I'm still thinking about thumos, I'm afraid, and in particular about Secretary of State Marco Rubio's speech last week in favor of reviving or enhancing it. My favorite line in the post I wrote about the speech is one I added at the last minute and that I didn't develop as much as I wish I had: If you doubt it, take a look at Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's new proposal to arouse a little thumos in the polity by live-streaming the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, a former Army officer convicted of a mass shooting at Fort Hood in which he killed 14 people (and injured 32 others) while shouting Allahu Akbar. As I said, I added that passage last minute. It flies by in the post a little too quickly on the way to making different points. That's been bothering me over the last couple of days, even more so as I've taken note of other examples in and around the Trump administration. Because, come to think of it, this may be a more illuminating way of interpreting Rubio's speech, its...
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