By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

We have era designations such as BC and AD. I have been thinking about another one I look forward to using: AT, After Trump.

It will never be an official designation on a calendar, but for so many of us, it will describe a turning point we have been longing to reach. A time when we can begin looking ahead with hope again.

So many Americans have experienced this era as a succession of losses. Loss of hope, loss of pride in our country, loss of financial security, and fear over whether our healthcare and our rights will survive the next political decision. There is an exhaustion that comes from constantly wondering what will happen next and who will be hurt by it. Over time, that exhaustion can make a person forget that a different future is possible.

But I believe we will get beyond this. Leadership that serves all of us can return, hope can return, and some measure of unity can return. We have lived with so much division that it can be difficult to imagine a country where disagreement does not consume every conversation. I can still imagine it, and I believe we have the ability to build it.

Hungary offers a reason to hold onto that belief. In April, voters ended Viktor Orban’s 16 years in power and chose Peter Magyar and his Tisza party. Orban’s government had weakened judicial independence and restricted media freedoms, drawing sustained criticism over its authoritarian direction. Yet voters were able to bring his long tenure to an end.

Our countries have different histories and different political systems, but I see something deeply hopeful in that result. A leader who appears impossible to dislodge can lose the public’s support. People who have grown tired of being told to accept the way things are can choose another direction. Hungary’s election reminds us that an entrenched political era can end.

The work afterward is already beginning. Hungary’s new government has established an anti-corruption body, which announced its first investigations in September, and has stated its intention to rebuild trust with its European and NATO partners. An election can open the door to renewal, but the repair requires work long after the celebrations are over.

We will have our own work to do. There will be rugs to lift and dark corners to examine, places where wrongdoing was hidden and accountability was avoided. There will be relationships to rebuild, public institutions to strengthen, and economic insecurity to confront. Some of that work will take years, but the length of the task should give us a reason to begin, not a reason to surrender.

And we should think carefully about what we are rebuilding. Simply putting everything back as it was will leave too many people facing the same frustrations and unmet needs that existed before this era. We have an opportunity to build something that works for life as people are actually living it today. A country where working hard offers a reasonable chance at stability, where getting sick does not unravel a family’s future, and where everyone’s rights are protected.

That will require the old guard to make room for a new generation of leaders. Leaders with fresh perspectives, practical ideas, and a willingness to listen to the average citizen. Leaders who understand what rent, groceries, childcare, and healthcare mean to a household trying to make it through the month. People should be able to recognize their own lives in the priorities of those elected to serve them.

Zohran Mamdani offers one example of the possibilities that fresh leadership can bring. In September, he and Governor Kathy Hochul launched New York City’s free 2-K childcare program, with its first phase serving more than 2,000 two-year-olds. That is a concrete step toward easing a burden families carry every day. For me, it demonstrates how hope becomes more meaningful when people can see a change in their own lives.

No leader will fulfill every promise or solve every problem. We should expect honest explanations, measurable progress, and a willingness to change course when something does not work. The next generation deserves our attention and our encouragement, along with the accountability that keeps public service connected to the public.

I want leaders who have witnessed the pitfalls of figures such as Orban and Trump and understand the responsibility of taking us forward. I want them to recognize that people are weary of government conducted as a constant battle for personal power. There is so much talent, imagination, and compassion in this country. We deserve leadership that helps those qualities flourish.

Kings, dictators, autocrats, and anyone who believes a nation exists to serve their personal ambitions represent a model of power humanity should be leaving behind. If we are to survive and thrive on this planet, we need leadership rooted in human rights, cooperation, and respect for the people whose lives are affected by its decisions. The future should offer greater freedom and opportunity to ordinary people. It should give our children more room to live, love, and become who they are.

I believe unity can grow from that kind of leadership. We will still have disagreements, and some wounds will take a long time to heal. But we can share a commitment to fair elections, equal rights, honest government, and the dignity of our neighbors. We can learn to see one another as people with lives, worries, and hopes worth understanding.

Our part in this future begins now

We can vote, support thoughtful candidates, stay engaged in our communities, and insist that those who represent us do their jobs. We can also offer encouragement to people who have become too tired to believe their participation matters. Hope grows stronger when we give it something to do.

I do believe we will one day look at the Trump MAGA era in the rearview mirror. I believe we can regain pride in our country by making it more worthy of the people who call it home. And I believe we can make America great again in the purest sense of those words: through compassion, fairness, opportunity, and leadership truly devoted to we the people.

AT, After Trump, is how I imagine the beginning of that next chapter. There will be difficult days, but there will also be the relief of knowing we are working toward something better. We have every reason to keep moving toward that future. I still believe in us.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

The rally did not settle the fight over the Kennedy Center, but it raised the political cost of destroying it

On Friday evening, September 18, thousands of people converged on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as the sun set over the Potomac. They came carrying signs, wearing red “Hands Off the Arts” pins, beating drums, singing, and joining hands in defense of a national cultural institution that has been closed, fenced off, politicized, and threatened with demolition.

What had been planned as a joyful public gathering became something more urgent. Earlier in the week, the Trump-controlled Kennedy Center board voted to close the main building for repairs, fencing appeared around the property, and President Donald Trump again suggested the building could be torn down if his administration did not receive the recognition he believes it deserves. By Friday night, this was no longer simply a celebration of the arts. It had become a visible act of resistance against one man’s attempt to make a national memorial answer to his name, his image, and his demands.

A Crowd Far Larger Than Expected

There is no verified police or official attendance count, and the estimates offered by organizers have varied. The most responsible conclusion is the one supported by several major news organizations: thousands of people attended. The Associated Press, The Washington Post, and The Guardian all described the crowd that way.

That turnout far exceeded the original projection of 400 to 800 participants. More than 950 people had signed up by Friday morning, according to Forbes, and the crowd ultimately grew into the thousands. People streamed from the Foggy Bottom Metro station, filled nearby streets, interrupted traffic, and continued arriving as the program unfolded.

The turnout mattered because it shattered the idea that concern over the Kennedy Center is limited to a small circle of Washington artists or political insiders. Families, union members, former employees, performers, longtime patrons, elected officials, LGBTQ+ advocates, and ordinary citizens stood together. For one evening, a building that had been made to feel like a sealed monument became a living public space again.

What Happened That Evening

The rally opened with speeches from artists, activists, former workers, and political leaders. D.C. Council Member Robert C. White Jr. was among those who addressed the crowd, along with people whose careers and communities had been shaped by the Center. Their stories reminded those gathered that its value cannot be measured only in ticket sales, donor lists, or the ambitions of those temporarily in power. It lives in the memories, education, and creative lives of the people it has served.

Actress and singer Lynda Carter made a surprise appearance and spoke about the role of the arts in human survival, learning, and connection. D.C. drag performer Tara Hoot, one of the event’s organizers, led the crowd in chants demanding that the tarp covering the building’s facade be removed. The crowd answered with “Take it down!” and repeatedly chanted “Hands off!” as speakers described what had been lost under the current leadership.

Music was not merely entertainment that evening. It was part of the protest itself. The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington performed “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime, a particularly meaningful return after the Chorus’s WorldPride performance at the Kennedy Center was canceled following Trump’s takeover. The Rapid Response Choir also participated, with a planned program that included “Solidarity Forever” and “America the Beautiful.”

There were also quieter acts of protest. Former employees and longtime volunteers spoke about the jobs, programs, and relationships lost as the Kennedy Center was reshaped under its current leadership. Local arts supporter Bud Wilkinson created a chalkboard covered with Trump’s name, then invited people to erase those names and replace them with hearts. Around them were hand-painted signs, costumes, balloons, drummers, and people who had traveled from outside Washington simply to stand in defense of a place that had shaped their lives.

The human chain did form, but not exactly as originally envisioned. Additional fencing and restricted areas prevented participants from completing an unbroken circle around the main building. Instead, they linked arms around as much of the accessible perimeter as possible, producing a substantial human chain even though the barriers prevented a complete encirclement.

What Was Actually Accomplished?

The honest answer is that the rally did not save the Kennedy Center in a single evening. It did not reopen the building, reverse the board’s closure vote, remove Trump as chairman, restore displaced employees, or secure a binding promise that the structure will not be demolished. As of September 19, Trump had not withdrawn his threat and had again declined to rule out tearing the building down, according to Reuters.

It is also important not to credit the demonstration with a legal protection that came before it. On Thursday, one day before the rally, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days’ notice before making any major physical changes, including demolition. That order arose from litigation led by Representative Joyce Beatty. It provides time for legal intervention, but it is not a permanent prohibition against demolition, and it was not an outcome of Friday night’s gathering. The Associated Press reported that the judge issued the requirement to remove any uncertainty over what the Center could do without warning.

What the event accomplished was political, cultural, and organizational. It transformed an issue that could have been dismissed as another Washington dispute into a national story. It brought together artists, workers, patrons, unions, public officials, Kennedy family allies, and citizens in a shared defense of public culture. It gave former employees a platform, returned music to the grounds of a silenced arts institution, and demonstrated that the Kennedy Center still belongs in the public imagination.

Most importantly, it raised the political cost of demolition. Any attempt to destroy or permanently disfigure the Kennedy Center must now contend with a visible record of opposition and a mobilized public prepared to return. Thousands of people showed up with little time, crowded the grounds despite fences, and made clear that they are prepared to defend the building, its workers, its artists, and the democratic ideals it was created to embody.

The Work Begins After the Applause

That does not mean the gathering should be romanticized into a victory it was not. Public demonstrations matter only when their energy is carried into sustained pressure, continued litigation, congressional oversight, financial accountability, voter engagement, and repeated public action. A photograph of joined hands can inspire people, but it cannot by itself restrain a government determined to ignore them.

Hands Around the Kennedy Center succeeded because it made silence impossible. It did not end the fight, but it showed that the fight has a constituency, a voice, and a growing public presence. In an era when authoritarian power depends on exhaustion, confusion, and the belief that resistance is futile, that achievement should not be minimized. It should be understood for what it is: not the conclusion, but the beginning of a much larger effort to protect the institutions that belong to all of us.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

Canada’s Strategic Pivot Away From the United States

The deterioration of America’s relationship with Canada may prove to be one of the most consequential and enduring results of Trump’s trade policies. Canada is no longer merely retaliating against individual tariffs. It is building a long-term economic and strategic future designed to make the United States less essential to Canadian prosperity.

This week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed making Canada the European Union’s first “associate member.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has called for a “unique alliance” with Europe and pledged to double Canada’s trade with countries outside the United States during the next decade. Canada is not seeking full EU membership, and the meaning of associate membership has not yet been legally defined. Even so, the direction is unmistakable. Canada and Europe are working toward deeper integration in trade, manufacturing, technology, energy, critical minerals, cybersecurity, defense procurement, artificial intelligence, and Arctic development.

It would be inaccurate to say that Canada can immediately replace all trade with the United States. Approximately 70 percent of Canadian exports still go south of the border, and the two economies have spent decades building deeply interconnected supply chains. Geography, transportation infrastructure, existing contracts, and shared production networks make complete separation unrealistic in the short term.

