Like everyone else, I've been following with interest the drama of the Epstein files for the past 9 months or so.
It's obvious that there's something in those files that Trump doesn't want released. But what is it?
It's tempting to assume the worst, and yet, I tend to think that if Trump was implicated as directly participating in the sex-traffic ring, we would know by now. The files might be withheld, redacted or destroyed, but there would also have to be human eye-witnesses to these activities, right? The victims or the other participants would have been able to name Trump, and I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have come forward and named Trump already, if he was truly directly involved.
So, like most people, I believed that the Epstein files must hold embarrassing, but not incriminating, information about Trump. At least that's what I thought 9 months ago.
Since then, it's been astonishing to see what a huge fight Trump has put up to keep those Epstein files from getting released. In fact, many people have even speculated that one reason the Republican leadership was so intransigent about not making a deal on the government shutdown is because they wanted to delay congress reconvening and demanding the release of the Epstein files.
And now that the files have been released, they've redacted so much of it--in blatant violation of the law.
So, there's got to be something really bad in there, right? I mean at this point, how could you think otherwise?
My prediction: I doubt the Epstein files will show Trump was a direct participant in the sex-trafficking right, but I'm guessing it will show he knew about it all along, and did nothing to stop it.
Friday, December 19, 2025
With all the problems AI is currently causing, and has the potential to cause in the future, I'm somewhat mystified by the complete lack of government action. We need strong laws to keep AI in check. Or, we need government programs to be compensate for the huge societal upheaval. (e.g. If everyone is going to be put out of work by AI, we need something to compensate for that. If AI is going to use up all the electricity, then we need a government plan for that.)
And yet what is our government doing? Nothing.
Prediction:
Future historians are going to judge the complete lack of government action on AI to be one of the big failures of our age.
Addendum: Counterpoint:
I regularly read Freddie Deboer's blog, and he frequently makes the argument that both the hype about AI, and the fears about AI are overblown. (See here for one of many posts in which he makes this point.) If he's right, then this post isn't going to age well, and this prediction is going to look pretty stupid in 30 years. If that's true, and you're reading this in the future and I'm totally wrong, then this post will just have to stand as a relic of the kinds of things people were worried about in 2025.
But at the moment I'm writing this, I'm very worried about the future of AI.
The next fad I'd like to complain about is the trend of teaching critical thinking skills in English Language courses.
If you're in the industry, you'll know all too well what I'm talking about. Teaching "critical thinking skills" has been integrated into every textbook and every curriculum.
If you're outside of the ELT industry, it may surprise you to know just how many English language teachers also consider themselves experts in critical thinking skills (*) (**)
I'm not sure how this plays out in other parts of the world, but in Asia (where I've been teaching for the last 20 years), teaching critical thinking has developed into an evangelical mission. As in: "these Asians don't know how to think critically. That's why we, the white people, have to come in and teach them how to think critically." And so every Western English teacher believes that they are on a mission to teach the Asians how to think critically.
There's a widespread belief that Westerners know how to think critically, and Asians don't, and therefore when we have young Asians in our classrooms, we have to make sure we teach them critical thinking.
I believe this view is flawed for several reasons.
1). Western teachers mistake lack of civic engagement for lack of critical thinking
It is true that if you ask a typical Asian teenager what they think about current political issues, they'll just shrug their shoulders (***) and say that they don't know. And a lot of Westerners mistake this for a lack of critical thinking ability. But it's actually just a lack of political engagement.
If you introduce an issue that is personally relevant to the students, they will have strong opinions on it, and they will be able to defend their opinions using all the same critical thinking and persuasive skills that their Western counterparts use.
If you're currently teaching in Asia, then go ahead and try this out as an experiment. Introduce some sort of new rule in your class that is disadvantageous to your students. Tell them that they are going to have more homework. Or that the lateness policy is going to get stricter. Or that they can't bring snacks into class anymore. Or that they can't use their phones in class anymore. Or whatever it is. Introduce some sort of rule that your students don't like. And then, try to defend that rule against the objections of your students. Watch as they careful analyze, and then dismantle all of your justifications for that rule. Watch as they produce counter-argument and appeals to logic in order to defend their positions.
