#3) the undeniable fact that the united states has shifted further to the right and either dismisses fascism as eccentricity at best

[hylialeia]

I get that everyone's feeling a lot of feelings right now but one thing is certain and that is that you could not pay me to blame Palestinians for this. even if Harris had lost only because of her stance on Gaza (which she didn't and honestly the mere suggestion that she did is laughable, based on the statistics), both US candidates openly campaigned with pro-genocide stances and promises to gleefully advance the USAmerican war machine. this wasn't a "leftist tantrum over an imperfect candidate", this was a horrifying and genuinely sickening choice. I have never known what it would feel like to have to vote for someone who enabled the genocide of my people, friends, and family, and I absolutely fucking refuse to hate those who do.

[yho11]

Naomi Klein: The Danger of Eco-Fascism

               In “The Specter Of Eco-Fascism”, Naomi Klein warns about the dangers of racist far-ideologies in their response to the worsening climate change. She starts off by contrasting two events that happened on the same day in Christchurch, New Zealand. A student-led climate strike was supposed to be about the dangers of climate change to Pacific nations including New Zealand, but it was soon interrupted as the police evacuated the event because of a nearby shooting. This was the Christchurch shooting committed by an Australian far-right extremist. Klein uses these two events to highlight the different responses to climate change. Whereas the students were rising up peacefully to speak on climate change, the Christchurch killer was a self-identified eco-fascist, claiming that his actions as environmentalism killing population growth.

[1]

               Klein sees our future response to climate change is to either live up to our responsibilities to it or to rationalize refusing to be responsible. A responsible approach to climate change would be to help the poorest around the world. The wealthiest people in the world profit off of emissions that contribute the most to climate change which in turn causes humanitarian crises for the poor. A just response requires the rich to adopt the Green New Deal premise of halting their emissions. Rich countries have a duty to share resources with the poorest in the Global South to protect them from the impacts of climate change. If protection can’t be achieved then there is the duty to aid them in seeking refuge when displaced.

               The alternate response is a frightening future when denial is no longer a viable strategy in the face of worsening climate change, that deniers turn to racism to protect their own group from outsiders and avoid any responsibility towards the worst impacted. This racist far-right ideology will start denying the responsibility of the largest polluting nation to help black and people victims of climate change, justifying this new denial under the guise of protecting superior white Christians from the lesser outsiders. Such a far-right has already started to influence policies in Europe, Australia, and the United States, where brutal immigration policies make cruelty a point towards migrants in order to discourage movement.

              Klein warns this is how climate barbarism emerges, by embracing policies influenced by a racist in response to climate change, society will justify discarding human life deemed lesser. One of the most important ways to avoid such a future is to face the fossil fuel industries most responsible for the emissions. Political movements have to fight to get money out of politics so that elected officials cannot take money from these companies. The grow or die mentality must be stopped, future leaders have to be willing to nationalize these industries in order to stop their growth and fairly transition their workers elsewhere.

[2]

              I agree with Klein’s warning on the rise of Eco-Fascism. The recent rise in far-right violence and movement activity shows that it’s definitely something to be concern about. It doesn’t help that in the US, climate bipartisanship has pushed climate denial to become a right-wing position. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2020, 88% of democrats show climate change as a major threat while only 31% of republicans did[3]. Combine this with rhetoric from President Trump like calling far-right protestors fine people, his pulling out of the climate agreement, and anti-science attitude during a pandemic, I can see the continuation of such violent movements.

[4]

              It’s not a far fetch scenario where fascists commit violence in response to government action on science. This is evident in the response to Michigan’s COVID restrictions. There were widespread protests during the spring which involved armed protestors entering the state capitol. This tension was further egged on by the President, who blamed Governor Whitmer for the restrictions and calling for Michigan to be liberated. This would culminate into the recently foiled plot to kidnap the governor by far-right, anti-government militiamen. They planned to try her for treason, the group would often talk about killing tyrants for violating the constitution. The point of this example is that we are already seeing violent anti-government responses to government action trying to follow the science on a pandemic. Now imagine if the government tries to follow the science and massively intervene with actions like doing the Green New Deal and nationalizing fossil fuel industries. The egging on of already anti-science, anti-government movements could mean violent resistance to these changes.

              When in the future, climate change worsens so much that it becomes undeniable to such extremist groups, the previous denial of government action on climate change could shift to denial of government action to help outside refugees from climate disasters. Klein made the point in “The Right is Right” that conservatives held onto climate denial because the alternative of massive government intervention would invalidate their ideology. If far-right ideology follows the same action of holding onto ideology because the alternative would invalidate it, then Klein would be correct in saying that the racist elements of such ideology would be held onto even after climate denial is no longer feasible and instead it will evolve into barbarism against outsiders because the alternative of taking responsibility towards poorer people of color would invalidate their racism.

Question: What would a stronger movement for left-wing socials push more people away from eco-fascist ideology?

 Word Count: 938

[1] Ed Crooks, “Democrats Unveil Proposal for 'Green New Deal',” Subscribe to read | Financial Times (Financial Times, February 7, 2019), https://www.ft.com/content/fe5adfd8-2b00-11e9-a5ab-ff8ef2b976c7.

[2] “The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States,” The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States | Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 15, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states.

[3] Brian Kennedy, “U.S. Concern about Climate Change Is Rising, but Mainly among Democrats,” Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center, May 31, 2020), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/16/u-s-concern-about-climate-change-is-rising-but-mainly-among-democrats/.

