An Early Blog About Now President Trump--Written Over 9 Years Ago--During His First Campaign--This Tragedy Must Be Reversed

"WE HAVE TO WALK AWAY FROM THIS ROAD SHOW" February 25, 2016 “We Have to Walk Away From This Road Show” These are among the words with which Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson concludes her book, “Mother Country.” It was published in 1989. She was writing about a somewhat different challenge then. She described it as a “decline in national self-esteem.” But in a way, it wasn’t different. In a way, we are facing much the same challenge today. I describe it as a “decline in confidence in our institutions.” Because of this, we are witnessing a campaign by a candidate for the presidency of the United States by Donald Trump unlike any other we have witnessed in my lifetime. A campaign that relishes in sweeping, categorical defamation of other people, such as Muslims and immigrants. A campaign that takes delight in pushing the boundaries of outrageous pronouncements, whether that be in vilifying an entire group of people or accusing a former president of the United States of “lying.” We are perversely taken by Trump’s authenticity, his fearlessness and his complete and utter rejection of political correctness. Trump is feeding off a space filled with the potent mixture of boredom, frustration, hopelessness and anger and the all-too-present human attraction to witness, and indeed even revel, in the bizarre. His impact is fueled by a media frenzy producing unending coverage and the inability of even the most seasoned, tough-minded interviewer to overcome his steamrolling, self-guided verbosity. Without articulating any policy much beyond “building a big wall, which we’ll have Mexico pay for” and “making America great again” in ways weakly defined, he emphatically says, “Trust me. I’m great at making deals.” He has the insidious talent of demeaning, indeed trashing, “others,” while making those he is addressing feel special, valued, even “loved.” He gets away with this in no small measure because he is so obviously delivering what he says with gay abandon. He is really enjoying himself. All of what I’ve written here has been easy to write. But what is not easy and has never been easy in times of challenge of the kind we face today is to find and support the leader who can bring us together, who can offer a vision for the future and plans to support it that realistically offer an improved life for all and to find a role for our country in the world which advances as far as possible the peace we need while avoiding nuclear disaster and the threat of terrorism. Returning to Ms. Robinson, she closes her book with words I resonate to: “My greatest hope is that we will at last find the courage to make ourselves rational and morally autonomous adults, secure enough in the faith that life is good and to be preserved, and to recognize the greatest forms of evil and name them and confront them.” Paraphrasing her conclusion, we have to walk away from this road show which Donald Trump’s campaign represents. We need to “consult with our souls, and find the courage in ourselves, to see and perceive and hear and understand.”

Wanton Destruction--The Decimation of Trust

My recent personal loss has kept my mind pretty well removed from what is happening in our country and in the world. The only way I can describe it is "wanton destruction". I will leave it to others and to history to asessthe economic damage that is being done by the tariffs, but I have to record the wanton harm and in some cases destruction of our most important institutions, including our universities, funding agencies for research and foreign aid. But my greatest concern in the wanton destruction that is being carried out by this diabolical president is the destruction of trust. Trust among our allies is decimated. Trust among workers is decimated. Trust within institutions, for example, university professors’ trust in the administration to have their back; that, too, is decimated. Alongside this decimation of trust is the establishment by Trump of a culture of “dog eat dog,” a zero-sum game. This is true of our relations with other countries. All of the cooperation that was necessary to create the economic abundance and peace of the last 75 years has been torn to ribbons. It will be a long time getting it back. To be sure, there was change, in some cases radical change, that needed to be made in our relations with other countries in terms of having a fair and balanced playing field, in our government structures, and in getting rid of needless regulation and waste. The same kind of issues that exist in a corporation like Procter & Gamble that require determined and brave correction. But they cannot and have not been undertaken in the past, referring again to Procter & Gamble, in a way that undermined trust among the employees, that created a zero-sum game, and that threw integrity in honoring past commitments out the window. There is going to be enormous pain here. I believe it will result in a recalibration of trade terms. Trump will claim victory. Victory it will not be. For whatever the outcome, the trust has been shattered. It will have to be re-earned by a strong leader pursuing actions that honor the primacy of our nation’s interests, but that recognizes that those interests can only be served by active collaboration with allies and all key countries on matters of existential interest that require global collaboration, including climate change and nuclear proliferation.