They can actually think critically just fine when their interests are at stake.
2). Western teachers mistake diversity of opinion for evidence of critical thinking
The range of political opinions is often greater in Western culture than it is in Asian culture. And so Westerners often believe that this is evidence that Asians don't know how to think critically.
But, in fact, the wide range of political opinions in Western countries is not always evidence of critical thinking. Within any one of these ideological groupings is quite often a remarkable conformity of thought to their specific political tribe.
Westerners think that they know how to think critically, but they are just as susceptible to logical fallacies as everyone else. Within their political tribe, they are susceptible to cognitive biases that favors information that supports their preconceived opinions. They are also just as likely to fall into group think, or defaulting to their perceived experts within their tribe.
People who actually know about analytical thinking, logical fallacies, and how to critically evaluate sources are very rare. They're just as rare in the West as they are in Asia.
3). Western English teachers quite often don't realize their own lack of critical thinking skills.
Oh, the stories I could tell you about the English teachers that I've known over the years. Perhaps the very nature of the field makes it more likely to attract eccentrics and kooks. I don't know.
Now, I should stress that all of my current co-workers and managers are very reasonable people. I'm talking about people I worked with in the past, and not my current employment.
But in the past, I once worked with a New Zealand woman in Cambodia who believed that global warming was a hoax. She was also responsible for teaching critical thinking to the Cambodian students, because it was part of the school curriculum.
One American guy I worked with in Cambodia dedicated a whole English class to teaching his Cambodian students about how September 11 was an inside job that was orchestrated by the American government. He was also responsible for teaching critical thinking.
I've worked with several teachers over the years who have believed conspiracy theories about common vaccines. They were also responsible for teaching their students how to critically evaluate which news sources were credible.
In all of these cases, people with terrible critical thinking skills themselves believed that they were qualified to teach critical thinking to the Asians.
Now, part of this might be the Dunning-Kruger effect (W). But I also believe that part of this is neo-colonialism. They believed that they were qualified to teach critical thinking, because we Westerners know how to think, and these Asians don't.
So, my prediction... actually it's more of a hope than a prediction, but my hope is that in 20 years' time, the English Language Teaching field will abandon its infatuation with teaching "critical thinking skills" and we'll all look back on this period of ELT history with a little bit of embarrassment.
And in future Delta courses, it will pop up briefly in "The History of Methodologies" section. Something like "...in the early 21st century, it was widely believed that in addition to teaching grammar and vocabulary, language teachers were also responsible for teaching their students critical thinking skills. Now, most English language teachers didn't have any specialization or training in critical thinking skills themselves, but they believed that the basic 4-week training they received on a CELTA course qualified them to teach critical thinking skills in whatever country they travelled to. It was widely believed at the time that the local people of these countries were not able to think critically themselves, and needed the intervention of Western English teachers...."
Or something like that!
Addendum:
I don't have a problem with teaching critical thinking skills per se. What I object to is the widespread view in the industry that English teachers are qualified to teach critical thinking just by virtue of being foreigners.
Actually part of the problem isn't even the neo-colonialist mindset. The problem is that everyone thinks they themselves are critical thinkers and its the other people who are the problem. But people are unaware about how much their own hidden biases are actually controlling them.
If you want to teach critical thinking, fine. But get some proper qualifications first. Don't assume that you can think critically just because you're an English teacher.
For years now, I've also been annoyed by the use of "Critical Thinking" as a buzzword in ELT. For precisely the reasons the TEFLologists mention. Not only in Japan, but also in Cambodia and Vietnam, the buzzword is often used in ELT to imply that Asians have no critical thinking skills, and need to be taught critical thinking by their Western English teacher.
(**) And okay, yes, yes, I know what you're thinking: You're thinking I'm a hypocrite because I have designed my own materials for teaching Critical Thinking lessons in the past (here, here, here, and here). But that was because the critical thinking lessons were already in the textbook, and I was designing lessons to supplement the textbook. I wouldn't have introduced critical thinking lessons on my own initiative.
(***) Okay, technically they won't actually shrug their shoulders. That's a Western gesture. But you get what I mean.
