Trump has made it crystal clear how much he values money, power and praise. Seriously, he deserves credit for being so consistent about who and what he is. His narcissism knows no bounds and he makes no apologies. No one can deny this. Supporters can point to objective accomplishments during his time in office- tax cuts and SCOTUS nominations to name the most prominent and there have been some unique stances in foreign policy that may have long-lasting, positive effects- but they cannot dispute his nature and maintain any credibility as they do so. The unmistakable reality of Donald Trump has been more widely transmitted than for any other person in human history and nearly all of this has come from his own mouth, unbidden, unaided and unedited.

This essay will make it clear that Trump is his own creation. He prides himself on that fact. Sure there have been important contributors to the cult of personality around Trump, figures like Roger Stone, an odd, cartoonish man to whom no credible leader should ever listen. Building himself into a successful demagogue has been a deliberate process for decades and no one should be surprised about the unhinged actions of those under the thrall of his pied-piper tune. It has all been intentional and the madness won’t end, even with Trump out of office, until we fully recognize the malicious genius pulling the levers.

Trump may not have pulled the trigger but he loaded the gun and turned it over to a bunch of lunatics of his own making without any concern for what would predictably happen. Would he have preferred that they not violently crash the Capitol? Maybe. Did he care that they did, killing several people in the process? Absolutely not.

Despite the clear understanding we should have of Trump at this point, there are those amongst us that still claim that they did not see Trump’s inciting of insurrection coming. Too many have qualified, softened and excused the lies that our recently departed president started spewing well before his time in office and which culminated in the seditious rantings outside our Capitol on January 6th. All of those people were there because of the cult of Trump and because of the specific and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that Trump had been making since the spring of 2020 before voting even began. He made the same claims in 2016 to create plausible deniability for a loss he was expecting.

In his defense this past 4 years, his loyal followers have often trotted out the classic dismissive: “Oh, that’s just Trump being Trump.” You know, as if to say, “Don’t worry sweetheart, it’s all part of the plan…at least he cut our taxes.” 

Well, finally, Trump supporters and I can agree on something. That is Trump being Trump. And he has been that way a long time.

***

The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines demagogue as follows: “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.” 

For decades, Donald Trump has crafted a fictional persona to appeal to the mentally-addled types that broke into our Capitol. From his involvement in the Central Park 5 case in 1989 to his appearance on WWE to the interview he gave the penultimate purveyor of “fake news”, Alex Jones, Trump has consistently courted their support.

The “Central Park 5” case centers around the brutal rape of a woman in Central Park back in 1989. (https://time.com/5597843/central-park-five-trump-history/.) Just a week or so after the attack, Trump took out a now infamous full page ad in NYC calling for bringing back the death penalty. He wrote: “I want to hate the muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer…” 

For completeness, I have included the .pdf of his ad ⁽¹⁾. Trump did not specifically name the defendants but New Yorkers knew to whom Trump was referring and the influence he was trying to have on the legal process. To that point, the defense team eventually claimed that Trump’s efforts had exerted a prejudicial impact on court proceedings. The “wink and a nod” dogwhistling is clear: These were young black and Hispanic men after all. They couldn’t have been up to any good. It was an indirect but unmistakable call to convict them in the court of public opinion and execute them. 

After tremendous suffering and years of incarceration, the convictions of the five men were vacated in 2002 when a known serial rapist, Matias Reyes, confessed to having attacked the woman. His DNA was found at the crime scene. Instead of acknowledging the error of the position he took or expressing any remorse that innocent men had lost over a decade of their lives in prison for a crime they did not commit, Trump justifies his actions in 1989 by pointing to criminal activity completely unrelated to the rape case and for which these men were not even charged. When they were exonerated and released, Trump begrudgingly stated that the $40 million restitution paid to these men by NYC, after 13 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, was a “disgrace.” 

Donald Trump is a man willing to condemn men before the facts are in. A man who shows no regret even when proven wrong for having done so. Are these qualities we want in any leader let alone our president? 

How about Trump’s claims that he watched “thousands and thousands of people” in Jersey City, NJ cheer as the World Trade towers collapsed? Complete lie but its intent was to gather support by stoking racial fears. The reality is bad enough- we had just been attacked by Muslim extremists but it is wrong and completely counterproductive to claim there are “thousands” in the New York area celebrating. Innocent Middle-Easterners of all faiths could have died as a result of a backlash triggered by this lie.

What do we know about fans of professional wrestling? Certainly most know that what they are seeing is staged but don’t we also know that some WWE fans think it’s real and might these types be prone to taking Trump literally when he asks them to confront elected officials to overturn election results? Haven’t we seen these idiots break their spine jumping off houses to duplicate what they see in the ring? And even many of those who are in on the secret still chant, yell and clinch their fists as they watch the staged battles. When Trump made an appearance at a WWE event with his friend, Vince McMahon, in 2007, he again wanted to convey the image of a tough guy. A fictional image of someone who beats his enemies by force while the Thunderdome shakes and the red meat flies. 

“Lock her up!” “Build that wall!”

“Chum, chum, chum…”

With The Apprentice, NBC delivered the perfect platform for Trump to thrive in a fictional business setting. With scripted precision devoid of all the realities of the real business world, Trump was allowed to play the role of a tough-minded executive that everyone wants to impress. He is a genius with an unmatched eye for knowing what works. Nevermind the bankruptcies and the fact he is not worth nearly what he claims. 

Of course, most of us knew it was all bullshit but like some of the WWE fans, many in the TV audience were true believers and voted and rioted accordingly. 

If you remain unconvinced that Trump has intentionally courted the befuddled fringe of American voters, consider that he gave an interview to Alex Jones in 2015 to promote his candidacy. If you are not familiar with Jones, he runs a website called InfoWars where he routinely pedals complete insanity. Like the US government being involved in the planning of the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11. Or the classic conspiracy: NASA staged the 1969 moon landing in a film studio.

Like his claim that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting was a hoax; Jones was actually sued by parents of children murdered because of the awful things he said (https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/sandy-hook-families-are-suing-alex-jones-what-he-said-about-shooting.) 

Just like Trump, Alex Jones aims to take advantage of the soft-minded for financial gain. Jones puts the Trump interview along with similar garbage on his site, all the while selling iodine drops on his website that he calls “Survival Shield.” You know to use during the ensuing apocalypse he and other kooks like him have predicted. 

Our 45th POTUS gave this nut job an interview where he heaped praise on Jones for his brave, diligent journalism. 

Anyone tired of hearing: “You can’t make this stuff up?” 

No- you really can’t.

