Commentary

“In a Plague-Time, the Heroic (in Hospitals) and Not-Heroic (in the White House)” (4/8/2020). From an E.R. doctor in New York City: “Very beautifully written. And the highest praise to be thought of as the opposite of Trump!”

“In a Plague-Time, Redefining the ‘Essential’ Worker” (4/15/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Seeking Beauty, Truth, Lightness” (4/24/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Can-Do Nation Is Unmasked as Can’t-Do” (5/12/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Fat Cats Fatten and Little Guys Help Out” (5/29/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Doubly Plagued by Our Mask-Defying Independence” (7/07/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Classic Films of Character and Courage” (8/11/2020)

“This Pandemic Could Be Over By Now—IF Our President Believed in Government” (9/16/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Rereading Albert Camus’ ‘The Plague’” (9/29/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Running for Elective Office: Personal Insights” (11/3/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Two Old Friends Get Philosophical” (12/18/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, a Very Different Holiday Letter” (12/21/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, a Young Mother Decries Friends Who Won’t Mask” (2/3/2021)

“In a Plague-Time, Streaming Plays: ‘The Catastrophist’ and ‘On Beckett/In Screen’” (3/14/2021)

“In a Plague-Time, Reading ‘Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World,’ by Fareed Zakaria” (5/20/2021)

“To a New Order of Things, Post-Pandemic” (6/30/2021)

“In a Plague-Time, Undone by Our Vaccine-Defying Independence” (7/29/2021)

“In a Plague-Time, Why Do Anti-Vaxxers Get ICU Care and the Vaccinated Don’t—and Die?: The Ethics of Hospital Rationing” (9/25/2021)

“In a Plague-Time Extended: Vaccine Mandates, Dammit!” (12/20/2021)

“In a Plague-Time Extended: Trying to Love Humanity Again” (1/15/2022)

“In a Plague-Time Extended: Some Light Moments from Film and TV” (2/07/2022)

“Dr. Anthony Fauci: A Peerless Public Servant and Pandemic Guide Steps Down” (1/31/2023)

Earlier MEDIUM commentary

“In a Plague-Time, Fat Cats Fatten and Little Guys Help Out” (5/29/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Can-Do Nation Is Unmasked as Can’t-Do” (5/12/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Seeking Beauty, Truth, Lightness” (4/23/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Redefining the ‘Essential’ Worker” (4/15/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, the Heroic (in Hospitals) and Not-Heroic (in the White House)” (4/8/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, Reaching Out to Friends While Self-Isolating” (3/29/2020)

“In a Plague-Time, We Need Truth and Experts” (3/23/2020)

“Biden-Warren 2020?” (3/18/202)

“Democrats Default to Normalcy: Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday Miracle” (3/5/202)

“Memo to All Women: Best Way to Protect #MeToo Is to Think #UsToo” (2/29/2020)

Films for Our Times: “Parasite” (2/26/202)

“‘Lawlessness Normalized’: What Acquitting Donald Trump Means” (2/3/2020)

Films for Our Times: “Syria’s Tragedy Reflected in ‘The Cave’ and ‘For Sama’” (1/20/2020)

“American Colossus, Get Thee to Rehab: Learn to Exercise Power Wisely” (1/13/2020)

“‘A Low Dishonest Decade’: The Poet Points the Way Upward” (1/7/2020)

“Classic Screwball Comedies: Rx for Our Fraught Times” (12/20/2019)

“3 Takeaways for Democrats from U.K.’s Conservative ‘Landslide’ Victory” (12/16/2019

“Republicans Stand by a President Who Pardons Accused War Criminals” (12/9/2019)

“Trump the Corrupt the Champion of Anti-Corruption?” (11/21/2019)

TV for Our Times: “Our Boys” and “Press” (11/18/2019)

“In Reckoning, America Recovers Its Moral Compass” (11/11/2019)

“Abandoning an Ally on the Battlefield: America the Treacherous?” (10/24/2019)

“Censure, Not Impeachment: Make a Moral, Not a Political Statement” (10/9/2019)

“The Hong Kong and Moscow Protests: In Authoritarian Places, a Yearning for Democracy” (9/14/2019)

“Capitalists Rethink Capitalism—Maybe” (9/3/2019)

