"Then there’s the other side I think of how such a man could win, twice."
Trump is a clown, granted. And that is being kind. Trump won (twice) because Team D gave us a series of entitled sociopaths who barely made an effort to fake empathy.
I did not vote for Trump in 2016, not in 2020, not in 2024, BTW.
Good point, but it seems to me that the all-knowing electorate simple chose an Orange "entitled sociopath" versus other potential types. "Entitled sociopath" is a perfectly appropriate moniker for our current Nepo-Baby in Chief.
Hey friend - I sent this reply to you via email, but thought I’d contribute here.
I read your Substack as often as humanly possible (three teens in the house - 13, 16 and 16 - has added more than a few years to my biological age) and had to respond to this one. Perfectly written (which is your baseline) and perfectly stated. I have felt moments of rage, despair, some submission, then back to rage at the theft of childhood from our children. And I'm an asshole mom! I limit Screentime to an hour a day on socials, don't allow TikTok, made them wait until 15 for Snapchat, take their phones at 10pm most nights (but they do not have phones/screens in their rooms overnight, ever), and I'm still losing them. If I had the energy (and smarts), I'd join Scott and try to lead a mom movement against the tech companies and demand legislation to check them. But it all seems so insurmountable. Like, impossible.
(I will use the environmental
Impacts you mentioned to guilt my kids, though. I knew somewhat about the electricity, but the water?!)
Thank you for your always amazing and thoughtful pieces, my friend. I'll be sure to pass this one on.
Sending love to you and your family and best wishes for a wonderful new year. (Hopefully this will be the year the orange turd gets some checks and balances.) In the meantime, thank you for fighting the good fight. Xxoo
So great to hear from you Kathy! And I cannot even believe we have kids this old (and you have twins no less, eegads!, and how many years it's been since I've seen you). Cheers from a fellow Asshole Mom! It's such a battle for their lives, truly. You put that so well, and no matter what we face defeat. This is So Hard. I worry for them so much, and our work to (try to) parent them looks like it will never be done as we supposedly launch them...into what?
I'm so glad you're enjoying these and my messages resonate. Keep up the good fight, and please please please may that man die in jail.
Great piece! and yes, I do know: Women are from Venus and Men are from Uranus. But not to worry! The problem will soon resolve itself as Elon is currently drafting plans for a retirement community and Muy Macho Angry Male Retreat on Mars -- complete with Ketamine bar and whites-only bathrooms.
"Reportedly 45% of young men aged 18-25 have never approached a woman."
I've said this before, but men, especially young men, are in a lot of trouble, and when they pull away from society and social interactions they become dangerous to themselves as well as the rest of us. We're going to have to change the way we see them and work with them.
Over the past decade I found myself in a position I never thought I'd occupy; that of a reactionary. Then about to turn 50, my white straight manhood was abruptly a thing of the past. Certainly, the signs were there, even before I left the university after 25 years as a professor. Young female scholars everywhere, some of whom I myself hired. They were the intellectual versions of those whose literacy was honed by the internet. They had no idea who Max Weber was, nor had ever read Nietzsche. It was not merely a demographic shift, it had all the earmarks of one discursive as well. And it was not simply the DWEMs who had been forsaken, but luminaries such as Hannah Arendt, who these new professors had barely heard of. I have been on this soapbox for years: make education MORE interesting than media; this is the only way to regain the interest of youth. Inherently, its stuff IS far more interesting, profound, exciting, and true to life than anything either AI or digital in general could produce, but one has to KNOW it first in order to teach it. The fault lies in the absence of culture within the education systems.