In 2014, Donald Trump effectively launched his bid for the White House as the champion of “birtherism.” Remember the shameful allegation that President Obama was not a legal citizen of our country based on the lie that Obama had been born in Kenya rather than Hawaii? In parallel with the myth of a stolen election, birtherism undermines the legitimacy of the sitting US president at the time, laying the foundation for “a revolution” to “Make America Great Again.” Got to take the country back from those who stole it, from those who don’t belong. 

How did so many miss what this guy was doing? It was in broad daylight, on TV, nearly everyday for 5 years! 

When he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy in 2015, Trump called for a wall to shut out the “rapists” spilling across our southern border. He always has to stoke fear to gather support. Later in the campaign, Trump would take another swipe at President Obama, claiming that Putin, the dictator of a criminal oligarchy, is a better leader: “If he (Putin) says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him,” Trump said of the Russian president. “Certainly in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president (Obama) has been.” 

Transactional politics in stark outline. Cue the “that’s Trump being Trump” qualification. Cue all the intellectual knots his enablers have tied themselves in to explain and excuse what he actually means when he speaks. Obviously we are misunderstanding him. Obviously we have been brainwashed by the liberal media. 

Trump praised a ruthless man who cares not one iota for individual rights and freedoms, a man whose core being is antithetical to the foundational principles of the US. A man known to assassinate those who challenge him in the press and who has clearly taken aim at the US as its arch nemesis. Praising Putin while denigrating our sitting POTUS is completely f^&*ing unacceptable. It is the opposite of patriotism. No matter what you think of Obama, only a self-interested demagogue would say such a thing and there is no excuse, then or now, for not understanding what he was doing.

***

I hope I made it clear that there are no accidents here. No excuses. Trump intentionally sought the fervent support from the types of personalities prone to going haywire in the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Everyone needs to own what and who Donald Trump is. He is the textbook definition of a demagogue. He is selfish, greedy and amoral. He and people like him are a danger to the Republic.

And conservatives have legitimate reasons to have supported him. The “better than the alternative” justification for supporting Trump is an idea that I have not been able to refute. Half of the blame for our current predicament lies with the left and the anti-American policies and corrosive ideologies they are now embracing. 

To argue that Donald Trump was necessary for Republican success is one of the biggest rubs for a conservative like me. If a man like Trump is required to implement your agenda, you may need to meditate on your beliefs a little longer, perhaps adjust some attitudes or get into deep prayer. Because he is poison. 

Trumpism is too unstable. It is too personality-driven. It places too high a premium on revenge and spite and it is predicated on too many lies. Values are only a marketing item used in pep-rallies to motivate base passions. 

Trumpism is about Trump, nothing else.

Those of us right of center who reject the man and methods still need to be open minded to successes in trade policy and the new awareness we have of China as our biggest geopolitical opponent. The Middle-East policies of Trump may provide long-term stability. Trump deserves credit on these issues. Otherwise, he simply repackaged tax cuts, border security and SCOTUS nominations. These are his biggest successes and ones that every 2016 GOP candidate would have enacted without the heavy price paid for supporting such a nasty person. There is no justification for giving Trump messianic status. He did not invent conservatism. For fucks sake he’s not even a conservative. He is a populist demagogue, amoral to the core. Trump has grifter’s instinct for whatever works and he saw an opportunity in the Republican Party. Trump is a transactional figure who understands the inherently hierarchical nature of conservatives, correctly wagering that the reasonable-right (perhaps no longer a coherent description) would bow to the new alpha in exchange for making their policy priorities a reality. 

Yet, at what cost? Trump has made our country into a chum-tank, a feeding frenzy of polarization and discord and of beliefs and actions predicated on garbage information. He has made the job of legitimate conservatism far more difficult than it was 4 years ago. He stained all of his successes. We can only hope that the reasonable portion of his supporters can see through the gore well enough at this point to understand what he has done to the conservative brand and to this country in general. That new insight is required to reshape the GOP. 

We don’t have to link ourselves to a bad man to accomplish good things. There is a better way.

A new fiscally-conservative, Libertarian-minded third party with a much more streamlined Federal agenda would be ideal. The American electorate has bought into an overwrought vision of the Federal government. We are a Republic. Californians should not be dictating to Mississippians who in turn should not determine the conduct of Virginians in their day-to-day lives. A smaller, more efficient list of priorities would facilitate consensus, strengthen the core fulcrum of the nation and bring stability. Ideally, this party should reject the culture wars, leaving beliefs, grievances and identity politics to the media-types that manipulate passions to sell advertising. 

Naïve but hopeful. It’s better than cynical acceptance of a dangerous and subversive figure like Trump. 

***

The following is a list of podcasts posted in recent weeks that to varying degrees relate to the essay above. The antidote to the current chaos is better information and this largely comes as long-form, commercial free podcasts by intellectuals and leaders who put ideas and values before party allegiance.

This is the intended format for future postings. A topic will be reviewed with an effort to list some relevant podcasts from the list of thinkers that I believe productively shape our conversations. More of these types and less Twitter, less Fox and CNN, is needed but is time consuming.

• Ben Shapiro: The Ben Shapiro Show
  • Episode January 7th, 2021: The Worst Day in Modern Amrican Political History
    • Shapiro’s work is not commercial free and is more partisan than the criteria listed above but he has the capacity to call balls and strikes regardless of his strongly held beliefs. I believe he makes it clear how unacceptable the riots of 1/6/21 were to his worldview and he called out (but still strongly supported) Trump for all of his bluster and nonsense throughout the last 4 years.
    • Beware- Voice is a bit shrill, Shapiro can be pretty snarky and he speaks faster than any human on the planet.
• Sam Harris: Making Sense
  • Episode #231: Crossing the Abyss
    • This is an amazing interview with retired General Stanley McChrystal and former Navy Seal Chris Fussell where they discuss the analogies between the Trump mob and Iraqi insurgents. Amazing and terrifying.
• Dan Crenshaw: Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
  • Episode January 8th, 2021: The Truth About January 6th…
    • Dan Crenshaw is a GOP Rep. from Texas who has the capacity to be honest about his party’s failings and the role Trump played on 1/6/21. This episode has interviews with several Republicans reviewing the events of that day and Crenshaw makes it abundantly clear what he thinks of those who fomented violence and sedition.
• Bret Weinstein: The DarkHorse Podcast
  • Episode #62: Podcast with Jeremy Lee Quinn and Bret Weinstein: The Capitol Insurrection, A View from the Inside
    • Fascinating and horrifying, Quinn’s perspective, moderated by the most even-keeled, fair-minded voice I know of on political issues (Weinstein), is very informative. Listen to individuals whose sensibilities are naturally on the left discuss the motivations of the right in good faith. We need more of this type of open-mindness and fairness
  • Episode #63: Beg Your Pardon

This is the typical format of DarkHorse where biologist husband and wife, Weinstein and Heather Heying, give a fair and very detailed breakdown of the lunacy occurring on both sides of the political divide.

