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The tariff gambit: Trump's long game and America's trade reckoning

On April 2, 2025, Donald Trump stood in the White House Rose Garden, surrounded by a group of advisors, and declared what he termed "Liberation Day.” With a stroke of his pen, he imposed a sweeping range of tariffs -10 percent on all imports, with higher rates of 34 percent on China, 24 percent on Japan, and 25 percent on Canada and Mexico (later reduced for USMCA-compliant goods). The announcement, presented as a national economic emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, sent shockwaves through global markets. The S&P 500 dropped nearly 5 percent the following day, its worst decline since June 2020, while gold surged to $3,100 an ounce amid inflation concerns. Economists, business leaders, and foreign allies rushed to analyze the consequences, while Trump, ever the showman, celebrated it as the culmination of a promise he had been making for four decades.Trump’s fixation on tariffs isn’t new. It dates back to the 1980s when he was a brash real estate mogul criticizing Japan’s trade practices in interviews and op-eds. By June 16, 2015, when he descended the Trump Tower escalator to announce his presidential bid, tariffs and trade deficits were already his rallying cry. "China has our jobs, and Mexico has our jobs," he declared during his announcement speech, promising to reverse decades of what he viewed as America’s economic surrender. Now, nearly ten years later, with the U.S. trade deficit with China reaching a staggering $295.4 billion in 2024 under the Biden administration — an all-time high — Trump’s tariff crusade feels less like a campaign stunt and more like a personal vendetta turned policy cornerstone.The roots of the deficit: NAFTA and Clinton’s legacyTo understand Trump’s fervor, one must rewind to the 1990s, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) reshaped the U.S. economy. Signed by President Bill Clinton on December 8, 1993, NAFTA was heralded as a bipartisan triumph, with Clinton flanked by luminaries like George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole. "We’re going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs," Clinton proclaimed, envisioning a borderless North American market.Since the 1990s, the U.S. has lost a significant number of manufacturing jobs — decreasing from 16.8 million in 1993 to 12.4 million by 2016, a 26 percent decline. The auto sector experienced the loss of 350,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico, where employment surged from 120,000 to 550,000. The textile industry fared worse, witnessing nearly a 90 percent decline in employment as China and Mexico filled U.S. shelves. Clinton’s free-trade vision, while stimulating GDP, left behind a landscape of shuttered factories, a reality that Trump capitalized on. By 2025, the White House claims that 5 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 1997, a figure that, while debated, supports Trump’s narrative of betrayal by globalist elites.Trump’s case: A reckoning with ChinaTrump’s tariff salvo is fundamentally a response to this history and to China’s significant trade deficit with the U.S., which rose to $295.4 billion in 2024. This imbalance, overshadowing the $6 billion deficit of 1985, illustrates China’s emergence as a manufacturing powerhouse, driven by state subsidies, low wages, and, until recently, currency manipulation. Trump’s "reciprocal tariff" formula — calculating the deficit divided by imports and then halving it — produced China’s 34 percent rate, a blunt tool to penalize what he refers to as "cheaters." His advisors, including Peter Navarro, contend that this will bring jobs back to America, reflecting Trump’s long-standing concern that the country’s openness has been taken advantage of.The benefits of this approach resonate with Trump’s base. Tariffs could generate $100 billion in revenue, according to White House estimates, helping to offset a federal deficit that is ballooning toward $1.8 trillion. Ford’s Jim Farley may warn of a "hole" in U.S. industry, but Trump responds that 50 percent of cars sold in 2024 were imported — why not manufacture them here? His first-term tariffs on steel and aluminum, after all, spurred some domestic growth, and the USMCA, which he pushed through to replace NAFTA, strengthened rules to favor American workers. For Trump, the trade deficit with China isn’t just statistics — it represents a symbol of lost sovereignty, a grievance he’s harbored since the Reagan era.Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns provide an interesting parallel. In 2008, he scarcely addressed China or tariffs, concentrating instead on domestic issues during the financial crisis. By 2012, confronted with a struggling industrial heartland, he made a significant shift. "I will crack down on cheaters like China," he proclaimed, promising to label Beijing a currency manipulator on the first day and impose tariffs. This stance was tougher than his free-trade inclinations as a Bain Capital executive, indicating political expediency. Trump, however, has surpassed Romney’s rhetoric, transforming a campaign promise into a second-term crusade, driven by the conviction that China’s $295.4 billion deficit in 2024 supports his argument.The drawbacks: Friedman’s ghost and modern warningsYet, Trump’s tariff triumph is accompanied by a chorus of dissent, reflecting the free-market principles of Milton Friedman. The Nobel laureate, a giant of the Chicago School, regarded tariffs as an economic sin. "They raise prices for consumers and waste our resources," he wrote in 1993, arguing that free trade benefits everyone by allowing nations to specialize. In "The Case for Free Trade," he debunked protectionist myths — exchange rates, not tariffs, balance wage disparities, he argued — and advocated for unilateral free trade, a radical idea that Trump scorns. Friedman’s influence is significant: tariffs, he would contend, would drive iPhone prices to $2,300, according to Rosenblatt Securities, impacting consumers the most.Contemporary economists amplify this critique. The Budget Lab at Yale predicts a one-point decrease in GDP by 2025, with unemployment rising from 4.2 to 4.7 percent, potentially costing millions of jobs, according to Harry Holzer of Brookings. Nomura Securities forecasts a modest 0.6 percent GDP growth, with inflation approaching 4.7 percent. Reuters warns of a global trade war, with JPMorgan estimating a 60 percent chance of recession by year-end. Lawrence Summers, former Treasury Secretary under Clinton, described Trump’s plan as "dangerous and damaging," likening it to "creationism in biology." The IMF’s Kristalina Georgieva anticipates a decline in global growth from 3.3 percent, while Fitch’s Olu Sonola points out that the U.S. tariff rate — now at 22 percent — matches levels seen in 1910, risking a Smoot- Hawley repeat.Businesses already feel the pinch. Stellantis has shuttered a Windsor plant for two weeks, idling 3,600 workers, as Canada retaliates with 25 percent tariffs. The Beer Institute is concerned about a 25 percent tariff on aluminum cans, which threatens a $7.5 billion industry. The OECD projects that U.S. growth will slide to 1.6 percent in 2026, a stark drop from 2.8 percent in 2024. Critics argue that Trump’s formula misreads trade deficits — driven more by U.S. consumption than by foreign barriers, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — inviting chaos rather than clarity.The verdict: A high-stakes betTrump’s tariff gambit is a high-wire act, balancing visceral appeal with economic peril. On one side, it’s a populist outcry against a $295.4 billion Chinese deficit, a 40-year obsession now transformed into policy. It promises jobs, revenue, and a manufacturing renaissance, tapping into genuine pain — those 5 million jobs lost since 1997 and the devastated towns NAFTA left behind. Romney’s 2012 pivot demonstrated that this chord resonates; Trump’s just playing it louder. Yet, Friedman’s logic and modern forecasts warn of a boomerang effect — higher prices, global retaliation, and a recessionary spiral that could overshadow any gains.The trade deficit with China, peaking in 2024, serves as Trump’s Exhibit A, yet his solution risks fracturing a world economy he claims to save. For every factory revived, a consumer pays more; for every dollar in tariffs, a market trembles. As the Nikkei, FTSE, and S&P reel, Trump’s "Liberation Day" may liberate America from one burden only to bind it to another. Four decades in the making, this is his moment — but whether it ends in triumph or tragedy depends on a ledger still unwritten.

