Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, a possible democratic presidential candidate of 2028, used the primary episode of his recent podcast to interrupt from progressive by speaking out against transgender women and girls to participate in female sports.

Newsom made his explanation in an expanded conversation with the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old, who built the influential turn of Point USA organization, which President Donald Trump increased last autumn last autumn amongst the most recent generation of voters. Like Trump, Kirk was a loud opponent in allowing transgender women and girls to participate.

The governor's comments come just a couple of months after the volleyball team for ladies on the San Jose State University in the middle of a hearth storm.

“I think it's a problem of fairness, I completely agree with them. It's a problem of fairness – it's deeply unfair, “said Newsom to Kirk about” This is gavin newsoma “.

“I don't rings with the fairness problem,” drove Newsom, who played as a student Varsity Baseball. “I fully agree with you. … I worship sports. The problem of fairness is completely legitimate. “

The governor's comments are the most recent efforts by the Democrats to reconcile a alternative of 2024, which Trump brought back to the White House and gave the Republicans control over each congress chambers. The disagreements since November have been explaining the losses of the party – in contrast to economic policy and other affairs.

Overall, the surveys indicate that it isn’t popular that transgender athletes in women's teams can play in the ladies's team. Even many of the democrats – about 7 to 10 – reject it after a New York Times/Ipsos survey in January of the New York Times/Ipsos in January New York Times/Ipsos. A 2023 -Gallup survey also showed that the Democrats were divided, whether transgender people should give you the option to play in sports teams that correspond to their current gender identity.

Newsom, which has long positioned itself as a social progressive progressive, pulled sharp lectures from LGBTQ supporters.

“Sometimes Gavin Newsom applies to the profile in courage, sometimes not,” said the MP of California, Chris Ward and Senator Carolina Menjivar, who led the state's LGBTQ legislativ okay. “We are deeply ill and frustrated by these comments.”

Tony Hoang, Executive Director of Equality California, said that he was “disappointed and annoyed” by Newsoms and “to heart pain and fear”, the transgender community under the Trump administration, “to heart pain and fear” was added “.

“At the moment, transgender young people, their families, their doctors and their teachers are exposed to unprecedented politicians who wish to avoid their civil rights and wish to erase them from public life,” said Hoang. “You need guides who clearly fight for them.”

The California law, which became before Newsom, requires schools in the state to enable transgender athletes to play in school sports teams that are in line with their gender identity.

Apart from questions about athletics, there is less public support for broader restrictions on transgender rights and topics such as the medical care of transgender people, especially at Democrats.

According to AP Viewecast, 55% of voters in the 2024 elections stated that the support for transgender rights in the government and society went too far, while about 2 out of 10 said it was roughly correct and a similar proportion said that it was not far enough. It was also a bit more likely that voters prohibit laws, gender -specific medical treatment, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for minors who identify themselves as transgender.

But the Republicans nevertheless tried to use the cultural test stone that represents sport in America.

Trump regularly hammered the democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, the Californian of Newsom, for the support of LGBTQ+ Right. Trump promised to get “transgender madness to the devil from our schools” in his rallies and “to maintain men out of ladies's sports”. His campaign also spent tens of million dollars on television and digital ads with the scale: “Kamala is for her/her. President Trump is for her. “

“Boy, I saw how it was able to weaple it,” said Newsom to Kirk, before he gave up Kirk's protest and as a substitute said that the ads were an efficient “highlight” in the course of the campaign.

Since taking office, Trump has threatened to withhold federal money from schools that enable transgender athletes to participate in women or girls from women. He recently explained the victory on this topic when the NCAA, which the Collegiate Effective Athletics rules within the United States, modified its policy to limit the athletes' athletes to those athletes to whom the feminine gender was assigned at birth. Previously, the NCAA had a sports policy from sports to sport, which was determined by the national or international management bodies of the respective sport.

Ward and Menjivar, the California legislators, said it was not an issue to play in a team that corresponds to his own gender “until Donald Trump began to obsess.”

Kirk, not Newsom, raised the general problem during her hourly discussion, which partially focused on how Democrats can rebuild a wider coalition of voters. Kirk pressed news whether he would speak within the competition against Transgender athletes.

The governor tried to mitigate his comments and said that the discussion was greater than competitive advantage.