References:

⁽¹⁾ Source: PBS Frontline

I am the son of a Civil War enthusiast. My father was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on November 27th in the year of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. He died in 1995 but I have a recollection of him proudly saying that he was born in a building with a cannonball lodged in the wall, a remnant of the great siege of 1863 for which the town is renowned. The year of his birth and formative years during the ensuing economic depression framed my father’s outlook and his hobby, throughout a life plagued by tragedy and poor health, was history. I have carted some 40 boxes of books with me from Jackson, MS to Houston, Texas and then to Oxford, Mississippi as proof.

Three eras interested my father the most: The Civil War, Medieval Europe and World War II. Obviously, the former interest is rooted in the place of his birth, a river city where his Scotch-Canadian grandfather, Malcolm Sawers, worked on a riverboat. My father tried to enlist for the Pacific theatre at age 17 but by November 1944 the war was winding down and at 5’7”, 115 pounds, the enlistment officer, who also knew my widowed grandmother and understood that she needed my father at home and alive, told the small teenager to go home and take care of his mother and younger brother. 

That is the history as I dimly recall my father’s telling of it. Told to me by a man who lost his father at age 11 and was of meager financial means until his middle aged years. 

Known to his family as “Jimmy”, my father was one of these southern gentlemen who framed the Civil War in romantic terms. Gone with the Wind was a favorite movie. His admiration for General Lee was immense and the valiantry and successful tactics of the far less numerous Confederate forces, facing insurmountable odds, was frequently lauded. Aged 46 and already in bad health when I was born, throwing the ball or doing anything most boys would find fun were not options for my father. Instead, trips to the Vicksburg National Battlefield were a favorite pastime. He was an intelligent man and he instilled in me an appreciation for long, detail-rich conversation. 

James Roland is buried, with his father of the same name, his grandfather Malcolm, his mother and two brothers who died in childhood, at Cedar Hill Cemetery that abuts the national park.

I adored my father, what little time I had with him. I realize, nonetheless, that his attitudes were racist. He did not have a silver spoon in his mouth at birth but I know he never fully acknowledged that a black boy born on the same day and with similar circumstances would have had a far harder time digging himself out of poverty and realizing his full potential. I doubt he ever realized that a man born on the same day, living in the same place and possibly having the same attributes would have been subject to immense cruelty simply on the basis of his black skin. I never heard of and cannot imagine him actively engaging in any violent or even unjust actions against black people but he did not embrace them as equals and his passive racism, like so many others of his generation, is a sin he took to his grave.

***

The October 2019 edition of the New York Times Magazine commemorates the 400th anniversary of the arrival of African slaves to North America in 1619. Its introductory article, written by Nikole Hannah-Jones, provides a pointed chronology of the cruelty experienced by black Americans from oppressive, racist whites. As the key writer, Ms. Jones earned a Pulitzer for this work and spearheads the “1619 Project” as an effort to infuse public education in the US with the stark history of racism.

Ms. Jones directly sets the theme in her title: “Our founding ideals of liberty and equality were false when they were written. Black Americans fought to make them true. Without this struggle, America would have no democracy at all.” 

Ms. Jones’ begins her article by describing how black Americans had been systematically denied opportunities to better themselves despite their skill sets and despite their patriotic contributions in the military. Seeing this discrimination, a younger Jones questioned why her father was so proud to fly the Stars and Stripes outside their house. She then provides her father’s answer: “He knew that our people’s contributions to building the richest and most powerful nation in the world were indelible, that the United States simply would not exist without us.” 

Ms. Jones then states that the cotton industry, requiring enslaved men and women from Africa, put this country on the map as a global economic power. Past the end of the Civil War, Jones shows where hope emerged in the aftermath of each historical hurdle only to be dashed by the reemergence of racist laws and violent backlashes from the white population. In the interim between the Emancipation Proclamation and the civil rights era, much of white America embraced Jim Crow and even the US Federal government turned a blind eye until brave women and men, mostly of black skin, turned the tide in the 1950s and 60s.

If reminding us about the facts of racism and slavery were the goal, then there could be no objection. 

Unfortunately, Ms. Jones goes far beyond historical summary. Her thesis is that the United States of America has an irrevocably evil foundation, a nation she and her colleagues believe to have begun with the arrival of African slaves in 1619 rather than the date we celebrate, July 4th, 1776. She argues that our forebears were guilty of the worst human depravity ever to have transpired at that time: “one fifth of the population within the 13 colonies struggled under a brutal system of slavery unlike anything that had existed in the world before.” Following this, Ms. Jones claims that these beliefs persist to this day and that our nation continues to cast its black citizens in a negative light: “Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country, as does the belief, so well articulated by Lincoln, that black people are the obstacle to national unity.” 

Ms. Jones leaves no part of our history unscathed: “We like to call those who lived during World War II the Greatest Generation, but that allows us to ignore the fact that many of this generation fought for democracy abroad while brutally suppressing democracy for millions of American citizens.” 

In his editor’s notes, Jake Silverstein states the intentions of the NYT even more plainly: ““The goal of The 1619 Project, a major initiative from The New York Times that this issue of the magazine inaugurates, is to reframe American history.” He and his colleagues feel that everything about our nation is tainted by racism and makes it clear that they believe this problem is still the prime directive of an actively racist system: “Out of slavery — and the anti-black racism it required — grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional: its economic might, its industrial power, its electoral system, diet and popular music, the inequities of its public health and education, its astonishing penchant for violence, its income inequality, the example it sets for the world as a land of freedom and equality, its slang, its legal system and the endemic racial fears and hatreds that continue to plague it to this day.” 

This is no effort by the NYT to heal the wounds of racism: They want to rip the stitches out and throw in some acid. With Christianity as his guiding light, Dr. King taught us that the body politic of the US suffered from deep but ultimately healable injuries. These were self-inflicted by the moral failings of our founders and perpetuated by subsequent generations of white Americans. But these failings are not unique to white skin. Rather, as a Christian, Dr. King understood that these failings are inherent to the human species as a whole. 

