Tom's Musings

I’ve been hoping to chat about something new, something other than America’s imminent decline and fall. That is difficult, especially given the rapid- fire political events suffocating us at the moment. A $100 million dollar judicial race in Wisconsin saw the MAGA candidate lose decisively despite Trump’s support and Elon Musk’s 20 plus million contribution to the conservative candidate. In his last minute visit to the Badger state, Elon distributed more cash and told the crowd that this race would determine the fate of humanity. Perhaps people believed him and thus voted for the liberal candidate instead. The next day, Trump returned to his personal folly by unleashing a host of ill-considered tarriffs. This is exactly what Republicans did at the start of the great depression, thus deepening that economic crisis. Today, global markets are tanking and doubts about Donald’s sanity are reaching new heights.

But I will ignore all that. I will touch on a very different topic … the gender wars. That sounded good to me, I thought. Nothing is darker and more depressing than male-female relationships, perhaps even matching the insanity going on in D.C.. You do realize that our perpetual gender conflicts make Trump’s war on both America and Western values look like a fun-filled hootenanny.

I start by noting that the whole men are from Mars and women are from Venus trope is utter BS. At their closest, these two orbs are separated by some 52.5 million nautical miles. The actual psychic distance between men and women can only be measured in light years, with a single light-year being some 5.88 trillion miles. In their respective personal make-ups, the two sexes reside on remote planets situated in galaxies far, far removed from one another.

I realize that the only image of God that has stuck with me into my dotage is one where this Divine Presence looks a lot like Don Rickles. Remember him? He was the master of very biting and sarcastic humor. Anyway, God was bored one day. So, He created man. It turned out not to be a good day for God. At their best, this creation of His were little more than clowns that were totally boring and surely pathetic. God then mused, I’ll try again. Can’t do any worse.

So, God thought hard for a bit before chuckling malevolently. I know, God murmured, I’ll create the opposite of man, which I’ll call women. But she’ll be close enough so both genders will be fooled into thinking that they are the same species. But this is where my real genius comes in … each side believes that they can get along with the other sex. This will be hilarious, God thought to himself. Then, He wet himself while doubling over in laughter.

God hit the jackpot with this one. His creation of two genders has proven to be an unending source of mirth to Him or Her (as the case may be). In addition, it has proven to be an unending source of mystery and fascination for those of us residing on either side of the gender divide. How many youthful hours were wasted by us guys attempting to divine the essence of the female being. Better I had tried to comprehend the physics mysteries of quantum mechanics or string theory. Understanding the nature of the universe would have been an easier challenge.

Now, however, I am an octogenerian. I have accumulated some eight decades of observation, interactions, and discussions on this complex phenomenon. Hopefully not overstating my capabilities, I’ve sharpened my analytical skills over a long policy and academic career investigating our most daunting social problems. So, while I cannot claim to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, I’m also far from the dullest bulb on the marquee. In the next paragraph, I summarize what I know about the fairer sex, what Ive learned from my long lifetime of experience.

NOTHING! I got nothin at all.

Oh, how I remember the endless failures of my youth. And by the way, those initial experiences are where we absorb our critical lessons about life and the opposite sex. In later years, we simply repeat embedded scripts with endless futility. As I think on it, I probably was always an advocate of the primacy of early learning hypothesis. That is, our first experiences set the tone for our entire lives. In relationships, therefore, we are sculpted by our initial romantic interactions.

In fact, I recall being awarded an NSF (National Science Foundation) undergraduate research award in college. They selected four promising psychology majors, gave us stipends to support us over the summer, and told us to do original research. I chose to explore this primacy of early learning thesis by running rats of different ages through a complex maze of my own design. I really can’t recall the methodological specifics nor the results, though the experience did end my interest in academic psychology. I had to terminate my subjects at the conclusion, a task that ended with one large rodent peeing in my face as I injected him in the stomach with a lethal dose of something or other. I subsequently would search for my life’s work elsewhere. However, my earliest research did not dissuade me from a belief that our early experiences are seminal.

But I digress. My early romantic experiences were dreadful and largely scarred me for life. I attribute these early traumas to being surrounded by Catholic girls. In my experience, they all had pledged their souls (and surely their bodies) to the Virgin Mary. That somehow meant that they would prefer being plunged into a vat of boiling oil than to be touched by some horny guy. And let’s face it, when we hit puberty, we guys all were horney predators, an incontrovertible fact that is beyond challenge. This was not a situation in which healthy relationships might evolve.

Now, knowing that I was being perceived as a horny predator, I always approached those of the female persuasion with great caution. Let’s face it, I usually was totally paralyzed. On occasion, however, I did make a move, pathetic as it was. Now, this usually happened after I observed the consensual signs of interest … playing with her hair, her gazing at length into my eyes, her laughing at my jokes (which were hilarious), her listening with interest to my endless prattle, and her touching my arm or even my leg (if seated next to one another). Upon observing all this, I would conclude that this female had some interest. If I were a betting man, I would wager the mortgage on this fact. I could never understand why she might have interest. After all, I wasn’t rich or powerful. But there it was … the signs were there.

At that moment, I would suck up all my failing courage and make a timid pass. There would be this brief moment of hope and anticipation before the inevitable reality struck. She would shoot me down, as so many had in the past. Quickly, I would retreat into myself and vow all kinds of improbable things … like a lifetime of celibacy. But hey, I was a horny male. I was more likely to be the first man on the moon than give up sex for good, no matter how much sense that made. Ah yes, celibacy might well have been the wise choice, but I was weak and pathetic, like all my brothers.

Now, in all fairness, my relations with women were not total disasters. I did have some successes in my youth. They typically were with very smart women with whom I could share important intellectual interests (my few high school and college connections all went on to get Doctorates back in the day that was less common). Essentially, I liked bright, witty, independent women. Later, I found I preferred to work collaboratively with women. They struck me as better organized, stayed on point, and were more focused than most of my male colleagues.

Despite my early traumas, I was lucky in life. After escaping a career as an academic in experimental psychology, I lucked into the fascinating world of social policy both as an academic (at an R-1 university) and as a policy wonk. In addition, I lucked into a strong marriage that lasted some half a century. The good woman had a forgiving nature and a strong tolerance for putting up with incompetence and idiocy.

Mostly, though, I wound up having a number of good female friends throughout my life. Women always struck me as more interesting, more emotionally elastic, and better able to plumb deeper into complex personal issues. Besides, they also laughed at my jokes (my Irish wit). Perhaps those early failures in romance were a blessing in disguise. As an adult, I seldom expected any erotic component to be associated with these interactions. I could simply enjoy the friendship.

Of course, I can never quite forget God’s joke on us poor humans. We boys hit puberty and lose all our senses. Girls very gradually awaken to their more erotic impulses much later in life, hitting their stride just as males start experiencing a loss of their testosterone. Some joke. However, I have concluded that lower testosterone can be a positive. To my way of thinking, it makes me a much better man. I can appreciate women as themselves, without any confounding baser needs that typically mess things up.

However, don’t ask me about male-female relationships. As I said above … I got nothin!

How do societies evolve? Is it an incremental, though linear and inevitable, process where change is unnoticeable but perpetual until one looks back in wonder. Wow, things have changed, the observer remarks while remaining discombobulated at the realization of just how dramatic those changes are. Or is the process observable and felt in the moment? Wow, things really are changing fast. Probably both are real at different times and for different people.

It is clear that homo-sapiens (our largely misnamed tribe since the label suggests higher order thought) has evolved in remarkable ways over the some 200,000 years we’ve been around or wherever the starting line has been established. Over these many eons, some transitions can be elevated to the status of transformational discontinuities in which our world is remarkably and fundamentally different sometime after the interruption of business as usual is complete. Though identifying such salient inflection points specifically might be somewhat subjective, the exercise remains unavoidable if we want to understand who we are or, more exciting yet, where we are going.