"Why Most Things Fail"

Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics, by Paul Ormerod I made a very cursory reading of Paul Ormerod’s book, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics. Ormerod emphasizes the unpredictability of things as an explanation for the biological evolution and a high number of business failures. Procter & Gamble is identified as less than a dozen companies that have stayed in the top 100 since 1915. I have, of course, read many books about what sustains success: Built to Last perhaps being the primary one; another, Search for Excellence. Certainly, Procter & Gamble shares characteristics with all of those companies that have lasted the longest. Adaptability, focus on the consumer, discipline, innovation including, very importantly, for P&G technology. Focus on the key strategic advantages and imperatives: product superiority, superiority in recruiting and retention. Adaptability has certainly been critical in our business portfolio, seeking new businesses to grow, focusing relentlessly on improving our existing contract brands to provide better service to consumers, and disciplined balancing of profit and sales growth. These characteristics have been shared by many firms that, at one point or another, were strong and growing. But most have failed because they have not adapted (JC Penney, Sears, and Motorola) or had less strategic focus. Why have a few companies like P&G done better than others in this? For me, it comes down to one thing above all else: the quality of the people and the permanence of the values which they have pursued. Values of superiority, winning, of innovation, but values, too, that make a person want to dedicate their career to a company and values, too, which have honored the importance of balancing the preservation of core values with the need to adapt everything else to carry out the purpose. I believe an absolutely crucial part of Procter & Gamble’s success has been the quality of its top management, and I believe the success of generally having strong top management has been enormously facilitated by a promote-from-within culture. Why has that been important? A number of reasons: 1. The reality that people who advance in the company are likely to share even as they nurture renewal of the core values. 2. The opportunity to appraise people at various positions in their development in order to improve the likelihood of choosing the right person for the top jobs. 3. An unrelenting commitment to the importance of recruiting and development. 4. The impact on the culture of people who know one another, who have worked together over the years, who speak a common language but also, ideally, are “comfortable enough” with each other to speak their mind, to argue, and to stand up for what they believe in. To be sure, this has not happened perfectly. There are pressures to conform, to “go along.” But with the right choice of individuals, the right culture and the right appointments, we will, hopefully, continue to find people at every key position who are ready to innovate, to speak out, even as they know that achieving their business results requires the full involvement of their organization and that they carry no greater responsibility than helping ensure that the next generation of leaders is ready to carry on to sustain the company’s success. Ormerod’s book, deliberately, spends virtually no time in examining what have been the sources of success. While he gives lip service to the reality that social systems like corporations have an opportunity to adapt and think and make decisions that eclipse what is possible in biological evolution, he really over-generalizes the applicability of biological extinction to social institution extinction. Nevertheless, the point he makes rings true. Continued success is by no means inevitable. In fact, it is the exception, just as the continuation of any biological species is not guaranteed. In fact, its natural course would be to become extinct. Yes, some things have lasted much longer than others, and the thinking processes that humans have, hopefully, will enable us to continue on a lot longer. But there is no guarantee of this. At this very moment, we see reasons to doubt it: The breakdown of global alliances, the threat of our climate gone awry, and nuclear proliferation. These are all things being impacted by man and which have to be controlled by man and yet, we are not doing a good job at all of organizing to control them. This, in fact, is our biggest challenge. Along with it is the challenge posed by our difficulty to simply get along, to be united. Obviously, this must start with the family, but even here we have seen a breakdown of significant proportion. We can never forget that the family is the conveyor of values, the nurturing of values, and the creation of standards to which young people will understand and hopefully pursue. All these things are intentional, require conscious recognition of truths that have emerged but also recognize the need to adapt, to change, to innovate, and to improve. Not only to grow but to be sustained. I am glad I picked up Ormerod’s book. He has got me to thinking, even if not agreeing wholeheartedly with the thesis he advanced.

The Possibility of a Criminal Occupying the Presidency Foreseen Almost 250 Years Ago

Patrick Henry foresaw what we are experiencing with Trump. At the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788, he argued that the vast powers granted to the President rendered the nation vulnerable to a criminal occupying America’s highest office. Such a president, Henry predicted, would realize that his powers could be deployed to aid and abet his criminal ambitions. Henry took care to note that such a president could, in theory, be checked by a criminal investigation, but facing the prospect of criminal charges, the president would simply rely on his constitutionally granted powers to thwart the prosecutors and if the prosecutors did not back down, the president could simply collapse the system, demanding the full powers of a “monarch.” “If the president be guilty,” Henry told the Convention, then his criminal proclivities meant that he wouldn’t hesitate “to make one bold push for the American throne.” I’m afraid we’re seeing that in a real time today with Trump.

