donald Trump operates, and what rules he follows? Read about Roy Cohn, who taught Trump many things about how to present to the public. Yes, Trump has taken these “methods” to a new level, but fundamentally they were the brainchild of Roy Cohn.

It is not a flattering portrait.

Cohn emerges from Bird’s account as intelligent, energetic, charming when charm served his purposes, vindictive when it did not, and almost completely unconstrained by conventional notions of truth, consistency, or fair play. He understood early that accusations could be more powerful than evidence, that publicity could substitute for accomplishment, and that an aggressive counterattack could turn attention away from one’s own conduct.
Those qualities made him ideally suited to Joseph McCarthy.

Cohn was still remarkably young when he became chief counsel to McCarthy’s Senate investigations. Bird’s treatment of the McCarthy period is among the strongest parts of the book because it demonstrates that Cohn was not simply an assistant carrying out McCarthy’s orders. He was an enthusiastic participant in a political operation that used accusation, intimidation, publicity, and guilt by association to destroy reputations.

Cohn, in later years, did give some ground on the Joseph McCarthy issue:

“Fourteen years after Cohn retreated from Washington, he wrote a short book simply entitled McCarthy. Roy offered a vigorous defense of the man , but the book was partly confessional. ‘I was fully aware of McCarthy’s faults,’ he wrote, ‘which were neither few nor minor.’ Cohn conceded that McCarthy had ‘played rough politics, occasionally took unfair advantage of people, and said harsh things in public.’ To accuse the Democrats of being the ‘party of treason’ was ‘an inexcusably broad (and therefore inaccurate)accusation…This is nonsense if taken literally.’ “

Bird Kai, Goldmark, Susan American Scoundrel Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey From Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump pg. 143

Despite that observation Cohn continued to defend McCarthy while acknowledging his flaws and errors.

The eventual collapse of McCarthy might have ended the career of a less resourceful man. Cohn simply reinvented himself.
Returning to New York, he constructed an extraordinary network involving politicians, businessmen, journalists, judges, celebrities, wealthy clients, and organized-crime figures. His legal practice often seemed less about mastery of law than mastery of connections. Cohn’s great talent was knowing whom to call, whom to pressure, whom to flatter, and whom to threaten. He was, for a while, the pre-eminent peddler of influence in New York, especially within the judiciary. But his influence never left the national level. President Reagan, and especially First Lady Nancy Reagan, were close to Cohn politically.

Bird describes a world in which the boundaries between legitimate influence and corruption could become remarkably porous. Cohn thrived in that environment. He cultivated friendships across ideological and social lines and made himself useful to powerful people. There was no mistake about the nature of Cohn’s personality and his way of operating, but that did not in any way diminish his influence.

He was not operating outside the American establishment. He was deeply embedded within it.

Cohn could denounce elites while socializing with them, attack homosexuality publicly while living a closeted gay life, demand ruthless prosecution of others while repeatedly escaping consequences for his own conduct, and present himself as a defender of American institutions while treating many of their rules as obstacles to be manipulated.
The contradictions are extraordinary, but Cohn apparently experienced little difficulty living with them.

Inevitably, the final portion of the book turns toward Donald Trump.

Cohn met Trump during the 1970s and became his attorney, defender, and mentor. Bird argues that the relationship matters because Cohn taught Trump more than legal tactics. He demonstrated an approach to public life: never concede, counterattack immediately, portray investigations as persecution, use the press even while attacking it, and treat controversy as a means of keeping one’s name before the public.

The similarities are difficult to miss. There is no doubt that Trump has used the Cohn “methods” in a way that I would describe as perfecting and upgrading them. The student has become the teacher. But make no mistake about Cohn’s influence on Trump. Cohn’s methods are now Trump’s methods. One, of many, things that Cohn believed and imparted to Trump was a severe dislike of note taking at meetings. You may recall, in the first Trump Administration, aides trying to scotch tape presidential documents back together after Trump had torn them up.

“He learned strategy from Roy Cohn, but the young Donald Trump already possessed what David Margolick, a New York Times legal reporter, called ‘uncanny business instincts, as well as his competitiveness, chutzpah, cruelty, vulgarity, and hucksterism.’ As such he was the ideal student for what Roy had to teach. For instance, Roy had an aversion to taking notes. And he didn’t want other people taking notes about what he was saying. He taught Trump that a paper trail was to be avoided. ‘ I’ve had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn,’ Trump later said. ‘He did not take notes.’”

Bird Kai, Goldmark, Susan American Scoundrel Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey From Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump pg. 272

Cohn provided Trump with an example of how a certain kind of politics could work. He demonstrated that relentless aggression could itself become a political asset and that refusing to acknowledge defeat could sometimes be more effective than admitting error. Whether Cohn created that style is less important than the fact that he practiced it exceptionally well and passed many of its lessons to someone who would eventually reach the presidency.

Bird also refuses to turn Cohn into a cartoon villain, although there is certainly enough material here to make that tempting. The book explores his family, his friendships, his sexuality, his fierce personal loyalties, and his need for acceptance. Cohn could apparently be generous and entertaining to friends while behaving ruthlessly toward enemies. Those contradictions make him more understandable without making him particularly sympathetic.

His private life provides perhaps biggest contradiction of all. Cohn was a gay man who politically attacked any political concessions to increased rights for the gay community. He ultimately contracted AIDS during the epidemic that devastated the gay community in the 1980s, yet publicly insisted almost until his death that he was suffering from liver cancer.

Even at the end, Roy Cohn could not admit something he regarded as a defeat.

Cohn died in 1986 at the age of fifty-nine, only weeks after being disbarred. Under ordinary circumstances that might have been the end of his historical relevance. Instead, forty years later, his name remains part of the American political conversation largely because one of his most famous clients carried some of Cohn’s methods into national politics.

That makes American Scoundrel more than a biography of an “American Scoundrel.”

It is also a book about institutions and the people who enable those willing to abuse them. Cohn survived for decades not simply because he was ruthless. He survived because politicians took his calls, newspapers printed his accusations, celebrities attended his parties, clients paid his bills, and powerful people found him useful.
That is the more uncomfortable lesson of the book.

American institutions were not always defeated by Roy Cohn. Too often, they accommodated him.

Kai Bird has written a highly readable biography of a fascinating and deeply troubling American figure. Readers interested in McCarthyism, New York politics, organized crime, the legal profession, or Donald Trump’s rise will find plenty here. But the larger value of American Scoundrel is the question it leaves behind.

Was Roy Cohn an aberration in American public life—or was he simply unusually skilled at exploiting weaknesses that had been there all along?






View all my reviews

Posted in Books | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Sidewalk Labs and the Smart City That Never Was

Posted on September 20, 2026 by billmanzi

The recent backlash against automated municipal cameras offers a useful reminder about technology and government. The cameras may have legitimate public-safety uses, but many residents did not learn the extent of their capabilities, the information being retained, or the reach of the larger data-sharing network until after the systems were operating.

That sequence matters. Once public concern takes hold, explanations about safeguards and good intentions often arrive too late. The issue stops being simply whether the technology is useful and becomes a broader question: Who authorized this, who controls the information, and what prevents it from being used for an entirely different purpose tomorrow?

