Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it.

==

Trump posted a word cloud based on his speeches: the biggest word was “revenge.” Many of his threats reflect Trump’s now familiar tactic of reversing charges against his opponents, conjuring a mirror world in which he claims they are guilty of the very offence of which he is accused.

I am tired of talking about the presidential election, Trump and MAGA governance as if it is representative of the majority. But here we go. Despite all the talk about how the election would come down to a small group of undecideds, it didn’t. It came down to indifference or, maybe worse, disillusionment (the feeling that the system isn’t working for them so they will not do any work for the system). Yeah. Here is what I mean. Given where we are right now (soon after election day) my numbers are going to be close to accurate and will not change significantly. Only 54% of the voting population voted. Let me say it differently. 46% of people who could have voted; didn’t (what this means is that whenever some pundit, or analyst, talks about the election dynamics they need to refer to everything as “of the people who voted”). Harshly, 46% of adults were indifferent. What that means is that while Trump, and MAGA, will shout about majority “spoke” and winning the popular vote; here is their key number – 28%. Given the horrible voter turnout on election day, MAGA governance will be the representation of about 28% of all eligible adult voters. Let’s say that again. 28%. His 70+ million votes is maybe 21% of the population and 28% of adults eligible to vote. As a side note, this is similar to 2016 where the numbers were 18% and 24% respectively. So, we are not a 50/50 divided country; we are simply a country governed by 28%. Yeah. A minority, once again, just chose the most powerful position in the world. As a side note to this, everyone should remember that Trump, and his cohort of MAGA followers, governed as if they were a majority. To be clear. MAGA is a finite cohort. It was 26-28% in 2016. It is 26-28% in 2024. 70 millionish will vote for Trump year n and year out; no more, no less. 2/3rds of US adults will never vote for Trump.

Which leads me to involvement matters.

A majority did nothing to stop this from happening. This is not an ‘anti-establishment movement.’ This is not a ‘reestablishment of conservative values.’ This is nothing more than a large indifference to involvement with a sliver minority voice being motivated enough to push one candidate over the finish line. Look. I work almost exclusively with think tanks discussing the future of business, society, and the patterns in the world. I work with economists, c suite business executives, behavioral scientists, and social philosophers. My role tends to be a reflection of what I imagine is my personal ideology which what most people would suggest is ‘progressive conservatism.’ Almost everything that I suggest and I think about balances pragmatism and possibilities (possibilities have no value if they cannot be achieved). That said. One of the least discussed aspects of discussing the future and progress is people. Because while the future can be viewed through eyes of possibilities and pragmatism and hopes and patterns and risks and opportunities and even technology, the truth is each of those things are dependent upon people. If people do not participate, get involved, to bend the arc of history, progress and possibilities just don’t occur. Pragmatically what that means is if people do not bend the arc, i.e., be actively involved, inertia sets in and status quo, wrapped up in some nostalgic views of what is good, tends to reign. This is a historical truth. I bring that up because if people are indifferent, and are not involved, progress doesn’t occur. I struggle to see how true progress can occur if 46% of the voting population is indifferent.

Which leads me to say I hate the indifferent.

I’ll admit. I hate the indifferent. I have always believed that living means taking sides. Business, as well as Life, demands participation. Elections are exactly the same. Someone may choose to be indifferent, but all that means is that someone else is not only making decisions for you, they are affecting the arc of your life and, consequently, your destiny. To be clear. This is a fact. It may not be a direct correlation, but the point is that even if you work hard, are persistent and have clear objectives, if you are indifferent, all the external factors will increase the gravity of the environment you are doing all of those things within and drag you down. I should note if your own life and destiny matters to you that when you participate in the deadweight of indifference you may actually be facilitating the twisting of society’s fate. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out, again, this is not just true of Life, but business. And while I do believe this discussion gets warped in some incredibly unhealthy ways, business should not ignore the discussion and being indifferent really isn’t an option. Once again, this is true for each individual. All that said let me circle back to disillusionment. One of Trump’s, and his cabal of kooks, superpowers has been the ability to increase a general malaise of disillusionment. I have often referred to it as his narrative that ‘America is in a shithole,’ but the grander issue is he amplifies a sense of disillusionment almost to a point where a lot of people just throw up their hands and say (a) there is no sense in being involved or (b) burn the whole thing down. Anyway. Indifference or disillusionment only 54% of the voting population participated; 46% were indifferent. Ponder that for a bit.

“I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who really live cannot help being a citizen and a partisan. Indifference and apathy are parasitism, perversion, not life. That is why I hate the indifferent. The indifference is the deadweight of history. The indifference operates with great power on history. The indifference operates passively, but it operates. It is fate, that which cannot be counted on. It twists programs and ruins the best-conceived plans. It is the raw material that ruins intelligence. That what happens, the evil that weighs upon all, happens because the human mass abdicates to their will; allows laws to be promulgated that only the revolt could nullify, and leaves men that only a mutiny will be able to overthrow to achieve the power. The mass ignores because it is careless and then it seems like it is the product of fate that runs over everything and everyone: the one who consents as well as the one who dissents; the one who knew as well as the one who didn’t know; the active as well as the indifferent. Some whimper piously, others curse obscenely, but nobody, or very few ask themselves: If I had tried to impose my will, would this have happened? I also hate the indifferent because of that: because their whimpering of eternally innocent ones annoys me. I make each one liable: how they have tackled with the task that life has given and gives them every day, what have they done, and especially, what they have not done. And I feel I have the right to be inexorable and not squander my compassion, of not sharing my tears with them. I am a partisan, I am alive, I feel the pulse of the activity of the future city that those on my side are building is alive in their conscience. And in it, the social chain does not rest on a few; nothing of what happens in it is a matter of luck, nor the product of fate, but the intelligent work of the citizens. Nobody in it is looking from the window of the sacrifice and the drain of a few. Alive, I am a partisan. That is why I hate the ones that don’t take sides, I hate the indifferent.”

Antonio Gramsci

==

In today’s current political environment, which bleeds into society as some fairly absurd niche arguments about what is right or wrong and important or unimportant, the people become more and more distant to traditional parties or governing institutions writ large and, further, involvement in things like voting. This impacts society, and communities, whether you like it; or not or want it or not. Being indifferent to elections, acting like you are detached from politics simply means an already ‘delicate and dangerous’ complexity of economy and society becomes even more fraught with peril.

At least I am consistent on this issue. I have argued for years a business cannot detach itself from society, responsibility to societal issues and much of the larger narratives and discussions taking place. Detaching yourself from it under the guise of “my job is ensuring my business makes a profit and offers people employment” is not a sustainable stance nor strategy. I would argue exactly the same thing for people around election day. I hate indifference. Inevitably everyone needs to pick a side and do something. To be clear. That sometimes simply means taking a stand on what you are not versus saying what you are. If you don’t believe it is your job to carry the flag ON an issue, that’s okay. But you do have to make it your job to say “but I will not stand by THAT flag.”

Which leads me to corrosiveness.

Until Trump came along, I was a benignly active political involved person. I always felt like presidents tended to focus on tactics, rarely strategy, and shared a common vision. And then Trump came along. He toppled that apple cart and, well, I stopped being slightly indifferent. I became involved. For 9 years I went anywhere, at any time, to discuss why I believed Trump was corrosive to the economy, corrosive to the country and corrosive to society. To be clear. The conversation was, and remains, challenging. Trumpism has always dwelled on the superficial and the surface transactions of life (and the metrics associated with them). The mechanics upon which those outcomes were produced were unimportant in his transactional view and difficult to explain to people. Therein lies the challenge of discussing why Trump is generally a corrosive actor. Trump distorts things to shape an alternative to reality. It exaggerates good, diminishes bad, is made up of a unique formula of uncertainties and lack of clarity, offers alternatives <facts & universes> and serves to only create challenges in exactly describing what is, and isn’t, actually happening.  Throughout it all Trump careens between appalling and appealing within a deeply flawed, thin skinned, selfish, vain, bullying character, but he remains one thing on a consistent basis – the antithesis of the highly polished ineffective politician who carefully calculates their words. So, while he may be authentically incompetently horrible; he remains authentic – what you see is what you get. He is not a fine-tuned machine nor was his administration a fine-tuned machine, but he had 28% of the population believing everything he said was brilliant and believing everything he did was ‘brilliant.’

A 56 percent majority of Trump voters say that if a national media outlet reported that Trump said something untrue, they would be more inclined to believe him than the news outlet.

Look. Over those 9 years I wasn’t delusional enough to believe any pragmatic discussion would sway the 28%, but it left 72% available for healthy, robust, discussions. And while I faced clown memes in my feed, labeled with Trump derangement syndrome and called a retard, I plowed my way through discussion after discussion with facts, pragmatism and reality. Time and time again I was reminded of how complex reality is and how difficult complexity is to discuss and grasp. Time and time again I found, even beyond MAGA peoples, there were tinges of alternative realities residing in the peoples of the 72%.  And time and time again I was reminded we mostly live in a short-term vision world.

Which leads me to “I quit.”

Here is my warning to the indifferent. The 28% mainly live in an alternative reality where America is a shithole and it needs to be fixed and World War 3 is always right around the corner (or any disaster always awaits). It feeds on impending doom; not fosters hope and progress. This despite the fact we have an economy the envy of the world (in results as well as depth of manufacturing and productivity). This despite the fact the majority of so-called illegal immigrants are in the system and waiting to seek a pathway to citizenship. This despite the fact crime is down and, factually, a 25-year-old white American male is more likely to commit a crime than a 25 year old male El Salvadoran/Guatemalan/Latin American. This despite the fact USA is currently positioned as a powerful counterbalance in a complex weave of international power where USA benefits in the global system. Look. Its quite possible your indifference in this year’s election was driven by the fact life in the good ole USA is pretty good right now and even a bit better than anything MAGA world is convinced happened during the Trump years. When things are going well it’s pretty easy to overlook any future, possible, problems. It’s just difficult to see future possible costs when in the present the only costs you are facing is 15 cents more for your favorite cereal.

Here is where it gets personal. Your indifference has come at a cost. Your disillusionment comes at a cost. Not just getting a Trump administration. This one is most likely a cost you will never feel nor even care about. I quit. I have had enough. Its time for a younger generation to take over the pragmatism and possibilities discussions. I am tired of fighting for the indifferent. In business I was willing to fight for anyone who was willing to step up and be involved. But the indifferent? I quit.  That is what I am doing now. You got a Trump administration and it will be up to you to fix it when it all inevitably goes wrong. I did my best and, admittedly, it wasn’t good enough. So, I quit and someone else can take the pragmatism and possibilities banner.

