He knows the MAGA playbook well.
Investigate Trump’s foes? That’s swell,
And makes a story Trump can tell
Re FBI boss Kash Patel.

In case the briefer really knows,
There is a question I would pose—
A single question, if I dare:
The question is, Why are we there?

Trump talks a lot about the flow
Of drugs that this arrest will foil.
The flow concerning him, in truth,
Is not the flow of drugs but oil.

Republicans in Texas look to gain
Five House seats by some drastic gerrymandering.
This latest nod from SCOTUS means that they
Can run five pols well-qualified in pandering.

The East Wing was destroyed by night,
But Trump says it will be replaced.
He’s planned a palace, mostly gold—
A shrine to outer-borough taste.

We won’t lower standards for women and such.
And generals must keep in trim.
For standards are vital, so Hegseth insists—
Though lowered already for him.

“President Trump has unmatched business instincts.”
    —Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary

As wily businessman, he’d had the aim
Of branding acquisitions with his name.
Those Trump-themed ventures were a masterstroke.
However, didn’t a lot of them go broke?

The sycophant caucus is quick to encourage
Rebranding by Trump that’s been truly Homeric.
So sooner or later we may get to see
The Statue of Liberty newly named Eric.

From what we’re reading daily in the news,
The prize for chutzpah isn’t hard to choose:
The MAGA king with quasi-fascist views
Proclaims himself protector of the Jews.

A Trumpworld figure isn’t judged
On how he carries out some duty.
It’s more about the kisses he
Can plant on Donald Trump’s patootie.

For decades Paul, Weiss was a model for all
In taking on tough litigation.
So how many hours did they bill themselves
For trashing their own reputation?

(Sung to the tune of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd”)

Attend the tale of Elon Musk.
He fires folks from dawn till dusk.
He seems to treat their woes as zest.
And while he’s about it, he feathers his nest.
His gestures weird, his manner brusque—
That’s Elon Musk,
The chain-saw killer from Tesla.

A horrible crash lit up the sky.
Trump’s job was then to unify.
That calls for grace he can’t supply.
He cast the blame on DEI
And presidents of days gone by.
For four years more we’ll have this guy.
Sigh.

Jabbar was from Houston—that’s Texas, in fact.
He crossed in his truck a state line, not a border.
And Beaumont, in Texas, was where he was born.
Are mass deportations of Texans in order?

Outrageous pick? For sure, but that’s the point.
Trump wants to prove he’s got the clout of kings.
So what if Gaetz, by chance, is not confirmed?
Is Harvey Weinstein waiting in the wings?

Yes, Asheville’s devastated by a storm.
And Phoenix? Hot enough to kill some folks.
Extreme events must make it hard to say
That climate change is nothing but a hoax.
Or do they?

Could anyone invent a racist rumor
As foul as those put forth by Laura Loomer?
For most, such filth’s as welcome as a tumor.
So why does Trump remain its loyal consumer?

Joe Manchin’s giving up his seat.
Next January, he’ll be gone.
Will that bring change? It’s hard to tell.
Just which side was Joe Manchin on?

Since fawning is his principal demand,
Your strategy is easy to deduce.
Just pucker up your lips and move
Directly toward that Trumpian caboose.

If you’re engaged in public life,
The criticism’s often rife.
So if involved in serious strife,
The thing to do is blame your wife.

Some House Republicans by words or votes
Reveal that they’re in fact supporting Putin.
They hope that Russia vanquishes Ukraine.
Yes, these folks root for Putin, sure as shootin’.

The MAGAs have surprising views,
Which they put forth a lot:
An embryo’s a person, but
An immigrant is not.

Commissioned by the hard-right crew,
’Twas said Mike knew just what to do.
With Congress nearly comatose, he
Could learn some lessons from Pelosi.

Securing the border was key to the bill.
They liked that—until they got orders to kill.
They still say “How high?” when he tells them to jump.
They’ve still not applied for asylum from Trump.

