Fake News

A few weeks ago, liberals had a meltdown when Donald Trump tweeted the following:

"With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?  Bad for the country!"

Liberals interpreted this tweet as affirmation that Trump was about to shut down the free press and eras the First Amendment with an Executive Order, putting a chill on the opposition.

The FCC itself immediately shot down this suggestion, stating only that the FCC believes in the 1st Amendment.

This is the last we've heard of this nonsense.  Trump took no action whatsoever to follow up on this tweet.

There are a couple of ways to interpret Trump's tweet.  Of course, the MSM interpreted it as a challenge to the First Amendment and as direct evidence of Trump's fascist inclinations.

I took it a little differently.  Yes, it was a little too close to challenging free speech for my comfort.  But tweets without action are meaningless.   They are just tweets --petulant rantings.  This tweet is nothing more than that of the guy at the end of the bar that exclaims, "there oughta be a law!"  Trump was, however, correct to call out NBC and the Networks for propagation of unsubstantiated narratives, many of which were initiated with the support only of anonymous sources.  He was wrong, however, to do so while making a statement that could be read to be an implied threat to their license.  If a remark can be read two ways, it will ALWAYS be cast in the least favorable light by the MSM.

And this is the most confounding characteristic of Donald Trump.   He is often right and wrong at the same time.

Meanwhile, while the press and social media were hyperventilating over this tweet, real threats to free speech continue to mount on university grounds across the country.   Those threats have been sometimes backed by actual violence as at Berkeley or Middlebury.  Threats of violence and disruptions have also become more common.

Just in the past week, a Princeton student published an opinion piece that asserted that conservatives have no 1st Amendment right to free speech.  It is troublesome that Princeton actually admitted such an ignoramus, worse yet that The Daily Princetonian chose to print his absurd assertion.  At UC Santa Cruz, protesters crashed a college Republican meeting, claiming that "fascists don't have a right to free speech."  Incidents like these are now all too common across college campuses, the training ground for the next generation of our citizenry.

No, I don't like the way Trump expressed his frustration with the MSM, which often acts straightaway as a public advocacy arm of the DNC.  But without follow up executive action by Trump, I am much less concerned about his misguided tweet than I am about the actual suffocation of free speech in our universities.

Pushback

There seems to be an unending stream of bad news assaulting us.   North Korean nukes.  Threatened pullout of the U.S. from JCPOA with Iran.   The Las Vegas massacre.  Burning controversies over Columbus Day, the National Anthem, and now the Boy Scouts. Trump fighting with Democrats AND Republicans and maybe his own State Department.  Tom Petty gone, pronounced dead prematurely but sadly, he is really dead.  I don’t believe I’ve experienced a more tumultuous time in my lifetime; the 60’s are beginning to look like child’s play.   Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, when the End of History was announced, it appears that the American Experiment, and the notions of individual liberty and the Enlightenment are on the ropes.   State power and supranational power (here and abroad seems to have made great advances. 

Across the West and elsewhere, progressives and globalists have largely been successful since the end of the Cold War in taking power, decision making and accountability away from localized sovereign states and placing it in the hands of an unaccountable body.  Multiculturalism goes hand in glove with this trend—that is denying local culture and social norms, and in particular, denying any claim that the locals have that they like their culture more and putting everyone on the same plane.  Nowhere is this more prevalent than in Europe.  In Europe, the global elitists sometimes go so far as to blatantly deny their own culture, as Emmanual Macron did during his campaign in France, when he asserted that “there is no such thing as French culture.”   That kind of absurd thinking exists only in the minds of the global elite.  There most certainly is a decidedly French culture, just as there is an American culture (and even within America there are certainly regional subcultures).   And politically, separate cultures tend to want the right of self determination----they don’t want to be governed by a far-off group.   

