Loving Virginia (and let’s call a dollar a dollar).
The buck stops…with who?
Markets tanking. That's bad, right, unless you’re buying puts or running a hedge fund?
Let’s run a super simple math crunching lemonade stand exercise, assuming you start at zero.
down $10,
then up $2?
still down $8.
-10 + 2 = -8
Guess who will point fingers for the negative 10 blame…
…then raise his hand to take credit for the plus 2?
Still down 8.
That is his calculus: whatever the good number is, that’s what I did.
But the reality is: the math says you’re still down 8. In the red. Negative.
This is a man who is hailed by his sycophants and disciples as some sort of whiz dealmaker, a type of charismatic savant who understands markets and negotiating like no one else in the history of forever. But this man has lost money for investors, for people who believe him, who have trusted him, for decades. He’s done so for decades. It is rather…brilliant, in a warped way, how he has kept convincing people and institutions to trust him with their money, when he has lost so much for so many.
But amidst his losing, his prolific losing, there is one other common thread: he will never, ever acknowledge that he has lost anything. There is no reality or math or happening that will convince him to own up to something, anything, being his responsibility.
Anything that goes well? Turns out he was responsible.
Anything that goes wrong? Somebody else’s fault.
I do not not use the word lightly or casually, the one I’m about to use. This man won the Presidency in 2016 and 2024. He won those years, according to the laws of our land and the secure elections we hold, and unlike his followers when the situation is reversed, I acknowledge reality. He won in those years, just like he lost in 2020. He may have won the Presidency twice, but what he has done with those wins have laid bare the transparency of his character, or lack of one.
He has gained gold and found power. History will define him someday, and I define him now as a Loser, capital L. That seems to be the only kind of capital he can hang onto without losing, and the only sort of language he seems to understand. If he wants to make the world fully binary, with everyone either Winners or Losers, then let’s respect that and accord him the category he’s earned.
Stop the defense.
In the late 1950s, over 90% of white Americans still believed interracial marriage was wrong.
Read that a second time. And a third.
Let's have some honest assessments of your family legacy, if you're white.
Were your parents or grandparents in the less than 10% of that statistic?
What did they say or do or stand for?
Did they speak out or stand up?
You can be a good person to those around and still be racist. We have to accept that at some point.
