tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103554082024-03-19T05:34:58.241-07:00Hindsight
HINDSIGHT - WRITE SOMETHING WORTH READING ABOUT OR DO SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comBlogger10511125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-40320406824915794732024-03-19T05:34:00.000-07:002024-03-19T05:34:26.075-07:00NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN <p> </p><h1 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 7.5pt; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: GrotCondensed, serif; font-size: 26pt; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><a href="https://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/the-oscars-to-change-its-act.html"><span style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Oscars Needs to Change Its
Act</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></h1>
<h3 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="color: #b2b2b2; font-family: "GrotCondensed",serif; font-size: 27.0pt;">Like many businesses, the
Academy Awards show is challenged by new distribution patterns and changing
audiences. As brands such as Chanel have shown, there are smarter ways to reach
target customers.</span><o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; border-top: solid #E5E5E5 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-top-alt: solid #E5E5E5 .75pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 8.0pt 0in 0in 0in;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; opacity: 0.5; scroll-behavior: smooth; transition: opacity 150ms ease-out 0s;"><svg class="social__icon" height="16" viewbox="0 0 15 16" width="15"><g fill-rule="evenodd" fill="#000"><path d="M5.934 9.67A4.203 4.203 0 015 8.117a.622.622 0 01.33-.761c.274-.118.604.058.714.351.137.41.357.792.659 1.114a2.696 2.696 0 003.984 0l2.39-2.52a3.118 3.118 0 00.824-2.14c0-.821-.302-1.553-.824-2.14-.522-.586-1.237-.879-2.006-.879-.742 0-1.456.322-2.006.88L6.84 4.394a.51.51 0 01-.77 0 .594.594 0 010-.82L8.297 1.2C9.038.44 10.027 0 11.072 0c1.043 0 2.032.44 2.774 1.23A4.313 4.313 0 0115 4.19a4.313 4.313 0 01-1.154 2.96l-2.39 2.55c-.77.82-1.758 1.23-2.774 1.23-1.017 0-1.978-.439-2.748-1.26z"></path><path d="M3.681 6.154c1.538-1.64 4.01-1.64 5.55 0 .412.44.742.967.934 1.553a.622.622 0 01-.33.761c-.275.118-.604-.058-.714-.351a3.025 3.025 0 00-.659-1.114 2.696 2.696 0 00-3.984 0l-2.39 2.55c-1.099 1.172-1.099 3.077 0 4.25a2.696 2.696 0 003.984 0l2.225-2.374a.51.51 0 01.77 0c.22.234.22.585 0 .82L6.84 14.623c-.77.82-1.758 1.23-2.774 1.23-1.017 0-2.006-.41-2.775-1.23-1.538-1.64-1.538-4.278 0-5.92l2.39-2.55z"></path></g></svg></span>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span class="sc-axzvg"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth; transition: all 150ms ease-out 0s;"><b><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Mono"; font-size: 7.5pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="-webkit-box-align: center; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; align-items: center; box-sizing: inherit; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; scroll-behavior: smooth;">EXPERT
OPINION BY <a href="https://www.inc.com/author/howard-tullman" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; scroll-behavior: smooth; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s;" title="Read more Inc. articles by Howard Tullman"><span style="text-decoration-line: none;">HOWARD
TULLMAN</span></a>, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH
INVESTORS<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"> <wbr style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"></wbr><a href="https://twitter.com/howardtullman1" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; scroll-behavior: smooth; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s;" target="_blank" title="Follow Howard Tullman on Twitter"><span style="color: #777777; text-decoration-line: none;">@HOWARDTULLMAN1</span></a></span></span></span></b></span><span class="sc-geveer"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 11.25pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Mono"; font-size: 7.5pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; text-transform: uppercase;">MAR 19, 2024</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "IBM Plex Mono"; font-size: 7.5pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; text-transform: uppercase;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #474747; font-family: "le-monde-livre-std",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></p>
<article class="sc-iHGNWf bEXicr false article__body" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #474747; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><figure class="sc-ikkxIA kjFhWt image" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); box-sizing: inherit; float: none; margin: 0px 0px 65px; padding: 0px; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><picture style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><source fetchpriority="high" media="(min-width: 600px) and (max-width: 919px)" srcset="https://img-cdn.inc.com/image/upload/w_600,ar_16:9,c_fill,g_auto,q_auto:best/images/panoramic/oscars-2024_538527_bk8mhy.webp" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"></source><source fetchpriority="high" media="(min-width: 920px) and (max-width: 1279px)" srcset="https://img-cdn.inc.com/image/upload/w_920,ar_16:9,c_fill,g_auto,q_auto:best/images/panoramic/oscars-2024_538527_bk8mhy.webp" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"></source><source fetchpriority="high" media="(min-width: 1280px) and (max-width: 1599px)" srcset="https://img-cdn.inc.com/image/upload/w_1080,ar_16:9,c_fill,g_auto,q_auto:best/images/panoramic/oscars-2024_538527_bk8mhy.webp" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"></source><source fetchpriority="high" media="(min-width: 1600px)" srcset="https://img-cdn.inc.com/image/upload/w_1280,ar_16:9,c_fill,g_auto,q_auto:best/images/panoramic/oscars-2024_538527_bk8mhy.webp" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"></source>
<p style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">That
the producers of the Oscar awards would look for ways to make money on the show
isn't an issue that should really surprise anyone. Somebody's got to pay the
bills. Monetization of any audience, along with a demonstrable path to
consistent profitability, are the same questions that we've asked regularly
about aggregation companies like Twitter/X since its inception; about the streaming
music business for seemingly forever; and about thousands of other struggling
startups and profitless growth stage businesses which built things and are
still hoping that sufficient folks will become customers or users<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">.</em><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">The
Academy Awards show certainly isn't new, but especially in the post-pandemic
world, they're struggling to find a new economic model that will make
sense as the audience ages, splinters, and shrinks. The key to successful
monetization is timing and riding the horses in the direction that they're
already headed. Now's the time for the Oscars to get on board. The
year-over-year financials aren't readily available, but, in fairly short order
when the networks start the bidding for the next few years of carrying the
show, the new offer numbers will pretty clearly tell the story and they aren't
expected to be encouraging. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">As the
live, real-time, viewing audience has diminished -- 2014 was the last time this
century that there were more than 40 million viewers - and, as the program
itself enters the carriage and sponsorship renewal gauntlet, monetization is a
persistent and important part of every conversation because the typical revenue
streams are unlikely to be sufficient to support the scale and costs of the
venture. Post Covid-19, the numbers and ratings for the show have somewhat
rebounded -- about 20 million in last week's broadcast -- but they are still
far below historic levels and it's increasingly hard to see how without some
radical change the situation is likely to improve. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">As
an aside, it doesn't really help when, for all the glitz, the Oscars award
nominations and results so often disappoint most viewers. I realize that -
again this year - virtually no one, including a large segment of the attendees
saw even a bare majority of the 10 Best Picture nominees. But it's still beyond
sad that <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">Barbie</em>,
the year's biggest and an undisputed blockbuster, didn't win any of the major
acting, directing, or writing awards except for Billie Eilish's great song. And <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">Killers of the Flower Moon</em> went
0 for 10.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">Honestly,
judging by the sparse promotion and social media exposure, most of the
potential viewing public presumably hadn't even heard of five of the nominated
films. A couple of the others only broke through the competing media noise and
clutter by virtue of having a super-high visibility leading actor such as
Bradley Cooper in <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">Maestro</em>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">One
measure of the industry's own relative ignorance and indifference to the interests
of the viewing audience was the treatment of 97-year old Mel Brooks (director
of <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">The
Producers, Young Frankenstein, </em>and<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"> Blazing
Saddles</em>) who got a lifetime achievement Oscar two months earlier in
a separate ceremony and basically no mention during the live show. Instead, we
got canned and scripted tripe written by morons and stiffly and haltingly
delivered by squinting actors who vainly refuse to wear their glasses. This is
preferred by the producers to real comic genius.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">And there
was the painful and inept delivery of the final and most important award of the
evening. Al Pacino had to actually publish an apology for not announcing the
names of the 10 nominees for Best Picture before he choked out <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">Oppenheimer</em> as
the winner, an omission he blamed on the show's producers. Let's all just agree
that there were probably a million better places in the painfully long
production to save the minute or two that this time-honored gesture or the
recognition of a Hollywood legend such as Brooks would have taken.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">While
we're at it, let's admit, as unfortunate and politically incorrect as it may be
- even in Hollywood - we're all here to see the stars, the blockbusters, and
the big awards. Nobody but the inside insiders gives a rat's behind about
all the minor awards given to people no one's ever heard of. I say make room
next time for people like Mel and bag the boring segments. But that's not gonna
be enough by itself to ring the revenue register.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">The
program needs a new draw or attraction and I think the solution is right in
front of them. If you want a hint, <a href="https://youtu.be/MM7GHU-pJXM?si=rpGfT1zMeKIlQrap" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth; transition: all 150ms ease-out 0s;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;">check out the
video</span></a> that opened Chanel's 2024-2025 fashion show. Make
expensive mini-movies that are fancied-up ads which star the stars and show
them exclusively during the Oscars. Build the buzz until the noise is as big as
the Super Bowl. But make sure you understand the four critical ground rules.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><b style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">1. <b style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">It's All About Art, not Commerce</b>.
This is a complete and utter lie, but it's essential at the beginning of
the process. If you doubt that, <a href="https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=beyonce+verizon+ad&type=E210US978G0#id=2&vid=cf819abd7afa5dc5df871aa0b69c0457&action=view" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth; transition: all 150ms ease-out 0s;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;">watch the <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">Chanel</em> video
again</span></a>. The most effective advertising is aspirational. Or watch <a href="https://dailycommercials.com/verizon-super-bowl-ad-2024-beyonce-full-commercial/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth; transition: all 150ms ease-out 0s;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #333333; text-decoration-line: none;">Beyonce's
Verizon ad</span></a>. You think she's selling the service or herself? Why grow
up when you can make movies?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">2. <b style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">The
Slots are Scarce and the Stars are Many.</b> This is <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">all</em> about
fierce competition, just like the rest of the award show itself. If your agent
doesn't get you the right gig paired with an important ad partner and a hot
director, you're a loser. If it's an ad for a cause, you get extra credit, but
those guys don't generally have the dollars.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">3. <b style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">No
One Can Afford Not to Play</b>. FOMO is as rampant in Hollywood as
Ozempic, and always has been. Once the ball gets rolling, the annual social
media question will be "who missed the boat?" and who got left out.
If your ad isn't there, people will talk and, pretty soon, you'll be nowhere.