The globalist elite have managed to achieve a greater degree of political power centralization in three ways.  First, through crisis creation.  Whether it be climate change, or, in the U.S.  health care, the Statists have argued that these are big problems that require big government or even supranational solutions.   Second, they label opponents:  xenophobic, Islamophobic, sexist, populist, white nationalist, climate change deniers, and the like.   Hillary Clinton famously labelled her opponents “Deplorables.” It forces opponents to fight the label, rather than argue on the merits of any particular policy.   Third, they argue against the intelligence of the choice of the people as if it delegitimizes them.  In both the U.S. 2016 election and in the U.K. Brexit vote, the MSM took great pains to demonstrate that the people that voted for Trump or for Brexit were, on average, less educated, less informed, and more provincial—the great unwashed masses.  And, of course, the bigger the government, the more it siphons off resources from individuals. 

Across the globe, the forces of Big Government and multiculturalism have largely been prevailing as of late, there have been several notable instances of green shoots of autonomy popping up.

In the U.S. of course, was the surprise election of Donald Trump.  Yes, he is blunt, crass, impulsive, and says odd things.  But as I asserted in an earlier blog, his most significant campaign promise was, “I am your voice.”   As the Obama administration wore on, Obama turned to memos and executive orders to impose his agenda.  Nowhere was that more apparent than the transgender bathroom wars started by an Obama memo.   I don’t know what the right policy is, but I do know that the wrong policy is to have the federal government dictate what should be done by fiat, without discussion or input and impose its will on a local school system.   It was exactly acts like that that put Trump in the White House.

Brexit also was a reaction to an overbearing E.U. busily imposing lots of rules and regulations from afar without any input from the locals at all.    It was also in part, a rejection of the immigration policies of the E.U. which caused social disruption in Europe (more on this in another blog).  One British immigrant told me that the economy of her entire fishing village was nearly destroyed with picayune rules issued by Brussels.  And she further decided to leave when she got tired of working so hard to pay for the social benefits bestowed on nonworking immigrants.  

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are also pushing back.   Seeing what the open door immigration policies have done to the rest of Europe, those countries have asserted their sovereignty and are pushing back hard against the E.U.  Just last week, thousands of Poles lined up at the border to pray for their country.   Each of those countries do have definite cultures and have also had recent experience with Russians (or Nazis) trying to shove their cultures down their throats.   They are willing to withstand the labeling and perhaps the financial penalties to preserve theirs.

Most recently, both the Catalonians and Kurds actually had a vote for independence.   In both cases, the voters voted overwhelmingly to be independent.    In both cases, those peoples have distinct cultures and the yearning for independence has been brewing for some time.   The case of Catalonia was particularly obscene because we witnessed Spanish police in black disrupting and taking over polling places by force and state violence.  One couldn’t help but compare it to the thuggery of the Iranian regime when it put down the Green Revolution.  The Kurdish push for independence is also noteworthy since the resilient Kurds have fought against Saddam Hussein, ISIS, and Turkey for decades.  They continue to fight for liberation in the world’s worst neighborhood.

The genius of our Founders was that they designed a government that largely was intended to vest political power locally because they knew that the farther you get away, the less accountability and deference there is to local social norms and practices.   While we have seen a movement toward centralizing power, there are places across the globe where people are pushing back.

Even voters in Illinois pushed back.   You know there is hope when corrupt, single party Illinois repeals a tax.   In a historic vote, the ill-advised soda tax put into place in Cook County was repealed last week, in a historic vote.   A sure sign that a desire for local control, lower taxes and sanity have not been totally extinguished.

Final Thoughts

I normally don’t write successive posts on the same topic, but the furor over the NFL protests hits home because of my affinity for the game over a lifetime.  And, if you have read my prior posts, I find symbolism to be important in human affairs.  Donald Trump’s comments, like most of his positions, are both wrong and right.  He is entirely correct to call out the players and NFL for permitting kneeling during the national anthem.  No other great nation would countenance that.  He is entirely incorrect when he says that the NFL should pass a rule around standing at the national anthem.  It already has policies around that.  The State should not interfere in private company matters, and the consumers of the NFL’s product will ultimately decide whether they wish to experience public grievance as part of their ticket price.