“At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organisational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent and lead them, are no longer recognised by their class (or fraction of a class) as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic “men of destiny”.” Antonio Gramsci

==

==

“Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if me and Trump won just the normal gay guy vote, because, again, they just wanted to be left the hell alone,”

JD Vance

==

This election cycle is nearing its end (thank god). But the closing arguments for each campaign have been, well, enlightening. Let’s just say the normal candidate has stayed the course, consistently offering polices, vision and ideas – and using words that “normal” people use. The other candidate has, well, chosen a different path. I imagine they view it as “a less traveled path but far more interesting” in their minds. That less traveled path includes not just the crazy shit and a barrage of lies, but some fairly abhorrent words and thoughts.

Which leads me to normal gay guys.

I am not gay. I do have a number of friends who are gay. All of them are normal. All of their friends are normal. They, mostly, have normal issues and normal opinions and live a normal life. And, as most normal people, they want to be left alone to live their own lives. So. Here is where it becomes non-normal. JD Vance suggested that White upper- and middle-class children are incentivized to identify as transgender to gain admission to elite colleges. Uhm. And then tied that to gay people.

“Think about the incentives, if you are a, you know, middle-class or upper middle-class White parent and the only thing that you care about is whether your child goes into Harvard or Yale, like obviously, that pathway has become a lot harder for a lot of upper middle-class kids, but the one way that those people can participate in the DEI bureaucracy in this country is to be trans, and is there a dynamic that’s going on where, if you become trans, that is the way to reject your White privilege. That’s the social signifier. The only one that’s available in the hyper-woke mindset is if you become gender nonbinary.”

JD Vance

Now. I will admit. Parts of that sound like madeup gobbledygook to me. But the net of it is absurd. Worse? The implication is that a trangender chooses whether they are transgender or a gay person chosses to be gay. And somehow within that choice is normal or non-normal. Fuck you JD. That’s what I say. You are, or you are not, it really isn’t a choice to anyone.

Beyond that.

Studies have found that because of the discrimination, harassment and lack of support they generally experience in earlier grades, students who identify as transgender would be a lot less likely to have access to higher education in general, let alone an Ivy League school that is difficult to get into, compared with those people who identify with the gender that matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

I find the overall Trump campaign closing argument uncompelling and, frankly, abhorrent for the most part.

Appealing to the “normal gay guy vote” is a weird play.

But it gets a bit weirder. Democrats, apparently, not only don’t seek the ‘normal gay guy’ vote , but they want America to be unhealthy and overweight.” Huh? Because, apparently, if you are in poor health and overweight you will become a liberal. Yeah. And its actually a play for straight male vote:

“Have you seen all these studies that basically connect testosterone levels in young men with conservative politics? Maybe that’s what’s going on. Maybe that’s why the Democrats want us all to be, you know, poor health and overweight is because that means we’re going to be – no, it means we’re going to be more liberal.”

There are no studies that ‘basically’ say this. He is just making shit up. All in all it is quite the closing argument to America.

==

“His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.”

on Hitler’s philosophy

==

“the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check.”

JD Vance

==

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Donald Trump

==

I was tempted to call this “the comeback of the deplorables” or even “insisting on the right to lie”, but then there was truly a gathering of deplorable speakers at Madison Square Garden for Trump’s closing election argument. They insulted Latinos, Black Americans, Palestinians and Jews. Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s claim that “America is for Americans and Americans only” directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that “Germany is for Germans and Germans only.” While it is all truly deplorable, it also employs some psychological voodoo. When coupled with “the enemy within” it permits Latinos, black Americans, Palestinians, Jews and even some white people to proudly stand behind MAGA with “not me, them.” In other words, they aren’t talking about me it’s the enemy. The voodoo gets wrapped up n a shitload of lies (which I will get to) but what they all seem to forget is you, the citizen, don’t get to choose whether you are the enemy. MAGA hierarchy chooses. They choose by your words, behavior, attitude, and most importantly, servitude to Trump. Yeah. The big lie they are selling is America is for Trump and Trump only. That is fact. And, weirdly, its about the only fact/truth MAGA world seems to embrace. But this lie is SO big, SO audacious, that disaffected groups actually begin believing Trump offers salvation (or at least a better path). I mean, c’mon, how can any Muslim/Arab American believe Trump – the author of the Muslim travel ban, unrepentant Netanyahu “do-whatever-you-want” advocate – will actually have Palestinian Arab interests in mind going forward. Seriously? I have written before about how Trumpism is based on some alternative reality thinking, but underpinning it all is the MAGA movement is based on the freedom to lie. The MAGAverse is shameless with regard to lying. Their lies are broad sweeping audacious narratives of an America that doesn’t exist. The federal response to hurricanes, eating dogs and cats, even the truth about some ‘open border’ all border on insane audacious lies about reality. And non-Americans (the real enemy, not some nebulous ‘enemy within’) take note and step in and amplify. Is it election interference? Sure. But while Russia, Iran, and China generate about 20% to 30% of the political content and comments on social media, they also amplify the crazy domestic created disinformation. Yeah. The largest purveyors of disinformation are homegrown (could these actually be ‘the enemy within’?). All of this creates a firehose of information until people become overwhelmed by the task of trying to figure out what is real and simply tune out. Facts help define reality and are pretty stubborn against those who deny, and defy, reality. While this may seem unnecessary to state, but facts provide affirmation for what we see with our own eyes. What I mean by that is the alternative reality folk relentlessly state, not just suggest, that reality is something different than what reality is. They bludgeon us with an alternative reality to ultimately get us to either (a) question what we see as reality or (b) just give up and believe the alternative reality is reality. The lies become reality. Yeah. While “misinformation” is simply false information, which we all spread innocently and correct with accurate information, “disinformation” is a deliberate lie to convince people of things that are not true. MAGA insists on the right to lie and consider any fact-checking “censorship.”

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

George Orwell, 1984

A unified, well-functioning, democratic society depends on shared understanding of factual reality, but men who embrace fascist techniques (which is really only tactical fascism) seek to consolidate power and serve authoritarian interests.

Thanks to MAGA’s false claims of, well, almost everything, and their denigration of political, scientific, judicial and media institutions shatters trust and America is being dividing into a false us and them. Inevitably that shattered trust in government, and divided citizenry, will make it harder for America to solve its problems because solutions, and ideas, are not easily transferable amongst peoples (and that is how ideas spread). Yeah. The real impact happens when effective ideas spread.

That said. Trump avoids any real give and take with regard to his alternative universe so his false world can’t be challenged by reality. He obviously wants to make sure people (voters) cannot base their decisions about the country’s future on facts. His insistence on the right to lie, cloaked in a rotten subversion of freedom of speech, is a continued refusal to deal with reality. He, and MAGA elite, foster a dissatisfaction that stems from a perception that societal changes, cultural shifts, economic issues, or demographic change, have eroded what once made their country “great.” A misguided nostalgia becomes a lens through which present grievances are projected onto an idealized past, whether or not it has any fucking bearing on reality itself.

This whole MAGA thing is fucked up. Dangerously so. It’s a deplorable narrative. America DOES belong to Americans. Americans who are not enemies, but rather neighbors. Americans who know their neighbors may believe different things, pray differently and do different things, but we still look out for each other and go to all our kid’s activities and say “good morning” when you see them in the morning. I just don’t see the same America Trump does. And I am banking on the fact most people do not come November 5^th.

===

Mother, mother

There’s too many of you crying

Brother, brother, brother

There’s far too many of you dying

You know we’ve got to find a way

To bring some lovin’ here today

Father, father

We don’t need to escalate

You see, war is not the answer

For only love can conquer hate

You know we’ve got to find a way

To bring some lovin’ here today

<What’s Going On>

Marvin Gaye

==

“To be neutral, to be passive in a situation, is to collaborate with whatever is going on.”

Howard Zinn

===

This is about guns and shooting and words. First. Guns. Suicides, of which there are far far too many, reside in the purview of handguns. Inner city crime, mostly minority on minority, of which there is far far too many, reside in the purview of handguns. What lies in the purview of young white males is mass shootings with an AR-15. Reminder. And AR-15 is a civilian version of a military M-16. And we had another young white male, with an AR-15, shoot into a crowd. What makes this one a bit different is that instead of shooting white school children (Sandy Hook), or Hispanic school children (Uvalde), or black people (Charleston and Buffalo), or a country music crowd (Las Vegas), this young white male decided to open up on a Trump rally. Its too early to know his intent, or motivations, whether it was a specific assassination attempt or just ‘kill-for-attention,’ suffice it to say there was a young white male, with an AR-15, a crowd of people, and he shot. Regardless of his actually intent, whatever it may have been, the Republican party find itself in a quandary. The MAGA world was attacked through the same 2^nd amendment rights they espouse. And not just attacked, but their leader’s life threatened. But that’s not the tricky part for them, it’s that it wasn’t the ‘radical left,’ but rather just a disturbed young male (registered as a Republican). There is nothing nefarious here, at least not politically, just another young white male with an AR-15.

That said. Let’s get to rhetoric.

First of all. I am excited to spend the next few days being lectured about the dangers of inflammatory political speech by people who’ve spent the last few years cheerleading civil war (sarcasm). Second. I have written about how political rhetoric needs to be dialed back. Oh. I did that before 2016 and in 2016. Third. There is no equivalence between right rhetoric and left rhetoric. At its worst the left suggests MAGA is an existential threat to the country (and democracy) and their call to action is “vote.” At its worst the right, well, encourages violence as a call-to-action option. Even worse, their rhetoric veers into “they are the enemy” mental models therefore there is no such thing as ‘unity’ to a MAGA member; just victory and supplication (or elimination). Fourth. Conservative media, for quite some time, has been quasi-apocalyptic in their calls to fight by any means necessary the evils of liberalism (or socialists and communists as they suggest). To be clear. Apocalyptic phrasing around democracy is different than apocalyptic phrasing around America. Anyway. The rhetoric from the Right has only gotten hotter. Fifth. The most violent rhetoric of the past 8+ years is from Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly promised a civil war, called democrats unamerican, called them treasonous (coded message for ‘should be shot’), routinely calls for bloodbaths, “stand back and stand by” to white nationalists and suggests January 6 capitol attackers are heroes. These are incontrovertible facts.