As he lumbers from trial to trial,
Exuding great volumes of bile,
He says, “Can’t you see:
They’re picking on me.”
Self-pity was always his style.

When somebody dies it is said
One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.
To that I have tried to stay true.
It’s rarely been harder to do.

He wouldn’t validate a Trumpist coup.
His status as an enemy was cinched.
In cults, disloyalty’s the mortal sin.
He’s lucky he avoided being lynched.

Jim Jordan’s campaign to be speaker
Quite quickly in caucus fell flat.
Republicans might have gone crazy,
But still not as crazy as that.

His pillow talk at first seemed what
The MAGA wackos needed, but
By circulating lies by Trump, he
Is finding public life quite lumpy.

When Fetterman appeared, one wondered could he
Be senator while dressed in jeans and hoodie?
He could. For senators it’s now OK
To dress for Casual Friday every day.
If rioters attempt another coup
It might be hard to tell just who is who.

To win elections some have said that maybe
They ought to change to something like “pro-baby.”
Their policies would need not be impeded.
It’s just some shrewd rebranding that is needed.

This Ramaswamy fellow in debate
Is like that kid in school who classmates hate.
No matter what the teacher’s question is,
This kid insists on showing he’s a whiz.
His hand shoots up. And you can feel his plea:
“Oh, please, just call on me, Teach, call on me.”

Republican voters are snubbing Mike Pence,
Though he’s on the right, tried and true.
It’s really unusual to punish someone
For not taking part in a coup.

Chris Christie, who’s not given much of a chance,
Has joined the Republican crowd.
At least there’s now someone who isn’t afraid
To utter the Trump name out loud.

Among the gamblers there’s excitement:
Just who will face the next indictment?
Will it be Trump, will it be Rudy
Who finds himself in deeper doody?

Fox thought his prime-time spot was now a blot,
But other networks craved him for that slot.
Imagine all the feelers that he’s got.
The Racist-Preppy Market seems red-hot.

The Great Replacement Theory was his shtick.
Untroubled by the fact that it is based
On racist doctrines, Carlson carried on.
And then, ironically, he got replaced.

Since decorum was breached the two were kicked out,
Though supporters made sure they’ll be back.
And perhaps the infraction that gave such offense
Was, in fact, legislating while black.

“A territorial dispute,” he said.
Attacks on him for that became widespread.
Assuming that he’d rather not provoke,
Perhaps he’d better stick to bashing “woke.”

He let Marjorie Taylor Greene with the gavel preside.
He gave Carlson the tapes of the riotous day.
All the wackos are on the committees they craved.
One must wonder what else he might now give away.

Pence guards his White House prospects, hence
He’s planned resistance that’s intense.
He wouldn’t want to give offense
To MAGA types. That makes no sense—
Though, purely by coincidence,
They’re folks who chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”

He bowed to the wackos’ demands.
He’d needed their votes. Those were vital
To winning the office he craved.
Now all he has left is the title.

Elizabeth Pochoda

Paying tribute to Victor is something I like to do, hoping each time to loosen that complicated Navasky knot. I’ll now have another go and look back at a favorite Victor anecdote to see if there’s something I missed before. The anecdote goes like this: One rainy rush hour Vic and I had miraculously scored a cab in the scrum outside Grand Central Station. Just as we settled in, we spied a frantic Barbara Tuchman—historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, and vocal enemy of The Nation—flailing about with no taxi prospects in sight. I was undoubtedly amused and thus wholly unprepared for what happened next: Vic opened the door, dragged me out, and offered a befuddled Tuchman our cab, something she later mentioned with astonishment to a few friends who, like everyone else in New York, were also friends with Victor.

I eventually reflected on this episode, concluding that the inane aphorism “No enemies to the left” had a far healthier Navasky version: “No enemies, period.” It was a hard lesson for me to learn, but one that explained how, among other things, Vic was able to keep a fractious Nation staff together: The door was open to our sometimes obnoxious behavior, to our unwelcome opinions, but also overwhelmingly to the good stuff each of us might produce. It may also explain how he was able to dissolve some of the New Left disdain for Old Left issues in Naming Names by opening that history to highlight the virtues of courage and loyalty. If he came later to feminism than one might have expected, the door was open to Katha Pollitt, and the case was made.