I attended the first Chicago Bears game of the season at the invitation of a business associate.  As I left and walked through the tunnel, an older African American gentleman with an NFL jersey with the name “Stingley” on the back was navigating through the crowd just in front of me.  I couldn’t help but nudge his elbow.  “Cool jersey,” I said, “I remember watching the game on that day.  It still makes me sad.”  “Darryl was my cousin,” he said.  “I’m so sorry,” I replied.  As some of you older people may remember, Darryl Stingley was injured by a horrific hit by Jack Tatum which rendered Stingley a quadriplegic in a pre-season game in 1978.  It was a horrible thing to have witnessed on T.V.  Sadly Darryl Stingley passed away about 10 years ago at age 55 and Jack Tatum also passed away at age 61.  Stingley and Tatum never spoke after the hit and Tatum never apologized.   Neither reached his 65^th birthday.

The gentleman and I went on to have a nice conversation while we worked our way through the crowd.  We talked about football in the public league (where Stingley and I both played), the South Side of Chicago, and the Bears.  We talked about what we do for a living, our children, the City of Chicago, and a few other things on our way back to our cars.  Two strangers, from two walks of life, two different neighborhoods, one black, one white, connected by the common bond of football and a tragically memorable event.  That’s what football brings.  A chance to unify and to connect in a special way.  By letting political grievances seep in, the NFL is going to destroy these precious moments. 

The NFL has gotten out of the sports and entertainment business and has gotten into the grievance mongering business.   What is NFL football, really?   It is fun, fake inter-city tribalism.   Your guys are going to play our guys.  During the playoffs, mayors get into the act, betting each other some nominal wagers.  The cities adorn themselves in the colors and symbols of their team.   Guys talk about it in bars.  People talk about it around the water cooler on Monday morning.  But it’s all fake.  We don’t really hate the guys in Cleveland or Pittsburgh.  For Pete’s sake, the players aren’t even from that city.  It’s all fun. 

One good aspect of all this is that the reaction to Kaepernick has brought to light a number of unpleasant facts about the NFL and the crony capitalist bedrock upon which it rests.  

But now, instead of a spectacle of fake tribalism the NFL has chosen to contaminate its product with real tribalism, real social tension, and real bitterness.   Most perversely, the league has chosen to permit millionaire players to disrespect the flag, the anthem, and is following the lead of a guy that also sports emblems showing support of Castro and Che and that disrespects police officers. 

It’s disappointing and sad that the NFL has decided to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the left leaning MSM cartel – CNN, MSNBC, NYT and WaPo.  At a time  when we need more platforms and venues that promote unity, the NFL has decided to permit its players to play victim in a way that is perfectly calculated to push us farther apart—by protesting the national anthem and the American flag. 

The reality is that the NFL's business model involves a series of licenses.  In fact, your ticket to a game is actually a license granted by the team that permit you access to the stadium and the game.  TV and cable arrangements are a series of licenses.   But in reality, the licenses flow both ways.  Fans also grant the NFL a license to their time and attention.  In person, pro sports fans are willing to subject themselves to messaging by sponsors of products in a variety of ways-- ads for products and services are placed in programs, around the stadium premises, in the program and on the jumbotron.  At home, we willingly subject ourselves to advertisements and interruptions (T.V. timeouts).  These messages are claims on our time, which we are willing to license back to the NFL.   But now the NFL has begun to transmit political messages which many of us find obnoxious and annoying.  It's one thing to see an ad for beer or razor blades; it's an entirely different thing to see messages from the disciples of a guy that wears a Castro t-shirt and pig socks.  It is abusive of the implicit license on our time that we grant to the NFL.

I won’t be part of it.  It’s sad because pro football (along with college and high school) has been a common bond with many people during my lifetime.  I won’t. If I go to a game, or watch one on TV, I want fake tribalism, not the real kind.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I didn’t leave the NFL.  The NFL left me.

Roger Dodger

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse for the N.F.L., they did.  And it appears that Roger Goodell has now joined a different league--- the league of CEO’s that found a way to take a PR disaster and make it infinitely worse—Equifax, United Airlines, and Pepsi.   But Goodell may, in fact, be in a league of his own now that he has decided to take sides in the culture wars and support N.F.L. players that have chosen to disrespect America and the flag during the national anthem. 

