“You’re overthinking it.’ ‘I have anxiety. I have no other type of thinking available.” ― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
tl;dr
The anxiety is sky-high everywhere you look. The uncertainty is huge and palpable. The upcoming election feels like a doom or a massive relief. This is true no matter who you support. In the meantime, everything seems perpetually frozen. We are all waiting to see what kind of World will greet us in 2025. Will we have hope, or enter into an apocalyptic hellscape? The likely outcome will be something in-between no matter who wins.
“Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.” ― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
What I see?
The Nation seems like it is in a purgatory. It matters little who you support to feel this way. Both sides are running on fear of the other. The stakes of the election seem impossibly high and this is paralyzing everyone. All decisions and actions stemming from our governance have ground to a halt. I see it at work where nothing is happening. Everything seems to be frozen in place, waiting for the resolution. That resolution could be swift on November 5th, and that would be kind and merciful. That resolution could take all the way into December and even to January 6th. This would be brutal and the freeze would only deepen.
“Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.” ― C. H. Spurgeon
On the one hand, the society we know is being described in terms of doom and horror. For some people this feels true, and they crave change. It seems to me that they simply want to elect a destroyer who will sweep aside the reality that isn’t working for them. They care little about the nature of the destruction. The system we have today is not working for them. This is not entirely true of course. Others (Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, …) see a system that stands in the way of their greed and domination. In Trump, they see their savior, or their ally, or their dupe, and the path toward annihilation of society’s order. I see the problems too, but want someone to fix them.
On the other side, we have normalcy. Ironically this normalcy is the problem and the strength. Part of the normal is the multiple factions comprising the Democratic party. There are many entrenched interests. We have the people who want progress and acceptance socially for women and LBGTQ people. The biggest block of people is the educated and succeeding part of America. These people are generally okay and doing alright in the current system. They see tearing the current system apart as dangerous. They don’t like the system and often see imperfections, but don’t want to destroy it. They would get on board to fix it. The key is that many people benefit from the current system.
“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
What is the reality?
Somewhere between the nihilism of the Trump faction and the normies is truth. Our system is a fucking mess. We have profoundly great inequality in society. We see those losing, the poor and blue-collar folks and the ultra-rich teaming up to take on the educated and reasonably well-off. Social and work life is incredibly uncomfortable. This is due to political, social, and sexual dynamics that are a powderkeg. We all walk around on eggshells almost everywhere. The homeless population is exploding. They are the sign that many are falling off the edge of society. We are not taking care of our citizens and throwing them to the wolves. The government over-regulates and is incredibly inefficient. Everything is getting worse and nothing is getting fixed (systems, roads, etc,…). From where I sit I can see multiple National security programs floundering under the weight of all of this.
At the forefront of our woes as a society are young men. Current society is not working for them. I see it in the young men I know personally and at work. Many of them are flocking toward Trump. His fake masculinity and toughness appeal to them. He puts on an MMA/WWE version of masculinity that is cartoonish. The problem for the Democrats is a lack of response. Tim Walz is part of the reaction. He represents a better more modern form of masculinity, but his impact is dimming. The whole thing has taken gender politics to new dysfunctional highs. Women are under siege from the right, and the type of men they promote is truly toxic. The problem is that the Democrats do not offer something in return. They support movements that seemingly oppose men. This may cost them the election.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
What I fear?
So you reader might be wondering that with all the problems I see why would I support the normie point-of-view. I really don’t. The issue is the Trump-MAGA won’t fix any problems. They only destroy and only work to make our problems worse. Trump will surely make the inequality worse and do nothing for the common man. He will give them “red meat” in attacking their enemies and doing various cruel things. At the same time, he will enable people like Elon Musk to get even richer. They will continue to exist in a world that 99.99% of Americans can’t fathom. Trump won’t make political corruption leave. He will weaponize it for himself and shift the corruption to help him. Putting a criminal and corrupt man in charge will only supercharge the problem.