Those same questions helped sink one of the most ambitious municipal technology projects ever proposed—the Sidewalk Labs “smart city” planned for Toronto’s waterfront.

I recently came across the project in a New York Times profile of political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who was using its failure as the subject of a class. Although I was generally familiar with the term “smart city,” I had not followed the Toronto project closely. Its rise and fall present an interesting lesson in the limits of technology, public-private partnerships, and corporate involvement in municipal government.

A City Built Around Data

In 2017, Waterfront Toronto selected Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, to develop a plan for Quayside, a largely undeveloped 12-acre parcel on Toronto’s waterfront.

Sidewalk Labs was led by Dan Doctoroff, a former New York City deputy mayor. Its proposal was far more ambitious than installing wireless internet or synchronizing traffic signals. The company envisioned building a neighborhood in which technology, buildings, streets, transportation, energy systems, and public spaces would operate as parts of a single integrated system.

The proposal included mass-timber buildings, underground freight delivery and waste collection, energy-efficient utilities, heated pavement, adaptable streets, reduced automobile use, affordable housing, and protected public spaces designed to make outdoor activity possible during Toronto’s winters.

Many of those ideas were thoughtful and potentially valuable. Sidewalk Labs was not simply selling cameras or collecting information for its own sake. It was attempting to rethink how an urban neighborhood could be constructed and operated.

Data, however, was central to the concept. Sensors would measure traffic, pedestrian activity, noise, air quality, energy use, and how people used streets and public spaces. That information would then be analyzed to improve the operation of the neighborhood.

In the abstract, the theory was appealing: measure how a city actually works and use that knowledge to make it work better.

The difficulty was that a city is not merely an engineering problem.

When a Pilot Project Becomes a New System of Government

The original assignment involved the 12-acre Quayside parcel. Sidewalk’s eventual master plan, released in 2019, ran more than 1,500 pages and contemplated an “IDEA District” covering a much larger portion of the waterfront.

There was an economic reason for that expansion. Many of the proposed systems—including specialized infrastructure, district energy, mass-timber production and new transportation arrangements—were difficult to justify on only 12 acres. Sidewalk needed greater scale to make the economics work.

That created a fundamental contradiction. Quayside had been presented as a manageable demonstration project, but the demonstration was apparently too small to support the promised innovation.

The project also required much more governmental action than the original selection process suggested. Sidewalk needed zoning approvals, public infrastructure, transit investment, access to additional land, changes to construction and transportation rules, and an entirely new framework for the collection and use of data in public places.

Waterfront Toronto could coordinate development, but it could not independently make all those commitments. Authority remained divided among the City of Toronto, the Province of Ontario, the Canadian government, and other public entities.

As the proposal expanded, Sidewalk increasingly appeared to be doing more than designing a neighborhood. It was proposing the rules under which the neighborhood would be governed.

That was the point at which an innovative development proposal began to look, at least to its critics, like the partial privatization of municipal authority.

The Privacy Issue

The most visible controversy involved privacy and the use of what Sidewalk called “urban data.”

The phrase itself revealed the difficulty. Was information collected in a public place the property of the individual, the city, the company operating the sensor, or the public generally? Who could authorize its use? Could a person meaningfully consent to information collection merely by walking down a public street?

Sidewalk proposed an independent data trust to review the collection and use of information. It also promised substantial privacy protections. But that did not completely resolve the concern. Sidewalk, the private company seeking permission to collect and use the information, was also helping design the institution that would regulate it.

Ann Cavoukian, a former Ontario privacy commissioner who had advised Sidewalk, resigned after the company could not guarantee that every third party operating within the district would anonymize information at the point of collection.

Even anonymization was not a complete answer. Large collections of location and behavioral information can sometimes be connected with other records and traced back to particular individuals. Information can also be used to categorize neighborhoods or groups without attaching a name to any one person.

The controversy therefore became larger than conventional privacy. It concerned control: whether a private technology company should occupy a privileged position in observing, modeling and ultimately influencing public life.

That is the clearest connection to the current debate over municipal camera systems. License-plate readers can help locate stolen vehicles and persons wanted for serious crimes. But their usefulness does not settle the question of whether every passing vehicle should be recorded, how long the information should be retained, who may search it, or how widely it may be shared.

The lesson in both cases is not that government must reject useful technology. It is that public rules must precede technological deployment. Privacy policies developed after controversy begins are rarely as reassuring as clear limits adopted beforehand.

Did COVID Kill the Project?

Sidewalk Labs withdrew from Quayside in May 2020. Doctoroff cited the economic uncertainty created by COVID-19 and said it had become impossible to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing essential parts of the plan.

That explanation was undoubtedly true, but incomplete.

The project was already struggling before COVID. Its scope had expanded well beyond the original site. The parties were divided over financing, land, intellectual property, public infrastructure, data governance, and the extent of Sidewalk’s authority. Waterfront Toronto had required significant modifications to the proposal before it would move forward.

COVID provided the final economic blow—and perhaps a graceful exit—but it did not create the project’s central problems.

The foundational mistake had occurred at the beginning. Waterfront Toronto selected an innovative private partner before government had adequately established the boundaries within which innovation would be allowed. The parties then attempted to determine questions of public authority, privacy, financing, and ownership while the private partner was already designing the project.

By then, every proposed safeguard looked like a restriction on the original vision, while every request from Sidewalk looked like another expansion of corporate power.

What Happened to Quayside?

The failure of Sidewalk Labs did not end development of the waterfront. Toronto returned to a much more conventional process.

In 2021, Waterfront Toronto issued a new request for qualifications, followed by a request for proposals. A partnership led by Canadian developers Dream Unlimited and Great Gulf Group was selected in 2022. The public agency retained responsibility for the public realm and infrastructure, while the private developers were assigned the more recognizable role of developing the buildings.

The current plan is still ambitious, but it is ambitious in a different way. The first phase calls for 553 affordable rental homes, 1,129 purpose-built market rental units, approximately 1,168 condominiums, a community forest, childcare, a community hub, pedestrian and bicycle improvements, and a zero-carbon energy approach. Site preparation and infrastructure work began in 2026, with the first residents expected around 2031.

Some of the better ideas associated with the original project survived: environmental sustainability, reduced dependence on automobiles, attractive public spaces, mixed-income housing and modern energy systems.

What disappeared was the idea that the neighborhood should operate as a privately designed digital platform.

That outcome is significant. Quayside did not need to become a corporate technology experiment in order to become a modern and environmentally advanced neighborhood. The physical development survived after the grander theory of the “smart city” was removed.

The Municipal Lesson

Sidewalk Labs viewed the city primarily as a collection of systems that could be measured and optimized. Traffic was an allocation problem. Energy was an efficiency problem. Streets were flexible platforms. Data would show how people behaved, and the city could be adjusted accordingly.

Municipal government operates in a more difficult environment. Better information can help officials understand the likely effects of a decision, but it cannot decide which values should prevail, who should bear the cost, or how much government observation the public should be required to accept.