All this in a man who could also be tough as nails, famously about money. But, really, he rose above simplifications—both personal and political—and was not just parsimonious, as Bud Trillin famously described him, but also placatory and principled. A complex, enigmatic knot, to be sure, but a rare and inspiring one as well.

Calvin Trillin

hen I asked Victor how much The Nation would pay me for each column, he really did say, “Something in the high two figures.” And when I asked him to be a bit more specific, he really did say, “We’ve been paying $65”—which, of course, sounds more like something in the middle two figures. It might have been then that I began referring to him as “the wily and parsimonious Victor S. Navasky.” Or it might have been back in the days when he was editing Monocle, a magazine with a pay scale so low that it once sent me a bill for a piece of mine it was running.

So why did I and so many other writers, fully aware of the pay scale, write for him? I think the overriding answer is pretty simple: We liked him. He was hard to say no to. He didn’t seem interested in using The Nation for self-aggrandizement. He tended to see the good in people, even in hard-core right-wingers. He took well to teasing. I think that may be one of the things I’ll miss the most now that the old W. and P. is no longer with us. He took well to teasing.

Calvin Trillin is The Nation’s “deadline poet.”

Richard Lingeman

y friendship with Victor started in the sterling halls of Yale Law School in the late 1950s. As if he hadn’t enough to do inside those heavy legal tomes and large classes where you might be called on at any moment to explicate Dobbin v. Horse or Hex v. Vex, Victor had, with two other grad students, started a political satire magazine called Monocle. Somehow, with his uncanny antenna, he suspected that I was a satirist, caught me in that gothic hall and invited me to contribute. The pay was $1 per article. I sent him a parody of a best-selling novel about a lawyer titled By Love Possessed. My version ran as “By Law Distressed.”

As indeed I was, because I soon dropped out of law school to pursue a writing career. Victor advised me against that action, being a man of practical good sense, but I didn’t listen to him, being a man of impractical good sense.

Now 10 or so published books and editorial stints on Monocle, the Times Book Review, and The Nation later, here I am.

Of course Victor helped me along the way. And of course he inveigled many other writers to contribute to the several publications he edited after pursuing a short legal career.

I’d say he too found his true métier—editing—at which he was very good, and also fundraising, which was a necessity of the job.

Victor was a good man, a political man, a moral man, a courageous man, much loved by his good wife, Annie, and his three children, and by his students at the Columbia Journalism School, where he taught.

Victor, I cannot thank you enough for your life. I suspect there are many others who would say the same thing.

Richard Lingeman was a senior editor of The Nation.

The world is full of serious strife.
What peace there is could shatter.
It’s nice to follow one dispute.
That doesn’t really matter.

George Santos invented an alternate life,
With chutzpah we’ve seen only rarely.
Mendacity in all his statements was rife.
He beat Trump in lying, though barely.

Some Washington types say that Trump’s here for good;
He’ll handle those setbacks just fine.
But some say they’re certain that soon he may go,
And not with a bang but a whine.

Among the people Trump will not denounce,
Who’s leading now for statements that appall us?
The race remains quite close, but in the lead
It’s Ye and his pal Fuentes über alles.

We said when we ran that we’d make this place great.
We’ll honor that pledge, but right out of the gate,
Inflation, the border, will just have to wait.
We need to nab Hunter before it’s too late.

So half the staff was canned at Twitter—
And in a way that made them bitter.
They say this wealthy retrofitter
Treats people as just so much litter.

We bid farewell to poor Liz Truss.
Her economics caused a fuss.
Supply-side loyalty prevails.
Despite the fact it always fails.
Liz thought that wealth would downward trickle.
That quickly put her in a pickle.