Trump | Bob Schwartz

April 10, 2025

I Ching about Trump tariffs on China

The I Ching, the venerable Book of Changes, is estimated to have first been composed around 1000 BCE. About 3,000 years ago.

The point is that China and its constituent states have been managing very complex and difficult governmental and social situations for millennia. Those who are leading contemporary China may face a lot of current challenges, as their ancestors have faced so many other challenges. They know their way around difficulties and difficult people. They have managed, starting in 1949, to build the world’s second largest economy. They have done it, by the way, paying close attention the I Ching. The Trump administration would do well to do the same.

Asking the I Ching about Trump tariffs on China it says:

52
Gen • Keeping Still

Mountain above
Mountain below

NAME AND STRUCTURE

The attribute of Mountain is stillness. When Mountain is doubled, it is extremely still.

From the very beginning of Chinese culture, ancient sages emphasized keeping still. Keeping still is not keeping merely the body still but the mind and spirit as well, and is called “sitting in stillness” or “nourishing the spirit.” While sitting still in a lotus posture, one is shaped like a mountain. Sitting in stillness, or in meditation as Westerners call it, is a self-disciplinary training. While doing this, one is able to control the mind and the breath, to be introspective about one’s shortcomings and to cultivate inner strength and virtue. Mencius says, “I am skillful in nourishing my imperishable noble spirit.” When one is in a state of stillness, one is oblivious to one’s surroundings. This is the highest stage of nonattachment. In such a state there is no fault in one’s being. It is believed that when Heaven is about to confer a great mission on a person, it first exercises his or her mind and spirit with discipline. Keeping still is meant to prepare one’s mind and spirit to progress when the time comes.

Commentary on the Decision

Mountain.
It is keeping still.

Keep still when it is time to keep still.
Remain active when it is time to remain active.
When action and resting do not miss their time,
Their way becomes promising and brilliant.

SIGNIFICANCE

Keeping Still expounds the truth of knowing when and where to stop before one’s action goes too far. The key to success is to advance when it is time to advance and to stop when it is time to stop. Every action should accord with the time and situation. Never act subjectively and blindly. Keeping still means to be tranquil and stable. It is a phase of advancement. Advance and stillness complement each other. Keeping still is preparing oneself for a new advance. All the lines of this gua take images of different parts of the body to indicate particular times and situations.

When King Wen abolished slavery and reestablished the Jing land system, people were shocked, as if a thunderstorm had struck. Those who were liberated were happy, but not the slave owners—especially those who were close to the tyrant. Dangerous counterattacks were anticipated. King Wen retreated, sitting in stillness to contemplate the situation and foresee the future. The Duke of Zhou describes King Wen’s different stages and moods of stillness. Eventually his honesty and sincerity brought good fortune.

The Complete I Ching, Master Alfred Huang

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April 4, 2025

Penguins are subject to Trump tariffs. At least some of them have sweaters.

From The Guardian:

‘Nowhere on Earth is safe’: Trump imposes tariffs on uninhabited islands near Antarctica
Australian prime minister surprised after external territories – including tiny Norfolk Island and remote islands home to penguins – targeted by US president

A group of barren, uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica, covered in glaciers and home to penguins, have been swept up in Donald Trump’s trade war, as the US president hit them with a 10% tariff on goods.

Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which form an external territory of Australia, are among the remotest places on Earth, accessible only via a two-week boat voyage from Perth on Australia’s west coast. They are completely uninhabited, with the last visit from people believed to be nearly 10 years ago.

Nevertheless, Heard and McDonald islands featured in a list released by the White House of “countries” that would have new trade tariffs imposed.

We don’t think the penguins have heard about the tariffs. It will not affect them anyway, since they have nothing but fish, and they don’t trade that. They might be able to bribe Trump though, since it is reported that he is a fan of McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich. Like the penguins, he loves to eat.

While researching this, I came across the Penguin Foundation in Australia, which focuses on the Little Penguins on similar islands.

An oil spill led the Penguin Foundation to promote knitting sweaters (jumpers) for the Little Penguins of Phillip Island, to keep them from preening their feathers coated in toxic oil. (The knitting pattern is available on their site.)