In contrast to these teachings, Ms. Jones and the NYT likens racism in the US to an incurable, genetic defect. When he states that racial “hatred” is “endemic” in the US and continues to “plague it to this day”, Silverstein reinforces the “in the very DNA of this country” claim at the heart of the The 1619 Project. The net result of how Silverstein and Jones write is a predicate for concluding the worst about America, past and present, and Jones posits that Americans with black skin, uniformly, should be recognized as the “most American.” In the NYT economy of “Americanism”, individual facts and circumstances do not matter. Skin color is the prime currency and whites are racially inferior. 

***

 A hopeful reading of Ms. Jones could find a ray of light in her concluding statements: “I wish, now, that I could go back to the younger me and tell her that her people’s ancestry started here, on these lands, and to boldly, proudly, draw the stars and those stripes of the American flag. We were told once, by virtue of our bondage, that we could never be American. But it was by virtue of our bondage that we became the most American of all.” 

Perhaps instead of arguing for black supremacy in place of white, one could hope that Ms. Jones is suggesting that those of African lineage can now see their heritage as quintessentially American, as a story of overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and embrace the founding principles of this nation even while remaining mindful of the moral failures of so many white Americans during the first centuries of our history.  

***

To be clear, the history of racism is crucial to understand but the editorialization of these facts by The New York Times negatively distorts the definition of what it is to be an American. The postmodern critique of objective truth and morality has infiltrated every corner of academia, of which the The 1619 Project is a downstream manifestation. Given how negatively these people view our country, and indeed the entirety of Western Civilization, why would Ms. Jones want black people to be “the most American of all?” What is going to be left of the US when the NYT finishes “reframing” our history?

It is not clear how Ms. Jones or Mr. Silverstein would answer these questions and that ambiguity should be a huge concern for any parent with children who may eventually see the NYT agenda materialize in their school curriculum. The The 1619 Project, with its broader connections to critical race theory and intersectionality, appears to propose an entirely new foundational narrative that overshoots the mark with its excessive criticism, editing the facts of history to suit woke ideology and produce similar effects on the left that white-washed notions of Uncle Sam and apple pie have on the right.

 So where do we take this conversation at this point? In the current environment of illiberal “wokism”, any counterpoint to Ms. Jones is considered by definition an example of “white supremacy”, a term so loosely applied that it has basically lost its meaning. Yet, in defense of this nation’s moral foundations, one need not adopt a starry-eyed, naïve view that ignores facts of history. We can acknowledge where our forebears were in grave, horrible error without damning every strand of our nation’s mortal coil. Abject meanness, greed and the lust for power are intrinsic features of human nature and understanding how these flaws have shaped history is indispensable to counterbalancing their damaging effects. We should reject ideological narratives that distort history regardless of their place on the political spectrum. In the current informational environment, these corrosive modes of thought are emerging exponentially and should be clearly identified and confronted.

Love of country need not be blind but it is required in large measure if the citizens of the US are to once again embrace shared aspirations. We should all open our eyes to what the NYT and the far left is selling. OurMortalCoil disagrees with Ms. Jones and Mr. Silverstein: Redemption is possible and we should not forget the strides that have been made this past 50-60 years. We need to help the NYT and those like minded see this more clearly and the nation as a whole should aim to make race and skin color the least relevant components of our identity.

We must fully acknowledge but ultimately forgive the sins of the past. Our fathers were all flawed, just as they are now and always will be. To be certain, when it comes to race in this country, some of our fathers have sinned more than others. Yet even as we acknowledge this, unloading the burden of history redeems us, giving us the insight and strength required to face the substantial challenges of the present. 

The most luminous figures in our history, particularly the one most Americans celebrate this holiday season, embodied this spiritual understanding. All Americans should remember this, independent of religious disposition or lack thereof. The guiding principles have never been wrong. We simply haven’t followed them well. 

Posted 12/10/20- Malcolm Roland

So, the cataclysm has past and the sun still rose in the east every morning since the election and, is reality sets in, I feel confident the sun will continue to dip below the western horizon at the end of the day. 

As none of the viable choices was going to be pain-free, there was only one truly bad scenario in this election: Questions of election fraud where the count is very slow and there is reason to suspect malfeasance.

Ah, yes. 2020: The gift that keeps on giving.

Some may think a post mortem analysis of the election is premature given the faint pulse left to the age of Trump as they press their case in the judicial system but I would like to cut into this rotten mess and dissect out the silver linings for both sides to see. 

Let’s grab a knife shall we? Or an axe?

Despite the likely loss of the White House, it seems clear that conservatives and Republicans are the bigger winners. The “huuuge” voter turnout suggests at first glance that a new level of citizen engagement has been achieved, which is a positive for democracy in general. However, an intense hatred of Trump motivated the deciding margin and this source of energy will not be available to the left going forward. Will the legacy media continue to keep anti-Trump sentiment stoked to inspire their base? Sure but it won’t be the same as covering every word and Tweet by Trump as breaking news. Will legacy media outlets continue to characterize all conservatives and any liberals who disagree with the identitarian madness occurring on the left as racists? Sure but by definition, “Never Trumpers” who voted blue no longer exist and if the GOP learns valuable lessons, namely that their policies actually appeal to the electorate and they simply need a better salesman, then the tide will shift decidedly in their favor. There is a small indication that Hispanics and African-Americans were more favorable to Trump in 2020 compared to 2016. More importantly, Republicans will likely keep the Senate and they narrowed the gap in the House. They are well positioned to regain the House in 2022 and we all saw how effective the parliamentarian McConnell was at thwarting Obama’s agenda. A few years ago I may have said that the level of gridlock during the Obama years was harmful to the country but this time I see it as a blessing. 

The silver lining is much dimmer for the Democrats. Liberals have their woman in place. The former senator from the left coast checks all the diversity boxes and she is smart and formidable. Yet, the notion that they have positioned Harris as a mid-term replacement to Biden is a shameful undercurrent to the enthusiasm for the incoming administration. Remember, VP-elect Harris did not win the party nomination. Biden had a centrist appeal that she lacks and while California has a lot to be proud of as a state, the country as a whole does not want to follow their direction. Kamala Harris would not have pulled the thin margin of victory in swing states to get the Democrats their win in 2020. 

It’s not that she could not win because of her minority background or the fact that she is a woman. Harris has some of that same viper-mentality of Trump and is clearly motivated by personal ambition. I invite everyone to go review her questioning of then SCOTUS nominee Bret Kavanaugh and some of the other committee inquiries. Perhaps then Senator Harris is simply doing the partisan-job expected of her but her role in a very regrettable period of SCOTUS history sticks with many of us as does the disrespect she showed her running mate during the Democratic nomination process.  

There is nothing wrong with being tough, smart and ambitious but a uniter she is not. 

