Mornië Alantië (A Promise Lives Within Us Now)

These may seem like darkness has indeed fallen, when Americans are being attacked while exercising their most fundamental freedom to protest, and the attackers are the agents of their own government. There have been some violent protests with destruction of public and private property, and a disproportionate number of attacks by heavily armed police on crowds marching to protest, ironically, the excessive use of force by the police. The president of the nation, in words reminiscent of Tsarist Russia or any absolutist government of your preference, has threatened to unleash the military against the civilian population, in the name of restoring "law and order"; one's attitude to this proclamation depends strongly on one's existing trust in his leadership. But a good sign of his true thoughts were revealed when he advised the states' governors that they needed to "dominate" their citizens through use of overwhelming force. Even more telling, however, was his statement in that same meeting that failure to crush the protests would make the governors look weak and foolish. And, so even as Washington DC is flooded by faceless but heavily armed paramilitary forces to help the president show his strength and courage, even as police cars mow into crowds of civilians, even as peaceful protesters are subjected to pepper balls that are not technically "tear gas" despite having much the same effect, even as crowds of Americans are attacked by police with batons and pepper spray, even on those nights when the nation burned and the shining city on the hill tethered on its foundations (seemingly made of sand, rather than the rock we always imagined), even in these darkest of times, I could not help but feel that things were never better, and was already smiling in anticipation of a much brighter tomorrow.

Let me start by saying that it's much easier for me to brush past the institutional racism suffered by most Black Americans. As an Indian, and a graduate engineer, I enjoy a position that is denied to black Americans who have been born in this country. But I am rejoicing not for myself, but for all victims of injustice in America. This is not the hopeful dream of a perennial optimist, but a reading of reality. As an outsider, I have the advantage of seeing the bigger picture in a way that is hidden to those living, and suffering, through the actual events. As a person, technically, of color (a term that I have the privilege to brush off without consequences, a privilege denied to black or Hispanic Americans), I do not suffer the burden of white Americans who struggle with the guilt of not having solved the obvious issues of racism and injustice, with the guilt by association of having family and friends who voted Donald Trump into power. Neither black or white Americans are free enough of their involvement in this tragedy unfolding before them to see that the dark clouds enveloping them have not a silver lining but that in fact the dark cloud is but a spot in a much larger bank of dazzlingly silver clouds.

The world has changed tremendously in the last dozen years. For black Americans, and for white Americans who are capable of human empathy, it may seem that the last eight years have seen nothing but a wall of shame covered with a mosaic of murdered Black men and women, people cut down for the crime of being black rather than any crime they may have actually committed. No crime deserves a death sentence, much less one executed before trial and with chilling finality. Eric Garner was selling cigarettes illegally,  Michael Brown had stolen a box of cigars using force, Walter Scott had an outstanding warrant over child support payments but not since medieval times have we executed people for such minor crimes; Trayvon Martin was walking home when a (non-police) vigilante followed him and an ensuing scuffle ended with him being killed, Philandro Castile was shot in a routine traffic stop, Tamir Rice was shot and killed for playing with a toy gun, Breona Taylor was shot in her home by police executing a "no knock" warrant (at the wrong place, just to make it worse, but that detail shouldn't even be important). On the face of it, George Floyd may seem like just another name on a long, endless and shameful list. But each death has moved the weight of public opinion towards its watershed moment. For the dead, for their families and for many in the communities that suffer and fear each day, the movement may seem glacial, and long overdue, and I cannot deny the justice in that sentiment. But I prefer to look at how the majority of the country is waking up to the injustice perpetrated in their name and finally they stood up and said, "No more!"

When Ferguson, MO exploded in anger, the right-leaning press could highlight that the race of the protesters and use that as rationale for ignoring their demands for justice. When Baltimore burned after another Black Man was shot by police, President Trump could insult the whole city and its black citizens and despite some objections, he could get away with it. But today, there are white people marching in the streets besides their black brethren. Liberal stalwarts of course have spoken up in the past, but too many other people sat quietly and allowed a matter of justice for all become by default a matter of the color of one's skin. When whites and Asians sat on the sidelines, the only voices raised in a demand for change were black and it was easy for their opponents to recast this as racial battle and racial issues make everyone uncomfortable and so too many of us walked on by like the priest on the road to Jericho. But not this time! Finally, we have seen that this is not just a matter of race, it is a matter of justice and equality and simple humanity. Of course, race played a role in the events that led to the murder of George Floyd and Breona Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery but they deserve justice, not because they were black or their killers white, but because no one should be killed the way they were murdered and finally America has realized that we are only as good as the worst of our responses. And so a chorus of new and powerful voices joined those who have struggled alone for years. Taylor Swift, once raised up as paragon of white womanhood by white supremacists (without her consent and against her desires) has gradually thrown of the shackles of fearful silence. She has found her voice now and leaped to the front lines (metaphorically) adding the power and reach of her enormous pulpit to spread the message.

