Image courtesy of the author
Walking past the pavilion proclaiming “Freedom 250.”
The blank metal of the decaled window frames, evokes nothing of the sort.
Faded wraps in red, white, and blue remind one of a gambling parlor in some bedraggled third-tier pedestrian mall.
Or of the sort of images that enthusiastic men glue to cars and motorbikes.
Strip mall patriotism.
Stories circulate of prayer meetings and a session devoted to Jesus and the Turin shroud.
The first full day was one of tension.
From event to event they deliver a series of belligerent statements.
My turn comes in the late afternoon.
A handsome, burly man barges into the confined green room. Hair slicked back. Chest out.
He is boasting on the run, about trillions in deals he has closed. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about government business and not his own.
Almost before I have figured that out, he has pivoted. Suddenly he is actually talking about “his boys.”
His sons, he warns us, are going to be worth more than he is. With the other panelists he starts an earnest discussion about “having the conversation” with your offspring about personal wealth.
The sons aren’t in the green room. They are on the promenade. Hustling.
Before we go on, he tells us: “I’m the hammer.”
We sit on a familiar podium.
I’ve been here before. I’ve been here in mixed company. But this is different.
It feels like a forcefield which I have somehow to turn into a zone of actual exchange. I have to orchestrate something real.
The first exchange is tough and ends in a dead end.
This is certainly “real.” But it is shocking.
The refusal of another to engage or debate normally is not just a conversational act. It feels as though my body is absorbing a heavy hit. I have run into a wall. As it is happening, I realize how radically unfamiliar it feels.
As a prime minister, speaking at that very moment, puts it: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”
How do we manage the rupture?
In that moment on that stage, I have somehow to balance.
There are four others. They are turned somewhat anxiously our way. They are also there. They are trying to keep straight faces.
Have I summoned too much “reality”?
Do they want to speak or don’t they?
Somewhat desultory exchanges. Thank god, the room rallies. They seem to relish the tension.
In the aftermath a forced handshake.
The man moves on.
Next morning rumors circulate, about a dinner, an egregious speech, heckling, walkouts.
It rings true. I felt that energy a few hours before.
That night, powerful men slept badly.
The next morning whispered exchanges:
“He embarrassed himself.”
“Four nightmares!” A shocked look of sympathy. “Four nightmares … “ Head shakes of disbelief.
We were warned.
If you don’t give him what he wants, the President reminds us on Wednesday afternoon, “he will remember.”
The speech another onslaught on the senses. Meandering, bizarre, aggressive, threatening, vaguely conciliatory, absurd, and yet compulsory.
The impression hardens in me, or being part of an abusive dynamic. A kind of co-dependent performance.
I remember the evening before, the stony-faced CEO warning me:
Be clear. Don’t be surprised. When he comes through the door … They will beat up on you. You will squeal. Then they will beat up on you again. You will hurt some more. They don’t mean to kill you. In the end, you will settle on a spectrum of terms that they dictate. This is how it works. Time you understood it.
It wasn’t said with an apology or any embarrassment. It was delivered impassively. He did not distance himself from what he was describing. This wasn’t mere repetition of propaganda formulae, as in Havel’s idea of “living in a lie.” This was more active. He was instructing me like an uncomprehending “sub.”
Not red, white, and blue but shade of grey.
That evening I’m asked by the enterprising organizers of a group dinner to speak to the other attendees as if from “the gut.”
It is quite unexpected. Over starters, I mull that over it.
When I think about my “gut,” I realize that I have been feeling sick.
Afterwards, several of the organizing team, who have been living with the stress of hosting for the last few weeks, come up to me to share their experiences.
Unprompted, they too start talking about “the sons” on the promenade.
They are struggling with themselves.
On Thursday morning, they erect another podium, for another show.
Hours of buildup.
More tawdry branding. “Governance by golf club,” a brilliantly witty colleague called it, in a hilarious moment in our conversation with Jon Stewart.
I think about it. I realize I am feeling sick again.
I don’t want to be there when the President and his cronies assemble.
I need fresh air. I go outside.
On the way back, the blue and red pavilion looks empty.
It feels as though the tension has ebbed away.
The thugs must have left.
This essay was first published in Chartbook, the author’s newsletter, on January 22, 2026. Reprinted with permission.
