It is a poor spectacle, indeed, when the grand theatre of American democracy takes on the tawdry air of a third-rate melodrama, and the players, in their zeal to “govern,” cease altogether to be gentlemen and begin to act the part of common ruffians. Such is the current production featuring the esteemed Speaker of the House, one Mr. Mike Johnson, and a certain duly elected—though conspicuously unseated—lady from the desert lands of Arizona, the Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva
Adelita Grijalva
Decades after his most potent works were written, the words of Gil Scott-Heron feel less like historical artifacts and more like dispatches from a future he had already foreseen. The “Winter in America” he sang about in 1974—a season of political disillusionment, racial tension, and national malaise—has returned with a vengeance, manifesting in the polarized and profoundly disquieting landscape of the present day. To read his poetry and listen to his music in 2025 is to confront a sobering reality: the struggles he chronicled have not been overcome, but rather have morphed and intensified, finding a chilling new echo in the political climate of the second Trump presidency. 