One of the most uplifting and hopeful stories came from Minneapolis after the first nights of violence. A Bangladeshi immigrant restaurant owner saw his life's work burnt to the ground, and his response was, "let it burn, we need justice for George Floyd". He understood that the violence was not against him, that this fight was not just the fight of the blacks but a struggle for justice and as such it was  fight for all Americans - and coincidentally his restaurant was named Gandhi Mahal, honoring the greatest apostle of non-violent advocacy in modern history. The same sentiment was articulated by Hasan Minaj, in one of the rawest, most powerful segments of his Patriot Act I have ever seen. Now Hasan is not a surprising supporter of justice and equality but he turned the spotlight inward and challenged each of us, especially those with brown skin, to face up to our inner racist. Racism is not an easy issue, and is rarely defined in black and white, or between blacks and whites, but all Americans are now thinking of this, and only good can come from this introspection.

When Colin Kapernick knelt to protest police brutality, he was pilloried as unpatriotic and somehow the fight for justice morphed into respect for the troops. The only men who stood with him were black and white America complained that they did not want to see their football sullied with such unpatriotic behavior. That was three years ago, but today the world has changed and we have Carson Wentz and Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady speaking up for justice, voices that were conspicuously absent in the past. White coaches in the NBA like Greg Popovitch and Steve Kerr supported their black athletes, but the NFL remained tightly focused on their bottom line. Till today! Now we have thoughtful statements from a long line of football executives from Bill O'Brien to Brian Flores to John Elway admitting the mistake of their past silence. The few discordant statements from Vic Fangio and Drew Brees have been contested and since withdrawn - to be clear, they have every right to have their opinions, but they have been challenged and corrected on facts and have been forced to acknowledge reality. College coaches too have added their voices in support of change. For decades, the colossus that straddles the professional wrestling world has been a bastion of conservatism, and Vince McMahon has never been shy about casting all political positions he dislikes as unpatriotic and using the theater of the ring to humiliate those fictionalized and conveniently buffoonish enemies. But today a legion of his stars are standing proudly for justice, and some of them have marched in solidarity with the protesters. Like the NFL, other corporations are flocking to be counted on the right side of history, from Amazon to Nike to Uber and Lyft and United Airlines and Target and Snapchat and Twitter.

The swing in sentiment in Corporate America is telling. Corporations, and the NFL is one of them, have no moral compulsions, they do not make decisions because they are morally right. It is not a knock on corporations, per se - they are (with deference to the US Supreme Court) not people, they are amoral entities designed to maximize profit. They have not joined the calls for change because it is the morally right thing but because they realize that to oppose it, or even pretend that the problem does not exist, is against their own interests. The NFL and every other corporation are soulless but they depend on their workers and patrons and they have seen the signs - the public mood has shifted and it is time to align with the new winds of change or suffer loss of both staff and consumers. The change in the corporate mood is a sign that American sentiment has moved towards the light and the smarter and more nimble corporations are proving that reality.

The final, and most important proof that change has come, that it is now inevitable, is provided by no other than President Trump. His determination to crush the protests, his insistence on demonstration of strength stem for sheer terror on his side. He is scared, frightened that he can no longer bully the country nor gaslight them into apathy and his every move proves his weakness. When George Wallace threatened blacks during the civil rights movement, when Hosni Mubarak sent his army into the streets of Cairo, when Ferdinand Marcos did the same in Manila, when Indira Gandhi suspended the Indian parliament in 1975, when the Communist Politburo attempted a coup against Gorbachev in 1991 as the USSR crumbled, they were none of them acting as leaders secure in their position and they all fell before the strength of popular protests. Donald Trump is scared, as all those leaders were scared and his fantasies (and may they remain fantasies) of unleashing the military against American citizens stems from his knowledge of his own weakness, not matter how he may try to dress it up as strength. Strength never needs to strut and demonstrate its nature, a strong government has no fear of its own people. And in a democracy, the strength of a government derives from the support of the governed, not from the number of jack-booted stormtroopers it can line up in the streets.

Sometimes, governments manage to crush their people, as Deng Xiopeng did in Tienanmen Square. But the United States is still a democracy and I believe in the American Experiment. Despite all the damage done over the last three years, I believe in people and I believe that today a critical mass of the population has moved past sitting silently and passively while their fellow citizens suffer. And with each act of violence by the police, the case for change is made ever more clear. Perhaps Trump will survive this, perhaps the protests will dissipate, but I do not think it will be that easy. Change is coming and in the words of Viktor Lazlo (Casblanca), "This time I know we will win!"

