Paramilitary Groups Find Their Target in Michigan

Does anyone recall how the Michigan Militia gained notoriety after it was learned that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, co-conspirators in the Oklahoma City bombing, flirted with the organization in the 1990's? Michigan has long been home to numerous paramilitary groups, many with anti-government leanings. In 2010, Michigan was second only to Texas in such groups.

The rise of these groups parallels the evolution of the NRA from a sporting and gun safety advocate into a gun rights organization increasingly focused on the threat of an overbearing government intent on robbing the people of their rights. It should come as no surprise that Michigan, which long had more licensed hunters than any state in the nation, would follow the one-time sporting and gun safety group down the extremist, anti-government path.

We are now witnessing the next step in that evolution, with the armed protesters taking up position within the halls of the Michigan Capitol Building. This is one more example of the normalization of the anti-government mindset that drove McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City. In the twenty-five years since, these para-military groups have continued to grow (some would say fester), building their ranks on a foundation of fear and mistrust. As is so often true, one sees what one seeks, and in the case of these groups, what they've been seeking - expecting - is government overreach. The demands of public health in the face of COVID-19 provides the ideal opportunity to find such overreach and put their decades of paramilitary practice to work.

To date, these protests have remained thankfully peaceful, but as happened when a similar showing of paramilitary groups in Charlottesville drove state police to refrain from confrontation for fear of provoking violence, they risk allowing anarchy to rule in ways that leads to violence regardless.

The well-worn phrase that the pen is mightier than the sword underlies the reason that freedom of speech, press, assembly and the right to petition government for redress of grievances are enshrined in the First Amendment, coming before the right to bear arms in the second. It is also the well-educated, thoughtful intellectualism of the men who put those rights into our Constitution that made both our revolution against Great Britain and the nation that resulted a model for the world, rather than the inflamed mob Alexander Hamilton warned his contemporaries might arise when passions are fanned.

These so-called patriots believe an America flag and an AR-15 makes them Patriots. They do not. It is the hard work of rational thought, reasonable debate and defense of democratic principles that make a true patriot. Armed reactionaries wearing masks meant to conceal identity rather than protect public health are not patriots. It is hard to see them as anything but weekend warriors looking for a chance to play patriot. Unfortunately, they don't know the meaning of the word. Thus, our increasing tolerance of their unpatriotic acts threatens the very foundation of our democracy, and quite ironically, the liberties found therein. Their evolution, allowed to continue, will not end well. This, I fear, is but a mere way station on the path to disaster.

Wealth Gap, Agitated Populace, 2nd Amendment a Volatile Mix

The last time we faced massive government spending that helped pull us out of an economic dive this deep was when WWII pulled us out of the Great Depression. We paid for that by increasing top tax rates to over 90 percent. It was a time when we took fiscal responsibility seriously (which coincided with our greatest period of middle class economic might and global respect). It will be interesting to see how we proceed this time once the need for stimulus has passed. I would not expect similar tax rates, but I do believe our current tax structure and faith in the myth that tax cuts pay for themselves will need to come to an end.

On a related note, I was pondering the oft-repeated claim that  prior to onset of COVID-19 we were in the greatest economic period in our nation's history. On a GDP and unemployment basis, there is some merit to that claim, but how does it stack up by other measures such as income inequality and overall measures of economic security of the middle class, including number of bankruptcies due to medical bills, ability to pay for a 4-year degree without incurring significant debt on a middle class income, retirement security? I've done some preliminary research and it is not quite as rosy as it's been portrayed, which should surprise few.

That such struggles were increasing, as are federal deficits, while the economy was humming on all cylinders should be a matter of concern for all regardless their income level. Sadly, I fear the IBGYBG (I'll be gone, you'll be gone) attitude that lured so many to dismiss the threat of the looming mortgage crisis a decade ago because they figured they'd cash out before the bill came due, has now become an IGMYGY attitude (I got mine, you'll get yours). It's a kind of Gadsden flag, don't tread on me approach to economics. However, history has rarely been kind to societies with vast wealth gaps.

The last time the US faced such inequality was during the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, which eventually saw the rise of the American Communist Party as a valid political player. Its appeal grew even greater with the onset of the Great Depression, which increased the calls for wealth distribution and overthrow of the old economic system. Ironically, Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by fighting fire with fire, implementing a vast array of socialist-style works programs, as well as Social Security, as part of his New Deal. They alleviated the pain of the Great Depression and quieted the most extreme calls for action, but it was only WWII (as noted at the opening of this post), which finally put an end to the economic hardship. Oddly, the real savior of capitalism may have been the man who started that war. We can only guess at how prolonged economic hardship would have played out had the war not intervened.

All this is to say that those who look the other way as income inequality grows without considering the long-term consequences risk fomenting a rebellion that the support of Bernie Sanders-style socialism only hints at. A return to the gilded age puts all at risk of becoming victims to the adage that hungry people gripe, starving people revolt. In a nation founded in rebellion, with a populace prone to agitation backed by Second Amendment rights, it will only take a skilled demagogue with the wrong message at the right time to light a fuse we may wish we had doused long before.