Knitters have knitted enough sweaters for the current penguins and those that may be harmed in the future. Now the Penguin Foundation is asking knitters to knit sweaters for plush penguin toys to wear, which toys are being sold to raise money for the foundation.

Two reasons to mention all this here. One is that placing tariffs on “countries” inhabited by penguins is idiotic. Two is that thinking about penguins and particularly thinking about penguins wearing hand-knitted sweaters, even if meant to protect them from toxic oil spills, makes us smile. You do want a reason to smile right now—any reason—don’t you?

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March 17, 2025

Trump believes he is as great a president as George Washington. Here is what DSM-5 says about personality disorder and grandiose delusions.

Years ago, when Trump first became president, mental health experts—including his own niece—believed he exhibited clinical personality disorders.

I am not one of those experts, but I was able to consult DSM-5 (Diagnostic And Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the diagnostic bible of psychiatry. At the time I posted about the description of narcissistic personality disorder.

Here in the second Trump term, a new pattern is emerging. He is comparing himself to George Washington as the greatest American president. Some may believe this, some may say it is a legitimate matter of opinion, some may believe that objectively this is not true. For those who think it manifestly untrue, this might be considered a delusion. A grand delusion.

Grandiose delusions are part of various personality disorders described in the DSM-5 . Here is a description of Paranoid Personality Disorder:

Associated Features of Paranoid Personality Disorder

Individuals with paranoid personality disorder are generally difficult to get along with and often have problems with close relationships. Their excessive suspiciousness and hostility may be expressed in overt argumentativeness, in recurrent complaining, or by hostile aloofness. They display a labile range of affect, with hostile, stubborn, and sarcastic expressions predominating. Their combative and suspicious nature may elicit a hostile response in others, which then serves to confirm their original expectations.

Because individuals with paranoid personality disorder lack trust in others, they need to have a high degree of control over those around them. They are often rigid, critical of others, and unable to collaborate, although they have great difficulty accepting criticism themselves. They may blame others for their own shortcomings. Because of their quickness to counterattack in response to the threats they perceive around them, they may be litigious and frequently become involved in legal disputes. Individuals with this disorder seek to confirm their preconceived negative notions regarding people or situations they encounter, attributing malevolent motivations to others that are projections of their own fears. They may exhibit thinly hidden, unrealistic grandiose fantasies, are often attuned to issues of power and rank, and tend to develop negative stereotypes of others, particularly those from population groups distinct from their own. Attracted by simplistic formulations of the world, they are often wary of ambiguous situations. They may be perceived as “fanatics” and form tightly knit “cults” or groups with others who share their paranoid belief systems. (emphasis added)

Diagnostic And Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

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March 7, 2025

Antisemitism in the Oval Office

The encounter in the White House was antisemitic….It was all there, in the Oval Office, in the shouting and in the interruptions, in the noises and in the silences. A courageous man seen as Jewish had to be brought down. When he said things that were simply true he was shouted down and called a propagandist. There was no acknowledgement of Zelens’kyi’s bravery in remaining in Kyiv.
Timothy Snyder, Antisemitism in the Oval Office

https://snyder.substack.com/p/antisemitism-in-the-oval-office

Timothy Snyder is one of the great contemporary historians, especially of the Holocaust. His books include Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, The Road to Unfreedom, and more.

His post today, Antisemitism in the Oval Office, is about the inherent antisemitism of the recent confrontation between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office. It is Snyder’s view, and the view of other experts, that this was a clear example of public antisemitism. By the President of the United States.

Please read the post in its entirety. A brief excerpt below.

The attempt to humiliate Volodymyr Zelens’kyi in the Oval Office a week ago was an American strategic collapse. It heralded a new constellation of disorderly powers, obsessed with resources, seizing what they can. Inside that new disaster is something old and familiar that we might prefer not to see: antisemitism. The encounter in the White House was antisemitic.

I am historian of the Holocaust. I was trained by a survivor. Jerzy Jedlicki was nine years old when the Germans invaded, and fourteen when he emerged from hiding in Warsaw, and a prominent Polish historian by the time we met. He talked to me about antisemitism for decades, from the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union until his death in 2018. The way that I reacted to the scene in the Oval Office, and how I have pondered and considered it since, have to do with my research, but also with him….

