The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Absurd

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Absurd

2017 was a year of inflection.   The shocking and improbable electoral victory of Donald Trump over The Clinton Machine rattled the political order and, indeed, the world order (or disorder), but markets failed to implode as Paul Krugman predicted and the economy picked up steam in 2017.  Missiles flew and schoolyard tweets were exchanged – Trump labelled Kim Jung-Un Rocket Man and the North Korean leader blew raspberries and called Trump a “dotard,” but as of this writing, no shots have been fired.  2017 was a remarkable year – as much for what didn’t happen as for what did happen.  In my year end review, I put forward some of the “best of” and “worst of” 2017

The Good

Trump (and the economy) perform above expectations.

Certainly, he can be blunt, crude, and vulgar.   He attacks down when he need not and sometimes distracts from his policy goals.  He does not have full control over his foreign policy apparatus as of yet, and the messaging between Trump and Tillerson sometimes gets crossed.   But for a president with no governing experience and a mainstream media, opposing party and a Republican establishment arrayed against him, Trump has defied the odds and has gotten quite a bit accomplished in his first year in office, defying the track record of nonpoliticians (like Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwartzenegger) that ascend to political leadership.

• While the Republican Congress failed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, it did get tax reform passed before year end, reducing the corporate rate to 21%, bringing the U.S. in line with other developed nations.   The personal side of the reform bill was not quite what we had hoped for, and we still have a long way to go on the spending side, but the tax bill will make us more competitive.  The tax bill killed the individual mandate of Obamacare.·       
• As important as tax reform was the regulatory rollback.  Trump wrested control of the CFPB back from the bureaucrats, beating back the unconstitutional attempt by Richard Cordray to install his own successor.   The EPA has been hemmed in, and staff has been reduced.  The State Department has been put on a diet.  The Obama strategy of regulating certain disfavored industries out of existence has been quashed.  Net neutrality was neutered.
• The appointment of Neil Gorsuch was a big victory, but Trump is moving to appoint conservative judges on the lower courts.  
• The J.V. was taken off the field in Iraq, and while scattered remnants remain, ISIS was vanquished as an effective fighting force.·        
• After years of North Korea putting pressure on the West, Trump began to put pressure on North Korea with war games and sending 3 carrier groups to the region.  The UN passed additional sanctions that will hurt the rogue nation’s ability to obtain fuel.
•  Despite the MSM’s baying about “Russian collusion,” Trump did something Obama never could bring himself to do--- send lethal arms to the Ukraine, thus raising the cost of a Russian incursion.·
• UN ambassador Nikki Haley courageously asserted US support for Israel, reversing out the US posture of Samantha Power, and further negotiated a reduction in US support of the UN.   
• Pulling out of US participation in the Paris Accord tells the world that the US is no longer willing to be chumps, and underwrite organizations and agreements that disadvantage the US.·        
• Trump admonished the Europeans to live up to their defense commitments and his speeches in Saudi Arabia and Poland were as visionary and supportive of the West as I’ve heard since Ronald Reagan.  And the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland are stalwarts in resisting mandates from Brussels (from Merkel) and are fiercely defending their cultures.·      
• The economy under Trump achieved back to back 3% growth, a number never achieved under Obama, and consumer confidence is at a 17 year high.

Chicago Culture and Achievements

Despite a school system that is in perpetual crisis, violence in some sections of the city and a debt burden that is unsustainable, Chicago remains a city with a rich and vibrant culture all its own.  To be sure, the graft, corruption, taxes and mismanagement makes you want to throw up your hands, pack your bags and leave.  But just as you have one foot out the door, you realize what a treasure Chicago can be.   I took an architectural boat tour on the Chicago River on a balmy summer night with a business association I belong to and realized how breathtakingly beautiful the city can be.   The Printers Row Lit Fest brings together world renown authors and bibliophiles in the South Loop in early June.  The Art Institute is a world class museum and my visit there reminded me of what a fabulous institution it is.  And this year, Chicago added yet another wonderful museum, the American Writers Museum on Michigan Avenue that also sponsors literary events such as an evening with biographer Walter Isaacson.  Together with the Newberry Library and the Poetry Foundation, Chicago, with its own rich literary tradition really has a powerful triad of institutions unmatched by any other city.

And The University of Chicago continued to run the table in Nobel Prizes, as Richard Thaler received the prize this year, bringing the number of current faculty members that have captured the prize in economics to five.  

Music
I stayed away from popular music concerts, although I attended a couple of concerts of old standbys at Ravinia---Aretha Franklin and The Moody Blues.  Both were good, although neither could bring the energy of their former selves.   In popular music, my favorite of 2017 was St. Vincent and her album Masseduction.  The song Los Ageless is the best of that album and has a sexy, fresh beat.   I also liked The New Pornographers’s HighTicket Attractions as my runner up as song of the year.  The country music industry came through again and You Ain’t Worth the Whiskey by Michael Jesch came in at #1 in the country category.

