On April 7, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social his threat to literally annihilate Iran: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” That same day, same time, the Artemis II mission was on its way back to Earth after circling the Moon.
As the Canadian poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen once put it: America is “the cradle of the best and the worst.”
First, the best, exemplified by the Artemis II mission. The first crewed flight beyond a low Earth orbit since 1972 took a long time to happen. The planning started in 2011, but numerous setbacks and hardware issues, including extensive heat-shield damage during an unmanned test flight, set back the launch until April 1, 2026.
The four-person crew looked like the deck of the Starship Enterprise made real. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch are part of the NASA Astronaut Corps, and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen came from the Canadian Astronaut Corps. Glover is Black, Koch is the first woman to travel to space. Also, she’s Jewish, and Hansen is the first non-American to reach the moon.
The astronauts are all supremely qualified. Glover, for instance, in addition to his extensive experience flying jet fighters, piloted” the first SpaceX Crew Dragon flight to the International Space Station in 2020-21, logging 168 days in orbit and completing four spacewalks.” He also has not one, not two, but three master’s degrees in military aviation, systems engineering and management. As for Christina Koch, she worked on the instruments for NASA’s Juno probe, now orbiting Jupiter, and two spacecraft designed to study the Van Allen radiation belts.
Anyone who thinks they were chosen, not for their qualifications but for “representation,” doesn’t know what they are talking about.
The mission itself went off with barely a hitch. True, intense sunlight caused the cabin temperature to rise uncomfortably, but that was solved by covering the windows with a t-shirt. The toilet also required some maintenance. But aside from these minor issues, the mission succeeded brilliantly. For the first time, human eyes looked at the dark side of the moon, including a crater that the astronauts named for Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll. The splashdown was perfect.
But if international cooperation and nearly flawless execution represents America at its best, events on earth showed America at its worst.
To state the obvious, Trump’s war on Iran — and make no mistake, it is a war, not a “little excursion” — continues to wreak global economic havoc. After Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices spiraled upward, resulting in high prices for gas, fertilizer (essential for growing food throughout the world), and helium (essential for semiconductor manufacturing). Rising oil prices means rising inflation, as the cost of transport goes, so does the price of everything transported, be it groceries, clothing or electronics.
The Iran war has also demonstrated the moral vacuity of Trump’s cabinet, especially Secretary of Defense (he calls himself “Secretary of War”) Pete Hegseth, who at a press briefing on March 13, said that U.S. forces would show “no quarter, no mercy.” “No quarter” means killing soldiers who are either incapacitated or surrendering, and so, is blatantly illegal.
Hegseth did not misspeak. He had no problem with the military killing two suspected drug smugglers hanging on to the remnants of the boat the military blew up, and he lobbied for Trump to pardon soldiers accused of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. So there’s no reason to assume he didn’t mean what he said.
As for Trump, his behavior over the last few weeks has become so bizarre and so extreme that even his supporters are starting to wonder if the president is all there. On Easter Sunday, Trump posted “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
Most recently, Trump posted an image of himself as Jesus healing a sick man. He took it down, but not before a tsunami of criticism accusing Trump of blasphemy. Trump then tried to excuse himself by saying that he “thought it was me as a doctor.” Nobody believes him.
Apart from the Iran war, there are many other examples of a government run amok. Trump’s Department of Justice (now headed by Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal lawyer) keeps trying to prosecute his political enemies. The Department of Homeland Security continues to deport illegal aliens, even though most have no criminal record. The Environmental Protection Agency should be renamed “The Corporate Pollution Protection Agency” because its chief, Lee Zeldin, thinks protecting industry and promoting fossil fuel use is more important than clean air. And Trump continues to slap his name on every building available and remake D.C. in his image. The economy continues to lag, and unemployment, especially for new college graduates, is rampant.
It’s hard to avoid a sense of doom. To believe that America is declining, and according to recent polling, 75% of respondents believe the country “is on the wrong track” or “out of control.”
But sometimes, both sides of a contradiction can be valid. The trick is to accept the paradox. At the same time that America, in cooperation with other nations, is still capable of greatness, as shown by the Artemis II mission. But at exactly the same time, America faces deep problems and is run by government many believe, with good reason, to be incompetent, if not criminal.
Both are true.
Peter C. Herman is an emeritus professor of English literature at San Diego State University. Nathan M. Greenfield is the North American correspondent for University World News.