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” ― Frank Herbert
My real fear is that none of our problems as a Nation will be addressed for many more years. All the problems will just get worse while Americans continue to be divided into warring tribes. I fear bigotry and hatred will be legitimized and supercharged. Progress for women and LBGTQ people will be erased. The American evangelical movement will rule like an American Taliban imposing their morality on everyone. Homeless people will grow and be criminalized rather than helped. Regulation will be destroyed and greed will be pursued absent any morality or ethics. Those with money can escape law, morality, and justice with even greater ease. If you support Trump you are not necessarily a bigot, but you are okay with being ruled by one.
The worst thing I can imagine is myself dying with an epitaph: “born into a democracy; died under a dictator.” America will be swept aside and cast into the dustbin. Worse yet, we could descend into war or simply be auctioned off. If the level of incompetence is allowed to continue unabated our Nation cannot survive. We will fall into incompetence and corruption fueled purely by greed and malice.
Were it the malice of a foreign invaded, it wouldn’t hurt so much. This is the worst case, but little doubt that Trump 2.0 would be a giant shit show. Trump 1.0 was a shit show, but at least some adults with actual ethics were there to limit it. The adults are all gone now.
“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” ― Victor Frankl
How to Cope?
The thing to remember most of all is that none of us can control what is going to happen. This is the result of forces and events beyond any of our control We are taking part, but only in the smallest way. We are for the most part observers. We will react to the events and our lives will be shaped by them. The shape of the future will be drawn by what is about to occur. This is a big deal. Not knowing what this future holds is the source of the anxiety.
I think the first thing to put your arms around is that things will be bad no matter what. It is a matter of degree. History in the long run is on the side of all of this shit working out. The USA has survived many horrible events and eras. We have continued to exist and even thrive through it all. We will most likely muddle our way through this disaster. In a sense, this is the answer of tragic optimism. Nonetheless, this is a moment of peril for the USA not experienced since the Civil War. Even the fascist threat of World War two didn’t feature this level of threat. Now the fascist threat is inside our Nation. About half the voters seem okay with being led by that fascist.
“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” ― Victor Frankl
Nonetheless, we should probably be OK, eventually. We’ve been alright before and weathered storms. The biggest question in that statement is how much blood will be shed to get us there. Can we navigate this crisis without killing a lot of our fellow citizens? Can we break the fever and start solving our very real problems in a rational, constructive way? The alternative is a rampant destruction of our institutions and governance followed by a reconstruction. At best, this will be a near-death experience. It will be a truly shitty way to exist.
Americans are fond of saying they hate the government. The thing is that our government is us, and not some separate entity. The lesson is that we hate ourselves. The choice is ours, but I’m not confident we have wisdom. It would be far better to rectify problems and create a government we can love and be proud of. A government that reflects the best of our people and our legacy. In about a week, the future will begin to show itself.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” ― Albert Einstein
Code users want answers no matter what. The way a code gets there matters a lot. There are useful, but utterly unprincipled ways to achieve this goal. Worse yet, they are popular with users. It is far better to achieve this goal adhering to basic principles that assure solution credibility. Here we discuss both approaches with an emphasis on choosing the principled way. A fundamental principle is to use the combination and consistency with the governing equations as a bedrock. The other basic principles are adherence to conservation and the use of dissipation to produce entropy.
Robust is when you care more about the few who like your work than the multitude who dislike it (artists); fragile when you care more about the few who dislike your work than the multitude who like it (politicians).― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Need for Robustness
Recently I was in a high-level, high-stress meeting about the future of hydro codes at work. There was a large number of issues to deal with, but one issue lingers in the background. The meeting was pretty low on technical content, so the discussion focused on management stuff. It was all project plans, timelines, and human resources. All the technical stuff was very high level. Still, one issue is looming: the users demand that a code that always gets answers. The incumbent legacy code is very good at this. The problem is that this is achieved in an appalling way. I’ll get to that.
I agree with the robust code as a goal and the need to give users a code that always produces answers. I also think this should be done in a way that the answers aren’t suspect as bullshit. These codes are used to tackle all sorts of important problems by important people for important reasons. I get that. This points to a level of responsibility in assuring that the answers are defensible; that is they aren’t bullshit. This requires that we adhere to some fundamental principles. Results that violate fundamental principles should be unacceptable.