“There is also a humility and a grace that these poor people commit suicide, have fear and depression, and the way people speak with endangered communities is a problem with which I also find it difficult,” said Newsom. “So, both things I can hold in my hand. How can we tackle this problem with the type of decency that I think is inherent, but not always deals with this topic and at the same time with injustice. “

Nevertheless, Newsom's approach marks a special political slope greater than twenty years ago. As the mayor of San Francisco in 2004, Newsom attracted national attention for the primary time by leading town clerk with the creation of same -sex marriage licenses.

The step led to legal steps, which led to a choice by the Supreme Court of California in 2008, which legalized same -sex marriage within the country's largest state. This decision was made for seven years before the US Court of Justice arrange same -sex marriage as a national law. –

Barrow reported from Atlanta. Amelia Thomson-Deveaux and AP author Michael Blood, Tran Nguyen and Sophie Austin have contributed the reporting.

The Greek nemesis Greek divinityrarely depicted in art has no place within the Olympic Pantheon From a dozen gods and goddesses. But it’s an ubiquitous power of retaliation, an relentless punishment that, if not earlier, later.

Nemesis can mix your time for generations, but there isn’t a escape.

It also seems, with President Donald Trump, he’s “Clearly not a person Who has barely off his resentment, “said William Galston from the Brooking's institution recently. This remark is an understatement.

Trump's resentment was steaming Since the President 2020 Choice. Now that he’s president again, he’s anything but appeased. His anger cooks over.

“Flood the zone“A term borrowed from football was the way in which wherein the previous Trump consultant Steve Bannon describes the method to describe the Trumpian tactics, to spend a flood of statements, the mere pace and multiplicity, not to say content , should overcome an impulse in rational response.

Since he has achieved fame and power, Trump's contemptuous anger against his opponents and his appetite for revenge appear to have sharpened.

Like Nemesis, Trump is now pursuing his perceived enemies with the facility of the presidency. To his recent retaliation: he has
Official and worker of the Ministry of Justice Who worked on criminal investigations and law enforcement from him; He has revoked security checks for intelligence officers to “too”punish his perceived opponentsHow a news story put it. And he removed that Portrait of Gen. Mark Martey From the Pentagon Wall, which traditionally accommodates portraits of the retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, how Miley was. In 2024, journalist Bob Woodward reported This Miley had told him: “Nobody was as dangerous for this country as Donald Trump. Now I notice that he is a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person in this country ” – clearly triggered from Trump's anger.

As A poet and student of the classicsMy impulse is to seek out analogue for this behavior, this temperament – precedent that might help to supply a perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEJUMELAW8

Tyrants, heroes and horses

I assumed historians could find analogues. For example, Trump's first alternative of a political ally, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, as a Attorney General – widely considered unqualified For the post and which later withdrew – was Compared to the Roman emperor Caligulawho made his horse a senator. Figures from Greek history, from the Athenian tyrants Pisistratus To Alexander the Great may very well be Famous powerful and vengeful.

Classic epic and drama provide lots of anger, that’s that First word of the Homeric epic “The Ilias. “”

Because epic and tragic heroes are in power, temperament and motion network. The Greek hero Achilles' conflict with the commander of the Greek army Agamemnon At the start of “The Ilias” is psychologically plausible. Every man feels insulted and insulted by the opposite; Both have the rationale for resentment.

Achilles nurses his anger over all of his co -grree until his grief concerning the death of his lover Patroklos sends him back into the battle much later. This survival -sized hero is vulnerable, changeable and human.

Perhaps essentially the most famous example of revenge within the Greek tragedy is Aeschylus' trilogy, “The Oresteia. “” When Clytemnestra murdered her husband AgamemnonAfter his return from Troy, she has three comprehensible motifs. Agamemnon sacrificed her daughter; He brought a loved one home, Cassandra; And Clytemnestra feels each personally and politically for Aegisthus, her husband's cousin, whom she took as a lover in her husband's absence and who has his own reasons for hating Agamemnon.

So confirmed that Clytemnestra Agamemnon – and in addition Cassandra – murdered that she proudly compares her motion with the rain that fertilizes the harvests. Since rain is a component of the cycle of the seasons, their motion has dominated the balance of justice.

Cunning anger results in death

Contact a few of Shakespeare's more vengeance -eyed characters, IAGO in “Othello”Is an embodiment of a cunning anger that causes him to systematically destroy the wedding of the innocent Othello. He does this by mistaken Otheless bride desemona is unfaithful.

After all, Othello kills each Desdemona and herself. But the romantic critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge has moved famous IAGOS “Motif MalignancySince it’s difficult to be exactly why Iago is so adjusted to the destruction of Othello.