The economists were wrong before

Most economists would disagree with Donald Trump's new reciprocal tariff policy, unveiled yesterday as the cornerstone of his second term. They would argue, with furrowed brows and stacks of data, that tariffs distort markets, inflate prices, and invite retaliation — textbook heresies against the gospel of free trade. Yet most of those same economists spent decades nodding along to the previous approach, the one that sent jobs and manufacturing overseas in a slow bleed that transformed the Rust Belt into a mausoleum of shuttered factories.The Rust Belt seems to trust Trump, delivering him the presidency based on his promise to enact the very tariff policy announced yesterday. Why are the voters mistaken and the experts correct? This is an important question that experts and the media must answer, as they show no hesitation in expressing their excitement at the prospect of Trump's failure. They may end up being right — the consensus is overwhelmingly in their favor at the moment — but isn’t it worth exploring how and why they were wrong in the past?The irony is thick: the consensus that once promised prosperity through globalization now stands accused of hollowing out the very nation it claimed to enrich. The story of how we arrived at Trump's tariff gambit involves hubris, unintended consequences, and a populist backlash that has been simmering since the giddy years of the last century.Let’s return to the late summer of 1999. The dot-com bubble was swelling, Y2K paranoia was a faint hum, and America stood atop a unipolar world. The Soviet Union was a ghost, and globalization — free markets unfettered, borders softened — was the triumphant creed. Bill Clinton, with his Cheshire grin and third-way swagger, had already shepherded NAFTA into law five years earlier, cracking open the continent for a flood of goods and capital. The World Trade Organization, which the U.S. joined in 1995, represented the next step: a global pact to weave the planet into one vast, efficient bazaar. Economists cheered, pointing to GDP spikes in nations that embraced the gospel. Corporate chieftains salivated over labor costs that plummeted when you relocated a factory from Toledo to Tijuana. It was, as the think-tank clerics at Brookings called it, the era of the "Washington Consensus" — a belief that open markets would lift all boats, from Wall Street to Main Street.That faith was a mirage, the wreckage undeniable. The middle class, once a broad and sturdy plank of the American edifice, has splintered. Manufacturing jobs — six million of them — vanished between 1990 and 2010, sucked into the maw of China's WTO-enabled rise. Towns like Youngstown and Flint became sepia-toned postcards of a lost age, with their steel mills and auto plants replaced by Dollar Generals and despair. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the folly of it all: supply chains, stretched gossamer-thin across oceans, snapped, leaving America begging for masks and chips from a China it now regarded as a rival, not a partner. Globalization, the golden calf of the nineties, morphed into a scapegoat for a nation unmoored.The nineties didn’t just create legendary country music; it was also a time when the U.S., drunk on post-Cold War confidence, viewed itself as the architect of a borderless utopia. NAFTA was the opening shot, a deal that filled shelves with affordable TVs but devastated factory towns. The WTO established the rules, prioritizing efficiency over sovereignty. Corporations flocked to Shenzhen and Bangalore, seeking wages far lower than the American norm. The Brookings crowd celebrated the benefits — lower prices and global growth — while overlooking the fine print: the American worker would bear the burden. And bear it they did. The data is grim: income inequality widened, the top one percent thrived on global profits, while the bottom half saw their share diminish. The Atlantic, reflecting on this period, described it as a "Roaring Nineties" for some — a roaring disaster for others.Enter Trump, stage right, with a policy as retro as it is radical. Tariffs aren't new — Alexander Hamilton loved them, and they bankrolled the government for a century — but they're a middle finger to the past thirty years of orthodoxy. Robert Lighthizer, the owlish ex-lawyer who's spent decades brooding over trade deficits, is the brain behind it. On The Tucker Carlson Show last month, he laid it out with a flinty clarity: "A country that doesn't make things is a country destined to lose." For him, tariffs aren't just a tax; they're a defibrillator for an industrial heart that's flatlined. Trump's pitch is simple: slap duties on imports, force production back home, and watch the mills hum again. It's a vision that's less about economic fine-tuning than about national resurrection — one that's found fertile ground in a populace fed up with elite promises.There's a cultural thread here that runs deeper than spreadsheets. Globalization didn't just offshore jobs; it eroded something intangible — pride, identity, and the quiet dignity of a "Made in America" stamp. Lightizer frames this as a moral struggle: A nation that can't stand on its own is a nation adrift. Trump understands this. His tariffs, along with tax breaks for domestic companies, aim to rebuild not only the economy but also a narrative — a story of strength that globalization's bland uniformity erased.Back in 1999, the dream of a borderless world felt invincible. Markets would solve everything; sovereignty would be a relic; workers would adapt. It was a beautiful theory — until it wasn't. Trump's tariffs, blunt and brash, represent a repudiation of that hubris — a bet that America can reclaim its footing not by retreating but by remembering what it once knew: that a nation thrives when it builds, not just when it buys. Most economists might scoff, but it’s worth remembering they have been wrong before. The tapestry of globalization is in shreds, and Trump is threading a new one, stitch by stubborn stitch. Whether it holds is anyone's guess.