That does not make the shift insignificant. Canada does not need to replace all American trade to impose enormous costs on the United States. It only needs to redirect enough future purchasing, investment, production, and government procurement to change which countries benefit from Canadian economic growth.

The Immediate Cost to American Businesses

The United States and Canada exchanged approximately $872.3 billion in goods and services during 2025. American companies exported $333.6 billion in goods and another $92.3 billion in services to Canadian customers. Leading American exports included vehicles, machinery, energy products, and more than $30 billion in agricultural goods.

Those numbers show how much American businesses have at risk. Even a five percent reduction in Canadian purchases of American goods and services would represent tens of billions of dollars in potentially lost economic activity. The effects would not be confined to corporate balance sheets. They would reach factory workers, farmers, truck drivers, warehouse employees, technology companies, financial-service providers, border communities, and small businesses whose livelihoods depend upon Canadian customers.

Some of that damage is already visible. American businesses have reported declining Canadian sales, canceled orders, and customer resentment created by the trade dispute. Canadian companies facing American tariffs are also reconsidering whether the United States remains a dependable market.

Tariffs do not remain at the border. American manufacturers that rely upon Canadian steel, aluminum, lumber, energy, vehicle components, fertilizer, or agricultural products must absorb the added costs or pass them to consumers. A trade policy advertised as punishment for Canada therefore becomes higher operating costs for American businesses and higher prices for American families.

Retaliatory Canadian tariffs compound the damage. American farmers and manufacturers lose price advantages in one of their largest and most accessible markets. Canadian buyers then have a financial incentive to find European or domestic suppliers. Once those alternatives are established, American companies cannot assume the business will automatically return after the tariffs disappear.

Canada Is Building the Infrastructure to Leave

Canada’s shift toward Europe is not merely rhetorical. The European Union is already Canada’s second-largest trading partner. Canada-EU trade in goods and services reached approximately $178.6 billion in 2025, while European investment supported an estimated 447,000 Canadian jobs. Canadian companies operating in EU member states supported another 275,000 jobs.

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union already eliminates duties on 99 percent of tariff lines, with 98 percent eliminated when the agreement provisionally took effect. Canada and the EU are now working to modernize that agreement and negotiate new rules covering digital trade, data, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies.

Canada has also become the first non-European country to participate in the EU’s €150 billion SAFE defense initiative. That gives Canadian defense companies access to European joint procurement opportunities and creates incentives for Canada to align more closely with European suppliers, standards, manufacturers, and security priorities. Every Canadian defense contract redirected toward Europe is a contract that may no longer go to an American company.

The proposed alliance would extend into advanced manufacturing, batteries, energy, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and Arctic security. These are not minor consumer products that can be redirected overnight. They are strategic industries built around multiyear contracts, specialized infrastructure, regulatory standards, research partnerships, and enormous capital investments.

When a Canadian company opens a European office, signs a long-term supply agreement, reorganizes its shipping network, or constructs a factory designed around European standards, that decision creates its own momentum. Jobs are hired, money is invested, relationships are established, and new political constituencies form around the arrangement. Returning that business to the United States becomes more difficult with every passing year.

The Long-Term Cost to the United States

In the short term, Canada’s pivot will mean reduced American exports, lost orders, higher costs, supply-chain disruptions, and increased uncertainty. In the longer term, the United States risks losing market share, investment, technological partnerships, defense contracts, energy cooperation, and influence over the standards governing future industries.

Canadian exports to the United States had already fallen from approximately 78 percent to 68 percent of Canada’s total exports between May 2024 and May 2025. During one measured period, Canadian exports to the United States fell by C$7.7 billion, while exports to the rest of the world increased by C$5.7 billion. The new trade did not fully replace what Canada lost in the American market, but it demonstrated that Canadian businesses had begun looking elsewhere.

That process is likely to be gradual, uneven, and expensive for Canada. It may also become increasingly permanent. A country that concludes its largest trading partner is politically unreliable will accept some short-term economic pain to reduce its future vulnerability.

The United States will experience the other side of that decision. American companies may lose Canadian customers they once considered permanent. Communities near the northern border may see less commerce and tourism. Farmers may lose export markets. Manufacturers may face more expensive inputs. Consumers may pay higher prices. American influence over Canadian defense, technology, energy, and environmental policy may diminish as European influence grows.

The greatest long-term loss may be the assumption that Canada will always choose the United States first. That expectation has shaped American economic and foreign policy for generations. Trump’s tariffs, threats, and repeated talk of making Canada the fifty-first state have convinced many Canadians that economic dependence upon the United States is not merely inconvenient. They increasingly view it as a threat to their sovereignty.

A Relationship That Cannot Simply Be Reset

Trade agreements can be renegotiated. Tariffs can be lifted. Political leaders can shake hands and announce that a dispute has ended. Trust does not return so easily.

A future American president may seek to repair the relationship with Canada, but by then Canadian businesses may have signed European contracts, joined European production networks, adopted European standards, and invested billions in new infrastructure. Canadian defense companies may be integrated into European procurement systems. Canadian voters may have grown accustomed to seeing the United States as an unpredictable competitor rather than a dependable partner.

Those changes cannot be erased through a single summit or diplomatic statement. Economic relationships are built through years of reliability. Once governments and businesses spend billions protecting themselves from American unpredictability, they will be reluctant to dismantle those protections simply because Washington promises to behave differently.

This is the deeper cost of Trump’s confrontation with Canada. The damage is not limited to today’s tariffs or this year’s lost orders. His policies have given Canada a compelling reason to construct alternatives to the United States, and Europe has recognized an opportunity to become Canada’s more dependable partner.

Canada will remain America’s neighbor. The two countries will continue trading, sharing a continent, and confronting many of the same security and environmental challenges. What may not survive is the presumption of trust that once made the relationship exceptional.

Trump has treated that trust as though it were inexhaustible. It is not. Canada is now demonstrating that when an ally is repeatedly threatened, insulted, and economically punished, it eventually stops waiting for the relationship to improve and begins building a future in which the United States matters less.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

Bob Mackie Gave the World Permission to Sparkle

This week, we lost more than a legendary designer. We lost an architect of memories. Bob Mackie spent more than six decades creating images so powerful, glamorous, outrageous, and joyful that they became permanently woven into our cultural history. Mackie died from pneumonia on September 14, 2026, in Palm Springs, California. He was 87.

Most of us never met Bob Mackie, but millions of us knew his work. We knew it the moment Cher walked onto a stage shimmering in beads and feathers. We knew it when Elton John appeared at Dodger Stadium dressed in a sparkling baseball uniform. We knew it when Tina Turner moved across a stage in flames, fringe, and wings. We especially knew it when Carol Burnett descended a staircase wearing an elegant green velvet gown with the curtain rod still stretched across her shoulders.

Those were not simply costumes. They were moments, and Bob Mackie understood the difference.

Robert Gordon Mackie was born on March 24, 1939, in Monterey Park, California. His parents divorced when he was young, and he was largely raised by his paternal grandmother in Alhambra. He spent a great deal of time alone, drawing to entertain himself and escaping into the Technicolor musicals he saw at the movies with his mother and older sister. The color, movement, spectacle, and fantasy of those films showed him a world far removed from the quiet surroundings of his childhood.

When the credits rolled after one of those musicals, Mackie discovered that costume design was an actual profession. Suddenly, the world he had been imagining with crayons and sketches could become a life.

He studied at Pasadena City College and the Chouinard Art Institute before leaving school to begin working in Hollywood. He sketched for some of the most respected costume designers in the business, including Edith Head and Jean Louis. While working for Jean Louis, the young Mackie drew the original sketch for the sheer, crystal-covered gown Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy in 1962. It was an extraordinary contribution from a young artist who had only begun to find his place in Hollywood.

In 1963, Mackie was hired by costume designer Ray Aghayan to work on Judy Garland’s television variety show. Their connection became both professional and deeply personal. Mackie and Aghayan became creative collaborators and life partners, sharing the first Emmy ever awarded for costume design in 1967 for the television production Alice Through the Looking Glass. Their relationship endured until Aghayan’s death in 2011.

Television ultimately made Bob Mackie a household name. When The Carol Burnett Show premiered in 1967, Mackie was chosen to design its costumes. During the show’s eleven seasons, he created an astonishing average of approximately sixty costumes each week for Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Tim Conway, Lyle Waggoner, the guest stars, and the supporting performers.

Mackie did not merely dress Carol Burnett. He helped her discover her characters. The awkward shape of a skirt could create a walk. A wig, a padded figure, or an exaggerated neckline could reveal a personality before a single word was spoken. His costumes became an essential part of the comedy because he understood that clothing could deliver a punchline just as powerfully as dialogue.

Nothing demonstrated that genius more perfectly than the 1976 sketch Went with the Wind!, a parody of Gone with the Wind. In the original film, Scarlett O’Hara famously turns green curtains into a dress. Mackie took that idea one gloriously ridiculous step further. Carol Burnett descended the staircase as Starlet O’Hara wearing the green velvet curtains, complete with gold fringe, a valance across her head, and the brass curtain rod still attached.

When Harvey Korman’s character complimented her gown, Burnett delivered the immortal response: “I saw it in the window, and I just couldn’t resist it.”

The audience exploded. Mackie had created one of the greatest visual jokes in television history. Nearly fifty years later, people still remember exactly where they were when they first saw it. The costume now resides in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where it belongs, because it is more than a dress. It is part of America’s shared cultural memory.

Then there was Cher.

Few creative relationships in entertainment history have been as enduring or transformative as the one between Bob Mackie and Cher. Their partnership began in television, including The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, but quickly evolved into something much greater. Mackie recognized that Cher possessed a rare combination of beauty, confidence, mystery, humor, and fearlessness. He did not try to make her look like anyone else. He helped the world see who she already was.

Together, they challenged nearly every convention governing how a woman was supposed to dress on television. Mackie used sheer fabrics, feathers, crystals, strategically placed beads, towering headdresses, and silhouettes that celebrated Cher’s body rather than concealing it. His designs could be provocative, but they were never accidental. Every bead and feather contributed to the character and the moment.

The sheer, feathered “naked dress” Cher wore to the 1974 Met Gala became one of the most recognizable gowns in fashion history. Her black beaded ensemble and enormous feathered headdress at the 1986 Academy Awards was not simply clothing. It was defiance made visible, worn after Cher’s acclaimed performance in Mask was ignored by the Academy. Two years later, Cher accepted the Oscar for Moonstruck in another unforgettable Mackie creation, a barely there black beaded gown that allowed her to appear glamorous, powerful, and completely herself.

Mackie’s imagination stretched far beyond Cher. He designed Diana Ross’s costumes for Lady Sings the Blues, earning an Academy Award nomination alongside Ray Aghayan. He placed Tina Turner in winged bodysuits, shimmering fringe, and a fiery sequined costume that moved with the same explosive energy she brought to the stage. He dressed Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, Mitzi Gaynor, Dolly Parton, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Diana Ross, and RuPaul.

For Elton John’s historic 1975 concerts at Dodger Stadium, Mackie transformed a baseball uniform into pure spectacle, covering it in crystals and sequins and topping it with an equally dazzling cap. Elton did not simply enter the stadium wearing that costume. He became a living, sparkling monument to show business, and the image remains inseparable from his career.