Beware Attempts to Politicize the Voice of America

The president made a point of referencing the need to replace the head of the Voice of America during yesterday's coronavirus briefing. I happened to attend a talk at the VOA museum here in West Chester, OH last fall by Elez Biberaj, the VOA's Eurasia director, where he made it clear the mission of the VOA is to provide truthful reporting rather than propaganda because gaining the trust of those in nations without a free and open press is critical to US influence in those countries (the accompanying photo shows the level of that trust in select countries). He went on to say the VOA has taken pride and comfort in the fact that their mission has never been politicized, allowing them to freely broadcast the good, the bad and the ugly, which is what underpins those high levels of trust abroad.

The president's comment yesterday that the current director is allowing "horrible things" to be broadcast almost certainly was driven by that "good, bad and ugly" aspect of the VOA's factual reporting. In fact, it was directly related to their reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, which he apparently feels has not been critical enough of China. If he succeeds in placing a director more intent on propaganda than truth, global trust in the VOA will crater, its effectiveness will plummet and any influence the US garners from our shining example of press freedom will be forever lost.

This is just one small but significant example of the many ways this administration is not just damaging our global influence, but more dangerously, undermining the very principles countless Americans have fought and died to gain and protect. It may seem insignificant, but it is an attack on the very concept of what America is.

The President's Underwhelming Performance

Supporters of President Trump often argue that his detractors ignore his successes and thus, their opinions are based upon intangible emotions. A look at those alleged accomplishments may help quell that argument. This review will put the coronavirus impact and response aside, looking only at the performance through December 31 of last year, the date China first revealed it was dealing with a new infectious disease. It will also focus exclusively on policy, refraining from touching on rhetoric, personality and other apsects of the president's behavior, save for how those might influence policy. Suffice it to say, this is by no means an exhaustive review of presidential shortcomings as viewed by his detractors.

First, the economy. Despite the president’s boasts, it has been every bit as sluggish/robust as it was under his predecessor (one must choose which adjective to use, since the numbers are nearly identical). In Obama’s last eleven quarters (the number for which data exists under Trump), annual growth was 2.3 percent. Under Trump it has been barely a quarter point higher at 2.56 percent. Comparing the most recent five quarters for both makes for a statistical dead heat, with both coming in at 2.1%, well below the 3% considered robust and even further shy of the 4% or more the president had promised.

The president may actually be fortunate that the economy has been hammered by the coronavirus, because the global economy had been sliding into a recession and early warning signs, including a significant drop in truck capacity utilization nationwide, suggested the US economy was beginning to teeter on the brink of a downturn (see Fig 1). That will now be more than masked by what has transpired in the past few months. 

Fig. 1: Logistics Manager’s Index of Transportation Utilization

The other thing the president proudly boasts of is the stock market. There, too, it is not all it’s cracked up to be. Given that the president’s signature economic achievement - his tax cuts - did not take effect until January 1, 2018, it is instructive to look at the markets performance in their wake. Ironically, the market quickly peaked on the first anniversary of his inauguration (I typically begin assigning credit to a president for the economy beginning on that date), then remained essentially flat or underwater for the next twenty-one months. Only in the last quarter of last year did we see any improvement in stock prices, and even then, from his one year anniversary to the peak during his term on February 12 of this year, the Dow grew at a substandard 6% annual rate, significantly below the historic return of 7.75% return that excludes dividends. (see Fig 2)


Fig 2: Dow Jones closing prices January 3, 2017 - March 18, 2020

Under virtually any comparison, President Trump’s performance versus Obama’s is substandard.  During the first three full years (12 quarters), President Trump’s market lags Obama’s in every one except the first, which is typically a quarter a new president inherits rather than can take credit for the market. (see Fig 3)



Fig 3: Comparison of Cumulative Change in Dow Jones 

The most troubling aspect is the price we’ve paid for an economy and a market that has barely budged versus their performance under his predecessor. Deficits were already crossing the $1 trillion mark before the recent COVID outbreak (see Fig 4). These tax cuts predictably fueled deficits normally seen during economic downturns, leaving little in the tank when true need arose, as we are now experiencing. Furthermore, the regulation rollbacks the president boasts of put the health and well-being of workers and communities at risk with virtually no payoff. One of the most ironic - some would say, hypocritical - regulatory rollbacks involved auto emissions and fuel economy, where the Trump administration has gone to court to overturn California’s strict rules. Given how this administration seeks to argue for state’s rights to oversee health regulations and a host of other policy measures, one can only question the motives behind such moves.



Fig 4: Federal Deficits 2009 - 2019

Bottom line, the president has virtually nothing to show for putting our physical and fiscal health in peril. Therefore, this can arguably be called a net failure in terms of governance and economic policy. And we have come nowhere close to paying the full bill for those policies.