Bedtime stories can’t buy G-Wagons

Some lunch meetings have more impact than others. Ron and Jacob’s once-a-quarter bread-breaking, something they’d held sacred since they met almost four years ago, was nothing if not high-impact. It always left both feeling pleased to have invested their valuable time in building the relationship. It doesn’t need to be stated, and a better narrator would simply omit this detail, but neither Ron nor Jacob has so much as touched a loaf of bread in years. Sure, the title of the ritual outing was always “Breaking Bread” on the calendar invite, but that’s nothing more than a touch of wit and humor between professional acquaintances. (The wit stems from how closely the title resembles their shared favorite television show, while the humor arises from the fact that they both practice intermittent fasting.) They do order food to maintain appearances. This particular lunch took place in the same spot as the others. I’ve chosen to omit the restaurant’s name since they declined to sponsor this story — a request they didn’t understand, and I couldn’t explain. I will admit that the establishment is known as the gathering place for prominent founders and investors. The food is overpriced, and the drinks are watered down, but, as I mentioned earlier (proving I may have been selling myself short as a narrator), these days, no one eats lunch or drinks anything other than the enhanced water they bring from home.“Bro, I’m telling you, you have to come tonight,” Ron said to Jacob after they finished ordering entrees. “The fireside chat will be dogshit boring, something about how to raise venture capital, but the networking will be so baller — so money — that skipping whatever you said you had to do tonight is the only option.”“I don’t know, man. My wife will kill me if I miss another one of my kid’s concerts.”“Your wife? Doesn’t she know you’re only doing it for her future?”“I mean, you’re right, of course, but that doesn’t track whenever I try to explain it to her that way.”“Would a brand new G-Wagon track? Because that’s the kind of business that can come out of tonight. I’m telling you — everyone will be there.”“I wish she understood I don’t like going to these things — at all. Just a bunch of egos in a room pretending to like each other so they can gain some sort of advantage.”“Yeah, you’d never hang out with the kind of people who go to these events in real life, but you’ve got to be willing to suck it up if you want to win.”“You’re right. I’m sure I’ll see you there.”“Wait — did you say you have a kid? How old?”Ron was right about the fireside — it was dogshit — but wrong about the networking. The people there weren’t the right people. He didn’t want to talk to those people; he wanted to connect with the people who weren’t there. Frankly, he would have preferred speaking to literally anyone other than the people who showed up. Where were the right people? He hoped they didn’t find out he was there. That wouldn’t be a good look — attending an event that wasn’t worth the right people’s time.On the drive home, with the All-Podcast playing in the background, Jacob thought about how close he was to achieving his goal of becoming successful according to the standard of strangers. He deserved it. He’d put in the work, sacrificed what really mattered, and did a cold plunge every morning at exactly 5 am. Unfortunately, all this hustle was putting a major strain on his relationship with his wife and kids. They could tell he was distracted, struggling for presence even at home.He was starting to wonder whether his wife still respected him. She seemed unimpressed by his accomplishments and had begun to resent his work. As a wife and mother, she wanted him to be nothing more than a husband and father. Had he taken the best days of her life in pursuit of the world's respect and admiration while losing it from the only people who truly matter?He wasn’t sure if his kids understood what he did outside the house; they probably wouldn’t recognize out-of-the-house dad. They knew he was gone a lot. Why did other people need their dad more than they did? Jacob knew he couldn’t rise to his own defense if asked. As Childers sings, there was a good man in the making once, but is he still alive?As he snuck into his daughter’s room to kiss her goodnight, she woke up and asked, “How did the event go, Dad?”“It was fine, sweetie. How was your choir concert?”“It was good. I missed a few notes, but Mom says no one noticed. She recorded it on her phone for you.”“I can’t wait to watch it. Sorry I missed it, kiddo.”“It’s okay, Dad. I know you’re busy. Love you.”“I love you, too.”Jacob turned off the night lamp and gently closed the door. He stood outside his daughter’s room longer than necessary. At the event, one of the speakers discussed the importance of balancing work and home life. Don’t hesitate to work hard, he advised, knowing it will pay off when you achieve success and can spend your time as you choose. As he listened, Jacob thought about all of the time he would spend with his wife and kids once he reached the finish line. That’s who he’d want to be with after finally achieving success. Now, at home with everyone asleep, he wondered why he couldn't bypass the success part — whatever that meant — and just choose his wife and kids right now. What was he waiting for?Jacob typed the question in his notes app so he could discuss it with Ron at their next lunch. Glancing at the time, he realized he needed to go to bed soon if he hoped to get tomorrow morning’s cold plunge in. He needed the clarity that icy water offered before another day of sacrificing himself to the grind.