Words are weapons and words, used well, contrast choices. I end this section with that because in the MAGA alternative universe world, where they turn up down, words should not be completely eliminated, just used more wisely.

“Almost any criticism of Trump is already being spun by MAGA as an incitement to assassinate him. This is an Orwellian attempt to silence what remains of the effort to stop him from regaining power.”

Edward Luce/Financial Times

Anyway. Almost all political rhetoric these days suggests an “us versus them.” That is horrible.

It creates an either/or mentality where complex issues gets dumbed down to inaccurate simplicity.

It creates an either/or mentality which encourages us to be, and express, the worst version of ourselves. This clearly does not, and will not, help us address the complex reality we face.

Add on the layer of the internet and social media and our worst version gets amplified.

Add on the layer that the amplified voice, and voices, the reach into the minds of the few mental-health-in-need individuals in a greater culture in which tools of violence (guns) are far too readily available.

I point out the layers because whatever we do each layer needs some solutions to create obstacles to an alignment of disparate variables which enable the unacceptable occurrences we see.

Americans believe they are extremely divided along lines of identity: 77 percent said the country is divided over religion. Eighty-three percent said it’s divided over race and ethnicity. And fully 91 percent of respondents said the United States is divided by politics.

We need to accept that divisiveness in rhetoric affects attitudes and ultimately behaviors.

We need to accept that mental health reform, societally discussed … culturally discussed … and professionally discussed, needs to be not only discussed but dealt with.

And, yes, we need to accept that gun ownership, or the prevalence of everyday people having guns, often makes police work more challenging and increases the likelihood of errors affecting people’s lives in that there are split second decisions made on <a> whether a person they are facing has a gun and <b> will they use it or not.

All of these things lead to a difficult complex situation in which divisiveness and extreme points of views/rhetoric tend to not be very productive if not even detrimental to the overall situation.

Which leads back to rhetoric.

And while we can talk about guns, or the economy <because economic inequality and lack of real opportunities creates a foundation for unhappiness if not anger> or any other issue we want … we need to begin with the words.

===

“We don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.

Only notes that are different can harmonize. The same is true with people.”

Steve Goodier

======

Whether we like it or not words beget actions. Any good speaker, any good leader, any effective protestor knows this is fact. Words have inspired people to act for generations. Therefore, we all must acknowledge the consequences associated with what we say. Free speech and freedom of thought is at the core of who and what America is, however, hate of what is said and what is thought is the counterproductive ugly side of that freedom.

I say this because you cannot be either for police or against police – they are an integral part of the fabric making up the structure of America. We are all pro police.

I say this because you cannot be either for or against immigration – unless you are a Native American they are an integral part of the fabric making up the structure of who and what America is (and a healthy economy). We are all pro-immigration.

I say this because you cannot be for or against America – America is a complex weave of a structure of how we think, what we believe, self-identities and attitudes. Disagreements on tactics aside, in the end we are all pro-potential, pro-progress, and pro-America.

That said. No matter one’s beliefs, the rhetoric of extremism seems to create an absurd version of “us versus them” where, well, no one wins – we are all the victims. What I mean is that when extremism is taken in totality, where each side states that if you don’t believe what I believe you are not only wrong but “bad”, uhm, the only conclusion would clearly place everyone, when taking in all views, clearly as wrong & bad, i.e., no one can be right because everyone at some point ends up in a “wrong bucket.”

Therefore, what’s going on is a divisiveness which suggests everyone is in the wrong. And if that is true … well … in a land of nothingness nothing will inevitably win. Anyway. Here are the most powerful words I can think of to address this discussion.

It’s got to stop.

We need some fundamental changes – in attitudes and in behaviors and in words.

Look. American violence is clearly out of hand. American inequality is clearly out of hand. American divisive rhetoric is clearly out of hand. Too many simplistic inaccurate depictions of what’s going on make it incredibly difficult to find the common ground where common sense ideas can prevail.

And this is where I look to leaders and what’s going on.

Ah. The Leaders. Let’s call them our ‘governing officials” <politicians>. And let’s call them disappointing. I discuss this hesitating. Hesitating because I truly believe in the power of people and the power of an individual to say ‘it stops here & now’ and that in doing so attitudes, like dominoes, begin to fall in line. But in a country in which politicians will not seek common ground, but instead shout out the top of their lungs “all things divisive,” how can we the people be united? If leaders <on both sides> refuse to compromise … it is us, we, everyday schmucks who pay the price.

We are the victims of their behavior – all of us – not just the ones who die or are physically directly affected.

We are all victims when the system fails.

We are all victims when our leaders fail.

We are victims when a small group of like minded people fail.

We are victims when an individual fails.

We are all victims if we fail to do something.

We are all victims when we begin to believe the bigger vision of who and what America is … is … well … failing.

And ultimately.

We are all victims when the rhetoric is divisive

This all gets just a bit worse. Unity, or common sensemaking, has always been dependent upon mingling of peoples and work is where roughly three-quarters of Americans’ interactions with people from another political party happen. Other life activities are significantly more politically divided. Yeah. Less than 50% of people say they encounter political differences among their friends. Only 39% say they see political diversity within their families, and an incredibly low % of people encounter ideological diversity at religious services or community meetings. This is really bad because many of these places have traditionally been where people practiced habits of democracy. So, as institutions weaken, and people self-identify more, democracy gets weaker and people are more easily divided.

So, I will offer the first step.

For you, and me and my leaders. Stop the divisive rhetoric. Words have power beyond the imagination. Stop the divisive words. It must stop to stop what’s going on. Unite America by offering uniting rhetoric. It is amazing what can happen, what will actually ‘go on,’ if everyone actually believes we are united. I tend to believe all of us every day schmucks know that we have problems and that there are issues to be resolved, but I would feel a shitload better if I truly believed we were united in addressing them. And maybe, just maybe, less divisive rhetoric will encourage us to maybe, just maybe, spend a little more time around people who are not just like us, and find out they are not evil, they are not our enemy, they are not vermin, they are people. Just like us. Ponder.

==

“Trump depicts a zero-sum world in which gains for any other nation — friend or foe — automatically represent a loss for the United States. His agenda, therefore, is designed to immiserate our neighbors and partners. In the end, history and basic economic theory tell us, it will immiserate us, as well. The bad news — and it is awful — is thus that we now have a president whose foreign policy agenda essentially amounts to burning the U.S.-led international order to the ground and hoping that America can collect the lion’s share of the ashes. The good news, such as it is, is that in unveiling this agenda so brazenly and early, Trump has also fully dispelled any illusions about his presidency and the dangers it poses.”

Hal Brands

==

It feels like the United States is going to get fooled into thinking an election is about one thing versus another. Televised debates often contribute to that tomfoolery or malarkey as our existing octogenarian president would say. Watching two octogenarians bludgeon each other shouldn’t fool us into believing that there aren’t two visions at stake at the moment. Let me state this up front. The election is about the MAGA Vision versus basically anything else. I state it that way because I personally would vote for an empty chair before I would vote for Trump. Would I prefer voting for say Gina Raimondo, secretary of Commerce, or Pete Buttigieg, secretary of Transportation, or Jennifer Granholm, secretary of energy, Gavin Newsom, Governor of the 5^th largest economy in the world, Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, or even Wes Moore. Sure. I would prefer voting for any one of them. But that’s not my choice. My choice is anything else other than Trump and the MAGA vision.

Trump represents the MAGA Vision and a MAGA administration with absurd MAGA policies and whoever or whatever resides in the opposite chair will not. Period.

Anyone in that chair will have ideas and aspects of policies that I do not support, but they will unequivocally not support the MAGA vision of policies or the MAGA vision of America. I also believe we are fooling ourselves into believing that we should be judging this election like we have judged elections in the past. I am an unequivocal moderate. While I may have disagreed with aspects and policies of a Mitt Romney, a John McCain, or even the Dumber Bush, I never felt like their vision, which was basically a traditional Republican vision, was an existential threat to the future of the United States – and by existential I mean economically as well as ideologically. And while I’m relatively sure the United States has had a president who was amoral, a pathological liar, racist, in the past, we have never had one who has also embraced something like the MAGA vision. As a corollary, we know for a fact that we have had an out of touch, too old octogenarian, as a president, but who still embraced a vision for the United States which may not have guaranteed our prosperity and progress, but certainly didn’t threaten our position in the world. This election is about MAGA versus anything else.

Which leads me to Trump derangement syndrome.

It has been suggested by many of my acquaintances or people who glance against some of my thoughts and writings that I have Trump derangement syndrome. I do not. I recognize Trump for exactly who he is. He is an amoral, narcissistic, sociopathic liar, who has a transactional view of business and life and offers a shitload of bad, dull axe (non-nuanced), ideas. That is who he is; no more no less. My issue resides in the MAGA vision of which he is the standard bearer. So, if I have any derangement syndrome, it would be with regard to the MAGA vision and policies that are associated with it. As I stated upfront, I don’t believe this election is between two octogenarians and we are choosing the least worst option of 80 year olds. I believe this election is a choice between two visions: the MAGA vision versus another vision. And if I am deranged about anything it would be that I stand opposed to everything about the MAGA vision. This admittedly suggests that I will embrace some policies and thoughts that I am not a huge fan of because I oppose, unequivocally, the MAGA Vision. Yeah. I will. And I will live with some bad policies. But getting back to Trump. I absolutely struggle to say anything positive about Trump. But more importantly I struggle to say anything positive about Trump Administration policies and results. I have said it before and I will say it again, Trump is a dull axe thinker, a 1 trick pony and has only one gear. The Trump Administration policies mirrored Trump. They were a dull axe, a 1 trick pony, and had only one gear. Suffice it to say the world is significantly more complex than that. I certainly understand the appeal of the simple and the simplistic, the problem is it’s not particularly effective when applied against a complex system. The MAGA vision does not serve the United States well in the present and certainly does not position the United States well for the future. Call me deranged, but that seems like a relatively sane reason to not support Trump nor a MAGA administration.

Which leads me to the direction of the country.