Hamlet itself is a opposing avenger Who all the time harms his father's murder. In the history game named after him, Richard III. Resentmentback too A deformed and unloved child wasMakes more sense. Richard passionate about power; He systematically and secretly murdered his own brother and his own nephew, who would stand between him and the throne of his older brother Edward.

Whether motivated by political ambition, generalized rancor or a inherited task, none of those figures end well. They all have enemies and all of them – except Iago, who’s tortured and executed – die on stage. Everyone has caused lots of damage; Nobody survives for a very long time to feel confirmed. Even Clytemnestras triumph is short-lived because her own son Orestes will soon avenge the death of his father by her mother-crytemnestra.

But all of those numbers appear to feel personal passion. Even the opaque Iago has a fundamental goal: Othello. They present Trump not convincing parallels, whose anger appears to be private and public at the identical time.

Trump is barely offended and quickly strikes back with insults. However, he also seems to have an insatiable appetite for a broader and deeper punishment that has hit more people and even after losing time. Therefore, literary parallels are lower than convincing.

Trumps Anger seems more general than personal. His damaged feeling of being unsuitableSacrifice of his enemies is a relentless in his profession. But his goals are shifting. Once They are judges; Another day is it Election officer. Another day, that's “deep state. “”

And Trump's relentless resentment has met a chord amongst many Americans whose resentment has a more rational basis. Trump's basis could imagine he speaks for her – “I am your warrior. I am your justice, ”he said In a speech in a conservative forum, but his The first priority has all the time been himself.

A spirit that extends to revenge

The damage brought on by Trump is commonly added by others. Her Threats, harassment and even violence Are made on behalf of Trump.

He has Almost all uprisings on January sixth on January sixthSome of them have now Exposed, you’ll buy weapons.

Trump has Government protection removed of numbers which have dared to not comply with him and have received death threats including Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Shakespeare, which transforms history into great poetry, involves mind. In “Julius Caesar“Knew his funeral speech concerning the body of the murdered caesar Will stir an indignant mobMark Antony mutated:

“And Caesar's spirit that reaches revenge,
With ATE at his side come hot from hell,
Is within these limits with the voice of a monarch
Wine 'chaos!' And let the dogs slip the dogs “

Antony imagines Caesar's vengeful spirit, who rises from the underworld to extend further violence. Caesar's assassin isn’t only punished, but additionally hell of the civil war is released to cause widespread suffering. Exactly the one who desires to punish Trump seems secondary to his joy to publish exactly these hellish dogs. Everyone is a possible enemy and a possible victim.

“I am your retribution,” said Trump. Nothing in Trump's persistent history reflects the classics more clearly than this threatening fusion of the self with a superhuman principle of revenge.

Such a fusion of a mortal individual with a mercilessly abstract force like Nemesis is closer to the parable than history. At least it could be reassuring.

Vladimir Putin arrived in Mongolia on September 2ndthe primary visit of the Russian President to a member state of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since the authority has issued an arrest warrant for his arrest in 2023. While officially Soviet-Mongolian military victory In the Second World War, Putin's visit will test the small Central Asian country's policy of neutrality and the influence of international institutions.

Mongolia, a land of justice 3.3 million people However, it has an enormous geographical territory and has long conducted its foreign policy within the shadow of Russia and China, with whom it has extensive historical and economic ties.

The country has sought to strengthen its independence from its more powerful neighbours by establishing friendly relations with so-called third neighbor Countries comparable to the United States, Germany, Japan and South Korea.

With this approach, Mongolia is attempting to carve out a distinct segment for itself on the international stage and present itself as a neutral diplomatic meeting place. Ulaanbaatar DialogueFor example, it’s a possibility for countries within the region and other invited nations, including the United States and EU Member States, to debate problems with Climate change, regional security and demanding minerals.

As Scholars of Mongolia and ChinaWe attended the last such dialogue in June 2024 and witnessed Mongolia's diplomatic efforts firsthand. It's a technique that has worked for the country, but as events like Putin's visit show, it will possibly be a difficult balancing act.

A closely observed visit

The timing of Putin’s trip is officially linked to history. It marks each the eighty fifth anniversary of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol – during which joint Soviet-Mongolian forces defeated Japanese troops in World War II – and the Establishment of the National Railway Company of Mongolia of each countries 75 years ago.

But it’s a third historic milestone, the fifth anniversary of a comprehensive Russian-Mongolian strategic partnershipwhich underlines the importance of the visit from a contemporary geopolitical perspective.