When I taught in the Great Books program in the USA I found a desperate craving for thinking, indeed, for living, amongst the students. Between Don Quixote and Coriolanus there was created a sense of both history and character, both of which are lacking in our public life today. THAT is how a Mr. Trump can come to the fore. And yet, who spoke with Sharon Osborne after Ozzy's death, showing a great compassion? As she put it, 'Starmer never phoned me'. Who was visibly shaken after touring the deadly Texas floods, walking away being embraced by his wife? Who stood up and gestured to the crowd and thence continued his public appearances after nearly having his head blown off? Who had been mocked for decades for no apparent reason - at the time, Trump was simply some business guy with no political cachet - by the likes of Letterman and co.? What exactly was the point of the 'Trump or Monkey' jape? I felt like Cleese's character, whose wife and he had just survived an evening with the 'Cheap-Laughs'.
In spite of his flaws, Donald Trump has shown moments of great courage, compassion, and even insights unavailable to the usual political cronyism. In his chiaroscuro of character he is, in a word, a human like ourselves. He does not 'represent' anyone; he rather expresses everyone.
A culture reaps what it sows, far more than does a mere person. And if the once-smug urbane swirl of America feels it is living through the 'revenge of the turds', then just remind yourselves that this shit's on you, my friend, and no one else besides.
This is so true: "A culture reaps what it sows, far more than does a mere person." DT can and will be flushed into the sewers of history but it won't make a lot of difference IMO because the toxic soil he came from is breeding more turds constantly. I also very much share your deep concerns with the state of education, but, with this same information, and whereas you choose "reactionary", I choose "progressive" simply because "there is no going home," as the old saying goes, and the only road is forward -like it or not. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Coriolanus would agree. Finally, to say DT has "compassion", and "expresses everyone" is laughable beyond absurdity. And he *does* represent someone, if you haven't noticed, which is himself. Only. Purely. Nothing else and none else matters to him but him and precious toddler ego. Not his kids, not his wives, his "friends," not you, and not me.
I think I was engaging in some self-satire there at the start; we are, as part of our very essence, 'beings who are always ahead of ourselves', to refer to Heidegger, and so of course my whole effort is to that regard. Which is why I have been concerned about the global regression in general. I referenced Sharon Osbourne regarding Trump's compassion, so you would have to take that part up with her. And Trump, though certainly self-aggrandizing, does not depart from our shared humanity in that he embodies what any of us would consider to be aspects of ourselves, however much we attempt to contain them. He himself may carry these aspects to absurd lengths, but who among us can say that we have not had some similar moments? Trump therefore does in fact 'express everyone'; perhaps I was not as clear as I could have been stating such. And it may be too far to say that, while he does not 'represent anyone', something you appear to agree with, he does represent many people's view on things. I myself agree with him about NATO, immigration, outsourcing, and party politics, for instance. And perhaps oddly, or yet ironically, his attacks upon Iran, ISIS, and Venezuela, are anti-fascist, though he disdains groups like 'ANTIFA'. Trump, in spite of trumpeting himself, remains a mixed bag politically. I think this is why he does have such appeal: that most persons do indeed recognize at least part of themselves in him, myself included. As far as his 'legacy' goes, there have been both more flamboyant presidents - Andrew Jackson, Theodore 'Get Action' Roosevelt - and more incompetent ones - Ulysses Grant, Warren Harding and others - and so I do not see him as the outlier critics claim that he is. And just as a note to self, phrases such as 'laughable beyond absurdity' and 'in case you haven't noticed' are both demeaning and patronizing and detract from the remarks you are otherwise making.
Ok, thanks for the deeper explanation. Well said. My apologies for the cut down. You just lost me (hard) at “compassion.” Respectfully, I would compare the call to Sharon in the face of the firehose of chaos and cruelty he’s spewing to a drop of water in fetid sea. Furthermore, to infer that makes him, therefore, ipso facto, a compassionate leader is beyond me. Benito kissed a lot of babies, does that mean he spoke for me (“everyone”) too? Finally, I respect your opinions about policy, and etc., but I do not share those opinions —though I must say I find it interesting that a man of your breadth of study champions a man who does not read books - or even his staff briefings. If you said “Heidegger” to him he would say “gazuntite.“ In any case thank you for writing back and please accept my best wishes for the new year to you and to your family.