Some discontinuities happened over long periods of time: the final dominance of Homo-sapiens over their Neanderthal cousins; the discovery of fire which altered eating habits, tribal behaviors, and body types; the agricultural revolution which shifted tribes from nomadic patterns to settled communities; the urban revolution (5 to 7 millenia ago) which led to increasingly complex social structures and primitive, if hierarchical, methods of social control; and the monotheistic revolution (2 to 4 millenia ago) which permitted broader control of socially approved dogma. Such revolutions must have seemed imperceptible in the moment. They were so gradual that they could only be understood and appreciated in hindsight, long after the fact. Fundamental changes in our distant past were glacial and seldom linear. There were many false starts and dead ends before change was grounded, sustainable, and irreversible.

In more contemporary times, the pace of change appears to have accelerated. Some transitions appear to have been initiated by external events. Others were sparked by technological innovations. Still others might be attributed to intellectual or cognitive breakthroughs. Did I mention that this exercise was subjective, if not idiosyncratic? For example, the increase in east-west trade in yhe 12th and 13th century might well have triggered the European Renaissance, stealing this blossoming of human centered thought and innovation from the nucleus of the Islamic Golden Age centered in Baghdad (which fell to the Mongols in the mid 13th century where much was lost).

Other transitions can be identified or at least offered as grist for speculation. The onset of the Bubonic Plague in the mid-14th century resulted in massive demographic changes, with population losses of 50 percent or more in places. This had extraordinary long-term impacts on existing feudal arrangements that had stifled social mobility and innovation up to that point. Then, we had the introduction of Gutenberg’s movable type printing revolution. This one technical breakthrough impacted religion (facilitated the Protestant revolution), increased literacy (non-elites began reading), accelerated the expansion of local languages, and stimulated formal education (more universities were founded). The world would never be the same.

Soon, the pace accelerated. In the beginning of the 16th century, the Protestant reformation challenged the existing hierarchical structure of society and rigid intellectual canons imposed by the Catholic Church. It also facilitated the establishment of stronger nation states. At the end of the 16th century, Francis Bacon’s intellectual insights began to introduce an early form of scientific inductive reasoning which altered how we learned about the natural world. Though Islamic scholars had earlier touched on these methodological principles several centuries earlier, they were finally sustainable by this moment in history. In the 17th century, an exploration of the globe blossomed as brave navigator explored unknown worlds and societies around the circumference of our earthy orb. Following that came the industrial revolution (Watt’s steam engine) of the 18th century, and the communications-travel revolutions (railroads, telegraph, telephones, diesal powered ships and cars) of the 19th century. Soon, ideas and people could communicate and experience new thoughts, cultures, and ideas with unprecedented celerity, comparatively speaking at least.

The speed of change became palpable and perceptible. The French and American Revolutions spurred radical innovations in how humans would govern themselves and their societies. The general European uprisings of 1848 signaled further discontent with the old, autocratic way of doing things. Then, the catastrophe of WWI helped assign many older autocracies and creaky empires into the ash heap of history. The Great Depression (followed by WWII) seemingly broke the back of some totalitarian regines and fostered a period of liberal, democratic hope for a large part of the world.

Over the course of my lifetime, change appears relentless and ceaseless. Every dimension of life … from science to communications to transportation and so much else … is changing at break neck speed. When I was born, flight was done by clunky, propeller-driven planes. By the time I was 25 years old, we had put a man on the moon. In my beginning, computers were huge behemoths based on vacuum tube technology. At best, they could do the smallest computations at (by today’s standards) glacially slow speeds. Now, our hand held devices permit us to access the world’s knowledge, to communicate around the globe effortlessly, and to manipulate the world in ways our parents could not possibly have imagined.

It is all so exciting. Or perhaps not! It sometines is hard to know what really is going on in the midst of such profound changes, or what it all means. And dont forget, Putin has restored a feudal system in Russia. Trump has pushed America toward a banana Republic form of an authoritarian regime. Our global climate worsens annually while our political elites dither. And we hurtle toward the newest and most profound revolution … generalized artificial intelligence … without much analysis nor reflection. The pace of social and technological change doesn’t always flow in a discernable direction. Moreover, that pace seems to be outdistancing our available wisdom. My point … accelerating transitions (inflection points?) are difficult to grasp and oft (always?) control us, not the other way around.

But here’s the question. Are all the transitions we can identify over the past several decades really discrete inflection points, or are they part of one large transformation, like the agriculture or urban revolutions. Even more intriguing, are we in the midst of a more profound transformation unlike any seen in the past? Might some future historians look back in several hundred years and remark: Oh yes, the 21st century marked the end of a major inflection point in social evolution where we transitioned from a carbon-based life form to a world ruled by sentient machines (i.e., from homo-sapiens to mechanicus-sapiens). That historian of the future will note that this radical new species was the start of reaching out beyond earth in a serious way.

On the other hand, I am struck by a quote from the iconic cosmologist Carl Sagan. Some three decades ago, not long before he passed, he asserted the following: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time…when the U.S. is a service econony; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical facilities decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true. We then slide, almost without notice, back into superstition and darkness …”

There’s the rub. Is Carl’s dystopian prediction an informed guess about where we are (were) headed? Or is it a short-sighted feeling of angst generated by the uncertainties of the journey. Rapid change is unnerving, unsettling. It may partly explain the reactionary era into which America has fallen recently. Then again, our current irrational political and social choices may suggest something more profound … hints of some future dystopian darkness.

We are told that the singularity, when human consciousness and digital machines can be molded into one, is on the immediate horizon. I’m likely to pass from this mortal toil before that happens. Oddly enough, I’m not certain that missing this epochful event is a good or bad thing. My damn curiosity, however, wants answers … what would that world be like? My human sensibilities, on the other hand, fear the possible answers. If God has created this universe to trick and frustrate us, He’s done one hell of a job.

One final thought. The meme below perhaps contains the greatest lesson of all. Our lives, our fates, seem so important to us. Yet, if our earth were to vanish tomorrow, our personal galaxy would not take note. Further, the Milky Way is only one of some 2 trillion galaxies out there, which may be just a drop in the bucket of our full cosmos. I consider such things when I get vexed about Trump’s antics. In the end, we are all just temporary arrangements of stardust. Would anyone out there even recognize, never mind appreciate, what happens to us as we evolve into the future? Would anyone give a damn?

Probably not! On the other hand, our survival and evolution may be the most critical experiment in our vast universe. We just don’t know.

Not long ago, a neighbor sent a meme to me suggesting that our values and our political choices depend upon who we associate with and those to whom we listen most closely. I couldn’t agree more with her though, among the local tribe in our residential association, she is the only one I know that supports the values of Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy. I’m guessing she listens to right-wing propoganda outlets. Of course, I would argue that I listen to objective media outlets even though she undoubtedly would label my preferred information sources as radical, left-wing trash. As I explored in a recent blog, we all have our preferred bubble.

I unquestioningly live in my highly preferred bubble … a fact I fully acknowledge. Virtually all my associates are rabidly anti-Trump. Then again, they all are highly educated professionals, the vast majority possessing advanced degrees from our finest institutions of higher learning. They are capable of higher-level analytical thought that typically is grounded in data and research.

At the moment, I’m thinking of one in particular. He is a reknowned infectious disease physician at the University of Wisconsin who remains active professionally well into his mid-80s. He also affirms that he is a political independent. At a recent neighborhood gathering, however, he sheepishly announced that, despite fears that we would consider him crazy, he has concluded that Trump must be a Russian asset. Nothing else could explain the President’s bizarre behaviors. No one in the group thought him the least bit crazy.

As I likely shared in a recent blog, I can not forget one scene from an early Woody Allen comedy titled Bananas. Somehow, the hopeless Woody Allen character gets caught up in a Carribean Island revolution that deposes a corrupt government, drawing clearly on the Cuban uprising led by Fidel Castro. Then, something goes wrong. The new strongman, who presumably now represents the interests of the common man, turns out to be a lunatic. He issues a bunch of bizarre orders such as all citizens must wear their underwear on the outside. He is quickly replaced, with the Woody Allen character being inserted in his place. The expected comedic results predictably happen.