Those of you who aren't in the English Language Teaching business may be surprised to learn how completely National Geographic has taken over the industry in the past 10 years.
National Geographic not only publish multiple English Language textbooks, they publish multiple series of English Language Textbooks.
And the Impact series is published by National Geographic (see my materials for: Impact 2, Impact 3, Impact 4)
...so as you can see from the above list, National Geographic has a lot of different lines of textbooks. So much so that when many schools are considering which textbook to use, it's often a matter not of choosing National Geographic or someone else, but choosing which National Geographic book.
You can also see from the above list, I've put in a lot of time working with National Geographic textbooks and trying to supplement them in the past 10 years.
Now, if you're not in the industry, you may be slightly confused now. You may be saying: "What, National Geographic? What do they have to do with the English Language Teaching industry?"
I believe that they came in to correct a short-coming that the previous generation of English textbooks had had.
In the previous years, English textbook publishers were often either unable or unwilling to negotiate copyrights for authentic materials. So all the practicing readings and listenings were just inauthentic manufactured texts that the textbook publishers made up themselves.
So, for example, a practice listening might contain a dialogue between two people talking about their favorite movies. But because the textbook publishers couldn't use the names of real movies or real actors, they would just use made up names (e.g. the characters would talk about something like "Space Wars" instead of "Star Wars" or "Juliet Robertson" instead of "Julia Roberts"). Or the characters would talk about shopping for shoes, but all the brand names for shoes would be made-up, etc.
And of course, students immediately recognized that it was just a fake inauthentic dialogue that didn't have any relevance to the real world, and they immediately lost interest in it.
National Geographic must have realized this problem. And presumably at the same time, National Geographic started realizing what a huge industry English Language Teaching had become, and what a hugely lucrative market English language textbook publishing was. And someone at National Geographic must have said, "Hey, we're just sitting on decades worth of photos, videos and articles all about the real world. Why don't we use our material to make language textbooks?"
And thus, a new industry was born. National Geographic textbooks come packed with large glossy photo spreads, articles about explorers, the rainforest and the solar system, and tons of video materials. (All the National Geographic textbooks come with video lessons for each unit.)
And it all looks beautiful, and colorful, and shiny, but...
...but the problem is that it all flies in the face of what is supposed to be the dominant methodology in the field: Communicative Language Teaching.
In the traditional Communicative Language Teaching methodology, the reading or the listening text is exploited for some sort of communicative follow-up task, in which the students relate the text to their own lives, and discuss it.
In this methodology, it didn't matter so much that the textbook publishers couldn't get the rights to use real movie titles in their listening dialogue. The point was that the reading and listening topics were on everyday life topics, and afterwards the students could discuss about their own lives.
So the students could listen to a dialogue about two people talking about movies they've seen recently, and then the students themselves could discuss movies that they had seen.
Or the dialogue would be about shopping for clothes, and then the students could discuss about their own shopping experiences.
With these National Geographic textbooks, however, it is very hard to personalize the lessons. The reading and listening texts are often about outer space, or Alaskan Ice Climbing, or the customs of the Masai Tribes in Africa, or Bolivian Wrestlers and as a teacher you look at the text and you think "How in the world am I going to get a personalized communicative activity out of that?"
I was complaining about this to a co-worker the other day, and I said, "I bet in 10 or 20 years, people are going to look back at all these National Geographic textbooks, and think, 'What a silly fad that was.' "
"I bet you're right," he said. "You know when you take the Delta and you have to study the history of language teaching methodologies? And you have to study all these weird methodologies from the history of the field? I bet in the future there will be a section devoted to these National Geographic textbooks."
We tried to imagine what such a history might someday say about our present era of language teaching:
"...it was widely believed at the time that students could most effectively learn English by studying about the tribes in the Amazon rainforest, instead of by talking about things that were relevant to their own lives..." (Something like that.)
We'll see what happens in the next 10 or 20 years, but I'm putting my prediction down now. This will all be regarded as a silly fad one day.
When Trump won in November 2016, I was inclined to see it as a fluke. (Hillary was a terrible candidate, so I figured Democrats stayed home in large numbers, and a lot of right wingers decided Trump was the lesser of two evils.) I also figured that our institutions were strong enough that Trump wouldn't be able to get away with anything blatantly unconstitutional before he was impeached.