Those are political judgments. They must be made through institutions that remain publicly accountable.

That is also why the controversy over municipal cameras should not be dismissed as a conflict between people who favor public safety and people who fear technology. The most important questions concern governance: the limits on collection, retention, access and sharing—and whether those limits can be changed without the public knowing.

The failure of Sidewalk Labs does not prove that technology has no place in municipal government. It proves nearly the opposite. Technology will become increasingly important to transportation, public safety, infrastructure, energy use and the delivery of public services.

But governmental legitimacy cannot be installed after the equipment is turned on.

The public needs to know what the technology does, what it does not do, who controls it, and what enforceable rules will remain in place after the original officials and vendors are gone. Toronto learned that lesson through an enormous project that never made it out of the planning stage.

Other municipalities have the opportunity to learn it before making the same mistake.

The announcement of the collapse of the Sidewalk Labs Project

The Ontario Auditor General’s Report on Waterfront Toronto

Where The Sidewalk Ends: The Governance Of Waterfront Toronto’s Sidewalk Labs Deal

The Axios Story on Massachusetts License Plate Readers

Posted in municipal technology, Sidewalk Labs, smart city, Toronto | Leave a comment

A Look at “He Has the People: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860” by Jonathan Earle.

Posted on September 6, 2026 by billmanzi

He Has the People: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860He Has the People: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860 by Jonathan Earle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


There are few American presidents about whom more has been written than Abraham Lincoln, which raises an obvious question whenever another Lincoln book appears: what is there left to say? Jonathan Earle answers that question convincingly in He Has the People, an excellent account of the election of 1860 that focuses less on Lincoln the martyred president and more on Lincoln the extraordinarily capable politician who managed to become president in the first place.

That distinction is important. We tend to view Lincoln as the President who saved the Union. Knowing what Lincoln became makes his rise to the presidency appear almost inevitable. It was anything but. In 1859 Lincoln was a former one-term congressman from Illinois who had lost two races for the United States Senate. William Seward of New York was the nationally prominent Republican statesman and the presumptive favorite for the party’s presidential nomination. Lincoln had ambition, ability, and a growing reputation, but his path to the White House remained remarkably narrow.

Earle is particularly good at reconstructing how Lincoln traveled that path. The Making of the President, 1860 might have been a good substitute title. We would wait 100 years for the great Ted White book, and this one, while not as detailed, has a similar objective.

The election of 1860 occurred amid the accelerating collapse of the American political system. The slavery question had destroyed the old compromises, shattered the Whig Party, created the Republican Party, and increasingly divided the Democratic Party along sectional lines. John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in October 1859 intensified an already poisonous political atmosphere. By the time Americans chose a president a year later, the country was approaching a constitutional crisis from which there would be no peaceful escape.

Yet He Has the People is not primarily another book about the coming of the Civil War. It is a book about politics—about nominations, conventions, newspapers, speeches, organizations, personalities, geography, factions, and the difficult business of assembling enough supporters to win an election.

And this is where Lincoln comes alive.

The Lincoln presented by Earle is neither an accidental candidate nor a saint waiting for history to summon him. He is intensely ambitious, politically shrewd, patient, disciplined, and unusually perceptive about both people and political timing. Lincoln understood something that many politicians never learn: a candidate does not always need to be everyone’s first choice. Sometimes it is enough to be the candidate everyone can eventually live with.

That became crucial in confronting Seward.

Lincoln’s supporters understood that defeating the Republican frontrunner required more than enthusiasm. They needed organization, favorable geography, careful management of delegates, and an ability to attract supporters from candidates who could not win themselves. The Republican convention in Chicago becomes one of the most fascinating portions of Earle’s narrative. Lincoln’s victory was not political magic. It was the product of an exceptionally well-run political operation combined with a candidate whose opponents consistently underestimated him.
Lincoln himself carefully maintained the convention-era fiction that candidates stood above the scramble for delegates. He did not. He knew what his supporters were doing, understood the political calculations involved, and wanted very badly to win.

That makes him more interesting, not less admirable.

One of the strengths of the book is Earle’s use of Murat Halstead, the pioneering journalist who followed the campaign and reported extensively on the political conventions. Through Halstead’s observations, the reader gets something close to a ringside seat at a nineteenth-century presidential campaign. These conventions were not the carefully scripted television productions of the modern era. They were loud, uncertain, sometimes chaotic affairs in which delegates actually mattered and nominations could genuinely turn on events inside the hall.

The title itself captures the central argument. Seward possessed many of the advantages normally associated with a winning candidate: national stature, powerful political allies, money, and an impressive organization. Lincoln possessed something ultimately more valuable. He had developed a connection with the Republican electorate, particularly across the rapidly growing West, and his debates with Stephen Douglas and his Cooper Union address had established him as a credible national spokesman for opposition to the expansion of slavery.

Once nominated, Lincoln benefited enormously from the disintegration of his opposition. The Democratic Party split, with Stephen Douglas and John C. Breckinridge representing competing wings, while John Bell carried the banner of the Constitutional Union Party. Lincoln did not need to win the South—indeed, in much of it his name did not even appear on the ballot. His political task was to hold together a sufficiently broad Northern coalition, and he did so decisively.

Earle also avoids the temptation to pretend that everyone participating in the election understood precisely where events were headed. They did not. Lincoln’s election would trigger secession and ultimately civil war, but the participants were operating without knowledge of what came next. Restoring that uncertainty is one of the book’s great virtues. The election feels consequential because the outcome is uncertain rather than because the author is simply marching the reader toward Fort Sumter.

For students of politics, there is another reason to enjoy this book. Much of the machinery is surprisingly recognizable. Presidential politics in 1860 involved media strategy, opposition research, geographic calculations, surrogate campaigning, convention management, factional disputes, candidate positioning, and relentless efforts to shape public perception. The technology has changed beyond recognition. Human political behavior has not. Even some issues have not changed. Lincoln, a former Whig, was balancing between many varied interests, even aside from slavery. It was the era of the aptly named “Know-Nothings” and their nativist political views. Lincoln was careful about public pronouncements but gave his views in a private letter to his friend Joshua Speed:

“I am not a Know-Nothing-That is certain-How could I be? How can anyone who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of, degrading classes of white people?’ he asked. ‘As a nation, we began by declaring that all men are created equal. We now practically read it all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’ He concluded this letter with typical humor: ‘When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some other country where they make no presence [sic] of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].’”

Earle, Jonathan: He Has the People: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860. Pg. 72

Maybe we file that under the more things change the more they stay the same. We are still involved with the immigration issue, and despotism in Russia remains alive and well.

There are countless books about Lincoln the president and Lincoln the wartime commander in chief. He Has the People succeeds because it reminds us that before Lincoln could save the Union, destroy slavery, or become the central figure in the American historical memory, he first had to win an election.

And winning that election required considerable political skill.

Jonathan Earle has written an accessible, fast-moving, and highly informative account of what may well have been the most consequential presidential election in American history. More importantly, he restores something that the Lincoln legend sometimes obscures: Abraham Lincoln was not simply a great statesman. He was a formidable politician.

