The politicians we deserve

We get the politicians we deserve.

They are not supposed to be role models for us. We are supposed to be role models for them. The bickering, mudslinging, and refusal to compromise is a reflection of how Americans deal with each other. We keep awarding the partisans with reelection. They won't change to a conciliatory tone until we do.

Meritocracy vs. Marketocracy

The larger we grow as a population, the more we become distanced from celebrities, brands, and politicians; the more we move away from a meritocracy and into a marketocracy. The winners are not based on merit but on who can be marketed to a mass audience.

I like the idea of cutting off government funded social assistance programs, returning that money to the tax payer, and allowing them to donate to charities that provide those services instead. I like that idea ... in theory.

The problem is that donations don't go to the greatest need but to non profits with the best marketing team. Consider the chart below. Breast cancer is the fourth biggest disease killer in the US but it receives the most donations for research. Heart disease is the biggest killer and only gets the third most donations.

Quick: what do Dan Brown, JK Rowling, and John Grisham have in common? They all wrote the year's best selling novel at some point in the last 20 years. What else do they have in common? None of their books are assigned reading to college students. Marketing, not merit, determines their success.

People liked the idea of Donald Trump as president because he was a successful business person. But his wealth pales in comparison to the much more successful Warren Buffet. But Buffet could never be president because he isn't he showman that Trump is.

The Case for Moderation

There has never been a better time in America to be a moderate.

Political polarization is ever-increasing. Look at the growing rate of landslide victories by county for the last seven presidential elections. In nearly 2/3s of our country, the victory margin for Trump or Clinton wasn't even close.

Centrists, who are often mischaracterized as wishy washy, are more concerned with truth than being right. They are bound by pragmatism rather than ideology.

The untold story here is that the middle is shrinking. And now that their size is decreasing, their influence is growing. It is getting harder to convince liberals or conservatives to vote for the opposition––rank and file has become the norm. The only place left to turn is the middle. We are the ones who get to decide elections.

The old maxim "campaign in poetry, govern in prose" has been rendered obsolete so far in the Trump presidency. He's still all talk. And his supporters love him for it. If this trend continues, politicians won't have to create much policy to please their base, as long as they continue to attack their opposition in clever, bite-sized tweets.

That means politicians will be forced to woo moderates. And we won't be swayed by anything less than action.

We are all Katniss Everdeen ... or are we?

At the end of the final Hunger Games movie, Jennifer Lawrence's character Katniss Everdeen fires an arrow into the chest of Alma Coin, Julianne Moore's character, killing her. It is an important part of the story line, one in which Katniss breaks the cycle of despotic rulers plaguing the country. Although guards take her to a cell after the kill, she is soon released and spends her the rest of her days raising a family in the country with her lover.

We are with Kitness as she makes many difficult choices throughout the story and are shown how well-calibrated her moral compass is. We never question her killing of Coin.

Quick recap on that assassination: President Snow—a serial murderer, liar, and sworn enemy of Katniss—tells her that Coin is evil, will rule like he did, and is the reason Katniss' sister is dead. She believes him, kills Coin, and is released without even a trial. She had no authority to kill Coin and completely acted on her own.

She is the hero of the story.

Let's be honest, Katniss makes a very authoritarian decision here, essentially saying: "In the face of evil and corruption, I need to take it upon myself to kill a leader for the good of the country, to protect it."

How many Americans have had that same thought and replaced Julianne Moore with Trump or Obama? It wouldn't be the first time a leader was shot by a citizen.

Here's what is scary: we are all the heroes or heroines of our own story. But we all see ourselves as Katniss and never as Lee Harvey Oswald. We're always righteous and never deluded or misinformed.

That's the thing about crazy people. They don't think they're crazy. They think their violence is justified.

So when we decide it's okay to punch Neo Nazi Richard Spencer in the face, how do we know we're any different than Jared Loughner?

The Antifragility of the New England Patriots

I've been reading Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb lately and have become transfixed with his ideas. It's difficult to summarize the book because the ideas are so grand in scope, but one of the examples he talks about is building an investment portfolio that is protected from Black Swan events.

He recommends the barbell strategy, which he says will protect you from risks of volatility while still allowing you to benefit from its rewards, thus making it antifragile. Like any investment strategy, the idea is that you don't put all your eggs in one basket, you diversify, expecting that some of your investments will fail.

I think about these ideas when I think about this weekend's match up between the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not as much as how these teams match up with each other, but rather how they are built to last a season.

Pittsburgh has arguably the best running back and best receiver in the game, along with a top-notch quarterback. But should one of them suffer an injury, does anyone really think they would still find success?

The Patriots, on the other hand, have the best quarterback and the best tight end. Without them? Tom Brady missed 4 games and the team went 3-1. The team hasn't lost a game since losing Rob Gronkowski to injury in early December. The Patriots may not be antifragile (strengthened by volatility) but their coach/GM Bill Belichick manages this team like an investment portfolio more so than any other GM.

