When I was a young wire service police reporter in the early 1960s in corrupt Chicago, one of my favorite books was Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West. The novel was published in 1933, and West died young in a car crash with his wife in 1940. It’s about a young guy who writes an advice column for a New York newspaper and answers letters in his column from readers living through the desperation of the early days of the Great Depression. Every night he pours out his heart after work to a bartender. One evening the issue is a letter he received from a sixteen-year-old girl:
I don’t know what to do and would appreciate it if you could tell me what to do. When I was a little girl it was not so bad because I got used to the kids on the block makeing fun of me, but now I would like to have boy friends like the other girls and go out on Saturday nites, but no boy will take me because I was born without a nose—although I am a good dancer and have a nice shape and my father buys me pretty clothes.
I sit and look at myself all day and cry. I have a big hole in the middle of my face that scares people even myself so I cant blame the boys for not wanting to take me out. My mother loves me, but she crys terrible when she looks at me.
I’m no longer a police reporter, but I’ve spent decades reporting on corrupt and idiotic wars and presidents—Democratic and Republican—who’ve thrown away billions of dollars on wars that could not be won, did not need to be fought, and cost millions of lives. Sometimes the job makes me feel a bit like Miss Lonelyhearts.
And today we have a malicious childlike president who is bankrupting the United States with the war he started in Iran and who ignores one possible off-ramp after another. I was chilled this summer during a visit to Europe when an old friend who understands the world of oil and finance and is not given to dramatics told me that unless there are immediate changes, America will soon enter a recession that will equal or surpass the Great Depression. Trump is playing with the future as he borrows and borrows and leaves an unmanageable debt for future presidents.
