Fire and ice

Flames devastate LA neighborhoods, ice stalls mid-America: What are we to do now?

How will the world as we know it end, and is the path already set? (Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash)

---

It has been frigid lately in the Great Northeast, but that’s what we expect in winter, and it’s nothing, really, compared to the extreme weather that has ripped through other parts of America: Frigid cold and record snowfalls shocked and paralyzed much of the Midwest this week, just as wind-whipped wildfires devastated whole communities in southern California. Life, we are reminded, can be very hard.

The two disasters aren’t quite comparable. Ice and snow can be destructive and dangerous, but they eventually melt, usually leaving people weary but able to regain their footing. What’s going on in California, though, is historic: As fires continue to ravage neighborhoods around Los Angeles, so far killing at least 11 people and destroying billions of dollars of property, the habits and hopes of hundreds of thousands of people will be forever changed.

Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice keeps rolling through my mind. Frost published the poem in 1920, as he was grappling with depression and as the world was emerging from the horror of World War I, but his work got renewed attention a quarter-century later, when the atomic age made real the threat of global destruction. The piece obviously isn’t meant to be read literally: Frost uses fire to symbolize desire and ice as a metaphor for hatred, in a simple nine-line poem that is clearly a work of eschatology — that is, writing about the end of the world, which could be caused by either:

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

On one of this week’s coldest evenings, we bundled up and went out to meet some smart friends at a casual restaurant nearby. For a while, our conversation kept to the personal — families, work, tasks at home — but then we found ourselves enmeshed in what seems to be the inevitable topic nowadays, as Donald Trump’s return to power looms nearer. Since Americans have come to mostly hang out with people who share their political views, and because most of our friends pay attention to the news, it’s unsurprising that the dark and cold of the season is often overlaid this winter by a layer of gloom. So it was on that evening.

We commiserated at the whipsaw of the news, since from one day to the next it has been hard to decide which part of Trump’s pre-inaugural behavior has been most troubling. Steve Bannon, his onetime White House counselor, isn’t working for Trump right now, but the president-elect seems to be practicing Bannon’s now-infamous advice from 2018, to “flood the zone with shit,” which Bannon explained would keep the opposition off-balance and divide its response to seeming lunacy.¹

So for a while a few weeks ago, we were most shocked by the introduction of outrageously unqualified appointees for high office: for Secretary of Defense, a weekend TV personality, failed at previous minor jobs and recklessly talking of using military power, whose mom accused him of being “an abuser of women”; to lead the FBI, a partisan loyalist who vows to prosecute journalists and federal civil servants who have criticized Trump, saying they are “the most powerful enemy that the United States has ever seen”; to lead the nation’s health and human services programs, a fringe-issues propagandist who has promoted disproven treatments for Covid-19 and has eagerly spread baseless claims about vaccines’ danger. We could go on and on; figure what issue you care most about, and there’s probably a terrible Trump nominee poised to take power.²

Then came the president-elect’s off-the-wall threats to allies, including Denmark, Canada and Panama. If Denmark won’t sell Greenland to America, if Panama won’t cede us the Panama Canal, if Canada won’t agree to give up its nationhood and become the 51^st state — getting rid of a border that Trump called “an artificially drawn line” — well then, he says, America will use economic power to punish them, or maybe even military force. Denmark is a NATO ally whose prime minister calls the United States “our absolute closest ally,” and Canada, a proud country of 41 million people whose border with the U.S. was established in the 1700s, is the world’s second-largest nation by land area. Panama is our bridge to the southern hemisphere. Alienating these three nations is flat-out bonkers.³

All of that is enough to make you almost forget Trump’s vow to round up the millions of people living in America without legal status and fence them into deportation camps somewhere or other; or his pledge to prosecute the Justice Department lawyers who presented evidence to the grand juries that indicted him; or his threat to pull the broadcast licenses of TV networks that have aired coverage he doesn’t like; or his help-the-rich tax proposals, which would add $4 trillion to the nation’s debt.⁴

I’m sorry if this recitation of a few of the most horrifying headlines of the post-election season is unsettling. My progressive friends find this sort of talk distressing, and tell me it keeps them awake at night; a conservative pal scolded me recently for what he called the habitual “Trump-bashing” in this column. But these are the facts of the days of our lives, and I’m convinced that it’s best to face them squarely rather than pretend that our nation will be led by a principled altruist, or even just an effective executive. Trump is neither. For once, I’m aligned with Dick Cheney, who has said that in America’s 248-year history, “there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.” Welcome, then, to the reality of the 47th presidency. I’m sorry if sharing reality’s torment upsets you.⁵

The moment that a chill went up my spine during our dinnertime conversation this week had nothing to do with the wind howling outside the cozy restaurant. It came as we were noting how different these days are from those as Trump was about to take office eight years ago, when the spirits of his disappointed opponents remained high and their defiance of his intent was palpable. Now the opposition seems quieter — in some quarters, almost invisible. It’s as though the people who recognize Trump’s turpitude have lost heart.

