If you missed the previous newsletter, you can read it here. The bling and brutality of American ‘diplomacy’
How do we want the world to see us? Which of our nation’s traits do we highlight — as a show of our strengths, as an assertion of our values, as an act of self-definition? In the past we answered that question by helping to rebuild Europe after World War II, by tackling the scourge of AIDS in Africa, by sharing our trailblazing scientific advances and by tapping our extraordinary wealth. President Trump is answering it with brutes in cages beating each other to pulps. I don’t mean the desecration of the White House on his 80th birthday last month, when he and members of his cabinet cheered the chokeholds, body slams and bloodshed of Ultimate Fighting Championship matches on the South Lawn. Or at least I don’t mean only that. Less widely noted than that national disgrace was an agreement between the U.F.C. and the Trump administration to promote such pummeling abroad. You read that right: The American government is giving its imprimatur — perhaps I should say lending its muscle — to the international expansion of human cockfighting. An earlier generation had the Marshall Plan. Ours has mixed martial arts. The administration is calling the arrangement “sports diplomacy,” and there are images of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dana White, U.F.C.’s chief executive officer, holding up a memorandum of understanding at the State Department on June 11. They’re smiling, as if they accomplished something important. As if there were a global barbarism deficit and the United States is nobly stepping up to fill the void. As if an important emblem of human civilization and expression of human culture will finally get the recognition it deserves. As if the torch of liberty can now shine brighter than ever, because it will be carried by warriors of such vision and valor that one of them, upon winning his South Lawn brawl, used his moment at the mic to crow a cuckoo credo: “Michelle Obama is a man!” That’s what a White House obsessed with trade imbalances is electing to export. “It’s something we want to share with the world,” Rubio said during his photo opportunity with White, referring to mixed martial arts. He called it “one of those few things we have left in our country, and I would say in the world, that brings so many people from so many different places, so many different backgrounds and so many different points of view together.” That rationale was a crucial reassurance; otherwise, a skeptic might wonder if Trump was simply setting up U.F.C.’s parent company, in which he’s invested, for ever greater profits. But thanks to Rubio, I now understand that there’s no self-enrichment here. No conflict of interest. Just cage fighting as Kumbaya. The arrangement with the U.F.C. isn’t novel. Our government has engaged in sports diplomacy before. It has collaborated, for example, with the National Football League to advertise professional football, which itself is plenty violent and hardly the ideal expression and embodiment of American virtues. Maybe I’m kidding myself to see a difference between a quarterback being sacked and a wrestler being punched in the ribs, kicked in the head and subjected to a “guillotine choke.” But I do. And I cringe at our government’s advancement of such savagery while we’re retreating from the kinds of engagements that lessen hardship and relieve misery. Near the start of his current term in the presidency, Trump quickly and gleefully dissolved the U.S. Agency for International Development. Whatever that organization’s inefficiencies and excesses, it did vital, lifesaving work that proclaimed concern for the welfare of needy people beyond our borders. The president didn’t replace the agency’s programs with better ones, either. He essentially said that America was exhausted with such altruism — tired of being saps and chumps — and he rechanneled our treasure toward new munitions and new monuments, baubles and bling. Trump’s visions of American might are either gaudy or, in the case of U.F.C. matches, grotesque. Cage fighting fits perfectly into his rejection of anything that codes as elitist. Out with the Kennedy Center, in with the Octagon. So much for symphonies, bring on the gladiators. Who needs discernment when you can flex domination? That’s Trump’s message to the world. That’s his thinking, the limits of which have been exposed by his ongoing capitulation to a smaller, poorer, less brawny country with control over the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps he should have forgone the war with Iran and simply staged a cage fight in Tehran. Such sports diplomacy would have been a whole lot less expensive. And while it would have been an embarrassing illustration of American passions and priorities under this president, it would also have been an honest one. Forward this newsletter to friends … … and they can sign up for themselves here. It’s published every Monday. For the Love of Sentences