I was wrong on both counts. It appears that among the Republican voters, (particularly among white evangelicals) Trump genuinely has a strong base. This is the new political reality, and this needs to be reckoned with.
Trumps voters are not the numerical majority. (Hillary won the popular vote, after all.) But because of the way the electoral college system is set up, they are the electoral majority.
So, in order to change the calculation, what needed to happen? We see a lot of outrage in the streets nowadays, but this passion isn't necessarily going to lead to victory in November. We already had a lot of passion in 2016. We don't need to be increasing our passion, we need to be increasing our converts.
Now, this is all anecdotal, but based just on my Facebook feed, all the conservative evangelicals I'm in touch with are not getting converted. In fact, the more passion and outrage they are seeing on the left, the more they are digging in their heels and retreating into their own world of conservative memes and fake news. (See also Whisky Prajer: Research vs. "Research")
Every day when I log into Facebook, I come very close to losing my patience with these people. "You people are so stupid!" I want to yell. (A couple times I've written, and then deleted a Facebook post complaining about all the general stupidity and gullibility I see regularly displayed on conservative Facebook.)
But here's the thing: it doesn't do any good to get angry about it. And it also doesn't do any good to claim the moral high ground on this (even though that feels emotional satisfying).
Here's the only calculation that matters: Trump won the electoral college in 2016. In order to beat Trump in 2020, we needed to have decreased the polarization and started converting Trump supporters over to our cause. Instead, the polarization has increased.
It was always a mistake to demonize Trump supporters, and increase the rhetoric of Political Correctness on the Left. Instead, what we needed to say to them was: "Join us. A better world is possible, and you can be part of it."
(And yes, if you look through my Twitter feed and blogposts from the past 4 years, I'm as much a part of the problem as anyone. I've also given into feelings of anger over the past 4 years, and I'll own that.)
Keep in mind that in times of political polarization, the President doesn't need to unite the country. The smartest option for Trump at this point is to increase polarization, and then rely on his base to get so angry at the Democrats that they aren't tempted to cross party lines and vote for Biden. It worked for Nixon in 1968 and again in 1972. And it worked for Bush in 2004. And it worked for Trump in 2016.
That, plus Joe Biden has got to be the most uninspiring candidate I can remember in my lifetime. So that's trouble as well.
**********************************************
A couple weeks ago, I made the following joke on my Facebook page:
There's chaos in the streets, and the country is even more polarized than it was 4 years ago. At least the good news is there's no way Nixon could ever get re-elected to a second term now.
Yep, I'm still standing by this analogy.
******************************************************
I've made all these same points on this blog 3 years ago. I know it's bad form to plug your own posts, but I was re-reading my old post from January 2017 Thoughts On the Anti-Trump Protests and Thoughts on a Way Forwardand I feel like it's just as relevant now as it was then. So although I'm tempted to write more here about how self-defeating the left's rhetoric has been over the past few years, I feel like I already said all this back in January 2017, so I'm just going to leave this post here, and encourage you to re-visit my earlier post for a fuller explanation of my thoughts.
Addendum:
I never got a reply to this, but this exchange from a year ago has stuck in my mind, because it seems to be illustrative of the problem:
If "we shouldn't put children in cages" can't appeal to their humanity and "we shouldn't nuke hurricanes" can't appeal to their intelligence, then it's time to admit that Trump voters cannot now or ever be reasoned with.
It's very easy to just throw up our hands in despair, but if some of those Trump voters can't be convinced to change their minds in 2020, then we can expect a repeat of the last election.
But it's 9 months later, and people are STILL arguing about this movie online. (This might be a sign that I'm spending too much time online while normal people have moved on with their lives).
Plus The Last Jedi is now being run on cable TV, and I've re-watched it this week, so I'm going to try to clarify my thoughts.
(Hopefully I'll say what I want to say, get it out of my system, and then move on to doing more worthwhile things with my life.)
To begin with, I'm puzzled about this whole outrage in general:
If you didn't like this movie, that's cool. We're still friends. In fact, within my circle of friends, the whole range of opinions is represented. (People who loved it, people who hated it, people who were luke-warm, etc).