The lesser of two evils was again the deciding factor in our presidential election. There was never going to be any clear winners in 2020. Our two party system and the backroom oligarchy of technocrats that run it still rule the day. Trump was never going to be a leader for all Americans and made it pretty clear he had no desire to be so. 

But many feel that Trump, as crude and distracted as he was, may have loosened the grip the unelected ascendant has on the reigns of power. Trump sympathizers see him as a rough instrument to break the status quo. The fact that he did so primarily for his own benefit is debatable and there can be no doubt that he alienated a lot of voters who would otherwise mostly support the issues on the conservative side of the ledger. He came to duke it out but threw too many haymakers in too many directions to be effective. 

Regardless, the short term future appears brighter for conservatives and Republicans, especially if lessons can be learned and they take from Trump’s example a renewed ability to communicate their views confidently and clearly while leaving out the demagoguery and bombastic rhetoric we have seen this past 4 years.

***

There are many voices out there with a similar analysis. One that comes to mind is Matt Taibbi. His alienation from both parties is similar to this writer’s. You can hear him discuss some of this with Megyn Kelly on her podcast of the same name, released Wednesday November 11th. 

Written by: Malcolm Roland

Welcome to OurMortalCoil. One may ask, “Who are these people kidding?” And you would be right. The reference to The Bard is dramatic and it would be fair to accuse the founder  of this site of delusions of grandeur. As much as we would like this site to shape public discourse, it is recognized that we will likely only be a tiny squeak amongst the cacophony of voices out there, so many of which, unfortunately, amplify nonsense and division. We look to be different.

Think of OurMortalCoil as being an extended book club. I joined a book club back in 2017 and I have enjoyed the company of smart people who have a genuine interest in better understanding the world around them. We have reviewed many books over that time and these have been widely varied and nearly all apolitical. One in particular has reinvigorated a level of intellectual interest that I held as a younger person but that had been buried under the rubble of a busy life as a business owner, father of three and husband. The trappings of modern life can be quite challenging and it is easy to lose our way. I suspect many in the audience out there feel the same way.

The book I reference is 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote To Chaos by Jordan Peterson. My reading of it was informed by some of the public positions Jordan had taken at that time and as I gradually came to better understand his world view, his writing took on a spectral quality. That preternatural sensation that originates in the primitive network of neurons called the limbic system that evolved over millions of years ago began to tingle and etched in bright colors the insights on offer by this brilliant man. Jordan has been prescient about the cognitive fallacies gripping all angles of collective thought in the western world. 

Jordan is on a much needed hiatus. Between 2016-2019, Jordan traveled the world with a message to dampen the wildfire of irrationality and dogma that animates the left. None of the figures referenced on this site has had a larger impact on public discourse and for many of us he has been a life saver. Literally. He has an incredible volume of lectures out there for review. No one has worked harder to conserve what is best about Western Civilization while remaining open to new ideas that will lead us into the future. His heart is huge, which always makes you vulnerable. 

I have listened to well over 150 hours of his podcasts and other public lectures, quickly realizing that Jordan was special and was inviting his audience to step out of the shadows, to unyoke themselves from their task-dominated lives and speak up.

Thank you Jordan and get well. You are needed back in the game.

This is my humble effort to answer the call. At the writing of this preamble the site is little more than code percolating out there in the miasma of the Internet. As of yet the IT logistics of how to exchange ideas with readers has not been determined and I am open to suggestions from those in my book club and others that are invited for the initial viewing. Beyond books, I endeavor to review podcast episodes of several luminaries that really understand what is happening in the world right now. To say that we are living in interesting times is a profound understatement but the world of podcasts and the specific members of the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) I allude to may be the exact antidote to chaos that Jordan wants to spark.

So, OurMortalCoil joins the effort at a lower rung in the hierarchy of informational platforms, understanding its role as an amplifier of the more expert insights on offer at the top of the pyramid. Improving the signal to noise ratio is critical in these strange times where leaders have so greatly lowered the bar for how to communicate and conduct themselves. 

Coming in the next week or so will be a list of public thinkers and their podcasts that OurMortalCoil invites the audience to investigate further. OurMortalCoil has found that these individuals operate in good faith and provide valuable, expert insights. With the audience’s help, this list will certainly grow. In particular, I am looking to add the voices of those considered liberal or on the left as I realize my predilections gravitate right of center and I am likely omitting instructive voices from the left.

The long term vision for this site is non-political and we hope to discuss works of science and philosophy as well as of fiction. However, given that this launch comes so close to such an extraordinary happening, namely the 2020 presidential election, an initial focus on politics cannot be avoided. Here again we claim no unique insights. I simply retread the obvious critiques of Trump and of the left that reflexively opposes him. As Churchill and others before him and since have said: “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” To be perpetually in error, fallen per se, is the coil of our mortality. Limitation is the very substance of existence, of scientousness.  Rather than resist the eternal truth of our condition, perhaps we simply need to affirm them for what they are and weather the storm for the better days that will inevitably follow.  

A disclaimer: I don’t know what I am doing with this site, a point that may be painfully clear to those reading this. That said, the initial design is more than I could have hoped for and was done by Chris Burcham with only the smallest input by me. He heard the ideas I was putting forth and brought into being a great vehicle that I hope will be useful to others but I know in the least will be a great pressure valve for all that swirls inside this thought-riddled noggin of mine. 

More will come in the months ahead with the idea that we will start posting some exchanges between myself and visitors on some of these topics and who knows, maybe I will tweet at you in the future. In the next weeks I will be reviewing a book by Nicholas Christakis, Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live as informed by an interview with Sam Harris on his podcast, Making Sense, episode #222 released on October 27th.

The age of Donald Trump has been just 4 years long but for many of us it has seemed like an eon. New political lifeforms have emerged from the primordial muck as the party continents have broken apart. Unfortunately, dinosaurs like Pelosi, Shumer and McConnell still dominate the landscape. Politics has had its Cambrian explosion with a bewildering realignment of values, priorities and standards for how to conduct ourselves publicly. For many of us who love this country, imperfect and under informed as we all are, it has been heartbreaking to see the split in our politics become so vast and poisonous, a rift President Trump has been all too eager to widen.

Tragically, having not learned the lessons of 2016, both parties are again banking on voters choosing the lesser of two evils. 

