Reflections on a trip from France to Washington, DC.

I just returned to France after a trip to Washington.

It was a poignant moment. This period had the shocking threat by Trump to erase Iran’s civilization, a watershed moment of shame for the Presidency. At the same time, the White House grounds were under demolition. I walked by the destruction, at such a shocking scale, where dozens of construction workers, like so many ant drones, mindlessly busied themselves demolishing the sacred grounds of The White House. And at the same time, VP Vance was in Hungary hucking the re-election of a fucking authoritarian Putin puppet.

On returning to France, something clicked: the United States as of April 2026 is no longer a civilization. It has collapsed.

As I wound my way through Paris and on my way home to Dijon, whisked along by the superb train systems the French enjoy, I contemplated French society and its traditions. Somehow, despite internal divisions, France has remained a proud and functioning civilization. It will never allow the institutional collapse Americans have, I think. And Lafayette’s statue gazes upon our ruined White House in mute rebuke.

In 2026 America, no traditions are upheld by the people. There are no core values. We have become a land of fragments. Any pretense that our institutions can be preserved were destroyed by the re-election of Trump and its deplorable aftermath, which has ignited a massive bonfire of our institutions. Republican politicians and billionaires seem to dance around the burning flames of Democratic institutions with glee instead of horror.

The grotesque charade of the Iran War, with zero Republican opposition, the celebration of that authoritarian Golden Calf, Victor Orban by Vice President Vance, the demolition of The West Wing, and all the rest, it all becomes as clear as any Greek tragedy could possibly be.

We, the people, let it happen.