Difficulty is what wakes up the genius― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
How to Make a Hydrocode Robust Incorrectly
This could have been titled “how to get bullshit results” with a hydrocode. Is anyone catching a theme here? I will freely admit that the practical solution to important problems often pushes code developers to do something awful. The biggest culprit is the process of hydrodynamic turbulence. Since turbulence is not understood, people get away with this shit. Turbulence is fundamentally dissipative too. This means that if you say the flow is turbulent and this means you get more dissipation; the extra dissipation is justified. As one friend quipped, “If the ocean was as viscous as we make it, you could drive to Europe.” Nonetheless, there are bullshit ways to introduce turbulent dissipation and codes do it. There are also legitimate ways to introduce dissipation, but it requires more thought.
Unfortunately, we aren’t dealing with this sort of issue. We are dealing with something far less defensible. I think the root of it goes to a technique popular in finite element analysis. Its popularity is in no way based on correctness. This technique is called “element death.” Basically, if a finite element starts to become a problem it is eliminated. This could be from having a difficult shape (unphysical or distorted or short lengths). It could come from a difficult condition like a super high temperature or pressure. It could be a negative pressure or temperature. It is sort of cowardly and only treats the symptoms of the problem. It does jack shit about the cause of it. It is worse than that. It is absolutely destructive to any credibility as I will elaborate shortly.
The hydrocode(s) decided to mimic this functionality. If a material in a calculation becomes difficult, it is deleted. These are multimaterial hydrocodes that solve complex problems with many materials. These codes solve problems that encounter extreme conditions routinely. These problems are intrinsically difficult. Sometimes the material gets completely out of line with reasonable physical conditions. They often achieve conditions that are implausible even in extreme situations. These conditions wreak havoc with a calculation. One fatal mechanism is causing the timestep size to plummet making the calculation impossibly expensive.
The methodology simply decides to throw the material away if some limits are exceeded. This is protective and gets the code to run to the end. It gets the answer. It can completely annihilate the calculation’s credibility too. The reasons are numerous and relatively simple. In a nutshell, the foundations of computational modeling are being disregarded.
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.— Douglas Adams
How to Make Hydrocode Robust in a Principled Way
It is important to acknowledge what the foundational principles are for computational modeling. The fundamental theorem was discovered by Peter Lax in the early 1950’s. The basic principle is that the numerical approximation produces the governing equations for the system plus some approximation error. This is often called a truncation error. The second requirement is that the approximation is stable. Of all the governing equations the conservation of mass is the most primal. Conservation of mass is unassailable and not ever the subject of debate. When it is disregarded the entire system of governing equations goes with it. The technical term is consistency. Without conservation of mass, the approximation is not consistent. The theorem being violated is absolute and cannot be quibbled with.
Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.— Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Hydrocodes are solving what mathematicians call hyperbolic conservation laws. This is usually mass, momentum, and energy, which are interrelated. When mass is disregarded momentum and energy go with them. Mathematically conservation laws are solved by what are known as weak solutions. A weak solution can be discontinuous and not smooth and support structures like shock waves. These solutions require the solutions to be conservative and be in conservation form (more work by Lax). Conservation form comes from naturally conserving these quantities in a calculation by construction. It can be done by other means, but those approaches don’t provide assurance of weak solutions.
You should never be surprised by or feel the need to explain why any physical system is in a high entropy state.― Brian Greene
The issue is that weak solutions are not unique. The way to provide weak solutions that are correct and unique is dissipation. All of these conditions were derived by Peter Lax and various collaborators. It is in these theorems that the principled answer to robustness can be found. The first principle is to regard conservation as essential. The second principle is to promote dissipation as the response to problems with the solution. Dissipation is usually considered to be less accurate in solutions.
You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.– John von Neumann
This is the key thought, if you would consider removing mass from a calculation then reducing accuracy should be done instead. Once the material becomes compromised accuracy should be disregarded. The way to deal with these materials is to dissipate the issue. This way the problem can be spread out and diffused without sacrificing credibility. We can do this in a graded way. The key is to remove accuracy and replace it with dissipation. The underlying principle is that dissipation is physical. It is the mechanism of the second law of thermodynamics. The application of dissipation keeps solutions physical and credible. It just reduces accuracy. A loss of accuracy is vastly superior to a loss of consistency. Moreover, dissipation usually gives better stability too. You still end up with a physical solution that can be considered credible.