Globalization’s Collapse: Why the middle class views Trump’s tariffs as their last stand

In the late summer of 1999, as the dot-com bubble grew and the American economy thrived during what The Atlantic would later refer to as “The Roaring Nineties,” the United States found itself at the height of a new world order. The Soviet Union had dissolved, the Cold War was a distant memory, and globalization — celebrated as the victory of free markets and liberal democracy — was the doctrine of the time. The Clinton administration, buoyed by post-Cold War optimism, pushed through NAFTA and ushered the U.S. into the World Trade Organization, promising a future of unbounded prosperity. Economists pointed to surging GDP growth in globalization-focused nations, as Boundless U.S. History notes, while corporate leaders were eager at the prospect of cheaper labor and untapped markets. It was, in the words of Brookings, an era when the “Washington Consensus” on free trade seemed unassailable — an ideological juggernaut ready to weave the world into a single, shimmering tapestry of commerce.Fast forward to March 24, 2025, and that tapestry lies in tatters. The factories of the Rust Belt stand silent, their hulks a testament to jobs shipped overseas. The middle class, once the backbone of American life, has been hollowed out, with stagnant wages and crumbling towns. Supply chains, stretched thin across oceans, snapped during the COVID-19 pandemic, exposing a nation dependent on foreign powers — chiefly China — for everything from steel to semiconductors. Globalization, once the golden calf of the elite, has shown itself to be a false idol, leaving a trail of economic wreckage and social discontent. And into this breach steps Donald Trump, armed with a policy as old as the republic itself: tariffs.In a recent interview on The Tucker Carlson Show, Robert Lighthizer, former U.S. Trade Representative under Trump and the intellectual architect of his trade agenda, presented his case with the precision of someone who has spent decades analyzing America’s economic decline. “A country that doesn’t make things is a country destined to lose,” he stated. For Lighthizer, tariffs are not just a tax; they represent a lifeline, a way to revive an industrial base that has been hollowed out by years of free trade ideology. Trump’s economic vision, articulated by Lighthizer and echoed across platforms such as The Conservative Treehouse and Occidental Dissent, represents a radical departure from the globalist orthodoxy of the past thirty years — a bid to reclaim America’s sovereignty, one steel mill at a time.The story of how we got here reflects as much hubris as it does economics. In the 1990s, as American Foreign Relations recounts, the U.S. viewed itself as the undisputed leader of a unipolar world. Globalization was not merely a policy but a mission — to spread capitalism and democracy to every corner of the globe. NAFTA, signed in 1994, was the first major salvo, opening borders to a surge of inexpensive goods from Mexico and Canada. The WTO followed suit, binding the U.S. to a system of rules that valued efficiency over resilience. Corporate America celebrated, drawn by the allure of lower labor costs in places like Shenzhen and Guadalajara. The Brookings analysis of trade policy during that decade captures the sentiment: a belief that open markets would benefit everyone and that the rising tide of global wealth would support American workers just as it did for Wall Street.It didn’t. The tide came in, but it drowned the heartland. Manufacturing jobs, once the bedrock of the middle class, vanished at a staggering pace. Between 1990 and 2010, the U.S. lost roughly six million such jobs, many to China after its entry into the WTO in 2001. Communities in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—places where steel and auto plants once thrived — have withered into ghost towns, their populations decimated by unemployment and opioids. Endless economic charts illustrate this decline with cold clarity: the outsourcing boom enriched corporations and foreign economies while leaving American workers to fend for themselves. Income inequality widened, as the top one percent reaped the rewards of global capital flows while the bottom half saw their share of the pie shrink. The Atlantic’s retrospective on the nineties highlights the irony: a decade of economic boom for some was a slow-motion catastrophe for others.Worse still, globalization tied America to a web of dependencies that proved dangerous. When the pandemic hit, the nation found itself scrambling for masks, ventilators, and pharmaceuticals — all sourced from abroad, much of it from a China increasingly viewed as an adversary. Lighthizer, in an interview with CBS News, described it as an “existential threat” — a vulnerability that tariffs seek to address by bringing production home. A Politico article on Lighthizer’s groundwork for Trump’s next tariff push underscores that economic independence is not merely about jobs but about survival. A nation that cannot produce its own essentials is vulnerable to others — a lesson the elite of the 1990s never learned.Trump’s tariff policy is less a leap into the unknown and more a return to first principles. After all, tariffs have been the lifeblood of American economic policy for much of its history, funding the government and protecting emerging industries from foreign competition. During his first term, Trump imposed duties on steel and aluminum, leading some domestic mills to spring back to life — a small but tangible sign of what’s possible. Today, Lighthizer argues that these measures can prevent a broader economic crash by fostering a manufacturing renaissance. Critics, of course, cry foul — tariffs raise consumer prices, they argue, and risk trade wars. However, Lighthizer counters that foreign exporters often absorb the costs to remain competitive, and the long-term benefits —jobs, wages, resilience — far outweigh the short-term pain. ProPublica’s profile of Lighthizer underscores the stakes: he has “blown up sixty years of trade policy,” and what follows is anybody’s guess. Yet, the