"Blood on His Hands"

"Blood On His Hands" The bullying and mafia styled actions continue, now at the cost of countless lives. Trump witholds intelligene support for Ukraine, this on top of witholding already approved military equipment It is cruel and life-taking. An unforgiveable and unforgettable stain on our country created by our Presdident. Trump's Mafia-Styled Operation March 6, 2025 Trump has brought a mafia-styled operation to the Presidency, not for the first time. There is no clearer way I can describe it. Five years ago, he was on the brink of being impeached. He told President Zelensky there would be no more aid for Ukraine until Zelensky agreed to dig deep into computer files to find evidence to impugn Hunter Biden. It is a tragedy that Republican Senators who knew better, didn’t stand up then to impeach him, thereby thwarting the possibility of his returning to office. Today, the beat goes on. Trump is holding Zelensky and Ukraine hostage again. In order to receive more military aid, they are going to have to confer a substantial amount of the country’s mineral rights to the United States without, so far, a guarantee joined by the US, of preserving Ukraine's independence. This mafia-style operation is nothing new for Trump. It is how he ran his businesses. Totally transactional. Bluffing. Following the mantra--"if I hold the stronger hand I win". No matter what happens to you. The mafia style leadership characterizes Trump's relationships with other nations. Trump is using tariffs as a bludgeon to force countries into agreements. He offers to extend the enforcement of the tariff or pull it back, depending on what the leader agrees to tomorrow or next week. As David Sanger of the NYT aptly describes it, he "is turning tariffs on and off like tap water". He is acting almost "on whim". Wang Li, China's foreign minister characterizes Trump's tariff actions as "the law of the jungle". This is sheer power politics. It is a commitment to “the mighty will rule over the weak.” As Thucydidis wrote centuries ago,"the strong do what they can and the week suffer what they must". These tariff actions are leading to some short term "concessions" but this bullying and whip lash approach will not end well for us. The abandonment of a rules-based and trust-based relationship with other nations, including our closest historic allies has been and will remain essential to living in the world we want to live in. Our network of allies has been a great strenth of our nation. Trump is decimating it, day by day, hour by hour. There is no sign to date that Trump’s appointments to his cabinet or to his Republican colleagues are going to stand up against this mafia-type operation. I think the only thing that will lead them to is what I fear what may well happen to our nation: economic decline and continued chaos unsettling and endangering the lives of millions and millions of people. This is happening right now. The mafia styled operation also characterizes the domestic actions of the Trump Administration. Trump and Musk are dismantling institutions which have served this country for decades. Not perfectly; every institution needs improvement, some significantly in their efficiency and quality. But we need to build them--not destroy them-- we need to make them stronger to serve the public better. What we are witnessing now is chaotic and often cruel destruction without strategic calculation of how to make them better. We are in a troubled time. Not for the first time, we are in search of a leader who can bring this country back to its highest values, practically and cogently. We faced this need many times before. We faced it with Abraham Lincoln. With Teddy Roosevelt, with Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Harry Truman and others. They brought this country back on course whether that be with our domestic institutions, race relationships or our relationships with other countries. In the meantime, we need to push back at what is happening here that is wrong. I am encouraged by what the courts are doing. But I believe we need a mass movement of the kind we witnessed with the suffragettes and Civil Rights leaders which will need to be led by a leader who has yet to clearly emerge but I am sure is there. Reply, Reply All or Forward