When the night is overcome, may you rise to see the sun!

Reality Strikes Back

It's been a long while since I've blogged, not because of a lack of material nor even a lack of things to say, but it's been a soul crushing three years and counting. In 2016, the people of the United States decided that a conman and liar, who also happened to be a really bad businessman and very possibly enmeshed in myriad deals of dubious legality, was the best option to run the country, over a woman whose resume included being First Lady, US Senator and Secretary of State. It is at this point quite worthless to go back into what drove nearly half the country to choose certain ineptitude over proven skills, but enough people in enough places did so, and so this country will forever have Donald Trump in their history books as the forty fifth president of the republic.

The bigger question is whether time has led to a change in viewpoints, and strangely enough it appears that a very significant, perhaps even an overwhelming majority of his original supporters have not changed their minds at all and have simply doubled down on their support despite a long litany of failed promises and dismal incompetence, always playing out against a backdrop of corruption and pettiness. Through it all, the core supporters of the Republican Party have stood staunchly behind Trump and in doing so, ensured that no GOP representative or senator should feel a sudden twinge of duty to the country they pledged to serve. They stood shoulder to shoulder through the generally pointless trade wars - many of them may believe that the US is winning the trade deals, and it is unlikely that facts would sway them. They've not even blinked at the policies enacted or embraced by this administration that are polar opposites of what was promised by Trump while campaigning. They've been unfazed by insults and worse heaped upon uniformed military officers by a man who claims to be the biggest supporter of those same soldiers, not to mention their glee at the insults directed at all other perceived opponents, which basically means everyone who does not kiss the ring their leader. The principals of democracy have been undermined at every turn, and like Senator Mitch McConnell, they care not whit. But worst of all, they've shrugged at the continuous loss of trained professionals from every department of government.

Sadly, the GOP for the last forty years, starting at least with Reagan, have distrusted people who are experts in their field. This has allowed blowhards and conspiracy theorists to rule supreme in the non- elected circles that exert such massive influence over the party. Such disdain naturally extends to all people of science and this party would rather believe in miracles and magical ideas than embrace reason. So much so that any scientific position that disagrees with their established worldview is suspect, and scientific theories backed by mountains of emperical evidence are treated at best as no better than articles of religious faith - never mind that one does not "believe" in science, one understands it or one doesn't - and far more often, science is held to levels of proof and scrutiny that none of their preferred claims ever do.

Now we are seeing what happens when a modern government purges its ranks of all apolitical experts who refuse to bend to the injudicious and sometimes unethical, even illegal, whims of a president woefully unequal to the challenge of the office he holds and surrounded by a cabinet of spineless yes-men. Scientists and professional administrators have been forced out and not been replaced, their expertise lost forever and dismissed with a wave of the hand by the president. For three years, we dodged disaster mostly by luck, but the COVID-19 pandemic has left us with nowhere to run, with no fig leaf to shelter behind.

It didn't have to be this way. To be sure, few countries have covered themselves in glory through this pandemic. It's true that the World Health Organization has made mistakes and stumbled quite badly, and only time will tell if their early mistakes were coerced by China in part, or just an honest oversight. But the US was supposed to have it's own premier organizations that would either reinforce or critically examine WHO guidance and act as an additional line of defense. The teams that were set up specifically to study pandemics and identify them before they became too big to handle were disbanded or shunted aside; whether they were ignored or incapable of identifying the problem remains a question to answered in the future, but it appears that well before the wave of the epidemic hit American shores, there were warnings from the intelligence community. One has to wonder if a more independent cabinet might have insisting of engaging the president if he was dismissive of the threat, or if a more mentally acute and engaged president might have recognized the magnitude of the threat gathering on the horizon. It is tempting to believe that former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as Hillary Clinton, would have been more aware, not only because they are more intelligent, more engaged in the world beyond their immediate family business and would have certainly listened to their intelligence briefing attentively (not to mention that their briefing would have been more detailed by their choice).