The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. … if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.― Arthur Stanley Eddington
To Sum up the Argument
Disregarding the conservation of mass is not defensible. It is like employing amputation to treat infections when antibiotics are available. During the civil war infections led to huge numbers of amputations to save patients. This practice ended when antibiotics were found. While discard and element death are not as barbaric, they are unnecessary today. Moreover, we know the harm they do. They shred credibility as the results lose consistency with the most fundamental law of physics, the conservation of mass. Instead, adhere to the fundamentals and get robustness by utilizing the wisdom of the basic math.
Entropy is just a fancy way of saying: things fall apart.― Dan Brown
References
Lax, Peter D. Hyperbolic systems of conservation laws and the mathematical theory of shock waves. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1973.
Lax, Peter D., and Robert D. Richtmyer. “Survey of the stability of linear finite difference equations.” In Selected Papers Volume I, pp. 125-151. Springer, New York, NY, 2005. (reprint of seminal 1956 paper in ommunications on pure and applied mathematics)
Lax, Peter, and Burton Wendroff. “Systems of conservation laws.” In Selected Papers Volume I, pp. 263-283. Springer, New York, NY, 2005. (reprint of the seminal 1960 paper in ommunications on pure and applied mathematics)
Harten, Amiram, James M. Hyman, Peter D. Lax, and Barbara Keyfitz. “On finite‐difference approximations and entropy conditions for shocks.” Communications on pure and applied mathematics 29, no. 3 (1976): 297-322.
By any account, the upcoming November election should not be close, yet it is. On one side stands an incompetent, criminal grifter without a hint of personal integrity. On the other, the sitting vice president with a record of achievement. Yet we teeter on the knife’s edge of re-electing the person widely regarded as the worst president to ever serve. His track record alone should be disqualifying. Something more profound must be at stake to enable this paradox. The answer lies in a deep, long-standing sense of broad-based dysfunction permeating society. The country feels in crisis and in desperate need of a new direction. Americans are poised to change course, even if that change proves suicidal. It is essential to chart a new path that leads to a better future.
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Why the Question?
Every morning for the past couple of months, I’ve awakened to the genuine terror that Donald Trump might be re-elected president. Trump was an atrocious president before, judged by many historians as the worst in American history. He is a man devoid of morality, capable of constant lies and criminal conduct. His money and political power have been the only barriers between him and prison. Still, he has been adjudged a felon for covering up his misdeeds, lying to avoid taxes and secure credit, and committing sexual assault. He is the very definition of a grifter. In addition to his mendacity, he is a committed anti-intellectual.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” ― Isaac Asimov
If the prospect of this king of morons being president wasn’t enough, we have Project 2025 to terrify us further. Trump is allied with people who envision a future America as a neofascist state ruled theocratically. All of this should make Trump unelectable. Choosing Trump as president is tantamount to societal suicide. Indeed, many of his followers see Trump as the man who crashes the plane, like Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. They literally view Trump as the figure who will destroy the system of government. To me, this sounds like treason. Trump has even acted treasonously, fawning over dictators like Putin. Again, he should be unelectable; yet he is not, and he may very well win.
With all of this said, there is even more to oppose Trump. His entire movement is predicated on minority rule. It goes beyond the structural elements built into the Constitution (electoral college, Senate, gerrymandering, etc.). The movement is devoted to voter suppression and denying people access to the ballot. To top all of this off, Trump’s direct actions exceed these factors. We have January 6th and the attempt to overturn the result of an already minority-skewed election. It was criminal and treasonous. All the while, half the electorate ignores this. Trump’s disregard for protecting national secrets further damns him. It is criminal and irresponsible. As someone with more than 30 years of experience working with national secrets, I am disgusted. If I had done a tenth of what Trump did, I would expect to be in prison for most of my remaining life. Yet he receives no punishment from the law or the electorate.
