James C. Moore

personal stories

To Be American

"The funnel came close enough for winds to destroy the wood-frame house and lift some of its sleeping occupants into the night sky. Elizabeth and Hope, two of Father’s sisters, were found still lying on their mattress almost a quarter mile from their bedroom."

personal fiction

America's Second Civil War

"There was no single declaration of war. Instead, hostilities began with a series of knocks on doors that grew increasingly violent through the winter of 2025. By early 2026, Americans were no longer watching history unfold — they were standing in its doorway."

Travel

To Flaneur is to Fly

I learned the deceptive power of disingenuousness and how it could rot important ideas and institutions. Lost in our abundance, we've created divisions and argue over crumbs while the wealthy walked away with the cake and only looked over their shoulders for a laugh or two, and we have let them.

Trump

Nothing New Under the Gun

From the moment Teddy Roosevelt decided the Panama Canal was his personal shortcut to empire, the American narrative in Latin America has been a masterclass in saying one thing and doing another.

faith

A Cosmic Hammer?

"The experience is real to her. I can’t say there are aliens abducting humans. But I have no way to account for what she is experiencing or thinks she is experiencing."

Trump

American Madness

"He continues to exhibit a toxic vanity. His self-involved, insensitive remarks are now totally normal stuff from this abnormal human. This used to be an America where presidents measured themselves against history. Trump manages to make a dead soldier’s funeral about his own perceived greatness."

personal stories

The Birdman of the Border - A Halloween Story

"Size was not the only feature that put a fright into the cops. The bird had bright red eyes, facial features they said looked like a monkey or a gorilla, and a bald head."

Immigration

The Little Pink Rabbit on Highway 83

By the end of 2024, at least 80 people had died in Operation Lone Star pursuits, including children and bystanders. Even some officers began to question the chase policy. “We’re not stopping the cartels,” said one DPS trooper anonymously. “We’re just chasing shadows and wrecking families.”

Trump

A Soldier's Duty

"I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other. One of them [soldiers] literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, ‘Fuck them kids.’”

national politics

One Nation, Under Gun

To treat Charlie Kirk's fate as inexplicable is to misunderstand the soil from which violence grows in America. In most states, it’s easier to buy an AR-15 than it is to register to vote. We act shocked when those weapons are turned on politicians, activists, or everyday citizens.

Health Care

The Way We Were

For the first half of the 20th century, summers were not carefree for children or adults. Swimming pools were often shuttered, playgrounds empty and quiet, and parental dread informed every decision about their children’s activities. The polio virus invisibly stalked the world...

Travel

To Look for America

I blamed America for unkept promises of fairness and equality and opportunity, but I still loved my country and believed it might one day live up to its founding promises. These days, though, I have too many reasons to be skeptical.

Trump

Autocrats in Alaska

"In a sane world, one not run by war-mongers, defense contractors, convicts, corporate media, and giant banking and investment firms, Putin and Trump would have been arrested and detained before their feet touched the red carpet strewn across the tarmac at Alaska’s Elmendorf Air Force Base."

Trump

The Texas Template

MAGA Texas politicians have taken the infamous Parr political family’s petri dish out of the historical closet and studied it for tips on how to destroy democracy for fun and profit, and Trump is learning from their research.

Trump

Another Man Without a Country

Look how far we have come! The Supreme Court has given the current and all future presidents immunity, and we have a man in the White House who is lying about being a pedophile and hanging out with a character who facilitated acting on those urges.

climate change

The Fires of Our Time

Droughts last longer, winds blow harder, rain falls longer and in greater volume, blizzards turn colder and snow gets deeper, hurricanes and tornadoes spin up stronger and more deadly as American policy makers reduce environmental regulations on fossil fuels and pollution.

Texas Politics

Everything is Political

When football teams make mistakes - to use Abbott's metaphor - 300 people don’t die. Kerr County officials and the state avoided funding a flood warning system, in one instance, because the money was from the Biden administration. They didn’t want no stanky Democratic President’s money.

Texas Politics

Rivers of Tears

The Texas Governor and Lt. Governor are two of the most disingenuous people in American politics, posturing and praying before cameras instead of taking actions that could save lives in the future. Their magical thinking in the wake of human disasters is disgusting.

Immigration

We've Come Undone

How expensive is our xenophobia? The annual cost of detaining a single immigrant is $58,000, which could provide a year of Medicaid for three adults, a year of SNAP food benefits for 12 individuals, or fund multiple visits to emergency rooms at public hospitals.

Trump

"We Love You God"

Nobody changes leaders in the middle of war. Trump, hammered in the polls for tariffs and DOGE cuts, is posturing as a war president and using phrases like this attack “was the likes of what the world has never seen,” and “We love you God,” even as he is launching an unprovoked attack on Iran.

Trump

The Book of War

"Americans don’t have the only culture on the planet struggling with values, but we seem unable to stop funding weapons and wars while we take food and hope and health from children."

Border

Gulag America

The process, as everyone knows, is called “profiling.” If you approach the checkpoint as a white person, the odds of you being detained are minimal. Traveling north while brown is more problematic.

Texas Politics

"Thank God for Mississippi"

There isn’t a litter box in Texas big enough to contain the bullshit in his allegations that children are going to school dressed as cats and that teachers and administrators are accommodating them with littler boxes in classrooms.

Trump

Remember When We Listened to the Radio

"His pointing turned into jumping up and down, serious histrionics. I turned around and discovered that the red microphone light was still on and the morning audience had heard our entire conversation. The “Great Voice of the Great Plains” was swearing at people as they rolled out of bed."

Trump

The Fourth Reich

Lying and deception have always been a central facet of U.S. politics and policy. What we assumed separated us from the rest of the planet was this false notion that our governmental mechanics outed the bad actors. We put our faith in process, and we were fools.