So much for economics. On healthcare, the president has offered nothing in terms of a plan. He promised one during his first campaign, referring regularly to “repeal and replace,” but he offered nothing but repeal. No replacement plan was offered. Now, he again promises a “beautiful” plan after his reelection, but refuses to say what that might be. Volumes could be written regarding the perils of repealing the ACA without a replacement, but the one thing that has been floated - allowing insurance companies to offer tiered pricing for preexisting conditions - is a cynical attempt to have their cake and eat it, too. In this case, they would get to take credit for protecting those with preexisting conditions, while avoiding the inconvenient fact that such tiered pricing will effectively make coverage for those conditions prohibitively expensive. For people not covered by large group plans, including small businesses, contract workers, freelancers and gig workers, it would make insurance affordable for those who don’t need it and unaffordable for those who do,effectively making insurance pointless. That is the strategic vision of this administration’s health policy, which means there is neither a strategy nor a vision. We can only hope this plan never comes to fruition.

Regarding immigration it is difficult to separate the policy and the rhetoric, but much can be questioned simply on a policy basis. Beyond the cruel aspects of family separation and denial of asylum, there are real economic costs to our growing aversion to immigration. But first, let's clear up the common misconception often made by the president's supporters that the family separation policy began with Obama. There is a vast difference between the two in that federal law prohibits the jailing of minors when their parents have been arrested. Thus, children were only separated from their families when their parents or guardians had been arrested for felonies that included drug and human trafficking, in accordance with the law. The Trump administration's separation policy went well beyond that and forced families apart even when parents had a perfectly legal basis for requesting asylum. This is where the outrage arose, and rightfully so.

This obscures the far more troubling aspects of our immigration policy. Influenced by Stephen Miller, our immigration policy is geared not only to stop illegal immigration, but to limit and reduce legal immigration as well. This is foolhardy at a time when we face an aging population, a demographic trend that economists are virtually unanimous in citing as the precursor to a stagnant economy. We have seen this at work in Japan for nearly two decades, where birthrates and limited immigration have hamstrung every effort - including sub-zero interest rates - to kickstart their economy. We are headed down a similar path under our current administration. Furthermore, the immigrants we are discouraging are now remaining in their homelands, where they will compete against us rather than contribute for us. Imagine how much weaker the NBA, NHL or MLB would be vis-s-vis the rest of the world without immigrants. The same holds true for our businesses. Yet we are foolishly turning talent and dedicated workers away, while stigmatizing them at the same time. It cannot even be justified as short-term thinking. It will hurt us today and tomorrow, as worker shortages translate into higher prices due to shortages of products, services and most critically, innovation. The price we pay in the next couple of decades will thus be paid in both dollars and influence as our economy sags further in relation to the rest of the world.

Internationally, the president has achieved virtually nothing. His supporters often argue that his two signature achievements - moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un - were successes, measured by the fact that the worst case scenarios failed to materialize in their wake. This, however, fails to take into account that our reticence to pursue either of those initiatives was not fear of repercussions, but the unwillingness to give them up as bargaining chips. With regard to the embassy, we saw the move as something we could use to entice Israel to make concessions to the Palestineans as part of a long-term peace solution. Likewise, we refused to give Kim Jong Un the legitimacy he sought unless he permitted real and lasting concession regarding inspections and cessation of nuclear weapons and missile development. In both cases, we gave up our biggest bargaining chips for nothing in return. To classify those as not just failures, but monumental missteps with historic implications would not be hyperbole.

Those are just two of the most glaring foreign policy blunders, but the loss of U.S. prestige and influence on the global stage is both pernicious and likely permanent. We earned that position of leadership through the blood and sacrifice in two World Wars and the aftermath that saw us as the most magnanimous victor in human history. We have simply given that away. We should hope it doesn’t require a similar price to regain it.

An argument can be made that changes in the global balance of power were inevitable, as was a concurrent loss in U.S. influence. And some will argue that Barack Obama sped that along. However, the Obama approach was one that sought more to manage that shift, whereas the Trump approach is to, quite honestly, it is nearly impossible to know what it might be. That is to be expected from someone who has never revealed the slightest hint of strategic thinking, save for bluster (that is less a dig than it appears - it does seem that bluster is a Trump strategy). There is no Trump doctrine, however, beyond "America First," whatever that means (it is standard operating procedure for Trump to use catch phrases that allow others to assign their own meaning, which is one reason so many believe he thinks as they do. What those supporters fail to realize is that they are only thinking as they, themselves, do. Whether the president thinks alike is no certainty).

These are just a handful of the areas where even this president’s alleged successes are really no such thing. And this does not touch on the corrosive nature of his personality or politics. All the evidence points to the truth that this man is poorly informed, incapable of anything but the shortest of short term thinking and incredibly sensitive to his own ego,which far too often takes precedence over the demands of his office. In time, history will view him as every bit as unqualified as so many of us have argued from the start.