But... the amount of entitled fanboy whining about this movie is truly baffling. (Perhaps this is what the Internet has done to our culture?)
I personally liked this movie. But even if you didn't, the law of averages dictates that not every Star Wars film is going to be brilliant. If a franchise goes on long enough, eventually it's going to produce some bad films. It's just statistics. You can't have every Star Wars film be better than average. There's no magical super-power protecting this franchise from mediocrity. There will be bad Star Wars films from time-to-time. It doesn't mean the whole franchise is ruined. Just suck it up.
What makes all this outrage even more baffling is that this is a franchise which has already produced a lot of terrible entries. Repeatedly. Remember The Holiday Special, those 2 Ewoks movies, that Droids cartoon show, the Clone Wars theatrical movie, and the whole prequel trilogy? Many fans believe that even part of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, was a disappointment.
So why are people acting like the franchise is ruined now?
Thoughts on Re-watching The Last Jedi
My original opinion remains largely unchanged. This is a brilliant film. One of the best Star Wars ever.
...with a few missteps. That flying space Leia was an unfortunate wrong note. And I still don't like how Luke died at the end.
Okay, so it's not perfect. (Perhaps I was a bit overly generous in giving this film 10 out of 10. Maybe 9 out of 10 is more accurate).
Also, I think Phil Christman has convinced me that Luke's character is not consistent with his earlier portrayals. It works fine as a character arc within this film, but doesn't mesh well with the broader continuity. To quote Phil at some length:
We should talk about Luke. Rian Johnson has constructed an interesting storyline about an interesting Generic Grizzled Veteran character who happens not to be Luke Skywalker--impetuous, activist, goes-where-he's-needed practical farmboy Luke Skywalker--on any level whatsoever. Unfortunately, the script requires that this character be Luke Skywalker, and you never get over the fundamental incongruity, despite Mark Hamill's very best efforts. (Hamill has alluded to this, in his characteristically nice way, in several interviews.) Luke's role in these films has always been to present a kind of Christian active love in untheorized, almost unspoken dissent from the superficially attractive but morally appalling Stoicism of the Jedi. (If I had a nickel for every idiot who has told me that Christian ethics "cribbed from" the Stoics. Christianity subverted the Stoics! And thank God! Fuck the Stoics!) Recall that in Empire Strikes Back Yoda tells Luke in no uncertain terms that he's wrong to fly back to Cloud City and rescue Han and Leia, that he's sacrificing both the Jedi code and the Rebellion's ultimate victory. But yet Yoda is clearly shown to be wrong. Luke's choice sets in motion the chain of events that leads to the Empire's downfall and Darth Vader's repentance and is undoubtedly the correct one. In the next film, Yoda sternly orders him not to go and confront Vader, and he's wrong about this too. Luke is shamed, again and again, for being excitable, for being anxious, for caring. (This is presented in the films as a mere vainglory; Last Jedi is particularly hard on this trait, which it unsubtly codes as intrinsically male.) But he's right and Yoda is wrong in every case where they disagree. Indeed, Yoda is so useless over the course of the six Star Wars films that some fans theorize he was a Sith Lord the whole time. To have him appear in Last Jedi, of all characters--looking at least as stupid as the CGI Thanos in the Avengers trailer--and deliver the coup de grace to hidebound Jedi ideology, while Luke looks on, as dumb as he was back on Dagobah watching his ship lift from the swamp, mistakes completely what both these characters are about. Yoda is hidebound Jedi ideology. And while I appreciate that someone in these films has finally made an explicit critique of the Jedi--from movie one, they have always been magic lying dipshits who speak in platitudes and give bad advice--Luke's isn't particularly coherent, nor is he very consistent about it. If he's worried about a warrior elite lording it over the galaxy, he might start by being a little more considerate of the slapstick aliens who act as caretakers of his remote Jedi hermitage. (When he gives Rey her "first lesson," he should have made it be "fix this hole you laser-blasted in the wall and apologize to these nice people." Anti-elitism begins at home, Luke.)
This didn't occur to me on the first viewing, but I've been thinking about it, and Phil is probably right.