That is a Lincoln worth getting to know.






View all my reviews

Posted in Books, History | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Look at Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Posted on August 24, 2026 by billmanzi

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald TrumpRegime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, was not a book I could resist. I confess to being addicted to the Bob Woodward style looks at the Presidencies of the day. Woodward got three books out of the Trump era, and yes I read them all. I also read most of the Woodward books on the other Presidencies he covered, and got to The Divider, the Peter Baker/Susan Glasser look at Trump’s first term. ( Yes I read the Biden book too) As “non-traditional” as some of the Trump first term may seem the second term is fundamentally different, and this book brings us not only a look at the second term to date, but the changes in the presidency that have accompanied Trump’s return to power. Haberman and Swan have covered Trump as closely as virtually any journalists in America, and their access to the people around him gives this book a remarkable level of detail. Much like Woodward the authors had extensive access, including a fascinating talk with Trump.

The central argument of the book is contained in its subtitle. The authors believe that Trump has created what amounts to an “imperial presidency,” with many of the institutional and personnel restraints that limited him during his first term either substantially weakened or simply gone. With the largely favorable rulings issued by the Supreme Court on presidential authority we have moved ever closer to the “unitary executive” envisioned by many GOP theorists. (Bill Barr was and is a unitary executive supporter) Many so called “guardrails” that limited past presidents have been shown to be voluntary, or grounded in dubious legality. Trump has simply mowed down those guardrails across so many different areas. Trump’s first term had staff that simply would not go along with many of Trump’s more radical ideas. (Mattis, McMaster, et al.) Trump learned from that experience. The second time around he arrived in Washington with a much clearer understanding of presidential power, and surrounded himself with people selected in large measure for their willingness to carry out his total agenda. Trump’s four years out of office gave him time to plan a return that would be staffed by people 100% committed to carrying out his agenda. Despite the Trump campaign denying any association the Project 2025 group provided the intellectual basis for a potential Trump return to power. There would be no half measures, and a new Trump Administration would actively seek to purge the federal bureaucracy of any staff not wholly supportive of the MAGA agenda.

There is an astounding amount to cover, including Trump’s efforts to resize the federal government, his rather open weaponization of the Justice Department, his battles with the courts, tariffs and the restructuring of American trade policy, immigration, and the enormously consequential foreign policy decisions of his second term up to now. As with so much involving Trump, policy and personality are almost impossible to separate. We see a President who is a gut player, relying on instinct rather than process and careful policy study. (The national security apparatus is essentially shelved.) They also show a President much more comfortable exercising the enormous powers of his office than the man who first arrived in Washington in January of 2017.
The book is filled with the type of inside reporting that has become Haberman’s trademark. Some of the anecdotes are almost comical, while others reveal important information about how decisions are actually made.

“Lutnick told those around him that Musk intended to eliminate a trillion dollars of government waste, while Lutnick personally would bring in a trillion for the country by raising tariffs, sealing tax loopholes, and pursuing a more aggressive strategy around America’s natural resources and tangible assets. Together they would eliminate the federal deficit.”

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. Haberman, Maggie and Swan, Jonathan. Pg. 44

The national debt just hit $40 trillion so Lutnick’s rather ambitious goal has come up a bit short.

Some great insights into the Trump-Musk dynamic beyond DOGE. That relationship was bound to explode at some point but it has been repaired, as it is difficult to let Musk go entirely with all of that money ready to be deployed for the GOP.

Trump emerges as an extraordinarily unconventional President who operates through a relatively small circle of trusted advisers and frequently approaches enormously consequential decisions in a manner that would be almost unimaginable in previous Administrations. Trump, in my view, lives in a cocoon, but it is a cocoon with a wide net. He does talk to many people, but practically none who might push back on an idea. Some might say that the President can lose touch with reality under those conditions, but I submit that for Trump it is an irrelevancy. Even when he did get pushback he would only modify under the most extreme conditions. He lives in his own reality, and seeks to change that reality to his preference on a daily basis.

Trump himself was not happy about the book and launched his somewhat standard line of attack on the authors after publication. That likely means most Trump supporters will feel the same way. MAGA likely views the weakening of the traditional Washington restraints described in this book as a positive rather than a defect. They elected Trump precisely because they wanted him to disrupt institutions that they believe have become unaccountable and hostile to their interests. His opponents will see many of the same actions as dangerous attacks on constitutional norms and the traditional limitations on presidential authority. That split, in my view, deserves a bit more attention. While Trump has, without question, exacerbated the divisions both parties need to be called to account for essentially being entirely without credibility on this split. Todays GOP supporters of expanded Presidential authority will be the first to call the exercise of that authority an abuse with a Democrat in the White House. Many Dems being critical today will likely be on board for a Democratic President using some of the newly found Presidential authority. The GOP may come to rue the day that they were so supportive of that expansion, but it is an expansion that is unlikely to be rolled back no matter who wins in 2028.

There have now been countless books about Donald Trump, many of which have been written either to condemn him or defend him. Regime Change is more useful than most because the authors concentrate heavily on how Trump actually operates. Whatever your political views, it is difficult to read this book without recognizing that the second Trump presidency represents something substantially different, not only from his first Administration but from the traditional American presidency.

Trump has been the dominant figure in American politics for more than a decade, surviving political defeats, two impeachments, criminal prosecutions, and controversies that would have ended the careers of almost any previous American politician. He returned to the White House not chastened by those experiences but seemingly emboldened by them. The authors make a compelling case that understanding that fact is essential to understanding his second presidency. Whether the changes they describe ultimately represent a dangerous concentration of presidential authority or a long overdue challenge to an entrenched political establishment will continue to be fiercely debated. But there can be little doubt that Donald Trump has changed the presidency, American politics, and the Republican Party in ways that will survive him.

As mentioned I am hooked on the “insider” accounts of Presidential Administrations. I do believe they have value, and most bring some level of entertainment as well. (The gossip and positioning always brings some level of entertainment) The book, as mentioned, brings us a great look at the Trump operation, which has to bring us to Stephen Miller. Miller has been the driving force behind the immigration crackdown that is such a major part of the second Trump term. Even Trump seems, at some level, to get the fanaticism of the true believer Miller on that topic.

“Miller was different. He was a true believer, more hard-line than the President he served, and he didn’t flinch. Trump would acknowledge that difference and joke about it in private. In a 2024 campaign meeting,Trump remarked that if it were left to Miller there would be only 100 million people in the United States and they would all look like Stephen Miller.”

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. Haberman, Maggie and Swan, Jonathan. Pg. 98

One more anecdote from the book that I found interesting. Scott Bessent, Trump Treasury Secretary, used to work for George Soros. He actually compared Trump to Soros.

“ ‘They are the same animal,’Bessent would say to others. ‘But George is in the market. President Trump is political. Incredible propensity to take risks, and incredible survival skills. And they oscillate between pushing the risk, cutting the loss.’ “

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump Haberman, Maggie and Swan, Jonathan. Pg. 120

For students of American politics and presidential history I think this book is an important account of an Administration that is still making history as the authors write about it. That necessarily means that some judgments will have to await the perspective that only time can provide. But the authors have produced a detailed and highly readable account of how Donald Trump returned to power, what he learned from his first presidency, and how he has used that knowledge the second time around. Love Trump or hate him, understanding his impact on the American presidency is essential to understanding American politics today. Regime Change is an important contribution to that understanding, and a must read for those interested in politics, presidential power, and American history.