We should always be assessing a country and its governance based on progress, prosperity, and security. Let me address security first because it is actually subservient to prosperity and progress. What I mean by that is most people or politicians discuss security by (usually) shouting quite loudly in terms of military and military power This is wrong. Maybe I should say it’s misguided. Military power is used as a tool to maintain a country’s prosperity and progress. You only use the military power to either buttress the system which enables the progress and prosperity or to protect it. We may suggest that military power is used to maintain ‘safety,’ but in most situations even safety is subservient to progress and prosperity. Therefore, I speak of security in terms of securing the networks, connectivity, and inherent globalization which enables America’s prosperity and progress. Which leads me to progress and prosperity. Because America’s progress and prosperity, whether we like to believe it or not, is actually dependent in some form or fashion with connection to the rest of the world. That doesn’t mean that in isolation the United States can’t survive economically and allow its citizenry to be able to maintain a certain lifestyle, however, if optimal progress and increased prosperity is the objective we are dependent upon the rest of the world to achieve that. Therefore, security becomes intertwined with that dependence. And this is where there is an incredibly stark difference between the MAGA vision and the other vision. The MAGA vision doesn’t even recognize the importance of allies economically. It maintains an illusion that prosperity and progress can be attained by United States alone with a zero-sum view. No sane economist, no sane geopolitics expert, no sane business person, truly believes that. That doesn’t mean the United States doesn’t need to maintain strong pillars of economic independence in order to build prosperity and progress. Those pillars of independence make the United States secure from disruptions globally as well as increase the prosperity and progress because we can export our independence to other people who are in some form or fashion dependent upon that. Therefore, progress and prosperity becomes a relatively intricate web of independence, interdependence and dependence with economic and political allies. Allies would also include countries with common interests despite the fact we may not be aligned with them with regard to democratic values. But they are not our enemies. We have a mutual interest in progress and prosperity where our desire is security of the system which enables that progress and prosperity. The MAGA vision does not embrace any of that nuance nor does it embrace any aspect of interdependence or even a glimpse of dependence upon anybody else. They seek to bludgeon anybody who we are dependent upon even at the expense of our own prosperity and progress. The other vision is the exact opposite of the MAGA vision. It embraces the nuance of progress and prosperity in the present and building for the future.

Which leads me to the delusional opposition.

In some alternative universe there are no electable democratic candidates, America is largely center-right, the left has become so radical it mirrors some communist state, America is in a shithole downward spiral, Trump is in full command of his faculties, and that MAGA represents the majority of the country. This is the delusion the MAGA vision needs the world to perceive in order to have the MAGA vision make sense. As I remind everybody, while we focus on the sheer numbers that Trump received approximately 70 million votes in 2020, that represents about 28% of all the adults in the United States. Let me say that again. 28% of all adults in the United States. MAGA, and the MAGA vision is a minority view. Most democratic officials are pretty popular and the country, as a whole, is more center left leaning, moderate, on most issues and quite accepting of liberal leaning attitudes. More importantly, the country is not a shithole, in fact the reality is the United States economy is healthy, healthier than the majority of countries in the world, and in the process of building resilient economic progress and prosperity under the current administration. If we ignore the blaring headlines about culture and values and identity wars, the reality is nobody is coming to steal guns, nobody is stopping anybody from having their own religious views, no one is trying to indoctrinate our youth, and we should all just keep our eye on the most important ball which is progress and prosperity. Until somebody can show me some real ideas within the MAGA Vision or what could be construed as the existing current Republican Party, the only ideas that I can see for progress and prosperity in the present and the future reside within the Democratic Party. And in fact, if you strip away all the MAGA rhetoric about the Democrats, the democrat party are the ones who support the ideas and the basic ideological thinking that the majority of Americans like. As the election looms, I frankly do not care who is at the top of the ticket as long as whomever is there continues to enable the best ideas for our progress, prosperity, and security of those.

Which leads me to how MAGA perverts the idea of progress.

MAGA looks at progress in terms of individuals seeking individual satisfaction in combination with an encouraging an attitude of individual escape from individually suffered discomfort. That thought is a derivative of something that Zygmunt Bauman said. He suggested that progress no longer refers to forward drive and that society, rather than chase after a target spinning along ahead of us, instead seeks to make progress under the guise of ‘a lucky escape imperative.’ In other words it inspires the urge to run away from something, a crisis or a shithole disaster, that someone is suggesting is breathing down our necks. Let me be clear. Progress is not running away from something, but rather it is running towards something. That toward something should be a desired dream of a distant goal – one which progress should, could, and would eventually bring those of us seeking it, a better world not only for us, but one that serves all human needs. It should be the pursuit of shared improvement rather than just individual survival. And maybe that is where I will end because that is where the MAGA vision begins. It doesn’t begin with any shared improvement, but rather individual fears. The MAGA vision suggests that nations have lost influence on the course of not only its own affairs, but the affairs of all people which means that it has lost influence on guiding the world toward a ‘better destination’ and has lost the ability to mount a defense against all varieties of fear. The MAGA vision encourages us all to believe this, therefore, it encourages us to dwell on your individual fear. It suggests your worry is not only an immediate worry, but a long term worry. From there they offer no real solutions for progress and prosperity, just dubious tactics to salve your individual worry. MAGA is a black hole of no solutions. I would also suggest that the real solutions are offered somewhere within the non-MAGA vision. In other words, any administration embracing ‘anything else other than the MAGA vision.”

For years I have heard people say “I don’t vote for a person, I vote for policies.” Well. It’s come-to-jesus time on that thought. Ponder.

=====

We are swimmers

Caught in the tide

Pitch black river

Shadows and light

Into the night

Beautiful swimmers

Losing the fight

A constant river

Shadows and light

Into the night

Zero 7, Swimmers

==

“There’s a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter — an act.”
Vera Nazarian

==

“Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else’s behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another.”
George K. Simon Jr

==

Trump has probably done over 100 things, okay, thousands of things which make me sure he is unqualified to be the country leader <and make me doubt he could lead a turd out of a flushed toilet>, makes me sure I dislike his business acumen and makes me sure his moral compass <assuming he even has one> is not working. That said. Its all a game to him. He wants a “story a week” so everyone is talking about him every day and every week (if not every hour). He is of the old school “there is no such thing as bad PR” belief with a twist – he has a cadre of alternative universe storytellers who twist everything he says into some false equivalence or even “you really didn’t see, or hear, what you really did” spin. Regardless. He is playing a game. And he is playing a game with democracy and elections and the presidency. And he isn’t even hiding the fact he sees this as one big game and he is going to do whatever it takes to win his game.

He demeans us, he demeans business, he demeans democracy, he demeans the country and, maybe most importantly, he demeans the office he is suggesting he is qualified for.

It is infuriating. He treats the political process like a game show and I’m angry at the people in leadership who permit this to happen. And I’m angry that we, the ordinary people, are so angry at some shadowy ‘establishment’ that we cannot seem to assume some thread of responsibility for what is happening.

And let me tell you how angry I am about the ‘gaming.’

Because Trump has given me the opportunity to be angry hundreds of times before. The truth is that in a fairly remarkable mixture of bombastic rhetoric, double-talk, vagaries, an outright onslaught of relentless lies, he says repulsive things every day. Realistically to keep your sanity you can truly only focus on one of them at a time <which is part of his game because if I focus on one and everyone else focuses on another one and so on, how the hell can anyone put a thumb on this stupid, slippery, slimy, carnival barker? I admit, his ignorance <with regard to the constitution, global realities, everything else, was amusing at first, but it truly is Trump’s disregard for constitutional principles which is most likely the most disturbing <all the while holding up the Constitution verbally as his guiding principle>.

He doesn’t believe in freedom of the press <unless they say something nice to him>.

He doesn’t believe in freedom of speech <unless it agrees with him>.

He doesn’t believe in … well … let’s just say he is free of morality and principles which underpin the country <torture is good if the other guys do it, killing families of enemies is okay because it deters future enemy action, and ‘I’ will trump ‘we’ in decisions>.

Article II directs the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Article VI provides that treaties are part of “the supreme law of the land.” These treaties include the Geneva Conventions, which govern the conduct of war. Yet in direct contradiction to these treaties, Trump has said that the United States should have stolen Iraqi oil and that we should kill the families of terrorists. As he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “Everybody believes in the Geneva Convention until they start losing and then they say oh, let’s take out the bomb. OK. When they start losing. We have to play with a tougher set of rules.”

Let me be politically incorrect <kind of along the lines of Trump himself>. While I am not holding my breath I would be delighted if at some point he stood up and said “I am sorry. I have been a psycho. I don’t really like myself that much and I have been an unapologetic asshole for my entire life.”

He will not. Shit. He cannot even apologize for … uhm … anything.

Donald Trump is a liar. Period.

He is a crooked con artist.

He is a spoiled rich bully with an unhealthy relationship with his own mirror <and a desire for fame>.

Trump has seemingly called everyone a liar at some point over his entire lifetime, let alone the election period, all the while offering us an onslaught of his own lies. A liar telling lies, but calling everyone else a liar, is not just an asshole, it is a reflection of the fact he believes he is simply playing a game.

He is a repugnant and ridiculous imposter with no integrity.

He is simply a game show host stirring up interest to a television audience who is only going to find that what is behind the curtain is not the dream vacation we have always wanted, but a plastic blender which runs at one speed.

Which leads me to May 26 in North Dakota:

“Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything. I will give you what you’ve been looking for 50 years. I’m the only one.”

Uhm. “I will give you everything.” If that were not so stupidly arrogant, I would get angry with someone running for president saying something like that. I am completely disgusted. He is a flagrant scam artist playing games with America. It gets a bit crazier because the MAGA people claim they like him because he is no nonsense and unapologetic. Well.  I don’t like it because I believe it is cowardly to not face your own lies and poor words and poor choices and you are stubbornly unapologetic when you are 100%, no, 100% to the nth degree, wrong or lying to people.

As a deception theorist, my explanation for this is simple: somewhere along the way Trump learned — and was rewarded for learning — that he can more efficiently get what he wants by lying than telling the truth. Fortunately for the world, this viewpoint is not shared by most people.

But I continue to say the worst is that he is unapologetically playing the election like a game.

Gaming the press.

Gaming the people.

Gaming the system.

Gaming the overall construct of what is right, what is wrong and his basic strategy is confuxing everyone.

He is fucking running for the president of the United States; not the smartest game show host on tv.