Eventually, there will be a follow-on show about the best of these mini-movies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><u><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></u></span><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">4. <b style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; scroll-behavior: smooth;">Make Sure the Money Matters.</b> Nobody
in show business does anything important for nothing. As they say, the deal is
the sex while the movie is just the cigarette. What is spent on these
"productions" will be just as big a part of the story as which
celebrity they feature, and the product or service being sold. Money is still
the only real way that anyone in Hollywood keeps score. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in; scroll-behavior: smooth;"><span style="font-family: le-monde-livre-std, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">Bottom
line: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em and always make it all about them.<o:p></o:p></span></p></picture></figure></article>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-62011510043555679902024-03-18T19:10:00.000-07:002024-03-18T19:10:08.653-07:00WHY THE BRITS (AND EVERYONE ELSE WITH A BRAIN) HATE TRUMP<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump I’ve ever read:</span></p><span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”
-Nate White</span>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-1434629200744684122024-03-18T13:46:00.000-07:002024-03-18T13:46:29.497-07:00David Sedaris<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YV5j2h5VD4R6HGZ8GT3yTiXowFhuRwhkcUcnYRP1qvEkWlC6ymBM4Y53tj9lR0atEiI-gpnmnpnIvxh6hMPKd3UjoIko2Wk5N4YvwP5rviIQr6VNSdMKyDE7Z0lxB3f9m4GBwrpSYWyhnCMEKB3VSrehRcAfJGo_iqsLGQ1VQ8zRcmz7ZrvH/s612/433098575_1611305329685006_6522237803917070767_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="612" height="538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YV5j2h5VD4R6HGZ8GT3yTiXowFhuRwhkcUcnYRP1qvEkWlC6ymBM4Y53tj9lR0atEiI-gpnmnpnIvxh6hMPKd3UjoIko2Wk5N4YvwP5rviIQr6VNSdMKyDE7Z0lxB3f9m4GBwrpSYWyhnCMEKB3VSrehRcAfJGo_iqsLGQ1VQ8zRcmz7ZrvH/w650-h538/433098575_1611305329685006_6522237803917070767_n.jpg" width="650" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-81958816811831181572024-03-18T13:27:00.000-07:002024-03-18T13:27:05.851-07:00The Strongman Fantasy<p> </p><h1 style="background: white; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040; font-family: Lora;">The Strongman Fantasy<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h3 style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: white; color: var(--print_secondary, var(--print_secondary_on_web_bg_color, var(--print_secondary, var(--color-secondary)))); font-size: var(--font-size-18); line-height: var(--line-height-24); margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: var(--size-12); text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #404040; font-family: Lora;">And Dictatorship in Real Life</span></b></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "var(--font-family-meta)",serif; font-size: 8.5pt; letter-spacing: .15pt; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="https://substack.com/@snyder" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); text-decoration-color: unset; text-decoration-line: unset; text-decoration-style: unset; text-decoration-thickness: 0px;">TIMOTHY SNYDER</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "var(--font-family-meta)",serif; font-size: 8.5pt; letter-spacing: .15pt; text-transform: uppercase;">MAR 17, 2024</span><input checked="" class="_selectedInput_1lsde_21 _input_1lsde_9" name="plan" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; appearance: none; border-radius: var(--border-radius-md); border: 8px var(--color-accent-themed) solid; height: 28px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; width: 28px;" type="radio" value="monthly6_5usd" /><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: left;"> </span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">Quite a few Americans
like the idea of strongman rule. Why not a dictator who will get things
done? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #404040;">I lived in eastern Europe when memories of communism were
fresh. I have visited regions in Ukraine where Russia imposed its
occupation regime. I have spent decades reading testimonies of people who
lived under </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Black-Earth-Holocaust-History-Warning/dp/1101903473/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1NOCBAEV4UQ1S&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.y0xHqQQjp_X8_dDamV2NVDWdma21mMtfR5FOYaC1bUOlq95zPLYxzCayp1g_dTjx6G2tTq755PsSzA9z_EnNqZ26OsmJ5PL93JdtK_mIcqpJbUzJkHWXyzPhjxw92gH2F7RRhejzxTJBLBzQQQPDL2i9yntzPdLUnqBV6csolKXYVAfMuoM7ogRyPeqbWEYiU_-l9moIfdMTYd5Xqyrvm4k9zzPXZfbTotE_6jJxJUI.xefwexW22rrnawmzftOIanI_fKmYFX8LhJyV7cfyTBs&dib_tag=se&keywords=timothy+snyder+black+earth+amazon&qid=1710594982&sprefix=timothy+snyder+black+earth+amazon%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-1" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Nazi</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> or </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=timothy+snyder+bloodlands+amazon&hvadid=598613675721&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9003367&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=12967110197982202448&hvtargid=kwd-1656501292796&hydadcr=22593_13531299&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_8y7i9kic3p_e" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">Stalinist</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> rule. I have seen
death pits, some old, some freshly dug. And I have friends who have lived under
authoritarian regimes, including political prisoners and survivors of torture.
Some of the people I trusted most have been assassinated.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">So I think that there is
an answer to this question. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #404040;">Strongman rule is a fantasy. Essential to it is the idea
that a strongman will be </span><em style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">your</em><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> strongman. He
won't. In a democracy, elected representatives listen to
constituents. We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would
owe us something. But the vote you cast for him affirms your
irrelevance. The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing.
We get abused and we get used to it. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #404040;">Another pleasant illusion is that the </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Strongmen-Mussolini-Present-Ruth-Ben-Ghiat/dp/0393868419/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2I7K4GR5UL9LP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QfjIFzHiqsF4n0jWhb19tYK5V-y8R0Hb68Ima6mqiN1PIpBfDk4VnJNlBMo8-D8_lDn9x_4IOc2fMT4CmvKxAMJFvCeZTzEjQJZlZ_Q43WZzGdi6R15WJdE7MMCausYa_ErZA5chdnMDQYb5ppVqj-X0bUwmfNBWH7JmECzlNZBhjkUzRv1qRdivQ6eUt3HqxNiNhuF06Jk5X1k7nRgsi_k0nb1a7vd5XQEUIxNJQO4.I26xPXBmBD6XfILyHMOyqYxh3IjuMEz_J99n4M2dFdE&dib_tag=se&keywords=ben+ghiat+strongmen&qid=1710595093&sprefix=ben+ghiat+%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-1" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary));">strongman
will unite</a><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> the nation. But an
aspiring dictator will always claim that some belong and others don't. He
will define one group after another as the enemy. This might feel good,
so long as you feel that you are on the right side of the line. But now
fear is the essence of life. The politics of us-and-them, once begun,
never ends. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">We dream that a
strongman will let us focus on America. But dictatorship opens our
country to the worst the world has to offer. An American strongman will
measure himself by the wealth and power of other dictators. He will
befriend them and compete with them. From them he will learn new ways to
oppress and to exploit his own people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">At least, the fantasy
goes, the strongman will get things done. But dictatorial power today is
not about achieving anything positive. It is about preventing anyone else
from achieving anything. The strongman is really the weak man: his secret
is that he makes everyone else weaker. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">Unaccountable to the law
and to voters, the dictator has no reason to consider anything beyond his own
personal interests. In the twenty-first century, those are simple: dying
in bed as a billionaire. To enrich himself and to stay out of prison, the
strongman dismantles the justice system and replaces civil servants with
loyalists. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">The new bureaucrats will
have no sense of accountability. Basic government functions will break
down. Citizens who want access will learn to pay bribes. Bureaucrats in
office thanks to patronage will be corrupt, and citizens will be desperate.
Quickly the corruption becomes normal, even unquestioned. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">As the fantasy of
strongman rule fades into everyday dictatorship, people realize that they need
things like water or schools or Social Security checks. Insofar as such
goods are available under a dictatorship, they come with a moral as well as a financial
price. When you go to a government office, you will be expected to
declare your personal loyalty to the strongman. </span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">If you have a complaint
about these practices, too bad. Americans are litigious people, and many
of us assume that we can go to the police or sue. But when you vote a
strong man in, you vote out the rule of law. In court, only loyalism and
wealth will matter. Americans who do not fear the police will learn to do
so. Those who wear the uniform must either resign or become the enforcers
of the whims of one man.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">Everybody (except the
dictator and his family and friends) gets poorer. The market system
depends upon competition. Under a strongman, there will be no such
thing. The strongman's clan will be favored by government. Our
wealth inequality, bad enough already, will get worse. Anyone hoping for
prosperity will have to seek the patronage of the official
oligarchs. Running a small business will become impossible. As soon
as you achieve any sort of success, someone who wants your business denounces
you. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">In the fantasy of the
strongman, politics vanishes and all is clear and bright. In fact, a
dreary politics penetrates everything. You can't run a business without
the threat of denunciation. You can't get basic services without humiliation.
