John Brown on the Fourth of July
Life During Trumptime 6/22/26 - 6/28/26
Happy Fourth of July Angry Planet readers.
This newsletter goes out a week after the events it records. This is probably bad for SEO, but I’ve long been a fan of cold takes and find it’s better to write about recent history once it’s a few days in the past. That decision means this week’s newsletter is coming out on the 250th anniversary of the American experiment. To honor that, here are three pieces of writing about the country I’m thinking about this year.
The first is from journalist David Strother who reported on John Brown’s assault on Harper’s Ferry for Harper’s Weekly. Strother was present at Brown’s hanging in 1859.
The gibbet was erected on a gentle swell that commanded a view of the country for many miles around. From the scaffold which I ascended the view was of surpassing beauty. On every side stretching away into the blue distance were broad & fertile fields dotted with corn shocks and white farm houses glimmering through the leafless trees — emblems of prosperity and peace. Hard by was the pleasant village with its elegant suburban residences and bordering the picture east & west were the blue mountains thirty miles apart. In the Blue Ridge which lay to the eastward appeared the deep gap through which the Potomac and Shenandoah pour their united streams at Harpers ferry, eight miles distant.
Harper’s Weekly declined to publish Strother’s account and it did not see broad public circulation until 1955. The Atlantic added to Brown’s legend in 1922 when it described words he spoke as he sat on his own coffin while being driven to gallows and scanning the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains: “This is a beautiful country. I never had the pleasure of seeing it before.”
I’m also thinking of Sarah Vowell’s book Take the Cannoli in which she recounts a road trip she took with her sister along the Trail of Tears.
The most happiness I find on the trip is when we’re in the car and I can blare the Chuck Berry tape I brought. We drive the trail where thousands died, and I listen to the music and think, what are we supposed to do with the grisly past?
I feel a righteous anger and bitterness about every historical fact of what the American Nation did to the Cherokee. But at the same time, I’m an entirely American creature. I’m in love with this song and the country that gave birth to it.
Listening to “Back in the USA” while driving the Trail of Tears, I turn it over and over in my head. “It’s a good country. It’s a bad country. Good country. Bad country.” And of course, it’s both.
Finally there is “The Ballad of Booth” from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins.
Someone tell the story
Someone sing the song
Every now and then the country
Goes a little wrong
Every now and then a madman’s
Bound to come along
Doesn’t stop the story—
Story’s pretty strong
Doesn’t change the song...
6/22/26
The first round of talks between Iran and the United States ended with mixed results. There was no lasting peace and by the end of the week both sides would be taking shots again. America is focused on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s negotiators are focused on Lebanon. Representatives from Qatar and Pakistan said they were hopeful and that Memorandum of Understanding had produced talks that led to a roadmap they believed would lead to a final end to the conflict within 60 days.
Images of dead ducks in the Reflecting Pool spread on social media.
6/23/26
The Wall Street Journal reported that shit online shit talk from both Iran and Trump were hurting negotiations to end the war. “Iranian negotiators have told mediators that they consulted a team of psychologists to help them understand the president’s mindset, some mediators said. Iranian diplomats work with the specialists to try to predict Trump’s public response to Iran’s proposals, they said,” the Journal said.
The US F-15 pilot shot down over Iran in April told the Pentagon they had seen a strange jellyfish-like drone swarm before ejecting from his jet. “Multiple drones interconnected and moving as one with smaller drones below the bigger drones like legs [...] real alien shit,” a source told CNN.
Trump said that six people had been arrested in alleged crimes related to the Reflecting Pool.
“Six people have been arrested, and seven people have been cited, for the damage they did to our Country’s now beautiful Reflecting Pool. The 350 foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors, is actually numerous slashes over a very long 350 foot length. It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition. Likewise, the small area at the bottom of the Pool was cut and powerfully lifted off the surface leaving very jagged, uneven edges. The large areas of grass are being replaced. In any event, even prior to fixing those areas, the Reflecting Pool is as beautiful as it can be. We will drain some of the water, either immediately before or after the Fourth of July, to do the permanent repair,” he said in a post on Truth Social.