“A Moderate and a Progressive Mix It Up—and Find Consensus” (8/15/2019)

“My Fellow White Americans: Are We About Blood Identity—or America’s Ideals?” (8/12/2019)

“‘Let’s Take Back Our Democracy—and Improve It While We’re at It’: Democrats’ Winning Strategy in 2020” (7/21/2019)

“Model for the New Man, Right Here in River City” (6/28/2019)

“D-Day at 75: Rededicating Ourselves to the Mission” (6/6/2019)

“Impeaching Trump Would Be Right in Principle, But Disastrous Politically” (5/28/2019)

Book: “Honorable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War,” by Thurston Clarke (4/4/2019)

Plays for Our Times: “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” by Lucas Hnath (3/25/2019)

Books for Our Times: “The Jungle Grows Back: America in an Imperiled World,” by Robert Kagan (2/28/2019)

“Inaction on the Ghastly Jamal Khashoggi Killing Gives Autocrats What They Crave—Impunity” (1/21/2019)

“In Defending Democracy, Democrats Go High, Republicans Go Ever Lower” (12/17/2018)

“Put the Brakes on Trump’s Anti-Democracy Chaos. Vote Nov. 6” (11/4/2018)

“Is America Having a Breakdown or a Reckoning? 7 Arguments for Reckoning” (10/4/2018)

“Classic Foreign Films of Human Drama: Rx for Our Fraught Times” (10/18/2018)

“The Republicans and Donald Trump: A Faustian Bargain (Annotated)” (8/18/2018)

“How to Keep a Good Marriage in Bad (Trumpian) Times” (8/4/2018)

“Can a Narcissist Comprehend the Meaning of Treason?” (7/23/2018)

“World Cup 2018: An Equal-Opportunity Tonic for an Angry and Divided World” (7/13/2018)

Film: “‘First Reformed’: Dangerous Heresies of a Man of the Cloth” (7/2/2018)

“Surrendering America’s Most Precious Mantle, ‘Leader of the Free World’” (6/25/2018)

“Once a Champion of Human Rights, America Now Inhumanly Separates Children from Parents” (6/14/2018)

“Marching for Their Lives, the Kids Gets Serious—More Serious Than the ‘Adults’” (6/1/2018)

“Democrats: Stop Running Against Nancy Pelosi” (5/21/2018)

“Counter-Forces to the Chaos: We’re Becoming Constitutionalists, Ethicists, Candidates for Office, and Other Good Things” (5/7/2018)

“Donald Trump: Ugliest American Ever?” (2/27/2018)

Select MEDIUM commentary, with reader comments

“’Lawlessness Normalized’: What Acquitting Donald Trump Means” (2/2020): “This so needed to be said! Thank you!”

“’A Low Dishonest Decade’: The Poet Points the Way Upward” (1/2020): “Auden’s poem is so appropriate. I am impressed how you wove in the current situation. One of your best.” “You give me new resolve to face down the monsters around us.”

“Censure, Not Impeachment: Make a Moral, Not a Political Statement” (10/2019): “This is the most sensible and achievable idea I have heard about how to react to Trump. Brilliant and appropriate! You deserve the Outstanding Thinker Award!”

“Capitalists Rethink Capitalism—Maybe” (9/2019): “So good you addressed this. Keep on writing!” “Nice story. I also agree with those who say, ‘Bah, humbug.’”

“My Fellow White Americans: Are We About Blood Identity—or America’s Ideals?” (8/2019): “This is wonderful, right on, superb writing and point well taken.” “Definitely a standing ovation.” “Wowie. Verdad. I have sent your essay to all my favorite people.”

“Impeaching Trump Would Be Right in Principle, but Disastrous Politically” (5/2019): “Totally agree.” “Spot on!“ “Am 100% on board with you. Impeachment would only help Trump.” “Another in a continuing series of powerfully written, well-thought out persuasive opinion pieces. Please send to Nancy Pelosi—she needs to know there are people out here who applaud her wise leadership. Kudos to you!”

“Is America Having a Breakdown or a Reckoning? 7 Arguments for Reckoning” (10/2018): “Great column!” “I wish we were having a reckoning. But Trump’s base sticks to him like glue and the GOP does not speak out. I fear we will have four more years of dismantling. But keep on writing!” “Brilliant as always.”