“I think people have been silenced by fatalism,” my friend said, as we waited for dinner to be served. His wife nodded, and added, “It’s as though everything is frozen.” A cold breeze swept in as a new group came into the restaurant. “We’re fucked,” my friend said sadly. We were suddenly quiet, desperately hoping that it wasn’t true.

But many of us seem to have concluded that the gutsy resistance of early 2017 was inconsequential, or that outrage matters little once power has shifted hands. The poet Wallace Stevens wrote of “the fatality of seeing things too well,” and indeed there’s a sense that we know where we’re headed, and keeping eyes wide open to Trumpism could be too painful to bear.

It wasn't so long ago — was it? — that progressives were celebrating what was said to be a return of joy to American politics. That was when pollsters were reporting that Trump seemed poised to lose the 2024 election. For many of us, that notion of joy in America wasn’t just about one party or another winning; it was about the prospect that the poisonous perspective of Trumpism — its belligerence, mendacity and selfishness — might be finally nearing its demise. But the joy of summer became the dread of fall and, now, the icy silence of winter.

It is easy to understand the fatigue that comes from wading into the Bannon-ish flood zone of Trump’s antics, and it’s no wonder that viewership of news programs is down and people are turning away from anything having to do with politics. Anxiety may be a national epidemic: Pollsters reported last year that 90 percent of Americans believe we are in a mental health crisis.

But fatalism saps our energy, and the restoration of Trump to power demands that patriotic Americans muster their strength to once again call out his lies and put forward thoughtful alternatives to his most outrageous notions. Gen. George C. Marshall, who was Army Chief of Staff during World War II before serving as both Secretary of Defense and then Secretary of State, wrote in 1948, “It is morale that wins the victory. It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue.”⁶

So we cannot succumb to a sense that there’s no point to opposing the worst of Trump’s impulses. We need to bring our fire, not succumb to the ice.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the world’s stability may depend upon summoning that energy. Ian Bremmer, the brilliant founder of the political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group, warned this week, “The risk of a generational world crisis, even a new global war, is higher than at any point in our lifetimes.”

Bremmer notes that there’s a global leadership deficit that isn’t being met by international organizations like the UN Security Council and the World Bank, in part because they’re weakened by widespread disillusionment with the status quo. The U.S. is the only nation with the capacity to step into the breach, Bremmer notes, but because Trump “has both fed and profited from this anti-globalist, anti-establishment surge,” he’s more likely to “accelerate America’s retreat from global leadership” and instead behave more like such leaders as Vladimir Putin: with impunity for the consequences outside his own nation’s borders.⁷

That doesn’t mean that World War III is imminent, Bremmer adds, but it does suggest that we are facing the sort of global instability that can yield economic catastrophe and security failures in societies throughout the world.

We see that in the threat that Ukraine could be forced to submit to Russia’s aggression if Trump carries through on withdrawing American support from its fight for survival, and in the economic upheaval that would result from a trade war provoked by Trump’s tariff plans. We see it in Trump’s avowed determination to pare back America’s commitment to fighting climate change, the existential threat of our time. Closer to home, Trump’s attacks on the free press, the independent judiciary and higher education set the stage for domestic turmoil and even a constitutional crisis.

These aren’t the specific matters that were on Robert Frost’s mind a century ago, of course, when he drew upon the metaphor of fire and ice, but they are the commensurate challenges of this time. Desire, with its companions jealousy and greed, can burn hot; hatred, often a function of nationalism and religious intolerance, can isolate and freeze.

It’s tempting to think that our current unrest is simply the outgrowth of one leader’s mental instability and his partisans’ failure to summon the courage to stand up for what has historically been beloved about America. But Trumpism seems likely to outlast its progenitor if we don’t manage to push back against its excesses now.

People of good will need to summon the energy to demand better — yes, yet again — in the face of the threats that this uniquely dangerous leader presents. The icy chill of fatalism can’t be where we fall; the fire of our shared persistence is needed to carry the day.

1. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/16/media/steve-bannon-reliable-sources/index.html

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/us/politics/partisan-fight-trump-cabinet.html

3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzn48jwz2o

4. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/04/trump-tax-cuts-congress-chaos-00195363

5. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/politics/dick-cheney-kamala-harris-president/index.html

6. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1953/ceremony-speech/#:~:text=It%20is%20morale%20that%20wins,the%20soldier's%20soul%2C%20are%20everything.

7. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/gzero/WhctKLbVZWRRFzGRDllSPdxtGZRFWMgMwzBTBwwHCPdcHBCzmsSvBgBttGnDQlnBjPjXDCv

---

NEWSCLIPS FROM THE UPSTATES

Dispatches from our common ground *

Wherein each week we look around what we call the nation’s Upstates — those places just a bit removed from the center of things — to find illuminating news and intriguing viewpoints, which you might not otherwise see.

This week, we share reporting published here:

• Burlington, Vt. (Burlington Free Press, burlingtonfreepress.com)

• Asheville, N.C. (Citizen Times, citizen-times.com)

• Wichita Falls, Tex. (Wichita Falls Times Record News, timesrecordnews.com)

• Bloomington, Ind. (The Herald-Times, heraldtimesonline.com)

NOTE: The complete “Newsclips from the Upstates” section, and The Upstate American Midweek Extra Edition, which is sent to email boxes most Wednesdays, are available only to paid subscribers. Thanks for your support!

VERMONT

Meatpacker acts on behalf of distressed pigs

On a hot day last June, a truckload of pigs was transported eight hours from New York to a packinghouse in North Springfield, Vt. Once there, reports Dan D’Ambrosio in the Burlington Free Press, the pigs refused to jump the foot or so to the ground from the trailer — apparently because they were lethargic from heatstroke. The frustrated driver then kicked and shoved some pigs off the back of the truck, leading some to fall over and roll onto their backs. That action by the driver violated animal welfare laws, a USDA inspector says, and it has led to a call by PETA for prosecution of the driver. The packinghouse, meanwhile, has promised to change its procedures; notably, it had no ramp in place for the pigs to use so they could move “with minimal excitement,” as the law requires.

NORTH CAROLINA

Early tips for driving on snow

The hills of western North Carolina have historically gotten about a foot of snow a year, including about three inches in January. Yet it’s rare enough these days that as an odd storm bore down — eight inches expected in Asheville this weekend alone — reporter Iris Seaton in the Asheville Citizen Times thoughtfully offered drivers tips on driving on snow. “It’s safe to say that most Southerners don’t own tire chains or snow tires,” she wrote. She included several tips, including looking far ahead, not driving too fast and avoiding driving downhill. And this: “If at all possible, drivers should avoid the roads completely during the upcoming winter storm.” Sounds like good advice all around.

TEXAS

Taxpayers paid to build a hotel, and to tear it down

City funds are paying for demolition of a “once-grand” multi-story hotel along the Wichita River, reports Lynn Walker in the Times Record News, but longtime taxpayers may have some concern about what’s coming next, given the building’s history. The hotel was once a Sheraton, built in 1985 on a 13-acre site in a flood plain, thanks to $10 million in industrial revenue bonds from the city and Wichita County. But the hotel flooded when the river left its banks — um, that’s what happens in a flood plain, folks — and after several changes of ownership, it was left abandoned. Now, thanks to more than $1.1 million from taxpayer, the city has acquired the land and is paying for the demolition. While the area will be used as parkland now, city officials consider the land “developable,” they told the newspaper.

INDIANA

Threat to defund I.U. over Kinsey Institute

In 2023, Indiana’s Republican-controlled state legislature enacted a law barring any state tax dollars from going to the Kinsey Institute, a pioneering sex and gender research lab that since 1947 has been located at Indiana University. Now, reports Brian Rosenzweig in The Herald-Times, State Comptroller Elise Nieshalla and several Republican lawmakers are threatening to defund the state’s largest university entirely because they’re not convinced that the institute isn’t still getting some sort of taxpayer subsidy. Critics also have repeated untrue claims that the institute experiments on children.

---

MORE FROM THE UPSTATE AMERICAN

IF YOU’D LIKE TO HEAR MORE from Rex Smith, check www.wamc.org for his weekly on-air commentary aired by Northeast Public Radio. Here’s a link to the latest essay.

AND IF YOUR INTEREST IS SPECIFIC TO AMERICAN MEDIA, you can download the podcast of The Media Project, the 30-minute nationally-syndicated discussion that Rex leads each week on current issues in journalism. In the seven states where Northeast Public Radio is heard, the program airs at 3 p.m. each Friday and is rebroadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday. You can tune in live, too, at www.wamc.org, or get the podcast there. It has been called “a half-hour of talk about finding and telling the truth.”

---

DO YOU WANT TO LEARN TO WRITE OP-EDS?

If you’d like some training in writing opinion essays — for newspapers, audio or digital platforms — check out the live 90-minute class Rex co-teaches that is offered by Marion Roach Smith’s global platform for writing instruction, The Memoir Project. Click below for information on our upcoming schedule of classes.

Our next class is Wednesday, Jan. 15, at 6:30 p.m.

Lots of our students have been well published — and you can be, too!

---

THANK YOU for reading The Upstate American, and for joining us in the conversation about our common ground, this great country. I hope you’ll join us again next week — or send a message with ideas you’d like to see us address.

-REX SMITH