The Center for Biological Diversity called for an investigation into all the dead ducks at the Reflecting Pool.
TMZ reported that workers had erected a chain link fence around the Reflecting Pool.
6/24/26
Trump refused to sign a housing bill that’s wildly popular in the House and Senate among Democrats and Republicans. He cancelled a public signing of the bill and explained why in a post on Truth Social.
“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” he said. This is a controversial voting ID bill that has struggled for wide support in the GOP held congress. Saving the SAVE AMERICA ACT was also the reason Trump blew up his own nomination of Jay Clayton for Director of National Intelligence last week.
Pete Hegseth blocked an Air Force attempt to reinstate a mandatory flu shot for new recruits. An outbreak of the illness at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas has worsened this week and at least 275 people are infected.
6/25/26
The Great American State Fair began in Washington DC. The heat is making it hard for anyone to enjoy.
Vice President JD Vance sat for an interview at the Richard Nixon Foundation. “I’m fascinated by Nixon as a character in history,” Vance said. “I think his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, deservedly so [...] if Watergate happened tomorrow it would be a 12 hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy. And, by the way, if you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions, tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There’s a parallel.”
“I also just, at a personal level, you know. OK. Young Senator. Vice President. Writes some best selling books. Is hated by the media. It kind of sounds like JD Vance,” he added.
The National Park Service claimed that the Reflecting Pool was sabotaged by a “sharp knife or razor.”
6/26/26
The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was ready to begin inspections of Iranian nuclear sites. “There is an agreement and to comply with that agreement, the IAEA will have to have access and inspect. We hope to be there soon [...] Intentions are not enough. We have to have a very strong verification system in place,” IAEA head Rafael Grossi said at a press conference in Japan.
CENTCOM said it attacked targets in Iran in retaliation for the IRGC’s attacks on a commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. “The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire. Furthermore, Iran’s dangerous behavior undermined freedom of navigation as commerce increasingly flows through the vital international trade corridor,” CENTCOM said.
Aspiring erotic cannibal Armie Hammer has returned to cinema screens in a movie directed by reviled German filmmaker Uwe Boll. Known mostly for his awful adaptations of video games, Boll has lately spent time directing movies about mass shooters and vigilantes. They’ve not gotten a lot of attention. Enter Citizen Vigilante, a film where Hammer plays an illegal immigrant to Germany who kills other immigrants while ranting about his Turner Diaries inspired philosophy.
Even as a provocative piece of conservative fiction, Citizen Vigilante fails. Dragged Across Concrete this is not. The film has gone viral online, however, due in part to Elon Musk hosting it for free on X for several days.
On Truth Social, Trump shared a picture of National Guardsmen guarding the Reflecting Pool.
6/27/26
Syarcuse.com had the curious story of a woman harassed by ICE while she worked at a polling station at a library in Syracuse, New York.
The agents handed [Paigelynne] Gonyea a form letter that says they were investigating threats made against ICE personnel. The form says the agents had identified an Instagram account they believe breaks federal law. They asked her to remove and discontinue the behavior, according to the unsigned document she shared on Instagram.
“This notice officially informs you that it is unlawful to threaten to assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official or that federal official’s immediate family member with the intent to impede, intimidate, and/or interfere with the federal official’s duties or retaliate against a federal official due to the performance of their duties,” the document said.
Gonyea made the offending post on January 8. “The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in broad daylight has been identified as Jonathan Ross by the Minnesota Star Tribune,” it said. “I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted!”
Gonyea told reporters that she did not intend to delete the post and her interaction with federal agents was captured on video.
6/28/26
Bahrain’s military claimed it intercepted Iranian missiles en route to America’s Fifth Fleet base in the country. Kuwait said it intercepted a similar fleet. Iran claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they were done in retaliation for the US attempting to open a new route through the Strait of Hormuz without Iran’s oversight.
“Any attempt to establish new or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran will only lead to further complications, delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and increase the level of tension,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a statement to the press.
“United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN! It is very possible that they will never learn! There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.