Forecast Lookback

Here's a look back at a filing from mid-November 2016, soon after Election Day. How much came true?

The Apprentice President

Will America become a Trump family business?

Naming his children to his transition team and planning to leave them in charge of his many business ventures, without the assurance of a blind trust, Donald Trump as President will effectively treat the United States government as a family business. 

The world has a name for that. It's called a monarchy.

For the second time in five presidential election cycles, the candidate who collected the most votes failed to win through to the Oval Office.

What a weird system.

But unless the Constitution is changed, that's the system we're stuck with.

Meanwhile, like a seaman apprentice new to a sailing ship, the newbie must rely on seasoned hands to show him the ropes among the sails, until he knows the rigging and can easily work the system.

There are many old hands in Congress, and it remains to be seen how well the apprentice President learns the ropes on Capitol Hill so he can guide the ship of state toward his preferred destination.

That assumes that all the Republican hands in Congress follow the new captain's orders and there is no mutiny from Democrats.

Trump has been used to getting his own way throughout his business career. When his ventures fail and go bankrupt, he has already paid himself well, draining wealth from the projects before letting them sink.

Now, however, it is not just one or several business ventures that could fall apart, but the entire country. And if he carries out his threats to cancel international trade agreements, anti-pollution efforts, health care programs, defense pacts, economic assistance plans and other government ventures, especially anti-pollution efforts to deal with climate change, the entire world may suffer.

But not the family business. As members of the transition team, his children will have access to top secret information about all the nation's activities even as they continue to operate all the aspects of the Trump business empire.

What's to stop them from using that information to pressure competitors -- both business and political -- into yielding to Trump interests at the expense of their own? And if Donald Trump as President continues even a semi-active part in the family business, that creates a conflict of interest dangerous to government and consumer interests as well as international relationships with other sovereign nations, both friendly and otherwise.

So unless the new President backs away from his family business ventures and sets up a truly blind trust -- one in which his family members have no part and he, at minimum, never participates in business discussions -- there will remain the suspicion and the very real danger that the United States of America is becoming a Trump family business.

America once was part of such an arrangement, but declared its independence from the family business in 1776.

Lunar Science

   When people can't explain something, whether it's erratic behavior or physical illness, they often blame the moon. Scientists have tried for centuries to dismiss this as only coincidence, but the popular view remains and has brought dozens of songs -- whether they be in pop music, folk, country & western and rock, all the way up the musical scale to opera and formal orchestral concerts -- to eager audiences.
   By some estimates, the number of songs referencing the moon goes to nearly 200,000.
   Examples include "Blue Moon," immensely popular in the 1950s, "Moonlight Serenade," recorded by Glenn Miller, "Moon River," sung by Andy Williams, "Fly Me to the Moon," offered by Frank Sinatra, or "It's Only a Paper Moon," noted by Ella Fitzgerald, as well as many hundreds of others.
   As for whether the moon really does influence behavior, people start by noting wolves howl more often when the moon is full, and ocean tides run higher. Police and health care workers also point to changes in people's behavior when the moon is full. Another consequence of that belief is the naming of mental health facilities as "lunatic asylums."
   Fair? Undoubtedly not, but that reflected the thinking at the time.
   Scientists reject those behavior claims as only coincidence, and insist there is not sufficient evidence to support them.
   Lunar advocates, however, cite this guideline: Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is interesting, but when the so-called "coincidence" happens dozens of times over the course of many years, it is evidence of a pattern.
   Moreover, scientifically oriented health experts have leaned on this "coincidence" to explain something they could not. That's how the illness known as the flu came about. It was originally known by the Italian phrase "influenza della luna" -- which literally means "influence of the moon."

Moon Talk

Twelve is good, but thirteen is ungood

    A full moon will appear 13 times during the coming year -- twice in August. This raises the question of why the calendar lists only 12 months if each month is meant to honor the lunar time period.
   Here are some things to consider:
   Society considers 12 to be good, but 13 is not. Therefore, society chose a 12 month year, even though that does not fit easily into a 365 day year. Rather, based on a 30-day month, that totals a 12-month year of 360 days. That's five days short of a full solar year of 365 days.
   To resolve that, children are taught to chant this:
   "30 days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, save February, which has 28, unless it's Leap Year, when it has 29."
   So that's four months of 30 days, seven months of 31 days, and one of 28, but even that's not enough.
   Consider this: The lunar cycle has 28 days, and if you divide that into the solar cycle of 365, one gets 13 months, with just one day short of a full solar year. That's a closer match than a five-day shortage in the traditional calendar. And society can devote one day each year to celebrate whatever they choose.
   But 13 is ungood, so society opted for the more complicated method for the calendar year, to avoid having to deal with the perceived ungood number.
   The downside of this method is the risk of having an occasional Friday the 13th, an especially ungood day. This happens if each week begins on a Sunday, despite the popular habit of referring to Monday as the beginning of each week.
   This can be resolved by starting each calendar week on Monday, and using the more accurate yearly calendar described above, there will never be a Friday the 13th.
   Consider all this as you watch the full moon this week.

Cancel the Constitution?

   The latest challenge to history came with Donald Trump's suggestion that the Constitution be canceled so he could return to the presidency.
   Say what?
   Here's a copy of what he posted on the web a few days ago:
   
   "So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech companies, the DNC & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election results out and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?
   "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our 'Great Founder' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!"