But I turned to smaller venues for music this year and saw some wonderful performers.  The best performer by far was Funkadesi, which played a fusion of funk, Indian and reggae.   The band brought great energy and the blend of cultures was unusual and interesting.  They brought a great deal of energy to the place and enlivened the crowd.   I liked them so much that I am going to see them again at City Winery in Chicago in January.

Books

There were so many good titles to choose from that it was very difficult to pick out my favorites.  In the fiction category, Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar stands out as my favorite.  Spaceman of Bohemia’s plot involves a fellow who becomes the first astronaut of the Czech Republic, after the collapse of the Soviet Union as he atones from his father’s Communist past.   I also liked Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrota.  Perrota’s novel is centered on a divorced woman reclaiming her life after her son goes off to college.  While most of us are focused on the adjustment our children make when they go away to school, Perrota’s book reminds us that adults have to adjust to a new life, too. 

Similarly, I had difficulty picking out a single book as my favorite in the nonfiction category, but the two that I liked best explored and documented very difficult and wrenching eras in history.  The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees relied on documents and narratives previously inaccessible from the Eastern Bloc to put together a complete picture of this horrendous event, showing that the Holocaust was not as well planned or as efficient as heretofore believed.   The brutality of the Indian Wars in America is graphically detailed in The Earth is Weeping by Peter Cozzens.  Cozzens takes a balanced view of the Indian Wars and is somewhat of a counter to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.   Its in-depth study of the Native American warrior culture is an indispensable volume in this area.  Among the interesting insights was that the Indian warrior culture was such an integral aspect of that society—warrior would rather face the superior firepower of the US army than have to tell the women in their tribe that they retreated or surrendered.

Film 

As with music, I mostly stayed away from mainstream stuff this year, preferring independent films, and mostly documentaries.  I liked Jane and Austerlitz a great deal and reviewed them both on this blog.  Of the Hollywood films, Lady Bird was my favorite.  Lady Bird which explored the complicated relationship between a mother and daughter as the daughter prepares to leave for college.   Dunkirk, of course, was an epic film and adds to the great films dealing with WWII—Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List.  

The Bad

• The death of Tom Petty hit me hard—harder than most other celebrity deaths.  I think it was because I did not begin to like or appreciate Petty’s music until a little later in life, even though he hit the scene while I was in college.
• The corporate world was rocked by the Equifax hack and the brutal forced removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight.  Both of these incidents showed us how quickly a corporate reputation can suffer terrible damage by a single incident that goes viral.
• The politicization of sports and entertainment.  The protests of the national anthem by the NFL and various boycotts and statements have left us with few avenues of escape from politics.  Lorde is now cancelling her trip to Israel.  Roger Waters of Pink Floyd compared Israel to Nazi Germany last year.  Lindsay Vonn bashed Trump, said she was not skiing for him in the Olympics (who said she was) and then as if voodoo were at work, fell and injured herself a few days later.
• Pope Francis continued to dive into politics and repeatedly criticized US policy and Trump, yet had very little to say about Russia, Assad, the genocide against Christians across the Middle East, or the threat of North Korea.  He capped off a forgettable year by delivering the blessing at Cardinal Law’s funeral mass.

The Ugly

• ·Cruel and mean comments proliferated on social media, and in the media in general. I was amazed, for instance at the cruel comments flung at John McCain; CNN’s stunningly misogynist labelling of Nikki Haley “a diplomatic prostitute” was breathtaking.
• The sexual harassment revelations—primarily in government and Hollywood were widespread and systemic.   We learned that, like the scandals of the Catholic church, the perpetrators were protected and enabled.  
• Not long after a photo of the beautiful Miss Iraq and Miss Israel together was posted on social media, Miss Iraq and her family began to receive death threats, forcing her and her family to flee Iraq.   What should have been a photo op for hope sadly turned into a statement on the state of the Middle East and its culture of intolerance and hate.·       
• Comedy is comedy but Kathy Griffin’s ISIS-like image of the beheaded Donald Trump went too far, and stretched the boundaries of edginess to the breaking point.
• The killer of Katie Steinle and one of the perpetrators that tortured a mentally disabled man on Facebook both walked.
• Finally, we learned that in addition to shipping $400 million of cash to Iran, freeing Iranians that were acquiring missile technology, Obama had disrupted the efforts of the Justice Department to stop Hezbollah from importing cocaine into the U.S.   The Obama administration, it turns out, was the best friend Hezbollah ever had.

The Absurd.

Finally, 2017 brought in absurdities from the Left that were almost inconceivable.   Larry Summers asserted that tax reform would kill 10,000 people a year.  The MSM claimed that Trump had given orders to talk to the Russians before the election, only to backtrack it.  They criticized Trump for watching T.V., eating two scoops of ice cream, drinking water with two hands and drinking excessive amounts of Diet Coke.  We were told that eating meat promoted toxic masculinity and that Dr. Seuss was racist.   CNN claimed that “It’s a Wonderful Life” is sexist.   Finally, the unchastened Paul Krugman hopes that “the pink pussy hat will become a symbol of our delivery from evil.”

Move over, Gadsden Flag and Liberty Bell.

Happy New Year!   And strap in.  2018 promises to be an equally wild ride.