View all my reviews

Posted in Books | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Look at “Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War” by Richard Overy

Posted on July 20, 2026 by billmanzi

Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931-1945Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931-1945 by Richard Overy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As I was preparing a blog post on Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union (still unfinished) someone said to me why don’t you look at Overy. There was a slight reprimand in there as well, with the point being there has been plenty of material put out since William Shirer. Point taken. For those seeking a deeper understanding of the Second World War beyond the familiar campaigns and personalities, Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931–1945 by Richard Overy is an exceptional and important work. Overy comes at the War in a different way, challenging many conventional interpretations of the conflict while producing a comprehensive single-volume history of the war that looks at some key facets of the war that tend to be overlooked elsewhere.

Most histories of the Second World War focus primarily on military campaigns, famous battles, and the decisions of political and military leaders. Overy certainly addresses these subjects, but his ambitions are considerably broader. He argues that the war should be understood not simply as a struggle between democracy and dictatorship, but as the culmination of decades of imperial competition, economic rivalry, ideological conflict, and technological transformation. By beginning his narrative with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 rather than the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he immediately signals that this will not be a conventional account.

An enormous amount of history is compressed into this volume. The campaigns in Europe, North Africa, the Soviet Union, China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific all receive careful attention, but so do the economic systems that sustained the combatants, the industrial production that made victory possible, the scientific advances that transformed warfare, and the experiences of civilians who increasingly found themselves on the front lines. Overy succeeds in demonstrating that modern war cannot be understood simply by following armies across maps. Political leadership, industrial capacity, logistics, intelligence, ideology, and civilian morale all emerge as decisive elements in determining the outcome.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its truly global perspective. The conflict is not viewed exclusively through the lens of Europe or the Anglo-American alliance. China, Japan, the Soviet Union, and the colonial empires receive the attention they deserve, and the reader comes away with a much better appreciation for how interconnected the various theaters of war really were. The “empire” part of the book is one of the real strengths brought forward by Overy. This war was not just about revising the Treaty of Versailles but also about the revanchist ambitions of Japan, Germany and Italy to join the established order in maintaining foreign lands as colonies. (“The Last Imperial War” is the book subtitle)

The author is equally effective in examining the moral complexity of the conflict. While there can be little doubt about the criminality of the Axis powers, Overy does not present the Allied cause as free from difficult ethical questions. Strategic bombing, the treatment of civilian populations, forced population transfers, colonial ambitions, and the enormous human costs of total war are all examined with balance and intellectual honesty. The result is a history that neither romanticizes nor diminishes the Allied victory, but instead places it within the broader and often tragic realities of twentieth-century warfare.

The cast of characters is as expansive as the conflict itself. Familiar figures such as Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Chiang Kai-shek appear throughout the narrative, but they never dominate it. Overy consistently reminds the reader that victory and defeat depended as much upon industrial workers, scientists, civil servants, logisticians, and ordinary soldiers as upon the famous leaders whose names fill most history books. This is, to me, another key strength of the book. What are the predicates for waging war successfully? The answer lies, as the Japanese and Germans came to find, with economic and industrial strength. Overy dives into this subject matter as extensively as the warfare portion. I acknowledge that some of this section is a bit dry, but understanding it is essential in any study of World War II.

As mentioned above the book takes the view that the Second World War was, in many respects, the final great conflict of the imperial age. Empires mobilized their colonial possessions on an unprecedented scale, yet the very victory achieved by many of those empires accelerated their decline. Britain, France, Japan, and the Netherlands emerged from the war fundamentally transformed, while the United States and the Soviet Union inherited a world that would soon be defined by an entirely different geopolitical struggle. Overy makes a compelling case that many of the political, economic, and strategic realities that continue to shape the modern world can be traced directly to the outcomes of this conflict.

For the student of military history, political history, or international relations, this book is indispensable. Richard Overy combines exhaustive research with thoughtful analysis, challenging readers to think beyond familiar narratives while never losing sight of the human dimension of the war. Blood and Ruins is not simply a history of military campaigns; it is an examination of how nations mobilized, societies endured, empires rose and fell, and millions of ordinary people experienced history’s most destructive conflict. A must read for anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of the Second World War and its enduring impact on the modern world.






View all my reviews

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Look at Patton: A Genius for War by Carlo D’Este

Posted on June 14, 2026 by billmanzi

Patton: A Genius for WarPatton: A Genius for War by Carlo D’Este

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I came across this book after seeing a recommendation in the Wall Street Journal that called it, by memory, the best book on Patton. Seemed obvious to me, and might have been mentioned in the article, that the very famous movie on Patton, was sourced in part, from this work. After reading it I would say that the WSJ article got it right. D’Este brings together an enormous amount of research to produce a portrait that is neither hagiography nor indictment, but rather a serious examination of a complicated man whose strengths and flaws were both on full display throughout his military career.

Most Americans know George S. Patton through legend. He is remembered for his profanity, his pearl-handled pistols, his aggressive battlefield tactics, and his larger-than-life personality. D’Este goes well beyond the mythology. He traces Patton’s development from his privileged California upbringing through his early military service, his participation in the expedition against Pancho Villa, his pioneering work with tanks during the First World War, and ultimately his rise to prominence during the campaigns of North Africa, Sicily, France, and Germany. The result is a much richer understanding of how Patton became the commander who would leave such a profound mark on American military history.

One of the great strengths of the book is its willingness to examine both Patton’s extraordinary talents and his significant shortcomings. There is little doubt that Patton possessed a remarkable instinct for operational warfare. His understanding of mobility, logistics, and momentum often placed him ahead of many of his contemporaries. His rapid movement during the breakout from Normandy and his dramatic relief of the encircled forces at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge stand as some of the most impressive military achievements of the war. D’Este makes a compelling case that Patton’s ability to move and sustain large formations at high speed was unmatched among Allied commanders. But Patton was not universally well thought of, especially by the British. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Allen Brooke said, after the war:

“My meeting with Patton had been of great interest. I had already heard of him, but must confess that his swashbuckling personality exceeded my expectation. I did not form any high opinion of him, nor had I any reason to alter this view at any later date. A dashing, courageous, wild and unbalanced leader, good for operations requiring thrust and push but at a loss in any operation requiring skill and judgement.”

D’Este, Carlo “Patton: A Genius for War” pg. 451

A somewhat unfair estimation of Patton’s talents, but even Brooke had to acknowledge Patton’s unmatched ability to move armies over large distances in a rapid way, and immediately go on the attack.