And to you. And certainly I am aware of the disconnects. I am not trying at all to imply that Trump is erudite, I am only attempting to place him in a broader historical context wherein there is, for better or worse, plenty of precedent. And I hope I am not giving the impression that I would champion any politician, just once again noting that the essential aspects of the human character do not vanish with the social role. To be fair, I do agree that many leaders attempt TO vanquish their own humanity, or even to masquerade it - Stalin as well appeared to love (certain) children - as if it too were merely part of the theater at hand, but in the end they tend to betray themselves. My overall point was simply that Trump has nothing special nor novel about him as a leader, and hence my interest in who he MIGHT be as a person.
Agree. with all that! "Plenty of precedent" indeed, and sadly, and so much plentitude that it takes most of the prime real estate in the dark volumes of history from Herodotus on down to Yuval Noah Harari. Trump has an advantage in being so transparent. He's not a Machiavellian (say like Putin) nor is he an ideologue (like Stalin), not a "mastermind" of some kind (like a Bismarck or a Kissinger) -- he just is what is, and people flock to that, refreshed and understandably, after decades of disingenuous career politicos (Nixon/Clinton, etc.). My revulsion is with Trumps' stunning self-dealing veniality, whiny egotism, race-bating, and shocking ignorance of anything outside his own coiffed, spray-tanned head ....and the tax cheating, which really fries my cheese, but I digress.... :-)
Thank you, I find it all so terrifying. So the more we can talk about it, and at least try to do better in our own lives and with our own kids, the better.
"Then there’s the other side I think of how such a man could win, twice."
Trump is a clown, granted. And that is being kind. Trump won (twice) because Team D gave us a series of entitled sociopaths who barely made an effort to fake empathy.
I did not vote for Trump in 2016, not in 2020, not in 2024, BTW.
Good point, but it seems to me that the all-knowing electorate simple chose an Orange "entitled sociopath" versus other potential types. "Entitled sociopath" is a perfectly appropriate moniker for our current Nepo-Baby in Chief.
Hey friend - I sent this reply to you via email, but thought I’d contribute here.
I read your Substack as often as humanly possible (three teens in the house - 13, 16 and 16 - has added more than a few years to my biological age) and had to respond to this one. Perfectly written (which is your baseline) and perfectly stated. I have felt moments of rage, despair, some submission, then back to rage at the theft of childhood from our children. And I'm an asshole mom! I limit Screentime to an hour a day on socials, don't allow TikTok, made them wait until 15 for Snapchat, take their phones at 10pm most nights (but they do not have phones/screens in their rooms overnight, ever), and I'm still losing them. If I had the energy (and smarts), I'd join Scott and try to lead a mom movement against the tech companies and demand legislation to check them. But it all seems so insurmountable. Like, impossible.
(I will use the environmental
Impacts you mentioned to guilt my kids, though. I knew somewhat about the electricity, but the water?!)
Thank you for your always amazing and thoughtful pieces, my friend. I'll be sure to pass this one on.
Sending love to you and your family and best wishes for a wonderful new year. (Hopefully this will be the year the orange turd gets some checks and balances.) In the meantime, thank you for fighting the good fight. Xxoo
So great to hear from you Kathy! And I cannot even believe we have kids this old (and you have twins no less, eegads!, and how many years it's been since I've seen you). Cheers from a fellow Asshole Mom! It's such a battle for their lives, truly. You put that so well, and no matter what we face defeat. This is So Hard. I worry for them so much, and our work to (try to) parent them looks like it will never be done as we supposedly launch them...into what?
I'm so glad you're enjoying these and my messages resonate. Keep up the good fight, and please please please may that man die in jail.
Happy New Year!! Fingers crossed
Amen, sister! Crossing fingers and toes. Much love!