If facts have any meaning the sudden sell-off by several GOP congresspersons who heard classified intelligence briefing of looming stock market weakness must count as one of the more amazing coincidences of modern history. Yet the US government did nothing to prepare for the real problem and even when the virus had begun to spread within the country, the government reacted with nonchalance and bluster, led by the president himself who likened it to the normal flu and insisted that it would vanish in a week or two. Perhaps the real revelation in Trump's statement that the fifteen cases in the US at the time of his infamous statement would soon resolve to zero is that it shows how little he understood of the nature of the problem - he either didn't know or didn't understand that we had not tested people who had been in contact with the infected patients and that there was no way to realistically predict that the cases would immediately reduce. Of course, this president has never cared for reality and his supporters have rewarded his lies with blind belief - from claims that the testing shortage had been solved long before it was (even now we don't have the ability to do contact tracing and have pretty much abandoned that approach) to claims that Russia and Saudi Arabia were about to make a deal to save the oil industry (Russia rather cavalierly denied any talks had even started), Trump has lied casually about any and every issue. But while his lies may comfort his supporters, reality has finally broken past is wall of denial and while he may use the power of his position to petulantly to uncomfortable questions or profess total ignorance about the problems plaguing ever more cities across the country, the reality confront the country can no longer be really ignored. That initial denial of reality was all the way back in late January, when we had a dozen cases or so. The US did not cross a thousand cases till nearly mid-March, six weeks time during which we watched South Korea and Taiwan implement successful counter-programs, while Italy showed us the dangers of poor preparation and inadequate reaction. This was a time when we could have mobilized to to be ready. We would have still faced thousand of cases - the US is too big and too open a country, to factitious to marshal the same way as was done in Taiwan or South Korea. But we could have been prepared a lot better and maybe we would not have gone from one thousand to three hundred thousand in barely three weeks.

This a failure of massive proportions, and  Trump is not solely responsible, just as he is not solely responsible for the racism and xenophobia now running rampant in the country. But just as he pulled away the curtain and released those forces into the open, and acted as cheerleader for them, in the same way he presided over a weakening of the government, he tore down the institutions that informed the country and raised himself as the sole voice of government and whether he declares that he is not responsible for any failure (though he is quick to claim credit even when none is due and he is the only one offering himself plaudits), history will judge him far less kindly and will lay the eight thousand deaths (and counting) and the massive wrecking ball taken to our lives and economy squarely upon him. Would that the country had been spared this by seeing the inevitable in 2016 but we can only hope that we emerge from this nightmare in 2020 with a renewed understanding of the importance of science, intelligence, expertise and above all, empathy.

Flagged for Notice

It's been some weeks past, as Hurricane Maria (aptly sharing the same name as my sister and just as destructive) pummeled Puerto Rico, and one would have imagined that the government of these United States would be wholly focused on succoring that island. But these are not normal times and this government is not led by a normal man, to say the least. So instead, the President of the US chose to attack a group of professional athletes for protesting police brutality. As in any issue involving this president, there is a lot to unpack, and that section of the populace that supports him unreservedly has turned near instantaneously against their favorite sport and teams. The level to which the president's supporters have truly turned their back on football remains to be seen - and early indications are that the promised boycotts are more noise than action - but if nothing else the protests embraced across the league and still ongoing - albeit more muted - have made it near impossible for anyone to ignore that there is major rift in American society and that at least one person would rather expand than heal this division.

The issues that animate the protesting players first exploded on the national stage more than three years ago and I addressed the underlying tensions back around then; since Ferguson, the spotlight has only illuminated a depressing parade of cases, some similarly ambiguous, others seemingly clear cut. But whether shaded in grey or sharply di-chomatic, they have all one thing in common - they involve police and a (usually unarmed) black man and end with a dead civilian and no consequences for the men in blue. The seemingly unending repetition, with minor variations have animated protesters seeking justice and a conversation on racial inequality and police brutality; some, like Black Lives Matter and their acolytes, demand they be heard but are less interested in a dialogue, while others, like the players of the National Football League have chosen to silently but visibly make their plea for attention to this wrenching and painful issue. From the moment that former Forty Niners quarterback Colin Kapernick started the movement by protesting during the national anthem, he and those who followed suit have faced an intense backlash, especially among their fans.

The protesting players have faced criticism, which largely falls into four categories: the player is terrible at football, he's a nobody/rookie, why are they ruining football with politics and finally, their job is to play football, not talk politics. It's truly difficult to determine which of these arguments is most disingenuous or irrelevant. The footballer's skill at catching a ball or hitting other players trying to catch the ball (to put it simply) has nothing to do with his understanding of social issues, just as the length of his tenure in the league hardly affects his connection to issues that he has usually grown up experiencing first hand (sadly, the fear and disconnect that young African Americans experience with police on a daily basis is so uniquely their own that no one else in America can begin to truly understand it, and it's something that is tied deeply to the color of their skin not the length of their purse). When someone objects to the protests "ruining" their enjoyment of football they are objecting to being forced to confront uncomfortable realities that they would much rather pretend didn't exist; these same believers in the purity of the sport never minded when the NFL made a deal with the Defense Department to line up the players on the field for the national anthem as a prop in a propaganda effort. Perhaps the most insulting though is the suggestion that the players should "stick to football" - this mind you, in a country that just elected a reality TV star with no political experience and routinely disparages politicians - as though political and social issues are somehow divorced from one's everyday life.