Let’s be clear. Like him or not, Obama is an American and he treated his role as president seriously and with dignity. Like her or not, Clinton is an American and was serious candidate running a serious campaign understanding it is a serious role. Like him or not, Biden is a decent man, an American, and treats his role as president seriously and with dignity. Trump is an American who doesn’t really believe in America (the idea and ideals) and he is a relentless liar who cloaks himself in false patriotism to hide his lack of knowledge and overall ignorance for how serious being a president is. He is not sane nor interested in workable solutions. Trump is unwilling to put in the serious work to match the seriousness of the position. We should demand our president to lead by example and lead by assuming the mantle of responsibility, all responsibilities, of the position. Every day is bizarre, and a slap in the face to democracy and the democratic process and to the citizens,  and in the realm of the Trump carnival barker show, every week seems to attain a new low.

“Talk about a lack of intestinal fortitude. Anyone who wants to try to put Joe Biden on the same plane as Donald Trump should have their mental health checked because that is just an absurd false equivalency. This is a very black and white issue here. You’re either pro-democracy or you’re not. All the other issues that we disagree about – and there are many – don’t matter if we don’t have a functioning democracy.”

Which leads me to the most dangerous part of his game.

He doesn’t really believe in democracy, he embraces autocracy. If it were just simply that, it’s important but controllable. The problem is he also believes that transactions are negotiated one on one based on a relationship. So he builds relationships and affinities with autocrats. The most obvious autocrat he’s developed a relationship with is Vladimir Putin. It has often been discussed the 2016 Trump campaign links with Russia and whether Donald Trump is actually a Russian plant. I would actually just suggest something a foreign intelligent officer said: “It doesn’t really matter if you believe that Donald Trump is a Russian asset because assets come into all shapes and sizes. And some assets don’t realize their assets. They’re the best kind.” It is undisputed that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. No sane person debates that. The Justice Department, the Mueller investigation, even the Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed all of that. Everything portrays senior Trump Advisors eager to obtain assistance from Russia. Read any of the investigations and you’ll see a detailed list of a complex web of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians linked to a Kremlin and the Russian intelligence services. The most obvious one was Paul Manafort who was compromised having earned millions of dollars representing pro Kremlin political candidates. It is a fact that in Europe Paul Manafort handed 2016 voter targeting information to a Russian intelligence agent. Whether he knew it was a Russian intelligence agent or not is irrelevant; he handed it to him. But getting back to Donald Trump. While in the Oval Office Trump heaped praise on authoritarian thugs, entertained anti democratic European populists at the White House, rolled back US efforts to promote democracy around the world, and disrupted relations with allies. And to the chagrin of all intelligence officers around the world, during an Oval Office meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and ambassador to Washington, Trump divulged highly classified intelligence supplied by Israel. Intelligence that was so sensitive it was not shared widely within the US government. And while the breach put at risk an operation that had given Israeli intelligence a look on the inner workings of Islamic state in Syria, the consequences of it were worse. Israel as well as the majority of other intelligence allies stopped giving the United States critical intelligence because they believed that nothing was safe once Trump had heard it. All of that is undisputed fact. He thought intelligence was a game and he shared that game with autocratic leaders, and particularly Vladimir Putin. And then of course there was Trump’s obsession with undermining NATO. Tied to his peculiar fealty towards Vladimir Putin, Trump challenged the conclusion of his own intelligence community that Moscow had meddled in the election. I would also be remiss if I didn’t note that Donald Trump met one on one with Vladimir Putin in five meetings of which there is no detailed record anywhere within the files of the US government. These are all facts. You may not like them, but they are facts. I’m not asking anyone to draw any conclusion other than Donald Trump does not take democracy seriously.

And then there was January 6^th. Three and a half hours where rioters roamed the temple of American democracy smashing windows, breaking down doors, ransacking offices, defacing works of art, stealing documents and computers, defecating in the building, and searching for lawmakers to kidnap or kill -including the speaker of the house and the vice president. Emblems of racism and hate were everywhere. One wore a sweatshirt that said ‘Camp Auschwitz.’ Another carried the Confederate battle flag. Americans allies stunned by what they had witnessed, condemned the president’s actions (and inactions) and used words usually reserved for 3^rd world tyrants and thugs. Even the Turkey autocrat called the insurrection the disgrace that shocked humankind. This may sound offensive to some people, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest it was the darkest day in American history since 9/11 – although somehow slightly worse. For the attack had been launched not by a distant enemy, but by the occupant of the Oval Office. It was a warning to all of us that democracy can never be taken for granted, and maybe more importantly with regard to Donald Trump that he grants democracy no or little value.

Its all a game to him.

Ponder. This seems important.

=============

But resounding with the truth of things prophesied,

But of things with truth resounds

Но    вещей    правдою  звучат

No v’eshchej   pravdoju   zvuchat

Its lips are covered with blood!

Lips covered with blood

Уста, запекшиеся  кровью!

Usta, zap’vekshi’esa krovju!

——

Ophelia’s Song: Alexander Bok

=================

“Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.”

–

Leonardo da Vinci

=================

59squared.

3,481.

3481squared.

12,117,361.

12,117,361squared.

1.5 billion.

That’s three degrees and I am at almost 1/5^th of the entire world. Yeah.  The numbers are really not that neat, but you get the point. With a single event, a single death, one person can set off a chain of events that will affect hundreds of thousands, millions and even billions of people.

Some people call this “6 degrees of separation” <although I showed it to you as only 3>. I didn’t make up the squared concept. In some form or fashion it reflects the truth of the internet of things and connectedness and it shows the likelihood that the majority of us have some connection to any event in which 5, 59 or 559 people are part of.

I say this because it makes a lot of things, well, personal.  The main point here is that a person now has access and is aware of more people <true friends as well as web based friends> and can have more frequent communication due to the ‘digital revolution’.

Yet.

Social media is simply the fact that the traditional benefits of an acquaintance network <personal or professional> and friendships can be more expansively realized than before <it amplifies>. This means that truth resounds more quickly & clearly & bluntly than ever before. The other truth is that our own experiences, and Life, can then be at the mercy of crowds of friends & acquaintances — crowds providing unsolicited input & feedback & experiences all influencing hordes of additional people’s thoughts on a daily basis. This means whether you are present in one place, or not, you can be impacted in the present place you stand. You are a nomad in which the world remains your home.

Our world is now one large network consisting of two basic things – people and connections. And while many times we look at this as some forced or constructed network <Facebook, twitter, etc. provides hubs and constructs> the reality is that most people networks & connections are organically constructed. So while we like to draw out nice symmetrical shapes to define how connections work and networks are constructed the reality is that networks are more often not symmetrical.

The unique patterns in the connections determine the shapes. We reach out in asymmetrical ways to places, events and thoughts and bring them near in seconds. In addition the ties between the connections can be complicated – spanning from intense or passive.

In the business world we try to characterize networks and connections in a variety of ways. The trouble is that people are not that orderly and certainly not stagnant and they actively reshape their connections, interests and networks all the time.

But I am not here to discuss how the internet can, or cannot, affect personal relationships or a sense of individual isolation but rather this is a thought on how the internet can make things, and Life … well … smaller.

On most days the ‘quasi-truth’ that resounds in the echo chambers of what we talk about and ‘think we know’ is that the internet is isolating us … disconnects us from reality and social interaction.

So … is it possible that the internet increases connection and decreases connection at exactly the same time? Yup. The Internet connects and it isolates.

The usual assumption that most of us make about our computing and communication environment is that we are ‘always’ connected. Indeed, most of us are ‘nomads’ when it comes to computing and communications. We live in a disconnected world much of the time as we travel between our office, home, airport, hotel, car, coffee shop, bedroom, etc. We now recognize that access to computing and communications is necessary not only from one’s `home base’, but also while one is in transit and/or when one reaches one’s destination.

It is an anytime, anywhere access world. It is also, paradoxically, a ‘be anywhere at any time’ world.

That is the connected aspect which creates the whole disconnected aspect.

Well. Let’s just say we feel slightly disconnected in a connected way, of course, until something happens that tightens all the lines of connection.

It is within moments like that where the supposed 6 degrees of separation becomes less degrees and more links all of a sudden the 59squared aspect of connectedness occurs.

The world gets smaller … in fact … really fucking small.

We are brought together and something that happens to 5 people, maybe 59 people, or even 559 people, becomes an experience within our own grasp.

Which brings me back to truth and resounding.

The majority of our social networking constructs today are on the internet <or have a foundation on the internet>. Simplistically, we, the people, are connecting via the internet. What this means is that the internet muffles or amplifies our voices, events and truth <as well as lies unfortunately>.

What this means is that … well … an event, a moment, a death, an injury, resounds … resounds as in 59squared.

What THAT means is we have to face a truth whether we want to or not. Now. At that point we have a choice – see what we face or don’t see what we face. And if we refuse to face it we will remain disconnectedly connected in our little asymmetrical networks of friends & acquaintances.

That was a sad sentence to type.

At this point, my conclusion, I imagine it may be relevant to remind everyone of 59squared and the fact that I can do one thing, one right thing … or one wrong thing … and it will resound.

Choose your ‘one thing’ wisely.

One of the things I have been most consistently amazed by with regard to Trump is how often he refers to America as a shithole country. In fact. His whole premise for being a president is grounded on the country being a shithole and he is the only one able to ‘un-shithole’ the country. Its kind of nuts. I mean what kind of genius, or stable genius, would actually want to lead a shithole country? Let me explain what I mean.

Trump’s message, dumbed down for America, is simple: Make America great again.

• *** uhm. This only works if enough people believe America is in enough of a shithole that it isn’t great now.

And he is a master at creating shithole perceptions:

These perceptions have some psychological roots. You look around at the relative carnage of the day seeing your plans in disarray and hopes & dreams nowhere in close proximity to your current reality and you think to yourself “how the hell did we get into this shithole.” That is where conviction comes into play. You, or we, are not really in a shithole, you just have had what you thought would happen or should be happening, well, not happen. And you have some threads of belief that exactly the same thing will happen again tomorrow. Your conviction of ‘something better beyond the horizon’ is a little blurrier than it was the day before. Now. To be clear. Decades ago globalization tied to multinational companies and institutions seeking to make larger profits through lowering costs, hollowed out a shitload of manufacturing jobs and businesses. That is a reality which has certainly created a halo of attitudes, perceptions and some individual realities. Let me add small groups of people are desperately in worse shape, some people are in good shape, but have not improved, most people are doing fine, but hearing all the talk about the top 1% and feel entitled to some of what they got. That is reality. We have a higher standard of living than any country of any size in world. We live longer, are, other than fat, in good health, best and largest economy in the world, low unemployment, low overall violence <with isolated pockets which people distort to a larger view>. We have an incredible history of assimilating immigrants and, uhm, if immigration was truly an existential threat to “a great America” one would think that we would have done something about it sometimes in the past 20-ish years that the Right has been highlighting ‘invasions’ (usually every 2 years during an election cycle). To be clear. The US immigration system needs both structural and policy improvements, but immigration is not an existential issue.