argument for tariffs is not only economic — it’s cultural, even moral. Globalization hasn’t just offshored jobs; it has eroded identities. The Brookings essay on the “globalization challenge” suggests this: as local economies were absorbed into a borderless market, communities lost their anchors. The uniformity of Walmart shelves replaced the pride of “Made in America.” The backlash — political, social, and visceral — has fueled Trump’s rise. He promises to improve the economy and restore a sense of national purpose. His policies, ranging from tariffs to tax cuts for domestic producers, aim to rebuild what globalization has dismantled.The dream of a borderless world in the 1990s was alluring, but it was built on shaky ground. It presumed that markets could address all problems, that sovereignty was outdated, and that the American worker could endlessly adjust to a system rigged against them. Trump, despite his bluster, recognizes this. His tariffs are a blunt tool, true, but they represent a reckoning — a rejection of the elite consensus that has left millions behind. Whether they succeed remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: globalization has failed, and Trump is betting that America can find its way back — not to isolation, but to strength — through the old, unglamorous tool of tariffs.

Free people form community

True community emerges when free individuals come together as equals, unburdened by hierarchy or dependency. Yet this ideal is fragile and often undone by success, perception, and power.The great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw was at a party one night when the host approached him and asked, “Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. Shaw?” He replied, “Yes — and that’s the only thing I’m enjoying.”Shaw’s quip exposes the emptiness of gatherings where people are present but not genuinely connected — where the room is filled with opportunists seeking advantage, not free individuals coming together to produce something meaningful.Most communities initially organize themselves with the belief that everyone involved is a leader and has earned their place at the table. This is why newly formed communities achieve significant success right from the start. Members value each other’s company and share a clear perspective on reality — that each individual matters, but no one matters more than anyone else. There is no anxiety, pressure, fear, passivity, or struggle for power. Everyone involved is free.Success alters this reality. People from outside the community begin to care about what’s happening and what this new group of leaders has to say. Now, there are stakes, reputations to uphold, and power that must be exercised. Some individuals start to be perceived as mattering more than others. Credit must be given, egos must be stroked, and the land that’s been seized must be defended. Other groups emerge to claim a share of the harvested crop for themselves.Inevitably, the community’s spirit shifts. Of course, nothing has truly changed, but reality can’t compete with perception. The community comes to be seen as just a small group of leaders trying to control everything and everyone else. “Screw that,” say those outside the perceived inner circle. The character, integrity, and motivations of the community and its leaders come under scrutiny. Competitors arise solely from this, promising to achieve the same results as the original community but with more honorable intentions.Social media has conditioned us to believe that having followers is a good thing. In reality, followers — when they’re just dependents — weaken a community’s core. A strong, cohesive community cannot thrive if it is split into distinct groups of leaders and followers. Free people — not followers — create community.This cycle of growth and collapse is not exclusive to a specific type of community; it has clearly manifested itself across all areas of human organization. Think of a startup humming with ideas — until investors swoop in, egos swell like balloons, ready to pop, and the team splinters.To tread on safer ground, let’s consider political parties, as they seem to be disliked by almost everybody. In 2012, following President Barack Obama’s defeat of Mitt Romney, pundits and the media confidently claimed that the Republican Party was bound to remain a minority, non-governing party for decades. After Romney’s loss, the party produced a notorious autopsy report advising that it soften its stance on immigration and place significant emphasis on outreach to minority voters.You know what happened next. Four years later, Donald Trump won the presidency by doing exactly the opposite of what former party leaders recommended. Trump’s success didn’t come from appealing to followers with a softened message; it arose from mobilizing free individuals who rejected the blueprint of the perceived party elite, demonstrating that a community of leaders treated as leaders can defy expectations.The Democratic Party is where the Republican Party was in 2013. The current division among Democrats reflects a trend towards top-down control, where leaders dictate, and followers comply — undermining the freedom and hope that once unified them. However, because the ruling party will eventually overlook the reason for its success, you can be certain that the Democrats will regain power much sooner than today’s analysts expect.The cycle repeats, always.Why does this happen? A person who depends on others for access, validation, success, or happiness will eventually want to break free. Nobody wants to be a follower. Nobody wants to be the one mid-conversation, watching their partner’s eyes drift over their shoulder for someone better. Followers aren’t free — they rely on others, giving up control of their destiny. That’s what sheep do, not communities. True community rejects this dependency — it thrives on freedom instead.The term “community” has been diminished to the point of losing its meaning. It’s time to reclaim it as a space for free individuals who are unafraid to be themselves.Begin where you are: treat everyone as a leader, and see the limits fade away.