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Here is a link to a story citing our need to manage America's relative loss of influence as other nations inevitably rise:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/04/opinion/america-rome-empire.html

And here is an economic analysis from 2014 that reminds us the country was sliding towards recession when COVID hit:

https://www.mauldineconomics.com/global-macro-update/cracks-in-the-labor-market#share

This is Not Politics as Usual

To those who would attempt to dismiss the actions of the Trump administration, arguing they all “do it,” I have to respectfully disagree. We cannot dismiss behavior by saying they all do it, for two reasons. First, it creates a false equivalency that all actions are equally amoral, illegal, untruthful or damaging. They are not. It is why I consistently ask for evidence to support such claims. Often they are non-existent, and when they do exist, they're almost always taken so out of context that comparisons become unsupportable. In fact, it is often when one is unable to justify the action or behavior being questioned that they fall back upon the "they all do it" argument, trying to equate the hard evidence they cannot dispute with unspecified acts committed by a nebulous someone. That neither justifies, nor excuses the act in question. It is simply deflection.

Second, and far worse, is that dismissing illegality and amorality with the excuse that they all do it undermines all faith in our system of government. It effectively tars all public servants as corrupt, which is patently untrue. The damage this does to our ability to self-govern is beyond measure, especially when it is used to dismiss precisely the type of behavior we should not tolerate.

I have said for years now that when faith in any system is destroyed, the system itself is destroyed. When faith in banks is destroyed, banks fail. When faith in a currency is destroyed, the currency fails. And when faith in the institutions that make self-government possible is destroyed - faith in a free press, the rule of law, the validity of free elections, the system of justice, the loyalty of the opposition - self-government fails. One side, led by this president, has consistently and deliberately worked to undermine faith in all the above.

I realize an argument can be made both ways on many of those issues, but one needs to ask why so, so many conservatives have spoken out on precisely these issues. George Will, Bret Stephens, William Kristol, Charlie Sykes, Rick Wilson, Mike Murphy, the late Charles Krauthammer (and his son), David French, George Conway, David Jolly, Justin Amash, Max Boot - the list goes on and on. Can you ever recall an administration that has driven so many of its own party to not just criticize, but warn of the dangers that administration represents?

I realize many think this is politics as usual, but it is not. Every demagogue in history first sought to discredit the truth-tellers, whether the intelligentsia, the elites or the press. If one seriously considers which side has worked tirelessly discrediting each of those for the past several decades, culminating in where we stand today, there is only one answer - and many of those conservatives listed above, including Charlie Sykes and Rick Wilson, who were part of the conservative media ecosystem, have issued mea culpas for their complicity in destroying our faith in the truth.

Yes, both sides play the game, but one has taken it to an extreme rarely, if ever, seen in American politics. As former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum (another insider) has stated, "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." He said that for a reason and he is warning us about it now.

All this and more are why I’ve added my name to the list of one-time Republicans who have walked away from the party that once represented reasoned thought and responsible government, but now turns its back on both.

Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Burisma

Long before any of the Ukraine brouhaha came to light, I had read several books on corruption in the former Soviet Union and around the globe. Corruption was rampant as formerly state-owned properties were being privatized at ridiculously low prices (just one tiny example - a Russian fleet of fishing trawlers valued at $1 billion was sold off for $2.5 million). With such deals available, every manner of thug and criminal was attracted, none more ruthless or powerful than Vladimir Putin. And if a single fleet of fishing trawlers could be worth a billion dollars, imagine what oil and natural gas reserves might be worth.  Thus, corruption throughout government in all the former states of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine became the norm.

Officials were not just on the take, but involved in government shakedowns where prosecutors and their henchmen would raid corporate offices to steal documents and corporate seals that allowed the government to falsify ownership records, literally stealing the companies back from rightful private owners. They used these types of threats to extort billions from companies who refused to play along. Not coincidentally, one company that refused to play along was represented in court by Sergei Magnitsky, who was tortured to death for his efforts, leading to passage in the US of the Magnitsky Act (which was what the Russians sought to discuss at the Trump Tower meeting, but that is beside the point). What is important is that the Magnitsky Act was part of the U.S policy to penalize corruption in the former Soviet Union. This was all told in “Red Notice,” released in early 2015, before Donald Trump had even announced his candidacy, thus a book that makes zero mention of him. But it sheds light on the type of corruption surrounding Ukraine.

Based upon that book, Amazon's algorithms recommended “Thieves of State,” published in early 2016 (while Donald Trump was still considered a long shot). The author, a former journalist, left the profession to stay and help rebuild Afghanistan after the 2002 fall of the Taliban. Witnessing the effect corruption had on undermining trust and the rule of law, she became an active opponent of tolerating foreign corruption because she saw how doing so undermines our aims. In one passage, she counters the excuse that even if 80% of aid is siphoned off by corrupt officials, at least 20% still gets through, arguing those who the aid is meant for become resentful that we are essentially giving 80% to their oppressors. Our good deeds are seen as just the opposite and thus become not only a complete waste of money, but counterproductive.

