{"id":299526,"date":"2026-07-18T16:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T16:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/299526\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T16:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T16:38:13","slug":"opinion-the-devils-bargain-at-the-heart-of-american-politics-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/299526\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | The \u2018Devil\u2019s Bargain\u2019 at the Heart of American Politics Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Siegel: We have a practice here \u2014 to wrap up these discussions after we\u2019ve been hearing about the horrors that lie in store for us, in our politics or in foreign wars sometimes \u2014 to just close on a note of joy, some joy you\u2019ve experienced recently that you would like to share with us.<\/p>\n

Molly, why don\u2019t you kick things off?<\/p>\n

Jong-Fast: I have a rescue dog, a naked Chinese Crested rescue dog named Incitatus. We call her Inky. Just to have a rescue dog, and to bring them into a little pack of tiny dogs that are running around and frolicking, is really wonderful, and it\u2019s bringing me a lot of joy.<\/p>\n

Siegel: Hear, hear.<\/p>\n

Stephens: I\u2019m not embarrassed to say that the greatest section of The New York Times is not Opinion or Foreign. The best desk is the Obit desk, far and away. It\u2019s the first thing I turn to, and not just because I\u2019m looking for real estate, as the old joke has it. It just has such great obituaries of people, of improbable figures.<\/p>\n

And last week, The Times ran an obituary<\/a> for the singer Bonnie Tyler, who passed away, sadly, at the age of 75. A Welsh singer known to anyone who came of age in the 1980s, on 1980s MTV, for her song \u201cTotal Eclipse of the Heart,\u201d better known to a friend of mine as Total Eclipse of All Art.<\/p>\n

But, the obituary for her in The Times, which is just kind of one for the ages, is from Alex Williams, and I just have to read these two paragraphs, if you don\u2019t mind, on the song \u201cTotal Eclipse of the Heart\u201d:<\/p>\n

Slowly and inexorably, momentum builds to climax after climax, during which Ms. Tyler\u2019s surging vocals, dancing on the edge of camp, seem like they could melt the microphone: \u201cTogether we can make it to the end of the line \u2014 your love is like a shadow on me all of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The accompanying video, extravagant even by 1980s standards, was shot in a former asylum in Surrey, England. Conjuring a mood of Gothic horror with ninjas, half-clad football players and altar boys with glowing eyes mixed in \u2014 \u201cTurn around, bright eyes,\u201d indeed \u2014 it seemed to play once an hour on MTV, at the height of the network\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n

And I just want to say thank you to Alex for absolutely making my morning with such a wonderful obituary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Siegel: We have a practice here \u2014 to wrap up these discussions after we\u2019ve been hearing about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[93678,11288,11772,62819,24442,113809,61689,61690,48301,651,1452,416,47837,89518,92413,29461,182,17073,11282,91576,46937,9,11,10,1671,1707,92030,5285,855,11771,24443,1069,901,2052,1554,1876,14137],"class_list":["post-299526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-anti-weaponization-fund-trump-v-irs","tag-appointments-and-executive-changes","tag-attorneys-general","tag-audio-neutral-informative","tag-blanche","tag-cheney","tag-conservatism-us-politics","tag-cornyn","tag-corruption-institutional","tag-democratic-party","tag-donald-j","tag-elections","tag-federal-state-relations-us","tag-graham","tag-immunity-from-prosecution","tag-internal-revenue-service","tag-john","tag-law-and-legislation","tag-lindsey","tag-liz","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics-and-government","tag-polls-and-public-opinion","tag-progressivism-theory-and-philosophy","tag-republican-party","tag-senate","tag-suits-and-litigation-civil","tag-todd-attorney","tag-trump","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-economy","tag-united-states-international-relations","tag-united-states-politics-and-government","tag-voting-and-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}