Now that Phil has put the thought in my head, Luke's portrayal jarred with me on the second-viewing.
...Although, counterpoint, Movie Bob argues that this is portrayal is just staying faithful to the King Arthur legend. Arthur was young and idealistic in his youth, but became old and jaded near the end, and allowed his kingdom to disintegrate among his quarreling nephews.
Now I'm not sure what to believe. Both sides have good points.
Legacy
Both The Last Jedi lovers and The Last Jedi haters believe that time will vindicate their viewpoint.
The Last Jedi defenders point out that The Empire Strikes back was poorly received on its initial release, but when on to be regarded as the best of the franchise.
The Last Jedi haters point out that The Phantom Menace got an initial positive response from fans before the initial euphoria died away, and everyone realized it sucked.
Me? I'm in The Last Jedi defenders club. I believe that in the fullness of time, everyone will realize this was actually a great movie.
...kind of. Although actually, in another 30 or 40 years, we'll all be in the nursing home, and no one will care what our opinion is. (Boy, it's depressing when you do the math like that, isn't it? But it's true.)
To assume anyone will still be talking about Star Wars at all in the future is to assume that Star Wars is going to be as important to the next generation as it was to us. And that's not assured. (My elementary school students like Star Wars well enough, but it's only one of many franchises competing for their attention).
It's perfectly possible in the future no one will care about this movie one way or the other.
But assuming, for the sake of argument, that people are still debating Star Wars in 30 years, I think this movie will be treated with respect. And some admiration for its ambition.
...although the pacing is an issue. I noted this in my original review, but it was more evident on re-watching. When I first watched this movie, the suspense of not knowing what was going to happen largely held my attention through the more talky parts of this movie.
On re-watching this movie, I was in danger of getting bored during the talky parts.
It's also a little bit too long to sit through.
If you just watch the first half, or if you just watch the second half, it's great. But if you try to watch the whole thing in one sitting, it does get a bit too long.
Like most people of my generation, I've watched the original trilogy more times than I could count. (It was constantly brought out for slumber parties, youth group events, high school parties, et cetera.)
Could you do the same with The Last Jedi?
Maybe The Last Jedi is not meant to be watched over and over and over again like the other Star Wars films. Maybe it's meant to be watched just a few times, and then reflected on. Less of a popcorn action film, and more like The Godfather.
But, okay, enough fence sitting. What is my final prediction on this?
Prediction
It's going to go the trajectory of The Empire Strikes Back. In 30 years time, it will be remembered as one of the greatest Star Wars films.
Links
In addition to being a response to Internet chatter generally, this post is partially a response to Whisky Prajer's post: Does Star Wars need saving?
I was originally going to leave a comment, but the more I thought about it, the more my thoughts grew into an entire post.
(I've been travelling the past week, so you'll have to forgive me being a few days late on this.)
So... another mass shooting, huh?
Allow me, then, to make a couple predictions on what is going to happen in the next couple years. (I've had a history - of - being - wrong since I started this little prediction game, but this time I'm pretty sure this is low-hanging fruit). 1). Absolutely no gun control reform will happen because of this latest mass shooting. (I wish it wasn't so, but it's the cold hard political reality.)
2). There will be another mass shooting within at least two years. Probably within one Year. (I take no pleasure in saying this, but it's just statistics at this point. If our current trends continue, it's likely that we'll have another mass shooting before 365 days have passed. It's a near certainty we won't make it to 730 days without another mass shooting).
In light of all this, if I were the Democrat Party leadership, here's what I would do:
Full out embrace the mental health care aspect of it.
I know, I know, it's ridiculous. (As I pointed out after Sandy Hook, mental health issues are a problem in every country. We're the only country that has regular mass shootings.)
But gun control reform is not on the table yet. It's just not.
And Democrats have been wanting to get back funding for mental health ever since Reagan cut all government funding back in 1981 (W). So if Republicans are putting this on the table, why not take it?
Just say to the Republicans, "Fine, you guys win. I guess this was all about mental health all along after all. Let's just fund all those mental health hospitals just like you guys wanted to."
Then, not only could we get some much needed funding for mental health, also the next time there is a mass gun shooting (and there will be more), then we can say: "Okay, we tried your plan. Now let's try gun control."