In The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Cathal Kelly attempted to console the president of South Korea, who took to social media to express his utter bafflement over his country’s elimination from soccer’s World Cup: “I don’t know what to tell you, man. There’s a ball and both teams are allowed to kick it. Occasionally, it ends up in places you hoped it wouldn’t.” (Thanks to Jeremy Wilson of Victoria, British Columbia, for nominating this.) In The Guardian, Aaron Timms hailed Ecuador’s distinctive presence in the tournament: “On the sidelines and in the press conferences, they have absolutely dominated, and that’s all down to the gaucho Fabio they have leading their team. With his streaks of dirty blond hair, chinstrap of stubble and Boeing 747 nose, Sebastián Beccacece looks like the kind of manager who should do well at the World Cup, regardless of results on the pitch.” (Rob Hisnay, Cleveland Heights, Ohio) In The New Yorker, Patricia Marx processed the fitful hostilities between the United States and Iran, the cease-fire that wasn’t and other dramas in a discombobulating month: “If June were a book, it would be titled ‘War and Peace and War and Peace and Whatever.’ There’d also be chapters about the N.B.A. Finals and the World Cup because sports are just war with a referee.” (Conrad Macina, Landing, N.J.) In a policy analysis on the Brookings Institution’s website, Fiona Hill contrasted two world leaders: “Putin believes that things will go wrong in military and other operations — based on his own experience in the security services — but he also believes he will always find a way to fix them. Trump believes nothing will go wrong, and if it does, someone else is to blame.” (Marion Kelly, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) In The Atlantic, Charlie Warzel reacted to a photo of cleanup efforts at the cursed Reflecting Pool: “Four men in camo waders are in the pool. Water, the color of fresh Mountain Dew, laps at their thighs as they dredge the bottom with poles like cranberry farmers on a faraway radioactive planet.” (Beth Dillon, Vashon Island, Wash., and Dave Piazza, North Las Vegas, Nev., among others) Also in The Atlantic, Alexandra Petri sought a final word on those iconically foul waters, which may bear some blame for a fowl fatality: “The Reflecting Pool is a metaphor so perfect, it feels almost valedictory, as though symbolism as a whole gave up and decided to sign off. On its way out, it killed a duck.” (Paula Craft, Bigfork, Mont., and Stuart Antell, Manhattan) In The Times, Gary Shteyngart visited an American landmark: “Monticello is the key to America and America will break your heart. With every brick, every vegetable plot, every budding tulip, Thomas Jefferson’s estate announces the uniqueness of our civilization, just as it submerges the visitor in the gruesome details of its original sin.” (Shelley A. Saltzman, Yorktown Heights, N.Y.) Also in The Times, Jamelle Bouie examined the country’s founding document: “As we mark, this year, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is important to see that its meaning is dynamic. And that meaning, as we understand it, flows less from the men who signed it than from those who heard its words and took ownership of them as a standard for their freedom and independence — not from Britain, but from bondage.” (Nancy Montgomery Boise, Idaho) To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence. What I’m Reading
On a Personal Note
In a thought-stirring guest essay in Times Opinion last week, Catherine Ruth Pakaluk explored some of the benefits of growing up with many siblings. She emphasized a kind of moral education, along with lessons in community building, that can take place in a large household. That argument resonated with me. I’m one of four siblings separated by fewer than nine years, and that arrangement indeed translated into childhood challenges and coping skills that might not have been the same in a much smaller brood. But when I mull the gift of having Mark, Harry and Adelle in my life — which I wrote about in this 2013 column — my thoughts turn first to other blessings. I don’t have any friends, neighbors or colleagues with whom I can speak in the kind of intricate, extensive and instantly understood shorthand that my brothers, my sister and I share. There are no fewer than a thousand phrases and names that any one of us can utter at the right moment, in the right tone of voice, and get the other three to laugh, because those words have stories behind them and we four are fluent in those tales. They’re more than a common history. They’re a secret dialect. I treasure that. And I’m grateful to my siblings for relieving some of the pressure on me, just as I relieved some of the pressure on them. Our parents, like many others, put demands on us and had dreams for us, but we could divvy up responsibility for meeting those expectations and realizing those wishes. We didn’t do that consciously, strategically; there was no huddle to discuss it, no spreadsheet of assignments. But at some level, each of us fretted less about any shortfall or inadequacy because we had surrogates and proxies to fill in that blank. I didn’t have to be everything that Mom or Dad envisioned. Just 25 percent of it. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Send me a note at bruni-newsletter@nytimes.com.
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