You feel bad about yourself. You think about what you say, since it can
be used against you later. What you do on the internet is recorded
forever, and can land you in prison.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">Public space closes down
around you. You cannot escape to the bar or the bowling alley, since
everything you say is monitored. The person on the next stool or in the
next lane might not turn you in, but you have to assume they will. If you
have a t-shirt or a bumper sticker with a message, someone will report
you. Even if you just repeat the dictator's words, someone can lie about
you and denounce you. And then, if you voted for the strongman, you will
be confused. But you should not be. This is what you voted for.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">Denunciation becomes
normal behavior. Without law and voting, denouncing others helps people
to feel safe. Under strongman rule, you cannot trust your colleagues or
your friends or even your family. Political fear not only takes away all
public space; it also corrupts all private relationships. And soon it
consumes your thoughts. If you cannot say what you think, you lose track
of what you believe. You cease to be yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #404040;">If you have a heart attack and go to the hospital, you have to
worry that your name is on a list. Care of elderly parents is suddenly in
jeopardy. That hospital bed or place in a retirement home is no longer
assured. If you draw attention to yourself, aged relatives will be dumped
in the street. This is not how America works now, but it is how
authoritarian regimes </span><em style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">always</em><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"> work. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">In the strongman
fantasy, no one thinks about children. But fear around children is the
essence of dictatorial power. Even courageous people restrain themselves
to protect their children. Parents know that children can be singled out
and beaten up. If parents step out of line, children lose any chance of
going to university, or lose their jobs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">Schools collapse anyway,
since a dictator only wants myths that justify his power. Children learn
in school to denounce one another. Each coming generation must be more
tame and ignorant than the prior one. Time with young children stresses
parents. Either your children repeat propaganda and tell you things you
know are wrong, or you worry that they will find out what is right and get in
trouble. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">In a dictatorship,
parents no longer say what they think to their children, because they fear that
their children will repeat it in public. And once parents no longer speak
their minds at home, they can no longer create a trusting family. Even
parents who give up on honesty have to fear that their children will one day
learn the truth, take action, and get imprisoned. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">Once this process
begins, it is hard to stop. At the present stage of the strongman
fantasy, people imagine an exciting experiment. If they don't like
strongman rule, they think, they can just elect someone else the next
time. This misses the point. If you help a strongman come to power,
you are eliminating democracy. You burn that bridge behind you. The
strongman fantasy dissolves, and real dictatorship remains.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background: white; color: var(--print_on_web_bg_color, var(--color-primary)); line-height: 19.2pt; margin: var(--size-20) 0; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: times;">Most likely you won’t be
killed or be required to kill. But amid the dreariness of life under
dictatorship is dark responsibility for others’ death. By the time the killing
starts, you will know that it is not about unity, or the nation, or getting
things done. The best Americans, betrayed by you when you cast your vote, will
be murdered at the whim and for the wealth of a dictator. Your tragedy will be
living long enough to understand this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></o:p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-1523597495002504242024-03-18T05:17:00.000-07:002024-03-18T05:17:26.621-07:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXPxK_8Iz5nhO6ri0qX82OofP5n9zdPp4n483CIbtvLVzzqHlicbtqMa6Gas3JMWlwfxle1U1vUO40cvTCJwOLGkTZwartqtiourmYvS1CH76xJtGUqvzBef7RtGzm-jc0buPHzdtxcNYOc4McyJsW01gnHAy4IyXtxreD86zpDupdaLspLlc/s1065/433180322_372755925631591_2842906480272464826_n.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="730" height="955" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXPxK_8Iz5nhO6ri0qX82OofP5n9zdPp4n483CIbtvLVzzqHlicbtqMa6Gas3JMWlwfxle1U1vUO40cvTCJwOLGkTZwartqtiourmYvS1CH76xJtGUqvzBef7RtGzm-jc0buPHzdtxcNYOc4McyJsW01gnHAy4IyXtxreD86zpDupdaLspLlc/w654-h955/433180322_372755925631591_2842906480272464826_n.jpeg" width="654" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrMi0v5w8prOXNCn0CiUJIisosuOxtUsN8lpgqPY5aBGuO76ETfYZHStOO9zrizY6gCHv-J1hqURdUKfEw62-4vh_T1u_sXljuJKnYbBecUZ56nKVq_4NCZ-DkcyJ-_w3HJfReMO2_iwEf7r4v1Oev8upu3mCKDkATtywnfU3uxefJ3Wtk94uZ/s602/433470165_785343633469222_6256355431306792382_n.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="602" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrMi0v5w8prOXNCn0CiUJIisosuOxtUsN8lpgqPY5aBGuO76ETfYZHStOO9zrizY6gCHv-J1hqURdUKfEw62-4vh_T1u_sXljuJKnYbBecUZ56nKVq_4NCZ-DkcyJ-_w3HJfReMO2_iwEf7r4v1Oev8upu3mCKDkATtywnfU3uxefJ3Wtk94uZ/w625-h524/433470165_785343633469222_6256355431306792382_n.jpeg" width="625" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTpFkI021bjS4U8qyM1Fa1G8dpopm-sogWGMS4tf2Fy6ZVoGp670nrPDvrM5PSvDFIb3Z2VIAHN2cZa1Ixjr9OFty5NgkiKYCOqFqd4xd6PjzbZ9f-5fXNvM9iU1avXJR6TmlDSjWOvDBVH8ungqvshKLeIZPj1PmnNk_iAVLXaUCTzGkLiU30/s960/433575727_933948464853370_8845364099808918944_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="960" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTpFkI021bjS4U8qyM1Fa1G8dpopm-sogWGMS4tf2Fy6ZVoGp670nrPDvrM5PSvDFIb3Z2VIAHN2cZa1Ixjr9OFty5NgkiKYCOqFqd4xd6PjzbZ9f-5fXNvM9iU1avXJR6TmlDSjWOvDBVH8ungqvshKLeIZPj1PmnNk_iAVLXaUCTzGkLiU30/w635-h498/433575727_933948464853370_8845364099808918944_n.jpg" width="635" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-29914533774437322282024-03-17T06:47:00.000-07:002024-03-17T16:24:20.761-07:00BLOODBATH - CRAZY, SICK DOG STILL NOT IN JAIL<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvi3yqDpnZeDqCbo2q4nsXCV-zeJCqZC7ovpy7N4al9LrMllkBvWru8IUSAYa-nnW8W-BwFU5zJ1z9L24RHwLaE5y9WiUQN8g0xmr-tZ9yrE5lgIc4U_w_JovGGvmY97oRxQsx4_12j9lBoKBgEcRM16VI-1ZgEIkQoDlhHIHtEBzJiuzJmA3y/s680/GI03dkEXwAA_vXJ.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="680" height="647" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvi3yqDpnZeDqCbo2q4nsXCV-zeJCqZC7ovpy7N4al9LrMllkBvWru8IUSAYa-nnW8W-BwFU5zJ1z9L24RHwLaE5y9WiUQN8g0xmr-tZ9yrE5lgIc4U_w_JovGGvmY97oRxQsx4_12j9lBoKBgEcRM16VI-1ZgEIkQoDlhHIHtEBzJiuzJmA3y/w647-h647/GI03dkEXwAA_vXJ.png" width="647" /></a></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhnREqb-4qSnVKNNAHd6vVyZcaBrmradolh4WlJdkeoPzjPgIOVDlGFL3q9WNGdG_NZLDEynVy28rkHpY1wg578U8DGpBMp1QQ2EP4dhytLpCxMgHkcUN-InE3eegnfPVO6HPfu9uU7TeP0kUxEzX_ZZLR0Zqvp5c6aYaKB3d5XCrZ4g5c0Uz/s1002/thumbnail_Image-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="965" height="676" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhnREqb-4qSnVKNNAHd6vVyZcaBrmradolh4WlJdkeoPzjPgIOVDlGFL3q9WNGdG_NZLDEynVy28rkHpY1wg578U8DGpBMp1QQ2EP4dhytLpCxMgHkcUN-InE3eegnfPVO6HPfu9uU7TeP0kUxEzX_ZZLR0Zqvp5c6aYaKB3d5XCrZ4g5c0Uz/w650-h676/thumbnail_Image-1.jpg" width="650" /></a></div><br /><p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-23577882443976910402024-03-16T12:36:00.000-07:002024-03-16T12:36:57.506-07:00MAGAts<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvaBazg8KQtjeucL3IstVx1up7GbRkxcEMFItafk66k31BR2i1O36caJl5j0hA-68nnm7ZZGZgmgQpdhs5WPlPhoO8wvAvVvHHzrD9dVHFAYUm6Pv6yGckykDU67ox32RO-9fBKQp1tFU6BiLczmqcA_KIhAjjDfJ7DieDMct_stkk0G1qFbA/s1000/7826d230-56fa-45c0-a094-6ffa972c9875_1000x808.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="1000" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvaBazg8KQtjeucL3IstVx1up7GbRkxcEMFItafk66k31BR2i1O36caJl5j0hA-68nnm7ZZGZgmgQpdhs5WPlPhoO8wvAvVvHHzrD9dVHFAYUm6Pv6yGckykDU67ox32RO-9fBKQp1tFU6BiLczmqcA_KIhAjjDfJ7DieDMct_stkk0G1qFbA/w680-h550/7826d230-56fa-45c0-a094-6ffa972c9875_1000x808.jpg" width="680" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-14700317308250658712024-03-16T08:27:00.000-07:002024-03-16T08:27:00.405-07:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="579" height="666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ds1_Q6Fjo7BfZ_VaifGJM1cPrxwMf74g3D-xulVG2Yq9QzUavO60Ex-_fUMegET00Xu_Hr7P5NGUadUs_F_RvA5OBtu6qKhpY8DKeE8Rqd4m5sErl7yReQjKzEYR-HXPeKv4f6aaIGcfMfbSLzVwjClhCQ2tCmGn8ykVUJaipspFxVsLNkn6/w646-h666/TUBERVILLE%20IS%20TRASH.png" width="646" /></a></div><br /><p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-71271982842976116322024-03-15T11:43:00.000-07:002024-03-15T11:43:49.117-07:00ALWAYS BEEN A SNAKE <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj176a86fEozfkdI4SinmTRVwqTBcs1jkbZFrJfBLh4Wx5Oj90s6FKmqVTGJjasNVe7zOgABKxlZMjU8qi-qJeGf1B50Kfwgg3d2TrTCmplCOn3sCLZNduQn1mbkWKxE6rK8fK3xz4VwD7lUYuCID45mVrOlPSHMcOACmSLM7cAX-P4a83Ztnu0/s1284/432917530_255537527621463_2882701868593276384_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd3CIjy3sQXfoNHDcq98KH-SblKJgd7CbBRW9BWq8d3wJGQ-ncnyMB44EpngRcrVRiodnWaEpVM03_Pxr7JbQYiAX2W3d9EkxeWHo35u48ScvHIDNV4aoP073OyB48o8uJCn_jtqOuIlru8O9Km9_eKU1diKzlgJQ26WmZKDESX35M6I-zX3NI/s1018/deb05498-541e-4483-ba91-ac23d1096723_1012x1018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1018" data-original-width="1012" height="661" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd3CIjy3sQXfoNHDcq98KH-SblKJgd7CbBRW9BWq8d3wJGQ-ncnyMB44EpngRcrVRiodnWaEpVM03_Pxr7JbQYiAX2W3d9EkxeWHo35u48ScvHIDNV4aoP073OyB48o8uJCn_jtqOuIlru8O9Km9_eKU1diKzlgJQ26WmZKDESX35M6I-zX3NI/w657-h661/deb05498-541e-4483-ba91-ac23d1096723_1012x1018.jpg" width="657" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-35775887455587925942024-03-15T07:47:00.000-07:002024-03-15T07:47:03.983-07:00MAR-A-LAGO 2025<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> <span style="background-color: #fcf8f5; color: #5e5147; font-family: Lora, sans-serif;">Trump is exhausting; the Republicans are exhausting. But this is, unfortunately, the world we are living in right now, and we cannot let anti-democratic forces win simply by exhausting us.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm-LfHHEOF9ildHZnE51Yx-imSRUvlyoXxjg92S7VnzJ8VudWQvrOS6QcZbj1Xv-N_BWw4BPv4cDnzdMPNfhzcQRx339YbOPGAioMKCN_hfDBRFlf9zwlh-FNxp_sWkx49bOw_Lt9W7XAkuAO3NF2EpEf94zzOEcY8cQ_EatcOgxlxZ6GoEuYa/s939/432785358_204926279371925_7367693830561042420_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="939" data-original-width="828" height="711" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm-LfHHEOF9ildHZnE51Yx-imSRUvlyoXxjg92S7VnzJ8VudWQvrOS6QcZbj1Xv-N_BWw4BPv4cDnzdMPNfhzcQRx339YbOPGAioMKCN_hfDBRFlf9zwlh-FNxp_sWkx49bOw_Lt9W7XAkuAO3NF2EpEf94zzOEcY8cQ_EatcOgxlxZ6GoEuYa/w626-h711/432785358_204926279371925_7367693830561042420_n.jpg" width="626" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fcf8f5; color: #5e5147; font-family: Lora, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-50398219068260024022024-03-15T07:09:00.000-07:002024-03-15T07:09:36.954-07:00Republicans don’t actually want you to remember 4 years ago<p> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 27.0pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><a href="https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=501423&post_id=142616411&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=83s30&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMzYxMzI5MiwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTQyNjE2NDExLCJpYXQiOjE3MTA0OTc5MTIsImV4cCI6MTcxMzA4OTkxMiwiaXNzIjoicHViLTUwMTQyMyIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.L8P_jH6z3LHGlK4KX74hO86XhhEkzH1zlfusZMD3ae8" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">Republicans don’t actually want you
to remember 4 years ago</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 9.0pt; mso-outline-level: 3;"><span style="color: grey; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Reagan's question does not
reflect poorly on Biden. On the contrary.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; display: none; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-hide: all; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 0%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 1.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Are
you better off today than you were four years ago?” Rep. Elise Stefanik <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/443b2563-d575-4835-8244-0dec79c7eb0a?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">asked</span></a> during a news
conference last week. She answered her own question by saying “the answer is a
resounding no.” Lara Trump, the new co-chair of the Republican National
Committee, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/3be8a5aa-282c-4651-8629-58ae84c8e251?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">said</span></a> virtually the
same thing to Sean Hannity on Tuesday. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/747f6512-fded-4e1b-8510-a53446719a2b?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">echoed</span></a> that
sentiment on Fox News as well, saying, “We have to go back to that future,
2017-2020. We want those four years one more time.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The
“better off” question become part of our political lexicon after Ronald
Reagan <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/813727fd-6b94-4df9-80ff-0c0d30c520c8?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">posed</span></a> it to Jimmy
Carter during their sole 1980 presidential debate. It was effective for Reagan
because Carter’s presidency ended in the middle of a severe recession and a
second year of double-digit inflation. Most people in 1980 had in fact been at
least somewhat better off before Carter’s presidency.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Today,
though, to argue as Republicans are that most people are better off than they
were four years ago requires a bizarre form of political, social, and economic
amnesia. Four years ago, in March 2020, the covid pandemic was rampaging across
the world and country as the president desperately tried to wish it away.