Using a public and widely viewed forum to draw attention to a perceived problem is a long and time-honored tradition. Equally, it is hated by those who feel most challenged by the protest, and their outrage is directly proportional to the success of the protest. The raised fists by black Olympians on the medal podium provoked anger, Mohammad Ali's political views were excoriated. And now a peaceful gesture by football players is portrayed as an insult beyond compare against the country, the anthem, the flag and most mystifyingly, the active and retired military. Let's start with the protest gesture itself - back in the land of my birth, I grew up with the idea that the only acceptable stance during the national anthem was standing rigidly at attention. But the world at large accepts many other attitudes of respect. I've watched soccer teams stand with arms over each other's shoulders as their nation's anthem plays, in the US standing with one's hand over one's heart is a popular stance. Kneeling is probably the most respectful stance and its sole objectionable aspect is that it is intended to draw attention. Colin Kapernick started the current round of protests last season, and was joined by a handful of other players; when he first protested he sat on the sidelines, but changed to a kneeling stance after talking to a teammate who had served in the military. The protests, stretching over a year, never overshadowed the national anthem, nor the game - the protesting players knelt silently while the anthem was sung and then put everything else aside to focus on the job for which they were signed and paid, playing all out to win their football game.

Over the off-season the protests receded from public memory and with the new year of football and Kapernick no longer on a roster, it seemed that the world was ready to move on. Until the president, in the middle of what was supposedly a stump speech for a Senate candidate and seemed more like a paean of self praise, decided to resurrect the issue and escalate it into a full blooded attack on all football players. He called for players who knelt during the anthem to be fired. Some have accused him of violating the players' First Amendment rights, but this is a gray area at most. The NFL owners have every right to fire the players (within the bounds of their contracts and league rules, of course) and the players have no First Amendment protections from a corporate employer; but things get a lot murkier when the president uses the prestige and position, if not the power, of his office to call for their dismissal and claims credit for Kapernick's continued lack of employment in the NFL.

The biggest claim in the president's complaint was that protesting during the anthem insults the country and military - a relatively new line of attack on the protesters, inspired perhaps by the lack of traction gained with other criticism. I have long loved Dr. Johnson's famed line that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, and there is a strong hint that Samuel Pepys' friend would have immediately identified the president and all his men as deserving of the epithet. There are no shortage of self-described patriots and retired military soldiers and officers who agree with the president. But peaceful protest is the soul of a democratic society. A lot of critics of the protests say that the protests should be done at some other time or venue; what they actually mean is that the protests should be done at a time when it will be easy to ignore. Kneeling is not an insult  - Quakers knelt outside prisons to protest conditions, democratic protesters have faced down armies by kneeling quietly in front of tanks - and is the most humble and powerful use of non-violent protest and most critics object mainly because it draws the attention of thousands of fans to the protester and forces them to face uncomfortable facts.

There was a chance for the president to rise above partisan divisions, had he so chosen. He could, at the least have ignored the issue. He could have offered a reasoned argument against the protests, though I'm not sure what that might look like. He could, had he desired to go on the offensive for his own reasons, highlighted the many problems with the protest's posterboy and initial instigator - Kapernick has shared deplorable social media posts against police, as reprehensible in their broad attacks as any criticism of the Black community as a monolith, he has worn clothing likening police officers to pigs, which is unhelpful at best and undermines his calls for dialogue, and he declined to vote in the presidential election, on the spurious argument that there was no difference in the candidates (irrespective of one's preferences, it's hard to see the two as indistinguishable, except by buying into the idea that no white politician can ever bring about change for the better on justice for minorities - as insulting as any racist belief and furthermore ignorant of history). The president could have done many things, but chose to pour gas on the fires of racial tension, and history will eventually judge him harshly, his own glowing self reports notwithstanding. Today, with no real end in sight to the NFL protests, or the larger racial divides and social inequalities, this country needs a dialogue - a respectful conversation in which all reasonable voices are heard, in which the concerns of both minority rights and police concerns are addressed, even if only to weigh the relative importance of each. This is a conversation in which neither Black Lives Matter nor the president have any positive contribution - they represent two sides of the same coin, and their shill and divisive rhetoric serve only to exacerbate the already deep divisions that rive the body politic. But assuredly we must find a way to bridge our differences and come together or prepare ourselves for far worse problems. We face enough challenges already and, as Ben Franklin noted, presciently one might say, we must hang together or assuredly we will hang separately. We may not agree with them on all points, but that's never the point. Rather it is to engage and listen to opposing viewpoints when presented thoughtfully, and through dialogue and exchange of ideas, reach an understanding and gradually narrow our differences, heal the wounds and eventually rise to new and greater heights as a unified society.