Along the same lines, D’Este does not ignore the characteristics that frequently got Patton into trouble. His impulsiveness, his tendency toward indiscreet public statements, and his sometimes abrasive treatment of both subordinates and peers repeatedly created political problems for his superiors. The infamous slapping incidents in Sicily receive considerable attention, as they should, because they reveal a commander whose understanding of combat stress lagged behind his understanding of battlefield maneuver. D’Este is particularly effective in showing how Patton’s personality could simultaneously inspire fierce loyalty among many soldiers while generating deep concern among political leaders and fellow officers.

The supporting cast in this volume is extraordinary. Patton’s career intersected with many of the giants of the Second World War, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Bernard Montgomery, George C. Marshall, and Douglas MacArthur. D’Este does an excellent job of placing Patton within this broader constellation of military leadership and examining how his relationships with these figures shaped both his opportunities and his frustrations. Particularly interesting is the discussion of his complicated relationship with Eisenhower, whose political skills often balanced Patton’s more volatile nature. Of course Ike had numerous problems with Patton, who cared little for the many political balls Eisenhower had to keep in the air. I started the book eager to understand what the relationship was between Patton and Bernard Montgomery, which had been established over time as hostile, with Patton (at least in America) being the dynamic hard charging leader, and Monty being the ego driven dilettante, only looking to get personal glory at the expense of the overall war effort, and a not very effective commander. Monty has, in the U.S. anyway, become a caricature. As with all memes developed and ingrained over years the truth is far from what the belief has become.

“However, although a feud between the two most controversial Allied generals over the war’s most contentious issues makes great copy, it does not always make good history. The plain fact is that the two generals held a grudging respect for each other, at least until the post-Normandy period, when events put them farther and farther from personal contact and generated bad feeling, primarily as the result of rumors and thirdhand information. … Patton thought Montgomery was perhaps the best of the British generals but simply not bold enough to bring off Overlord, which, in Patton’s opinion, required a commander with the courage of a riverboat gambler and the iron will of a Napoleon.”

D’Este, Carlo “Patton: A Genius for War” pg. 599

The relationship was much more nuanced than is commonly believed, and Monty, like Patton, had his weaknesses but was a good commander.

The author also succeeds in placing Patton within the larger strategic debates of the war. Readers are given a clear understanding of the disagreements over operational priorities, the competition for resources among Allied commanders, and the difficult decisions confronting leaders attempting to defeat Germany as quickly as possible. Patton emerges not simply as a battlefield commander, but as an important participant in the larger strategic conversation that shaped the Allied victory.

A Patton critic, U.S. General Omar Bradley, was simply amazed at Patton’s ability to move Third Army the way he did.

The machinery was now in motion to finish what Cobra had started. Although Bradley later denigrated Patton’s accomplishments during this crucial period of the war, he ‘put the Third Army on that one road south, pushing 200,000 men and 40,000 vehicles through what amounted to a straw’ at Avranches: Every manual on road movement was ground into the dust. He and his staff did what the whole world knew couldn’t be done: it was flat impossible to put a whole army out on a narrow two-lane road and move it at high speed. Everything was going to come to a screeching halt. He even intermingled units. Yet out of the other end of the straw came divisions, intact and ready to fight. If anybody else could have done it, no one ever got that man’s name.

D’Este, Carlo “Patton: A Genius for War” pg. 627

That praise directly undercuts the Brooke criticism cited above. Patton could not only fight but most certainly had “skill and judgement.”

In looking at the positive aspects of Patton I would refer all to the description of the Allied response to the surprise German attack on the western front (the Battle of the Bulge.) On page 682 you see Patton showing up for the critical allied meeting on the military response, and shocking the room by answering an inquiry from Ike on when he could launch a counter-attack in force by saying 48 hours. Ike did not, at first, accept that as a serious answer, but Ike was wrong. Patton had devised three distinct battle plans, understanding that the meeting discussion could produce any one of a number of options. He informed Ike that his staff was waiting for word from him, in code, to implement one of the options. Omar Bradley was described as a “bystander.” Bradley described Patton’s actions:

“True to his boast at Verdun, Patton, having turned his Third Army ninety degrees, attacked on December 22. His generalship during this difficult maneuver was magnificent. One of the most brilliant performances by any commander on either side in World War II. It was absolutely his cup of tea-rapid, open warfare combined with noble purpose and difficult goals. He relished every minute of it, knowing full well that this mission, if nothing else, would guarantee him a place of high honor in the annals of the U.S. Army.”

D’Este, Carlo “Patton: A Genius for War” pg. 684

The book humanizes Patton without diminishing him. D’Este reveals a man who was deeply studied in military history, intensely ambitious, frequently insecure, and absolutely convinced of his own destiny. His belief in reincarnation, his fascination with the great captains of history, and his relentless drive for achievement all contribute to a portrait that is as fascinating psychologically as it is militarily.

For the student of military history, this book is essential. D’Este neither worships nor condemns his subject. Instead, he presents Patton as he was: a brilliant and deeply flawed commander whose contributions to Allied victory were substantial and whose personality ensured that he would remain one of the most discussed military leaders of the twentieth century. Love him or criticize him, George Patton left an indelible mark on the history of modern warfare, and Patton: A Genius for War remains one of the finest examinations of that remarkable life. A must read for anyone interested in military leadership, World War II, or the enduring relationship between personality and command.




View all my reviews

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A D-Day Remembrance

Posted on June 6, 2026 by billmanzi

D-Day: The Longest Day That Changed the World

On June 6, 1944, Allied forces crossed the English Channel and launched the largest amphibious invasion in military history. The operation, forever known as D-Day, opened the long-awaited Western Front against Nazi Germany and marked the beginning of the liberation of occupied Europe.

More than 156,000 Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen participated in the assault on the beaches of Normandy. Many would never return home. Their courage on what became known as “The Longest Day” altered the course of World War II and helped secure the eventual defeat of Adolf Hitler’s regime.

On this anniversary of D-Day, we remember not only a remarkable military achievement, but also the extraordinary sacrifices made by those who stormed the beaches of Normandy under fire.

The Allied Forces

The invasion, officially designated Operation Overlord, involved troops from several Allied nations, led primarily by the United States, Great Britain, and Canada.

The overall commander of the operation was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Eisenhower bore ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of the invasion and made the momentous decision to proceed despite uncertain weather conditions.

Ground forces were commanded by British General Bernard Montgomery, while naval forces were directed by Admiral Bertram Ramsay and air operations by Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory.

Approximately 156,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944.

The five assault beaches were assigned as follows:

  • Utah Beach – United States Army
  • Omaha Beach – United States Army
  • Gold Beach – British Army
  • Juno Beach – Canadian Army
  • Sword Beach – British Army

Supporting the landings were more than 5,000 ships and landing craft, nearly 11,000 aircraft, and tens of thousands of sailors, airmen, engineers, medics, and support personnel. The scale of the operation was unprecedented and remains one of the greatest logistical achievements in military history.

The German Defenders

The German forces defending Normandy were part of Adolf Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, an extensive network of fortifications stretching along the coast of Western Europe.

The overall German commander in France was Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, while Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, famed for his campaigns in North Africa, was responsible for strengthening the coastal defenses.

Rommel believed that the invasion had to be stopped at the water’s edge. He directed the placement of mines, beach obstacles, artillery positions, bunkers, and machine-gun nests designed to destroy Allied forces before they could establish a foothold.