Trump's Mafia-Styled Operation

Trump has brought a mafia-styled operation to the Presidency, not for the first time. There is no clearer way I can describe it. Five years ago, he was on the brink of being impeached. He told President Zelensky there would be no more aid for Ukraine until Zelensky agreed to dig deep into computer files to find evidence to impugn Hunter Biden. It is a tragedy that Republican Senators who knew better, didn’t stand up then to impeach him, thereby thwarting the possibility of this man returning to office. Today, the beat goes on. Trump is holding Zelensky and Ukraine hostage again. In order to receive more military aid, they are going to have to confer a substantial amount of the country’s mineral rights to the United States without, so far, a guarantee joined by the US, of preserving Ukraine's independence. This mafia-style operation is nothing new for Trump. It is how he ran his businesses. Totally transactional. Bluffing. Following the mantra--"if I hold the stronger hand I win". No matter what happens to you. The mafia style leadership characterizes Trump's relationships with other nations. Trump is using tariffs as a bludgeon to force countries into agreements. He offers to extend the enforcement of the tariff or pull it back, depending on what the leader agrees to tomorrow or next week. As David Sanger of the NYT aptly describes it, he "is turning tariffs on and off like tap water". He is acting almost "on whim". Wang Li, China's foreign minister charactertizes Trump's tariff actions as "the law of the jungle". This is sheer power politics. It is a commitment to “the mighty will rule over the weak.” As Thucydidis wrote centuries ago,"the strong do what they can and the week suffer what they must". These tariff actions are leading to some short term "concessions" but this bullying and whip lash approach will not end well for us. The abandonment of a rules-based and trust-based relationship with other nations, including our closest historic allies has been and will remain essential to living in the world we want to live in. Our network of allies has been a great strenth of our nation. Trump is decimating it, day by day, hour by hour. There is no sign to date that Trump’s appointments to his cabinet or to his Republican colleagues are going to stand up against this mafia-type operation. I think the only thing that will lead them to is what I fear what may well happen to our nation: economic decline and continued chaos unsettling and endangering the lives of millions and millions of people. This is happening right now. The mafia styled operation also characterizes the domestic actions of the Trump Administration. Trump and Musk are dismantling institutions which have served this country for decades. Not perfectly; every institution needs improvement, some significantly in their efficiency and quality. But we need to build them--not destroy them-- we need to make them stronger to serve the public better. What we are witnessing now is chaotic and often crueldestruction, without strategic calculation of how to make them better. We are in a troubled time. We are in search of a leader who can bring this country back to its highest values, practically and cogently. We faced this need many times before. We faced it with Abraham Lincoln. With Teddy Roosevelt, with Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Harry Truman and others. They brought this country back on course whether that be with race relationships or in our relationships with other countries. In the meantime, we need to push back at what is happening here that is wrong. I am encouraged by what the courts are doing. But I believe we need a mass movement like we witnessed with the suffragetes and Civil Rights leaders that is going to have to be led by a leader who has yet to emerge but I am sure is there. Reply, Reply All or Forward

