His Face

His. Loathsome. Face.

The subway left the Christopher Street stop, where I’d gotten on after a healthy dose of jazz at Small’s Jam. The great blizzard of February 22, 2026 had begun and the snow was sticking fast. I sat down, tuned into some Chet Baker vocals, and happened to look up to my right — where a figure stood without holding onto anything. No handle. No pole. Nothing.

The train lurched and rumbled into the next station. He held nothing. Just — balanced. Never moved his body. Never moved his head. I couldn’t even make out if it was a he, because the hood of his winter jacket masked his face completely.

The car wasn’t full, so it wasn’t required. He could just exist through the rumble. No fear of tumbling onto someone’s lap. Complete trust that he was going to be okay. Or he just didn’t give a damn whether he would be.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that. And I couldn’t stop thinking about this week’s news — too much to process in one train ride, or ten. I wish I could tell you my thoughts were light, filled with froth and humor and optimism about whatever comes next. But I can’t get there. Not these days. These days of anarchy are too much for me to process rationally. And irrational times yield discombobulated thoughts.

I wish I could write something funny. I really do. But I’ve got nothing.

Listen to me. Just listen to me for a minute. I have never, never, stood before my community and felt what I am feeling right now. Fear. Real fear. The kind that keeps you up at night and follows you into the morning. And anger. Anger at the fear.

You know why?

His loathsome face is now on huge banners on federal buildings, including the Department of Justice.

His. Loathsome. Face.

He is not well. This man is not well. The grandiosity, the obsession with his own image, the need to plaster his face on justice itself — that is not the behavior of a stable human being. That is the behavior of someone who has completely lost the thread between reality and fantasy. Someone impersonating a human being. Someone we handed the nuclear codes.

On the building that is supposed to be the last wall between law and madness, his face is hanging there. Like a pharaoh. Like a dictator. Like every despot I have ever studied in my lifetime.

And people are just, they’re just walking by. And I thought, oh my God. Oh my God, this was Egypt.

He demolished part of the White House. The White House. To build himself a ballroom. A. Ballroom.

Normal people build additions for their kids. For aging parents. For a home office. This man looked at the People’s House, your house, my house, a building that has stood since 1800, and said, you know what this needs? More room for parties.

And the Florida state legislature, grown men and women, elected officials, people with children and mortgages who attend churches and synagogues voted to put his name on a major international airport. While he is still in office. While he is breathing. Normally, when someone starts naming things after themselves while still alive, we hide the checkbook and call a doctor.

Do you understand what I’m telling you? Do you feel what I’m feeling? I’ve moved past the fear to abject anger now. Pure lifetime-of-studying-Jewish-history anger. This is not politics anymore. This stopped being politics a long time ago.

Let me take you back. Exodus 32. Moses is on the mountain. He’s been gone a while. And the people, the good people, scared people, they don’t say let’s abandon everything. They say we need something we can see. Something with a face. Something that feels like power, feels like safety, feels like somebody is in charge.

So they melt their gold. And they build a calf. Torah says that is the moment. The breaking point. When people stop thinking. When fear becomes worship. When a face becomes a god. I look at that DOJ banner and I see a golden calf. I see it so clearly it makes me sick to my stomach.

I think recent history. I think Mussolini’s newsreels. I think Hitler’s rallies. I think stormtroopers, and yes, I mean ICE, in the streets of American cities. We have lived this story before. Every Jew in this country has lived this story before, in memory, in family, in blood and bone. We know exactly how it ends. And it does not end with a ballroom.

I wish I could let go. Like that guy in the subway. Just ride with it, trust in what will be. But dammit I can’t. I love my life and this country and what it still can stand for, as messed up as it has been. It’s still the best place you can be if you are a human being. At least, for me.

So what do I do? I do what the prophets did. I push back. Hard. Harder. I don’t normalize. I don’t equivocate. I stop waiting for someone else to say it first. I demand the congressmen say it. The senators say it. The rabbis and cantors and ministers and imams say it. Loud. And strong. Together.

He cannot lead us into the future. He can only lead us to a broken, unhealed past. And I have studied that past and I am telling you we do not want to go back there. I’m holding onto the subway bars with both hands. That guy in the hood, maybe he had faith. Maybe he just didn’t care. But I care. I care about this broken, beautiful, infuriating country with everything I have.

So if you’re like me, if you agree with me, if you feel like me, grab the subway bar. Don’t let go. And get to work.

The face must come down. The king must go.

And someday, I promise you, I will write you something funny.

Rabbi Steven Blane