Life is now replicating art. We are now living in a script that rivals Bananas in sheer absurdity. Trump is flooding the zone with a barrage of executive orders if, taken at face value, are designed to destroy our current government and replace our constitutional democracy with a dictatorial autocracy that is eerily reminiscent of a traditional banana republic. Just think of the following: our wannabe dictator has threatened to impeach any judge who opposed him (even conservative chief justice Robert’s has bridled at this): purged top military brass; fired all personnel charged with ensuring accountability in the bureaucracy, filled all top federal positions with sycophants who possess little experience or expertise, fired or demoted many members of public systems charged with defending the Constitution (DOJ, FBI) who were deemed enemies for specious reasons, threatened law firms and media outlets that he deemed disloyal, and vacated many of the preemptive pardons issued by his predecessor on highly shaky grounds. What do these and other actions tell you. Essentially this, Trump is marching toward his dream of an imperial Presidency. That, by the way, is merely another term for ‘dictator.’

Everyone in my circle of friends (perhaps save one) see this with absolute clarity. Yet, the better public opinion polls show only a slight decrease in support for the President, down perhaps 3 percentage points to a 47 percent approval rating. His disapproval rating, on the other hand, has inched up slowly to just above 50 percent.

I’m not at all sanquin with such small shifts. After all, the MAGA movement represents the most direct threat to our form of government in my lifetime. In addition, the economy is being torn apart at the seams while the historic Western alliance is in tatters. Trump has allied us with a Russian autocrat while demeaning and threatening historic allies. Yet, there has been remarkably little blowback. The fact that his approval rating has moved so little suggests how deeply felt the loyalty of his base is. They are driven by an abiding hatred of a society that embraces such attributes as compassion and civility, the core values of pluralism and diversity.

Then again, why am I surprised? Our history suggests strong fascist leanings throughout our history. The ante-bellum South was a strong mix of contemporary feudalism mixed with hierarchical notions of racial superiority. Our Civil War forced the South back into the Union but failed to undo the basic philosophical framework of the region, one premised on a feudal society built on overt oppression. Even after being crushed in war, that perspective remained alive and well in a perverse set of harsh sentiments codified into Jim Crow edicts.

In the runup to WWII, pro German sentiments remained strong. The American Bund, the Silver Shirts, the KKK and other related groups evinced explicit support for a racial hierarchy and/or ethnic purity while finding many supporters within America’s highly stratified and unequal social structures. If Hitler had not inexplicably declared war on the U.S. three days after Pearl Harbor, I doubt Roosevelt could have pushed this country to defend democratic ideals against the Aryan Supremacy beliefs of the Third Reich. Many Americans rather liked Hitler’s world view. Thank God Hitler was as dumb as Trump appears to be, as proven by his willingness to take on the U.S. absent any thought. Long after this world war fought to save society from its worst impulses, those fighting integration in America oft wore Nazi insignia to define the depths of their hate for a compassionate and inclusive society. Some 50 to 70 million perished world wide, but was the victory largely pyrrhic?

And here we have the central question for our times…what are our core values? Let us now reconsider one other historical point. While Germany was troubled in many ways after losing WWI, it still remained a highly sophisticated and advanced society. It was a leader in science, philosophy, and culture. In addition, the pro-Nazi support in German free elections before the Nazis took control never reached beyond 37 percent. In fact, they were receding in local elections just before an aging Bismark succumbed to pressure and appointed Herr Hitler as Chancellor. But times in Germany were difficult at that moment…a global depression, withdrawal of U.S. investment from their economy, and street violence between left and right. Uncertainty can cloud good judgment even in advanced societies.

In November of 2024, America chose Fascism even though there was no energency to cloud our judgment. I know that articles occasionally surface depicting former Maga devotees saying they had no idea what Trump would do. Perhaps they are sincere. After all, the cognitively impaired are found in any group. However, no one in my cohort were fooled for an instant. His intentions were transparent for all to see … in Project 2025 and in his own statements and behaviors and in the many books and articles written by sensible individuals who worked with him in his first administration. Above all, it simply is all too clear that Trump is a seriously damaged human being … a pathological narcissist and sociopath who succumbs to extreme bouts of paranoia. He is primarily driven by hate and revenge. That is readily apparent to all who care to look. This is a human who needs professional help, not to be placed in charge of a modern nation. Yet, his base adores him, many considering him sent by God to rescue them.

How could our present dysfunctional government retain such high levels of support despite two months of utter chaos. From which wellsprings of darkness does that support originate? First of all, Trump serves the interests of a very small interest group … himself and only himself. After all, he is a pathological narcissist. The traditional Republican Party (which overlaps with but is not identical to the MAGA world) focuses on the interests of a very thin slice of the American electorate … the uber wealthy. Every social problem can be remedied with another tax cut benefitting the ultra rich. It remains a matter of debate where that income and wealth cutoff line is, but it encompasses no one I know even though my acquaintances would be considered comparatively affluent. The MAGA movement addresses a somewhat broader interest group, white Christian nativists. This interest group is broader, perhaps generally encompassing one-third of the electorate in most years. Normally, these groups would not constitute a majority.

Put another way, these interest groups would not be able to control national politics. They could threaten democracy but not subvert it. What is different now? Among the typical explanations are: fractionalized and highly partisan information input venues (i.e., targeted propoganda); digital platforms that reward and direct users toward inflamed and emotional content; the corruption of excessive money in politics; the dynamics leading to hyper inequality of resources and power; an alarming decline in institutional trust; and the enhanced anomie that arises during periods of rapid change and cultural discontinuity. Other sources of uncertainty can be identified, but this will do.

Unlike Germany in 1932, we had no external crisis here. In fact, we had an economy that was the envy of the world. We were respected across the globe, especially among advanced democracies. There was no reason to panic or feel we were threatened at all. Yet, too many did and voted against their self-interest out of pure fear. Many thought their cultural hegemony had been challenged, an illusion that generated deeply felt fears and angst. It was all in their heads, fed by a continous flow of right-wing propoganda.

Several old Peace Corps volunteers from the 60s (not my group) started an email thread suggesting that America will hit rock bottom at some point. The question was posed … How will we know when this happens? There were a number of good ideas. Personally, I thought we should look to several institutional markers to identify the tipping point when this nation officially becomes a dictatorial banana republic:

1. When the courts (including the appellate level) clearly stop functioning as a separate branch of government and merely rubber stamp all acts imposed by the imperial Presidency.

2. When all the major legal institutions (DOJ, FBI, Homeland Security) pledge full allegiance to the President as opposed to the rule of law principle and to defending our Constitution.

3. When the nation’s armed forces are purged to the point that they become an extension of the President’s will and obey all orders (even should Congress object), including baseless foreign adventures and unlawful interventions in domestic matters.

4. When the independent media is threatened into submission or outright censored to the point when all competing perspectives and thought disappear from major platforms.

5. When our educational systems (from grammar school to our universities) are purged and/or battered to the point where independent thought and analysis is prohibited and our national history is whitewashed.

6. When all objection to the Imperial Presidency or its agenda (Project 2025) is deemed treasonous, including attacking any and all organizations daring to voice alternative views (Note: Trump already has started going after law firms he dislikes or which sued him in the past).

7. Ultimately, when the imperial President declares a national emergency to formally acquire dictatorial powers and eliminate Congress as a separate, functioning arm of governance (straight out of the Nazi playbook). This would formally terminate America as a democratic republic operating under the rule of law and the will of the people.

Other institutional markers might be noted but this will do. Initial steps have been taken in each of these areas. Unless stopped, the processes of extending control and unraveling our Constitutional protections will increase in speed and substance. Then, at some point, it will be too late to turn things around.

And yet, there is one critical dimension that is the most fundamental of all. It involves our core values. When public functions are slashed in the patently false claim of eliminating waste and abuse, we either acquiese or stand up. There is no waste and abuse when people start dying, when human suffering becomes intolerable, and when the very science we depend upon to advance civilization has been smashed. No, then all we have is the final destruction of what society needs most of all … empathy. At that point, we will have turned control over to a gang of narcissistic sociopaths. Society, in that moment, will be little more than a horrific Dickensian contest for superiority, a nation marked by the absence of any concern or caring for the vulnerable and the hopeful.

