David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Exactly two years ago today, I wrote a column for The Fulcrum about the epic rock classic “The Hotel California” and the famous refrain, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!"
After two years, I re-read the column out of curiosity but also to see if these past two tumultuous years for our nation and the world have added any new perspective for me as to the meaning of the lyrics. The beauty of art is that it reflects the experience of life and it means different things to different people at different times. Realizing the elusiveness of my search for a meaning didn’t lessen my desire to take the journey.
In the November of 2021 writing I focused on the refrain, "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!"
Today, just as two years ago, I am intrigued by the masterful words of Glenn Frey, who wrote the lyrics with band members Don Henley and Don Felder. I still wonder today if the song is about excesses in America; a commentary on the hedonism and self-indulgence of that time or is it something else?
It has not been a good two years for the United States. It has not been a good two years for the world. It is easy to want to check out.
The more I listened the more I thought that yes, now more than ever, it is easy to escape into hedonism and self-indulgence. And sometimes I want to turn-off the news and forget about the horrors of two wars that are killing innocent people in Europe and the Middle East. It is easy to check out as we watch a paralyzed Congress doing nothing for a month as they try to select a Speaker of the House during this time of chaos.
In this time of turmoil it is so difficult to maintain one's hope. Just a week ago, a Quinnipiac Poll indicated that 84% of voters are very concerned the U.S. will be drawn into a military conflict in the Middle East and another poll indicated 63% of Americans are pessimistic about the country’s moral and ethical standards.
In times like this our ability to be hopeful is challenged; the balance between hope and despair is tested and giving up (or numbing out) is the easier path. Martin Luther King, Jr. in March of 1968 offered hope in those difficult times reminding us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” and yet was realistic in saying, “Change takes a long time, but it does happen.”
Of course, hope is not a strategy but without it a path to a better future will not be found.
And so, as I absorb it all I return to The Hotel California and re-think the refrain, "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave." Maybe now is a time for a new refrain that becomes the mantra of our time. Yes, things are tough. Yes, man’s inhumanity to man, and the injustices inflicted upon the young, the poor, the powerless seem worse than ever. And yes, it’s easy to lose hope.
But now is not the time to check-out. Instead now is the time in the words of President Jimmy Carter to understand that “ democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent” and to realize that is why democracy is “all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.”
This is our test as a nation. And this is our test as individuals through our actions, through each one of our individual acts of kindness change the world.
And so if I were a lyricist and a musician (which I am not), I would rewrite The Hotel California lyric to, “Now is not the time to check out and you can't leave.”
We must imagine and create a future together.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.