Great piece! and yes, I do know: Women are from Venus and Men are from Uranus. But not to worry! The problem will soon resolve itself as Elon is currently drafting plans for a retirement community and Muy Macho Angry Male Retreat on Mars -- complete with Ketamine bar and whites-only bathrooms.
Great piece. And this:
"Reportedly 45% of young men aged 18-25 have never approached a woman."
I've said this before, but men, especially young men, are in a lot of trouble, and when they pull away from society and social interactions they become dangerous to themselves as well as the rest of us. We're going to have to change the way we see them and work with them.
I'm so worried my girls will have no one to talk to at all in their generation, let alone mate with. A lot of trouble for sure.
Over the past decade I found myself in a position I never thought I'd occupy; that of a reactionary. Then about to turn 50, my white straight manhood was abruptly a thing of the past. Certainly, the signs were there, even before I left the university after 25 years as a professor. Young female scholars everywhere, some of whom I myself hired. They were the intellectual versions of those whose literacy was honed by the internet. They had no idea who Max Weber was, nor had ever read Nietzsche. It was not merely a demographic shift, it had all the earmarks of one discursive as well. And it was not simply the DWEMs who had been forsaken, but luminaries such as Hannah Arendt, who these new professors had barely heard of. I have been on this soapbox for years: make education MORE interesting than media; this is the only way to regain the interest of youth. Inherently, its stuff IS far more interesting, profound, exciting, and true to life than anything either AI or digital in general could produce, but one has to KNOW it first in order to teach it. The fault lies in the absence of culture within the education systems.
When I taught in the Great Books program in the USA I found a desperate craving for thinking, indeed, for living, amongst the students. Between Don Quixote and Coriolanus there was created a sense of both history and character, both of which are lacking in our public life today. THAT is how a Mr. Trump can come to the fore. And yet, who spoke with Sharon Osborne after Ozzy's death, showing a great compassion? As she put it, 'Starmer never phoned me'. Who was visibly shaken after touring the deadly Texas floods, walking away being embraced by his wife? Who stood up and gestured to the crowd and thence continued his public appearances after nearly having his head blown off? Who had been mocked for decades for no apparent reason - at the time, Trump was simply some business guy with no political cachet - by the likes of Letterman and co.? What exactly was the point of the 'Trump or Monkey' jape? I felt like Cleese's character, whose wife and he had just survived an evening with the 'Cheap-Laughs'.
In spite of his flaws, Donald Trump has shown moments of great courage, compassion, and even insights unavailable to the usual political cronyism. In his chiaroscuro of character he is, in a word, a human like ourselves. He does not 'represent' anyone; he rather expresses everyone.
A culture reaps what it sows, far more than does a mere person. And if the once-smug urbane swirl of America feels it is living through the 'revenge of the turds', then just remind yourselves that this shit's on you, my friend, and no one else besides.
And speaking of INCELs and the like: Want to read the real goods on on-line harm groups? https://insightful-ec.ca/articles/online-harm-groups
And speaking of digital 'dating': Want to know the real reasons why minors make porn? https://insightful-ec.ca/articles/why-do-minors-make-pornography
BTW, if I buy you one of my books, will you review it? - GVL
I can't be this gracious about Trump, but I see what you mean about our saggy educations for sure. Thank you for your thoughtful insights.
This is so true: "A culture reaps what it sows, far more than does a mere person." DT can and will be flushed into the sewers of history but it won't make a lot of difference IMO because the toxic soil he came from is breeding more turds constantly. I also very much share your deep concerns with the state of education, but, with this same information, and whereas you choose "reactionary", I choose "progressive" simply because "there is no going home," as the old saying goes, and the only road is forward -like it or not. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Coriolanus would agree. Finally, to say DT has "compassion", and "expresses everyone" is laughable beyond absurdity. And he *does* represent someone, if you haven't noticed, which is himself. Only. Purely. Nothing else and none else matters to him but him and precious toddler ego. Not his kids, not his wives, his "friends," not you, and not me.