Notably, in this book, she points to our stand against Ukraine corruption in 2015 as marking a sea change in US policy regarding our tolerance of corruption in pursuit of foreign policy objectives, instead making opposition to corruption an integral part of foreign policy.

All this was background reading that had nothing to do with the current president, but which provides a foundation for what I’ve learned since.

That said – and again, this is more background - as soon as Paul Manafort was named Trump’s campaign manager, I read into what his role was regarding Ukraine politics. It is not pretty.  Yes, politics is never pretty, but the difference between Russian/Ukrainian politics and the dirty nature of our politics is the difference between anarchy and the rule of law. It cannot be so easily dismissed. Going back to review that history provides additional color to what was transpiring in Ukraine from 2009-2015, with Russia successfully - with Manafort’s help - placing Putin’s chosen candidate in the Ukraine presidency. Thus began the corruption that eventually became the focus of Western democracies, the International Monetary Fund, the Obama administration and finally, Joe Biden.

It is instructive to understand the timeline leading up to the events that placed Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma and his father’s call for the removal of the prosecutor looking into the firm. In 2009, Hunter formed an advisory firm with two partners, Christopher Heinz (John Kerry’s stepson) and Devon Archer. Heinz preferred to stay away from high-profile opportunities, but Archer was unencumbered by conflicts of interest and sought opportunities where they arose. After pitching a real estate investment opportunity in Ukraine, Archer was approached by Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky about joining the Burisma board, as part of what he claimed was a desire to adopt Western transparency standards. These reforms were in response to investigations into the firm and Zlochevsky by then-Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Pshonka. Zlochecsky had already recruited a former president of Poland known as an ardent reformer to Burisma’s board.

When Archer told Hunter Biden of the board’s need for expertise on corporate governance, Biden suggested a law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner (David Boies’ firm), where he was “of counsel.” That eventually led to Hunter being offered a seat on Burisma’s board in 2014. Boies, who represented Al Gore in the 2000 election battle over the Florida recount, is clearly a Democrat, but that is not a crime, nor evidence that one was committed in connecting Biden with Burisma. The important point is that Hunter was introduced to Burisma by his business partner, not his father. Furthermore, he was brought on as what was believed to be an attempt to create more transparency.

As it turned out, Zlochevsky was not the reformer he presented himself to be and pressure mounted for an investigation into his Burisma dealings. However, Viktor Shokin had replaced Pshonka as the prosecutor responsible for investing Burisma. Shokin was seen as weak on corruption at best, and likely involved in it at worst, prompting Europe, the IMF and eventually Joe Biden, speaking on behalf of the Obama administration, to call for Shokin’s removal. Notably, Joe Biden was applauded while addressing the Ukrainian parliament in December 2015 when he attacked Russia, but his call to end corruption and limit the power of Ukraine’s oligarchs was met with “stony silence,” suggesting just how deeply-rooted that corruption was. That his call was backed by a threat to withhold $1 billion in aid was the “sea change” in policy that Sarah Chayes praised in “Thieves of State.” Withholding aid to stop ongoing corruption is prudent, whereas withholding it after the fact is as effective as whipping the dog today for what it did yesterday (which is what Donald Trump sought).

There is more, but there is nothing that says Joe Biden secured the role for Hunter or that he profited from his son's role. Furthermore, the evidence shows his call for a change in prosecutors was to increase scrutiny of Hunter’s company, not stop it. That is the crux of the matter.

Finally, a look at the character of those involved is warranted. Hunter is a mess, with serious addiction and relationship issues, but go back to around this time and you’ll find a video of Lindsey Graham speaking about Joe Biden’s character, choking up as he says you will not meet a better person than Joe Biden. That sentiment is common among people on both the left and right. Yes, he plagiarized a British Labor leader’s speech a couple of decades ago, and he does engage in some creepy, beyond old-school shows of affection. But I’ve yet to come across anything that suggests he is anywhere near corrupt. If anyone can provide something beyond leaps of assumption, I am all ears.

I’ve often said that one of life’s biggest disappointments is seeking evidence to back up a claim and finding you were wrong, while one of life’s biggest mistakes is making such a discovery and refusing to discard the claim. I’ve discarded many such claims when the evidence shows otherwise. In other words, I can be convinced – but the argument must be convincing. To date, the argument of corruption and Joe Biden regarding Hunter and Burisma has been nowhere close.

The Fox and the Henhouse

We saw the movie "Dark Waters" last night. It was fascinating to see so many local Cincinnati connections - the woman played by Anne Hathaway graduated from law school with my wife, I've been to a number of events at the Taft law offices, we have friends who work there, etc. But the real story is the story itself. There's a line that states "corporations are people." So very true, and our very human nature is to pursue our own short-term self-interests. Sadly, greed is one of self-interest's most powerful motivators. We see the price others often pay when such self-interest goes unchecked, whether when stock market bubbles burst, a mortgage industry collapse nearly takes the entire economy down with it, or when companies bend the law to their favor in dealing with the toxic products they may profit from. Such was the story in "Dark Waters."

