Dear Diary,

A Bad Moon Rising

January 22, 2026

I see the bad moon a-risin'
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightnin'
I see bad times today

Here’s the good news: Donald Trump says we’re not going to invade Greenland!

But here’s the bad news: Donald Trump tried to invade Greenland.

I don’t want to glide past that too quickly, because the speed matters. The whiplash matters. One minute we’re watching the President of the United States openly threaten an ally with tariffs, coercion, and implied military force. The next minute he’s backing off, issuing one of those classic Trump “actually this was very productive” walk-backs. TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out.

But here’s the thing: the damage doesn’t reverse just because he blinked.

Our allies had to respond. NATO countries moved to protect Greenland — not from Russia, not from China — but from us. European leaders openly talked about American instability. European media talked about the United States the way we used to talk about failing democracies.

That moment doesn’t disappear just because Trump got bored and moved on.

For a couple of days this week, I felt something I don’t usually let myself feel: fear. Real fear. Not abstract, not theoretical, not “I’ve read enough history to see where this goes” fear I’ve been living with for a decade now. I mean the kind of fear that strikes fast.

Because I’ve been saying for a while now — quietly, carefully — that one possible future was the United States breaking with NATO and aligning with authoritarian regimes. And I always assumed that would happen slowly. Through neglect. Through rot. Through “America First” drifting into “America Alone.”

I did not expect it to happen through open threats against allies in year one!!!

When Trump threatened Greenland, he wasn’t just posturing. He was testing something: whether the post-World War II order still exists, and whether anyone can stop him from shredding it.

Europe answered him. Loudly. And not in a way that should make any American feel good.

I hear hurricanes a-blowin'
I know the end is comin' soon
I fear rivers over flowin'
I hear the voice of rage and ruin

I keep seeing Americans online pleading with the rest of the world: We didn’t vote for him.

I get it. I feel that instinct too.

But here’s the brutal truth: it doesn’t matter.

Nations don’t interact with voters. They interact with states. And the United States — the country every one of us was born into — just demonstrated that it is volatile, reckless, and willing to threaten its own allies for domestic political theater.

That’s not a temporary stain. That’s a credibility wound.

I watched coverage of Trump’s Davos speech with my jaw clenched. The arrogance. The ignorance. The casual erasure of allied sacrifice. Countries like the Netherlands — which lost a far greater share of their population in Iraq and Afghanistan than we did — being treated like freeloaders.

I kept thinking: every American alive inherited something without earning it. We inherited the moral authority of the postwar order. We inherited the benefit of alliances forged in blood and famine and rubble. We inherited a world where the U.S. passport meant stability.

And this week, that inheritance took a direct hit.

Hope you got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Looks like we're in for nasty weather
One eye is taken for an eye

I’m supposed to travel this summer. I found myself wondering — not hypothetically — whether Americans will still be welcome in Canada by July. That thought would have sounded insane to me even a year ago.

Now it doesn’t.

While the world was watching Trump menace Greenland (or maybe it’s Iceland???!!), things were also accelerating at home.

ICE. Again.

A whistleblower revealed a secret memo authorizing ICE agents to forcibly enter homes without a judicial warrant — something DHS’s own legal guidance says is unconstitutional. The memo was hidden. Passed verbally. People punished for objecting. At least one instructor resigned rather than teach it.

That alone should have stopped the country cold.

But what broke me this week weren’t the memos. It was the kids.

A video of a little boy crying to his mom after being told on a soccer field that he was an “illegal” and should go back to his country — even though he was born here.

A sixteen-year-old boy describing the moment he realized ICE wasn’t just pulling them over — they were coming for his father. The panic in his voice when it clicked. Being run off the road. Put in a chokehold. Telling them he was a citizen. It not mattering.

Sixteen years old.

I keep thinking about how hard that realization hit him.

That’s not policy. That’s not immigration debate. That’s trauma. That’s a generation learning something they can never unlearn.

And that’s the through-line I can’t shake.

Because what Trump did with Greenland wasn’t just incompetence — it was an appeasement test in reverse. Would allies bend? Would they absorb it? Would they pretend it wasn’t happening?

They didn’t. And thank God for that.

But the fact that they even had to respond tells us something important: the guardrails we assumed were permanent are not. The speed of collapse is faster than we thought. The raindrops are falling into an ocean so vast that each one barely makes a splash — until suddenly you realize the water is rising.

I’ve spent years trying to understand how democratic collapse actually feels while you’re living inside it. This week felt like an answer.

It felt fast. Slippery. Disorienting. Like realizing the floor you’re standing on isn’t solid — it’s moving.

And I don’t think we can undo what happened this week. I think the question now is how bad can it get?

So I’m writing this down.

Because someday people will ask what it felt like when America’s postwar identity cracked. And I want there to be a record that says: some of us saw it. Some of us were horrified. Some of us refused to normalize it.

Not all Americans are Grade-A assholes but we’ll be judged by history regardless.

Well don't go around tonight
Well it's bound to take your life
There's a bad moon on the rise