I think I was engaging in some self-satire there at the start; we are, as part of our very essence, 'beings who are always ahead of ourselves', to refer to Heidegger, and so of course my whole effort is to that regard. Which is why I have been concerned about the global regression in general. I referenced Sharon Osbourne regarding Trump's compassion, so you would have to take that part up with her. And Trump, though certainly self-aggrandizing, does not depart from our shared humanity in that he embodies what any of us would consider to be aspects of ourselves, however much we attempt to contain them. He himself may carry these aspects to absurd lengths, but who among us can say that we have not had some similar moments? Trump therefore does in fact 'express everyone'; perhaps I was not as clear as I could have been stating such. And it may be too far to say that, while he does not 'represent anyone', something you appear to agree with, he does represent many people's view on things. I myself agree with him about NATO, immigration, outsourcing, and party politics, for instance. And perhaps oddly, or yet ironically, his attacks upon Iran, ISIS, and Venezuela, are anti-fascist, though he disdains groups like 'ANTIFA'. Trump, in spite of trumpeting himself, remains a mixed bag politically. I think this is why he does have such appeal: that most persons do indeed recognize at least part of themselves in him, myself included. As far as his 'legacy' goes, there have been both more flamboyant presidents - Andrew Jackson, Theodore 'Get Action' Roosevelt - and more incompetent ones - Ulysses Grant, Warren Harding and others - and so I do not see him as the outlier critics claim that he is. And just as a note to self, phrases such as 'laughable beyond absurdity' and 'in case you haven't noticed' are both demeaning and patronizing and detract from the remarks you are otherwise making.
Ok, thanks for the deeper explanation. Well said. My apologies for the cut down. You just lost me (hard) at “compassion.” Respectfully, I would compare the call to Sharon in the face of the firehose of chaos and cruelty he’s spewing to a drop of water in fetid sea. Furthermore, to infer that makes him, therefore, ipso facto, a compassionate leader is beyond me. Benito kissed a lot of babies, does that mean he spoke for me (“everyone”) too? Finally, I respect your opinions about policy, and etc., but I do not share those opinions —though I must say I find it interesting that a man of your breadth of study champions a man who does not read books - or even his staff briefings. If you said “Heidegger” to him he would say “gazuntite.“ In any case thank you for writing back and please accept my best wishes for the new year to you and to your family.
And to you. And certainly I am aware of the disconnects. I am not trying at all to imply that Trump is erudite, I am only attempting to place him in a broader historical context wherein there is, for better or worse, plenty of precedent. And I hope I am not giving the impression that I would champion any politician, just once again noting that the essential aspects of the human character do not vanish with the social role. To be fair, I do agree that many leaders attempt TO vanquish their own humanity, or even to masquerade it - Stalin as well appeared to love (certain) children - as if it too were merely part of the theater at hand, but in the end they tend to betray themselves. My overall point was simply that Trump has nothing special nor novel about him as a leader, and hence my interest in who he MIGHT be as a person.
Agree. with all that! "Plenty of precedent" indeed, and sadly, and so much plentitude that it takes most of the prime real estate in the dark volumes of history from Herodotus on down to Yuval Noah Harari. Trump has an advantage in being so transparent. He's not a Machiavellian (say like Putin) nor is he an ideologue (like Stalin), not a "mastermind" of some kind (like a Bismarck or a Kissinger) -- he just is what is, and people flock to that, refreshed and understandably, after decades of disingenuous career politicos (Nixon/Clinton, etc.). My revulsion is with Trumps' stunning self-dealing veniality, whiny egotism, race-bating, and shocking ignorance of anything outside his own coiffed, spray-tanned head ....and the tax cheating, which really fries my cheese, but I digress.... :-)
It is fair to say that one seems to always know where one stands with him, but I take that to be a good thing given politics generally.
Very interesting piece. Loved the writing
Thank you!
Thank you, I find it all so terrifying. So the more we can talk about it, and at least try to do better in our own lives and with our own kids, the better.