America

"They say everything will be fine and that there will be billions of euros of investment, new roads and trade with Iran, America, Europe, Turkey and Azerbaijan," Marut Vanyan says with an incredulous smile.

It was a pointed response to conservative outrage, including Fox News commentators questioning whether a Puerto Rican should headline “America’s game” and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly threatening ICE enforcement at the event.

America has proven time and again that its moral outrage is fleeting.

The administration’s piecemeal campaign to divide and conquer Latin America illustrates all these themes at once, including the likely outer limits of Trumpian power as it collides with 21st-century political reality.

That evening, I wrote an essay about what the crisis and shattering of norms would mean for America’s ailing democracy.