Goodell fired back at Donald Trump’s statement that players that kneel during the national anthem should be fired by stating:

The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture.  There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we’ve experienced over the last month.  Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.

Let’s take this apart, shall we?   Roger, is the NFL creating a sense of unity and our country and our culture by permitting players to demonstrate their disdain for the country and its symbols?   Really?  If so, why did the NFL not permit the Dallas Cowboys to wear stickers honoring the slain police officers in Dallas last year?  Surely, there is no greater sense of unity than mourning those that have died while serving and protecting our communities.

Second, Roger, your statement creates a straw man.  Trump’s comments were NOT directed toward the NFL, the great game of football or ALL of your players.  It was ONLY directed at the players that showed contempt for America and the people that serve it.  While it is laudable that some players and clubs responded to the natural disasters that occurred, the fact is that the league has also been marred by players that have tortured animals and have had multiple instances of violence against women.   beaten their wives and their girlfriends, and have engaged in other criminal behavior.   So, Roger, your assertion that NFL players are Mother Theresas in helmets is a little thin.

The sanctimony and hypocrisy doesn’t end there.  Never mind that there are no protests against the hundreds of African Americans dead because of gang violence in Chicago, and never mind that Mr. Kaepernick is sporting t-shirts with emblems of mass murderers on them.

If you want to examine black exploitation, look at your minor league, Mr. Goodell--- the NCAA.   Let’s get real.  NCAA football is a government sanctioned monopoly that also has the benefit of not-for-profit status.  It is a wonderful farm system for the NFL and a bonanza for the NCAA itself.  Forbes recently published the top valued NCAA football teams with Texas as #1 at $129 million, followed by Notre Dame (not much heard about the racist connotations of “Fighting Irish”), Penn State (the child sex abuse capital of the NCAA), LSU and Michigan.   The top paid state employee in 39 states is either a football or basketball coach.  In NCAA football, 53% of the players are African American (while black men represent 3% of the population at large), but only 10% of the coaches are in FSB football.  In a college system which nets millions to mostly white coaches and the schools, black players are collusively capped at tuition, room and board and a little for incidentals, say $60,000 per year, about the starting salary of a teacher in a small town.  NCAA football is hardly a free labor market.

So if Goodell wishes jump in with both feet with the social justice warriors, he should hope that nobody notices the indentured servitude that the NFL’s minor league fosters (See the book Indentured by Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss)

In the meantime, I wish to thank the NFL protesters and Mr. Goodell.  I am re-discovering high culture on Sundays—museums, art institutes, symphonies, and nature walks.  And my golf game is improving.   You won’t see me wasting any more of my precious leisure hours at an NFL game or watching any on TV.

Maybe Goodell will next want to have Linda Sarsour, Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna as its spokespersons.

Goodbye N.F.L.

Immediately after graduation from college, I signed on to become an assistant football coach at DeLaSalle High School in Bridgeport in Chicago.  Nestled in the shadow of old Comiskey Park, the alma mater of the Daley clan and many other city power brokers and city workers, the school is, and was, a mixture of kids – in addition to the base of Bridgeport students, it had tough Irish kids from Canaryville, middle class white kids from the Southwest suburbs, African-American kids from the adjacent neighborhood and nearby housing projects, Hispanic kids from Little Village and Brighton Park, and some Asian kids from Chinatown.   We had a pretty good team, and had only two losses, one of which was to local powerhouse, St. Rita.

Our team was an ethnic and racial crayon box.  Our secondary had one of everything.  I had one Irish player, one Asian, one Hispanic and one African American kid.   I nicknamed that unit the “Rainbow Coalition,” a nickname that they reveled in.  They were all very coachable, communicated well with each other and took great pride in being one of the best units in the Catholic League.  One day, my little African American cornerback came to the practice field sporting  a headband and wristbands in yellow, black and red colors.  Curtis was an enthusiastic, bouncy kid, with an ear to ear smile that always lit you up.  “What’s with the colors, Curtis?” I asked.  “It’s African pride, Coach.  I have African pride.”  “Well, you should have pride in your heritage, Curtis.  I have pride in mine, too.  But on this field we are all blue and gold.  That’s the rules.  We all wear blue and gold.”  Curtis harumphed a bit, took them off and put them back in his locker.  We went on to a 7-2 season and almost all those kids went on to have a nice varsity career, and many went on to play in college.  While it may have seen a bit rigid to make Curtis put away his African colored apparel, I wanted to make a small, but important point- that whatever tribe you come from, that membership was now subordinate to membership in OUR tribe.