Many applaud the deregulation taking place today, saying it unshackles business to pursue its self-interest. But even the grandfather of free market capitalism, F. A. Hayek, argued that regulation is necessary to capture the true cost of production in the price of the product, rather than passing it on unwittingly to their workers, neighbors and society in the form of injury, illness, death and the destruction of the natural environment. If that price is too high to make the product economically viable, then so be it. This movie clearly proves how correct Hayek was.

Yes, business has a strong distaste for regulation - and regulation should be scientifically and morally reasonable. But there NEEDS to be a healthy tension between industry and the regulators, lest crony capitalism put the public at risk for the benefit of the well-connected. At a time when a coal lobbyist heads the EPA, an oil industry lobbyist is Secretary of the Interior, a pharmaceutical lobbyist is Secretary of Health and Human Services, a former Raytheon executive is Secretary of Defense and the founder of Perdue Farms is Secretary of Agriculture, it would appear that we have the fox guarding the hen house. We may enjoy that our 401ks are appreciating nicely, but the price we pay for those financial gains today (our short-term self-interest) is likely to be the health and well-being of our children, our environment and our society tomorrow, long after those responsible for the damage have departed the scene. The time to protect them from that future is now, but if those who have the power refuse to act responsibly, then we have the responsibility to change those who are in power. The future is in our hands.

Dog Genders and Presidential Trust

You can't make this stuff up. President Trump welcomed Conan, the military dog hailed as a hero during the raid that took out ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to the White House Monday afternoon. The Pentagon had identified the dog as a female, and the president referred to Conan as “it” repeatedly during the visit. But then he referred to Conan as “he” and you guessed it, confusion suddenly reigned.

The White House announced hours later that ”he” was actually a “she.” But wait, not long after that, they reversed course and announced the president had been correct - Conan is indeed a “he.” Eventually, the Defense Department released an official statement that they had “triple checked” and determined Conan is a boy. Perhaps this explains why the Pentagon has such trouble with transgender service people, but I digress.

All kidding - and the pretty obvious ease of determining a dog's gender - aside, how can we trust any of them? How can we trust this president - the one who used a Sharpie to redraw a National Weather Service map to prove he’d been right when he’d been wrong? How can we trust that the Pentagon isn’t saying Conan’s a boy just so it doesn’t upset a president who'd already fired a Navy Secretary in order to protect the war criminal that president had just pardoned? God help us if we ever find ourselves in a real crisis that requires the nation to accept the president’s word, because that, quite simply, is impossible.

True character is shown not just when no one’s watching, but when it doesn’t matter. Sharpiegate and now Genitaliagate are both inconsequential matters that should not raise questions about the trustworthiness of the United States president, but with this president they do. Admitting a mistake would go miles in proving both the president’s trustworthiness and his absence of insecurity. Of course, that would mean proving the nonexistent.

As it is, regardless Conan’s gender, the dog seems to be the only one with balls.

Biased Facts versus Biased Lies

Who broke the Watergate story? Who broke the Catholic church molestation story? Who broke the football CTE story? Who broke the Abu Ghraib story?

In order - The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the New Yorker. Each of these stories brought charges of unfair reporting and media bias. Meanwhile, conservative media, led by Fox, talk radio and online sites like Breitbart, Daily Caller and others were part of a deliberate and coordinated effort to undermine the credibility of the mainstream media that broke such stories. That is not the view of leftists or the mainstream media, but people like Charlie Sykes and Rick Wilson, who were part of that conservative ecosystem who now regret their role in destroying trust in legitimate media.

Yes, the mainstream media has a liberal bias that is reflected in the stories they cover and how they cover them, but that does not make them inaccurate.

For example, a 2016 New York Times article on Trump University began "The sales pitches seeking to separate Cheryl Lankford from her money began during the recession as she struggled to get back on her feet following the death of her husband, an American soldier serving in Iraq." That opening sentence is worded in an inflammatory way that betrays a certain bias, but there is nothing untrue about the underlying facts, and the rest of the article then gives specific factual details of how Trump University and another company using the Trump brand, Cambridge Who's Who, made repeated aggressive sales pitches to Ms. Lankford and others like her who had been identified as financially vulnerable and thus, ripe targets for such pitches. It was a damning story, the revelations of which played an important role in prompting Donald Trump to seek a settlement in the lawsuits brought against the so-called university (it was not an accredited school in any way, thus the reference to "so-called" university).

This is an example of how a story can be biased but factual. It is also why those who choose to ignore such media consign themselves to a state of self-imposed ignorance, because nowhere on Fox, Breitbart or on-air with Rush Limbaugh or his cohort could you find the details of the settlement or the facts that made it necessary. In fact, one was far more likely to find dismissal or open ridicule of the facts themselves. By definition, lack of exposure to facts makes one ignorant of those facts. And democracy cannot thrive with an ignorant electorate.

