Frank's Musings

A man like Donald J. Trump  is a player in an exclusively personal game of life. Such a man exists for the sole purpose of achieving whatever personal goals he has concluded constitute the rules of that game.  He didn’t choose to be in that game and has no control over its terms or conditions. Changing anything about the game is not only impossible;  it would be an admission of complicity that diminished his claim of victimhood that excuses whatever sociopathic actions he commits.

One of the measures of success in the game that he plays is the extent to which he escapes being held accountable for his actions.  Moreover, he is even admired for his ability to ignore the rules that he blames others for imposing on the game.  But those admirers, who  have also  repeatedly failed to comply with the imposed rules of the game, constitute a majority of the voting public.  This is what Trump realized  when he became fed up with derision from the “elites” who were commonly considered to control the game of life (cf. Barack Obama’s put-down of Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner).

Violation of not every game rule can be meaningfully sanctioned; and Trump’s selection of which rules to ignore is part of his manipulative  skill.   It is curious, nevertheless, that Trump has been able to gain the summit of American politics while continually circumventing its written Constitutional rules.  As in his relations with bankers, educators, numismatists, and others, Donald Trump exists primarily as an emblem of entropy—offering us the result of living together without establishing behavioral norms. 

I spent a long time reading Ross  Douthat’s podcast with Matthew  Continetti, a conservative journalist.  It confounded me that two critical thinkers believe that Trump has intentionally transformed the Republican party.  Trump has only been along for the ride as the frontman for an undeclared coalition of conservative thinkers, including Stephen Miller, who are impatient with what they view as rule under an elitist political system.  Trump has done this for his entire career.  What a lucky man to have lived as the heir of a real estate magnate with the  wealth and childish  presumption  to have gained the indulgence of hungry financiers, anxious wives, copycat children, regretful entrepreneurs, opinion writers, and media-led voters to realize his fantasies of building projects, consumer scams, and political prominence!  His raison d’etre is self-aggrandizement  with no regard for what those personal luxuries may cost others.  Moreover, he has no regard for critical thinking.

My fear is that there is an informal group  of Svengalis behind Trump’s throne who have been taking advantage of his audience  appeal to subvert the protections of our Constitutional democracy that have outgrown their eighteenth-century effectiveness.  Its   objective is to leave America’s trappings of liberal democracy in place, and  to free  the economy from the fetters that prevent even more concentration of capital in the hands of the select few endowed with the wit and luck safely to ignore the common interest and achieve their personal ambitions. 

The most prominent  of these influencers behind Trump include Stephen Miller and Curtis Yarvin.  But other successful investors and entrepreneurs in this group include internet investors Peter Theil, Marc Andreesen, and even VP JD Vance.   It is they that the MAGA Crowd has unwittingly empowered to rake advantage of their influene on Trump’s insecure personality  to remove liberal impulses from American democracy.  Those of us who wish our government  to realize its intended purpose of the promoting the common welfare must express  that goal into a language that addresses the daily concerns of the majority of Americans.

Trump’s tax reform strategy is based on the same contempt he has had for casino lenders, university applicants, real estate investors, and dozens of contractors on his projects. This time he is sure that the MAGA Crowd and greedy high income earners will fall for his proposed income tax reform that he promises will benefit middle class tax payers at the same time as significantly reduce the amounts of taxes due from multi-hundred millionaires. As analyzed in the 25 November 2025 NYT, tax savings by both will be a relative pittance.

His plans only reflect Trump’s distorted concept of his place in history. He won’t be remembered as a genius compromiser, though; he will only get his due as a renowned swindler

When they come together to learn about the interactions of sovereign nations, students at global affairs schools form a web of fellowship that sometimes lasts for decades. Unwittingly, their community mimics the relationships between the political states on the planet.  Both groups interweave, as in a crochet pattern,  not only their professional functions, when appropriate, but also their social, cultural, athletic, and other leisure as well as intellectual activities.  Is it normal for like-minded grad students to form continuously active  friendships, or is the study of global issues unusually bonding?

There is another anomaly that possibly characterizes graduate students at the best specialized global affairs schools: they are attracted there because of their interest in the interrelationships between nations.  Moreover, they are all also critical thinking actors in life.  Alumni associations help them preserve the dynamic of personal interactions that may have been vital to their graduate school experience.    I wish to offer some comments on the confluence of global affairs with the perspectives of students and alumni of those professional graduate schools.  Indeed, a critical result of attending one of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) is the personal contacts made with like-minded incipient and mid-career practitioners of many cross-border professions—commercial, governmental, academic, cultural, etc.

These students spend one or a few years together pursuing the knowledge of and skills for dealing with the dynamics of world-wide relations between individuals, groups, nations, alliances and organizations.  They  form a lasting bond in and between contiguous annual classes.   That is  a resource they can use to reinforce their ability to master any challenges in their careers and even to innovate advances in the human condition.  It is an important function of alumni associations, therefore, to facilitate and preserve personal contact between individual and contiguous annual classes because supporting this aspect of graduate school attendance is as important as keeping in touch with potential donors.

Somebody has given  Donald Trump the keys that open allegiance by most voters in the U.S. to his retributive policies.  I’m afraid it is all of us who disdain the people who are more concerned with their family's day-to-day personal welfare than abstractly with the good of the entire community.

The  remedy for this careless mistake is to change all the locks; but shrinking Trump’s base by awakening enough people to the political shortsightedness of their priorities is a task that will be costly and will take a lot of time.  While awaiting the task’s completion, how can we avoid  permanent destruction of our liberal democracy?

Congress has shown themselves beholden to Trump’s MAGA crowd and, like indulgent parents of a three-year-old, refuse to discipline the President’s disregard for the Constitution in fear of losing the privileges of their position.  With the failure of one coequal branch of government to exercise its checking power, the courts are left to assert the rule of law. Unfortunately, their usual means of enforcement depends on the executive branch.  This puzzle is what led David Brooks to call for a “civic uprising” to supplement the Constitution’s own enforcement measures (see https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/opinion/trump-harvard-law-firms.html).

Such a movement needs a leader.  Let us support whoever grabs those reins.

Let’s admit it—The main reason for Trump’s tariff proposals is to offset the reduction in federal revenue that will be caused by his lowering of income tax rates for high-income individuals. Pretty surely, increased tariffs will be inflationary and only shift more of the federal budget burden onto middle class taxpayers.

Clearly, the administration wants to find a way to assuage the class of its biggest political donors. Perhaps a better way to palliate both those taxpayer groups would be to institute a luxury tax on the purchase of conspicuous consumption items. These goods include expensive homes and cars, large yachts, private aircraft, and other luxury items, the prices of which exceed the median level by, say, 50% or more.

Not only would this policy shift responsibility for reducing social divergences more equitably to those who have been blessed with a greater share of life’s rewards; it would give high-income earners a means of control over the size of their contribution to making possible attainment of the American dream by deciding to limit  their showpiece acquisitions.

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