Just a day after that, Philando Castile was shot and killed by Saint Anthony, Minnesota, police officer Jeronimo Yanez during a traffic stop, and protests in both Louisiana and the Twin Cities punctuated the prelude to football season.

Although the “Kaepernick kneel” was much more understated and less directly connected to an ideology than the choice by sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos to raise their black-gloved fists to the sky during the 1968 Olympics, it carried the same kind of defiance.

Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear.

Discussing the Dan Plan is like reaching back into another life: Seven-plus years ago, aged 30 and unsure even of which hand to grip a golf club in, McLaughlin quit his job as a commercial photographer, took in lodgers to cover the mortgage, husbanded his savings for green fees, and set out to make the PGA Tour, home to the world’s elite golfers.

In the more than four decades since Richard Nixon held office, the U.S. has tried to control North Korea by issuing threats, conducting military exercises, ratcheting up diplomatic sanctions, leaning on China, and most recently, it seems likely, committing cybersabotage.