Thus, why I will take biased facts over biased lies any day.

Trump's Tactics - We've Seen this Story Before

Sensing something was amiss with my party in 2010, I decided to run for a seat on our county GOP central committee, hoping to restore some sanity. I ran and won - only to learn just how off the rails the party really was - and how determined many seemed to be to take it even further to the edges of extreme.

I watched candidates seeking endorsements shouted down as they tried to provide thoughtful explanations of their views on capital punishment. I saw conservative Christians sharing photos of their AR-15s the way some share photos of their grandchildren¹. I was personally attacked online for taking one member to task for referring to Muslims as “ragheads.” When the president of the Conservative Women of Ohio posted that we should not trust an evil President Obama when he announced the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden,  I was swarmed by an angry online mob when I simply cautioned against letting hatred overwhelm reason (I was effectively told that we are right to hate). Likewise, I was castigated for defending our “corrupt government” when all I did was use actual government data to refute wildly inaccurate claims regarding congressional benefits. I was criticized by GOP activists on Facebook for my use of “artful facts.”

These weren’t the railings of some crazy old uncle, deep into his bourbon, parroting what he’d heard on the extreme end of conservative media, but elected GOP officials and local party leaders tasked with selecting and endorsing candidates for local, state and federal offices, and their followers. Their craziness today would be our government’s craziness tomorrow. The anger, the disinterest in thoughtful debate and the complete disregard for facts left me so concerned that as my term came to a close in 2014, I outlined a novel where a media mogul, a business titan and a demagogue exploit that anger to foment a civil war fought by anti-government militia members led by a rogue general and backed by hard-right Christians, the NRA and Tea Party activists seeking to “take our country back.”

I meant it as a cautionary tale.

Meanwhile, in April that same year, during an online discussion on how demagogues rise, I wrote of how the Hitlers of the world “latch onto real or perceived hardships, find a scapegoat to blame them on, draw an ‘us vs. them’ battle line, then look for an opportunity to justify conflict to vanquish the enemy to the benefit of the ‘righteous’. Be ever vigilant for parallels.”




Hitler references always risk labels of hyperbole. Still, if there are circumstances where a Hitler can seduce a nation as he did in Germany, then certainly a demagogue presenting a seemingly less dangerous face could do the same elsewhere. Given what I'd witnessed within GOP circles, vigilance seemed warranted.

For one, we should never kid ourselves that Americans are somehow congenitally immune to the hate that makes the siren call of demagogues so seductive. One need only study the history of tacitly-sanctioned, mob-rule lynchings in the South to come to such a conclusion. The idea that “it can’t happen here” had already been proven to be false.

Of greater and more immediate concern was the level of vitriol that had become commonplace in conservative circles, driven by a conservative media that had found a profitable business model in dismissing rational debate in favor of stirred grievances that fed the irrationality displayed by my local GOP. Those grievances took on, among others, Muslims, immigrants and the United States government itself, with Tea Party activists sporting Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” flags railing against a government perceived as corrupt and overbearing. Christians came to believe they were being persecuted, while NRA fund-raising letters warned of “jack-booted government thugs” coming to take away our guns.

A nation that had proven it was not immune to ethnic hatred was simmering in an angry witch’s brew, stirred by a coven filled with names like Coulter, Carlson, Limbaugh and LaPierre. The aggrieved were being fed an endless supply of scapegoats. All that was missing was a demagogue to exploit the “us versus them” narrative.

Enter Donald Trump, descended from Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his candidacy for the U.S. presidency, making his now famous declaration, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us [sic]. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists...”

There it was - us versus them - in a single sentence: “They” are not sending “you.”

At that point, exactly 300 words into his candidacy, I was sure he had permanently and irrevocably disqualified himself as a candidate for the presidency. He was drawing straight from the playbook used by demagogues across the ages, trading on public fears for political gain. Surely, despite what I’d witnessed inside the GOP, we would see through his naked appeal to the worst in us.

What I did not know, however - what none of us knew at the time - was that the year before, just as I was posting my 2014 call for vigilance, Christopher Wylie of Cambridge Analytica was being introduced to “Steve from America.” Steve was Steve Bannon, and over the next year he would work with Cambridge Analytica to test market phrases like “deep state,” “drain the swamp” and “build the wall” to determine their effectiveness, and more importantly, identify the characteristics of Facebook users with whom those phrases resonated.

But it went further. As reported by Wylie in his whistleblowing book, “Mindf*ck,” Bannon and Cambridge Analytica began testing Facebook messages to determine just how deep racial animosity ran and how far people could be pushed. Questions asking whether blacks were capable of succeeding in America without the help of whites, or whether they were genetically predetermined to fail, were posted to gauge underlying racial attitudes. Bannon believed that political correctness and the civil rights movement had limited what he called “free thinking” in America and sought to expose what he considered the hidden truths about race. He believed those truths were not pretty. Facebook users did not fail Steve Bannon.