Behind the glamour was a man whose personal life also held love and profound loss. Mackie was briefly married to actress and singer Marianne Nicholson, professionally known as Lulu Porter, from 1960 until 1963. They had a son, Robert Gordon Mackie Jr., known as Robin, who became a makeup artist. Robin died from AIDS in 1993, another precious life taken during a period when an entire generation was being lost while too much of the world responded with judgment, fear, or silence.

Mackie’s decades-long relationship with Ray Aghayan is also an important part of his story and of LGBTQ+ history. They built a life and a body of work together during years when same-sex relationships were rarely acknowledged honestly in public accounts of famous lives. Their partnership was personal, artistic, and enduring. When Aghayan died in 2011, Mackie lost the man who had helped open the door to his television career and then walked beside him through nearly five decades of life.

The professional honors eventually caught up with the cultural influence. Mackie won nine Emmy Awards, received three Academy Award nominations, and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2019, he received the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award and won a Tony Award for creating more than 450 costumes for the Broadway musical The Cher Show. Yet awards alone cannot measure what he gave us.

Bob Mackie created beauty, but he also created permission. He gave performers permission to be larger, brighter, stranger, funnier, sexier, and more fearless than the world expected them to be. He gave LGBTQ+ people and countless other young people watching from ordinary homes a glimpse of a world where difference was not something to hide. In Mackie’s world, difference was covered in rhinestones, placed beneath a spotlight, and celebrated.

His influence continues in the work of contemporary performers who return to his archives and reinterpret his designs. Miley Cyrus, Pink, Zendaya, Sabrina Carpenter, and Taylor Swift have all helped introduce Mackie’s extravagant vision to younger generations. His work remains relevant because true originality does not age. It waits to be discovered again.

There will never be another Bob Mackie. There may be other designers who use sequins, feathers, crystals, and daring silhouettes, but Mackie possessed something that cannot be imitated. He understood the person beneath the costume. He knew when clothing needed to make someone beautiful, when it needed to make someone powerful, and when it needed to make an entire nation laugh.

Bob Mackie made the world more colorful, more playful, more inclusive, and infinitely more glamorous. His designs will remain in museums, photographs, television archives, concert footage, and fashion collections, but his greatest legacy lives within our memories. We will remember the curtain rod. We will remember Cher’s feathers. We will remember Tina’s flames and Elton’s sparkling uniform.

Most of all, we will remember the man who showed us that life did not always have to be practical or restrained. Sometimes it could shimmer. Sometimes it could make us laugh. Sometimes it could descend a staircase wearing the curtains and become unforgettable.

Rest in peace, Bob Mackie. Thank you for the beauty, the laughter, the courage, and every last sequin. You will forever be remembered, and you will be deeply missed.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

She Deserved Better

Her name was Wendy. She was a beautiful young coyote who lived among the hills, yards, and streets of Studio City, California. She was wild and belonged to no one, yet she became beloved by an entire community.

Even through the terrible swelling on her face, Wendy’s natural beauty remained visible. It was there in her soft amber eyes, her alert ears, and the gray and golden shades of her coat. Residents recognized her, watched for her, and worried about her as the swelling grew worse.

For more than a year, Wendy lived with an injury no animal should ever have endured. When Wildlife Care of Southern California finally captured her, rescuers hoped the growth on her face could be treated and that she might one day return to the wild. Instead, imaging revealed the horrifying truth.

Two pellets were lodged in Wendy’s head.

Someone had pointed a pellet gun at this defenseless animal and fired. The wound became infected, and over time, the infection completely destroyed the upper jawbone on the left side of her face. Wendy had spent more than a year searching for food, finding shelter, and trying to survive while the bone beneath her face was slowly being eaten away.

Think about the pain she must have endured. Think about how frightened and confused she must have been, unable to understand why she was hurting or why a human being had done this to her. She could not ask for help, explain what had happened, or tell anyone where it hurt.

Still, she fought to live.

During her final week, Wendy received antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medication, soft food, and the gentle care she had deserved all along. For the first time in more than a year, she was safe. She was surrounded by people who saw her suffering and responded with compassion rather than cruelty.

But compassion could not repair what one person had destroyed.

The damage was too severe for surgery or treatment to restore normal function. Wendy would have required a soft-food diet for the rest of her life and could never have returned to the freedom of the wild. Those who had worked so hard to save her were forced to make the heartbreaking decision to end her suffering.

The people who loved Wendy had to carry the burden created by the person who hurt her. The rescuers had to hold her, comfort her, and say goodbye because someone else chose to pull a trigger and leave her to suffer.

As an animal lover, this story shakes me to the core. I can feel the heartbreak physically, as though Wendy’s pain has settled into my chest and refuses to leave. I look at her photographs and see a beautiful, innocent creature who wanted nothing more than to live the life nature had given her.

I also feel anger. I feel the kind of anger that comes when innocence is met with brutality and when a life is treated as though it has no value. Wendy was not a target, an inconvenience, or an object placed on this earth for someone’s amusement.

She was alive. She felt fear, hunger, comfort, and pain. She fought to survive with a strength that many human beings could never summon, and she deserved better from us.

Some humans simply have no humanity

Whoever did this to Wendy is among them. Whatever excuse that person may offer, nothing can erase the suffering Wendy endured because of their actions.

Yet Wendy’s story also reveals the profound difference between cruelty and compassion. One person wounded her, but an entire community cared. Neighbors watched for her and reported sightings. Rescuers spent weeks trying to reach her. Veterinarians eased her pain, and strangers donated money and followed her story with hope.

Their compassion was not enough to save her life, but it meant Wendy did not die alone and afraid somewhere in the brush. She spent her final days safe, warm, fed, and surrounded by people determined to treat her with dignity. They could not undo the cruelty, but they could make certain cruelty did not have the final word.

Southern California Pit Bull Rescue is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever shot Wendy. Accountability will not bring her back, but it matters. Cruelty toward animals must never be dismissed, excused, or forgotten.

Wendy deserved to grow old beneath the California sun. She deserved to move freely through the hills and live without fear of the humans whose world had overtaken hers. Most of all, she deserved to be left unharmed.

The cruelty in this world does more than wound its immediate victims; it hardens hearts, exhausts the compassionate, and leaves decent people carrying pain they did not create. Imagine how much better the world would be if what we saw reflected in our media was empathy, kindness, and shared humanity instead of the hatred, bigotry, and terrible indifference that have come to define this period in time.

Her name was Wendy. She was wild, she was beautiful, and she mattered. May we remember her not only for the terrible cruelty that ended her life, but for the courage with which she endured it and the love she awakened in everyone who tried to save her.

Rest peacefully beautiful girl, you deserved so much better

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

The photograph is difficult to look at and even harder to forget. A 67-year-old man sits bound to an airplane seat with duct tape, his hands restrained and his face partially covered, following what authorities describe as an increasingly hostile and violent outburst.

According to police and court records, Layne Arthur Lundeen was aboard American Airlines Flight 618 from Dallas to Newark on September 3 when he allegedly began shouting profanities and racial slurs, disturbing passengers and becoming physically combative. The flight was diverted to Baltimore, where Lundeen was arrested and charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. The FBI is conducting interviews and will consult with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland to determine whether federal charges are warranted.

Long Realty, the Arizona real estate firm with which Lundeen had reportedly been affiliated for more than thirteen years, promptly ended its relationship with him after learning of the incident. The company said the reported conduct was inconsistent with the professionalism, integrity, compassion, and respect it expects from those associated with its business.

In a matter of hours, one outburst may have placed a man’s freedom, livelihood, professional standing, relationships, and reputation at risk.

All for what?

That is the question I keep returning to. Is hatred toward people you do not even know worth losing everything you have spent decades building? Is the momentary satisfaction of speaking a slur worth the possibility of arrest, unemployment, public disgrace, broken relationships, and a name forever connected to the worst moment of your life?

Is it worth becoming the person in that photograph?

We are living in the era of MAGA and Donald Trump, when combative political language has become a regular feature of American life. Americans across party lines have expressed concern about where heated rhetoric can lead. In a Pew Research Center survey, 78 percent of Americans said aggressive language from elected officials could make violence against targeted people or groups more likely, a belief shared by majorities of both Republicans and Democrats.

Whatever someone believes politically, no movement, politician, slogan, or red hat can shield a person from the consequences of his own behavior. Political permission is not legal permission. The approval of a crowd cannot protect your career, your family, your reputation, or your freedom when contempt becomes harassment and anger becomes violence.

Hate may be encouraged by the culture around us, but it eventually becomes a deeply personal choice.

No child enters the world knowing a racial slur. No infant understands that one skin color, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or identity is supposedly more deserving of dignity than another. The language and targets of hatred are taught, sometimes deliberately within families and sometimes quietly through jokes, friendships, fear, resentment, misinformation, or years of hearing entire groups described as dangerous or inferior.

If hatred can be learned it can also be confronted.

That does not mean change is simple. Hatred can become so familiar that it begins to feel like instinct. It can provide a false sense of belonging, especially when surrounded by people who repeat the same grievances and reward the same cruelty. Over time, a person may stop seeing individual human beings and begin seeing only the labels he has been taught to despise.

But familiarity is not destiny. Learned behavior is not an unchangeable identity.

A person can begin asking where those beliefs came from and whether they are actually true. He can listen to people whose experiences differ from his own. He can step away from voices that keep him angry because anger makes him easier to manipulate. He can acknowledge the harm he has caused, seek help, apologize without making excuses, and begin the difficult work of becoming someone different.

None of this erases accountability. Hope does not mean pretending the damage never happened, and compassion does not require abandoning consequences. The passengers and crew members aboard that aircraft deserved to be safe. Those who were allegedly targeted by slurs and physical aggression should not be asked to carry the burden of rehabilitating the person accused of harming them.

Accountability and hope can exist together. Consequences tell us that conduct matters. Hope tells us that our worst beliefs and impulses do not have to govern the remainder of our lives.

I am not writing this from some imagined place of moral perfection. I know what it is to feel anger, resentment, and fear. We all do. Those feelings are part of being human, but what we feed, repeat, excuse, and ultimately release into the world remains our responsibility.

The hatred we direct outward also does something to us internally. It narrows our world, poisons our relationships, and keeps us suspicious of people who have done nothing to us. It asks us to surrender our peace in exchange for a permanent state of grievance. Eventually, it may consume far more of our lives than the people we have been taught to hate ever could.

That is the tragedy hidden inside this story. Hate does not merely injure its target. It can destroy the person carrying it.

Maybe the most important question is not what we think about the man in the photograph, but instead, what each of us is allowing to grow inside ourselves before it reaches that point.

Are we becoming more compassionate or more cruel? Are we learning about people or merely accepting what others tell us about them? Are we building a life rooted in human dignity, or are we allowing strangers, politicians, social media personalities, and grievance merchants to decide whom we should fear?

A different path remains available, but it must be chosen. It can begin with one honest question, one uncomfortable conversation, one rejected prejudice, or one moment when we decide that another human being’s dignity matters more than the anger we have been taught to carry.