People were getting sick, many were dying, and the economy was shutting down as
a result. It’s not a time to look back on with nostalgia.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">This <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/9afcde73-d930-476d-a14a-4a9efea9c572?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">whole thread</span></a> is
worst revisiting to remember the bleakness of March 2020. (Souce: <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/ad77862e-1820-49e0-98d3-205dd4bf2c4a?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">twitter</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Republicans
hope voters have cloudy memories. More broadly, they hope people don’t remember
what Trump’s presidency was like. Just to keep a grasp on reality, it’s worth
reminding ourselves just how wretched that year was.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It’s
also important, though, to realize that when they say, “Were you better off
four years ago?” Republicans are not asking for a comparison of Biden and
Trump. They’re asking instead for a referendum on Biden that deliberately
denies and erases who his opponent is.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The
GOP wants to run on negative partisanship and Biden hate alone. To do so they
try to evoke a magical, imaginary past that never happened. That’s, after all,
what the slogan, “Make America Great Again” has always meant.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; mso-line-height-alt: 13.9pt; mso-outline-level: 3;"><b><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 16.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It
was, in fact, the worst of times<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It’s
not much of an exaggeration to say that March 2020 was among the worst months
in the history of the American republic. The Bluesky account “<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/e8619ec7-7692-436a-89d6-c1d590b5199d?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">Four Years Ago Today</span></a>” is
a bleak reminder of the fear, panic, and despair of that time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">On
March 11 — exactly four years ago this past Monday — two NBA players tested
positive for covid and the season was suspended. Tom Hanks and his wife were
hospitalized. The next day, March 12, airports were in chaos as crowds rushed
to try to get home before the travel ban; unmasked travelers from across the
globe were crammed together in airport corridors, a perfect scenario for the
spread of plague. The Dow fell 10 percent, its worst drop in 33 years. By March
24, 16 states <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/be0cad3c-af05-49ad-bf3d-272b914697ee?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">had closed</span></a> their
schools. But New York schools were still open, even though the city <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/fe78f76d-e35e-4801-9df5-3d6f69789b56?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">had already</span></a> hit
15,597 cases and 192 deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Things
only got worse as the year dragged on. In April, as terror of infection spread
and businesses and schools shut down, unemployment <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/0c9691ce-2fbb-4e6a-b830-8b8d5fc35bd9?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">skyrocketed</span></a> to 14.8
percent, the worst number recorded since data collection began in 1948. By
year’s end, 351,000 Americans had <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/21aeeb37-4ac1-423d-bdfc-bbd84488b751?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">died</span></a> of covid,
boosting overall death rates from 715 per 100,000 in 2019 to 835 per 100,000 in
2020. Life expectancy dropped 1.8 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Donald
Trump, as president, famously did <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/36029e72-06ce-4789-932a-f549c2ff9cfb?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">little</span></a> to fight the
pandemic and much to make it worse. Before the crisis started, Trump had
radically cut funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then
the administration was slow to ramp up testing and dragged its feet on
stockpiling PPE. Trump refused to subsidize state and local governments, which
could have kept employees on the payroll and substantially reduced unemployment
and hardship. The Paycheck Protection Program was poorly run and funneled money
to larger companies rather than to the small businesses it was supposed to
help.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><a href="https://substack.com/redirect/99c2cd49-1dd1-4212-98d7-2858647fe188?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #1155cc; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; padding: 0in; text-decoration-line: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
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Description automatically generated" border="0" height="422" src="file:///C:/Users/h/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image003.jpg" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_4" width="550" /><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Remember when Trump
thought testing was the problem? (Source: <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/53612c1a-b0ef-4f9b-93e3-3e7676f0d290?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">twitter</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">And of
course Trump increased chaos by <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/95394ee3-10a6-4204-a53e-a279061e1c97?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">pushing</span></a> quack covid
cures like hydroxychloroquine and musing during a nationally televised news
conference about people <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/65620886-97eb-42fd-a12b-a2478327fdbe?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">injecting</span></a> bleach.
He also <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/36310aba-7976-4802-a860-e51406b7a937?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">mocked</span></a> wearing
masks — and his refusal to take proper measures to avoid infection
probably <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/815772bf-6931-4e91-9ea8-dad7d1ae5bd6?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">contributed</span></a> to his
own serious hospitalization with covid in October.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Of
course, covid continued to be a serious health threat in Biden’s presidency; it
remained at crisis level through 2022. However, vaccinations and better
treatments led to a precipitous <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/f7f94c7d-e7e2-4b13-8084-fc2526e0802b?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">decline</span></a> in
mortality in 2023.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">In
addition, thanks to substantial stimulus spending, Biden managed to usher in a
remarkable economic recovery. Unemployment has been <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/b37ea833-789b-47dc-ad9b-87b46655ba59?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">under</span></a> 4 percent for
two years, the longest stretch in a half a century. Inflation, after a spike
early in Biden’s presidency, is now largely <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/584095e6-299c-4846-82c0-6875de42f13f?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">under control</span></a>, and as a
result wages are <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/a8992627-b0a3-4df4-9cd1-8cc14dcbe719?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">outpacing inflation</span></a>. In
four years, we’ve gone from one of the worst economies in US history under
Trump to one of the best under Biden.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; mso-line-height-alt: 13.9pt; mso-outline-level: 3;"><b><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 16.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It
wasn’t just covid<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Covid
poisoned everything in the last year of Donald Trump’s presidency. But even if
you could somehow bracket the pandemic, there are plenty of reasons not to look
back on 2020 with longing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">During
Trump’s entire presidency, the United States was at war; there were <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/4a2fc814-d752-476e-9b73-a4e0a09cc2c2?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">45 US combat deaths</span></a> in
Afghanistan under Trump’s tenure. Trump rolled back rules limiting airstrikes
in Afghanistan, and as a result civilian casualties during his presidency <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/6e3784cc-1b30-4d4e-a277-0ef650cf5e0b?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">increased</span></a> by 330
percent. Airstrikes killed some 700 civilians in Afghanistan in 2019, more than
any year since 2002.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Trump
also ramped up the drone war and removed almost all checks and accountability
from the program. In the first half of 2020, the US <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/4fe6bec4-6e23-43d0-b750-8507d499d794?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">launched</span></a> 40 drone
airstrikes just in Somalia. That was only one less than Presidents Bush and
Obama flew in Somalia from 2007 to 2016.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">In
contrast, Biden ended the war in Afghanistan. That withdrawal was messy, and
Biden was <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/13257b63-33e0-46ee-990d-e47b51e1175a?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">much criticized</span></a> for
its failures. But the fact remains that US forces are not currently at war in
the country, which means US troops are not dying there, and we are not killing
civilians. Biden also virtually <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/2132185b-194d-4533-9ab4-7acb7e305eb1?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">ended</span></a> the drone war
early in his presidency.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Back
at home, 2020 was the year police in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd,
sparking nationwide protests against police brutality and racism. In response,
Trump <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/ebdd9389-2ebf-42ea-bc73-8dce5e5ec46e?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">told</span></a> police and
military leaders that they should “beat the fuck out” of protesters and
encouraged authorities to “just shoot them.” In line with those sentiments,
National Guard troops <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/1c156217-a06d-4cb6-8f06-46fc3b52b4a6?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">tear-gassed</span></a> protesters
in DC’s Lafayette Square while Trump staged a photo-op at a nearby church.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; mso-line-height-alt: 13.9pt; mso-outline-level: 3;"><b><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 16.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Republicans
want to make 2024 a referendum on Biden<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">None
of this is to say that everything is perfect in the United States in 2024.
Thanks to Trump’s Supreme Court picks, the United States gutted abortion rights
in 2022, with devastating <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/09073d5d-bb94-45cf-aad7-4a28f36821ce?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">results</span></a> for
maternal mortality and women’s health. The GOP has launched <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/15dc2182-d327-4eb4-97a6-7fb9e9cfca17?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">escalating</span></a> and
terrifying attacks on trans people’s rights and health care. Russia invaded
Ukraine in 2022, and the war has dragged on as US political gridlock <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/8090d53a-e310-4e88-8dbd-f5de2774909d?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">hinders</span></a> military
aid to Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Most
recently, Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and
taking 240 hostages. Israel retaliated with an indiscriminate bombing campaign,
turning most of Gaza into a ruin and killing a horrific <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/89028434-0d67-443f-b5a1-a10dc28ab440?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">30,000</span></a> people,
including more than 12,300 children. Humanitarian agencies have <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/7178c156-9be0-4b1b-a833-022dc7c1e8bf?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">charged</span></a> Israel with
numerous war crimes, but Biden has so far refused to place conditions on
military aid to the country.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Biden
isn’t responsible for all of these crises. But he’s president, so people look
to him for leadership and will blame him when there are troubles at home and
abroad. That’s why, when an election is a referendum on the incumbent, the
incumbent often struggles. People are almost always (rightly!) angry about many
problems in the country, and if the election is a question of whether they are
angry, they’ll often vote against the guy in charge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Trump
and his minions want the election to be a referendum rather than a choice
between Biden and Trump. That’s, contradictorily, why they keep assuring people
they were better four years ago even as they carefully avoid mentioning
anything that was actually happening back then.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Are
you better now?” isn’t a call for people to think about Trump vs. Biden. It’s
meant to get people to just think vaguely that Biden is bad, while looking back
to a mythical pre-Biden Eden, when America was great in a nonspecific,
generalized way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The
GOP’s messaging also reflects the huge partisan bias among Republicans when it
comes to evaluating the economy. Democrats and Republicans both <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/6832befb-69b1-4a57-927d-a57fa5d56a03?j=eyJ1IjoiODNzMzAifQ.18KWbsGPJn_YK-WBGOuGp1jTboaAgPOGgOKtmcTiw8A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #363737;">tend</span></a> to see the
economy as better when their president is in power. But the partisan bias is a
full 2.5 times greater for Republicans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">That
means that when you ask Republicans if they were better off four years ago
under Trump, they’ll almost always say “yes” because their evaluation of the
economy is skewed based on whether or not their guy is in office. Reagan used
“Are you better off four years ago?” as a way to appeal to undecided voters.