Regardless. America is not a shithole country, and generally speaking we are in an economic boom (of which a significant swath of people are benefiting from) and we are actually investing in a better economic infrastructure now (which ensures not actually becoming a shithole country).

This may be the greatest example of the gap between perception and reality I have seen in my lifetime.

We ‘see’ something and then extrapolate it out in our minds to being a larger systemic issue. And maybe that is Trump’s most egregious superpower. He distorts “the one” into “the many.” He implies an isolated situation is indicative of the greater whole. And he does it with such hyperbole <and lies> even if most people do not believe it, it elevates whatever perception you may already have a little higher <therefore, he drags more people closer to believing we are in a shithole, i.e., not great>. I imagine the fear Trump should have is that if he drives his dystopian view of who and what America is so far down into some wretched dark hole that people will only see darkness and enough people will sit up, look around or out the window and say “shit, it isn’t that bad or dark.” Oops. Not a shithole.

Which leads me to the slippery slopes and shitholes.

The truth is in today’s world we seem to get caught up in the everyday grind of the story of the day. And, yes, most stories don’t reflect the best version of people or the positive side of emergent issues.  What this means is that it can get fairly easy to step on to the slippery slope leading down to a belief we are in some shithole with no leader or steps to get out of it. And what THAT means <at least to me> is that far too many people are abandoning hope and we desperately need some people to offer us some good ole pragmatic hope.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? I imagine lack of hope is kind of like entering a personal hell and even deflated, or deflating, hope is kind of like feeling like you are stepping onto the slippery slope into hell. Needless to say. This isn’t good for anyone. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the corollary to that is those of us with hope to give should share it whenever we can to get others out of that hell or at least off the slippery slope.

Which leads me to, uhm, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton warned us in 2016. Despite in a real political campaign where hyperbole and stupidity typically reigns, she actually spoke some truth to power. So maybe it is quite possible the issue in the 2016 USA presidential election was not Hillary, but us. Far too many of us ignored what she was saying and got sucked into the shithole beliefs by a conman who suggested only he could get us out of this imaginary shithole. it is quite possible that if we had listened to what she said, maybe paid a little bit more attention, maybe we wouldn’t be in the shithole we are currently in which is not a country shithole, but rather a one-manmade perception shithole. Maybe we should take a moment and ponder some Hillary words she spoke at Truckee Meadows Community College:

“This is what I want to make clear today. A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far reaches of the Internet, should never run our government or command our military. He says he wants to make America great again, but, more and more, it seems his real message is Make America Hate Again.”

And maybe that is where Trump is at his worst. He has encouraged people to believe that to love America permits you to hate everyone else. Love and hate have always had an uneasy relationship, but Trump has weaponized this relationship to a point where patriotism simply becomes a reason to hate. That alone should make everyone hate Trump. But, in the end, maybe all I am saying is that we should all wonder is why does someone ask to lead hate and lead a shithole country (unless they feel like they can personally benefit in some way)? Ponder.

——————-

“Have more than you show,

Speak less than you know. “

William Shakespeare

——-

“If you say I’m great, thank you very much.

But I know what I am.

I could be better …  you know? “

Keith Richards

—-

“I exist as I am, that is enough.”

Walt Whitman

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Ok. I hate egotistical people. I hate arrogant people.

Ok.

Hate is a big nasty word. Let’s just say I have less patience for someone who is overflowing with confidence than someone who appears solid and tends to be more silent. For once I will begin with my point <so you can stop reading after this if you want>.

First.

I do not believe you can coach confidence. I believe you can only help people manage self-doubt. In other words you either decide to manage how to live with whatever demons you may have inside or decide to mask them on the outside <with confidence … or arrogance>. In fact I could also argue that if you learn to live with the demons inside it can actually make you a much better person than the people who brim with bombastic confidence <the ones who have only learned to mask the demons>.

Second.

I tend to believe we confuse what is important on this whole confidence thing meaning that maybe it isn’t really confidence, but instead we should focus on words like ‘dare’ or ‘courage’.

Ok. That said.

To me confidence is not, and never will be, a character trait.

To me courage is, and will always be, a character trait.

Courage is doing things despite the fear. Confidence is faith <in your abilities and yourself>. Courage is going forward even when you don’t feel that faith. It is about taking action in the absence of certainty that the task can actually be completed, if not completed well.

Third.

Labeling  behavior justifies it. Huh? Think of this like a warped version of ‘personal branding’ where once “he who shall not be named” is named you are almost encouraged to live up to your label/brand.

Yikes. Did I just type that? Yup.

In today’s world we have become masters labeling everything. It permits us to “slot” things in our heads and in the world more easily. In this case we have come up with labels to justify our self professed abilities. The big umbrella label is this thing called ‘confidence.’ I would suggest that simply by labeling it, well, it really becomes arrogance. And we all know <I think we do> that arrogance is often a mask for insecurity or some other emotional difficulty. Arrogance, or overestimated ego, can be cloaked in a variety of labels maybe the most famous, and insidious, over the last generation is “type A” personality.

Whew.

Type A has become not just a label, but a fucking badge for people who think highly of themselves. I read a fun little book recently called “Assholes” which reminded me that regardless of the context associated with this badge “I’m type A” most often precedes some asshole attitude or behavior.

–

the categories encourage and launder shitty personalities – and that’s largely unhelpful. It’s possible, one would presume, to be overachieving without being the jerk who yells at the guy working the double shift on minimum wage … or to be decisive and effective without being totally full of yourself.

–

People who self-identify as type A use the term as a synonym for success. To be clear. That is bullshit.

–

“Hey, I may be a bit maddening at times, but it’s only because I have higher standards than you.”

–

The corollary to this standard Type A assholedness is that anyone who objects to ‘type A’ somehow simply becomes something ‘lesser than.’ Suffice it to say that this type A label is a fabulous example of how overestimated ego assholes use information incorrectly to forward their own agenda <in pseudoscience ways>. We should note that over the years type A, and all the other letter personality types, have been warped by pop culture:

——-

… this is not at all how the term “type A” was initially intended to be used.  It first reached the mainstream in a 1974 book called “Type A Behavior and Your Heart” and its 1996 follow-up, “Type A Behavior: Its Diagnosis and Treatment”.

These books were not written by a psychologist but by a cardiologist, Dr Meyer Friedman, who described the type A category in mostly negative terms, as a group of angry, thoughtless people whose behaviour put them at heightened risk of a heart attack.  You know who else was type A in this schema?

Hitler.

——

Let’s just conclude point three by saying that labels are often fancy packaging for something less than what a truly humble confident capable person aspires to being.

Fourth.

The line between true confidence and overestimated ego <arrogance>can be a very fine line.

Can.

Thinking you can do something and believing you can do something is a very very fine line and confidence or arrogance are things people use to drag themselves over the line. Regardless, it can wear on you mentally by wandering this line. I say that because whatever tool you use to drag yourself over the line is often a mask for insecurity, or maybe not full on insecurity, but simply underestimating ‘self.’

Uhm.

That’s called ‘self doubt.’

Uh oh.

As we all know self doubt is evil and sly and has the ability to slip inside who and what you are and eat you up from the inside out. Regardless. With any degree of self doubt playing a role in this formula, confidence <or full blown arrogance> is not the solution. It isn’t because that would simply mask the real issue. The solution is facing self-doubt and learning to have a relationship with it <because you will never eliminate it>.

I read a survey somewhere suggesting something like 85% of us believe that we’d be more successful in careers if we were more confident. And 60% believe that greater confidence is one of the top two changes that would most enhance our career success <more than a better team, additional training or knowledge, or more time for actual work>.

Suffice it to say that most people assume confidence is critical for career success.

They are wrong.

Dealing with your inner critic is what is most critical to success. Confidence means having the courage to argue with your inner critic. Arrogance means you ignore your inner critic. Confidence means that at least I THINK I have a chance of out arguing my inner critic.

In fact. Confidence can lead to maximizing a healthy inner critic.

Self-doubt can be insidious, but it can have some practical aspects. Practical in that it suggests you are approaching the edge of what you can do or at least what you may feel comfortable doing. It makes you stop for a second and assess the edge of the comfort zone. In addition your inner critic has an uneasy relationship with truth. Many times it is not really telling you the truth and yet a part of you feels sure its words are true.

Confidence permits you to separate the ridiculous from the practical. Confidence permits you to listen, assess, and step out of a comfort zone and make some progress. On the other hand arrogance means you just blindly step out of your comfort zone.

Yeah.

Arrogance blinds you and confidence means living life with open eyes. Please note, while I made some very clear distinctions in discussing this ‘fine line’, it is a fine line. And any time someone suggests that confidence and arrogance are worlds apart I would suggest that they truly do not understand the issues at hand.

Anyway. I sometimes wonder if the self-help “business” has added to our levels of arrogance. There are so many self-help books and self-help “gurus” espousing a selfish and preposterous “believe and you will get everything” mantra or “fake your confidence to get what you want” it almost seems to suggest an arrogant belief in entitled success.

Ok. Let me spend some time on ‘overestimated behavior’ and why it can happen <and it happens pretty much to all of us>. Well. Overestimating is easy to do because we base future behavior <or success> on past success. That’s it. And, unfortunately, far too often the answers we had yesterday are not ‘the’ answers necessary for today or tomorrow.

As stated earlier confidence is not static.

——

“Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.”

Earl Gray Stevens

—–

“Thoughts aren’t facts.

Just because we think something, does not mean it’s true.”

Lucy Elizabeth

——-

Confident people accept the fact they don’t know the whole truth … heck … the whole of anything, and are comfortable, or ‘quasi-comfortable’, with partial glimpses of things.

——

“No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.”

William Osler

——-

I would suggest that confidence is actually a state of mind. It’s the feeling of self-assurance that arises from the appreciation of your abilities and qualities. You believe you have something, or a combination of things, to offer, i.e., knowledge, skills, and/or maybe some experience. I imagine it is kind of knowing that you can get the job done, but that doesn’t mean we do not overestimate on occasion as we vie the next job to be done.

Uhm.