Hate may be learned, but it does not have to be permanent. We can interrupt it, unlearn it, and refuse to pass it to the next generation.

The choice belongs to us…and so do the consequences.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

Political Satire based on documented events

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Satirist

A Fact-Based Examination of the Legal, Institutional, Economic, and Diplomatic Fallout Surrounding Donald Trump

In mythology, everything King Midas touched turned to gold. “Sadim,” Midas spelled backward, is a satirical name for a pattern surrounding Donald Trump: political allies have lost careers and law licenses, a vice president faced threats after refusing his demands, national institutions have been thrown into turmoil, relationships with allies have deteriorated, and military decisions have carried consequences far beyond the White House.

This is not simply guilt by association. In the cases that follow, Trump’s involvement was documented and direct. He applied the pressure, promoted the disputed election narrative, changed the leadership, demanded the renaming, ordered the construction, imposed the tariffs, or authorized the military action. Other people remain responsible for their own conduct, but Trump was not standing innocently at the edge of these events.

Loyalty Has Carried a Price

Rudy Giuliani was once celebrated as “America’s Mayor.” After becoming Trump’s personal lawyer and public champion of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Giuliani was disbarred in New York and Washington, held liable for defaming two Georgia election workers, and driven into bankruptcy proceedings.

The New York court did not discipline Giuliani for an abstract political disagreement. It found that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” while acting as Trump’s lawyer and advancing Trump’s election challenge. A federal jury subsequently awarded Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss $148 million after Giuliani falsely accused them of election fraud. He later reached a confidential settlement that satisfied the judgment, but no settlement can restore the professional standing he surrendered while carrying Trump’s election claims into courtrooms and television studios.

Mike Lindell followed the same election narrative into a different kind of reckoning. The MyPillow founder used his money, company, media platform, and public reputation to promote claims that voting systems had stolen the election from Trump. In 2025, a federal jury found Lindell and his media company liable for defaming former Dominion employee Eric Coomer and awarded $2.3 million in damages.

Mike Pence discovered what can happen when loyalty reaches its limit. Trump repeatedly pressured Pence to interfere with the electoral count, despite Pence’s conclusion that the Constitution gave him no authority to overturn the result. When Pence refused, Trump publicly attacked him while the Capitol was under siege. Rioters chanted threats against Pence and came within approximately 40 feet of him during his evacuation. Pence later said Trump’s words endangered him, his family, and everyone at the Capitol.

Giuliani and Lindell suffered consequences after advancing Trump’s false election narrative. Pence suffered threats and political isolation after refusing Trump’s demand. Their individual circumstances differ, but the pattern is difficult to ignore: loyalty did not protect those who served Trump, and constitutional resistance did not spare the man who finally told him no.

The Kennedy Center Became a Battlefield Over Trump’s Name

The Kennedy Center was created as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy and as a national home for the performing arts. After Trump replaced board members and the reconstituted board elected him chairman, performers withdrew, productions were canceled, audiences declined, and the institution entered a growing financial crisis.

The conflict became even more explicit when Trump’s board attempted to add his name to the Kennedy memorial. A federal judge ruled that the board could not do so without congressional authorization. After the court blocked the name change for a second time, the board voted to close the principal venue for as long as two years, and Trump said the $257 million renovation would not proceed unless the ruling were overturned.

The turmoil did not begin because artists suddenly lost interest in the Kennedy Center. Numerous performers specifically cited Trump’s takeover, leadership changes, programming direction, or renaming effort when canceling their appearances. What had been a national cultural institution became entangled in one man’s demand to place his name on a memorial dedicated by law to someone else.

The White House Was Physically Remade

Trump initially said his proposed ballroom would not interfere with the existing White House and would respect the historic structure. The East Wing was subsequently demolished in its entirety.

The White House described the project as a necessary space for large state functions and said private donors would finance it. Official records nevertheless confirm that the historic 15,000-square-foot East Wing was removed and replaced by a proposed structure of approximately 90,000 square feet. The reported cost rose from roughly $200 million to approximately $400 million.

This was not a minor renovation or a decorative adjustment. An existing section of the People’s House was torn down to accommodate a project conceived and directed during Trump’s presidency. The administration calls it an improvement for future presidents, but the physical record is unmistakable: the historic East Wing that existed before Trump’s project no longer exists.

Even the Reflecting Pool Could Not Escape the Pattern

The Trump administration fast-tracked a $14.7 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration. Within weeks, algae appeared and the newly installed liner began blistering and peeling.

Trump repeatedly blamed vandals. Contractor reports and National Park Service documentation instead identified inadequate primer, incompatible materials, and other design and installation failures. The Justice Department dropped its case against a former Olympian accused of damaging the pool after acknowledging evidence that defective contractor work caused the failure. The Interior Department continues to maintain that some vandalism occurred, but the contractor remains responsible for repairing its work.

The pool was not permanently destroyed, but the episode followed a familiar sequence: a highly publicized Trump project was rushed, failed quickly, and produced accusations that conflicted with the government’s own later findings.

Tariffs Reached American Households

Trump has presented tariffs as payments extracted from foreign countries. In practice, tariffs are collected from American importers, and businesses can pass those costs to consumers through higher prices.

Federal Reserve researchers estimated that tariffs implemented through November 2025 raised core goods prices by approximately 3.1 percent and overall core personal-consumption prices by 0.8 percent through February 2026. The administration maintains that its trade policies protect American workers, reduce trade imbalances, and encourage domestic investment. Those objectives do not erase the documented price increases already absorbed by American businesses and households.

Allies Began Looking Elsewhere

Canada remains one of America’s largest trading partners, but its government and businesses have accelerated efforts to reduce their dependence on the United States. Canada and the European Union are now discussing deeper cooperation in manufacturing, technology, energy, defense, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, and economic security.

The damage extends beyond trade statistics. In a 2026 Pew Research Center survey, the percentage of Canadians describing the United States as a reliable partner had fallen from 83 percent in 2022 to 35 percent. Similar declines appeared across several longtime European and Asian allies.

Trade relationships built over generations cannot always be restored by signing another agreement. Once businesses establish new suppliers, governments build new strategic partnerships, and allied populations stop trusting American commitments, some of those changes can become permanent.

The Consequences Reached the Strait of Hormuz

Trump authorized the February 28 military operation against Iran. Iran subsequently imposed an effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the United States later blockaded Iranian ports.

The International Energy Agency has described the resulting crisis as the largest oil-supply disruption in market history. Oil and fuel prices surged, shipping traffic collapsed, emergency petroleum reserves were released, and seafarers were killed in attacks involving multiple actors. The International Maritime Organization has correctly cautioned that no single party is responsible for every attack or casualty.

Trump did not personally close the strait, and Iran remains responsible for its own military decisions. The chronology nevertheless matters. Trump authorized the operation that began the conflict, and the resulting escalation disrupted a maritime route that had carried approximately one-quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade.

The Record Is the Record

“The Sadim Touch” is satire, but the events behind it are not. Giuliani lost his law licenses. Lindell was found liable for defamation. Pence faced threats after refusing Trump. The Kennedy Center lost performers and revenue while becoming consumed by a fight over Trump’s name. The East Wing was demolished. The Reflecting Pool renovation failed. Tariffs raised prices. Allied trust declined. A war disrupted one of the world’s most important energy routes.

Trump was not solely responsible for every consequence, and the people around him were not powerless participants. But he was not incidental to these events. He made the demands, promoted the claims, imposed the policies, changed the institutions, and authorized the military action.

That is the documented pattern behind the metaphor. The closer Trump moved to the center of a person, institution, alliance, or project, the more likely it was to become defined by controversy, litigation, financial strain, damaged trust, or lasting consequences.

Where the absurdity of this moment gets the satire it deserves, and all the gold in the world still can’t buy good taste.

Read The Gilded Toilet at Still Human → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

Political Satire based on documented events

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Satirist

The federal government has entered its renovation era

The White House East Wing has been demolished to make room for a $400 million ballroom. The Rose Garden lawn has become a stone patio reminiscent of Mar-a-Lago. Historic trees have disappeared, black granite has replaced a sixty-year-old flagstone walkway, and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been painted blue. The administration calls this restoration. Increasingly, the nation looks like a property acquired by a developer who immediately decided the original owners had terrible taste.

Then there is the Kennedy Center, the national memorial dedicated to President John F. Kennedy. Trump removed its previous leadership, became chairman of its board, and supported adding his own name to the building. A federal judge ruled that only Congress could rename the center and ordered Trump’s name removed. Apparently undeterred, the Trump-appointed board voted to try again, this time proposing an inscription crediting him with restoring and renovating the building and naming the surrounding grounds the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” Nothing says respect for a memorial quite like repeatedly explaining why someone else’s name needs more company.

Now comes the proposed triumphal arch, approximately 250 feet of gilded presidential modesty near Arlington National Cemetery. It would stand taller than the Lincoln Memorial and close to the height of the United States Capitol. Opponents, including three Vietnam veterans and an architectural historian, argue that it would disrupt the historic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House. The project still lacks final approval, and a federal judge has limited initial activity to archaeological testing. Even the ground, it seems, must be questioned before it agrees to participate.

The administration says these projects will restore grandeur, improve deteriorating landmarks, and honor the nation’s history. Perhaps that is the plan. But grandeur is a curious national priority when so many Americans are worried about whether they can afford a doctor, keep their insurance, pay their bills, or safely exercise their constitutional rights. A government can polish every monument in Washington and still leave the people looking at them wondering whether anyone inside those buildings remembers they exist.

Medicaid and Affordable Care Act enrollment has declined by approximately eight million people since Trump returned to office. The reasons are complicated and include expiring marketplace subsidies, higher premiums, administrative changes, immigration fears, and state-level decisions. Major provisions of Trump-backed healthcare legislation are expected to produce additional coverage losses as they take effect. These Americans may never attend a White House ball, but they are helping finance a government that has found extraordinary energy for choosing marble.

The childhood vaccination schedule has also been reduced. Vaccines protecting against several diseases are no longer recommended routinely for every child, although they remain available for certain high-risk groups or through consultations between parents and physicians. Leading medical organizations have warned that the changes could weaken protection against preventable disease. The reflecting pool may now be a more vibrant shade of blue, but a child’s immune system remains stubbornly resistant to architectural solutions.

Meanwhile, the administration’s immigration campaign has brought mass arrests, prolonged detention, renewed family separations, and fatal encounters between federal agents and civilians. Two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by federal immigration agents during operations in Minneapolis. Those cases remain under scrutiny, and another ICE officer has been charged with lying to investigators about a separate shooting. These are not abstractions. They are families, names, funerals, and empty chairs.

Then there is Iran. Eighteen American service members have been killed, and the conflict has cost taxpayers more than $37.5 billion. Trump recently called it “small potatoes,” explaining that the number of American deaths was low compared with Vietnam and other wars. The comparison may be numerically accurate, but every military family understands something that casualty tables do not: there is no such thing as a statistically insignificant empty seat at the dinner table.