Republicans are mostly using it to appeal to their base.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="color: #363737; font-family: "Segoe UI",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Democrats will spend a lot of time and money this year
reminding people of just how awful the Trump presidency was. Republicans for
their part are going to try to praise Trump without actually talking about what
happened four years ago when he was president. Anyone who clearly remembers his
presidency has to hope they fail.</span>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-55568798189048855272024-03-15T06:54:00.000-07:002024-03-15T06:54:44.335-07:00TRUMP AND HIS MAGAts ARE CROOKS, TRAITORS AND FILTHY LIARS ABOUT COVID AND JAN 6TH <p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 13.7pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 31.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Here’s
What Donald Trump’s America Was Actually Like Four Years Ago<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 16.0pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The former president’s allies want
voters to recall their lives four years back, but March 2020 was a harrowing
period most people would rather forget. In this 2024 election cycle, it’s
crucial to remember.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 17.45pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt; letter-spacing: 2.2pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; text-transform: uppercase;">BY <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/brian-stelter"><span style="color: #e7131a;">BRIAN STELTER</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">MARCH
14, 2024<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">As <b>Donald Trump</b> tries
to convince voters to send him back to the White House, his allies are dusting
off Ronald Reagan’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU6PWT1rVUk"><span style="color: #e7131a;">playbook</span></a>. “People look around and they say,
‘Am I better off now than I was four years ago?’ The answer to that is
no,” <b>Lara Trump</b> <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1767730381803925739" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e7131a;">said</span></a> on <b>Sean Hannity</b>’s show
Tuesday night. “You can compare very easily how much better your life was with
Donald Trump in office and how much worse you are now that <b>Joe Biden</b> is
in office.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It’s a catchy line,
one <b>Elise Stefanik</b> also <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elise-stefanik-better-off-4-years-ago_n_65e8a1b9e4b0f9d26cad4b4d"><span style="color: #e7131a;">dusted off</span></a> earlier this month. But does
Trump <i>really</i> want Americans to remember this time four years
ago, when he botched the federal response to the COVID pandemic and put lives
at risk? Just scan the headlines from early March 2020. Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465"><span style="color: #e7131a;">wrote</span></a> how “Trump’s mismanagement helped
fuel coronavirus crisis.” <i>The</i> <i>Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-squandered-time/2020/03/07/5c47d3d0-5fcb-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html"><span style="color: #e7131a;">found</span></a> that Trump’s administration
“frittered away” “precious weeks” while the virus was spreading. <i>The</i> <i>New
York Times</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-stock-market-biden.html"><span style="color: #e7131a;">reported</span></a> that Trump dealt with the crisis
“by repeating a string of falsehoods.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style="border-top: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 1.0pt 0in 0in 0in;">
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 0in 0in 0in; padding: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="display: none; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-hide: all; mso-ligatures: none;">Bottom of
Form<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Much of this happened in
public view. Remember when Trump predicted COVID would just “disappear”?
Remember when he <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/trump-at-cdc-offers-scattershot-defense-of-virus-response/"><span style="color: #e7131a;">showed up</span></a> to the CDC headquarters wearing
a campaign hat? Remember when he claimed that Google was building a website to
help people find COVID tests, and Google <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-donald-trump-google-website/"><span style="color: #e7131a;">didn’t know</span></a> what he was talking about?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Actually, I didn’t. I had
forgotten almost everything I’m about to recount in this story. I have a
feeling many others have forgotten too. Maybe it’s a human tendency to block
out past trauma, or perhaps it’s more that so much has happened since. In today’s
supercharged news cycle, an event can feel dated four days later, never mind
four <i>years</i> later. Plus, many people are “<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2024-presidential-election-tune-out"><span style="color: #e7131a;">tuning out</span></a>” of politics in 2024, clearly
rejecting <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/07/2024-cable-news-problem"><span style="color: #e7131a;">the rematch</span></a> of a current and former
president.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">But campaign coverage
should grapple with how an aspiring president would handle a global crisis. For
that reason, it’s worth revisiting how the Republican contender mishandled one
while president.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">To the extent that anyone
observes an “anniversary” of the pandemic, it is this week, the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/an-oral-history-of-the-day-everything-changed-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #e7131a;">second week of March</span></a>, when the World Health
Organization declared a pandemic; American corporations began a slow-motion
shutdown; the NBA suspended its season; and the Trump administration
(belatedly) declared a nationwide emergency. But the preceding weeks were
critical.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">In January and February
2020, Trump <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/10/politics/covid-disappearing-trump-comment-tracker/"><span style="color: #e7131a;">repeatedly claimed</span></a> that the coronavirus
was under control and downplayed the dangers. He effusively praised China’s
handling of the outbreak and said, on January 30, that “we think it’s going to
have a very good ending for us.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">He maintained a cheery
attitude for several weeks. On February 25 he said, “They’re getting it more
and more under control. So I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away.”
Two days later, he was even blunter: “It’s going to disappear.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Of course, the problem
wasn’t disappearing. The virus was spreading around the world. By the end of
February, coronavirus cases were rapidly rising in the US, but a dearth of
testing kits meant the total couldn’t be measured. Trump was obsessed with keeping
the reported number of official cases as low as possible—concentrating more on
the <i>reports</i> than the real number of sick and scared Americans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Trump administration aides
like <b>Larry Kudlow</b> made similarly damaging comments. “We have
contained this,” Kudlow claimed on February 25. That same day, press
secretary <b>Kayleigh McEnany</b> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kayleigh-mcenany-said-coronavirus-wouldnt-come-to-the-us-2020-4"><span style="color: #e7131a;">said</span></a>, “We will not see diseases like the
coronavirus come here.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It was as if Kudlow and
McEnany were following the bosses’ orders. “I wanted to always play it down,”
Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ap-travel-virus-outbreak-donald-trump-ap-top-news-bob-woodward-c9f35842f7bb355be72842d15a8f7c02"><span style="color: #e7131a;">told</span></a> author <b>Bob Woodward</b> in
a March 19 interview that was published later. Trump said he didn’t want to
cause “panic.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">But if that’s true, why
did he go so far in the opposite direction? The freshly impeached president
(remember the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/us/politics/trump-impeached.html"><span style="color: #e7131a;">abuse-of-power</span></a> saga?) told rally-goers on
February 28 that “the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus,” likened the
Democrats’ conduct to “the impeachment hoax,” and said “this is their new
hoax.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Trump made so many
dismissive comments that <i>The</i> <i>Washington Post</i> produced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/40-times-trump-said-the-coronavirus-would-go-away/2020/04/30/d2593312-9593-4ec2-aff7-72c1438fca0e_video.html"><span style="color: #e7131a;">a video</span></a> of “40 times Trump said the
coronavirus would go away.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-top: 24.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">We know, thanks to none
other than <b>Tucker Carlson,</b> that trusted allies tried to warn
Trump of the threat in early March. Carlson <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/tucker-carlson-on-how-he-brought-coronavirus-message-to-mar-a-lago"><span style="color: #e7131a;">told</span></a> <i>Vanity Fair</i> in a 2020
interview that he traveled to Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, March 7 for an
intervention of sorts. “I said exactly what I’ve said on TV, which is this
could be really bad,” Carlson recalled. (I later learned that he was encouraged
by an unnamed White House aide to talk some sense into Trump.) Carlson, it
turned out, was exposed to COVID during the visit; while he didn’t fall ill,
several others who were at the president’s compound that day did contract
COVID.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The previous day was when
Trump donned a “Keep America Great” hat at the CDC. While there, he
second-guessed the medical professionals in the room, he randomly asked about
Fox’s ratings, and he insulted the Democratic governor of Washington State. He
claimed that “anybody who wants a test, can get a test,” which was patently
false. “As a reporter, in general I’m not supposed to say something like this,
but: The president’s statements to the press were terrifying,” <b>Adam
Rogers</b> <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/trumps-coronavirus-press-event-was-even-worse-than-it-looked/"><span style="color: #e7131a;">wrote for Wired</span></a>. He said Trump’s presser was
“full of Dear Leader-ish compliments, non-sequitorial defenses of unrelated
matters, attacks on an American governor, and—most importantly—misinformation
about the virus and the US response.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The misinformation
continued to flow the following week when Trump delivered an Oval Office
address. If his intent was to calm the nation’s fears, he achieved the
opposite: He announced a ban on travel from Europe, causing chaos at airports
and hurried clarifications from cabinet officials. On Friday, March 13, he
shook hands with guests at a COVID briefing, in direct contradiction to health
officials’ guidance, prompting one attendee to dodge Trump’s hand and offer
an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/03/14/trump-handshakes-coronavirus-press-briefing-vpx.cnn"><span style="color: #e7131a;">elbow bump</span></a> instead. <b>Geraldo
Rivera</b> even tried to get through to Trump via the TV set, stating on
Fox one night, “Mr. President, for the good of the nation, stop shaking hands.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Criticism of Trump’s
stupefying behavior and stream-of-consciousness briefings wasn’t limited to
self-professed liberals like Geraldo. <b>Philip Klein,</b> then the
executive editor of the right-leaning <i>Washington Examiner,</i> now
the top editor of National Review Online, <a href="https://twitter.com/philipaklein/status/1236682828227776512" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e7131a;">said</span></a> at the time
that Trump “has not shown an ability to break out of his typical antics, and
treat the moment with the seriousness with which it deserves.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The COVID crisis was something of a
repeat of how Trump reacted to Hurricane Maria—by downplaying the death toll,
rejecting the math, and accusing Democrats of colluding to make him look bad.
He said he was the best thing to ever happen to Puerto Rico. Remember? Then
came COVID, and he tried the same tricks: Wild boosterism, bogus claims, and
bewildering photo ops. He misinformed the public about a life-and-death issue.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The missteps and
misstatements continued through March, April, and beyond. On March 24, less
than two weeks after the shutdowns commenced, he said he wanted the country
“opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” which was on April 12. He was
gravely concerned about the economy—but public health officials believed he
should have been more concerned about the health and well-being of the public.