It is just that fact, the lack of learning from our mistakes, that has OurMortalCoil most concerned for our future. The die has been cast for this upcoming election and thus we will have to make the best of whatever transpires. Trump is definitely more a symptom rather than the root pathology ailing our politics. Neither political party represents the interests of America. Each panders to some ideology or identity hellbent on demonizing the other side while doing very little to bring the country together. Each is more interested in partisan sniping and parliamentary gamesmanship than solving this nation’s problems. Many of those who put Trump (and also voted for Obama) in office believed he would reengineer these broken dynamics. No one can be faulted for their choices, particularly if the choices for leadership are so limited.

One can dream that Trump’s time in office will bring about that change by opening our eyes to just how far we have slipped off track politically.

There are too few truth-tellers out there but having learned of some brilliant minds and young leaders this past 2 years, there is reason to hope again. For that hope to be sustained, we have to see things more clearly and both sides of the aisle have some serious reckoning to do. We have to break the trend of bad choices on offer.  

OUR TRUMP DISTRACTION

The negative reaction that many citizens have to Trump’s mode of being is deeply visceral and not always rational. Recognizing that, OurMortalCoil has made a concerted effort to identify some of the legitimate reasons people support Donald Trump. 

There were those who believed, incorrectly we would argue, that he would “drain the swamp”, that he would challenge the status quo and that he would be an agent of positive change. They are not wrong to want this but they were wrong to think that an amoral man like Trump could or would do the job. 

Trump’s contrarian tendencies have led to some new takes on foreign policy. His posturing with North Korea was useless but, hey, why not? No other administration has had any success with thwarting their nuclear program and there really wasn’t that much risk in poking the little panda bear at the head of that dark regime. Similarly, NATO needed to be confronted about the unfair financial contributions expected from the US relative to other members. 

Trump has been correct in identifying China as our biggest geopolitical rival. China does not share our values. While the communist party in China has allowed a certain portion of their population to engage in capitalism, they remain a collectivist, authoritarian regime without any laws to prevent the government from taking it all back at the blink of an eye. Perhaps because it takes one to know one, Trump sees clearly that China does not operate in good faith.

Republicans have legitimate reasons to have disagreed with the deal brokered with Iran by the Obama administration and Trump did not hesitate to take aim at this policy. He ran on this issue and lived up to his word. 

Securing the southern border has been Trump’s trademark position. OurMortalCoil absolutely rejects the inhumane, nasty framing he gave to this issue when he announced his candidacy in 2015. He has played a very dishonest game about the border, fear mongering that bands of South Americans were marauding through Central America with the US in their crosshairs. The border issue was the opening salvo of Trump’s demagogic strategy: We need to keep out those “criminals” and “rapists” from below the border. He does not really care about this issue personally but he knows it plays well on Fox News. 

Yet, Trump is correct about the substance of border security: It is ludicrous to suggest that we should not control our southern border. While humane and well intended, Obama’s DACA is an executive order that kicks the immigration can down the road and only deepens the divide we have on this issue. Despite what many Democrats would have us believe, preventing an uninterrupted flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border is not a racist position. Yes, there is a focus on the southern border that we do not have for the north but this is not because Canadians are primarily white. Border security with Canada is much more logistically difficult and, realistically, we do not face near the scope and type of illegal immigration from the north as we do thru Mexico. 

Giving credit where it is due, Donald Trump is open to criminal justice reform and has been true to his word regarding SCOTUS nominations. His supporters give him too much credit for his Supreme Court picks but given that many of them viewed him in 2016 as the only candidate capable of beating Hillary Clinton, their support for Trump was tantamount to a recomposition of the court to the right. With this last pick he is delivering a SCOTUS nominee who will challenge Roe v Wade and other legal positions held by the left. 

Regardless of your own views, Trump has delivered on some of the issues that his voters elected him for. 

***

So, at this point we have to ask what supporting a man like Trump will cost long term? The answer to that question depends on where you place the pillar of the political and ideological scales. If you believe Trump is purely a symptom of the broken politics that existed prior to 2016, then the cost has not been high at all. For many, he has simply been better than the status quo and definitely better than Hillary Clinton. As much as OurMortalCoil objects to how Trump has conducted himself as our President, that last point is hard to refute. Trump is a tax cheat, liar extraordinaire and serial adulterer but Clinton’s laundry is nearly as filthy. She was complicit in the wrongdoings of her husband, the full realization of which we may never know. Harvey Weinstein was a close confidant of Hillary and she has never truly renounced either. Bill flew on the “Lolita Express” a mind-boggling number of times and we cannot extend the benefit of doubt so far as to claim that he did not know what type of man Jeffrey Epstein was. Hillary looked past all of this and even called all of her husband’s accusers liars but we have every reason to believe their claims about our 42nd POTUS. 

Taking these glaring shortcomings of HRC into account, Trump’s electoral win in 2016 was not a resounding affirmation of his vision for the future. Furthermore, in office he has been far less effective than his supporters will admit.

First, Trump’s biggest victories were easy. Any Republican with a pulse could have passed tax cuts with the GOP controlling both houses and it is no grand feat to choose from a pre-picked list of judges with the guarantee that a Republican-led Senate will confirm. These facts may only confirm your reasons for voting for him in 2016 but all of you could have also voted for any of the other 100 Republican candidates to achieve the same results with far less long term fallout.

The second point expands on that, Trump has made the long-term success of conservatism more difficult. Supporting border security is a legitimate policy that has been made unnecessarily difficult by Trump’s careless, mean-spirited rhetoric. We need to control our border but we do not need a huge wall to serve as an enduring edifice to Trump and send a message that immigrants are not welcomed. We should not dehumanize the people who want a better life in the US. We should be proud to have a country that people want to come to. An orderly process of becoming a part of our nation is something we owe not only ourselves but also those who seek to come here. In his lackluster renouncing of right-winged extremists, Trump has further deepened the incorrect view that conservatives are intrinsically racist. It is true that most racists embrace conservatism but it is far from true that most conservatives embrace racism. Convincing minorities of this in the aftermath of Trump will be challenging. Tax cuts from a man who sees greed as a virtue only looks like another handout to the rich in the eyes of many historically disadvantaged citizens.

Third, Trump lacks focus. Rather than effectively formulating policies, he has been an adept demagogue, manipulating and misleading to only achieve short term goals. He is truly a leader for our times, peddling fragmented information on social media platforms without any real knowledge or insight on offer. Trump has never really bothered (or had the capacity) to understand the issues. It is true that a leader can be bogged down by complexity but Trump has elevated the politically superficial to an artform. Flowing from all this has been a toxic cult of personality. Trump’s use of vapid modes of communication, such as Twitter, has capitalized on and even deepened the collective attention-deficit disorder plaguing modern American life. 