The damage is not confined within America’s borders. Relationships with some of our closest allies and trading partners have deteriorated sharply. The United States imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on Canadian products after negotiations collapsed, prompting Canada to retaliate against approximately $20 billion in American goods. Canada remains our neighbor, ally, and one of our largest trading partners, but the relationship now increasingly resembles a homeowners’ dispute conducted with customs declarations and economic artillery.

The fracture extends across the Atlantic. Trump has threatened to consider withdrawing the United States from NATO and has publicly attacked European leaders over trade, defense spending, and their refusal to support the Iran conflict. In a recent survey across fifteen European countries, only 11 percent of respondents described the United States as an ally. A nation can repaint a reflecting pool in two weeks. Rebuilding international trust is unlikely to be completed with a fresh coat of anything.

Whether these relationships have been permanently destroyed cannot yet be known. Alliances developed across generations rarely disappear overnight, but trust can. Even if future administrations attempt to repair the damage, allies and trading partners may remember how quickly agreements, traditions, and mutual commitments were discarded. They may cooperate with America again while quietly preparing for the possibility that America can no longer be depended upon.

That is the contradiction at the center of this architectural presidency. Human suffering is discussed in totals, percentages, projections, and historical comparisons. Buildings receive gold, marble, inscriptions, ceremonies, models, and presidential attention. Eighteen dead service members become “small potatoes,” while a 250-foot arch becomes a national priority. Our allies are told to accept threats and tariffs, while the president builds monuments intended to proclaim American greatness.

Rome built arches, monuments, temples, and arenas even as the foundations of its empire weakened beneath them. That comparison does not prove that the United States is approaching a similar end. It does, however, leave us with an uncomfortable question: Are these merely the excesses of one presidency, or are we watching the beginning of America’s decline as a trusted democratic leader?

Only time will provide the final answer, but Americans will influence the next chapter on November 3. Every seat in the House of Representatives and thirty-five seats in the Senate will be contested in the 2026 midterm elections. The results will determine control of Congress and shape its ability to fund, investigate, restrain, or advance the president’s agenda.

Perhaps the proposed arch is the perfect monument for this moment after all. An arch is not a destination. It is an enormous structure built around an empty space. America does not need another monument proclaiming greatness. It needs citizens willing to decide what greatness means, leaders prepared to defend it, and institutions strong enough to survive those who mistake their own reflection for the nation itself.

Where the absurdity of this moment gets the satire it deserves, and all the gold in the world still can’t buy good taste.

Read The Gilded Toilet at Still Human → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

The photograph accompanying this article is an old family picture of my mom and her brothers and sisters when they were very young.

They grew up in Depression-era America, when life was difficult and money was scarce. Their clothes were worn, their meals were modest, and even something as ordinary as having a family photograph taken could become a painful reminder of all they could not afford.

As human beings, we often romanticize the past as a “simpler time.” We imagine quieter days, less frantic lives, closer communities, and a world that was not driven by a relentless stream of bad news. We compare that imagined past with the frantic fury and unprecedented geopolitical upheaval of today, and it is easy to believe that people must have been happier then. But were those times really simpler? Was life easier, or have the passing years softened the hardship and left us with only the most comforting parts of the story?

The truth, I think, is that those days were certainly different, but they were not simple. This photograph was taken during the Great Depression era, a period that brought poverty, hunger, uncertainty, and fear into millions of American homes. It did not make life simpler. It made survival harder.

Both of my parents have been gone for many years. Dad was born in 1923 and passed away in 2001 at the age of 78. Mom was born in 1925 and passed away in 2013 at the age of 88. While they were alive, they often shared stories from their childhoods. Two of those stories have never left me.

Mom once told me about a traveling photographer who went from house to house taking pictures of families, promising to capture precious memories they could hold onto well into the future. Back then, you could not simply take dozens of pictures with a phone or run to CVS to have your film developed. The photographer had to develop the images himself, the old-fashioned way, and the process took weeks.

When he returned and presented the finished photographs to Mom’s parents, they simply did not have the money to pay for them. Instead of showing compassion or allowing them to keep even one, the photographer tore the pictures apart in front of the family and walked away. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? These were not merely pieces of paper. They were family memories destroyed because poverty had made them unaffordable.

Another story was about food. They were so poor that many of their meals consisted of milk toast. If they were fortunate on any given day, they had a small amount of sugar to sprinkle on top. From a distance, a meal like that might sound quaint or nostalgic, but there was nothing quaint about having so little choice.

Their clothes were old and often dirty. Yet despite everything they endured, they found happiness and formed a family bond that lasted until the last of them was gone. Their happiness does not mean the hardship was harmless. It means they found love, comfort, and belonging within it.

As adults, the five siblings remained about as close as any family I have ever seen. They spent holidays together and visited often, sometimes dropping in at one another’s homes unexpectedly. Everyone was always thrilled to see one another. Unlike today, when an unplanned visit can be treated as an intrusion, this was a family in which unexpected visitors were welcomed and celebrated.

Perhaps that closeness is what we are really longing for when we talk about a simpler time. We are not longing for poverty, hunger, limited choices, or the inability to afford a family photograph. We are longing for open doors, shared meals, stronger bonds, and the feeling that the people in our lives have time for us. We should not confuse fewer possessions with fewer burdens, but neither should we dismiss the human connection that helped people survive those burdens.

There is no question that in 2026 we are living through a deeply unsettling period. In our lifetimes, we have rarely had to consider so seriously whether American democracy itself could be lost. We are surrounded by political instability, geopolitical upheaval, economic anxiety, accelerating technology, social division, and a constant flood of information demanding our attention. But the past was not free of fear. Its fears were simply different.

So, when we begin reminiscing about how good life must have been in the “good old days,” we should remember the whole picture. We should see the worn clothes, the milk toast, and the photographs torn apart because a family could not afford them. But we should also see the closeness, the resilience, and the love that held this family together throughout their lives.

The past was not simpler, and the people in this photograph did not live carefree lives. Perhaps they simply understood more clearly that when so much can be taken from you, the people you love matter most.

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Exploring the Human Experience Through Words

A Reflection on Aging and Life

This reflection comes from watching myself change in a way that words alone could not fully capture. The video is brief. The realization was not. This article is an attempt to honor what time takes from us, what it gives in return, and what it demands of us in ways we never anticipate.

When Time Answers Back

I created this morphing video from two photographs of myself. One from today. One from nearly thirty years ago.

At first glance, it is simply a visual transformation. A face reshaping itself across decades. But once you sit with it, something deeper begins to surface. That younger version of me had no idea who I would become. No sense of the forces that would shape me. No awareness of how profoundly living would rearrange my priorities, my values, and my understanding of the world. In youth, you have no concept how fleeting it is, 30 years go by in a flash.

What the video cannot fully show is this truth. With each of those thirty years, I evolved and changed. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes in ways that were painful, clumsy, or misguided. Growth is not a straight line. It is a series of advances and retreats, awakenings and hard lessons, moments of clarity followed by seasons of doubt.

Time works quietly, persistently, shaping us year by year. Not just refining our strengths, but exposing our vulnerabilities. Not just building wisdom, but leaving marks that never fully fade.

I came out in the 1980s, just before AIDS became known. For a brief moment, I felt free. Truly myself. Happy in a way that felt new and expansive. It was a time of discovery, connection, and possibility.

Then people I knew began to get sick.

I watched young, handsome, vibrant men fade in front of my eyes. Friends who were full of life one month were gone the next. There were no effective treatments then. No medications to hold the virus at bay. There was fear, confusion, silence, and stigma layered on top of unbearable loss.

During those early years of AIDS, I lost dozens of people I considered close friends.

That kind of loss does not pass through you unchanged.

It hardens some parts of you. It deepens others. It teaches you how fragile joy can be and how quickly entire communities can be erased when society looks away. It leaves you carrying grief that never fully leaves, even when life moves forward. That chapter alone reshaped who I was and who I would become. It altered how I value time, relationships, truth, and survival itself.

The man I was then still believed effort alone would be enough. That ambition, discipline, and appearance were currencies that mattered most. The gym felt essential. Looking strong felt important. Career existed, but it had not yet hardened into purpose. The world’s troubles felt real, but distant. Concerning, but not consuming.

Experience closes that distance.

As the years accumulate, the lens widens. You begin to see patterns. You recognize your own contradictions. You notice how you have softened in some places and hardened in others. You learn that caring deeply about the world does not arrive all at once. It grows slowly, shaped by loss, responsibility, and survival.

Living through decades of joy, grief, instability, and change pulls the curtain back. Democracy, truth, and human dignity stop being abstract ideas and become obligations you carry. You no longer assume someone else will protect what matters. You understand that awareness is earned, often through pain.

Life teaches relentlessly. It teaches through grief that does not announce itself in advance. Through disappointments that leave scars. Through successes that feel meaningful, then fleeting. You learn that resilience is built slowly, unevenly, and often through mistakes you would never choose again.

Looking back, I can see many choices I might have made differently. Paths I might have taken sooner. Fears I might have faced with more courage. But I can also see how every version of myself, even the broken ones, contributed something essential. Without those evolutions, both good and bad, I would not be the man looking back through this lens today.

The younger man in that photograph could not imagine this version of me. And yet, year by year, loss by loss, lesson by lesson, he helped build him.

The video ends with my present face fully formed, but becoming does not stop there. It continues. It deepens. Time keeps shaping us, not to erase who we were, but to reveal who we are still becoming.

Youth fades. Awareness grows. And if we are paying attention, meaning slowly takes the place of certainty.

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By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Exploring the Human Experience Through Words

This article reflects on identity, empathy, and the quiet labor of becoming. It explores how early awareness, survival, and imagination shaped not only who I am, but how and why I write.

The Life I Might Have Lived

I have photographs of myself at seven years old.

In them, I look content. A careful smile. A child who appears settled in the world, exactly where he belongs. It is the kind of image people trust. The kind that reassures adults that childhood is simple, that innocence is intact.

But even then, I knew something.

Not in words. Not in labels. Just a quiet, steady awareness that something about me existed slightly apart from the expectations surrounding me. I could not have explained it. I only felt it, the way you sense a shift in air before the weather changes.

As I grew, that awareness followed me. The world revealed its preferences, its boundaries, its comfort zones. I learned early what was encouraged and what was quietly discouraged. I learned which parts of myself could be shared and which needed to remain unspoken.

There was no single defining moment. It was cumulative. A tone of voice. A joke framed as harmless. A word used casually that carried more weight than anyone intended. Each one landed softly but persistently, shaping how I learned to move through the world.

When the subject of being gay appeared in conversation or on television, my body responded before my thoughts did. I became still. I learned how to disappear without leaving the room. Around me, people laughed or minimized it or turned it into something abstract. Inside me, something tightened.

Before I knew who I was, I learned which versions of myself were unwelcome.

So I split myself.

One version of me learned how to fit in. How to blend. How to be acceptable. That version became efficient, careful, dependable. The other version stayed private, holding the questions, the longing, the fear that something essential about me might be unacceptable if fully seen.

Living this way creates a particular kind of loneliness. Not the absence of people, but the absence of ease. A constant self awareness. A vigilance that never fully rests. You learn to read rooms quickly. To sense shifts in mood. To notice what others miss, because noticing feels safer than being noticed.

