In politics, the cost of apologizing is astronomical.
Turtlenecks were cool then, right? I re-read my high school and college yearbooks this weekend. There I am with a full shock of hair and a career-prophetic Paul McCartney quote. There were some admittedly dorky things in there, a few surprises, and a bit of romantic awkwardness I wish I could scrub from my brain. But […]
Howard Schultz: The man who would be kingmaker.
Don’t look now, Schultzy, but that mermaid looks really angry with you. “Iowa nice” is a term describing how Iowans always help out a visitor in need. “Minnesota nice” is a similar thing. “Southern hospitality” connotes how the natives of the Deep South will always welcome a stranger, likely with food in hand. Here in Seattle, […]
Trump will always blink.
Even one of the doorknobs was furloughed. I should probably resist this urge to brag, but I can’t. In December, I promised my dad that the partial government shutdown would end in the fourth week of January. The shutdown ended in the fourth week of January. After one compromise proposal to get his border wall […]
Trump tanked the presidency. Can he tank the economy too?
Last year at this time, I wondered if Trump was tanking the presidency, intentionally failing to spur a GOP bloodbath at the midterms. Jury’s out on that, but this New York Times article on Trump at the midpoint (maybe?) has an interesting paragraph that might corroborate my theory. As a result, a partisan war may […]
The GOP Legacy: Elections don’t have consequences.
Nancy Pelosi isn’t the leader whom the Democrats should run out of town on a rail. It’s Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. While Pelosi tried to get a word in edgewise, Schumer had the unmitigated gall to parrot Barack Obama in a meeting with President Trump: “Elections have consequences, Mr. President.” Ha, no. Get me […]
Ready Individual One: The quizzical power of a lame duck.
That haircut even looks like a lame duck. Two years into his presidency, Donald Trump just became a lame duck. His team lost the House and hundreds of state seats in the midterms. New governors and state attorneys general stand ready to file suit after suit against him. His own Justice Department called him a committer […]
Playing Diplomacy with Nancy Pelosi is a dangerous game.
Your next speaker. Maybe. Nancy Pelosi should be feeling great these days. The longtime San Francisco congresswoman just presided over the largest midterm influx of Democratic Representatives since 1974, which was freakin’ Watergate. She should be ecstatic, but she’s under a little pressure right now. A bunch of these new members don’t want her to be […]
I put my essays into a book that you can get right now.
If you’ve read my essays over the last two years, you know I’ve used game theory to analyze Donald Trump’s actions and many other political issues. I decided to put them into a book called Game Theory in the Age of Chaos. For the next two weeks, you can preorder it on Kickstarter and get […]
The Democrats pick the right strategy (even though it hurts).
Walkouts: Good for protests, bad for governance. Where did the #Resistance go? In the last month, Democrats gave up a principled government shutdown and a deadlock on the Dreamers because of what? How dare they! Why did they sell out the… Wait, hold on. What did they get? Funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program […]
How to make a weak man feel strong: Throw him a military parade.
Melania wears the perfect sundress for a tank parade. “Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength.” — Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War It was January 1991. We’d just decided to do the war thing again. We launched an attack on Saddam Hussein, a weak man who made a show of strength by invading […]