Boomers Are Trying to Wrap Up All the Plotlines Before They Die
Life During Trumptime 2/23/26 - 3/1/26
I can’t talk about the week that was without first talking about how it ended: war with Iran. The spin from Congressional Republicans is that Trump isn’t starting a new war but ending a “forever war” Iran has waged against America for 47 years. That spin and the persistent rumors the US will attack Cuba next has me thinking about the second Trump term as a series finale for America’s Baby Boomers. The 79 year old President is attempting to wrap up his generation’s storylines before the lights go out.
Many of Trump 2.0’s actions speak to specific Boomer obsessions. He declassified many of the remaining JFK assassination files. He’s said he’ll do the same for UFOs. He brought some of that old, if diminished, Kennedy magic back to DC by appointing RFK Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary.
Even his domestic policies feel like the kind of thing an angry and dying Boomer would recommend during a heated political fight with their family. “Crime would go down in the cities if you’d just send in the military,” they might say. Or “want to get rid of immigrants? Just unleash ICE to bust their heads.”
What we saw at the end of this week is the foreign policy version of that attitude playing. These are the dreams of a dying generation grasping the wheel of power one more time before it’s all over.
2/23/26
On February 22, the Mexican Army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel (JNGC) leader El Mencho in an attack carried out with support from the United States. Over the next few days, JNGC hijacked trucks, killed people, and set things on fire across Mexico in retaliation.
A Costco in flames in Puerto Vallarta captured public attention. On Reddit, a poster earned international ire when they complained that Westin Puerto Vallarta wouldn’t honor their late checkout request.
“I am platinum elite, over 1,000 lifetime Marriott nights,” the person said in the now deleted post on r/Marriott. “PV is on fire due to the cartel setting cars and buses on fire all over the city. The airport is closed and Ubers and Taxies are not running. I asked for a 4pm checkout, which I’m entitled to based on availability. They won’t extend past 2pm and adi we would have to use the hospitality suite.”
2/24/26
Trump delivered a long and boring State of the Union. Clocking in around two hours, the speech played the hits. Of note for our purposes: the President bragged about ending a war between Israel and Iran just days before he’d partner with Israel to launch a war on Iran.
“My first 10 months I ended eight wars, including Cambodia. Isn’t it funny? Sick people,” he said. “Cambodia and Thailand. Pakistan and India. Would have been a nuclear war. 35 million people said the prime minister of Pakistan would have died if it were not for my involvement. Kosovo and Serbia. Israel and Iran. Egypt and Ethiopia. Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Congo and Rwanda. And, of course, the war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level, it’s just about there.”
2/25/26
Ten people in a stolen speedboat traveled from Florida to Cuba where, according to Cuba’s Interior Ministry, the boat approached the coast and its occupants opened fire with assault rifles. The Cuban coast guard fired back, killing four and injuring the others. The six survivors are in custody. One of the dead is an American citizen. Cuba said they found handguns, assault rifles, bullet proof vests, and Molotov cocktails on the boat.
2/26/26
Pakistan is at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan. In an interview on state TV in Afghanistan, Taliban commander Hamid Khorasani told viewers that his forces would meet Pakistan’s ballistic missiles with suicide bombers. It’s further proof that Taliban bureaucrats hated working in an office and “missed the days of Jihad.”
2/27/26
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave AI company Anthropic an ultimatum this week: give us full access to Claude without safeguards or we’ll declare you a supply chain risk. At issue was Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s refusal to allow Claude to be used for mass domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons systems. According to The Washington Post: Hegseth demanded to know if Claude would help America shoot down an incoming nuclear weapon.
Amodei’s response? “Call us and we’d work it out.” WaPo noted that Anthropic denied he’d said this.
Anthropic stuck to its guns. Hegseth declared Anthropic a supply chain risk which would blacklist it from all government work. Hours later, the Pentagon used Claude when it launched an air attack against Iran.
Today, Hegseth also picked a fight with the Boy Scouts over “woke” policies. The Boy Scouts bent the knee.
2/28/26
The vibe war turned kinetic. After bombing Iranian nuclear sites in June last year Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated.” A little less than a year later, Trump started a broader war against Iran. Why? “It’s a very simple message,” Trump said in a speech to the nation on Saturday. “They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
3/1/26
Iran confirmed that the US-led campaign against Iran killed the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The attacks also, apparently, killed quite a few other important people, including officials the US had identified as possible candidates to take over Iran.
“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump told Johathan Karl of ABC News. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”
In a speech on Sunday, Trump acknowledged that several US troops had already died during the war. He thanked them for their service. “Sadly there will likely be more before it ends,” he said. “That’s the way it is. Likely be more.”