He certainly wasn’t putting peoples’ health first when he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/24/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-disinfectant-sunlight-science/index.html"><span style="color: #e7131a;">suggested</span></a> that ingesting disinfectants
could help cure coronavirus. Public health agencies warned people not to take
Trump’s advice. “Don’t make a bad situation worse,” Washington State’s
emergency management agency tweeted in response.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">And that’s the point,
right? In an emergency, leaders can either help or hurt. They can rise to the
occasion or fail to lead at all. Trump’s record speaks for itself. But Politico
deputy managing editor for politics <b>Sam Stein</b> recently <a href="https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1764303020525867496" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e7131a;">observed</span></a> that, according to polling data,
“many voters give Trump a pass for the Covid year of his presidency. Or, at
least, don’t really hold him responsible for it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I get it. I don’t want to
revisit the COVID year of Trump’s presidency either. But it’s crucial to
remember.<o:p></o:p></span></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-58893574583335521592024-03-14T15:18:00.000-07:002024-03-14T15:18:48.409-07:00Older Workers <p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; color: black;"><tbody><tr><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(240, 240, 240); padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;"><div class="article_text" style="font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; width: 600px;"><div style="padding-bottom: 5px;"><img alt="Howard Tullman" src="https://www.loopnorth.com/image/graphic/header/tullman.jpg" style="width: 598px;" /></div><div class="article_text" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; width: 600px;"><div style="position: relative;"><img alt="Adobe Stock" src="https://www.loopnorth.com/image/2024/older_hipster_man_adobe1-600x400.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); height: 400px; width: 598px;" /><div class="headoverimage" style="background-color: grey; bottom: 15px; color: white; font-family: Merriweather; font-size: 24pt; font-weight: bold; left: 10px; letter-spacing: 2px; line-height: 40px; opacity: 0.9; padding: 5px; position: absolute; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 2px 2px; width: 570px;">Why older workers are now the better choice</div></div><div style="height: 4px;"></div><div class="lede" style="background-color: #f6f6f6; font-family: Merriweather, serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 30px; padding: 8px;">There’s a lot to be said for youth and inexperience, but many companies today need wiser, more experienced workers to get them through the next business cycle. It’s time to go gray.</div><p class="article_byline" style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px;">By Howard Tullman</p><p><b>14-Mar-24</b> – As more and more businesses begin to feel confident about the stickiness of the post-pandemic economy, and their revenues crest or outstrip their pre-COVID levels, company owners and managers are beginning to slowly try to hire back people they have let go in the last three years. That’s not necessarily an easy task because a lot of their former team members have moved on, moved out, or aren’t interested in returning to their old jobs.</p><p>To allow this rebuilding to be done at scale is also going to require a sizeable amount of attitude adjustment on the part of all the parties. Millions of young people think the stock market only goes up and that the world is just waiting to make them rich. Millions of middle-aged people thought they had signed up for lifetime employment and now are learning that they need to be lifelong <i>learners</i> to stay relevant and employed. What keeps growing never grows old. And millions of aspiring entrepreneurs think that tech is going to solve all the world’s problems if the old guys will just get out of the way.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" class="article_text" style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px;"><tbody><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><img alt="Adobe Stock" src="https://www.loopnorth.com/image/2024/older_man_forestry_adobe1-450x300.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); height: 300px; width: 450px;" /></td><td><p>It’s going to take a lot of patience, pain, and perseverance to pull off this process of re-upping and reloading the workforce.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Hiring the right number, desired skillsets, and demographic mix of new employees is clearly more challenging than before because rapid advances in various AI technologies, new and increasingly intelligent robotics, and the expanded automation of many traditional processes have changed the game. A significant number of the old positions have been eliminated – or compressed – and many others require new and different skills.</p><p>As a result, the job descriptions and search parameters for qualified candidates who are already trained and can smoothly step into the open slots have also been altered and updated. Experience and expertise are going to be highly valued, along with the ability to hit the ground running. The last thing that many of these companies desire is to spend a lot of scarce dollars for on-the-job training.</p><p>Another large group of theoretical prospects are the pools of recent college graduates, a great number of whom have never had a full-time job. Unfortunately, far too many of them have unrealistic compensation goals, work-life expectations, and other employment requirements, which make them less attractive and riskier hires. They don’t seem to have gotten the memo about what “work” actually means in the real world. They’ve also never lived through a real economic downturn or suffered through a recession and seen friends and families lose their jobs, savings, and sometimes far more than that.</p><p>So, they’re softer, less resilient, and aggressively impatient – but not in a good way. Since things have largely always gone their way, they haven’t really learned much about adversity or the bitter compromises everyone eventually makes in life. You don’t really learn from good experiences and success – you just keep doing things the same way that you always have done.</p><p>Energy, enthusiasm, and eagerness used to be critical considerations in hiring new employees. These are still important attributes, but we’re facing another year or two of market uncertainty, slow and careful growth rather than explosive leaps, and an overall interest in patience, prudence, and hunkering down to weather the next storm. Security, stability, and liquidity are going to be top of mind for senior management, stockholders, and stakeholders and no one wants to be seen hanging way out over their skis.</p><p>As a result, in the smartest and most competitive companies, we’re going to see another dramatic shift in their hiring perspectives: more focus on gray hair, prior, relevant work experience, and, maybe most importantly, men and women of a certain age who are now far more readily available in significant numbers. They’re grounded, serious, and realistic – and they’re much more about taking orders than taking risks, and that’s a good thing.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" class="article_text" style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td><p>These are the mid-careerists who’ve seen the hard times and remember the troughs and valleys that always offset the peaks and moonshots that have been all the media rage for the last two decades.</p></td><td style="vertical-align: top;"><img alt="Adobe Stock" src="https://www.loopnorth.com/image/2023/older_woman_business_adobe1-450x300.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); height: 300px; width: 450px;" /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>The pampered and hyper-parented Gen Zers have heard incessantly, their whole lives, about home runs, trees that grow to the sky, and the glory days. By contrast, the older folks have seen the bumps in the road as well. People who’ve maybe lost a serious job or two; who have serious financial, family, and other obligations; and, frankly, who are likely to be excited and grateful to be rejoining the working world at this point in their careers.</p><p>What they may lack in speed and reaction time is far less critical in the tortoise times to come when only the craziest rabbits are running amok. The fact that they appreciate the opportunity and what they can make out of it – instead of regarding a job as something they’re willing to settle for in the moment – tells a smart employer everything you need to know.</p><p>Resilience is a powerful muscle that grows stronger over time and through repeated exercise and testing. Our teams need it now more than ever.</p><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="default_text" style="border: 1px solid rgb(25, 25, 112); color: black; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 18.3333px; padding: 10px; width: 598px;"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color: black; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/Howard-A.-Tullman/author/B00JLVO1YU" rel="nofollow" target="new"><img alt="Words of Wisdom: A 60-year compilation" src="https://www.loopnorth.com/image/graphic/thumb/tullman_words_wisdom.jpg" style="height: 200px;" /></a></td><td style="width: 10px;"></td><td><b>Howard Tullman</b> is General Managing Partner for G2T3V, LLC – Investors in Disruptive Innovators, and for Chicago High Tech Investors, LLC. He is also the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/Howard-A.-Tullman/author/B00JLVO1YU" rel="nofollow" style="color: #0047ab;" target="new">Words of Wisdom: A 60-year compilation</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-55352775814792145352024-03-14T07:31:00.000-07:002024-03-14T07:31:58.288-07:00THESE FRAUDULENT LIARS CAN'T EVEN FAKE THE RIGHT PHOTO - SIX FINGERS ON THIS CROOKED TRAITOR <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0sBl2MBLLnfkbYDyFfW_4w99XgVzH6Q6DthlmWxqi3CWh2c3NS4YU6LvLn0_5rWaMvhocXo1vP4SB6MmpsN0Z-4qkRngqSGIOC09CJRA55MJbhUqMgZuzJr3Dxq1vHx4Gz3zPOEJHTQQ73aGYGJ_L1O0IN-o6_M6ZQy3HEqqbzEPUQDm5wWxy/s589/fake%20photo%20of%20trump%20in%20church.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="588" height="657" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0sBl2MBLLnfkbYDyFfW_4w99XgVzH6Q6DthlmWxqi3CWh2c3NS4YU6LvLn0_5rWaMvhocXo1vP4SB6MmpsN0Z-4qkRngqSGIOC09CJRA55MJbhUqMgZuzJr3Dxq1vHx4Gz3zPOEJHTQQ73aGYGJ_L1O0IN-o6_M6ZQy3HEqqbzEPUQDm5wWxy/w655-h657/fake%20photo%20of%20trump%20in%20church.png" width="655" /></a></div><br /><p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-76229127651922902282024-03-14T06:18:00.000-07:002024-03-14T06:18:25.452-07:00THE MAIN MAGAt AS OF 2025 <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6PuQOxiOlcHHwMvxyyw1i0klBOFzqhU-YTh01p7i6iTprXJL1VyFcUrZjFJD5quvBbSum9Jx23SfeZnswrXIkTziGu4maDPB0OpzxIJ0i7fAprUAttQvt0dW76yy_mK8yzx_NvykwhPpTAiemHxfAT6HjNtK92DEp7OkS4qyRa1y5w7gWg8yt/s939/432785358_204926279371925_7367693830561042420_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="939" data-original-width="828" height="727" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6PuQOxiOlcHHwMvxyyw1i0klBOFzqhU-YTh01p7i6iTprXJL1VyFcUrZjFJD5quvBbSum9Jx23SfeZnswrXIkTziGu4maDPB0OpzxIJ0i7fAprUAttQvt0dW76yy_mK8yzx_NvykwhPpTAiemHxfAT6HjNtK92DEp7OkS4qyRa1y5w7gWg8yt/w640-h727/432785358_204926279371925_7367693830561042420_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH8XQjjPxkigyPIJ0USmXhIrBOcfc7RMmlhrNvwSDy_-K5UTe1Vgb9TvSIOcm7-pcGZNMmEbejic4yvyvd3kKXXbW7gzFwTlU8U6kczZ4jlSpv5spKqHZbpt_hHaxV9JZCAlYuUfechbNabtaLIZ7q0Wsb-wGUXTfo59cjlBMB7rjyxDk2jtfc/s1080/433023568_3386238188334541_4576411114857307530_n.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1079" data-original-width="1080" height="626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH8XQjjPxkigyPIJ0USmXhIrBOcfc7RMmlhrNvwSDy_-K5UTe1Vgb9TvSIOcm7-pcGZNMmEbejic4yvyvd3kKXXbW7gzFwTlU8U6kczZ4jlSpv5spKqHZbpt_hHaxV9JZCAlYuUfechbNabtaLIZ7q0Wsb-wGUXTfo59cjlBMB7rjyxDk2jtfc/w626-h626/433023568_3386238188334541_4576411114857307530_n.jpeg" width="626" /></a></div><br /><p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-45065461434533502052024-03-13T10:43:00.000-07:002024-03-13T10:44:07.562-07:00Israel Has No Choice but to Fight On <p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 24.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Israel Has No Choice but to Fight
On<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">March 12, 2024<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style="border-top: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 1.0pt 0in 0in 0in;">
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; display: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 0in 0in 0in; padding: 0in; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="display: none; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-hide: all; mso-ligatures: none;">Top of
FormBottom of Form<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">By <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/bret-stephens"><span style="color: blue;">Bret
Stephens</span></a></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Opinion Columnist<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">On
Saturday, President Biden warned that Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach to the war
in Gaza was “</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/jonathan-capehart/watch/-he-knew-what-i-meant-by-it-biden-explains-hot-mic-moment-showing-frustration-with-netanyahu-206038597832" target="_blank"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: blue; font-family: "inherit",serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">hurting
Israel more than helping Israel</span></i></a></span><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">.” The
Israeli prime minister replied the next day that Biden was “</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/israels-netanyahu-says-he-will-defy-bidens-red-line-and-invade-rafah/" target="_blank"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: blue; font-family: "inherit",serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">wrong</span></i></a></span><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">.” The rift between the two leaders means that Israel risks losing its
most important pillar of military and diplomatic support.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">I’ve
argued that Israel has no choice but to destroy Hamas as an effective fighting
force. Here I imagine a conversation with an intelligent critic of that view.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Thousands
of Gazan civilians, many of them children, have now been killed, bombed in
their homes or out of them. Now they face a humanitarian catastrophe in the
form of medicine and food shortages, even starvation.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">How
can you possibly justify it?</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Like all wars, this one is horrible and heartbreaking. But
I blame Hamas, not Israel, for the devastation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Look,
Hamas is a terrorist group whose leaders should face justice for the massacres
of Oct. 7. But it isn’t Hamas’s bombs, missiles or artillery that have leveled
Gaza. It’s Israel’s.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Right.
And Hamas, which started the war, could put a halt to that rain of fire
tomorrow. It <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/world/middleeast/hamas-cease-fire-talks-cairo.html"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">rejected</span></a> a six-week cease-fire that would have
paused the fighting and allowed much more aid in exchange for the release of
roughly 40 of the remaining 100 Israeli hostages. It could stop the fighting
for good by simply surrendering.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Sign up for the Israel-Hamas War Briefing. </span></b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">The latest news about the conflict. <u>Get it sent to your inbox.</u></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Hamas
may not want to stop the fighting, but there’s little we can do about that.
