On Spectacles of Cruelty
On the last Angry Planet of 2025, novelist and Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay returns to reflect on a year of spectacle and cruelty.
Between the Pentagon’s boat strikes and the administration’s constant barrage of grotesque memes, it feels like America is a crueler and cruder place. For better and worse, the Presidency sets a moral standard for the country and Trump has lowered that standard. Klay wrote about all this in a piece at The New York Times and he’s here with us today to talk through it.
“It’s too easy to condemn.”
The project is spectacles of cruelty
“You’re not supposed to be…
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