Bob Schwartz

Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist. His invention of dynamite and other weapons led to his being known as “the merchant of death.” To counter that reputation, he established a set of prizes in many fields, include a Peace Prize.

Trump covets the Nobel Peace Prize, which has gone to many Americans he hates. He was not very aware of the man behind the prize. When he learned about Nobel’s fortune and success as a businessman, Trump was ecstatic. This is his kind of guy, one he could work with to capture the prize.

Trump asked that Nobel be invited to the White House for a meeting in the Oval Office. Those who work for Trump were confounded. They did not want to tell him that Nobel had been dead for 130 years. Instead, they pretended that it was impossible to reach him, because he was on a secret mission involving the most important weapon of his career.

At first Trump was annoyed, suggesting he might triple the current tariff on Swedish goods from 15% to 45%. Then he forgot about it for a while. Whenever he asked again, he was given new details about the Nobel mission.

The next time his pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize came up, he announced that he had already talked with Alfred Nobel about it, that Nobel was coming to the White House, and that Nobel enthusiastically supported his receiving it.

I found the following in my notebook, dated December 8, 2020. It was the early days of the pandemic. A lot has happened since.

As it says, I could see a couple of possibilities. One is that there would be an almost obsessive drive to get back to “normal” and to the way things were or imagined to be. The other is that the situation could be taken as an opportunity to do things, see things, think things differently—better.

The way things were. The way things could be. Extreme situations can be opportunities, if we take them. I constantly quote Tennyson in Ulysses: “’T is not too late to seek a newer world.”

America AC

New world. New age. New nation.

The tragedy of the pandemic in America can’t be overstated. Comparison to past national disasters —the Civil War, the Great Depression —seems appropriate but painful.

Looking at tragedy as opportunity seems a cliche, even if constructive and forward looking.

The natural first response to the pandemic was finding the shortest path back to the way things were before. Then it became clear that certain adaptations might have to be made, at least temporarily. Then it became clear that changes were being forced that might not go away even when the pandemic did.

The years leading up to the pandemic already revealed problems in America. Not necessarily new problems. More likely ones that had been minimized or not given enough attention.

So as we emerge slowly, we have an opportunity that hasn’t presented itself in a long time, maybe ever in our history.

Bob Schwartz, December 8, 2020

Even a blind pig can find an acorn.

In May, Trump tried to explain why any impact from his China tariffs was justified:

“All I’m saying is that a young lady, a 10-year-old girl, 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls.”

and

“I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs — that’s 11 years old — needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable.”

Most observers got lost in the sheer looniness and cringiness of the details, as they understandably often do.

But in there is a message that is surprising coming from an ultra-maximalist buyer and seller (though perhaps not entirely surprising from someone who is known to appreciate beautiful younger girls). It is a message endorsing prudent consumption. Do beautiful baby girls (11 years old?) really need 30 or 37 dolls? Three or four may be enough.

Overconsumption is both an issue in America and the way we support the economy. If Trump’s wisdom was embraced, toy sales might be reduced by 90%. If we extrapolated that to sales in general, the recession would be almost instant.

Still, a wise guy like Trump deserves credit for a moment of unexpected clarity. Of course, when he finds those beautiful girls who don’t have all the dolls they want, maybe he can help.

If there was a time Trump had an overall vision for America—and given his intellectual limitations that may never have been—it isn’t any more. Yet he remains a popular figurehead, so that however disorganized and incomprehensible his speech and tactics seem, a number of people go along.

His circle includes a few different sorts of followers. Some believe in him as a leader. Some don’t believe in him, but believe that he will advance them, financially or politically. Some don’t believe in him, but believe he is a popular front man for a big cause: a legal, social and cultural revolution in America, a turnaround they believe has been too long in coming.

The revolutionaries don’t mind if there is negative focus on Trump. They don’t even mind the Epstein controversy. They encourage any distractions that don’t have to do with government and democracy, and there are plenty of those distractions. They might prefer Trump being generally more popular, but as long as he can keep Congress and the Supreme Court in line, as long as he controls the federal government, a beloved Trump isn’t necessary.