Fourth, Trump has never possessed the skill to be an effective POTUS. Being a billionaire is not a requirement of wearing the mantle of a business-friendly conservative nor is it required to be POTUS. Yet these were the only attributes of note offered by Trump in 2016 and lying about those facts should worry anyone staking their future on what this man does in office. Put aside questions about who he owes money to and how this might affect his actions, details he has never felt you had a right to know. More to the point, there is nothing in his background that suggested he could run a complex organization like the US Federal Government. No doubt, much of the same could be said of Barack Obama but if you understood this in 2016, namely that Obama was an amplified community leader, then why would you elevate his populist doppelganger to the highest office? And of course Obama had political experience and is a far better person, regardless of what you may think about his policies. Trump had no experience working with others prior to being elected and has repeatedly shown his ignorance about the concept of divided government. He has flailed against members of his cabinet who publicly disagree with him, including military leaders who he claims to know more than. He has simply not been effective in the very complex role of POTUS.

Trump is a branding savant. “Make America Great Again.” “Crooked Hillary.” “Build that wall!” In business he has only slapped his names on things and run his mouth. He is more a daytime talk show host than businessman or president. He uses simple words and concepts to divide us with the hope that the lines will be drawn narrowly enough to edge out his opponents. In 2016, this allowed him to capitalize on the huge negatives of Hillary Clinton to achieve very narrow victories in 3-4 key states. As a result, Trump earned a thin electoral win while losing the popular vote by the same 3 million that marked Romney’s loss to Obama.

Trump has played the role POTUS for a TV audience but he has never really been the President of the United States of America.

Fifth and foremost, Trump does not possess the moral compass nor character to lead this country. If your response to that is simply “What about Bill Clinton?” then one could respond: “You are correct. Neither has been good for our country.” Say what you will about how he is better than the alternative but you cannot claim that he is a good person. He is the most self-centered person we have ever seen in public office. His primary objective is always to make the issues about him. No policy you support, no conservative idea you value is as important to Trump as what he perceives his self interests to be. For those of us who agree with some of his policies, we cannot get to the substance because the veneer of bulllshit Trump paints on everything is so damn thick.  

Those who defend Trump by saying that he is misunderstood have failed to see how he is the primary architect of the bad impressions he gives. Not CNN. Not MSNBC or the NYT. Sure they amplify the negatives to the exclusion of positives (of which there have objectively been few) but he has put himself front in center every minute of his time in the White House. It’s Trump’s words, Trump’s style and Trump’s actions that fuel the opposition to his leadership. 

Trump and his supporters have to own this. Sink or swim, Trump’s time in office has been the elevation of ego and bravado above substance and accomplishment. Psychologically it is more accurate to say that Trump has been pure id more than ego; it has been all instinct and short term tactics to achieve small, petty victories. For those who preach an ideology of personal responsibility there has been an amazing amount of finger pointing and whining about unfair treatment in the press, all the while missing, somehow, all the garbage this man has spewed during his time in office. 

Trump did this to his brand and to conservatism in general. On purpose. Because he is a pathological narcissist. 

Or, more accurately, because you gave him a free pass to do so. 

Our Left Alternative 

Make no mistake: Our Mortal Coil is not advocating a wholesale embrace of the left. To the contrary, the feckless acceptance of the anarchist chaos in the Pacific Northwest and other major cities is nearly as dangerous as the dog whistles to white supremacy that echo throughout Trump nation. Both sides strategically choose which enemies to take on when, in truth, both antifa and white supremacist groups should be completely renounced. Right-wing extremists are likely more violent than what we have seen from the left and absolutely need to be opposed. These people have probably been involved in the urban conflagration aforementioned. However, this would only prove that abdicating the rule of law creates the milieu of chaos that allows these bad actors, right and left, to operate. Ted Wheeler, Democratic mayor of Portland, has been utterly useless in the face of lawlessness and his sentiments in doing so are echoed throughout the left. 

Furthermore, the postmodern, anti-Americanism gripping the left may be more insidiously corrosive to the fabric of our republic. Too many on the left accept a complete condemnation of the Europeans who founded this country. They reject the progressive arc of Western Civilization, seemingly failing to recognize that the very liberalism they espouse is founded on Enlightenment values. At extremes, the left can be every bit as authoritarian as the right and are now entangled, hopelessly it seems, in a web of sophistry that they themselves seem incapable of “deconstructing.” In fact, as John McWhorter has expertly argued, “Antiracism” and other identitarian positions within the liberal orthodoxy have taken on religious qualities whose proponents frame as intellectually unassailable. You cannot question the aims and tactics of Black Lives Matter without being accused of saying that black lives don’t matter. As some college biology professors with a clear track record of advocating civil rights and equal opportunity can tell you, there is no room on the left for you to challenge a “no whites can come to school today” proposal without being branded a racist and losing your job. Just ask Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. 

You cannot advocate for traditional family structures with heterosexual parents without being criticized as perpetuating “oppressive, heteronormative standards.” Really? 

Are you really unclear about the fact that “defunding the police” will produce a disproportionate increase in crime within black communities? I have heard good arguments on the left proposing a shift in how the police interact with the black community. Unarmed intermediaries with better skills at de-escalating potentially violent situations are needed and could reduce the number of altercations between the police and citizens. But the left has greatly distorted the problem and puts far too little blame on those who resist arrest or commit crimes in the first place. 

Are you really looking to change everything about this country? Are you really convinced that capitalism is inherently evil? What will you replace it with? Granted, our current implementation of capitalism is very flawed but no other system of governance ever devised has allowed for so much freedom of expression and exchange of ideas. The very opportunities available to the left within our nation proves this fact.

If you don’t buy into these extreme sentiments, then take your party back and steer the conversation more productively to real challenges. Like many of us on the right who lament the impact Trump has had on our cause, I suspect many of you are not thrilled with the far left. Liberal luminaries like AOC are too far left of where the party needs to be. She is a bright, intelligent woman who effectively advocates for her constituents. She is a patriot in that regard and deserves respect for her efforts. But are her positions now mainstream amongst Democrats? 

Ezra Klein deserves respect within the journalism community. However, Klein and like-minded liberals are very focused on granular parsing of issues of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation but while each individual point made may have a legitimate basis, what is the end-point? Are we looking to an Orwellian future where a computer algorithm takes into account race, gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity to determine what role in society each individual should serve? Is every phrase, gesture and inflection going to be analyzed on the basis of race?

Where do you want all of this obsessive focus on features of identity to take us? Is passing a law at the Federal level to right some perceived wrong in your life the only answer to be offered by the left? 

As the presidential hopeful of the DNC might say: “Come on, man!” 