(I've said several times that we need a conversation and part of the reason that I never lose hope in the idea of the United States, even when they elect a president like Donald Trump is that we have arch-conservative publications like the Weekly Standard that reacted to the president's petty squabble with the NFL players with a thoughtful discussion piece - I may not agree with them on all points, but I love that they addressed the issue in a sober and reasonable tone)

Art of (Botched) Deal - Small Stick, Big Voice

In the eyes of his supporters, President Trump has taken a long-overdue position against North Korea, finally jettisoning years of weak responses to that nation's misbehavior and provocations, and has drawn a bright line with his forceful warnings about the consequences of any further bellicosity from Pyongyang. To his legion of detractors, however, statements by the US president this past week have pushed the world closer to war, a war that could start by mistake or through miscalculation, and in their view, achieved nothing positive while tearing down years of carefully crafted work. The truth, as it often does, lies somewhere between these partisan extremes, but closer to one than the other.

There is a generally universal opinion amongst  defense analysts in the US and allied nations that North Korea has been testing the limits of American patience. In the view of the president, and to a lesser degree among his fellow Republicans, it was the forbearance and (in their view) timidity of the preceding Obama administration that has emboldened Kim Jong Un in his brazen behavior. However, it is worth noting that while never particularly tractable in the past, Pyongyang went to a whole new level of provocation after the Trump administration took office. If anything, Kim's government decided that they could get away with more and establish new boundaries with the new government than they had tried before the change of guard in Washington.

It seems certain that Kim has misread the US government to an extent, and some of the error can be attributed to the lack of communication with and understanding of the US government. Kim Jong Un, handed absolute control of his country like some princeling from a bygone era and accustomed to ruling by decree, appears to imagine that other world leaders enjoy that same unfettered power and sometimes seems unable to comprehend the concept of checks and balances that under-gird a democratic government. Absent direct contacts between the two nations and very limited contact indeed with any outside nation, North Korea must rely on their embassies in the West to explain the world to Pyongyang; wary diplomats, unwilling to tell their masters unwelcome news, have almost certainly provided a slant that suited the prevailing views of the North Korean leadership.

But while the self-imposed isolation may well contributed to the confusion, no small part of the blame must lie at the feet of President Trump. He has spent the six months since his inauguration sending out conflicting and confused signals. He has openly backed away from positions of the preceding government simply because they had been embraced by Obama, from trade and climate change treaties to alliances and strategy. Worse, he has praised despots and undemocratic governments, mused offhandedly about the advantages of nuclear proliferation (suggesting that Japan and South Korea should develop their own nuclear weapons) and casually contradicted his administration officials and even himself from week to week. He demanded Chinese assistance in reigning in Pyongyang, but never offered them a clear deal or a reason to follow America's lead - in this, he followed (and possibly outdid) a long standing US mistake of expecting foreign governments to act in the best interests of USA rather than themselves. Whatever diplomatic push was underway with China may then have been undermined when Trump's government suggested that they had bombed Syria as a gesture and warning to China - a statement and action seemingly designed to block rather than enhance cooperation between the governments over North Korean intransigence.

The Syrian strikes may even have had a reverse effect on North Korea. The impunity with which the US and Israel (and France and other allied nations) launch attacks upon Syrian targets may well convince nations who fear becoming future targets that their best, maybe only hope of survival is to acquire weapons that can deter US action permanently; for North Korea that holy grail is a force of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the US homeland with nuclear warheads and thus buying them the same immunity of the erstwhile Soviet Union or Red China. Bellicose statements early in the Trump administration, provoked in part by North Korean missile tests, possibly reinforced the fear in Pyongyang that Washington sought to overthrow their kleptocracy (a fear that also animates China who wants neither the deluge of refugees that would flee a collapse in North Korea nor the expansion of South Korean and US influence, unchecked, across the entire peninsula). For a regime determined to remain in power the lesson was simplicity itself - obtain the very weapons that USA was so determined to deny them for only by threatening Armageddon (and credibly threatening millions of US lives) could their tiny nation survive American aims upon their future. Vice President Pence when reassuring US allies in South Korea of American resolve in their defense may well have calmed fears in Seoul and Tokyo but likely set off a massive alarm in Pyongyang.