Belichick never chases big free agents, cuts/trades guys a year too soon rather than too late, is careful about whom he extends long contracts to, and favors quantity over quality when it comes to drafting (i.e., two second round picks is better than one first round pick). Why? He expects Black Swan events and builds a team immune to such scenarios. That is why they can withstand a Gronk injury or Brady suspension.

With Martellus Bennett and Jimmy Garappolo, the Patriots are protected from volatility. With huge contracts given out to Brock Osweiler and Derrell Revis, their respective teams are harmed by volatility in the form of sucking and old age. Players are investments and smart GMs better diversify their portfolio.

Optimism for a Trump Presidency

Now that we have come down off that ledge and realized we're not actually moving to Canada, here are five optimistic reasons the Trump presidency won't be as bad as we think.

Branding

You can say that he inherited his wealth. You can say that he almost squandered his money away via bankruptcy but the banks allowed him to restructure his debt, deeming him too big to fail. But in all honesty, he is a master of branding. The only thing more shocking than how much of a ripoff Trump University was is how many people actually paid money to enroll there. Like him or not, he made his name synonymous with wealth and success.

Why is this important? Because now that he's president, America is his brand. He cares a great deal what other people think of him (almost to a fault ... no, definitely to a fault) and will want to make decisions based on how the country will look, not just himself. This is one of the reasons I think he won't fulfill his craziest ideas.

From The New Yorker:

"Trump’s Presidential plans are not shaped by ideology. He changed parties five times between 1999 and 2012, and, early on the campaign trail, he praised parts of Planned Parenthood (while opposing abortion), vowed to protect Social Security, and supported gay rights (while opposing same-sex marriage). He is governed, above all, by his faith in the ultimate power of transaction..."

The Looming Recession

Many economists are predicting a recession in the near future. Like most recessions, they happen in spite of the letter appearing after the name of the president in office. Like most elections, people still punish or reward incumbents based on economic performance, even if it's out of their control. In other words, the economy will tank, Trump will get the blame, and he probably won't see a second term.

Isolationism will be tested

This move toward isolationism/nationalism is not going away. Now that Trump is president, if rejecting open trade and closing our borders to immigrants is as disastrous as most economists agree it will be, that gives voters empirical evidence that these ideas do not work for the next election. No more speculating. It didn't work; let's move on.

Checks and Balances

Don't forget: the executive branch still has limited power. From FiveThirtyEight:

"Immediately, Trump has the executive power to do things like pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade policy negotiations, restart exploration of the Keystone pipeline, sign executive orders deregulating energy prices and bring trade cases against China. And much more.

Many of Trump’s major economic promises, however, would require cooperation with Congress and/or the Supreme Court. So repealing Obamacare, cutting taxes and building his infamous wall on the Mexican border — Trump couldn’t do that unilaterally. Bipartisan legislation would more likely come in the form of an infrastructure package or a bill on paid maternity leave."

Fearing Fear Itself

Part of the fear of a Trump presidency is the mystery. His policy proposals are vague and he has no prior history of public office on which to draw. Because he is such a blank slate, he allows us to project our worst fears onto him. This is human nature, survival instinct, to fear the unknown. Once we acknowledge this fact we'll realize that, in all likelihood, a Trump presidency won't be as frightening as we fear. 

Do Conservatives Need a Trigger Warning Before NFL Games?

The Dale and Holley show on WEEI took a phone call when they were discussing the NFL's declining ratings.The caller posited that many, like him, were turned off by the players kneeling during the National Anthem. Michael Holley retorted, "If Greg Hardy choking his girlfriend, Ray Rice knocking his fiance unconscious, or any of the other examples of violence against women at the hand of an NFL player didn't turn you off from the game, why now?"

The whole exchange made me think of Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory. Holley is referencing the care/harm principle when speaking of violence against women. The caller is referencing the authority/subversion principle when speaking of Kaepernick.

The fact that liberals are more upset about domestic violence and conservatives are more upset about kneeling during the national anthem should come as no surprise. Haidt's research shows that not all principles are created equal.

As you can see above, the more liberal you are, the more you only care about the care/harm principle and the fairness principle. Likewise, the more conservative you are, the more you care about the authority/subversion principle. Rather than argue who's right and who's wrong, I'll just paraphrase Arthur Schopenhauer and say that while we can choose what we do, we cannot choose what we want or even care about.

Reading and hearing about the outrage against Kaepernick, the word I hear the most is "offensive."  People are offended by his action. Interestingly, this is the same word I hear when I read about arguments in favor of trigger warnings.

Will this be a teachable moment when conservatives understand the plight of those easily-offended, oversensitive liberals? Will liberals extend an olive branch to conservatives and respect their right to not want to be exposed to images they find offensive. Of course not, this is 2016!