Roosevelt’s Arena: Today’s CEOs face dust, sweat, and torched Teslas

In the spring of 2021, the co-founders of Basecamp, a software company known for its project management tools, decided that political discussions had no place in their internal communications. The decree came down like a guillotine: no more debates about elections, no more arguments over social justice. The backlash was swift — employees quit in droves, and the press jumped in, with The New York Times documenting the exodus as a tale of corporate overreach.A few months earlier, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange, had taken a similar approach. He urged his staff to leave politics at the door and offered severance to those who couldn’t comply. About sixty employees — around five percent of the workforce — accepted the money and left, while critics condemned the move as a suppression of dissent. Both companies, in their pursuit of focus, stumbled into a firestorm.Elon Musk, the undisputed titan of technology, has entered a different kind of battle. Appointed by President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead a growing Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE, a reference to Musk’s cryptocurrency interests — his arrival in Washington has sparked not only debate but outright rebellion.Teslas are being vandalized in parking lots, dealerships are being picketed, and cars are being set ablaze in isolated bursts of anger. Threats against Musk’s life have emerged, serving as a grim reminder of the stakes when business and government collide. In recent days, left-wing favorite California Governor Gavin Newsom sent prepaid phones to a hundred tech CEOs, preloaded with his personal number, only to face a wave of skepticism from the media and many in his party: Why associate with the Silicon Valley elite?There are countless more examples, but the pattern is clear: when business leaders enter the public arena — or even flirt with it — the atmosphere fills with recrimination. Employees rebel, customers bristle, and the media sharpens its knives. This is enough to make any executive hesitate, questioning whether the reward is worth the effort.Let us present another perspective on this issue — one where a leader doesn’t shy away from chaos but embraces it. Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech that decorates many business leaders’ walls, articulated it best: “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles.... The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.” For business leaders peering over the parapet today, the question isn’t whether they’ll be liked — it’s whether they’ll have the courage to step in at all.The aversion to mixing business and governance is understandable. Business thrives on clarity — profit margins, market shares, quarterly reports. Politics, by contrast, is a swamp: murky, tribal, and unforgiving.Criticism in politics often only gains traction when there are elements of truth. Let’s look at the following:But to stop there is to miss the point. Life isn’t a popularity contest, though it’s tempting to live as if it were. The alternative — shying away from the arena because the crowd might jeer — is a recipe for stasis, a slow drift toward irrelevance.Roosevelt’s words carry a sting because they’re true: the arena isn’t kind. It’s a place of bruises and missteps, where every move invites scrutiny. Basecamp’s founders lost talent; Coinbase’s Armstrong lost goodwill. Musk’s Teslas are paying a literal price, scratched and scorched by those who see him as a usurper. Yet the arena is also where history gets made, where the timid don’t tread.Business leaders who engage with it — whether to streamline bureaucracy, resolve internal conflicts, or form a new alliance — aren’t guaranteed success, but they are guaranteed to face challenges. To do otherwise — retreating and polishing one’s image until it shines — is to squander the little time we have in life to make a difference.And that, Roosevelt would argue, is the only thing that counts.