That habit never really leaves you.

Over time, it became something else. Empathy.

When you spend years monitoring yourself, you become attuned to others. You recognize discomfort before it is spoken. You sense pain beneath humor. You understand what it means to carry something quietly. That sensitivity, once born of survival, slowly transformed into compassion.

To endure, I turned inward.

I spent long stretches alone, not from sadness, but from relief. In imagination, I could exist without permission. I could build inner worlds where no part of me required explanation. Creativity became rest. A place where I did not have to perform.

I did not know it then, but that inner life was preparing me.

When I came out at twenty two, it felt like alignment. Like stepping into focus after years of blur. I believed that once the truth was spoken, the struggle would finally end.

It did not.

Coming out does not erase what came before it. It does not undo the years of self monitoring or the habits of concealment. Depression, which had quietly threaded itself through much of my life, remained. Some days distant. Some days heavy. Always familiar.

And somewhere along the way, a question surfaced.

What if I had been straight.

Not as longing. Not as denial. But as curiosity. Who would I be today if I had never had to process being gay. If I had never had to analyze my every reaction. If attraction had not come with risk. If belonging had not required strategy.

What energy might have gone elsewhere. What confidence might have arrived sooner. What ease might have replaced vigilance.

It is an unanswerable question. But it is not an unreasonable one.

Because being gay is not only about who you love. It is about what you are forced to understand early. About developing self awareness before you are ready. About carrying complexity while others are still allowed simplicity.

And yet, I do not wish that part of my life away.

Because everything I am today grew from it.

My empathy. My creativity. My ability to sit with uncomfortable truths. My instinct to listen closely. My writing.

Writing is not separate from who I was or who I am. It is an extension of it. It is how I make sense of the inner world I built to survive. It is how I offer language to feelings others may not yet have words for. Every story, every reflection, every quiet observation carries the imprint of that child who learned early how to watch, how to feel, how to endure.

When I look back at that seven year old now, I do not see confusion or fragility. I see awareness. Adaptation. A child who recognized that the world was not yet safe and found ways to endure without losing his inner life.

That matters.

Because many of us carry alternate selves quietly. Versions of who we might have been if the world had been easier. Kinder. More forgiving. But those imagined lives do not invalidate the one we lived.

They remind us of the work it took to become who we are.

And for me, that work became my voice.

Political Satire based on documented events

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Satirist

Donald Trump has escalated his trade war with Canada by doing what every sober statesman does when negotiations get difficult: renaming a lake. On Thursday, he signed an executive order declaring that, for U.S. federal use, Lake Ontario would become “Lake America,” then announced the change as effective immediately. The order itself, apparently less impulsive than its author, gives the interior secretary 30 days to coordinate with the Board on Geographic Names and update federal references. Nothing says decisive leadership quite like shouting “effective immediately” at a body of water while giving the paperwork a month to catch up.

There is, however, one delicious geographic complication. The Welland Canal, the 43.5-kilometer, eight-lock passage that allows ships to bypass Niagara Falls between Lake Erie and the newly christened “Lake America,” lies entirely within Ontario. Canadians on social media have been pointing this out with understandable amusement, although the Carney government has not threatened to close the canal or turn it into a weapon. Still, there is something magnificently Trumpian about insulting Canada, insisting it wants the benefits of being an American state without actually being one, and then discovering that ships moving between the upper Great Lakes and his newly Americanized lake depend upon Canadian infrastructure.

Canadian friends call it “Hormuz 2.0,” a beautifully dark joke that works precisely because it is not an actual policy proposal. The Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 guarantees both countries equal, free navigation through the boundary waters and the canals connecting them, so Canada could not lawfully close the Welland Canal as trade retaliation without violating the treaty and harming its own shipping and Seaway revenue. The punch line is not that Ottawa should padlock the canal. It is that Trump picked a needless fight with a trusted ally while relying upon that ally’s continued cooperation to keep shared trade moving.

Trump says Canada wants the benefits of being treated like a state without being one. Yet he wants to treat a sovereign country like a disobedient province, treat a shared lake like American property, and still receive every benefit of a trusted neighbor. Those of us who love our Canadian friends can only watch this spectacle with sorrow, embarrassment, and an increasingly necessary sense of humor, hoping the relationship can one day be rebuilt on mutual respect. Until then, Trump can order “Lake America” onto every federal map he controls, but he still cannot executive-order Ontario out of the route.

Where the absurdity of this moment gets the satire it deserves, and all the gold in the world still can’t buy good taste.

Read The Gilded Toilet at Still Human → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

A painful argument with a lifelong friend forced me to ask whether preserving a relationship means betraying my values, or protecting something politics has not yet destroyed.

There was a time when learning that someone supported Donald Trump meant an immediate goodbye. I blocked them, removed them from my life, and moved forward without regret. It felt like self-protection, but it also felt like moral clarity. How could I remain close to someone who supported a movement that treated immigrants as less than human and LGBTQ+ people like me as threats to be controlled, diminished, or erased?

After years of division, however, that approach has become emotionally unsustainable. My convictions have not softened, and the harm has not become less real. Yet people are rarely only one thing, and I do not want my opposition to dehumanization to slowly teach me to see everyone on the other side as less than fully human. I have begun to wonder whether it is possible to preserve a relationship without betraying my values, and whether a boundary must always become a wall.

This has been a genuine struggle for me, not merely an intellectual question. I write about empathy, kindness, human dignity, and our responsibility to remain human in a cruel time. Yet my anger had led me to close doors, reduce people to labels, and experience feelings that went against everything I write about and everything I try to be. I am no saint, but I strive to be better at all times. These feelings are what make us human. Having them does not erase my values, but refusing to examine them might. That means being honest when fear and fury begin pulling me away from the man I want to be.

Recently, that question stopped being theoretical. A political joke accidentally landed in a group chat among longtime friends whose views differ sharply. What began with humor about Donald Trump quickly turned into something much heavier.

One friend moved the conversation almost immediately to immigration. He described undocumented immigrants as people who had overstayed their welcome, used resources they had not earned, refused to assimilate, and should return to their own countries to fix their own problems. He insisted that America could not be expected to save the world. Others challenged him, and so did I.

I told him there are bad immigrants, just as there are bad Americans, and that his position lacked humanity at a time when humanity is desperately needed. I told him that Trump’s presidency is not an abstract political argument for me. As a gay man, I have watched an entire movement make people like me feel less safe, less secure, and less certain that rights once considered settled will remain protected.

I spoke about my loving relationship of nearly thirty years and the fear of seeing it treated as something that can be diminished by politics. I remembered living through the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, watching young and vibrant friends wither away and die while national leaders failed to treat their suffering as urgent. I have already lived through one era when the lives of people in my community were treated as expendable. I will not quietly accept another.

He responded with more claims about immigrants receiving money and resources that should go to American citizens. I told him to turn off Fox News because he had been brainwashed, and then I said I was done. My words came from anger, fear, memory, and pain. They were also not an invitation to keep listening to one another.

I have to be honest about my own role in the exchange. Earlier in the thread, I had shared an unpublished reflection about the dark thought some people carry that relief from the Trump era might come only when he is gone. The piece explicitly rejected violence and concluded that what must end is his power over our institutions and national character, not his life. Even so, its premise was emotionally explosive, and placing it in that conversation did nothing to lower the temperature.

By the end, we had all performed our positions and changed no one’s mind. My friend insisted that people could argue fiercely and still respect one another’s beliefs. I was not sure I could agree. I can respect his humanity, but I cannot respect every belief he holds simply because he holds it. People deserve dignity; beliefs deserve scrutiny.

Not long afterward, he sent me a private message. Politics disappeared, and something far more personal took its place.

He had been moving through an exceptionally difficult period. He thanked me for showing up and for offering support when it mattered. His message was filled with gratitude, reflection, and affection. He told me that our political disagreement did not matter as much to him as the friendship and support I had shown.

His message did not change his politics, and it did not change mine. It did not make his language about immigrants less painful or less dehumanizing. What it did was restore dimension to a person whom the group chat had flattened into a political identity. In that private message, he was not a symbol of MAGA. He was a human being who had trusted me with something personal and vulnerable.

Both sides of my friend are real. The man whose political beliefs wounded and angered me is the same man who trusted me with his pain and expressed sincere gratitude for my friendship. His pain does not redeem his politics, and his politics do not erase his humanity. That is the uncomfortable truth I am now trying to hold.

He said our political differences did not matter to him. I understand what he meant, and I believe it came from a place of affection. Still, politics cannot simply “not matter” when it reaches into another person’s marriage, safety, health, dignity, or right to exist openly. What feels like an opinion to one person can feel like a threat to another because the consequences are not shared equally.

Perhaps friendship does not have to require silence or exile. There may be a third path, one built upon boundaries without automatic banishment. I can refuse dehumanizing language, challenge misinformation, and explain what political choices mean in the lives of people those choices directly affect. I can also recognize when a public group chat has become a stage for defensiveness rather than a place for genuine understanding, and I can step away before anger becomes the only language any of us can hear.

If we ever speak about this again, the conversation should not begin with statistics shouted across a divide. It should begin one human being at a time. I can ask him to see an immigrant not as a “border jumper,” but as a mother, father, child, worker, neighbor, or frightened person trying to survive. I can ask him to understand that when he supports a movement that targets LGBTQ+ lives, the person affected is not some distant stranger. It is the friend sitting across from him.

I can also listen for the fear beneath what he says without accepting the conclusions that fear has produced. His comments about financial security and government resources suggest a deep anxiety about scarcity, fairness, and whether ordinary Americans will be cared for. Those concerns can be heard without allowing immigrants to become scapegoats for every failure of government. Understanding where a belief comes from is not the same as agreeing with it.

A bridge, however, cannot be built by asking the person who feels targeted to walk the entire distance. Reconciliation requires reciprocity. He must be willing to hear that his political support has consequences for people he says he loves, just as I must be willing to see the whole person behind a vote I cannot understand. Keeping a friend is not an endorsement of his politics, but keeping that friendship cannot come at the price of my silence.

There are also relationships that cannot or should not be saved. When someone repeatedly demeans your identity, celebrates your suffering, refuses every boundary, or makes you feel unsafe, distance may be an act of survival rather than intolerance. No one owes unlimited access to another person in the name of national unity. Healing does not mean reconciliation at any cost.

With this friendship, I am not yet ready to believe that every bridge has burned. He recognized the care I had offered, and he trusted me enough to speak honestly about what our friendship meant to him. I can still see the person I have known for years, shaped by shared history, ordinary memories, private struggles, and mutual care. None of that cancels what happened in the political conversation, but neither can the political conversation cancel all of that.

So how do we heal the wounds of the MAGA era? We do not heal by pretending politics does not matter, excusing cruelty, or asking those under attack to make peace with their own dehumanization. We also do not heal by allowing political movements to reduce every complicated human relationship to a choice between total agreement and permanent exile.

We begin closer to home. We tell the truth without making humiliation our goal. We refuse cruelty without letting cruelty remake us. We protect our dignity, establish firm boundaries, and remember that the person on the other side of an argument may still be capable of pain, loyalty, love, and change.