This one I'm not 100% sure on. It probably should be more of a question mark. (Like: Trump will resign? Maybe?) But to hedge my bets would be to ruin the game. So I'm going to go ahead and make this an affirmative prediction. I might be right, or I might be wrong, but I'm going with this one.
Here's my logic:
I was reading a news article today, where a protester was quoted as demanding Trump step down for the good of the country. And I thought, "No way, he's not going to do that."
But then I thought about it some more, and I thought, "Actually, he just might."
Think about it: right now, the Republican Party has everything they could dream for: they've got the Congress, they've got the Supreme Court, and they've got the Presidency.
Their only problem is that they've got a huge public relations disaster. And this image problem could cause them some serious political damage down the road.
It's already giving them huge political damage just in terms of their image. But it will also mean that fired up liberals and Democrats might be willing to fight Republicans on every single issue in a way that they might not fight an ordinary Republican President.
Plus, if the protests continue, the country might become ungovernable. (Well, a man can dream at least.)
All those problems would disappear tomorrow if they somehow got rid of Donald Trump. I mean, imagine if Donald Trump stepped aside, and Mike Pence became president.
Now, us liberals really hate Mike Pence because he's got a super right-wing agenda. But to the average non-political American, Mike Pence doesn't have any of the anathema associated with Donald Trump. He's a religious nut, sure, but then so are many Americans. And he's not associated with racist groups, he's not associated with sexual assault and pussy grabbing, and he didn't call Mexican immigrants drug dealers and rapists.
And, let's face it, deep down we liberals knew we would lose the White House to the Republicans eventually, anyway. That's just the way politics works in a democracy. It's cyclical. If the Republican victory wasn't associated with the face of Donald Trump, I think everyone would calm down a lot more.
So, if the Republicans realize that all their problems will be over the minute Trump steps aside, I predict they might sit him down, and have some long, long talks with him about resigning. Put in all the arm twisting.
Donald Trump likes going to rallies. He likes hearing people scream his name in ecstasy while calling for the imprisonment and death of his enemies. He likes going on TV. He likes hearing about how high the ratings were after he goes on TV. He likes grabbing women by the pussy and moving on them “like a bitch.” What Donald Trump does not like, however, is keeping his promises, sitting still for more than five minutes at a time, or doing any kind of work whatsoever, tedious or otherwise. It’s probably why so many of his business ventures were spectacular, blistering failures over the years.
and
But it’s more than just being scared of what he got himself into. Donald Trump is positively miserable. He hates this shit! He doesn’t want to walk around getting a tour with Mitch McConnell. Nor does he want to sit at a boring table next to boring Paul Ryan and talk about boring things that aren’t Donald Trump.
I don't know about you, but that rings true for me for what I know about Donald Trump. He doesn't have the patience for this, and he will get tired of it soon.
So there it is. Check back in a few months to see how this one turned out.
Back in 2009, James Carville released a book 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation (A).
Although I never read the book, I caught blurbs of it on the Internet, and my understanding is that the logic worked like this:
The George W. Bush years were so awful that the generation which political came of age during the 2000s has had a negative impression of the Republican Party permanently imprinted on their young minds, which will likely last their entire lives, and cost the Republican Party a generation.
Of course 2010 came around, and that prediction went straight out the window.
The lesson from Carville's blunder is that political memories are short, and people will always direct their resentment against whichever party is in government right now, and forget about two years ago.
And yet, even though I should know better, I'm tempted to repeat James Carville's blunder, and declare that the Republican Party has probably permanently lost the generation which is coming of age right now.
I mean think about it. If you're a middle-aged republican, you've already been through thick and thin with this party, and you'll probably weather this storm just fine. But if you're at that tender age where your political opinions and party affiliations are just beginning to form, what do suppose the odds are going to be that you'll choose to self-identify as a Republican when you see this kind of train wreck going on in the party?
And although some people do change political affiliation later in life, the majority of people don't change political opinions or allegiances after they reach a certain age. (If you want proof of that, just look at how many people are staying loyal to the Republican Presidential Nominee, in spite of all available evidence.)