To conclude that the scene in the White House was antisemitic, one does not need to know anything further. It’s all right there: the demand for deference, the obsession with money, the claims of corruption and dishonesty, the encirclement, the loud voices, the bizarre grievances, the underlying sense that a Jewish person does not fit and must be expelled. The context was evocative enough, and nothing more is really needed: those historical markers of antisemitism; Zelens’kyi’s Jewish origins; the particular way he was treated by non-Jews.

Timothy Snyder, Antisemitism in the Oval Office

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February 26, 2025

For those who really don’t like Trump but did not vote, a voting booth that is also a time machine

If you didn’t vote in the last presidential election, but are very unhappy with the current administration, good news!

There is now a hybrid voting booth-time machine. You can now go back in time and actually vote in the last election, with a better chance that Trump does not win the presidency.

OF COURSE THERE IS NO HYBRID VOTING BOOTH-TIME MACHINE! THERE IS NO TIME MACHINE AT ALL!

Remember that next time you have the opportunity to vote but don’t.

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February 11, 2025

They’ve got a secret: Trump’s friends on the Supreme Court are scared

Trump has friends or at least sympathizers on the Supreme Court. He is hoping to appoint more.

Already in the first few weeks, Trump has taken executive actions that are clearly unconstitutional. Then yesterday, Vance said that judges don’t have the right to control presidential power. Vance and other Republican lawyers know better. The Trump Justices of the Supreme Court know better.

Those Justices are scared.

Knowing that Trump will continue to act in unconstitutional ways that threaten the core concept of separation of powers and checks and balances, and knowing history, they are concerned about the trajectory of the republic.

As the constitutional challenges work their way through the judiciary, they know that the challenges—and ultimately interpretation of the Constitution—will end up on their bench. Whether or not they want to take on Trump, his Republican supporters, and tens of millions of Americans who believe that Trump should be able to do whatever he wants, they are going to have to.

Maybe they decide that centuries of precedent in interpreting the Constitution should stand, and these executive actions must stop. Or maybe they decide that these are extraordinary times, and under these circumstances, the constitutional structure must give way to the president.

Either way, as students of history, the Justices would rather not have to face that crossroad, since whatever they decide, they know the last time the Constitution itself was so deeply contested, the result was the literal division of America. They—at least one Justice—would rather be touring America in a luxury RV, rather than deciding the fate of the republic.

But they are not going to have that option.

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January 24, 2025

Unhappy Americans are leaving the country—for Bedrock and Orbit City

Will Elon Musk run against Cosmo Spacely for mayor of Orbit City?

There are many Americans unhappy with the return of Trump to the White House. While it is an extreme response, a small number have decided to leave the country to live elsewhere, or at least claim they will.

Surprisingly, two of the destinations for refugees may be Bedrock and Orbit City. These places are best known from the reality shows The Flintstones and The Jetsons. These popular programs followed the day-to-day lives of typical families in different eras—the Flintstones in a time when most things involved rocks and dinosaurs did much of the heavy lifting, the Jetsons in a time when people traveled by flying cars and both maids and dogs were robots.

Will it be better in Bedrock or Orbit City than it currently is in America? Only time will tell. However, it is thought that presidential advisor Elon Musk is seriously considering not only moving to Orbit City, but becoming its mayor. Is Musk unhappy? Will he end up running against Cosmo Spacely, George Jetsons’ boss and the wealthy CEO of Spacely Space Sprockets, Inc.? Once again, time will tell.

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January 23, 2025

Religious traditions struggle with handling “politics”. They make a category error.

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 21: Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde (L) arrives as U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Tuesday marks Trump’s first full day of his second term in the White House. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Rt. Rev. Marian Edgar Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, presided over the National Prayer Breakfast, giving the sermon at the National Cathedral on Tuesday. Trump and many officials were in attendance.

In the sermon, she pled with Trump to show mercy and compassion toward scared individuals, including immigrants, those fleeing war and persecution, and gay, lesbian and transgender children. After the service, Trump and others attacked her, including some within her own church who believe that “politics” does not belong at the pulpit or in the pews.

