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America is a vast, divergent country

The United States of America is 3.8 million square miles, filled with 340 million people, producing over $30 trillion in gross domestic product per year. We are the fourth largest country by land, third by population and first by GDP. We no longer know each other, care for each other or like each other. We are a nation of isolated people staring at screens and filled with existential terrors about the other, whoever the other might be. On Tuesday night across America, those existential terrors played out with fear of the other. Hispanic voters who voted for President Donald Trump and ...

Bill Gates sees a new reality

You’ve probably heard by now the blockbuster news that Microsoft founder Bill Gates, one of the richest people to ever walk the planet, has had a change of heart on climate change. For several decades, Gates poured billions of dollars into the climate-industrial complex and was howling that the end is nigh unless we stop using fossil fuels, cars, air conditioning and general anesthesia. Now he says he rejects the “doomsday” predictions of the more extreme global warming prophets. Some conservatives have snuffed that Gates has shifted his position on climate change because he ...

Having the courage to look at the truth

“Face the brutal facts.” That is a lesson Jim Collins included in his book “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t.” This book continues to provide an excellent blueprint for any organization that wants to be great. Sometimes the work a company is doing is good; it’s just not enough to achieve the desired goal. It takes courage to look at the brutal facts—about performance issues, market challenges, or other uncomfortable data or insights. It can be discouraging.  I was meeting with my leader on a project I was leading. He asked me for the ...

What’s always made America great

This week as we celebrate Veterans Day, I hope we will not fail to remember that our nation has depended upon soldiers from many different ethnic backgrounds and traditions. I was unhappy to read in The Inter-Mountain that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has erased images of women and minorities from the Department of Defense website. Most notable was Milton L. Oliver III, a soldier who saved his platoon in Vietnam by smothering a grenade. He was the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor in 1965. We are so fortunate to have citizens like Milton Oliver who have the ...

Political crossroads

Donald Trump and the movement he founded, MAGA, have come to a political crossroads. The government shutdown exposed the fissures within the so-called “Populist” movement. Far from representing a new style of voice in the American political system, MAGA is revealed to be an all-too-familiar faction within the Republican Party. Despite campaign ballyhoo in 2024, which promised to protect essential services, the Trump administration has produced a crazy-quilt collection of traditional far-right stances—tax cuts for billionaires and deep cuts for MAGA constituents. Despite ...

Art of the possible

Otto von Bismarck dubbed politics, including diplomacy, the “art of the possible.” During his trip to Asia, President Donald Trump was rudely reminded of this axiom. At the outset of the trip, he was determined to impress his hosts with America’s strength, only to be reminded of America’s limitations. Particularly with the People’s Republic of China, with its great quantity of “rare earth” minerals, supplying key ingredients that power the world economy. He agreed to lower Chinese tariffs by 10%, and the PRC offered to buy American soybeans. Overall, Xi Jinping ...