To be clear it is often a constant struggle to not overestimate your behavior and instead simply seek to do the best you can <and while it may not actually be ‘the best’ it is a job well done and you don’t overestimate what you know based on a job well done because you always recognize there is ‘more knowledge’ to be found>.

All that said. Just so everyone doesn’t think I didn’t do any homework on this assignment let me bring in some research on talent or confidence and what drives success. To me this brings to mind the chicken or egg discussion as well as perception versus reality.

Huh?

Well. While I am going to share some research let me suggest one thing first:

First.

Perception versus reality. False confidence <you don’t really have the ability> supports the ‘fake it until you make it theory’. This is about creating a perception of confidence. And anyone rising up thru an organization, good or bad, has to do this or they die in an organization. You almost always assume responsibilities on the way up that you have no clue on how to do, but you figure it out. After a while this experience <actually doing it> either creates a sense of overblown confidence or a realistic ‘I don’t know what I am doing but will hunker down and figure it out’ attitude.

The former is bad.

The latter is good.

Second.

Chicken or egg (or The Halo Effect). Does confidence drive success or success drive confidence?

Well. Research studies on drivers of success inevitably judge confidence against … uhm … well … success. I would suggest that success breeds some confidence. If you don’t experience success in any amount that matters, your confidence lags. Basically, as I suggested back in 2013,  confidence. alone, isn’t worth shit (https://brucemctague.com/confidence-is-worthless ). Sorry. That’s just the way it is. There is a correlation between experience <doing something> and confidence. Therefore confidence is not an attitude, it is actually something you do.

That is “understanding reality.”

That is “understanding what your strengths & weaknesses are.”

For example here is some research:

=

– According to Medical News Today, confidence, not talent, is a driver of success. Researchers at the University of California (UC) Berkeley’s Haas School of Business found that those who were more confident experience more success than their peers, despite their talent.

<what they fail to note is that of two people with disparate talent but similarly confident … the ‘more talent’ has more success>

=

– According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology those who appeared more confident achieved a higher status than their peers. At work, “higher-status individuals” tended to be more admired, listened to, and had more influence over group decisions.

<what they fail to note is that if the ‘appear confident’ was not matched with good decisions or actual behavior they no longer appeared confident but rather looked ‘overestimated ego.’>

 =

Business News Daily also published studies on confidence that suggested confident employees have more fruitful careers than their peers who aren’t as self-assured. Their research discovered a correlation between confidence and career success and also revealed that those who self-reported higher levels of confidence earlier in school earned better wages, and were promoted more quickly.

<what they fail to note is that the confidence is also linked with ‘courage’ and ‘courage to try’ both of which reflect “you are more likely to have success if you get in the game then if you do not”>

=

What does all that mean?

Is confidence really the key to greater success?

<nope>

Confidence is inextricably linked to tangible doing. With no link it is not confidence; it is empty arrogance <or overestimated ego>. We always need to remember that confidence is not static. Our confidence to perform tasks can increase and decrease. Some days we even feel more confident than others. And how we perform our tasks can create the overall ebb & flow. Assertiveness, confidence and self-confidence are linked to these tasks <action> & behavior. As people become naturally more assertive in actually doing things confidence follows & develops.

——–

“On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.”

George Orwell

———–

Anyway. I do wish more people were reminded that confidence, the frame of mind or ‘believing’, is only a part of the equation and in fact percentagewise it probably represents the smallest fraction <albeit a powerful little fraction> and that performing, doing, taking action is really the majority of success. I do wish more people were reminded that true confidence is paid off with a deed and typically a deed done well <not just completed>. Therefore if confidence isn’t backed up by actual skill … well … you’re delusional and that equals an overestimated ego <or arrogance>.

In the end.

To me the line between confidence and overestimated and overblown ego is defined by the deed. And even then some arrogant asshole is going to misconstrue the quality of the deed they did, versus the reality of ‘lesser quality than what they attribute to it, simply because we all have our blind spots, and arrogance increases the depth of the blindness.

— 

“When we define ourselves by what we can recognize, by what we can comprehend- rather than, say, by what we can describe- we are continually under threat from what we are unwilling and/or unable to see.

We are tyrannized by our blind spots, and by whatever it is about ourselves that we find unacceptable.”

Adam Phillips

—

Arrogant people are constantly tyrannized by their blind spots.

Confident people see the blind spots, accept they are there, use innate curiosity to eliminate or limit the blind spots, and keep on aspiring to do better each time. And maybe that is the truest of distinctions between arrogance <overestimated ego> and confidence. Curiosity every day. Why? Because curiosity leads to learning more and learning leads to skill acquisition. Getting better each and every day, getting into the “know more” business rather than the “here is what I know” business. And embracing curiosity doesn’t have anything to do with confidence or arrogance, but courage. Courage to accept what you do not know, publicly & privately, and proceed forward ‘forthwith.’

<I just wanted to use that word>

Arrogant people with overestimated egos are cowards.

They don’t have the courage to face what they do not know.

They don’t have the courage to admit their best is not really the best … just a skill that gets the job done in the here & now.

Arrogant people have to be blind to their blind spots because if they were not the truth would kill them. Ponder.

=======

“If the truth shall kill them, let them die.”

=

Immanuel Kant

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“America is great because she is good.

If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Alexis de Tocqueville

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“We Americans are a do-it-yourself people.

We are an impatient people.

Instead of teaching someone else to do a job, we like to do it ourselves. And this trait has been carried over into our foreign policy.”

Nixon from his Silent Majority speech

==============

Nationalism, populism, and “America First,” and economics are inextricably linked. The Trump administration simply embodied the dull axe version of nationalism economics so we have some indications of what it means in terms of implementation as well as consequences. That said. It is a little difficult to unpack everything happening with regard to “America First” and what it means for America economically short term and long term.

Alternatively. The Biden administration is (mostly) returning to the economic path the Obama administration implemented with the twist that the pandemic permits them, because of the global supply chain shakeup, to redesign global structure a bit. But the main thing the Biden administration is doing, significantly different than the Trump administration, is the balancing of short-term results and long term desires/needs. As I pointed out before, the Obama administration never got enough credit for doing this. it is a trickier path because it does sacrifice some short-term metrics in order to be able to retool for a healthy future economy. The truth is America is now on a much healthier path going in the right direction (one does wonder what a better place we would be in if we hadn’t had to endure the dull axe policies of the Trump administration which set us off the path) and supply chains are shaking out, businesses are reshaping (too slowly in my mind) their economic structures, there are some significant strides in retooling for a future economy and a globalized economy is taking on a new healthier shape. Yes. Contrary to alarmist headlines the American economy is in really good shape, (particularly compared to other countries) and we should not confuse systemic consequences like inequality with a poor economy or inflation with poor domestic policy because inflation is not an American issue, but rather a global issue, therefore, it is not a reflection of any American ‘flaw’ but reflective of a global response to a myriad of issues.

I have a lot to suggest on the America First Economics topic, but because there is so much let me offer some overarching ways of viewing it all. I will also note that I am purposefully using Trump and not Republican or Trump administration because I believe we would be incredibly shortsighted to think that his personal views on how the world exists <in his mind> do not drive his behavior and the administration decisions being made:

• How Trump views the leadership concept of dragging up versus dragging down
• How Trump views rules & regulations
• How Trump views I versus team
• How Trump views uncertainty
• How Trump views life only through a dollars & cents lens <driving an economics first, and only, view>
• How Trump views infrastructure (building)

All of these views drive America First all of which <I would suggest> actually encourage an America Alone strategy. In addition, to a larger extent, all actually encourage an “every man for himself” attitude <kind of an extremely perverse version of traditional conservative ideology>.

Dragging up versus dragging down

America didn’t stay in the Paris Climate agreement, among other transnational alignments, so I will use it as an example of how Trump views America leadership and leadership in general <because it applies to almost everything the administration did>.

Leaders understand that to lead you need to ‘drag up’ behavior. This comes at an expense in that you are demanded to do more things without any real compensation or obvious immediate ROI. For example, part of the Paris agreement was that United State had higher standards. This certainly places a burden on American companies. It also translates into an innovation push to meet those standards. And, ultimately, because we lead in innovation the rest of the world will eventually buy our innovations. As noted earlier this is an example of sacrificing some short term results for longer term structural value creation and, ultimately, a stronger economic presence. This leadership also encourages other countries to ‘play up’ as close to United States as possible.

Conversely, if United States drops out of the overall leadership, standards drops and, as any organizational study will tell you, the overall tide of standards will be lower as things get dragged downwards. This is, simplistically, why leaders have higher standards in business. It drags the organization up and not down. As for businesses, as I will highlight again later, without normalizing stanards a business will typically align with the lowest possible standard that optimizes profits. That’s why businesses need to be given some guardrails if we want new standards of behavior/operations.

Trump does not understand this. Nor does he believe in this. I believe ‘America First,’ generally speaking, understands this, but ignores this.

Rules & regulations

I took a lot of big gulps during the Trump years as I viewed lists of regulations the Trump administration eliminated. I viewed this as general incompetence <they appeared to follow an “if it exists it should not exist” strategy and not “a thoughtful consideration of its impact” type decision> or general lack of understanding of how business works. What I mean by that is business has a fairly simple objective; profit making. It is within that simplicity that a lot of bad things, and bad behavior, can occur. Government has always been in the business of ‘guardrails to ensure the populace benefits’ and, generally speaking, do fairly well at that. I am certainly not suggesting governments shouldn’t be reviewing regulations all the time and eliminating, or editing, existing regulations that have served their purpose. The Trump administration applied the dull axe version of my last sentence. One could ponder if at the core of their deregulation there was some corruption, but let’s just say they embraced unfettered free market (which almost any eminent economist would tell you is a bad idea).

That said. Trump believes if there had been no rules & regulations, he would be the wealthiest man in the world. He has never found a rule or regulation he has ever liked. He also believes that if he thinks that everyone should think that. I have written about capitalism a zillion times and I have argued that unfettered capitalism simply brings out the worst in people and increases inequality. Rules & regulations, done well, tend to herd behavior.

Trump doesn’t think rules apply to him so why wouldn’t we expect him to eliminate rules so he doesn’t even have to pretend he plays by the rules.