I may never understand how someone I care about can support a movement that has made me feel less safe in my own country. He may never fully understand why that support feels so personal to me. But I am beginning to understand that a boundary does not always have to become a wall.

The MAGA era has already taken enough from our national character, our families, and our ability to trust one another. I am no longer willing to automatically hand it every complicated friendship too. Leaving a door open is not surrender, provided both of us understand that only truth, respect, and our shared humanity will be permitted to pass through it.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

Each day we are inundated with more unwelcome news. Beloved icons pass away. Climate change is no longer a distant warning but a reality unfolding before us, with catastrophic natural disasters occurring so frequently that tragedy itself has begun to feel routine.

Our longtime allies are treated like enemies while adversaries are emboldened, the result of an administration that possesses little understanding of diplomacy, culture, empathy, or our shared humanity. Artificial intelligence is advancing at a pace no one fully understands, transforming industries and eliminating jobs before society has determined what will happen to the people left behind.

Prices are skyrocketing. The global supply chain is being disrupted. Families are struggling to plan a future that changes with every headline. This November, the United States faces a midterm election that may become a make-or-break moment for American democracy and the freedoms we have too often taken for granted.

Meanwhile, structures representing our national identity are being desecrated, torn down, renamed, or soiled by a man who seems incapable of understanding they do not belong to him, they belong to the American people. They represent our history, our ideals, and the generations that came before us. They should never become monuments to one person’s vanity.

Is it any wonder that depression, anxiety, and exhaustion are consuming so many. Each morning, we wake up with a knot in our stomach, wondering what has happened overnight and what fresh cruelty, crisis, or humiliation the day will bring. We brace ourselves before reading the news. We carry constant tension in our bodies, even during moments that should bring peace.

So how do we cope? How do we gather the strength, stamina, and hope we desperately need at this hour?

We begin by accepting that no human being was designed to absorb the suffering of the entire world every waking moment. Staying informed about matters but repeatedly exposing ourselves to the same fear does not make us more responsible or prepared. Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is step away, breathe, and return when we are emotionally able.

We narrow our focus to what is within our reach. We vote. We speak. We write. We support organizations defending democracy, humanitarianism, and human rights. We help a neighbor, call someone who is lonely, encourage someone who is frightened, and refuse to let cruelty determine how we treat one another.

We also allow ourselves to experience joy without guilt. Joy is not an abandonment of those who are suffering. Laughter is not indifferent. Rest is not surrendering. A walk in the sunlight, dinner with someone we love, music that carries us somewhere better, or an afternoon spent away from the news can restore the emotional strength required to continue.

Hope does not mean believing everything will somehow work out on its own. Hope is the decision to participate in what happens next. It is an understanding that history is not shaped only by presidents, billionaires, corporations, or powerful institutions. It is also shaped by ordinary people who refuse to surrender their values when it is easier.

Tomorrow is unwritten. Throughout time, that has always been true. We cannot control everything awaiting us, but we can decide who we will be when it arrives.

We can remain compassionate in an age of cruelty. We can defend truth in an age of deception. We can protect one another when those in power will not. We can rest when we are weary, stand again when we are able, and remember that despair is not the only possible response to uncertainty.

The future is not set in stone; that is where hope begins.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

Today, Dolly Parton passed away. She was one of the most beloved people on this planet, and she will be deeply missed. At a time when this country and our world need more compassion, love, empathy, and kindness, her passing is a profound loss felt around the globe.

Rest in peace, dear Dolly. Your music will endure, your kindness will continue to inspire, and there will never be another quite like you.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

Political Satire based on documented events

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Satirist

President Donald Trump escalated his trade war with Canada on Monday, announcing that tariffs on Canadian automobiles, trucks, auto parts, and steel will rise to 50 percent on January 1, 2027. This came just days after separate 50 percent tariffs took effect on roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods, including wine, cheese, honey, hockey sticks, electronics, candles, and cement. Apparently, the plan for making America affordable now includes charging Americans substantially more for everything required to build a house, drive to work, enjoy dinner, or play hockey in the driveway. Reuters reported that shares of several major automakers fell following the announcement, which is how Wall Street traditionally applauds brilliant economic strategy.

Trump says Canada has been taking advantage of the United States and has encouraged Canadian manufacturers to move their operations south to avoid the tariffs. This is a wonderfully simple approach to international commerce: threaten a sovereign country, damage its industries, disrupt your own supply chains, and then invite its businesses over as though nothing awkward has happened. It is less a trade policy than a protection racket conducted beneath a banner reading “Friendship Through Financial Coercion.”

The automotive industry presents one small inconvenience for this master plan. American and Canadian manufacturing is so thoroughly integrated that vehicle components can cross the border several times before a finished car reaches a dealership. A tariff applied each time something crosses that border does not punish Canada in splendid isolation. It raises costs for American manufacturers and consumers too. Fortunately, the administration appears to have discovered a revolutionary economic principle: if Americans pay the tariff, but the president says Canada is paying it loudly enough, perhaps the cash register will become confused.

Canada is preparing dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs on American products beginning September 8, while Prime Minister Mark Carney says his country will not accept an agreement that compromises Canadian sovereignty. Thus, two nations that share a continent, a deeply integrated economy, the world’s longest international border, and generations of friendship are preparing to make one another’s goods more expensive. Somewhere, China is watching quietly, Europe is updating its trade contacts, and America’s consumers are being assured that the rapidly approaching bill is actually a tremendous victory.

Where the absurdity of this moment gets the satire it deserves, and all the gold in the world still can’t buy good taste.

Read The Gilded Toilet at Still Human → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

Pete Buttigieg has already demonstrated that he can speak to Americans across political, cultural, and geographic divides.

The question is whether the country is prepared to judge him by his character and qualifications rather than whom he loves. I wonder, is America ready for a gay president?

Pete Buttigieg is intelligent, well-spoken, articulate, and able to communicate with almost any audience. He can walk into a friendly interview or onto a news network openly hostile to his beliefs and political affiliation without becoming defensive, flustered, or cruel. He listens carefully, responds directly, and challenges people without treating them as though they are beneath him.

That should not be unusual in American politics, but today it is.

Buttigieg is also a former mayor, a former United States secretary of transportation, a Harvard graduate, a Rhodes Scholar, and a military veteran who served in Afghanistan. As transportation secretary, he helped oversee tens of thousands of infrastructure projects, expanded protections for airline passengers, and worked on the supply-chain disruptions that followed the pandemic. He was also the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to serve in a presidential Cabinet.

During a recent town hall at Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Buttigieg entered one of the reddest states in the country and drew a crowd large enough to fill the school gymnasium. The line reportedly stretched around the building, some people waited more than two hours to enter, and the audience gave him more than two dozen ovations.

The significance of that evening was not simply that a Democrat attracted a large crowd in Oklahoma. It was that an openly gay Democrat stood before people in a deeply conservative state and spoke about the concerns affecting their lives without assuming everyone in the room already agreed with him.

He welcomed those who had never voted for a Democrat. He welcomed people who did not consider themselves political. He spoke to those worried about the price of gas, healthcare, public education, Social Security, rural hospitals, corruption, war, and the growing concentration of presidential power. Rather than beginning with party labels, he began with something more basic: a shared sense of right and wrong.

That is one of Buttigieg’s greatest political strengths. He does not speak only to the Democratic base. He looks for the moral and practical ground Americans still share, even when they disagree on policy.

The Ability to Walk Into a Hostile Room

When someone asked how Americans could communicate across political divisions, Buttigieg recommended doing it offline, face to face, whenever possible. He explained why he regularly appears on Fox News and other conservative outlets: How can we blame people for rejecting a position if they have never been allowed to hear it explained honestly?

He said he imagines himself speaking to people he grew up with, people with whom he may strongly disagree but still genuinely likes. That distinction matters. He does not approach every disagreement as an opportunity to humiliate someone. He approaches it as an opportunity to persuade.

That does not mean he refuses to confront dishonesty or injustice. During the Tulsa town hall, he spoke forcefully about threats to the rule of law, attacks on the press, discrimination against transgender Americans, economic inequality, gerrymandering, money in politics, and a Congress that has surrendered too much of its constitutional authority to the presidency. But he connected those issues to the realities people face every day.

When discussing democracy, he did not treat it as an abstract academic concern. He connected unchecked presidential power to tariffs, household expenses, war, and the inability of Congress to restrain a president who no longer believes he must answer to the American people.

“If Congress is flat on its back,” Buttigieg told the audience, “you’re going to have a president who can do whatever he wants.”

That is not complicated political rhetoric. It is a clear explanation of why checks and balances matter to the lives of ordinary Americans.

He Did Not Avoid the Question of LGBTQ+ Rights

Buttigieg was also asked about the fear many LGBTQ+ Americans are experiencing, particularly transgender people and the families who love them. His response was compassionate without becoming evasive. He acknowledged the fear, condemned discrimination, and reminded the audience that most Americans do not want people harmed or mistreated because they are gay, transgender, or otherwise different.

He also spoke about the remarkable distance America has traveled during his own lifetime. When he joined the military, openly acknowledging that he was going home to a boyfriend could have ended his career. When he first ran for mayor in Indiana, being openly gay might have made his candidacy seem impossible. Only a few years later, he was sworn into the presidential Cabinet with his wedding ring on his finger and his husband, Chasten, standing beside him.

His life represents both the progress America has made and the uncertainty now surrounding whether that progress will continue.

Buttigieg did not win every vote during his 2020 presidential campaign, nor did every voter agree with his policies. No candidate should be elected merely because he would make history. Sexual orientation is no more a qualification for the presidency than heterosexuality has ever been.

But neither should being gay be treated as a disqualification.

Perhaps We Are Asking the Wrong Question

When we ask whether America is ready for a gay president, we should consider what we are really asking.

Are we asking whether Americans can accept a president who happens to have a husband rather than a wife? Are we asking whether some voters will place personal prejudice above competence, experience, intelligence, military service, and the ability to lead? Are we still willing to eliminate a qualified candidate because his family does not look like the families that have occupied the White House before?

Pete Buttigieg himself addressed this during the Tulsa town hall. Reflecting on his presidential campaign, he said many independents and Republicans were ultimately less interested in his family than they were in their own families and what kind of job he could do for them.

That may be the most encouraging answer to the question.

People struggling to pay for healthcare are thinking about healthcare. Parents are thinking about the quality of their children’s schools. Workers are thinking about wages, job security, and retirement. Veterans are thinking about whether political leaders understand the human cost of sending service members into war. Americans worried about democracy are looking for leaders who respect the Constitution and recognize that power must always be accountable.

In those moments, whom Pete Buttigieg loves may matter far less than whether voters believe he understands their lives.

What Presidential Leadership Could Look Like

There was another revealing moment during the town hall when Buttigieg was asked whether he had considered running for the United States Senate. He said he had, but he did not believe it was the right office or the best way for him to be useful at this moment.

“You don’t run for it just because you can,” he said. He warned against treating political office as a prize rather than an opportunity to accomplish something.

Imagine how different American politics might be if more candidates approached public office that way.