“The Republicans and Donald Trump: A Faustian Bargain (Annotated)” (8/2018): “Great angle. Priceless!” “A wowser. Humans seem to do the same thing over and over. And we’re supposed to be intelligent?” “Exceptional, Carla. You outdid yourself.” “That was a lot of research, but it read like stream-of-consciousness. You go, girl!” And from a literature professor: “Great job on the Faust legend. I thought I knew my Goethe and Marlowe…..”

“How to Keep a Good Marriage During Bad (Trumpian) Times” (8/2018): “That spat you had really rings true—and the hashing out afterwards. So glad you had a happy ending.” “I laughed out loud. Very funny and all too real.” “My husband and I have noticed Trump is often at the bottom of our arguments. Getting away into Nature helps.” “I live with a Republican. Occasionally I will ask him his side of the political spectrum. How totally different our world-views are, and they don’t change. Yet we have been together for 37 years.”

“Can a Narcissist Comprehend the Meaning of Treason?” (7/2018): “Good question!” “Excellent. Sometimes when I hear Trump speak, I feel something I cannot describe. His power to twist the truth all the while dominating his audience is, frankly, terrifying.” “You really got the core of the man.”

“America Surrenders Its Most Precious Mantle, ‘Leader of the Free World’” (6/2018): “Another great column. We have young friends working at the State Department and they are not happy campers. And we have many friends across the globe, plus 30+ Rotary exchange students we have hosted, and to a person they are aghast at the damage Trump has done to this country.”

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“Carla Seaquist is an essayist in the great American tradition of plain talk, common sense, strong ethics, and an understanding that one cannot understand current politics, foreign policy or domestic travail without a deep knowledge of history. Her work is informed, readable and provocative, in the best sense—making the reader think in new ways.”
-Seymour M. Hersh

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Select HUFFPOST commentary, from 133 total, with reader comments

“A ‘Breaking Bad’ Culture Got Its President” (8/2017): “Very nicely written. Your diagnostics I think are precisely correct. However, I wish I could be so optimistic about the therapeutics, about our ability to ‘break good’ as a nation. But, without a moral compass, we are destined to remain a fragmented and rudderless culture. ‘Breaking bad’ has become so institutionalized in our America that our democracy has possibly become irretrievably subverted. I do not think any of this will change until the economics change and right now it all seems to be focused on grabbing what you can before the ship goes down. No one personifies this better than Trump! Please argue with me if you see this as grossly off track. Thank you, Carla, for your strong and constant public voice. It does make a difference.”

“Historic Reckoning on Sexual Harassment: In Low Times, a Good Sign” (11/2017): “You are amazing!” “Yes, Carla! I have wondered also, Why now? Hopefully this momentum will continue.” “Very thoughtful. I agree, this looks like a clear sign that America can self-correct.” “Good job as usual, Carla. Yes, isn’t it amazing to consider: America ‘backing into moral consciousness again,’ as you suggest?”

Books for Our Times: “The Retreat of Western Liberalism” (9/2017): “Brilliant! But scary prospects for our future.” “Oh, dear! Sort of what I had been sensing, but not able to express. Depressing!” “Very interesting. You mention ‘privatizing risk,’ a concept that has long troubled me. ‘Privatizing risk’ takes the responsibility out of the hands of government that at one time provided the response to, say, a natural disaster and instead puts the onus on private donations. Hits a nerve with me.”

“Mourning a Friend Who Saved My Life” (3/2017): “Eloquent, tender, and deeply descriptive of everything a friendship could be.” “Lovely and elegant tribute to your Friend.” “What a good friend, indeed! What a lifeline she gave you. Your thank you to her was beautiful.” “Very beautiful, very sad. I still cry for a woman friend who died more than 10 years ago.” “Very touching tribute. I never had a friend like yours. Some women have sisters or mothers or friends who recognize sad situations and can offer help. How lucky you are!” “What a beautiful memorial to your dear Friend. It is as though you have been doing all of your marvelous writing in order to be able to write this exquisite essay. Thank you.” And from the widower: “I loved your article about her. It was read at her memorial service.”

