14 Comments

There's little time to be frozen in place. The opposite of hopelessness can be found in the question "What can I do?" There are many things. I recently gave to the ACLU and Indivisible.org - a wonderful organization/movement in defense of our rights. I would also invite you to get involved with my organization, The Museum of Political Corruption, to advance our mission of teaching the public about corruption and promoting ethical governance If you're interested, you can contact me at bruce.roter@museumofpoliticalcorruption.org.

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I’m laying a lot of blame at the feet of the legacy media, particularly the New York Times. They stubbornly held to their model of fairness in reporting and made huge inroads into normalizing an extremely abnormal Trump and his circus. By giving equal or greater weight, and even attempting to “translate” his crazy into normal, I believe they abrogated their duty to the country as the newspaper of record. And they were snarky about it.

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Thanks, John, for spotlighting one of the toughest issues these days: how the legacy media can avoid overt partisanship when one side routinely steps beyond the bounds of decency and honesty. We're a long way from the 2016 reality of "both-sideism" that killed HRC's campaign. The NYT is so visible that it gets attacked by well-intentioned and thoughtful folks who criticize its efforts to be honest -- even something as simple as labeling DJT's screeds as "lies," which it has been doing for a few years now. I'm more inclined to praise how tough it has been -- more aggressive than any major media outlet, I'd say -- than criticize the points where it hasn't yet delivered. But as every editor knows, there's always the next edition to try to get right what slipped from our grasp today. It's an imperfect effort, constantly.

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Well stated, thank you. He is already asking Congress to rubber stamp his selections, which fly in the face of logic and serious governing. This is the time to be steadfast and stand up straight. Other movements, other segments of society, have stood steadfastly, risking many dangers so that immediate and future generations could be respected. Why not the other half of our nation?

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I agree. I was chastised just yesterday for comparing Trump's proposed strategy for stacking his cabinet with unqualified candidates to Hitler's actions in bypassing Parliament when appointing his generals. What are we to do in the face of this sort of willful blindness to history?

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Thank you, Rex. Your analogy of freeze, fight, or flight is appropriate. I'm frozen at the moment. I want to fight, but honestly, I don't know how or where to start.

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Honestly, I wouldn't use people watching MSNBC or CNN as a gage as to our fight or flight response. I never watch either and I'm ready to fight for our country, our democracy. There are much better news sources to turn to such as The Guardian, Democracy Now!, and The New Republic. And please people, don't forget Austin Tice. Journalist kidnapped in Syria 10 years ago. We need to keep fighting for him, too.

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Thank you Rex. Well stated. I first of all thought of leaving the country. However I have put two thirds of my life into helping to make this a better country and I still believe that there are people with sound values on both sides of the Congress aisle. And so I will continue to do whatever I can to help in rebuilding hope and aspiration for the America that is always latent in our best efforts to make life better for all, whether in government, industry, business, education or the arts.

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Thank you, Patrick. What a fortunate country we are to draw great immigrants -- like you, my friend! Let's sustain that tradition.

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Fear is the critical ingredient in Courage

Remember the lion?

"There's foxes in the henhouse,

There's cows out in the corn..." Steve Earl

Here's something boring and wonky: the present value formula

Very important & boring and wonky.

If you were working for a hedge fund or venture capitalist, you would use the present value formula to appraise the value of a potential business investment or acquisition.

Put another way:

"Present value (PV) is the current value of a future sum of money or stream of cash flows. ... Present value calculations can be useful in investing and in strategic planning for businesses." Investopedia

A week or so ago the value of acquiring firms jumped.

That's because it is anticipated that regulations on mergers and acquisitions will become more lax.

on the other hand, It is also anticipated that there will be increased costs for businesses either importing (eg: chocolate, iphone), exporting (eg: soy, LNG); or both.

The passing of these costs to consumers may decrease sales; absorbing them reduces margins. Either way it can be anticipated that smaller businesses will be less profitable, and therefore currently have a lower Present Value. Worth less.

Wall St jumped because there just became a buyer's market on Main St businesses. Cheaper to buy, and better terms for investors and lenders.

The wolf is not after your family, so much, as he is after your family business.

This is about more than civil liberties. They want to use market forces to frack us out of our property rights

Shakespeare wrote for a monarch, so for his audience, Caesar was a good guy. Symbolic of institution.

He was beloved of the people. After the conspirators killed him, Marc Antony won the people.

Just listened to the current EPA administrator for the North East, on a podcast called "What if instead", talk about all the very real good that institutional government can do for the people, and it recalled Marc Antony's famous delivery to his Friends Romans and Countrymen - in particular the part about Caesar's will.

It was the contents of Caesar's will that drove the people to rebel against the conspirators.

New Deal populism, according to Cato, was "socialism"

The populism we see ousting institutional incumbents today is an echo of the Populist party of the late 1800s

Democracy needs a Marc Antony

OH! And Cleopatra, according to Shakes she said "I was a morsel for a monarch" (re Caesar, and when she was a girl)

She didn't let that stop her from being Cleopatra

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I think the NYT was desperately trying to reveal Trump's dangers, but they weren't heard; they were disregarded by the electorate. A book I'm reading by Les Leopold called Wall Street's War on Workers explains well the working class experience of mass layoffs that has eroded trust in government to counter those corporate trends. Enough of analysis, though. Yes, we must fight--good post, Rex--but how? The Senate seems the most likely line of defense but I can only influence my two senators (from Washington) and they don't need convincing. Yes, suggestions please.

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Thank you, Judy. What can we do? I'd say the first is to resist despair, because it is debilitating -- which we can do with constant self-care and connections to others (including relationships that involve reading that sustains our sense that there's hope for progress). Second, we can engage in supporting those imperiled by Trump's coming onslaught -- immigrant communities, libraries, schools & universities, public media, healthcare and more will all be targets. And let's redouble our financial or active support for those who can turn back the reactionary tide -- that is, politicians who can win. (See the NYT op-ed by Adam Jentleson for a roadmap.) One of my greatest worries (more on this soon) is Trump's planned assault on the independent civil service (aka "deep state") which assures competence in the executive branch; removing tens of thousands of career public servants and replacing a share of them with obedient MAGA minions can disable the government. Write op-eds and letters to the editor, and support those who do.

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I'm sorry Rex but I want to run and hide.

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I do, too -- and there will be some days for that ahead, for sure. Right now, I hope reading some analysis of what's up can sustain us by assuring us that there are millions of us here who won't give up.

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