Pete Buttigieg has not announced a 2028 presidential campaign. If he does, he should be examined as carefully and critically as every other candidate. His record, policies, decisions, strengths, and weaknesses should all be part of that examination. Being intelligent and articulate does not automatically make someone the right president, and representation alone is not enough.

But America should be capable of having that debate without reducing him to the fact that he is gay.

The Tulsa town hall demonstrated that Buttigieg can enter a conservative state, fill a gymnasium, listen to people’s fears, answer difficult questions, defend vulnerable Americans, discuss policy in understandable language, and appeal to people outside his party. It demonstrated that he can be firm without becoming belligerent and hopeful without ignoring the seriousness of this moment.

So perhaps the real question is not whether America is ready for a gay president.

Perhaps the question is whether America is finally ready to choose a president based on intelligence, character, experience, compassion, courage, and the ability to bring people into the conversation, regardless of whom that person loves.

I hope the answer is yes.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

Political Satire based on documented events

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Satirist

Welcome aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, where approximately 5,000 sailors and Marines have enjoyed an extended all-inclusive cruise featuring breathtaking ocean views, occasional shortages of fresh food and basic supplies, plumbing adventures, disrupted mail service, combat operations, and the exciting possibility that nobody will tell you when you are coming home.

The Lincoln left San Diego last November. It was supposed to be a Pacific deployment. Then war intervened, the carrier was redirected to the Middle East, and by August its crew had spent more than 260 days at sea. According to U.S. Central Command, the strike group has conducted roughly 10,000 aircraft flights and expended 1.5 million pounds of ordnance. Sailors supported 40 days of continuous combat operations.

That is an extraordinary military accomplishment.

It is also an extraordinary thing to ask human beings to endure.

Fortunately, Washington has developed an innovative response to concerns about exhaustion, deteriorating morale and mental health.

Everything is fine.

The Freshies Have Abandoned Ship

One of the more strangely human details of this story involves something sailors call the “freshies.”

Fresh fruit. Fresh vegetables. Those extravagant delicacies commonly available at such exotic locations as Publix.

Because the war disrupted the Navy’s normal regional supply system, the Lincoln experienced periods when fresh produce disappeared. Sailors and families also reported food and water shortages, hygiene supply problems, laundry disruptions and mail delays. A brief Oman resupply stop in July finally brought fresh fruits and vegetables aboard after sailors said they had gone months without them. The Navy says many of those logistical problems have since been resolved.

Mission-critical supplies had to be prioritized.

Food first.

Hygiene supplies second.

Mail later.

Which makes sense.

Bombs before birthday cards.

Aircraft parts before Aunt Linda’s cookies.

Apparently the United States can move a multimillion-dollar missile halfway around the world with breathtaking precision, but getting a sailor an orange remains one of the more challenging aspects of modern warfare.

And yet the crew continued working.

Ten thousand flights.

Forty days of continuous combat.

One and a half million pounds of ordnance.

We know exactly how much weaponry left the ship.

What remains considerably harder to measure is what the deployment has taken out of the people launching it.

The Part That Isn’t Funny

Families and sailors have described exhaustion and declining morale. Stars and Stripes reported accounts of suicidal thoughts, including an incident in which sailors said a crew member was stopped from jumping overboard. The Navy confirmed that another sailor went overboard in early August, was quickly recovered and later transferred for additional care, although officials did not characterize the incident as a suicide attempt.

One parent described watching their sailor slowly lose hope.

That is where the satire stops being particularly funny.

The Navy disputes the suggestion that the Lincoln is experiencing a widespread mental health crisis. Officials say they have not observed an increase in suicidal ideation or attempts and point to the mental health professionals, medical personnel and chaplains available aboard the carrier. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said reports about conditions were “completely misrepresented” and insisted that ships are given everything the military can provide.

Those facts deserve to be included.

So does another one.

A ship can remain combat effective while the people aboard it are exhausted.

The crew can perform magnificently while individual sailors struggle.

Both statements can be true at the same time.

Nuance has not yet been banned by executive order.

Then Came Four Words

On August 14, Donald Trump was standing at Joint Base Andrews when a reporter raised the concerns of military families and asked whether the Lincoln’s deployment had gone on too long.

Trump first rejected the premise that families were concerned.

“No, they’re not.”

Then came the question about whether the deployment had lasted too long and whether he was worried about mental health concerns.

Trump responded:

“No, no, no. Not nearly long enough.”

Then he left to board Air Force One.

There are moments when satire requires imagination.

This is not one of them.

For sailors aboard the Abraham Lincoln, more than eight months away from home meant missed birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, family emergencies, long workdays, combat operations and endless stretches of ocean.

For the Commander in Chief standing beside his private presidential aircraft, it became four words.

Not nearly long enough.

There may be no better illustration of the distance between the flight deck and the podium.

One group gets on an aircraft carrier and wonders when it will see home again.

The other gets on Air Force One and is home for dinner.

And How Much Will That Be?

While the sailors were counting days, Washington was counting dollars.

The first six days of the Iran war cost an estimated $11.3 billion, according to figures provided by the Defense Department to Congress. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the bill had reached roughly $16.5 billion by Day 12 and warned that the heavy use of munitions could create risks elsewhere, particularly in the western Pacific and Ukraine.

By May, the Pentagon was publicly citing $29 billion.

Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes argues that figure dramatically understates the eventual expense because the government often values missiles at what they originally cost rather than what replacing them will cost now. She estimated upfront spending could reach roughly $200 billion. The Pentagon later sought another $80 billion connected to the conflict.

But don’t worry.

America has another highly sophisticated war-financing mechanism.

Your wallet.

Higher energy costs have rippled through gasoline prices, transportation and other household expenses. One economist estimated the typical American household could ultimately pay about $1,000 because of the conflict.

Consider it your patriotic participation fee.

Souvenir T-shirt not included.

Because Apparently One Strait Wasn’t Enough

The war began February 28 with massive U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior officials. Iran responded in part by effectively shutting down normal traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important energy corridors on Earth. Before the war, roughly one-fifth of global oil and LNG shipments moved through it.

By August, shipping had collapsed from more than 130 daily transits before the conflict to single digits on some days.

Then the Houthis declared a blockade affecting Bab el-Mandeb, another crucial shipping route, and attacked Saudi-linked vessels.

Because when you have one global energy chokepoint crisis, the obvious solution is apparently to collect the whole set.

Oil surged. Gasoline followed. Shipping became more dangerous and expensive. Iranian and American officials continued exchanging demands while global markets attempted to determine which strategically vital waterway might become unusable next.

Geopolitical Whac-A-Mole, now available in the Persian Gulf edition.

Good News, Someone Found Another Aircraft Carrier

There is finally some good news for the crew of the Abraham Lincoln.

The USS George Washington has now arrived in the Middle East to relieve it. The Lincoln can begin the long journey back toward San Diego and the families who have been waiting for most of a year.

There is, naturally, a small catch.

The George Washington was America’s forward-deployed carrier in Asia.

So while solving one overstretched-carrier problem, the United States has temporarily reduced its carrier presence in the Pacific.

Military strategists undoubtedly have a sophisticated term for this.

Here at The Gilded Toilet, we call it moving the lawn furniture around while the house is on fire.

Eventually the Lincoln will return home. Sailors will walk down the gangway. Families will hug people they have spent months worrying about. There will be speeches about courage, endurance, patriotism and sacrifice.

Those sailors will deserve every word.

But there is another phrase worth remembering.

Not nearly long enough.

Not because it was true.

Because four words spoken beside Air Force One revealed something 1.5 million pounds of ordnance cannot measure: the enormous distance that can exist between those who decide how long a war continues and those who are asked to live inside it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why we have The Gilded Toilet.

Sometimes the gold is merely tacky.

Sometimes what it reflects is far more serious.

Where the absurdity of this moment gets the satire it deserves, and all the gold in the world still can’t buy good taste.

Read The Gilded Toilet at Still Human → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

By J. H. Irwin
Author | Storyteller | Capturing Life, Memory, and Meaning

My mind is filled with ideas, memories, hopes, fears, and love. Filled with 65 years of experience, success, failure, weakness, illness, pain, and joy; all contribute to the words I write; all contribute to the man I was, the man I am, and the man I will become.

I write in hope that someone reading my words will be inspired in some small…or even large way.

My topics are wide ranging, but all are core to humanity and the human experience. I share personal experiences in the hope someone will see themselves in me and know it will be ok; they will know you can survive and thrive despite it all.

I write about what is happening to our country and the world, and my concerns surrounding what I see. I write to inform others who wish to do something to help but have not yet identified a path that works for them.

My writing today is different than it was even a year ago. It changed because I was inspired to do better, to create words that make people think. I stopped writing out of anger and the fear of what was happening to our country and our world, there is too much of that already. Words of anger only make you feel something in the moment yet change nothing else. They make other people angrier, perpetuating and propagating a world filled with anger, and that was no longer a path I wanted to follow.

We are all capable of change, who we are today does not have to be who we are tomorrow. This is the beauty of inspiration and introspection. All you need is an idea, a catalyst, to change the direction of your life. That idea could come from anywhere; a headline, an interaction on the street, an experience of some sort, even…an art exhibit.

Yesterday I visited a Banksy art exhibit. I was inspired. Inspired to look for new ways to express myself, either through words or other forms. Banksy’s work, intentionally or not, has influenced the world, makes people think, and presents ideals for humanity. I have always loved graffiti art. At its best it is an expression of an artist with something to say yet no formal canvas on which to say it. Banksy started as that and turned his work into an international catalyst for change, simply by having a vision to show inhumanity in a way people understood…his art inspired them, his art changed them. His art impacts our humanity, our humanness.

His identity became secondary to his message. For most of his career, anonymity allowed the art, not the artist, to dominate the conversation. His canvas is the world itself. Walls, buildings, barriers, and structures became part of the message. An image about occupation on the West Bank barrier or an image painted onto a bomb-damaged Ukrainian building hold an emotional force a gallery display never could, never would.

His unique form of activism is readily accessible. You do not need to understand political theory to understand his images of children, balloons, flowers, police officers, soldiers, refugees, animals and familiar cultural symbols. Upon viewing his work people understand the basic message almost immediately…what a powerful gift.

The most interesting lesson from Banksy isn’t to become more like Banksy, it is that activism does not have to look like what we traditionally think activism looks like. It does not always require a march, or a microphone, or a political organization. It doesn’t even require words. Banksy discovered a medium he understood and in using it he interrupted normal lives long enough to make them notice something.

For Banksy, a blank wall becomes political commentary. Humor becomes confrontation. Beauty becomes discomfort. Public space becomes conversation. For me, my future path will always include writing, but what I take away from this is a future in which my writing adjusts, changes, morphs because of inspiration gained from this experience. There is only one Banksy. I don’t wish to imitate what he has done. However, each of us can create our own path, our own unique version that, if we are fortunate, can make an impact of its own.

The true genius of Banksy’s style of activism is this…he does not simply tell people what to think, instead he creates circumstances that make it difficult for them not to think.

Words can still move the world. Read mine → https://substack.com/@jhirwin

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Sincerely,

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