If the revolutionaries are astonished by anything, it is that they published their revolutionary playbook, chapter and verse, and somehow the constitutionalists, democrats, and advocates of social justice were unable to leverage it politically.

There is some increase in talk about authoritarianism and fascism in America, and that this is a culture war. It might be better to talk about a revolution by some very smart and serious revolutionaries. Trump seems a disorganized thinker and a compromised clown, albeit a supremely powerful one. But those behind him are organized, thoughtful and not at all clowns. We need to avoid distractions, including Trump, and keep our eyes on them.

Don’t ask me how I got here. Okay, ask.

I was reading about the quirky behaviors and preferences of Gen Z (don’t use capital letters, don’t learn how to drive, don’t run bar tabs, etc.). I don’t much believe in the generational taxonomy. I belong to a generation of about 75 million people, and the list of shared important characteristics (other than approximate distance to death) is a short one. Still, demos matter to media and marketers, so I’ll go skeptically along with it.

I can’t quite explain, but thinking about how Gen Z thinks of itself as special and suited for the times, I thought about a different generation and a different time. Specifically, I thought about Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, and Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991). The artist, the band, the genre and the song are solidly Gen X.

Teen Spirit contains watchwords of disaffection that have endured for the generations since:

I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us…
Oh well, whatever, never mind

That thought led me to Chris Cornell, Soundgarden, and Black Hole Sun (1994), another enduring anthem of the generation.

What does this have to do with Gen Z, Gen X or my generation? I don’t know. If anything, I guess my hope is that whatever Gen Z is up to with its quirky and special ways, they listen to this music and learn to love this music and the gifted artists who made it. (Is it worth mentioning that the YouTube video of Teen Spirit has over 2 billion views?)

Impermanence

Orchid dried. Orchid flowered.

© 2025 by Bob Schwartz

Get sane and balanced

Regimes thrive in an environment of insanity and imbalance. They encourage it. Whatever process or technique you use to cultivate more sanity and balance, practice it or find one. You cannot resist a regime if you and your cohort are not thinking straight. So move toward sane and balanced and help others to get there.

Strategize

Once you are thinking straight, think strategically. This means knowing what you want to achieve, what the point is, and how to achieve it. There is a natural tendency to conceive the ultimate objective as the end of a regime. In the case of a democracy that has become authoritarian, that takes the form of planning to win the next elections. Winning elections is a worthy goal, but that is going to take time, and is not guarantee. Reigmes are built piece by piece, and resistance must be built piece by piece.

Mockery, ranting and rhetoric are not action

Mockery, ranting and rhetoric can be cathartic. These may have a strategic point, as in encouraging ourselves to be optimistic and committed. And it’s really fun to laugh. Some combination of laughter and anger may be beneficial and uplifting. We may not want to stop, but it is important to investigate what the laughter and anger accomplish by way of resistance.

Don’t be distracted

This is a time of almost literally infinite distractions. Our interests and passions are elements of our lives. But just as being over-obsessed with a regime imbalances us, so does over obsession with any of these distractions. Is it “important” that a superstar is launching the latest era of their career? Nothing says you have to care more about the rise of the regime than you do about that superstar. It’s a matter of balance.

“I want to try and get to heaven, if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this [peace in Ukraine] will be one of the reasons.”
Trump this morning on Fox & Friends

Random talk is nothing new for Trump. This comment has some saying it’s a joke. It doesn’t sound like a joke.

My guess has a couple of parts.

First is that death is universal and at some point in life people think about it, a little or a lot, occasionally or often. Whether Trump never thought about it or rarely thinks about it still, he thinks about it.

Second is that Trump, to the extent he remembers, knows what he’s done, whatever that is. When he says “I’m hearing I’m not doing well” he means “I’m thinking I’m not doing well.” We didn’t know much about what he believes about the afterlife, but we now know it involves heaven, and possibly hell. For him, like all things, it is transactional. He is the dealmaker and has calculated what it might take to get into heaven—or stay out of hell.

This may not change anything Trump does or says. On the Ten Commandments scorecard, he is not doing well. But being concerned about heaven may be a good sign.

© 2025 by Bob Schwartz