   This allegation that the nationwide election of 2020 was riddled with fraud is the latest bid by Trump to spread his anger and return to the White House. He does not indicate why the term "Great Founder" was capitalized and put in quotation marks. We are left to guess who he means.
   The problem, then, is that the message can be taken as a bid for his followers to prepare for another attempt to overturn the government and return him to office.
   To urge a "termination" of rules, even those in the Constitution, in a move to declare him the "rightful winner" of the election, borders on a call for a rebellion.
  

Check, Mate

   The attorney general has named a special counsel to head the continuing investigation of Donald Trump and his activities before and after the presidential election of 2020.
   This is largely a way around any claim that the Biden administration is trying to stop Trump's re-election ambitions, as well as a move to shift the probe to an independent investigator who is not part of the current government's Justice Department.
   This way, the probe becomes separate from any effort to claim it is part of an election year plot to interfere with Trump's political campaign. The new investigator was named just days after Trump announced he will again seek the White House in the next election year, 2024.
   Some have noted that announcing his candidacy is a way of blocking any investigation, on the theory that presidents, former presidents and candidates for the presidency are immune from investigations.
   But by forming an independent investigation unit, this moves to block such a claim.
   Not that the claim had any legitimacy, but observer Pug Mahoney called it a CYA move.

Stalling

   As expected, Donald Trump said he is a candidate for the next presidential election, which is two years away.
   As suspected, this is a tactic to stall any investigation of possible illegal activities, the theory being that a president, a former president, or a candidate for president is immune from prosecution.
   That did not work when he was a resident of the White House, it did not work after he left, and it cannot work now.
   No one is above the law. Not even the top law enforcement officer in the nation, current or former. Not before holding office, not while in office, not after leaving office, and not as a candidate for some future office, however high that office may be.
   At best, this is yet another tactic to stall the various continuing investigations into his activities before, during and after he occupied the White House.
   Will these tactics work? Sadly, some of them do but only to the extent that they delay legal and congressional proceedings. And that is because other officials are very careful about setting a precedent about prosecuting a high federal official.
   And that is the main reason why he escaped two (count 'em, two) efforts to impeach and convict him while he was president. He was in fact impeached, twice, while he was president, but his Republican colleagues in the Senate  were reluctant to be the first to actually convict a sitting president.
   Should they have done so, which would have avoided the current conflict? That is an argument that will occupy the time and thinking of academics and politicians for decades.
   Meanwhile, the rest of the world will continue to wonder if the adage, "L'etat, c'est moi" (I am the state) as uttered by the last king of France, applies to a democratically elected president of a republic.
   Check that. Technically, Donald Trump was never elected president. He lost the popular vote in both campaigns, and only took office in his first attempt because he was able to persuade several states to modify their electoral vote counts, thus putting him in office.
   As for qualifications, before he won the presidency in 2016, he had no (none, zero) experience in government. His opponent, however, had been a U.S. senator, ambassador to the United Nations, and decades of experience as a lawyer as well as the spouse of a governor and president who also was a trained lawyer.
   Donald Trump's education amounted to bachelor's degree in business. He has refused to reveal his grade level.
   All of that is by the way, however. What matters now is whether he can skillfully manage the national affairs of one of the world's wealthiest nations.
   Before he gets prosecuted on a variety of charges, both criminal and civil. If he is prosecuted and convicted before the next presidential election, in November 2024, he will be ineligible to hold any office.
   Don't believe me? It's in the Constitution. You could look it up.

Loser

   People don't like to lose.
   Anything.
   Ever.
   Americans seem to be more upset about losing than people in other cultures. Especially when Americans lose to people of other cultures.
   But what is "American culture," and how does it differ from others, especially about not being victorious in everything?
   One way to avoid losing, of course, is to not play.
   Either that, or if one must play, be better than the competition.
  Alternatively, if one is not better than the competition, the player can cheat.
   That's the issue American political candidates face when they deal with an opponent who is, by any neutral measure, better qualified.
   But qualifications don't always matter in American politics. Perception does, and that can be an issue of salesmanship. And that differs from management skills.
   Ask any senior business executive. Sales agents are good at persuading others to buy a product or service. But managing a production department and persuading workers to do a better job is a different skill.
   The big difference is in who pays whom.
   The customer pays the sales agent. Indirectly, of course, but that's what it comes down to. Compare that to the production department, where management must pay workers.
   There is, of course, one overall similarity. If sales agents are not courteous to the customer, there is no sale. And if management is not courteous to workers, production suffers.
   That conflict is what led to the formation of labor unions, which forced management to be courteous to workers and to pay them a decent wage. Even today, when management is courteous to workers and pays them well, there is no need for a labor union to intervene and force management to respond.
   One would think that after many years in business, a manager would learn that success follows fair treatment of staff and customers, and similar behavior would lead to success in politics.
   But if a manager has behaved otherwise throughout his career and found that bullying others brought long-term personal success, and was able to simply hire others to replace those who would not tolerate abusive behavior, that manager would see no need to change, since personal success was his paramount and only goal.
   But such behavior, while it may be successful in business, does not succeed long term in politics. And just as customers who have been cheated stop doing business with the cheater, so also do citizens who have been similarly abused stop voting for the abuser.
   Perhaps a political candidate with such a background might or could learn something from that example.
   But if that candidate does not listen to those who cite potential problems, then that candidate will also become that which is most abysmal.
   A loser.