Much has been said and written about Colin Kaepernick’s protests in the N.F.L. and the protests of some of the other players following suit.   I needn’t repeat them here, but I will offer my own reasons for turning off the N.F.L. for now.

Having played football, coached and followed the NFL for nearly 50 years, I always saw football as a great unifier.  No matter what walk of life you came from, no matter what your socioeconomic background, race or religion, if you could run, block, tackle, throw or catch, there was a place for you in this game.  You didn’t need special training or facilities.  Unlike baseball, tennis, golf or skating, football does not require private coaching or expensive equipment to reach an elite level. Football also creates a bond and a brotherhood like no other sport.  Perhaps the most illustrative presentation of this was given by Bill Curry and I urge you to watch his talk “The Huddle” on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGuFy2TBIag).  Unlike baseball, there was no negro league for football.  Yes, it took awhile for the N.F.L. to warm up to black quarterbacks and there as still not enough black head coaches in football, but football was generally at the forefront of civil rights.  Men like Vince Lombardi and Bill Walsh led the league in promoting racial equality.   Unlike baseball and hockey, you have to have at least some college to play professional football and many African American men leveraged their degrees and their playing experience to become extremely successful in careers outside football.  For instance, Alan Page became a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court and Willie Davis received an MBA from the University of Chicago and became a very wealthy business owner in California. 

Football gives us an opportunity to set aside our differences, blot out our problems and for a few hours focus on the contest.  Its pageantry, drama and emotionality lend itself to patriotism.  Who could forget Whitney Houston’s emotional rendition of the national anthem during the Gulf War in 1991?   During the frightening financial crisis in the fall of 2008, when it seemed that the United States was headed for a second Great Depression, football gave us all relief and a distraction from the extreme anxiety for at least a few hours on Sunday.   In my view, football serves to erase social frictions and diverts us from our day-to-day stresses.  That is part of what we are buying when we buy a ticket or watch a game on TV.

But Mr. Kaepernick wants to drag all that back in.  If Mr. Kaepernick and his malcontented colleagues wish to do that, it is their right, but they have thrown cold water on the very reason I (and many like me) watch N.F.L. games.

In addition to ruining a primary reason for watching the game, Kaepernick and his supporters have also shown disrespect for the country as a whole and police officers in particular.  While there are racist cops, to be sure, the vast majority put themselves on the line every day to protect minorities.  By wearing pig socks, Kaepernick is engaged in exactly the kind of behavior he purportedly objects to--- that is disrespecting ALL members of a single group.   And of course, the irony is not lost on NFL fans that police officers show up to games to protect Kaepernick, whose salary is many times theirs. 

In addition to disrespecting existing police officers, Kaepernick’s behavior raises my ire another level by dishonoring the memory of my father.  My father joined the Chicago Police Department in 1958, at a time when African Americans were beginning to join the force in large numbers.  There was quite a bit of friction at the time, but my father willingly took on black partners, befriended them, and had them over to our home.  Other white cops were mean to them, and my father was revulsed by some of the things that other white cops said and did in those early years and he would have none of that.   Like many cops today, my father also put himself on the line to protect blacks.  He was a compassionate man and always treated people fairly and justly.   The pig socks Kaepernick wears disrespects his memory and lumps him with the bad eggs Kaepernick has a beef about.