Despite these preparations, German commanders remained uncertain where the invasion would occur. Through an elaborate deception campaign, Allied planners convinced many German leaders that the main attack would strike near Pas-de-Calais rather than Normandy.

Casualties

The cost of D-Day was severe.

Allied Casualties

On June 6 alone, Allied forces suffered approximately:

  • 4,400 killed
  • More than 10,000 total casualties, including wounded and missing

American forces endured the heaviest losses at Omaha Beach, where German defenses remained largely intact and troops were subjected to devastating machine-gun and artillery fire.

Many landing craft were destroyed before reaching shore. Others delivered soldiers into deep water under enemy fire. In numerous sectors, units became disorganized, officers were killed, and communications failed. Yet small groups of soldiers pushed forward, scaling bluffs, attacking fortified positions, and creating the breakthroughs necessary for success.

German Casualties

German casualties are more difficult to determine precisely, but historians generally estimate:

  • Approximately 4,000 to 9,000 casualties, including killed, wounded, missing, and captured

Unlike the Allies, Germany could not easily replace these losses, particularly among experienced officers and non-commissioned officers.

Why D-Day Mattered

The strategic significance of D-Day cannot be overstated.

Establishing a Western Front

For years, Nazi Germany had concentrated much of its military power against the Soviet Union in the east. The Normandy invasion opened a major Western Front, forcing Germany to fight a large-scale war on multiple fronts simultaneously.

Beginning the Liberation of France

The successful landings established a foothold in Western Europe. Within weeks, Allied forces were breaking out of Normandy, and by August 1944 Paris had been liberated after four years of Nazi occupation.

Accelerating Germany’s Defeat

Operation Overlord placed Allied armies directly on the European continent. The advance through France, Belgium, and the Netherlands would eventually carry Allied troops into Germany itself, helping bring the war in Europe to a close less than a year later.

Demonstrating Allied Unity

D-Day showcased extraordinary cooperation among Allied nations. Americans, British, Canadians, Free French forces, and soldiers from many other nations fought together in pursuit of a common goal: the defeat of Nazi tyranny.

The Human Dimension

Maps and casualty figures tell only part of the story.

Many of the men who stormed the beaches were in their late teens or early twenties. They endured rough seas, enemy fire, confusion, and fear. For many, D-Day was their first experience in combat.

At Omaha Beach, entire units suffered devastating losses within minutes. Yet survivors regrouped, found gaps in the German defenses, and continued forward.

Airborne troops dropped behind enemy lines during the night before the invasion often found themselves isolated and scattered across the Norman countryside. Small groups formed impromptu fighting units and carried out their missions despite confusion and separation from their parent commands.

Acts of heroism occurred throughout the invasion. Soldiers carried wounded comrades to safety. Engineers cleared minefields under direct fire. Sailors brought their vessels dangerously close to shore to support troops pinned down on the beaches. Aircrews flew through intense anti-aircraft fire to support the operation.

Success was achieved not through a single dramatic moment, but through thousands of acts of courage performed by ordinary men facing extraordinary circumstances.

A Legacy of Sacrifice

Today, more than eight decades later, D-Day remains one of history’s greatest examples of courage under fire. The men who landed at Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches faced daunting odds, yet they pressed forward because the success of the mission—and the future of Europe—depended upon them.

The freedom enjoyed today across much of Europe owes much to the sacrifices made on those beaches and in the fields and villages beyond them. As we mark the anniversary of June 6, 1944, we honor the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who fought that day, especially those who gave their lives in service to a cause larger than themselves.

The white crosses and Stars of David at the Normandy American Cemetery overlook the very shores where so many young Americans fought and died. They stand as a lasting reminder that freedom carries a cost, and that generations before us were willing to pay that price.

Their names may fade from memory, but their achievement never should. The story of D-Day remains a reminder that freedom often depends upon the courage of ordinary people called to perform extraordinary deeds.

On this anniversary of D-Day, we remember them with gratitude, respect, and humility.

Posted in History | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Tony Blair on the Problems of Labour: Lessons for Democrats?

Posted on June 6, 2026 by billmanzi

Tony Blair has written a sharp warning to Britain’s Labour Party, but much of it could be mailed directly to the American Democratic Party.

His central point is simple: a party cannot win the future by retreating into the comfort zone of its own internal coalition. Labour, he argues, risks governing as “Just Labour” — familiar, cautious, soft-left, and insufficiently serious about growth, technology, national power, welfare reform, and the practical business of making government work.

That problem is not uniquely British.

American Democrats face a similar danger. They often speak as though the country is waiting for a purer version of progressive politics, when much of the country is asking for competence, economic seriousness, public order, border control, institutional reform, and some visible evidence that government can still deliver. Like Labour, Democrats have a tendency to confuse the concerns of their most engaged activists with the concerns of persuadable voters. Blair offers his idea on what a successful government does:

They start with an idea, a project, a governing purpose, an analysis of what is wrong and a plan to put it right…It is efficacy. It is the ability to get big things done. To have leaders who are not problem-managers but problem-solvers.

Tony Blair “The Labour Party is Playing With Fire Over Its Future and the Future of the Country” Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

That is the lesson Democrats ought to absorb.

The future will not be won by defending every existing program, every institutional ally, or every cultural position that has become fashionable inside the party. Nor will it be won by simply denouncing Trumpism. Voters already know the defects of Trumpism. What they want to know is whether Democrats have a governing project equal to the moment. If given a chance to govern again will the Democrats be able to deliver on the issues important to the American people? I do not wish to revisit the review of the Ezra Klein book “Abundance” but it is, in my view, something that everyone should be looking at. Passing a bill is great, but when there is no follow-up there is just frustration within the electorate that leads to some bad results. I clipped the below from my review of the book.

“A difficulty that Biden and Harris had in trying to run on their record in 2024 was that few communities were yet seeing benefit from all this construction their policies were meant to spark. The infrastructure bill, for instance, included $7.5 billion to build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations; by March 2024-more than two years after the bill was passed-only seven new chargers were up and running”

Klein, Ezra, Thompson, Derek: Abundance pg. 213

Blair identifies two great forces reshaping politics: geopolitical competition and artificial intelligence. In America, those forces are even more central. China, industrial policy, defense capacity, energy, immigration, education, public safety, and the future of work are not side issues. They are the main event.

The Democratic Party’s peril is that it may mistake resistance for purpose. Resistance can win an election. It cannot govern a country for long.

Blair’s advocacy for the center of the political spectrum seems like an anachronism to many, but he makes as strong as a case as can be made today for occupying the political center ground.

The best political space from which this can be achieved is what I call the Radical Centre.

The centre – properly defined – is where you put policy first and politics last. So, you begin with the question: what is the right answer? And only once you have that do you engage in the political task of persuading people of it.

Tony Blair “The Labour Party is Playing With Fire Over Its Future and the Future of the Country” Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

In the United States today the political center, in light of the massive gerrymandering of Congressional districts, can be a difficult place to live, as several GOP Senators (Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy) have found. It brings to mind the old Jim Hightower observation that “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” Despite that, and even though I recognize that the advice is not easily transferrable to the U.S., it is my strong belief that actual problem solving and being able to show folks that government is actually succeeding in key areas can create its own political momentum and space to live.

