If They’re Losing, Who’s Winning?

As the news of overflowing morgues and dwindling PPE began to give way to the timeworn tableaus of federal boots reigning blows on Black necks, my mind turned, as it often does, to rock ‘n’ roll. What better way to offset the crumbling empire blues than to swaddle myself in the pentatonic protective equipment that has sustained me for so long? If the negro can speak of Rivers Cuomo for a second, I thought about Weezer’s “The Sweater Song.” Judging by the ferocity of the government’s crackdown on anti-racist protests roiling the US, they think holding police officers accountable is a thread that, if pulled, would destroy the sweater of our republic.

I agree with that assessment of the stakes, with the significant caveat that in a country founded on the lofty notion of perfectibility, short-term harm to the republic is a necessary precondition to its long-term refinement. But, admittedly, keeping an eye on the big picture is a struggle. At the dusk of another bloody, cataclysmic summer, it is hard to feel like this is the volta in that winding moral arc I’ve been hearing about since I was a kid. I am too aware of the simmering tensions of so many summers past, of revolutionary potential scuttled in the autumn breeze. Even among the literati, running a thumb along the layers of recurrence is almost a game. In one of