The worst part of American action in the last six months has been the bombast, in the truest sense of the word. The threats are bad enough, when conveyed indirectly to a paranoid government, and unlikely to achieve overmuch success. But threats, when demonstrably lacking in seriousness and backing are worse than no threats at all. When the President famously claimed to have sent a naval armada to confront North Korea, his words rang hollow when the Navy was forced to admit that the ships in question were headed in the opposite direction and that the immediate show of force promised by the president was in fact a week or two from fulfillment. It wasn't that the world expected the ships to be teleported to the Sea of Japan overnight, but when it's shown that plans at the operational level bear no resemblance to their forceful characterization by the commander in chief, the dissonance and emptiness of those threats is what the observers remember. Imagine if you will the effect of Caesar crossing the Rubicon not with the Tenth Legion but just a couple of buddies and a company of infantry, with the bulk of his army to follow the next year.

Time and again, Donald Trump has demonstrated that he does not understand the weight and import of his words as president of the world's greatest power. When he remarks that he would be, in his words, honored to meet Kim Jong Un, it sends a message to all his listeners. The dictator in Pyongyang sees it as acceptance of his actions, his despotic rule and the wisdom of his own bullying and risky strategy. When President Trump makes a threat about vast naval assets arrayed off the Korean coast but the ships are nowhere in sight it robs his words of all meaning and encourages Pyongyang to push ahead with tests as soon as possible, if anything before the US Navy actually arrives in force. Worst of all, by matching North Korea's penchant for bombast and overheated rhetoric, the president has actually lent credibility to Kim's government and awakened fear in the hearts and minds of his own people. The previous US administration followed a policy of studied and calibrated response to North Korea, declining to be drawn into needless confrontation and steadfastly refusing to reward Kim's actions with the recognition he craved. It was rather like the method one might employ with a spoiled child's tantrums, and in my opinion, the best approach (of a set of less than optimum choices) to dealing with North Korea. I have seen at least one report that  Pyongyang, hurt by sanctions and realizing that they would not gain through further provocation, had approached the US to restart talks last last year, an offer that the US rejected over North Korean preconditions but nevertheless a strong indicator that the strategy of patience was paying off. Unfortunately the change of guard at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue led to an abandonment of "strategic patience" and suddenly Kim Jong Un found himself dealing with a US president whose instincts and temperament largely matched his own.

The bulk of the blame for the current crisis lies squarely with Kim Jong Un and his paranoiac coterie, but the US president shares a large enough responsibility for stoking rather than defusing the situation and for making a bad situation worse. At a time when there are still legitimate doubts that North Korea can strike any US territory, leave alone the homeland with a nuclear ICBM, President Trump has legitimized those fears and given Pyongyang the very stature it craves by treating it as an actual threat to the US. Trump's bombastic tone, so good on the campaign trail when bullying political opponents constrained by rules he ignored, is far less effective against North Korea, a nation that wrote the manual on breaking rules. The message from the US government is a far far cry from FDR's exhortation to eschew fear; instead he has raised tiny, impoverished North Korea into a legitimate threat, on par with the USSR and give Kim Jong Un the recognition and importance he craved. To that extent, Kim has already won no matter how this plays out in the weeks ahead. Equally certain is it that the rest of us have lost.

A Hundred Days and Counting

The first artificial and arbitrary deadline for judging new governments was upon us this weekend, and it seemed like a good time for me to reflect on the good, the bad and the all too plentiful ugly that has characterized this period. To be honest, President Trump was absolutely right when he said that the hundred day period is meaningless, though he had set that benchmark for himself repeatedly, and then promptly claimed that he'd had one of the most successful opening acts of all time. That claim, like so many others, is all hyperbole, of a pattern readily recognizable in his utterances. But what is the reality?