Refelctions on Religion from Twenty-Two Years Ago--I Feel the Same Way Today

I have found the past year to be a very difficult one in terms of reconciling the faith I had in a super-ordinate power of goodness and ultimate creator of what exists, and the reaffirmation of the terrible damage and injustice that can grow from the fanatical, even if misguided, pursuit of religious orthodoxy. The torturous and horrific acts committed by some in the name of Allah are only the most recent manifestation of where religious belief can carry. To say that religion is not the root cause of violence (and sadly I think that judgment in some cases cannot be supported) does not change the fact that religion has too often served as the justification and been used to broaden the reach of the pursuit of evil. We see throughout history innumerable cases where religion, like it or not, has led to such inhuman ends. The crusades led by the Christians. The battles between Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnians. The battle between Jewish and Palestinian fanatics. The Hindus versus the Muslims and many more. What is one to make of this? Surely there is no denying the benefits that organized religion has brought to people in numbers far too great to count. I am among them. If I had not been brought up a Catholic, if I had not participated in the Episcopal Church, particularly in the opportunity it gave me for self-reflection and contact with members of the clergy who inspired me with their thoughts, I surely would not be the person I am today. However, I find it unsatisfying and intellectually dishonest to simply leave the matter accepting that, yes, organized religion does a lot of good, but it does a lot of harm, too. What is so ironical is that, if you take the thoughts of Jesus, pure and simple, you could hardly go wrong. You could almost sum up every book written about good living in the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes. I am coming to a belief that the problem with organized religion is that it becomes fossilized and bureaucratized. Fossilized in the sense that it is slow or unwilling to change its views on what practices and behaviors are truly in accord with the root values of the great world religions. Those root values can be found in the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, in the admonition to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” If religion stopped there, and thought about what it meant to carry out these virtues faithfully in today’s world, we would not end up, I submit, with the exclusive “you are with us or you are against us” “only the faithful are worthy” attitude that have too often led to prejudice, violence and even war. The mistake of organized religions is to come to the belief that they have a unique interpretation of truth that extends beyond what is really the foundation of truth – being all one can be and honoring others as oneself. They become structured and bureaucratized and then work for their own self-perpetuation, knowing it or not, even if this is not in the furtherance of the few ultimate truths that really matter. Of course, religious institutions are not the only organizations that fall into this trap. All organizations do. The problem which religions face to a particular degree is that they don’t have built within them the adequate balance of power to adapt to the need to change rapidly. One need only think how long it has taken (and is still taking) for divorce to be accepted in certain religions. One thinks of all the artifice that has been used to get around this requirement, engaging in intellectual dishonesty in the extreme. What’s more, almost all religious organizations are self-appointed in their succession. Governments, too, can be slow to change, but their perpetuation (at least in a democracy) is determined by the electorate. It is not surprising that those societies which have not allowed the electorate to govern the succession have not, by and large, been successful over time. And even those, such as China today, which have continued to be ruled with a strong autocratic hand, have increasingly brought into the workings of society the individual choice in the economic and social spheres needed for the structure and operation of society to continue to evolve. What has led organized religion to change, it seems to me, often after an enormous length of time, is what has led other organizations to change, and that is survival. It is only as “the faithful” drop away from an organized church that the need for change will be truly embraced. And yet that need can come slowly for the power of organized religion is strong because the truth of its basic tenets remain, even as too often its rituals and practices become arcane, out of touch with modern society and honored more in the breach than in the practice. Moreover, for most of us, it is a fact that a church is far more conducive to reflection on the basic truths that make any religion of value than one’s living room. There have been a few members of the clergy whom I have met during my lifetime who have been able to articulate the simple truths of living a good life clearly and cogently. They have changed my life. I think all I can conclude from this difficult and in many ways unsettling line of thought is that the imperative is to try to adhere to these basic truths as well as one possibly can while seeking out individual(s) who can help bring them to light for me/us in a more meaningful way than we can do on our own. I have found such individuals in Bob Gerhard and Paula Jackson, among others. I need to hear from them more often. These thoughts led me to record these excerpts and reflections from the book Doubts and Loves by Richard Holloway: I would like to suggest that we should switch the emphasis in Christianity from belief to practice, from believing things about Jesus to the imitation of Jesus. There would be three challenging elements here: Resolution to love rather than condemn sinners. Seek to understand others rather than rush to judgment. Active pity for the disadvantaged of the earth, then work to change their lot. A mistrust of power and violence, both personal and institutional, and an act of opposition to them. I would like to suggest that worldlessness or identification with the powerless is the key to the mystery of Jesus. The paradox is that we have only heard of Jesus through an institution that has not experienced worldlessness for a very long time. The expendable Man of Nazareth is now represented by an institution that follows the logic of all worldly institutions the logic of expedience; the drive to survive; yet we would not even know about this paradox if it were not for the Church. The Sermon on the Mount is not exactly translatable into complete political practice, but it can act as a stimulus to aspiration; it can create the sort of discontent that leads to action. A transformed version of the Jesus tradition, adapted for our day, would lay less emphasis on believing things about Jesus and more emphasis on imitating Jesus. It would be a practice system rather than a belief system. What is left of Christianity should be the practice of the kind of love that subverts the selfishness of power, whether it is the subtle power of spiritual or the brutal power of political institutions. All concentrations of power justify their ascendancy with theory, as well as with more blatant methods. I would like to suggest that it is more important to open ourselves to the words that gave rise to the claim of divinity rather than to profess allegiance to the claim itself, but show little or no personal response to the words that precipitated it. The exciting thing about our history, the thing that helps to balance all the evil we have committed, is our passion for discovery, for beginning again. Christ’s teaching on forgiveness has already opened for us the possibility of a new politics that can even move us beyond great tragedy and start again. Young people are the way the world keeps on beginning again. For those who want to live the world, it must begin with attention. Intensity. Repentance. Forgiving others is a true win/win. For ourselves and for others. For those doing the forgiving and those forgiven.