Israel can stop its assault, and thus spare Palestinian lives. And because
Biden has leverage on Israel, he should use it.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The
best way to get Hamas to stop fighting is to beat it. If Israel were to end the
war now, with several Hamas battalions intact, at least four things would
happen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">First, it would be impossible to set up a political
authority in Gaza that isn’t Hamas: If the Palestinian Authority or local
Gazans tried to do so, they wouldn’t live for long. Second, Hamas would
reconstitute its military force as Hezbollah did in Lebanon after the 2006 war
with Israel — and Hamas has promised to repeat the attacks of Oct. 7 <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hamas-official-says-want-hostages-go-home-rcna123396" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">“a second, a third, a fourth”</span></a> time.
Third, the Israeli hostages would be stuck in their awful captivity
indefinitely.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Fourth,
there would never be a Palestinian state. No Israeli government is going to
agree to a Palestinian state in the West Bank if it risks resembling Gaza.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">All
that is speculative. The reality is that children are hungry, the sick aren’t
getting medicine, innocent Palestinians are being killed, now. It’s wrong to
avert theoretical harms by causing actual ones.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It
might be more speculative if this weren’t the fifth major war that Hamas has
provoked since it seized power in Gaza in 2007. After each war, Hamas’s
capabilities have grown stronger and its ambitions bolder. At some point this
had to end; for Israelis, Oct. 7 was that point.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Maybe,
but why can’t Israel be much more judicious in its use of force?</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Do
you have any specific suggestions for how Israel can defeat Hamas while being
more sparing of civilians?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">I’m
not a military expert.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I’ve noticed that whenever Israel’s critics lecture the
country on better calibrating its use of force, they don’t have any concrete
suggestions. Are Israelis smart enough to fight better, but too stupid to
appreciate the diplomatic consequences of not doing so?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Maybe
they’re thirsty for vengeance.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The
reality of urban warfare is that it’s exceptionally costly and difficult. The
United States under Barack Obama and Donald Trump spent nine months helping
Iraqi forces flatten the city of Mosul to defeat ISIS, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/14/mosul-before-and-after-in-satellite-images/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">with results</span></a> that
looked even worse than Gaza does today. I don’t remember calls for “Cease-Fire
Now” then. Hamas has made it even more difficult for Israel because, instead of
sheltering civilians in its immense network of tunnels, it shelters itself.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Even
so, that doesn’t relieve Israel of the obligation to prevent a humanitarian
catastrophe.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It’s
not as if Israel is not lifting a finger. On Sunday alone, <a href="https://govextra.gov.il/cogat/humanitarian-efforts/home/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">225 truckloads of aid entered Gaza through Israel,</span></a> according
to the Israeli military. But you seem to think that the government of Israel’s
primary responsibility is to the welfare of the people of Gaza. It isn’t. As
with any government, its obligations are to its own people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Israelis
are mostly doing fine now. It’s Palestinians who are dying.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Israel
has spent the last five months degrading Hamas’s military capabilities to the
point that it seems to have run out of rockets to fire at Israel. And around
200,000 Israelis <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2023/11/israel-internal-displacement-hamas-terror-attacks-oct-7-kibbutz/" target="_blank"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">are living as refugees</span></a> inside
their own country because its borders aren’t secure. No country can tolerate
that. Israel didn’t come into existence to showcase the victimization of Jews.
It came into existence to end their victimization.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Well,
since you’re alluding to the Holocaust, it surely can’t be in Israel’s
interests to be seen perpetrating a version of it in Gaza. Just look at the
worldwide explosion of antisemitism since Oct. 7.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">That analogy is false and offensive on many levels. Israel
is fighting a war it didn’t seek, against an enemy sworn to its destruction and
holding scores of its citizens hostage. If Israel had wanted to wipe out Gazans
as Germans sought to wipe out Jews, it could have done so on the first day of
the war. Israel is fighting a tough war against an evil enemy that puts its own
civilians in harm’s way. Maybe there should be more public pressure on Hamas to
surrender than on Israel to save Hamas from the consequences of its actions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">As
for antisemitism, the war hasn’t generated a torrent of antisemitism so much as
it has exposed it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">Probably
a mix of the two. Still, you make the mistake of imagining that Hamas can be
defeated. You can’t kill an idea, particularly by generating the terrible
resentments that are surely brewing in Gaza and throughout the Arab world.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">By
that logic, the Allies should have spared Germany because National Socialism
was also an idea. You may not be able to kill an idea but you can defang it,
just as you can persuade future generations that some ideas have terrible
consequences for those who espouse them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; padding: 0in;">So
what do you suggest the Biden administration do?</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Help Israel win the war decisively so that Israelis and
Palestinians can someday win the peace.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-20288860187549004692024-03-13T06:36:00.000-07:002024-03-13T06:36:51.863-07:00MAGAt MORONS MONEY PITS<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyORF-QyyHrdEX0AWSk2yEgzc3MC1SuOsYevOSp7CdGgwx_pjFrlXM8iqqsRtYz50wNN0FBQ7tqOAe4_H4rhUGkeEVToll_pZhTL2rRLUJMUM7BbDgCZMMscJcZP27HbyKH59QwzTcBcf1WBZSfizFAU5V8oSVHudyPSWh_QK8nsnmzc8zaWud/s1913/432393152_270653362744877_6417231616953337378_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1913" height="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyORF-QyyHrdEX0AWSk2yEgzc3MC1SuOsYevOSp7CdGgwx_pjFrlXM8iqqsRtYz50wNN0FBQ7tqOAe4_H4rhUGkeEVToll_pZhTL2rRLUJMUM7BbDgCZMMscJcZP27HbyKH59QwzTcBcf1WBZSfizFAU5V8oSVHudyPSWh_QK8nsnmzc8zaWud/w667-h502/432393152_270653362744877_6417231616953337378_n.jpg" width="667" /></a></div><br /><p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-83987639096705055162024-03-13T06:28:00.000-07:002024-03-13T06:28:30.709-07:00HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO TALK ABOUT PROMPT ENGINEERS<p><a href="https://wgnradio.com/lisa-dent/howard-tullman-on-why-you-should-think-like-a-machine/">LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE</a> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieSjFgwFiBlMkkIfocr_J-DkcPzN_Xo0lFBVI6T_OoWZCcMxfXrlwMslGj_V9vnyoSh9Bb9Q3pXPyqq21o-8iPeulio6DS8Cy0g3yoAT428yk2PLlLtXY9GRy_IxjacQjzHUQfg6qkcWwQ0pJ1hNpVAeF5y34SipeJJLWaaMQ-VuABgoQ-MLhP/s1173/WGN%20THINK%20LIKE%20MACHINE.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="1173" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieSjFgwFiBlMkkIfocr_J-DkcPzN_Xo0lFBVI6T_OoWZCcMxfXrlwMslGj_V9vnyoSh9Bb9Q3pXPyqq21o-8iPeulio6DS8Cy0g3yoAT428yk2PLlLtXY9GRy_IxjacQjzHUQfg6qkcWwQ0pJ1hNpVAeF5y34SipeJJLWaaMQ-VuABgoQ-MLhP/w668-h382/WGN%20THINK%20LIKE%20MACHINE.png" width="668" /></a></div><p><a href="https://wgnradio.com/lisa-dent/howard-tullman-on-why-you-should-think-like-a-machine/">LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE</a><br /></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-73184171472525539202024-03-12T16:29:00.000-07:002024-03-12T16:29:17.930-07:00GYM (PERVERT) JORDAN - ALWAYS THE DUMBEST AND LOUDEST MAGAt IN ANY GATHERING <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhFVmOZqEhP2Ao1rxFg88o5YW9MyvR04Eh60-GSqiksA4VZcqOWAUZ4ZeSkOo1fGcxEiqrkGMD7Q-r2SeWbCaUQsW_aeKjJIcWqWjYdvkM32iwN4v1urfCMFgsS8Qe-hXv3PGaLiq2lsA9HGbtu86w-mN_xUtQdNApCjr0Z7CBwvqztEJH8X2J/s680/432484499_1575029609939811_9060068628222770637_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="680" height="473" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhFVmOZqEhP2Ao1rxFg88o5YW9MyvR04Eh60-GSqiksA4VZcqOWAUZ4ZeSkOo1fGcxEiqrkGMD7Q-r2SeWbCaUQsW_aeKjJIcWqWjYdvkM32iwN4v1urfCMFgsS8Qe-hXv3PGaLiq2lsA9HGbtu86w-mN_xUtQdNApCjr0Z7CBwvqztEJH8X2J/w632-h473/432484499_1575029609939811_9060068628222770637_n.jpg" width="632" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZxVq4JvQPW7shMUbf5EsIdJy-EJF8KizFc3zAIBgqXlE8AniX9BwjEayOuPGbzuV1ISk9fzJ6jB3D9PE6e_0r-msbUFlUVDoxQtvuWWMNof_AlqGN0WFS_suEyxr1_grGKXl6-IhJAaNj5J9ZLRozvQ7dNM-a5llt4ZJ_-2zaU4OjgLsnhyk/s720/431949575_807763217932613_2835340080259110236_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLhWyJUBySsH4iLJlJDpQ5zJI-M1yRaZl-fceTImbHtjb7wwT3OlkaXsxULH8_V-OFdUc0hXnG1fgU1cT6rNrmkxIa9cBITRL1hy-LhCm1BRwPfHrg3xbFHbiN2kRnPTHsa3e27AaCkcKso1uZvsljIm0X7dvuAh94IOvlVrkv7CcxwdB9sii6/s720/thumbnail_Image-1%20(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="720" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLhWyJUBySsH4iLJlJDpQ5zJI-M1yRaZl-fceTImbHtjb7wwT3OlkaXsxULH8_V-OFdUc0hXnG1fgU1cT6rNrmkxIa9cBITRL1hy-LhCm1BRwPfHrg3xbFHbiN2kRnPTHsa3e27AaCkcKso1uZvsljIm0X7dvuAh94IOvlVrkv7CcxwdB9sii6/w618-h425/thumbnail_Image-1%20(2).jpg" width="618" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnxHbppt-RzMptNpx2W1gW6l6QvTikI4QxTupTVte7_X1AezEBqHYv_ZPTB-Fd53Ea_nRdW6SZXs5fymOjWowbQ1fbCFjMJE4g8JCAtWINE_A1MN3Tb3ZQsABUV_X1B4U8siBEqRcgx0ZJU1joNyX2iKGEWf8-55nsK1pKKVO7Gn64-7VpcPOJ/s720/386227796_290255577112866_2685632216203768097_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="720" height="605" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnxHbppt-RzMptNpx2W1gW6l6QvTikI4QxTupTVte7_X1AezEBqHYv_ZPTB-Fd53Ea_nRdW6SZXs5fymOjWowbQ1fbCFjMJE4g8JCAtWINE_A1MN3Tb3ZQsABUV_X1B4U8siBEqRcgx0ZJU1joNyX2iKGEWf8-55nsK1pKKVO7Gn64-7VpcPOJ/w638-h605/386227796_290255577112866_2685632216203768097_n.jpg" width="638" /></a></div><br /><br />HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-2221386099502590832024-03-12T15:27:00.000-07:002024-03-12T15:27:15.516-07:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOQjBym4gksQ-knt2oHan_pY85E4cVmOLeE5HSdvPFzTRWNOTeq02JKnWYIlQ9TKwbsNyYf_fz2OlnyuvlOHSbsApQ0_F1QIJeJ6tlAcACw3x3ojl7buIzNo6DnBNM3oyKsJCxTOdHzRMAoMZaYjofY9_wImWtroCUTeVqDp_CxcfC7dNelF9N/s1243/432578518_257037097376894_5281187659169391791_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1243" data-original-width="930" height="872" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOQjBym4gksQ-knt2oHan_pY85E4cVmOLeE5HSdvPFzTRWNOTeq02JKnWYIlQ9TKwbsNyYf_fz2OlnyuvlOHSbsApQ0_F1QIJeJ6tlAcACw3x3ojl7buIzNo6DnBNM3oyKsJCxTOdHzRMAoMZaYjofY9_wImWtroCUTeVqDp_CxcfC7dNelF9N/w651-h872/432578518_257037097376894_5281187659169391791_n.jpg" width="651" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10355408.post-75146906508619525682024-03-12T13:19:00.000-07:002024-03-12T13:19:26.947-07:00Join Me in the Valley for this Powerful Symposium <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMW85CY_0Uni3yjoinaphYRmRZ094sgzct0IXCMQ20q_JzAFj87N1XtDBm-veaGHcAD43nEcZcxpXjYDEV-dASv_8A6TvWZfb22rrOmrVO9BH-szRZS91Q-OLdfFG7tsFiPPYm9pDfUiA1gK0QQfOEbsWeD9-MZvTTyYM_lFBq7B7fPS6a7PM/s1200/thumbnail_1200x628-St-Pattys-Silicon_Valley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMW85CY_0Uni3yjoinaphYRmRZ094sgzct0IXCMQ20q_JzAFj87N1XtDBm-veaGHcAD43nEcZcxpXjYDEV-dASv_8A6TvWZfb22rrOmrVO9BH-szRZS91Q-OLdfFG7tsFiPPYm9pDfUiA1gK0QQfOEbsWeD9-MZvTTyYM_lFBq7B7fPS6a7PM/w657-h343/thumbnail_1200x628-St-Pattys-Silicon_Valley.jpg" width="657" /></a></div><br /> <a href="https://www.siliconvalleyims.com/speakers/a816c77475c24b7991b58ea27e27d2b2/howard-tullman/?scode=062302">https://www.siliconvalleyims.com/speakers/a816c77475c24b7991b58ea27e27d2b2/howard-tullman/?scode=062302</a><p></p><div class="container-lg" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: Poppins, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 1141px; padding-left: var(--bs-gutter-x, 0.75rem); padding-right: var(--bs-gutter-x, 0.75rem); width: 1141px;"><div class="row" style="--bs-gutter-x: 1rem; 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padding-right: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * 0.5); width: 188.828px;"><img class="img-fluid" src="https://cdn.moneyshow.com/mscache/spk-images/1068763SPK_350x350.