As a liberal, I'm not really in a position to render impartial judgment; my own biases ensure that I will judge harshly. And given the chaos that undeniably swirls around this administration, it is easy for a critic to find fault with almost everything that President Trump has done. I will start with the low-hanging fruit - the lack of government appointees (or rather, lack of nominations for numerous positions), the constant overheated rhetoric, the inability to leave campaign mode and settle down to actual governing, the increasingly shrill attacks on the press, the seeming lack of understanding on any and every topic that affects the country, and perhaps most scary of all, the careless and offhand use of military force with no thought of the consequences of any US action. There is plenty to choose from, and be scared by in that list but for me, the greatest failure is that refusal to acknowledge even the slightest need for course correction, or personal accountability, be it in ordering a bloody military raid on Yemen or firing his National Security Advisor for numerous lapses in judgment and behavior, or in making wild and unsubstantiated (and probably totally false) charges against the former president. That President Trump is unprepared for the role he has sought and won is beyond doubt, and his own words admit as such. He has admitted, seemingly with absolutely no self-awareness, that healthcare policy is difficult and then absolutely and casually reversed his position on China as a currency manipulator when he was schooled in monetary policy by the visiting Chinese president - he again quite offhandedly admitted that he'd known nothing about Chinese government policy on a topic that had formed a huge part of his campaign promise. Then just this past week he said in an interview that he'd never expected the job to be so difficult; it is a toss up on whether to be more scared that he is casually admitting this with one breath and claiming undeserved mantles of greatness and accomplishment in the next, blithely ignoring the yawning contradictions in his own statements, or that he truly believed his own campaign rhetoric that the job of president was so easy that an accomplished businessman could walk in and do a better job without even exerting himself.

And yet, I am forced to admit that the apocalyptic terms employed by my fellow liberals are widely off the mark - this president's track record is a lot less terrible than it might have been. Much of what he's done, and most of his cabinet appointees are in line with his campaign promises and general GOP policy line. He has tried to rescind the Affordable Care Act, a promise and priority of both his campaign and the whole Republican Party; and yet, with the whole government controlled by one party, they've failed to even get legislation to a vote in the House, never mind passing it or getting it to a Senate vote. Tax breaks have been a GOP staple for more than three decades. Appointing a climate denier to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a private school advocate and anti-regulation partisan to the Department of Education and other similarly Orwellian appointments are well in line with prior promises. Liberals need to admit that none of this is surprising and that any GOP president would have done the same; they also need to admit that the US electorate, in their wisdom or lack thereof, has endorsed President Trump's policies. One might claim that Trump did not win the popular vote, or that only 27% of eligible voters (46% of 58% turnout) supported him, but the bottom line is that he won, and over 40% of the electorate did not object to his stated policies enough to even vote. Voters, though endorsement or apathy, also delivered the House and Senate to the GOP, giving President Trump full control of the government. In 2009, President Obama won a similar mandate to enact a liberal policy and did so. It is only fair, that no matter how dangerous we think this president's ideas and actions, we still respect the will of the people. That does not mean standing down and giving the GOP a free hand, but simply acknowledging that much of what is being now enacted is the choice of the American people, through their acts of commission or omission.

It is also important to note that President Trump has not done all that much in overturning the previous administration's policies. There have been some highly publicized executive orders, signed with much fanfare, but in the end, President Trump has not enacted but a fraction of the conservative and populist agenda he promised and most of the acts that liberals most fear have remained in abeyance. This is not a mark of approbation for his restraint however, but a censure of the strongest degree - things are not so bad, because this president is terrible at his job, and not really interested in the business of governing. The GOP sponsored alternative to Obamacare has sputtered in part because Trump is not invested in actually replacing it with a real alternative; unlike Speaker Ryan or the Freedom Caucus, Trump has no strong conviction on the matter and his lack of a core belief impacts his ability and willingness to force new legislation through Congress. For all his talk about making deals, he has shown absolute disinterest in actual negotiations, with holdouts in his party and much more so with the opposition, and is quite happy to see the matter die in Congress so long as he can deflect the blame to someone else. For most part, his impact will be through acts of omission rather than overt commission, a lack of action that certainly shapes public life as much as active intervention, and his largely invisible Cabinet is in keeping with that path. He has appointed people with less government experience to some positions, actually reducing the impact they might have on changing government policy; in many cases, most policy will remain in the hands of career bureaucrats for a while, and things will continue unchanged till his appointees gain full understanding and control of their departments, and that situation is delayed further by the lack of supporting cast for many of those Cabinet members.

The other, and significantly overlooked aspect of President Trump's government is how closely is reflects his own personality and business model. While President Obama won plaudits for creating a Cabinet of Rivals by keeping Defense Secretary Gates, and appointing his party opponent Hilary Clinton to Secretary of State, his cabinet reflected his broad policy vision and was guided by him. By contrast, it is not clear what the corresponding vision is for President Trump, and his closest advisors appear to share very different worldviews on many different topics. His own overriding interest is not public policy or political promises so much as TV ratings and public adulation, and he seems content to pass off photo opportunities and bombastic claims as perfectly acceptable alternatives to actual achievement. At some point he may have to deliver or risk losing the support of his most fervent supporters, but that day is not now and it will be long past a hundred days before the bill is due. Till then, I am simply grateful that his lack of experience and even greater lack of interest ensure that he will do much less real harm than a true believer with skills to match may have achieved.