In addition to the friendly relations with “third neighbors,” Mongolia continues to take care of close relations with Moscow, although Putin is taken into account a pariah by many parts of the international community. Just recently, in July, Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh met with Putin in Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

But Putin’s visit now – the first he has brought into the country since 2019 – poses a challenge for Mongolia because it seeks to safeguard its commitments and alliances with the Western-led international orderwhich incorporates the ICC, and its desire to stay friends with its powerful neighbours.

Few things testify to this diplomatic balancing act like Mongolia’s membership within the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against Putin for his alleged role within the illegal deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia. Ukraine has urged Mongolia is to arrest Putin, citing the ICC’s founding treaty, which Roman Statutewhich instructs member states to take motion when individuals against whom a court order has been issued enter their territory.

However, the ICC lacks an efficient enforcement mechanism and member states could also exempted from carrying out arrests if it conflicts with certain contractual obligations or the diplomatic immunity offered to a different party.

Putin’s visit is meant to indicate how little could be done to maintain Moscow in check. Given the facility imbalance between the states, Mongolia will likely show how far it’s willing to go to accommodate its powerful neighbor.

Mongolia as a “third neighbour”

For almost 70 years, Mongolia was closely allied with the Soviet Union. But the collapse of communism and the following geopolitical realignment of the post-war order forced the country to vary its economic and political relations.

This made Mongolia the one former communist state in Asia that Introduction of a democratic political system and an open economyIt gained favor with the United States and other Western countries, who viewed the country as a model for the region.

Putin's expected trip is just the most recent in a string of high-level state visits in recent times, as Mongolia strives to take care of close ties with its neighbors while expanding partnerships with other countries.

So far, Mongolia has received heads of state or foreign ministers from the United States, Slovenia, the Philippines, Belarus, the United Kingdom and Germany in 2024. In 2023, Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene traveled to the United States and met with Vice President Kamala Harrisand to China to see President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Qiang.

The two French presidents Emmanuel Macron And Pope Francis recently visited Ulaanbaatar.

Mongolia cannot escape geography

While Ulan Bator's soft power efforts have won it sympathy and friends world wide, they aren’t as vital as its geographical location. As a landlocked country between Russia and China, Mongolia is defenseless against the whims of its two giant neighbors.

Mongolia depends on Russia for its petrol and diesel supplies and for much of its electricity. In addition, Mongolia is Old agreements from the Soviet eraRussia holds 50% of the shares in several vital infrastructure and mining projects in Mongolia. In particular, Russia is a partner within the Mongolian railway systemwhich has gained importance as a trade corridor between China and Russia and between China and Europe.

Mongolia fears a disruption of the fuel supply and the transport network when Russia, within the midst of a war, puts its own energy needs above the interests of its neighbours, regardless of how close those ties could also be.

Similarly, Mongolia relies on China for nearly all of its non-energy imports, including food, consumer goods and manufactured products. And China is the destination for 90 percent of Mongolia's exports, mainly coal and copper.

Both Russia and China have used their economic and political strength as leverage against Mongolia up to now, as they proved to be slights, comparable to China cutting off trade and a serious loan in 2016 in protest against a visit of the Dalai Lama to Mongolia.

Mongolia and the brand new Chinese-Russian alignment

Mongolia and other Central Asian states face recent challenges Russia and China are moving closer together politically and economically.

Mongolia played the role of a Buffer state between the Soviet Union and China and took advantage of the rivalry between the 2 superpowers to attain and maintain its independent status.

But the growing friendship between China and Russia – highlighted by Putin and Xi’s Declaration of a partnership without borderlines in February 2022, just days before Russian troops invaded Ukraine – raises the query of whether China and Russia will begin to work together to realize much more influence over Mongolia and other smaller states within the region.

It is these geopolitical concerns that Ulaanbaatar may bear in mind during Putin's visit. Even though Mongolia is affected by the sanctions against Russia, Transport and business connections disruptedThe country has stayed out of international confrontations with Moscow.

Like China, Mongolia also frequently renounces United Nations Resolutions condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, as an indication that Mongolia stays faithful to its policy as a 3rd neighbor, it was also careful to not violate the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies against Russia.

While Mongolia recognizes the importance of Putin's visit to maintaining good relations and fuel supplies to the country, it’s also concerned about how the visit and the expected non-enforcement of ICC sanctions could damage the country's popularity with global institutions and powers outside the region.

In a changing world order, Mongolia is doing its best to preserve its independence by emphasizing its role as a neutral state and friend to all. But visits like Putin's show how difficult that endeavor could be.