My fondest hope is that I will be dead at that point. I do not want to live in such a society. In short, I value empathy

I am struck by the naivete of those who think doing public policy is easy. I spent my professional life in the public arena (pursuing poverty, welfare, and human service challenges). Believe me, these are complex, difficult nuts to crack. Yes, technical quests (e.g., putting a man on the moon, for example) we’re amazingly complex but eminently doable with sufficient treasure and effort. Social policy challenges, like the kind that kept me up at nights during my career as an academic and policy wonk, often fell into the category of wicked problems.

Just what are these wicked problems? They are public issues where the initial question might be ill-defined or ambiguous, where the theoretical basis for analyzing the issue is uncertain, where there is no consensus on the end points or goals, and where the available data and research are open to various interpretation. Good luck with that. I could explain how the vigorous welfare reform debates of the 80s and 90s (when it was a front-burner national question) were a poster child for a wicked issue, but that would demand a long dissertation.

Instead, I was thinking of something simple … a question on which I recently ruminated in my hyper-active mind. How do we think about fairness in our tax system? I bet each of us has said, publicly or internally, we’ll, that’s not fair. So, what is fair, what’s not?

Let us say you were put in charge of the nation’s tax system. Your mandate was to come up with a fair way of paying the country’s bills. Let’s briefly look at a few options for doing so:

A FLAT FEE … in this approach, every adult would pay the same in taxes no matter their income. You would divide the annual budget by the numbers of adults (or tax units) and arrive at a tax bill for each person (or family). This approach is simple and has a prima–facie look of being fair. You could argue that everyone gets a roughly equal benefit from public goods, so all should contribute equally. Of course, many would be forking over all their earnings while others could meet their obligations with pocket change. Still, some would argue that no one should pay more if they use a roughly equivalent value of the public good. And others would justifiably argue that some benefit from public goods more than others, though spirited arguments would surely follow that assertion.

A REGRESSIVE TAX APPROACH … In this approach, those with more pay less. This sounds unfair on the surface. Still, it happens and more than you realize. Sometimes, the very character of a tax is regressive even if it doesn’t appear so on first glance. A sales tax or a VAT (value added tax) can impact those along the income distribution disproportionately. For example, a tax on food hits the poor more since they spend more on food than the rich, and food is a non-fungible good (you can’t go without food, at least not for long).

There are many variants on this theme. Sometimes, regressivity is a function of power. In the U.S., the tax system has become increasingly regressive both overtly and on purpose … more or less since the Reagan years. Why? Wealth buys power! And many working class folk vote against their own self-interest in this regard, a reality I yet struggle to understand. It is why Warren Buffet has pointed out the absurdity that he pays proportionally less in taxes than his secretary.

A FLAT TAX … this is similar to a flat fee but differs in one important respect. Rather than imposing a flat amount, every tax filing unit would be subject to the same tax rate. That sounds fair, being less regressive than the flat fee approach. Let’s say everyone would pay 20 percent. The rich would pay more in absolute dollars but at the same rate as their poorer fellow citizens. And yet, think about this for a moment? The average or flat rate would need to be higher for those at the bottom of the pyramid to raise enough money to pay the bills. Is that fair? After all, 20 percent of a $million bucks is $200,000, while 20 percent of $10,000 is $2,000. Should the rich person feel aggrieved? He or she often does.

A PROGRESSIVE TAX … A progressive approach to taxes results in those with a greater ability to pay actually contributing more. That sounds fair on the surface, though the rich have long squeeled in horror at the very prospect. They probably had a point when the top tax rate hovered at 90 percent for top earners after WWII. Yet, that progressivity enabled the nation to pay down the war debt, stabilize post-war Europe, invest in education (e.g., the G.I. Bill) and infrastructure, and create a robust and prosperous middle class. The conservative wing usually argues that high tax rates dampen risk-taking and innovation. Worst of all, it penalized success … oh, the horror. Even if there are rates at which work and investment suffer, what are they? Top rates of less than 40 percent have not demonstrably lessened the economic engine in the U.S. Yet, conservatives argue for further cuts, even as our public goods suffer while private incomes and wealth soar to unheard of heights.

A NEUTRAL SYSTEM … This principle touches less on the mechanics of raising revenue than on the overall purpose of the system. According to some, taxes should only be levied to pay public obligations and not for other purposes, no matter how worthy. I ran into this issue while working on a welfare reform scheme for Wisconsin. We looked at ways the state tax system could be made pro-poor (by the way, this work did lead to a state level earned income tax credit). One economics colleague questioned this quest of ours. At that time, he was working on tax reform in the state and had been arguing for a system that did not try to remedy other ills, even noble ones like poverty. If anything, we have looked to the tax system for solutions to many problems. While often a noble aspiration, many distortions and inefficiencies can be introduced. Or, as practices of the dismal science oft say, there is no free lunch.

I’ve only touched on a few principles and approaches in the tax system that impact the perception of fairness. No matter what approach you adopt, someone (some group) will argue you are not being fair. No matter how careful you are, there will be collateral damage and unintended consequences. They cannot be avoided. In truth, not all of them can even be identified in advance. And the worst impediment of all is the zero-sum game aspect of doing policy. There are few real win-win scenarios. That’s the bitter realty of the policy game. Yet, as I used to tell my students … you will not find a more frustrating and challenging professional avenue to pursue in the future, nor a more rewarding one.

One last thought! Think about the current clown car in Washington. They have made doing policy very simple. How will a change impact ME, OR MY SMALL TRIBE. Nothing else matters. With that definition of fairness, all becomes rather simple. You really don’t need experts to make policy, just hyper-selfish assholes. And yet, appointing the most incompetent clowns to high office (a kakistocracy) scares the crap out of me. True, you can make policy choices simple, but then you can’t find policies that work, at least not well nor for the public at large. I mean, really! Would you choose your plumber to do open heart surgery on you?

In case you are wondering, I wouldn’t.

There is little doubt that I live in a bubble. Virtually all whom I associate with share my values and perspectives, though we might heartily argue details. Occasionally, though, the fundamentals of my world view are questioned (though remarkably rarely). Two recent examples occurred. First, it was alleged that the MAGA crowd might be nuts, but I should acknowledge that the Dems have no plan of their own. Second, an accusation followed that, since I criticize the Trump-Musk rampage through our federal government, I must favor waste and abuse in the public sector.

I thought on these two points for a moment. Below are my immediate reactions:

1. The Dems dont have a plan of their own? There is a decent point buried here. What did the iconic humorist, Will Rogers, once say … I don’t belong to an organized political party. I‘m a Democrat. On thinking about this, I have a theory. If you know me at all, you would know I have a theory on just about everything. My theory on this issue goes something like this.

Democrats, in the recent century or so at least, have tried to embrace many within a broad tent. They see themselves as being the voice of the common people, whatever that means. The challenge of doing this, a problem really, is that our pluralistic society has too many interest groups. Many of these view the world myopically, whatever helps others costs them something. Thus, it becomes extremely difficult to keep all these self-interested groups happy. The net result is an unclear or confusing message.

I’ve always been upset when economists chime in on many policy issues. These practitioners of the dismal sciences will often pose questions like … will you (or your family) be helped or hurt by this tax change? Most policy changes have winners and losers in the short run. To pose every question in these terms positions governance in a zero-sum framework. The public good or general well-being be damned. The thing is, you can’t please all the people all the time. Sometimes, progress involves personal sacrifice.

Republicans, on the other hand, have a much simpler challenge. They focus on a single interest group … the filthy rich. Every issue in society has the same solution … regressive tax cuts that redistribute much to the elite and pennies to real people. You would think that the working classes would be upset by this. But no, they have gradually flocked to the Republican Party over the past several decades. The reason that average workers vote against their self-interest is not the stuff of rocket science. They have been hoodwinked by the oldest con in the books. Simply frighten them with images and assertions about those close to them on the economic ladder, but who strike them as different from them … people who are darker, speak a foreign language, or follow a different culture/religion. Then, promise to save these good folk from this alleged threat. That Latino immigrant is the source of all your problems. Or those ‘woke radicals’ want to take Christmas away from you. I (read Trump) will give you permission to hate them. Better, I will save you from them.