So what do you think? Has the G.O.P. lost this generation, or what?
This post comes out of a couple conversations I've had recently with friends, and I thought I'd just throw my thoughts on-line.
Namely: I find it hard to believe that Donald Trump is serious about being President.
I know I'm not the first person to say this. In fact, 6 months ago there were all sorts of articles pointing out that Donald Trump (and many other candidates) benefited financially by running for President (it was tons of free publicity that made them into household names, and they could later cash in on this fame by charging money for speaking appearances, or various other projects).
Also 6 months ago, there were lots of articles pointing out what a huge ego Donald Trump has, and how he just lives for this kind of attention.
However, I haven't seen these articles recently. And fair enough, 6 months ago it was a lot easier to believe that Donald Trump would just ride this wave of publicity for a while, and then drop out. He hasn't dropped out, though, and he's reached the point where he's seriously messing with the Republican Party's electoral process. The joke has gone on far too long for many people to still believe it is a joke.
I recently had a hard time convincing a friend that Donald Trump wasn't a serious contender for President. So I'll just write here what I told him:
Imagine that you are really serious about becoming President. You really want it bad. So you the first thing you do is hire all the best political advisers money can buy, right?
Well, who is advising Donald Trump? No sane political adviser is going to tell him to say the kind of things he's been saying. Either he's got the worst political advisers in the world, or he is just blatantly ignoring everything they tell him.
Compare that to how a serious presidential candidate acts. Every single thing they do is carefully scripted.
Is Trump just unaware that this is how the game is played? Did no one bother to tell him? Or does he just blatantly not care?
Is he really that stupid that he thinks behaving like this is the way to win a Presidential election?
....I just can't imagine that he is! He must know what he's doing.
I don't know what Trump's long term game is. But I'm relatively confident that he doesn't want to be President. So put this one up as my second political prediction this year.
My Prediction
Donald Trump does not actually want to be elected President. Exactly how far he will let this little game go on, I'm not sure. But at some point, if his numbers don't fall on their own accord, he will either drop out of the race, or perform some sort of self-sabotage.
...and now that my prediction is stored on-line, we can check back in a few months to see how I did.
For my first prediction, on Hillary Clinton easily winning this election, see here.
For an extra bonus, for my 2005 review of Donald Trump's book, How To Think Like a Billionaire, see here.
Because these blog archives are stored on-line permanently (and of course by "permanently", I mean "as long as it fits Google's business model to continue to host this blog for free"), I thought it might be fun to engage in a little game of prognostication, and then check back in a year's time to see how I did.
Although right now, dear reader, I imagine you're rolling your eyes and saying, "Oh, way to try to take credit for the obvious ones! I suppose you're also going to predict that the snow will melt in spring."
That is what you're thinking, right? This is pretty much a foregone conclusion, right?
I mean, we're going to have to put up with the media circus for another 11 months, but this is pretty much inevitable.
There's no way that the Democratic Party Establishment is ever going to let Bernie Sanders get the nomination, and so Hillary's nomination is inevitable.
And what in the world is happening over at the Republican Party? They're self-destructing right before our eyes.
There's no way any of these guys could possibly win in a general election.
I mean, seriously, what is happening? Has there ever been a point in history where one of the two major political parties has been in such disarray? (I guess maybe if you go back to the dissolution of the Whig party, or something like that. But certainly nothing within living memory, right?) I can't imagine what future historians are going to write about this whole debacle in 50 years' time.
However, before I as a liberal get too smug about this whole thing, I need to concede three obvious points:
1). The fact that half of the political power in America has gone this crazy is nothing to feel smug about--it should be something that scares us.
2). Although the Republicans are paralyzed in their presidential election bid, they have been doing quite well in congressional and state elections.
3). This is as much about the failure of the Left as it is about the failure of the Right. With the American Right disintegrating into craziness, the American Left should have been an attractive alternative to people. But it's been failing to make any ground.
As for Hillary...
As someone who has been - critical of Hillary in the past, I of course have mixed feelings about her election. But let's face it....it could have been much, much, much worse. As someone once said, there are two political parties in America, the sane business party, and the insane business party. If we do have to be ruled by the business interests, we might as well have the sane party doing it.