“The ‘Normalization’ of Donald Trump? Not!” (11/2016): “Great article, have circulated to my network.” “Bravo and kudos for the ‘normalization’ article, a well-summarized recall of Trump’s myriad failings.” “I want a button that says, ‘I refuse to normalize.’” “We loved your insights into these unspeakable events. Write on!”

“Beware the Disrupter With No Follow-Up Plan (A Post-Brexit Lesson)” (7/2016): “Excellent, you hit the nail on the head. Like Trump, there was no coherent plan when Boris Johnson et al. proposed Brexit. I can see why they were angry with Brussels and the E.U., but leaving was not the answer. I wonder what the future holds?” “Bravo, Carla—one of your best.” “Your post says it all. I sent it to friends.”

“Whatever Happened to the Famous American Ability to Say ‘Nuts’ to Charlatans, Crazies, and Fear-Mongers?” (1/2016): “DAMN GOOD!” “That’s a whole lotta ‘Nuts.’” “Looks like we both had the same thoughts at the same time.” “Sometimes people need to hear what they don’t want to hear.” “We, as a nation, are being tested in a big way. I honestly could not continue watching the last Republican debate. I kept wishing, like you say, that someone would just say, ‘Nuts!’ Scary times.”

Books for Our Times: “Why Nations Fail” (7/2013): “’Extractive elites’ is a great phrase. Says it all, doesn’t it?” “Fascinating and depressing.” “I really admire your review. It is compelling me to read the book.” “Vraiment. In my international work, I have seen these failures time after time in so many countries. I will read the book.”

“My Republican Mother Says Yes to Gun Control” (12/2012), re the Newtown, CT, school shooting tragedy: “Please thank your mother for your lead-in. I am exploring all angles, from a physician’s point of view: Yes to regulation; yes to CDC researching gun violence; yes to better mental health treatment. And could we get rid of the Second Amendment? I can’t imagine how those parents feel. I kept thinking of our 5-year-old granddaughter, and our daughter who’s a public school teacher.” “I find it encouraging that a rational Republican like your mother supports gun control.”

“A Great Speech about Why America Isn’t Great Anymore (But Could Be Again)” (7/2012): “Eloquent speech, eloquent article.” “Sad to say, I have coined a phrase and use it often, ‘Dumb is the new smart.’ Why? Because there is a good dose of Dumb coming from everywhere I turn. But your article inspires me to speak out. We had better start celebrating the smart and the good. Keep reminding us, Carla.”

“Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel Poet: An Appreciation” (4/2012): “Beautiful! I knew of the work from my daughter, who also admires her.” “I was completely ignorant about this woman, but agree that her poetry is striking.” “My goodness, I sure enjoyed the lines you included. I can understand why you cherish her work.” “Beautifully written. Yes, I have read her work—in Polish—and it’s great and accessible and funny. You are a wide-ranging writer—it’s terrific.”

“A War’s Premise Must Justify the Troops’ Suffering” (3/28/2012): “We stretch our soldiers until they snap, with the understanding they’ll stand alone—undefended—as ‘rogues’ when they can no longer balance insanity. Your premise is correct, your aim true. Brilliant! Bravo!” “Wonderful article about a terrible thing.” “’Occupy the premise’: Love it!” “A much-needed take on foreign policy from a moral agenda. Sadly, not a priority, as history shows.” “I sent your excellent post to friends. And I agree about the draft: It is the only thing that will stop the warmongers from getting us involved in another war—Iran, anyone?” From an Army doctor: “Outstanding.” And from a Vietnam veteran: “I wept when I read this. Thank you.”

“Wall Street: Brush Up Your Melville” (Original title: “Risk Management According to Moby-Dick”) (11/2011): “Loved your essay. As a former banker (almost 20 years at JPMorgan, left in 2001 before the Ahabs truly lost their minds), I can tell you that you nailed it.” “I feel we are experiencing the Twilight of Capitalism.” “Your Moby-Dick/Wall Street essay is inspired and instructive.” “You have interesting ideas and a gifted way of expressing them.” “You just get better and better. Brilliant piece. It makes me want to read Moby-Dick, an assignment I dodged back in high school.”

“Recovery Without a Reckoning” (11/2009): “Brilliant, Carla. You continue to go from strength to strength in your writing. Thank you for bringing in the moral aspect to our so-called economic ‘recovery.’ Thank you for your important work.”

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