Hell, it worked in the ante-bellum South. White farmers on small farms and working class stiffs were penalized economically by the backward feudal system supporting slavery. Inequality, even among Caucasians, was intolerable. Yet, simply by being told they were better than Blacks, non-wealthy whites went off to fight and die willingly for this horrific system that kept them relatively poor. Very little has changed in the 165 years since.

2. I must favor waste and abuse. … Apparently, because I don’t believe Elon Musk and his kiddie corps are making our federal government efficient, I must be in favor waste and abuse. I’ll start responding to that as soon as I stop chuckling.

As it happens, my first professional position was with the State of Wisconsin. I worked on the Quality Control system for public assistance programs. This was a federal-state effort to identify and root out abuse, inefficiencies, and simple errors in income support programs designed largely to help vulnerable families. Rather quickly, we reduced program error rates to within strict federally-based standards.

However, having the attention span of a firefly, I quickly flitted to other challenges … one being to bring the management of these programs into the computer age. Wisconsin was the first in the nation to successfully to automate the key elements of its AFDC, Food Stamp, and Medicaid programs (elegibility and benefit levels). By the end of all this, the overhead costs were the lowest nationally. In AFDC (the major incone support program for poor children), less than a nickel for every dollar in benefits went to administrative overhead costs.

I mention this to point out the following point. All that success mattered not a single whit to those seeing ‘waste and abuse‘ everywhere in welfare. If they did not like the intent of the program, or despised the intended beneficiaries, they went on believing, often passionately, that these were public resources being totally wasted. Neither good design, sound management, nor efficient administration had any bearing on their perception of the program.

And so in marches Musk. He wants further tax breaks for the uber wealthy. He wants further federal contracts for his companies which, of course, are beyond reproach. So, they suddenly find all this waste and abuse and start slashing costs across the board. Given how quickly they moved, they could not have done ANY ANALISIS before hacking away or eliminating programs altogether. This was merely a hatchet job on programs deemed unworthy, probably because they helped populations for which Musk and Trump’s MAGA crowd had little use … working folk and the vulnerable. Let them eat cake!

For once, I would like those slashing away at federal and local programs to start by defining waste and abuse. Tell me precisely what is bad about a program and how they might measure it. Labeling something as failing absent such rigor is meaningless and nonsense. Until I see that done, and in a way that can pass a smell test, I will retain my skepticism.

There is one other point that has not been directed at me personally but which rattles my chains. Namely, the Dems have abandoned the working class.

3. Dems no longer care about working stiffs. I have read this claim in a number of opinion pieces over the past several months. The basic line goes something like this. The Democratic Party once embraced workers during the FDR era when government led us out of the great depression. But they have since abandoned hard working folk.

I certainly get that rural people and low educated urban types are anxious. Small towns are drying up. Those without degrees, and some with degrees, are facing uncertain futures. With ever more powerful Artificial Intelligence systems poised to emerge, those anxieties are likely to be fully realized. There is no easy answers to that reality.

Having said that, one thing remains clear. The Republican Party is the last place to look for any relief or solutions. They have been singularly focused on pleasing the uber rich for many decades now. In fact, they will do anything to ensure that the wealthy have a large supply of desperate workers available to labor for them at ever lower levels of compensation. Their anti-labor positions explains why workers in the U.S. are far behind their peers in other advanced nations with respect to labor protections.

What the Dems don’t do well is play the classic con game. They don’t play to emotional social and cultural issues to keep their base aroused and angry. No, the Dems actually think through what workers might need to improve their lives. Unfortunately, the GOP is far, far more adept at muddling the waters with inflammatory side issues (a war on Christmas … really?).

Perhaps, when Trump completely tanks the economy, things will begin to change. They might, but I’m not hopeful. The American electorate strikes me as uniquely myopic and backwards. It didn’t seem like that when I grew up in a working class neighborhood in the 1950s. I wonder if fluoride in the water made people dumber over time. 🤔

I take small comfort in the thought that karma might exist. As pointed out in the initial meme, the elite are hurting themselves at the moment. Alas, those at the top usually find a way to enrich themselves in the end, even as us regular folk suffer from their machinations.

There is little doubt that I’ve become a grumpy curmudgeon in my advanced dotage. One issue that has irritated me of late concerns our national debt, an issue that arises with greater frequency in the Trump era. Essentially, are we on the brink of ruin and what shall we do about it?

Yes, it is true … I hang out with people who focus on politics and other arcane policy topics like the public debt as opposed to the antics of the Kardashians (whomever they are) or obsess on the latest sports rankings. Of course, I could get new friends … a possibility I should consider. Then again, I had much trouble getting the ones I have now. So, why bother.

Anyway, here is how several dialogues have gone of late. Oh my god, we have a national debt burden of some $36 trillion dollars! That observation might be followed up with a comment about how much we pay to service this debt (over $2 billion a day). Then, the conversation often drifts toward apocalyptic visions of various horrible consequences likely to occur. BTW … I generally agree with this part of the conventional dialogue. Even I’m concerned about the size of our public debt.

Our budgetary debt and continuing structural deficits, in all probability, are unsustainable. At some point, a federal government that spends close to $7 trillion per year while bringing in about $5 trillion in revenue will run into deep shit, if not something worse. Several pitfalls await. At some point, debt service payments become so large that other essential needs are sacrificed. The temptation to print money and aggravate inflation becomes overly attractive, if not downright seductive. Worse, the dollar may weaken and, given that fully one-third of our debt is owned by foreigners, these kind folk from other parts of the world may no longer be willing to buy our bonds much longer. That is, we will no longer look like a safe fiscal haven. Other issues might be noted but, for the sake of conciseness, won’t be.

The conversation then typically takes a turn that gets me grinding my teeth. We need to cut spending. Or worse, I don’t like Trump, but maybe his DOGE initiative is on to something. First, let me say I’m all for prudent and responsible government. Trump’s (really Elon Musk’s) wild and impetuous cuts, however, are simply irresponsible and self-serving. For one thing, you don’t start by firing all the inspector-generals in the bureaucracy…the very people charged with rooting out waste and fraud. Second, it was clear from the onset that DOGE was an attempt to destroy remaining confidence in the public sector (thereby rationalizing more privatization where someone could make a buck at the taxpayer’s expense). More to the point, these broad cuts are designed to provide fiscal cover for the proposed $4.5 trillion dollar tax cut swimming through the Donald’s orange-covered, yet avaricious, dome.

If you wanted to cut government costs prudently, you might do what Bill Clinton did. He saw that Reagan had ballooned the national debt by $1.8 trillion and had left him with significant structural annual deficits. So, he put his VP in charge of looking at where cuts might be made based based on expert analysis and judicious thought. His team cut some 377,000 positions throughout the bureaucracy. That wasn’t enough to set our fiscal house in order. Bill also raised the top tax rates as Republicans screamed that Armageddon was upon us. He also expanded tax breaks for working class folk by increasing the EITC, which conservatives saw as waste in their self-serving world view.

Despite GOP claims that the sky would fall, the actual consequences were that the economy boomed and the stock market kept going up. Better still, Bill actually ran several annual budget surpluses, an event almost as rare as the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. Amazingly, good government involved judicious cuts and revenue enhancements. Who would have thought?

Since then, subsequent Republican administrations went back to their mantra of regressive tax cuts and increased borrowing. After the Bush and early Trump tax giveaways, the debt Reagan left us looked like pocket change. Obama then did yeoman’s work in reducing annual deficits (while rebooting the economy after Bush’s housing speculation collapse). Biden did his best but was constrained by the Covid pandemic after effects. A crushed economy needed to be stimulated. He did what he could, but conservative opposition hemmed the Dems in, as they typically do. The GOP fought their efforts to put our fiscal house in order tooth and nail.