I versus team

Economics, whether we admit it or not, is about people. More specifically, it is about people working together and communicating with each other. There really is no such thing as a ‘sole business person’ because in order to achieve any profits, at scale or not, that one must interact with others (the market). That said. Trump has never been part of a team nor does he have any desire to be a team leader. How this translates into his decision attitude is that the global interconnectedness is irrelevant to him. No. He actually thinks it is a negative. We are not a global team seeking to win, but rather it is ‘every man for himself.’ Unfortunately this attitude also cascades down into domestic policy.

And because I used the Paris Climate deal earlier to make a point on something else I will do so again here. One would think it would be remarkable that someone who has not appointed someone to run the White House Office of Science and Technology <a person who traditionally serves as the President’s chief science officer> or has the majority of posts on the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology <a group of civilian science and tech leaders who advise the president> unfilled would feel qualified to make his decision.  However, if you do not value a team effort and believe “I” is all that matters then the qualified support doesn’t really matter and, in fact, could negatively affect “the I.” Trump is a focus group of one making decisions. And it has become apparent he believes the ‘best of the best’ work that way. Once again, effective economies do not work that way.

All that said. Everything Trump does and supports gives the finger to anything that could be construed as a team effort. It is “I” in the world. “I” as a country. “I” as a business and, well, “I alone” is the mantra. The problem is that every “I” in the American economy is dependent, and connected, with a variety of other resources, distribution partners, and customers. Basically even the American economy is a system nested within a larger global system and attempting to optimize a part, or an “I”, will never improve the system nor optimize the return.

That said, “it has always been about me and just me” bleeds into everything Trump believes and does.

Uncertainty

Solid economies tend to lean on some certainties – monetary systems, distribution systems, partnership systems, resource systems, etc. as the pandemic reminded us, when these certainties become less certain, bad things happen. Trump views uncertainty as a positive <with regard to everything>. This attitude undergirds behavior. For example, whole sale immigration changes disrupts the entire workforce and negatively affects a variety of industries. His appositive view of certainty upends industries within his actual behavior – and he doesn’t care. It seems to me that wrenching the entire system 180degrees creates what I offered up as the biggest flaw in Trump’s way of doing business — uncertainty. He believed everyone was like him and every business would thrive if he created the uncertainty and he thrives on the belief America will ultimately benefit from uncertainty. He believed America will swoop in now that is it is free from the shackles of the ‘old order’ <way of doing things, deals, regulations, etc.> and dominate what, uhm, we already dominated.

The country that had spent decades erecting an international order based on free trade, multilateral cooperation, a global alliance network, and the promotion of democratic values had now chosen as its leader a man who detests any structure supporting all those things.

What a bad idea. Very bad. And, once again, while I am disappointed in Trump, I am even more disappointed a business man <his 1st secretary of state> thought this way because it ignores business 101.  Well. It ignores business 101 depending on whether you think America is special, exceptional in some way or that part of what makes America distinct in the world is not the bigness of our economy but rather the bigness of our idea.

That said, Trump doesn’t believe in big ideas he only believes in big money. Oh. If you have no ideas the only way to make money is to take advantage of uncertainty. The problem is that America is built on an idea, ideals and a system of implementing those to the benefit of the economy (in a globalized interconnected economy) and not just “more money” and while we may <if we are really lucky> benefit economically, under this Trump philosophy we would do so at the sacrifice of our ideas, ideals and leadership in this uncertain world Trump desires to play his dangerous game in.

Leaders don’t act with uncertainty as their compass, they use certainty, or degrees of, to lead. Of course, Trump wouldn’t know how to lead even if given an instruction manual with lots of pictures.

The dollars & cents lens <economics first>

I am not a diplomat or some foreign policy expert, but I admit that I took a big gulp when early on in the Trump administration I saw the secretary of state suggest that America should make economic and security needs above American ‘values.’ It seems to be that everything will be decided on an exchange of money and not on an exchange of ideas <where value is a combination of economics and values>.

US foreign policy, Tillerson said, is guided by fundamental values, but he cautioned: “If we condition too heavily that others must adopt this value that we’ve come to over a long history of our own, it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.”

Well. It seems to me while USA is in the ‘doing & making & selling shit” business we are also in the “doing & making & selling with values” business.

It seems to me that USA is not particularly in the “partnerships of convenience “business where we can conveniently set aside our values & ideals but rather we are in the “partnership with ideals” business where we are delighted to do business with you but you are gonna have to accept the fact we are gonna showcase freedom, democracy and what we believe people deserve.

To Trump everything is marginalized excepting economics <money>.

Let’s be clear. American ‘values’, or a belief in winning the right way, doesn’t get in the way of our economic interests. To believe that is to not believe in ‘value’ <in which premium price relies on some value equation above a dollar is a dollar>.  As Gen. George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, commented in 1945, Washington could no longer pursue a narrow conception of national interest or limit its strategic horizons to the Western Hemisphere: “We are now concerned with the peace of the entire world.” I would be remiss if I didn’t point out peace is, well, certainty, and certainty, through peace, is good for our economic interests.

To me, the pursuit of “America First” can often be accomplished best by protecting and defending the rights of others which actually includes economic relationships. I dug up a speech made on December 20, 1951 by Dean Acheson which laid out a view of American foreign policy very different from Trump’s first secretary of state Rex Tillerson:

——————–

The greatest asset we have in all the world—even greater than our material power—is the American idea. No one needs to tell an American audience all the things that this holds for us. It is so much a part of our everyday lives that we do not stop to define it, or to put it into packages for export. But throughout the world, wherever people are oppressed, wherever people dream of freedom and opportunity, they feel the inspiration of the American idea.

What we are trying to do, in our foreign policy, is to make possible a world in which our own people, and all people who have the same determination, can work in their own way toward a better life, without having to bear the yoke of tyranny.

—————-

I have always known the Trump administration would be putting economy, money, above all and I did outline some concerns I had about attacking a foreign policy based on transactional relationships, but it now had become a reality; it is commerce over conscience.

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“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.

Steve Maraboli,

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Money is the currency of survival in today’s world and offers an ongoing temptation for “well, just a little bit more would be nice.” 90% of us know money isn’t everything, but that same 90% knows money is something. I mentioned it that way because it becomes easy to think money as a ‘this or that’ thought, everything or nothing, and, yet, in this case it is not everything, but is certainly still something. That said. I think Trump yielding the high ground to simply gain some perceived temporary ‘economic advantage’ was simply wrong and is haunting us now.

To be clear. Trump wouldn’t recognize the high ground if it smacked him in the face.

           The myth of being a builder

As noted above, America is the business of making and selling shit. Now. While that has certainly shifted over the decades (we do significantly less ‘making’ and significantly more ‘services economy’), the core of any country’s economic resilience resides in manufacturing (large, medium and small sized businesses). That said. Trump always claimed he was a builder and America must have had a dozen “infrastructure weeks” espousing a growth in manufacturing that never occurred. While it is easy to chuckle over ‘the infrastructure week that never was’ it is actually sad because it was a reflection of a cascading number of issues surrounding an “American first” belief. You need money to build infrastructure – government money. Government money subsidizes innovation and growth for which it gets paid back in tax revenue (business and individual wages) over time. Governments get crucified when they make a bad bet or ROI isn’t clear upfront, but the reality is for every ‘bad bet’ government has made that bet has evolved into, well, economic progress. In other words, you need government money for infrastructure. Which leads me to the Trump tax decreases. Ignore the fact it benefited the wealthy, it increased deficits as America gained less in tax revenue which, as a consequence, they didn’t have for, yes, an infrastructure week. In addition, the tariffs. I am neither anti nor pro tariffs. They can be used tactically quite effectively to help specific industries compete. The Trump administration implemented tariffs like a dull axe in combination with the fact they didn’t coordinate with the EU so tariffs hurt the US doubly as that business went elsewhere. But the tariffs situation got a bit worse as we think about money to invest. Trump, in the attempt to limit the bad news domestically, began subsidizing the American industries he crippled with the tariffs. Basically, the government money wasn’t being used to innovate or invest but rather to prop up industries he was hurting with his policies. To be clear, I am not opposed to doing that when warranted, but this was a self-inflicted deficit increaser which capped any opportunities to invest elsewhere.

Trump really was never a builder, he just likes to own things, and the American economy got trapped in the wretched hollow in between his ‘builder myth’ and the reality of how a country actually builds shit.

In the end.

“The U.S. is, for now, out of the world order business.” <Robert Kagan>. After more than 70 years, American internationalism was pronounced politically dead during the Trump administration.

What is really stunning, and upsetting, to people like me is that the United States started going backwards. It is simply beyond me that we began steering ourselves toward antiquated systems and antiquated thinking rather than moving forward to leading in innovations and ideas. I can only feel a sinking feeling in my stomach as the rest of the world understood what Trump, and his administration, apparently did not; that the United States was about to give away the markets, the technology, the innovation, the jobs and the leadership. The unifying thread through Trump’s agenda appeared to be an attempt to resurrect an earlier antiquated world which marginalizes future considerations and maximizes short term considerations culminating in a stunningly self-destructive United States act of diplomatic and economic isolation.

“Our plan will put America First. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo. As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America First, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect.”

Donald Trump

Well. That in a nutshell summarizes a naïve view of Life.

For in those words, he implies the only way to gain respect is to act only as an “I” and that within a “we” world a country, or a person, no one can be first. And, well, first is all that matters. For in these words, he implies globalism is a hollow idea and that first can never be achieved, at any time, by creating a rising tide for everyone, but rather if it is only our tide that rises.

During the Trump administration Pew surveys showed United States became less and less popular and while popularity is not the best measuring stick I could suggest <in looking at the information> that the decline is a reflection of our growing indifference to democratic values and increasing interest in economic values.

They see United States assuming a transactional based relationship with the world and not a democratic based relationship with the world.

There is a price to pay for such positions – both morally and economically.

Here is what I believe.

Trump’s attempt to reverse the shift toward the future is not sustainable. Going backwards never is. And while his quasi-insane onslaught against any rule and regulation under his belief that rules and regulations were the only thing that kept him from being the wealthiest man in the world, he is actually going to be a horrible temporary “aberration” in the world’s long march toward the future.

I also believe the aberration came at a terrible cost to America.

Trump is a profoundly mediocre man with a profoundly dangerous idea of how to make America First.

I personally don’t believe Trump has ever known what America First meant, it was simply a slogan to him and he would laugh if he ever read this “If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great” <Alexis de Tocqueville>. An Economics First strategy sacrifices “the good” which inevitably means America will cease to be great.

For that, even beyond the economic malpractice, I will never forgive Trump. Ever.