Kaepernick hasn’t landed a roster spot yet this year.  Many argue that his ratings warrant a job in the N.F.L.  But a quarterback’s job is so much more than ringing up stats.  It is to build a diverse group into a cohesive unit.  Kaepernick by his actions, almost guaranteed to be divisive.  Further, since a large proportion of N.F.L. fans are patriotic people, we have already seen demonstrated evidence that his antics have diminished interest in football.  It’s hard to get a job when you are doing things that have a quantifiable negative impact on the cash flow of your employer.  Kaepernick is to the N.F.L.’s brand what salmonella is to Chipotle’s.  

The N.F.L. is complicit in all this.  The league has rules about everything from touchdown celebrations to minute rules about uniforms.  But it has not taken a stand on the show of disrespect for the flag and the national anthem.   

College students now demand “safe spaces” and football has always been one of mine.  Football is a game that is meant to bring us together.  Kaepernick and others are now trying to use it to tear us apart, and I won’t participate in that if that becomes part of the N.F.L.  You guys sit out the national anthem and I will sit out the N.F.L.  There is plenty of good college and high school football to watch.

Personal Observations

One of the advantages of getting older is perspective.  You can see things evolve on a timeline.   You presumably get better at managing your business and personal relationships because you have seen it before.  You don’t get thrown as often.   And you see things grow and change over time—both good and bad.  

But some things are unprecedented.   I am old enough to remember some of the social turmoil of the 60’s—the race riots after Martin Luther King was assassinated, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam War protests, the Kent State massacre and the 1968 Democratic convention.  The unrest felt scary at times, but I was a young boy.   The unrest today appears to have a decidedly different bend.  The protests of the 60’s were aimed largely at American policies.  The unrest today in many cases is aimed at America and American heritage itself.   Those on the right blame it on the left’s penchant for practicing identity politics. Those on the left blame it on various forces—class, gender, race, exclusion and all that.

But I believe the friction this time has a more fundamental basis.  Over a year ago, my old friend and economist Carl Tannenbaum asked me why I thought a person like Donald Trump had risen to contend for the Republican nomination at this particular time.  I responded with the Bill Clinton explanation, “It’s the economy, stupid.” (and no, I didn’t mean it to be a jab at him).  It is the underlying economic discomfort and despair of a slow growth economy coupled with technological displacement.  And it is being felt mostly in the heartland.  And while Mr. Tannenbaum undoubtedly has access to much more data than I can produce, and is more adept at interpreting it, I offer only my personal observations to suggest that this is true.  America is reputed to be the Land of Opportunity, of innovation and advancement, of continuous improvement and betterment, where each generation can move farther ahead than the preceding one.   And indeed, in the course of my lifetime, I have witnessed great achievements--- man’s landing on the moon in 1969 and the stunning defeat of the world’s third largest army in 100 days in 1991, for instance.  Technological achievements have lengthened life spans, sped up communications, and brought cheaper and a wider variety of food to the tables of Americans.  America is now nearly energy independent or nearly so.

But the places of my childhood present a sobering picture and, I think, are representative of what is going on in the wider heartland.   I had a somewhat bifurcated youth, going to school in an inner city ethnic community in Chicago, but spent my summers in rural Wisconsin.  While time can often distort memories, there are objective observations that tell us that both communities have worsened considerably over 50 years.

My neighborhood in the city was never very wealthy.  Nestled between Bridgeport and Marquette Park, Brighton Park was a blue collar enclave, comprised of mostly Polish, Lithuanian and, later, more Mexican immigrants.  Policemen, firemen, city workers, skilled labor and some unskilled labor made up the bulk of the population.  There were many small manufacturing companies and some larger employers like Nabisco and William J. Wrigley.  The crime rate was relatively low and parks were crowded in the summer with industrial 16 inch softball leagues, and kids jammed the pools on hot summer nights.  In the early 80’s, the Chicago Tribune ran a nice article about how well the Eastern European and Mexican populations got on together.  There was some poverty, but it was generally well-hidden.

Fast forward to today.   Many of the large industrial employers are gone.  A recent documentary film that featured the girls’ soccer team at my old high school (In the Game) spoke of an 80% poverty rate.  Burned out or abandoned houses are not uncommon.  The Catholic grade school associated with my old parish is long closed.  Brighton Park is now  a veritable shooting gallery.  Mothers are afraid to let their children go out and play. Gang killings are a weekly occurrence.   Most notoriously, 10 people were shot last spring at a vigil for others that had been shot.  The level of deterioration of the community is breathtaking.  It went from modest working class to Lord of the Flies in a generation.