So, Trump arrives back on the scene with our finances in a $36 trillion dollar hole. What does he do … he promises even more regressive tax cuts. Really? How much sense does it make to slash revenues further when you are already swimming in debt? If Democrats had long been accused of being the spend and borrow crowd, then Republicans might well be thought of as the cut taxes and borrow gang. Either way, you wind up in the same dilemma … you aren’t paying your bills.

And yet, the knee-jerk reaction, even among many liberals, is that we need to cut spending. They decry that we want too much from government, that we are too dependent on Uncle Sam, that we simply spend too much. We need to be more independent, they say. But is that true?

Has the rhetoric influenced our collective behaviors and perspectives? Since the 1980s, we have seen wave after wave of tax cuts (most of which favor the wealthy) along with some modest belt tightening that generally squeezes programs designed to assist the working classes and the vulnerable. The net result has not been a return to fiscal sanity. Rather, we’ve seen a massive redistribution of income and wealth from the middle and bottom of the pyramid to those at the top. The 1 percenters have seen their share of the income pie rise from 10 percent in 1979 to about a quarter of the total in recent years … a tectonic change.

Even if we could squeeze the public sector more, where would we start? Should we cut the so-called out of control federal bureaucracy? In truth, the federal payroll has been stable for several decades even as the U.S. population has grown by some 70 percent. Besides, federal labor costs represent a remarkably small portion of the total budget. The aggregate cost of federal personnel last year amounted to some $336 billion. That may sound like a lot. However, that figure amounts to 1 percent of our GDP and less than 5 percent of the federal budget.

Im fact, you could fire them all and make very little headway. And believe me, there would be pain if the federal workforce was slashed indiscriminately. Remember when Newt Gingrich forced a shutdown of nonessential public services in the 1990s. The public went nuts when they couldn’t visit national parks or get passports renewed. Gingrich expected no one would notice. They did, and he soon caved.

Just where would you start if you were serious about our debt problem. The answer is not easy. Let’s look where we spend the big bucks … the programs you would have to savage to afford another tax break for the uber rich. Of the $6.8 trillion in outlays; $1.5 trillion goes for Social Security, another $1.5 trillion goes for major health programs (Medicare and Medicaid), about $1.3 trillion for national defense and $750 billion goes for servicing our existing debt. Soon, there is not much left. We spend a minor portion for all other services with surprisingly little on the programs most people despise… $70 billion on SNAP (Formerly Food Stamps) and TANF (formerly AFDC). Cutting these programs would get you little more than pocket change.

Attacking the big items, on the other hand, can quickly backfire. Will you go after the elderly and disabled? Not so good since they evoke public sympathy and, more importantly, they vote. How about eviscerating health care for the vulnerable and aged. Not good optics when people die or rural hospitals are starved out of business. Defense? How about getting rid of a few really expensive ships and planes. Not likely, since programs designed to kill people are the only ones Republicans passionately support. Perhaps renege on our debt obligations? You might try, but then it would then be a cold day in hell before we could borrow in the future.

The reality is that this sales pitch about financing another $4.5 trillion tax cut by eliminating waste and fraud is utter bullshit. Nor is it true that our spending is out of control, as we hear repeatedly. How many times have we heard the refrain … we can’t afford this or that program, no matter the merits.

Public expenditures in the U.S. amount to slightly more than 36 percent of our GDP. That may sound like a lot, but not when compared to our peer nations. In Canada, the equivalent rate is 42 percent, the U.K is 44 percent, Germany is 48 percent, and France is 57 percent. And take Denmark, they spend more than virtually all other countries and yet, shockingly, they have the happiest population according to repeated international hedonic surveys. The GOP is aghast at this, calling them socialists or worse. After all, how could taxes and happiness go together? The answer is simple … those people believe in the public good and are willing to pay taxes to minimize life’s uncertainties.

Nor is it true that we are overtaxed, or that our taxes are a drag on the economy. Our federal tax revenues amount to about 16.6 percent of our GDP (our federal spending approaches 20 percent). The average level of federal taxes in the European Union is close to 20 percent, higher in the more advanced nations. Our total revenues (fed, state, and local) hover around 30 percent of GDP, still well below our peer nations. Certainly, taxes have not slowed our economy, which has remained very robust, if not the envy of the world, until the recent election.

We’ve all heard several other political tropes. One favorite is why can’t the federal government be run like a family. The implications is that families pay their bills. Yeah, right. Private debt in the U.S. has reached $27 trillion, less than the federal debt level, but still a striking number. And if you sum up the total debt in the U. S., including all outstanding loans and debt securities from companies and households, while encompassing all levels of government, the total we have borrowed as a society has reaches $93.5 trillion. A trillion here and a trillion there and soon we are talking about real money.

I’m not arguing that debt is something to be ignored, not in the least. We are on an unsustainable course, both in the public and private sectors. In the public arena, however, I feel strongly that we can only do so much by reducing outlays. We simply are not out of line with our competitors. Besides, we still have major infrastructure and other compelling needs (science and education) to address.

Yet, everyone with whom I’ve chatted about this issue immediately goes to the expenditure side of the ledger. I believe we should start on the revenue side. In the immediate post WWII, our war-driven national debt exceeded our GDP for the first time in recent memory. The top personal tax rates were set at about 90 percent for top earners, a confiscatory rate that remained high throughout the Republican administration in the 1950s. However, the federal debt was substantially eliminated while our economy boomed, creating a robust middle class.

Inexorably, America’s anti-tax fetish took hold. Kennedy reduced the top rates to 70 percent, and the supply side advocates that rode into Washington with the neo-conservatives led by Ronald Reagan dropped the top rates into the low 30’s. Since then, the top rates have fluctuated within 33 to 39 percent range with a current top rate of 37 percent.

Again, is this an unsupportable rate? Will any increase destroy our economy and stifle work and innovation? We get a partial answer by comparing our top rate with our peer nations. It turns out that we tax income at comparatively low rates. The top rates average about 43% in OECD (the Organization of Economic and Cooperative Development) countries. However, in the more advanced OECD nations, we find higher top rates; around 55% in Denmark, France, and Austria. Of course, total taxation goes well beyond personal income taxes. Still, there is little evidence that we are overtaxed in the U.S.

We finally come to the bottom line. Debt is a problem. At some time, we will have to pay our bills, much like we did after WWII. While no one argues that some expenditure cuts are warranted, I would start on the revenue side. I could see some taxes eliminated, like corporate taxes. These largely enrich tax lawyers, while the tax burden falls on consumers and equity holders. On the other hand, we could do so much more on returning to a progressive tax system. That is where our flexibility lies.

As I’ve repeatedly argued, the uber wealthy have seen tectonic increases in their share of the economic pie over the past four-plus decades. As Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha, has observed, it makes no sense that he pays a lower percentage of his income in taxes than the secretary who manages his schedule. One way we can restore a vibrant middle class (the share falling into the middle- class bracket has fallen from 60 percent to less than 50 percent) would be to once more use our tax system to offset the disequilibria that inevitably results from the dynamics of capitalism. Absent countervailing forces, the rich will keep getting richer.

This rant touches upon a point I stressed in my policy classes. The first step in addressing policy conundruns is to define the issue correctly. If that is not done, one’s prospects for solving the problem quickly evaporate. Yes, debt is an issue to be addressed. But let us not become myopic by only addressing the spending side of the ledger. The more promising route involves focusing on increasing revenues. For too long, the uber-wealthy have employed their wealth and power to curry additional favors for themselves. It is time to look at the elephant in the room. Those who have a disproportionate amount of the nation’s resources must pay their appropriate share of our bills.

France probably has been our longest and most faithful ally. Poor Louis XVI went bankrupt funding our revolution, eventually losing his head over that rash move. And despite the excesses of the French Revolution, President Thomas Jefferson remained a confirmed Francophile. Unlike our sometimes strained ‘special relationship’ with the U.K., we never had a substantive falling out with the French … until now.