This opposition may come from a category error. If this is purely and solely about “politics”—who you vote for and who you support for election—then the category applies. But it isn’t, and never has been. In many cases, and particularly in the current environment, the more fitting categories are ideology and philosophy.

Ideology and philosophy are the siblings of belief, if not identical twins. As for the religious traditions, belief is the central and essential element.

If the ideology and philosophy reflected in political support—the beliefs—are different, contrasting, contradictory to the beliefs of those religious traditions, how can it not be an issue for discussion by those traditions?

This is in no way to question the good faith and conscientiousness of those in the traditions who see politics as a categorical red line. It is just, at this moment and many moments past, the wrong category. The faithful may and sometimes do hold ideologies, philosophies and beliefs that are anathema to the core of traditions.

Which is exactly what Bishop Budde was saying, for which she now says she has nothing to apologize for. Others may say that she was not doing her job, touching on politics. She wasn’t touching on politics. She was affirming the very soul of her faith. That is her job.

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July 25, 2024

Netanyahu and Trump bring out the worst in Jews, Americans and people

Above is Jimmy Carter. His presidency is seen by many as a mixed bag. His humanity was and is never in question. He is now 99 years old, and nobody in American history has had a more successful or shining post-presidency. As for his administration, he is a world leader who brokered a peace deal in the Middle East, a rare milestone.

Which is a segue to Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke yesterday to Congress, at the invitation of Republican Speaker Johnson, a speech boycotted by many Democrats, a speech that resulted in a large and difficult protest by opponents of Israel’s Gaza war.

Netanyahu is a segue to Donald Trump, who Netanyahu desperately wants back in the White House, because Trump is his kind of president—corrupt, dangerously self-interested, inhumane, etc.—and because President Trump will allow, encourage and enable whatever scheme Netanyahu has to stay in office and avoid peace. Netanyahu correctly views Trump as his less smart but equally narcissistic but more powerful brother, one he can wrap around his finger.

Just as Trump has brought the worst out in many Americans, that is, the worst that was already there, Netanyahu has brought out the worst in some Jews. Nothing those Americans learn about who Trump is or what he has done or plans to do seems to bother them. Nothing those Jews learn about who Netanyahu is or what he has done or plans to do seems to bother them. Thus always with demagogues.

There are no easy answers, In America, we can elect Democrats for every office, from president on down, because Republicans who remain in the party are all in Trump’s thrall, whether or not that’s what is actually in their hearts and minds. For Jews, we can stand up for the humanity that Judaism in its best lights and moments represents, and which Netanyahu doesn’t.

While we are at it, consider Jimmy Carter as a role model. A man of genuine faith, a man whose life has been guided for 99 years by a calling of service. Those who think that either Trump or Netanyahu are people of genuine faith or are good role models can and will go on with that dangerous and devilish delusion. Some know better.

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July 16, 2024

If Biden loses, it will destroy him. Do his supporters think about that?

Nothing is certain in politics, until it is. It appears possible that Biden will insist on being the Democratic nominee for President. It appears possible that he will lose and Trump will become President again.

It is certain that if Biden loses, as defiant and stubborn as he seems now, it will psychically destroy him. While politicians are generally used to losing, and have to be resilient, the special circumstances here will defy resilience for him.

As much as he now says he would be okay as long as he did his best, he will know that he is responsible. Maybe he will convince himself, or supporters will claim, that none of the alternative candidates could have beaten Trump—an unprovable proposition. They may say that it was all the negative Democratic talk about Biden’s age and abilities that sabotaged his nomination.

But somewhere deep, in some moments of self-awareness, Biden will know that it could have been different. That had he gracefully stepped aside in early 2024, or in the summer of 2024 when his problems became more prominent, that the next generation of leading Democrats could have taken his place—and beaten Trump.

That fact would tarnish his legacy. It will be a lead, if not in the headline, of the historical record. Most of all, it will be a psychic wound that Biden will bear. And for a man whose public contribution has been so full, it will be a sad shame.

Why don’t his family and friends, why don’t his Democratic supporters who love him, think hard about that?

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Tag: Trump