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" /><h5 class="text-primary mt-2 fw-bolder" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(170, 139, 75) !important; font-size: 1.375rem; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0.5rem !important;">Howard Tullman</h5><div class="text-muted font-14 mb-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(108, 117, 125) !important; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem !important;">General Managing Partner</div><div class="text-muted font-14" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(108, 117, 125) !important; font-size: 14px;">G2T3V, LLC</div><ul class="list-inline mt-3" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem !important; padding-left: 0px;"><li class="list-inline-item" style="box-sizing: border-box; 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display: inline-block;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.siliconvalleyims.com/speakers/a816c77475c24b7991b58ea27e27d2b2/howard-tullman/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aa8b4b; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="svg-inline--fa fa-linkedin fa-2x text-primary" data-fa-i2svg="" data-icon="linkedin" data-prefix="fab" focusable="false" role="img" viewbox="0 0 448 512" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M416 32H31.9C14.3 32 0 46.5 0 64.3v383.4C0 465.5 14.3 480 31.9 480H416c17.6 0 32-14.5 32-32.3V64.3c0-17.8-14.4-32.3-32-32.3zM135.4 416H69V202.2h66.5V416zm-33.2-243c-21.3 0-38.5-17.3-38.5-38.5S80.9 96 102.2 96c21.2 0 38.5 17.3 38.5 38.5 0 21.3-17.2 38.5-38.5 38.5zm282.1 243h-66.4V312c0-24.8-.5-56.7-34.5-56.7-34.6 0-39.9 27-39.9 54.9V416h-66.4V202.2h63.7v29.2h.9c8.9-16.8 30.6-34.5 62.9-34.5 67.2 0 79.7 44.3 79.7 101.9V416z" fill="currentColor"></path></svg></a></li></ul></div><div class="col-xl-9 col-md-9 ps-3 pe-5" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 auto; margin-top: var(--bs-gutter-y); max-width: 100%; padding-left: 1rem !important; padding-right: 3rem !important; width: 566.484px;"><div class="text-muted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(108, 117, 125) !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Howard A. Tullman is the former CEO of 1871, a tech incubator in Chicago ranked number one in the world, and the general managing partner for two early-stage venture funds. He is also the past chairman/CEO of Tribeca Flashpoint College and Kendall College. Over the last 50 years, Mr. Tullman has successfully founded more than a dozen high-tech companies. He has written a weekly column for <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">INC. Magazine</em> for the last eight years on entrepreneurship and technology.</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="col-xl-4 col-lg-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 auto; margin-top: var(--bs-gutter-y); max-width: 100%; padding-left: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * 0.5); padding-right: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * 0.5); width: 377.656px;"><div class="py-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-bottom: 3.25rem !important; padding-top: 3.25rem !important;"><div class="card bg-secondary" style="background-clip: border-box; background-color: rgb(34, 34, 34) !important; border-radius: 0.25rem; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.125); box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; position: relative;"><div class="card-body py-8 px-5 text-center" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 1 1 auto; padding: 3.75rem 3rem !important; text-align: center !important;"><h4 class="text-white" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(255, 255, 255) !important; font-size: 1.625rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;">Meet Howard Tullman and Other Top Market Experts in San Francisco</h4><div class="mt-3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1rem !important;"><a class=" btn btn-primary text-white col-12 text-uppercase" href="https://www.siliconvalleyims.com/registration/" style="background-color: #aa8b4b; background-image: var(--bs-gradient); border-radius: 0.25rem; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 139, 75); box-shadow: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.15) 0px 1px 0px inset, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075) 0px 1px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(255, 255, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; flex: 0 0 auto; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 1.5; padding: 0.375rem 0.75rem; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: uppercase !important; transition: color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, background-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, border-color 0.15s ease-in-out 0s, box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle; width: 263.656px;">REGISTER NOW</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="container-lg mb-6" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: Poppins, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 3.25rem !important; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 1141px; padding-left: var(--bs-gutter-x, 0.75rem); padding-right: var(--bs-gutter-x, 0.75rem); width: 1141px;"><div class="card" style="background-clip: border-box; border-radius: 0.25rem; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.125); box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; position: relative;"><div class="card-header bg-card-header-primary" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); background-image: linear-gradient(160deg, rgb(34, 34, 34) 40%, rgb(85, 85, 85) 70%); border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.125); border-radius: calc(-1px + 0.25rem) calc(-1px + 0.25rem) 0px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0.5rem 1rem;"><h5 class="text-white mb-0" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(255, 255, 255) !important; font-size: 1.375rem; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px;">Howard Tullman's Schedule</h5></div><div class="card-body py-0" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 1 1 auto; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 1rem; padding-right: 1rem; padding-top: 0px !important;"><div class="row py-3 border-top alt-rows" style="--bs-gutter-x: 1rem; --bs-gutter-y: 0; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230) !important; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; margin-left: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * -0.5); margin-right: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * -0.5); margin-top: calc(var(--bs-gutter-y) * -1); padding-bottom: 1rem !important; padding-top: 1rem !important;"><div class="col-md-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 auto; margin-top: var(--bs-gutter-y); max-width: 100%; padding-left: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * 0.5); padding-right: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * 0.5); width: 1099px;"><div class="text-secondary font-14" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(34, 34, 34) !important; font-size: 14px;">Thursday, May 9, 2024, 9:05 am - 9:25 am</div><a class="lead mb-2 fw-bolder text-secondary" href="https://www.siliconvalleyims.com//workshop/6711cebd4f6449728bfdb8595bc658cd/the-new-normal-leveraging-emerging-tech-trends-and-the-new-workforce//?scode=062302" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(34, 34, 34) !important; font-size: 1.25rem; font-weight: 700 !important; margin-bottom: 0.5rem !important; text-decoration-line: none;">The New Normal: Leveraging Emerging Tech Trends and the New Workforce</a><div class="font-weight-bold font-14" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a class="text-primary" href="https://www.siliconvalleyims.com/speakers/a816c77475c24b7991b58ea27e27d2b2/howard-tullman/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(170, 139, 75) !important; text-decoration-line: none;">Howard Tullman</a> <span class="mx-1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 0.25rem !important; margin-right: 0.25rem !important;">|</span>G2T3V, LLC</div></div><div class="mt-2 font-14 font-roboto" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0.5rem !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Protecting and positioning your portfolio through strategic investments over the next year will be critical. Understanding the impact of new technologies, disruptive innovations, and the new emerging workforce will be crucial to your success. Hear from Howard Tullman who, how, and where we work will all be radically changed. </p></div></div></div><div class="row py-3 border-top alt-rows" style="--bs-gutter-x: 1rem; --bs-gutter-y: 0; border-top: 1px solid rgb(222, 226, 230) !important; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; margin-left: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * -0.5); margin-right: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * -0.5); margin-top: calc(var(--bs-gutter-y) * -1); padding-bottom: 1rem !important; padding-top: 1rem !important;"><div class="col-md-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 auto; margin-top: var(--bs-gutter-y); max-width: 100%; padding-left: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * 0.5); padding-right: calc(var(--bs-gutter-x) * 0.5); width: 1099px;"><div class="text-secondary font-14" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(34, 34, 34) !important; font-size: 14px;">Thursday, May 9, 2024, 9:30 am - 10:00 am</div><a class="lead mb-2 fw-bolder text-secondary" href="https://www.siliconvalleyims.com//workshop/032072131e4e4ab0a5fed17b85c45307/the-stock-market-pivot-top-10-names-to-target-as-the-market-advance-broadens-out//?scode=062302" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(34, 34, 34) !important; font-size: 1.25rem; font-weight: 700 !important; margin-bottom: 0.5rem !important; text-decoration-line: none;">The STOCK MARKET Pivot: Top 10 Names to Target as the Market Advance Broadens Out</a><div class="font-weight-bold font-14" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a class="text-primary" href="https://www.siliconvalleyims.com/speakers/a816c77475c24b7991b58ea27e27d2b2/howard-tullman/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(170, 139, 75) !important; text-decoration-line: none;">Howard Tullman</a> <span class="mx-1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 0.25rem !important; margin-right: 0.25rem !important;">|</span>G2T3V, LLC</div></div><div class="mt-2 font-14 font-roboto" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin-top: 0.5rem !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Tech investments have created enormous amounts of wealth in the past few years, with the “Magnificent Seven” names leading the way. But some of the Mag 7 stocks have been fading, while other stocks in other sectors like industrials and materials have been playing “catch up.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">Over the past year-and-a-half, our experts on this panel have recommended to our investors stocks with phenomenal returns. Now, they will share their ten favorite stocks and ETFs for the next leg of this bull run. </p></div></div></div></div></div></div>HOWARD TULLMANhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13743018039680330819noreply@blogger.com