During my studies, I had several jobs including one as a ticket taker at a movie theater. One perk of this position was free movies. I must have seen the Woody Allen classic titled Bananas some 100 times. The Allen character gets caught up in a Carribean Island revolution where the government is overthrown and a strong man takes over, presumably to serve the people better. Unfortunately, the new leader turns out to be a nutcase. For example, he ordered everyone to wear their underwear on the outside, among other nonsensical orders. In the movie, the Allen character is put in his place to avoid further embarrassment. Would our current nutcase in power be so easily replaced.

That’s what it is like watching the wrecking crew that is the Trump administration. The inmates are now in charge of the asylum. We are witnessing a classic kakistocracy where the most inept now have virtually total control. There is one possible bright spot in all this. We might learn whether it is possible for anyone, no matter how inept, to run a modern government efficiently or whether competence is a required attribute. Time will tell, both whether competence is necessary and whether the public can learn anything from empirical evidence when that truth becomes incontrovertible.

I must say, the early returns are not favorable regarding the MAGA experiment. On the domestic front, there are troubling signs already. The stock maket appears to be extremely volatile in recent days. Moreover, the Fed in Atlanta has revised their projections for growth in the 1st quarter of the current year sharply downward. They had predicted a plus 2.3% growth of GDP early on, an estimate which was in line with a similar increase evidenced in the final full quarter of Biden’s tenure. Then, they recently projected a 1.8% GDP decline in the current quarter and (even more recently) suggested an even steeper decline. This would be like the economy falling off a cliff.

Just this morning, the numbers for private sector job growth in February were released. At 77,000 new jobs, the growth was way below expectations (and much below typical performance in recent years). When the savage public sector cuts are added (including the inevitable ripple effects of those cuts) and the trade war consequences unfold, employment rates likely will tank dramatically. Remember the global depression in the early 1930s? While that catastrophe might have been sparked by the bursting of overheated equity markets in the late 1920s, the real damage came from high tariffs and conservative economic policies.

THE BIGGER DANGER!

In time, we likely will survive an economic recession, even depression, though the costs will be extremely painful. What might prove more disastrous is the collapse of the Western alliance that has maintained relative stability in the world for the last eight-plus decades. With global issues such as climate change and AI looming, we cannot fathom the consequences of a collapse of the old order where comity and cooperation among advanced nations generally prevailed and which resulted in the most prolonged period of global security and economic well-being in history.

“I think we have to assume, after the events of the last 10 days, that we cannot in any way count on America as an ally.”

General Richard Shirreff Past Dep. Commander of NATO

As demonstrated by the above quote, those halcyon days may be over. I’ve always been a globalist at heart. I recall joining the World Federalist Society as a very young man. It just struck me that hyper-nationalism was counterproductive and primitive. Despite all the challenges, I had concluded that we needed to think more broadly about things than we did … that we had to embrace the world beyond our own tribe and our own narrow self-interests. The world would not be well served by a zero-sum perspective where we benefited at some unavoidable cost to others. Cooperation, not competition, we’re the keys to progress.

Even a century ago, we lived in a world of hyper-nationalism with all the discord that such juvenile tribalism produced. In the run up to WWI, we had a divided world where the central powers (Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire) squared off against the so-called allied powers (led by France, England, and eventually the U.S.). After an uneasy cease fire, that conflict started up again in WWII. now, the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan, and a few others) fought the allies (led by Britain, France, and the U.S.) once again.

This horrific world conflict endured for slightly over three decades and might well have cost some 100 million lives worldwide. The outcome was a smashing of much of the old order of ambitious nation states mostly run by monarchist, oligarchs, and dictators. The colonial empires soon disappeared, and a slow movement toward democracy and human rights eventually emerged. The breakup of the Soviet Union seemed to signal a new age for human freedom and potential. The creation of the European Union, on the other hand, seemed to suggest a future model for cooperative governance.

That prospect of a brighter future now has dimmed. A new wave of autocrats and fascist strongmen has emerged. These new autocrats include Victor Orban (Hungary, 2010); Kim Jong-Un (N. Korea, 2011); Vladimir Putin (Russia, 2010); Xi Jinping (China, 2014); Narenda Modi (India, 2014); Recep Tayyop Erdogan (Turkey, 2014); and Donald Trump (U.S., 2025); among others. Some of those named predate the year specified. For example, Putin has been around since the late 1990s, Jong-Un is the latest in a family dynasty, and Trump had an earlier run in the spotlight starting in 2016. But Putin did not fully end Russia’s constitution until 2010, Jong-Un continues his death-like control over his desperate country, while Trump remained semi-controlled by U.S. constitutional norms until his recent reelection. Now, these autocrats have more or less complete control and share a common goal of sweeping aside democratic norms. They are creating a new axis of evil.

What we have seen in the past several weeks has been the shocking realization that the United States has switched sides. Once the protector of democracies, even if we supported right-wing autocrats too often during the cold war, Trump has made it clear that we now are on the other side of history. He is making the United States the beacon of hope for oligarchic authority and autocratic rule. Vladimir Putin is his idol, whether because he admires that despot’s power or because Putin has blackmailed or extorted Trump’s slavish obedience. Perhaps we will know someday.

In the meantime, our abandonment of Ukraine has been seen by the world as a fundamental turning point. There can be little doubt that the brutal treatment of Zelensky by Trump and Vance last Friday was a calculated ambush designed to cover America’s abandonment of prior guarantees. In 1994, the U.S. (and Britain) made ironclad guarantees to protect Ukrain’s territorial integrity if that nation abandoned their nuclear armaments. Those promises are going up in smoke. Similarly, the 1974 Impoundment and Control Act afforded Congress the power to spend money, delegating the White House responsility for carrying out Congressional intent. Trump has swept aside the separation of powers to create an imperial Presidency. He alone will dictate American policy.

And so we are seeing a new order emerge in which my country is on the wrong side. Worse, Trump doubled down on his actions during the State of the Union speech last night, a diatribe that was positively received by a large majority of viewers, who were mostly MAGA supporters it must be noted. Still, is it not like the rapturous responses enjoyed by Hitler during the early years of his reign, at least before his insanity brought utter ruin down upon the German people?

My only hope now is that I’ll be gone before the inevitable tragedy unfolds. Alas, I had hoped my final years would have been just a bit less painful. 😕

I’ve always been shocked at how illiterate most people are about historical patterns that are repeated over time, especially about what we might glean from our past. They imagine that what happens in the present is somehow unique in the annals of time. Certainly, some technological breakthroughs are legitimately new. We’ve never before had the instantaneous communications brought to us by the digital age and satellite technology. But human behaviors are repeatable and, in fact, are repeated quite often. Yet, we often act as if what we see about us is new, thus ignoring the lessons and insights available from history.

I was particularly aware of this tendency to ignore historical precedents while engaged in the nation’s obsession with welfare in the last decades of the 20th century. The press and most politicians reacted to each ‘new’ welfare reform concept as if no one had ever thought of such a thing before. Of course, virtually every idea had been conceived of in the past while most, in one form or another, had been tried previously. Even a rudimentary overview of history would have sobered exaggerated expectations and diminished the hyperbole surrounding each new initiative. One possible exception in the political welfare drama was Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, the Harvard professor turned politician. In debate, he would reference earlier reform efforts, going back as far as the Elizabethan Speenhamland plan, when discussing contemporary reform concepts. But he was a distinct outlier.

At the moment, I’m dwelling on how unique (or not) is the MAGA revolution. It probably is true that no previous administration has attempted to destroy our constitutional Republic in such an overt and obvious manner. Nor can I recall the American public accepting, even endorsing, these attacks to our very way of life. Can anyone recall so many cheering the (Jan. 6) insurrectionists who attacked our democratic principles and our sacred constitutional protections, with perhaps the KKK of the 1920s and various populist groups during the Great Depression being exceptions. Still, despite the generally sanguin response to Trump and Musk’s attacks on our institutions, there are signs that even the American electorate, dullards that they might be, are beginning to catch on to the existential fate facing the nation. Still, as of this writing, I retain little hope that the ongoing coup in Washington might be reversed.

