I've been mystified by the massive swings upward in the stock market whenever Trump makes a sttement backing off his tough tariff talk. After ten years of listening to Trump throw out stalling lines whenever he feels cornered, no human investor would believe him. So why would the markets take...
TRUMP MAKES A SMART MOVE; LET'S PRAY IT DOESN'T WORK
Friday August 19, 2016
This week Donald Trump did the smartest thing he has done in his feckless campaign. He apologized. Those of us appalled by the bloviating narcissist can only hope it doesn't work, but the evidence of history is that the political apology is powerful medicine. For voters previously put off by bluster and bullying, the apology upendss the relationship of candidate and voter by turning the candidate into a humble supplicant, asking the voter for forgiveness. It humanizes the candidate and gives the voter a feeling of power. It's hard to withhold forgiveness and easy to embrace those who we've forgiven -- even if we know the apology is a political ploy and the candidate doesn't mean it. And in Trump's case, I'm sure he doesn't mean it, but rather it's a Hail Mary play cooked up his clever new team of advisors.
But will it work? It worked for John Lindsay of New York in 1969, when his apology shifted the dyanmic of a race in which the Mayor was deeply unpopular after neglecting the outer boroughs in the aftermath of a blizzard. It worked for Bill Clinton twice, once as governor and then again as President. But it may not work for The Donald. For one thing, he didn't say what he was apologizing for, which is reminiscent of Ted Kennedy's apology for Chappaquiddick when he referred to his fatal negligence as "the behavior." More importantly, as Trump says over and over, he has to be himself, and so voters are likely to forget this apology as he loudly puts out more slanders, lies, and insinuations. He'll do that because that's who he is, and at this point in his life he can't change.
So, it's a smart move and let's hope it doesn't work.
The American Meteorological Society names Fire and Flood its book of the year for 2023, awarding it the Louis J Batton Author's Award.
"Eugene Linden wrote his first story on climate change, for Time magazine, in 1988; it was just the beginning of his investigative work, exploring all ramifications of this impending disaster. Fire and Flood represents his definitive case for the prosecution as to how and why we have arrived at our current dire pass, closing with his argument that the same forces that have confused the public’s mind and slowed the policy response are poised to pivot with astonishing speed, as long-term risks have become present-day realities and the cliff’s edge is now within view.
Starting with the 1980s, Linden tells the story, decade by decade, by looking at four clocks that move at different speeds: the reality of climate change itself; the scientific consensus about it, which always lags reality; public opinion and political will, which lag farther still; and, arguably, most importantly, business and finance. Reality marches on at its own pace, but the public will and even the science are downstream from the money, and Fire and Flood shows how devilishly effective monied climate-change deniers have been at slowing and even reversing the progress of our collective awakening. When a threat means certain but future disaster, but addressing it means losing present-tense profit, capitalism's response has been sadly predictable.
Now, however, the seasons of fire and flood have crossed the threshold into plain view. Linden focuses on the insurance industry as one loud canary in the coal mine: fire and flood zones in Florida and California, among other regions, are now seeing what many call climate redlining. The whole system is teetering on the brink, and the odds of another housing collapse, for starters, are much higher than most people understand. There is a path back from the cliff, but we must pick up the pace. Fire and Flood shows us why, and how." From Catalog Copy