Our Unified Hope

Donald Trump did not break our politics but he has done his best to smash it into smaller pieces. He has made it more difficult to put back together. Trump’s pied-piper skills have taken him quite far in life, arguably too far. He is not the business intellect or leader his faithful followers believe him to be. OurMortalCoil believes Trump arrives at the positions conservatives support him for more from a basic instinct about which direction the political winds blow rather than actual understanding or belief. His conduct has been embarrassing and distracting and he has compromised nearly every conservative goal his supporters advocate. He is incurious and impervious to corrective feedback and he has made the task of selling a conservative vision to the next generation more difficult. 

Conversely, the Democrats, actively or by fecklessness, have allowed the scales to shift them too far left of a populace whose balance point is actually right of center. This was a trend before Trump and has been accelerated this past 4 years in response to Trump. The left has become hypersensitive to and about everything and the supremacy they give to identity politics has produced an extreme deficit of levity and pragmatism amongst their ranks.  

Nothing will surprise this writer: Trump could win in a landslide and as I have said, there are real systemic flaws in our corrupt donkey vs elephant system that produce very legitimate reasons to support an agent of change like Trump. If centrists don’t process the real reasons people support Trump, we are only doomed to have an even worse demagogue down the road. 

If Trump defeats Biden, which seems unlikely, it will almost certainly be by an even smaller margin than he defeated Clinton and his mandate in office will be even less substantiated. OurMortalCoil does not see how this is sustainable for conservatives long term and hopes, desperately, that the GOP and conservatives in general will move towards the center and embrace, once again, the belief that character matters.

The same is true for Biden. His margin of victory will not be as large as CNN will pretend and should not be viewed as a mandate to declare war on conservative values. Let’s hope that his campaign add claiming (paraphrasing) that he will work as hard for those who vote against him as for those who vote for him proves true. OurMortalCoil has seen evidence that Biden has the character to deliver on this promise but is wide-eyed enough to not be surprised if he completely capitulates to the lunatic left.

Facing up to the challenges with China (and Russia), securing our border, keeping the footprint of the Federal government small and efficient and supporting our law enforcement community are all positions that the majority of Americans support. We just need a better messenger and if Trump wins, we can only hope that someone in his inner circle can compel him to change his ways. Unfortunately, there has been no evidence that this is possible.

The left needs to get back to their bread and butter issues but with some modifications. Education is one of the entitlement tides that can raise all boats, truly, but only if we don’t abandon standards and only if we break the chains of identity politics. There is much to have our eyes opened to as white Americans, much that we need to better understand about the disadvantages placed on African Americans by slavery and the systemic racism that followed. The shockwaves from all of this rumble under our feet to this very day. 

Yet, that is not the dominant theme of our history. Instead of embracing postmodern, Marxist drivel, break bread with conservatives like Ben Shapiro who are open to universal basic income (UBI.) Focus on getting healthcare coverage for all Americans. Get back to environmentalism but do so without tanking our economy. Get some partial victories that advance your cause, incrementally. 

As I have heard Chris Cuomo often say, don’t let a goal of perfection be the enemy of progress. Neither side is perfect and neither is wholly incorrect. Get over yourself. Stop looking for some ultimate defeat of the other side. It would be like the left side of your brain destroying the right. Really. We need balance and there has been none on offer recently. 

***

Better information is the remedy to the current predicament. OurMortalCoil recommends getting to know some public intellectuals that espouse very reasonable views. On the right there is Jonah Goldberg and Ben Shapiro (podcast “The Ben Shapiro Show”) from the world of journalism and one Republican, Dan Crenshaw (podcast “We Hold These Truths”), Representative from Texas, who stands out as very reasonable despite deeply held conservative views. Brett (podcast “The DarkHorse”) and Eric Weinstein (podcast “The Portal”), Joe Rogan (podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience”) and Sam Harris (podcast “Making Sense”) are centrists who bring intellectual starpower to bear on these issues. David Brooks and Michael Smerconish (“The Michael Smerconish Program” on SiriusXM channel POTUS) are talented centrists as well. 

John McWhorter (podcast “Lexicon Valley”) and Glen Loury (“Blogginheads.tv”) are brilliant black guys who bring a lot of expertise to these conversations. McWhorter in particular, as a lexicographer, has expertly described the cognitive dissonance infecting the left right now. Both are clear headed about the reality of race while not drawing the same dark conclusions as so many do on the left. Andrew Sullivan is another center to center left journalist who is extremely insightful and quite smart (“The Bullward Podcast.”)  

Ezra Klein (podcast “The Ezra Klein Show”) and Chris Cuomo (“Cuomo Primetime” on CNN as well as “Let’s Get After It” on SiriusXM channel POTUS) do a very good job analyzing politics from a liberal perspective; each is left of where OurMortalCoil thinks the country should be, particularly Klein, but both are intelligent and articulate and provide evidence for their positions, unlike so many in the media these days. In terms of politicians, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang are Democrats that right of center types could support. Yang had the best ideas of any presidential candidate in 2020 and he is not beholden to party dogma. Even though the founder of OurMortalCoil has never voted for a Democrat in a presidential race, Yang would have gotten his support over any of the choices available this cycle. 

Lastly, as referenced in the Mission Statement, Jordan Peterson is a public intellectual I greatly admire. He wants to conserve the best ideas and modes of thought that have been honed through the selective process of evolution. He does this while also embracing the trait openness of those on the left who will creatively point the way to a better future. He advocates balance and a deep understanding of the positions being taken. Due to poor health he has been on hiatus this past year but is hopefully on track to once again add his much needed voice back to the public conversation. 

Our Political Conclusion

For those of us convinced that the two party system is broken, it is imperative to get started now in supporting a third option. Bret Weinstein’s Unity2020 (articlesofunity.org) came too late to make a difference this cycle but he supports leaders like Admiral William McRaven, Dan Crenshaw, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard, among others, to change the complexion of what is on offer in the future.

The conclusion is simple: We can and must do better. 

Please read the Mission Statement to get a more complete sense of what this site hopes to accomplish. OurMortalCoil is a humble endeavor that is still evolving and is likely destined to influence only a few, if any. We do not pretend to know anything more than those visiting this site and likely far less than many. Primarily it will be a connection point for those who are living their lives with limited time to explore all the brilliant discussions on offer in the world of podcasts.  We intend to facilitate, in even the smallest measure, better discussions about the challenges that face the United States. Much work needs to be done to make this an effective platform of information exchange and we will be updating you few who are interested about how your ideas can be incorporated and discussed productively. 

Take care and God bless.