In this musing, I focus on some small patterns. For example, many are likely to believe that a sitting President has never tried to bend the basic contours of our governing framework when frustrated by the opposition, at least not to the extent of our wanna-be dictator. Is Trump’s obvious wesponizing of the DOJ, the FBI, the Judiciary, the intelligence community, our military, etc. unique in our history. Not really! President James Polk manipulated our military and the State Department to find appropriate pretexts for expanding the U.S. dominion all the way to the Pacific Ocean, including starting a likely unjust war with our neighbors to the south. FDR considered expanding the number of Supreme Court justices when the existing members of the Court refused to cooperate with his efforts to jump start our economy during an utterly crippling global depression. Other examples surely can be cited.

But let’s focus on the modern American government which, in terms of scope and complexity, has only been around since World War II. Has any recent (prior) President attempted to weaponize the bureaucracy for personal and political purposes, as Trump seems to be doing. Why, yes! In 1971, Richard Nixon was captured on his office taping system as he outlined the qualities he wanted in the next chief of the Internal Revenue Setvices (IRS). “I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a bitch … that he will do what he is told, that every income tax tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not our friends.” Nixon did not succeed in turning that institution into a personalized weapon. A surviving institutional affinity for the rule of law prevailed in the end, helped by the self-destructive behaviors of the President himself assisted by a residual support for core principles (e.g., seeing the country as a nation of laws) on which our constitution was founded.

Another moment from the not too distant past strikes me as analagous to our current political tragedy. First, however, let’s peruse a bit of context. Over the course of my lifetime, the distribution of values across the political parties shifted from a confusing allocation of ideological purity among the two major parties to a hyper polarization of beliefs … the GOP shifted to the hard right while the Dems drifted to the left. President Johnson’s civil rights victories in the mid-1960s corrected a political misalignment that remained intact for a century after the conclusion of our Civil War.

In my earlier years, the titular heads of the GOP included Thomas Dewey, Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, and Gerald Ford. Only Taft, a descendent of President William Taft, and Goldwater would be considered Republicans by today’s standards. The remainder would fit easily within today’s Democratic Party, a few being considered true leftists. True Republicans (by today’s standards) in those days did not fare well. Taft was bullied aside in 1952 by the popularity of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, while Goldwater was buried in the 1964 presidential election. During the immediate post- WWII period, the GOP remained ideologically diverse and relatively sane. In fact, President Johnson’s civil rights breakthrough depended on strong GOP support.

A political inflection point emerged with the election of Ronald Reagan to the Presidency in 1980, a darling of the hard right since the Goldwater debacle back in the 60s. With his avuncular style and easy wit, the former B-level movie actor made extremism look relatively harmless. In truth, however, Reagan’s rhetoric was far more biting than his actual political decisions. While he did throw a few bones to the right wing of his party (smashing the power of labor unions for example and spending wildly on ill-considered defense systems), his overall record was mixed. He would first reduce taxes precipitously, then raise them again. And Reagan never cut spending in ways that could justify the tax cuts he wanted and then passed into law. He was a hard liner in the abstract but a softy when actual people were hurt. The result of his confusing reign was little inroads into federal spending while a substantive lessening of the progressivity of our tax laws. This resulted in an increase in the national debt of some $1.8 trillion and the start of a trend among the once fiscally sober GOP becoming the party of budgetary irresponsibility.

Key to understanding the Reagan years lies in the ideological battles around Reagan, a man of great charm but very limited intellectual abilities. That is, he could easily be persuaded by the people he trusted, and who had easy access to him. Two forces (groups) vied to control the White House agenda. There were the so-called ‘prags’ (or pragmatists) and the ‘wing-nuts’ (the hard-right contingent).’ The ‘prags’ were led by Jim Baker, a moderate conservative who served as ‘chief of staff’ and , most importantly of all, had Nancy Reagan’s trust. The ‘wing-nuts’ were led by Ed Meese, a man who was less polished than Baker but who likely was closer to Reagan’s emotional core. These main ideological forces spent as much time focused on one another as they fought to neutralize the other side than they did on actually governing the country.

This internal White House political struggle is important for at least one reason … it was a portent for the greater conservative struggle over the next several decades. The hard- right and the moderate wings of the GOP would battle continuously for supremacy in the coming years … with the more moderate elements generally prevailing at the national level … Bush (father and son), McCain, and Romney. At the Congressional and local level, the drift was decidedly toward the extremists wing of the party, Newt Gingrich being the prime example. A friend of mine at the time (a long- term Republican operative in Congress) described Gingrich to me ‘as a bomb-throwing revolutionary.’ Not that Newt would throw actual bombs but that he wanted to blow up the ‘business as usual’ way of governing. There would be no compromising with the other side no matter how much sense it made.

Of course, Trump’s emergence in 2015 marked a decided victory for the hard-right contingent of the Republican Party. Still, he was not prepared for victory. He was not expected to win. In truth, he was even less intellectually capable than Reagan (which takes some doing) and could not even approach the former actor’s charisma and charm. But the country had shifted to the right by this time, making a man who failed both in business and as a human being seem preferable, if not desirable, to almost half of the country. Importantly, someone like Trump spoke directly to the rage found within the Republican base, a set of passions long frustrated.

Even the Donald was surprised he won the first time around. Thus, he felt unprepared and assumed that he needed some actual adults in the room to run the country. As a consequence, he surrounded himself with the same two groups that Reagan had in his White House three decades earlier. You had the contemporary version of the ‘prags’ (e.g., V.P. Pence and General Milley) as well as the ‘wing-nuts‘ (e.g., Bannon and Miller). One group pushed him to the extreme while the other (if some of their written works are factual) spent an enormous amount of time stopping the President from unleashing ruinous havoc on the nation. Still, by the end of his tenure in office, many of the prags were gone or (in Donald’s so-called mind) discredited. Trump felt secure in pushing his more rabid followers toward an actual insurrection to remain in office even if he didn’t quite control all the levers of power to effectuate a complete coup.

For his second term, all is in place. All remaining moderate elements of the Republican Party have been purged … Cheney, Kinsinger, and Romney being the last of the RINO line of opposition. Donald has surrounded himself with sycophants and cultish followers. The extremists housed at the Heritage Institute had plenty of time to develop a detailed agenda and plan to institute a permanent political and institutional replacement of our democratic republican form of government. The long battle for the soul of one major party is finished. Shockingly, half the country has embraced this extreme vision of the future (even though it remains to be seen what might happen if inflation and unemployment spike). Finally, the legacy media is in disarray. Recently, Jeff Bezos, owner of the venerable Washington Post (which brought down Nixon over Watergate in 1974) issued a dictate proscribing liberal editorials. Only ‘freedom-oriented’ and ‘free-market’ opinions will be permitted. Meanwhile, the liberal network (MSNBC) is shedding its existing liberalish luminaries. We may soon have a one-state, Fascist propoganda feel to our media without total government censorship.

A hybrid form of an oligarchy and a kakistocracy now governs in Washington. Will the coup endure and become permanent? That is not certain. There is some resistance in the judiciary and (despite the recent purged in the Pentagon) the willingness of the military to follow blindly unconstitutional orders remains an unknown.

Within months, if not weeks, we might know our futures with much greater certainty. But right now, it doesn’t look good.

A couple of days ago I was telling friends that Trump’s next step toward creating a total authoritarian state would involve a purged of the military to recreate something over which he could exercise total control. That began last night with what is known as the Friday Night Massacre. The African-American CHAIR of the JOINT CHIEFS and other top brass were sacked!

A decent analogy: Perhaps Hitler’s ‘night of the long knives’ or Nixon’s purged of the Justice Department to stave of impeachment.

The analogy is irrelevant…the meaning is clear. He now has most institutions lined up to support his establishment of an authoritarian regime and to dispose of what remains of our Constitutional government.

The American democratic experiment: B. 1787 … D. 2025.

R.I.P.

So, I’m sitting here being engaged in yet another depressing discussion of America as it swirls around the toilet bowl. Everyone I know feels as if we are caught up in the twilight zone … reality is more horrific and fanciful than anything imagined by the most creative of science fiction authors.

Then it hit me … the perfect analogy for our current situation:

It is as if the Japanese had just invaded Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and half of America cheered them on.

😞