On the topic of the law, one can look at the courts. Chiefly, you have the Supreme Court stacked by the GOP. They are corrupt and horribly out of touch with the public and any rational reading of the Constitution. They started by flooding the political environment with money through the appalling Citizens United ruling. Lately, the awful decisions have continued with multiple murderous rulings allowing guns to permeate society. Citizens and children are slaughtered in the wake. The Dobbs decision removed the right to abortion from women and returned the matter to the states. It is notable that states’ rights are only used by the GOP to deny people’s rights, never to expand them. People should shudder at the thought of what comes next. Finally, we have the presidential immunity decision. This may well be the worst Supreme Court ruling in more than a century. Trumpism is marked by an incompetent, corrupt, and out-of-control judiciary.
This is a phenomenon that must be understood.
How Can Anyone Vote for This Monster?
It’s crucial to comprehend what motivates Trump voters. The initial reaction is one of disbelief: How can anyone vote for such a horrible man? Even if you’re a hardcore conservative, it’s obvious that he is a vile, despicable person. Yet somehow, he exudes a charisma that charms these people. There is a core of Trump voters who are themselves despicable racists, sexists, and violent, awful people. This group comprises something like 20-30% of the population. They are the true deplorables Hilary mentioned.
The real key is understanding what animates the rest of his support. I strongly believe this stems from a core of anti-establishment sentiment. My neighbor, a rabid Trump supporter, seems to be a genuinely good person. Thus, it feels curious that he can support someone so atrocious. In conversation, a clue emerged: a deep hatred of the establishment. This idea is grounded in a lot of reality. The issue is that Trump won’t fix the establishment; he will just destroy it. It is this anti-establishment sentiment that the left needs to harness.
One of the real problems is the force that animates politics. In the last five elections, two people have defined the outcomes. In 2008 and 2012, Obama dominated the election. He was charismatic and a once-in-a-generation talent. Being a biracial Black man drove insanity on the right against him. That racism is the same force that pulled Trump into politics. His birtherism lie was founded in racism and began his voyage to the center of politics. Once you strip away the political talent and identity, Obama becomes quite ordinary. He was a center-right president who accomplished a fair amount. In the view of the right, he was a Black man and, as such, a socialist. Seeing him as anything other than middle-of-the-road and a force of the establishment is fiction.
“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” ― John F. Kennedy
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a daily press briefing with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at The White House in Washington, U.S., October 4, 2024. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
The last three Democratic candidates have not been inspiring. The energy in voting for all of them is largely grounded in fear and revulsion of Donald Trump. The Democratic message is not compelling. It is largely pro-establishment. So we have had three elections driven by the character of Trump. There are the people who are Trump fans, who are mostly hopeless, lost, angry people. There are those attracted to his anti-establishment message. Then there are the hardcore Democrats combined with those disgusted by Trump.
The Bernie Sanders movement was the Democrats’ chance to grasp an anti-establishment message. Sanders lost to Hillary in 2016, and the Democrats became the establishment party. This became the moment when the stasis of American politics ossified. The ability to end Trump and MAGA’s stranglehold on reality could have been found if the Democrats had embraced some anti-establishment message. This is the path forward for a better future. My core belief is that the right wing cannot fix our problems. Their solutions are grounded in accelerating the forces undergirding our dysfunction. Many of these are associated with the way business and corporate governance are oriented.
The View from My Life
I am someone who sees huge problems within the nation. Our institutions are in distress. The establishment is failing the nation. The issue with Trump is that he won’t fix any of this; he will only make things worse. Trump will trash institutions and destroy or enable many of the forces that are already creating havoc. For example, Trump will only exacerbate the inequality in the nation. He will institute cruelty and hate as vehicles for change. He will enable the worst elements in society to find new depths of depravity. This will not make America great, it will only diminish the Nation.
I have worked for leading scientific institutions my entire professional life. Over the course of my career, these institutions have consistently declined into shells of their former glory. I have watched the edge the USA has in science and technology fade away. Today, it is arguable that we have lost our advantage. If we haven’t lost it, we will very soon. Our government and leaders have been the vehicles of this destruction. The destruction is quite bipartisan. In different ways, the trust my labs were granted by the nation is gone. Part of it is lack of funding and general suspicion of science from the right. There is a continual stream of investigations into efforts that makes the labs risk-averse and incapable of the failures needed for progress. Both the left and the right have contributed to this. From the left, we have lots of regulation and focus on things unrelated to science. They also have their own suspicions of certain areas of science.