“Us versus them” narratives followed, with falsely planted posts arguing that racial relations were a zero-sum game, where the more “they” take, the less “you” have, or “they” use political correctness, so “you” can not fight back. This work exploited findings in the field of neuroscience that such messages activate the same part of the brain associated with identity. Thus, attempts to criticize or contradict such hateful messages were seen as direct attacks on one’s own self, causing the effort to backfire. This is known as the Boomerang or Backfire Effect, where attempts to counter an argument actually work to reinforce the original message. Bannon had found a winning formula - a formula that relied upon the worst in human nature AND human psychology.

Before they were done, they’d created fake user groups, presented as organic but actually initiated at Bannon's direction, to organize real-world meetups in coffee shops and similar small locales designed so that users were made to believe not only that they were not alone, but that there were far more who thought like them than there actually were. By creating that illusion, these outliers felt more at ease expressing their racial animosity publicly, drawing ever larger numbers into their circle. Once the dark side was released, it took on a life of its own. Eventually, the Boomerang Effect would have Republicans embracing the term "deplorables" and in turn, the alt-right, white supremacist xenophobes it was meant to describe, as kindred spirits. GOP voters who once found Donald Trump laughable or despicable as a candidate eventually became ardent defenders and supporters, not because he had changed, but because they had.

This is why, like any malignancy where it is difficult to separate good cells from bad, it becomes so difficult to separate disdain for the man from disrespect for his supporters. The truth is that like every nation that has fallen under the spell of a demagogue who uses hate and divisiveness to achieve power, good people at first laugh, then dismiss, and finally embrace the demagogue, as attacks on him are seen as attacks on them. And once again, us versus them narratives work their dark, biological magic.

This is how societies fall prey to charismatic demagogues. We have seen it before. In fact, the CEO of SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, explicitly stated that the tactics of propagating ethnic hatred employed by Donald Trump were no different than those used by Adolph Hitler. Yes, the people who helped develop the tactics used by a future president of the United States made the direct comparison to those used in Nazi Germany. Whatever circumstances I’d observed that led me to warn of the rise of demagogues in 2014 had been identified - and weaponized - by Steve Bannon, later to be exploited by Donald Trump. But whereas I had hoped to use a cautionary tale to salve a festering wound, Steve Bannon sought to pick at the scabs. Donald Trump was his rusty scalpel. In Trump, Bannon found what he called “the perfect vessel.” Lenin’s “intelligentsia” became Trump’s deep state. Mussolini’s “drenare la palude” simply needed to be translated into English: "drain the swamp". And Hitler’s Lugenpresse (lying press) became the American president’s Fake News.

The Madness of Crowds

There is a nearly throwaway passage in the book, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” about the great migration of southern blacks out of the old south. A returning migrant visits a previously off-limits diner a few years after the end of Jim Crow and finds the experience so mundane that he wonders how such an ordinary act could have, just a few years earlier, generated enough anger and hatred that merely entering that same diner could have gotten him killed.

How, indeed.

But then we learn of the methodical exploitation of racial animosity by Steve Bannon and are reminded of our nation’s dark underbelly. We watch presidential rallies where foreigners are compared to deadly snakes, where facial expressions of supporters exhibit a mix of rage and glee, not unlike those in photos of lynch mobs of old, as chants of “Build that wall!”, “Lock her up!” and “Send them back!” echo and we’re reminded that it is a fairly straight and dangerous line from "Build that wall!" and "Send them back!" to “String them up!” And we realize, finally, that the ultimate manifestation of this anger never springs fully formed upon a society. It takes years of desensitization.

Years of being told not to trust the elites.

Years of being told not to trust the government.

Years of being told not to trust the press.

Years of being told they are not like us.

That they are bringing problems.

That the more they get, the less we have.

That they’re snakes and human scum.

That we are the righteous and they are the enemy.

That there’s only one who can fix it.

Us versus them.

This is what it looks like. This is what it always looks like. We are witnessing it now. How it will end, God only knows, but our nation has been manipulated and a party taken over. Taken over by a campaign that willfully sought to exploit hate and anger. Meanwhile, the foundations of our democracy - a free press, the rule of law, the separation of powers and faith in the loyal opposition - are being tested by a steady drip, drip, drip of acidic invective straight from the president's mouth.

Lincoln said at Gettysburg that the Civil War was testing whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal could long survive. This president is testing that proposition again. We can let him point to a strong economy and fool ourselves into believing all is well, but like a shining flashlight corroded from the inside, we may learn too late that what makes America work - what has made it the ideal the rest of the world aspires to be - has been debased beyond redemption from within. And the blame will lie squarely upon the shoulders of those who chose to look the other way. That is how it always happens.

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¹ One of those at the table where they were sharing photos of AR-15s later became our state senator and found himself at the center of a controversy when he suggested the U.S. may need to resort to civil war if Donald Trump lost in 2024. This mindset has run through conservative circles for some time.