Blair’s warning to Labour is therefore a warning to Democrats as well: parties that put internal politics ahead of national strategy eventually lose both the argument and the country. The task is not to move left or right by reflex. The task is to make government work once more.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Battle of Iwo Jima

Posted on May 25, 2026 by billmanzi

Memorial Day Remembrance

As Americans pause on Memorial Day to remember those who gave their lives in service to the nation, few battles better symbolize sacrifice, determination, and battlefield courage than the Battle of Iwo Jima. I have read the three book series on the war in the Pacific by Ian Toll, which was really outstanding. The third book in the series, “Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific 1944-1945” deals with Iwo Jima. Some of this material is sourced from that book.

Fought between February 19 and March 26, 1945, Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest and most strategically significant engagements of the Pacific Theater in World War II. This small volcanic island, only about eight square miles in size, became the scene of an extraordinary clash between American and Japanese forces in the final months of the war.

American Forces Involved

The assault on Iwo Jima was principally a United States Marine Corps operation, supported by the United States Navy and Army Air Forces.

The primary American ground combat units included:

  • 3rd Marine Division
  • 4th Marine Division
  • 5th Marine Division

These forces formed the V Amphibious Corps, under the command of Lieutenant General Holland M. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, one of the Marine Corps’ most aggressive and respected combat commanders.

The direct commander of the landing operation itself was Major General Harry Schmidt, commanding V Amphibious Corps during the battle.

Naval support was immense. The U.S. Navy provided pre-invasion bombardment, troop transport, carrier aviation, logistics support, and offshore firepower from battleships and cruisers. Key naval leadership included Admiral Raymond Spruance, commander of the broader Pacific operation, and Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, overseeing amphibious forces.

The U.S. Army Air Forces also played a critical supporting role, both before and after the battle.

In total, roughly 70,000 American personnel participated in the operation.

The Japanese Commander

Defending Iwo Jima was General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, one of Japan’s most capable military commanders.

Kuribayashi understood that Japan could not win a conventional defense of the island. Rather than attempting to repel the Americans at the shoreline—as had often been Japanese doctrine—he constructed a deeply layered defensive network of tunnels, bunkers, hidden artillery positions, machine-gun nests, and fortified caves.

His strategy was brutally effective.

Instead of suicidal banzai charges, Kuribayashi ordered disciplined resistance designed to inflict maximum casualties. American troops who expected the initial bombardment to have neutralized Japanese defenses instead encountered a hidden, intact enemy prepared for a fight to the death.

Kuribayashi reportedly told his troops they should each kill ten Americans before dying.

Casualties

The human cost was staggering.

American Casualties

American losses totaled approximately:

  • 6,821 killed
  • 19,000+ wounded
  • More than 26,000 total casualties

Iwo Jima remains one of the few Marine Corps battles in which American casualties exceeded those of the defending Japanese force in total numbers.

Among the dead were Marines, Navy corpsmen serving alongside Marines, sailors, and airmen supporting the operation.

The iconic photograph of the flag raising atop Mount Suribachi, taken by Joe Rosenthal, immortalized the battle—but it can obscure the grim reality that the battle continued for more than a month after that moment.

Japanese Casualties

Japanese losses were catastrophic:

  • Approximately 18,000–21,000 killed
  • Only about 200–1,000 captured alive (depending on accounting)

Most Japanese defenders fought to the death.

General Kuribayashi himself was killed near the end of the battle, though exact circumstances remain uncertain.

Why Iwo Jima Mattered

The strategic importance of Iwo Jima was substantial.

Located roughly halfway between the Mariana Islands and mainland Japan, Iwo Jima served as a Japanese early warning station and defensive outpost.

Its capture offered several key advantages:

1. Emergency Landing Field for American Bombers

American B-29 Superfortress bombers conducting raids against Japan flew long, dangerous missions from bases in the Marianas.

Damaged aircraft often had nowhere safe to land.

Once captured, Iwo Jima became an emergency landing field for crippled bombers returning from Japan, ultimately saving thousands of American aircrew lives.

2. Elimination of Japanese Early Warning Capability

Japanese radar installations on Iwo Jima provided advance warning of incoming American bombing raids.

Capturing the island removed that capability and complicated Japan’s air defense network.

3. Fighter Escort Base

The island became a base for American fighter aircraft, particularly P-51 Mustangs, allowing escort coverage for bomber missions against Japan.

This improved American air effectiveness in the closing months of the war.

4. Stepping Stone Toward Japan

Iwo Jima was part of the island-hopping campaign that moved American forces ever closer to the Japanese home islands.

Its capture signaled that the war had entered its final and most intense phase.

The Nature of the Battle

Iwo Jima was uniquely brutal.

The island’s volcanic ash made movement difficult, preventing Marines from digging effective foxholes and slowing equipment.

Japanese defenses were largely underground and often invisible until they opened fire.

Every yard had to be taken by direct assault.

Flamethrowers, grenades, demolitions, tanks, naval gunfire, and close combat defined the struggle.

The battle became a grim war of attrition.

Even after Mount Suribachi fell, northern portions of the island remained fiercely defended.

The Medal of Honor was awarded to 27 servicemen for actions at Iwo Jima—more than for any other single battle in Marine Corps history.

Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz famously observed:

“Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

Memorial Day Reflection

Iwo Jima was not merely a military victory. It was a human ordeal measured in sacrifice.

Thousands of young Americans—many barely out of high school—crossed an ocean, stormed black volcanic beaches under murderous fire, and fought yard by yard against an enemy determined not to surrender.

Many never came home.

This Memorial Day, we honor the Marines, sailors, corpsmen, soldiers, and airmen who gave their lives at Iwo Jima. Their courage helped bring a terrible war to its conclusion, but the cost was written in blood.

The freedoms Americans enjoy today were preserved, in part, by men who climbed into gunfire on a hostile island half a world away and never saw home again.

May their sacrifice never be forgotten.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Seabrook Memorial Day Celebration 2026

Posted on May 25, 2026 by billmanzi

Seabrook held its Memorial Day Celebration on Sunday May 24, 2026 in some light drizzle but the ceremony and Parade went flawlessly. A big thank you to Recreation Director Cassandra Carter, who was in charge of the event. Special thanks to Seabrook Legion Raymond Walton Post 70 for all of their help and hospitality. Thanks to the Seabrook DPW for all of their hard work preparing the ceremony site, and thank you to Seabrook Fire for having a big contingent marching, and to the Seabrook Police for all of their work making sure the parade route was secure. It was a privilege to have Gold Star mother Florence Souther on hand for the event. Florence lost her son Douglas Souther Jr. in the Vietnam conflict. Thanks to New Hampshire Legion Commander Wayne Perra for being the guest speaker. Thank you to the Board of Selectmen, who were all on hand to speak and to honor those who gave their lives in service to our country.

Posted in Seabrook | Tagged , | Leave a comment