People hold placards during a protest in support of Amazon workers in Union Square, New York on February 20, 2021. – New York state’s attorney general on February 17, 2021 sued Amazon, claiming the e-commerce giant failed to adequately protect its warehouse workers from risks during the Covid-19 pandemic. The move comes days after Amazon filed its own legal action seeking to block New York state Attorney General Letitia James from taking steps to enforce federal workplace safety regulations. (Photo by Kena Betancur / AFP)
The end result is the hollowing out of competence and the destruction of science. This has become a huge threat to our national security. We have also seen a rather perverse belief that the labs should be run like businesses. The right has been quite eager to do this, and the left has assisted. This is patently absurd. The principles that work for business are absolutely not the way to run a research lab. The new corporate governance has been a catastrophic failure. All it has done is accelerate the decline of the labs. As I will note later, the corporate approach has other issues too. These have also led to the Lab’s decline.
“You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” ― Malcolm X
We Have Big Problems
The key to capturing the anti-establishment vote is to appeal to the desire to fix things. In the absence of a fix, people move toward destruction. These days, the prospects for fixing anything seem remote. This is especially true given our divided government and structural blocks. The start toward solutions begins with admission that the problems exist. Virtually every American sees the problems as obvious and profound. Most of the problems are not amenable to half measures.
The key difference is whether one sees Trump as a solution or simply as making everything worse. In my view, he will make things much worse. The foundation of our problems is our corporate environment and vast inequality. We are approaching a level of disparity close to that of the gilded age, which is socially unsustainable. Trump will exacerbate this with tax cuts and policies that increase corporate greed. Our regulatory overreach is a direct result of the lack of corporate responsibility. A corporation will poison its own children to make a buck. They are regulated because they have no morals or ethics. Fixing this imbalance will not happen under Trump. He is the definition of greed and corporate graft. Corporations will be unleashed to gut the Nation and abuse the population.
Another cornerstone of our societal issues is the lack of trust. How can someone who lies reflexively, is selfish, and is a career criminal going to improve that? He won’t! The acceptance of Trump is based on the lack of trust and only amplifies it. His voters simply accept his rampant corruption as the norm. Trump has normalized a whole raft of behaviors that used to destroy any politician. He is a misogynist who generally treats women as sex objects. This includes his own daughter! He has been judged as a rapist. Many other women have accused him of sexual assault. He even admitted to touching women without consent on tape. Trump is the destruction of trust where the country needs repair.
“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on.” ― William S. Burroughs
Finally, the country needs to recover competence. Trump was an incompetent President. He was constantly embarrassing. He sucked up to dictators, groveling in Putin’s presence. He does not read and has a minimal attention span. He utterly and completely lacks curiosity. All of these things are the hallmarks of incompetence as an executive, much less the top executive. Someone like this will not instill the competence in governance that the country badly needs. He will only further accelerate our decline into a shell of our former glory.
The Republicans are Trying to Hold onto a Past That is Gone
“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. … These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” ― George Carlin
The greatest argument against Trump is found in their slogan “Make America Great Again.” They are looking to a past where America was the leading light in the world. This greatness was largely founded on our intact industrial base in a World destroyed by World War 2. The USA ruled because the rest of the World was in ruin. The MAGA people also fail to note that this era was racist with Jim Crow alive and well. Women had a shadow of their current rights. LBGTQ people were all in the closet. The greatness was largely enjoyed by white men, and the rest of the population was discriminated against. Thus the greatness was quite tarnished.