But small town Wisconsin too, has slipped, although not as dramatically.   I recently visited and noticed that the little town and surrounding area had noticeably changed from the place I spent my summers.  The landscape, once dotted with old German and Swedish dairy farmers still has some farms but they are much less numerous.   I had a hard time even finding a produce stand.  Many of the homes seem overgrown and unkempt although there are some larger, newer homes that I suspect are inhabited by retirees from Milwaukee or Chicago.   The general store in the little town is now an animal shelter.   The gas station is now a used car lot, filled mostly with clunkers.  The local tavern doesn’t sell food or beer tap anymore, and is dark and musty.  The little decorative stone waterfall and pool in the middle of town doesn’t flow anymore and the pool is fetid and full of algae.  These are all signs of economic deterioration as the once sprightly farming and resort community lost many of farms, breweries, and cheese factories that supported these local businesses.  While not as dramatic as the decline of inner city Chicago, the ebbing is still palpable.

I can’t help but think there are many, many communities across the Midwest that are in visibly worse condition than they were 30, 40  or 50 years ago.   The signs of decline are everywhere.   And I posit that the social and racial discord that we are experiencing today are not rooted as much in animus as in the economic decline that people know and sense.  The photo above is what remains of what was a beautifully maintained red and white farmhouse that was landscaped with flower beds and inhabited by a German family 50 years ago.  The picture says it all.  And it is, I believe, why reverberations are being felt in our country.

Trump Gets Schooled

The conventional wisdom today, especially among Trump supporters is that Trump's tough stance on North Korea got him to stand down.  Kim Jung Un announced that we was not going to fire at Guam after all, after he received plans from his generals to turn the U.S. base into a "ring of fire."  Pundits had been comparing the crisis with North Korea to the Cuban Missile Crisis after it was revealed that North Korea had apparently mastered the technology to miniaturize a nuclear warhead and fit it onto a missile. The crisis persuaded China to cut off North Korean imports of coal, iron and lead.  General Mattis warned as late as yesterday that it would be "game on" if the North Koreans fired at or near Guam. 

The world breathed a sigh of relief when Kim Jung Un announced that it would not do so but reserved the right to change his mind if the U.S. continued in its "reckless behavior."  Memadbers of the administration are high fiving each other, convinced that as in the Cuban Missile Crisis, we went eyeball to eyeball with the Norks and the Norks blinked.

That's not how I see it.   Round 1 goes to North Korea.  Kim Jung Un got all of what he wanted. Trump came away empty handed.   Kim Jung Un played a weak hand masterfully, just as Putin did with Obama.  The man that brags about his negotiating skills got outblustered.

As I predicted, a bad actor would probe the new president to find out where the lines were.  By creating this crisis, Kim Jung Un revealed where all the lines existed.  Last week China announced that the little dictator would be on his own if he fired first at the U.S. but that they would come to his aid if the U.S. launched a preventive war.   Trump responded correctly by bluntly announcing that North Korea would face "fire and fury" if it attacked first.  This blunt language permitted the left wing media to jump to the side of the North Koreans, with the number 2 Democrat publicly stating that Kim Jung Un "is acting more responsible" than Trump.  Others in the MSM voiced similar sentiments.

The only way that the North Korean problem will be solved is through crisis which ends in a negotiation.  Yes, the Chinese implemented some sanctions, but the North Koreans have shown that they can withstand sanctions and over time, those will either be evaded or relaxed. Now that the crisis has abated and he has successfully recruited the American Left as an ally, there is no immediate pressure to pressure the Chinese into leaning into him harder.  The consequence is that Kim Jung Un will, over time, find Chinese sanctions relaxed, the Americans relying on deterrence, and he has learned where everyone's "reserve price" is.  

Well played.  He will keep his program.  And soon the Iranians will have their nuclear missiles too.