In the New Yorker’s October 13, 2025* Talk of the Town, Benjamin Wallace-Wells wrote about Trump and his “military theatrics” in a wise column appropriately entitled, “War Games.”
In describing Trump’s ballyhooed commission to National Guard troops, Wallace-Wells writes:
In Washington, D.C., where troops were sent this summer as part of a supposed war on crime, they were seen picking up trash, painting fences, and finding lost children, while the arrests they initiated often led to trumped-up charges that grand juries rejected, in what the Times described as a “citizens’ revolt.”
Toward the end of his remarks, Wallace-Wells writes this:
For now, there is a heavy element of make-believe in the President’s domestic military ambitions, which, as was the case with the now greatly diminished DOGE project, allows him to pretend that he wants a major substantive change when what he really seems to want is more power.
I am so in agreement. We seem to be watching a conspiracy of delusional children who are playing games with toy soldiers.
*I’m a bit behind in my New Yorkers.