The key thing to realize is that there is truth in the USA’s decline. We are less than we were. I can see the decline clearly where I work. I’ve worked at two of the USA’s greatest government labs: Los Alamos and Sandia. Both labs are shadows of their former greatness. I have seen this decline throughout my entire career. It is also clear that the decline started back in the late 1970s. If you look at what triggered the American decline, one person stands out: Ronald Reagan.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower
The “Reagan revolution” was the start of America’s decline. It was largely a reaction to the changes of the 1960s and the embrace of the evangelical movement by the right. In addition, we saw the embrace of the current corporate culture combined with animosity toward workers. Reagan accelerated the attack on the worker and laid the foundation of the homeless crisis. The neoliberal view of corporate greed took hold, and the engine of vast inequality went into overdrive. Reagan also marked the beginnings of a racist backlash and the culture wars. All of these elements have metastasized in MAGA. Trump is greed, culture wars, and racism personified. Reagan didn’t make America great; he began to dismantle greatness.
“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.” ― Frank Herbert
The path to greatness lies in moving forward. MAGA simply looks backward. It also looks backward through a lens that is quite distorted. Technology isn’t going away. We need to learn to deal with it. We need a corporate culture that cares about the impact on society as much as profits. We need a corporate culture that cares about the well-being of its employees. The harms of unbridled greed are everywhere in society. We need a more equal society where care and compassion rule. Today we have an unequal society where cruelty is tolerated. Reagan started the march toward inequality and the acceptance of cruelty. Trump simply takes this to a new level. It is time for a different trend to take root.
The Democrats Aren’t Trying to Solve Things
“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt
How do we get out of the electoral impasse?
The Democrats (or more properly the liberal progressives) need to start looking to solve the obvious national problems. This means they need to stop simply being the anti-MAGA, anti-Trump party. They need to stop supporting our failing institutions and approach to governance. If you are liberal, you believe that we need to be governed. We also need to be governed well. Being governed well means an efficient government. It means a competent government that is a good value for the money. Today we do not have that.
A big part of our inefficient government is the regulatory state. As noted above, the foundation of regulation is the overreach of corporate greed. Rather than run businesses in a way that is good for society, corporations only look to profit. They will do all manner of damage to society for profit. It is in how they are managed; they are only about maximizing shareholder value. Regulation is the societal response to this. Instead, we need corporations that regulate themselves for the good of society.
This requires new laws and new governance. We need to change the accounting of corporations to make them responsible to their communities and workers too. Take the way Meta’s products harm society and especially children. In the name of maximizing value, they have created platforms that harm politics, children, and society. Nothing except bad press stands in the way. Instead of holding back a little for the good of society, they maximize profit and damage. Right now, regulation is the only answer. Regulation is horribly inefficient. Efficiency comes from the corporation doing the right thing and removing the need for regulation.
I will just note that the GOP’s answer is just removing regulation from the picture. This will enable profit. It will also enable corporations to further damage society. They will be allowed to pollute. They will be allowed to treat workers poorly. It will just fuel more inequality and all the problems we already have. The Democrats need to offer something better; something better than ex-post-facto regulation. A legal framework that rewards and encourages corporate social and societal responsibility.
We need to build trust across society. Empathy and compassion are key building blocks for trust. We need to tear down inequality. Trust comes from people relating to each other. Inequality makes people desperate and divided. We need to bring people together. GOP policies generate cruelty and meanness that undermine trust. Their tax and corporate policies generate more inequality. This generates lack of trust. As long as we can buy our way out of justice, people will not trust the law. Trump has used money to buy his way out of justice and accountability for his whole life. He is an unrepentant criminal as a result. He epitomizes the reasons no one trusts.
“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.” ― Mark Twain
Finally, the Democrats need to fully embrace competence. This means turning away from bureaucracy. Nothing is less competent than a bureaucrat. We need to reinvigorate science and education. Trump is fueled by the lack of education. His popularity is a continual indictment of our educational system. This means adding robust vocational education. Colleges and universities need to become affordable. Right now, higher education is simply a vehicle for debt and a way for corporations to prey on people.
We need great laboratories. Over the past 40 years, we have allowed our great science labs to be destroyed. First the DoD labs, then NASA, and now the DOE labs are falling. They need to be built up. Bureaucracy needs to be removed. The current incompetent corporate-minded governance of the labs needs to go. It needs to be replaced by excellence in science. We need to empower scientists to fail, learn, and innovate. Today, none of these are really allowed. We have lots of rhetoric about these things, but the management really does the opposite.
“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal”, then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
The Regularized Singularity 