[4] Lois Beckett, “Armed Protesters Demonstrate against Covid-19 Lockdown at Michigan Capitol,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, April 30, 2020), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/michigan-protests-coronavirus-lockdown-armed-capitol.

[internetbasic9]

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak https://ift.tt/2Nqit5x

Business

(CNN)Donald Trump may have never had a better time being President.

Only a re-election party on the night of November 3, 2020, could possibly offer the same vindication for America’s most unconventional commander in chief as the 36 hours in which two foundational strands of his political career are combining in a sudden burst of history.

Trump will become an undeniably consequential President with the Senate

due to vote Saturday to confirm Brett Kavanaugh

to the Supreme Court, consecrating the conservative majority that has long been the impossible dream of the GOP.

On Friday, Trump had celebrated

the best jobs data for 49 years

as the unemployment rate dipped to 3.7%, offering more proof of a vibrant economy that the President says has been unshackled by his tax-reduction program and scything cuts to business regulations.

While his 2016 election campaign was most notable for swirling chaos and shattered norms, Trump’s vows to nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to fire up the economy were the glue for his winning coalition.

The struggle to confirm Kavanaugh split the country, deepened mistrust festering between rival lawmakers and threatens to further drag the Supreme Court into Washington’s poisoned political stew. But Trump stuck with it and ground out a win.

So he has every right to return to voters in the next four weeks ahead of the midterm elections to argue he has done exactly what he said he would do. He now has a strong message to convince grass-roots Republicans that it’s well worth showing up at the polls.

Testing the new message

He will get his first chance to road-test his new, improved message at a campaign rally in Topeka, Kansas, on Saturday night.

It’s ironic that it was Trump, a late convert to conservatism — not authentic Republicans like President Ronald Reagan, both Bush presidents and beaten GOP nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain — who finally delivered the Supreme Court majority.

If he is confirmed as expected, Kavanaugh will be Trump’s second nominee to reach the court in less than two years, following Neil Gorsuch.

Of course, the Supreme Court win is the culmination of decades of work by conservative activists and was masterminded by the cunning of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell. But Presidents get credit when they are in the Oval Office when things go well and Trump, whether it is his fault or not, has taken more than his share of criticism.

Trump has so far been uncharacteristically quiet about his banner day — perhaps to avoid any last upsets before Saturday’s scheduled Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

He did pump out two short tweets.

“Very proud of the U.S. Senate for voting ‘YES’ to advance the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh!” he wrote.

Earlier, he had tweeted: “Just out: 3.7% Unemployment is the lowest number since 1969!”

A President of consequence

There is more evidence than the soon-to-be reshaped Supreme Court and the roaring economy to make a case that Trump is building a substantial presidency that in many ways looks like a historic pivot point, despite its extremely controversial nature.

Largely unnoticed in the Washington imbroglio over

sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh,

the Trump administration is engineering significant changes at home and abroad that often represent sharp revisions of direction from traditional American positions.

This week, for instance, the White House initiated a potentially

momentous shift in the US approach to China

, recognizing the Asian giant as a global competitor and a threat to American security, prosperity and interests — reversing decades of policy designed to manage Beijing’s ascent as a major power and eventual partner.

The administration is also

tightening a vise around Iran in a strategy

that threatens to escalate into open confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Elsewhere in the Middle East, a bolstered anti-ISIS strategy has blasted the radical group from its strongholds in shattered Syria. And Trump has rejected decades of US orthodoxy in managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could have uncertain results.

Trump’s bullying approach to trade negotiations has recently yielded remodeled agreements with Canada, Mexico and South Korea. While he exaggerates how much he changed existing deals, he can still boast that his “Art of the Deal” negotiating strategy — another core component of his appeal to his supporters — is working.

An announcement of a

deeper slashing of refugee admissions by the United States

further cements the “America First” philosophy that has changed global strategic assumptions.

At home, Trump’s assault on regulations at agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency is accelerating, in a blitz against what Steve Bannon once called

the administrative state

that fulfills another long-dreamed-of goal of the conservative movement.

The case against the President

Many of Trump’s perceived achievements are hugely controversial, and his opponents will argue that they stain America’s image, reverse a march toward human progress and justice, and will ultimately exert a price the nation will be paying for many years to come.

And Democrats carp that Trump is only building off the far more significant economic work of his predecessor Barack Obama in the wake of the Great Recession and argue that his tax cuts sharply worsened inequality and exploded budget deficits in a way that will haunt the economy for decades.

Trump’s critics say his approach to the world threatens to buckle the international system of alliances and a rule-based trading system that made America the richest and most powerful nation in US history and a beacon of democracy.

They say his presidency is in fact most notable for a culture of corruption, falsehood and demagoguery.

There is a case to be made that Trump’s constant twisting of truth, invention of false political realities and strategy of tearing at the country’s racial, gender and societal divides in order to capture and wield power threaten the eternal values and institutions of the nation itself.

This week, the President stood accused of tax fraud after a

New York Times investigation into his family finances in the 1990s

. And, though special counsel Robert Mueller has gone quiet in election season, Trump’s campaign is under investigation to see whether it conspired with a foreign power to win his election.

The voters will choose

Most credible pollsters have the President at only around 40% approval, a level that is rarely conducive to successful congressional elections. Republicans are in danger of losing the House of Representatives, a scenario that could cripple Trump’s White House with relentless committee investigations and even the specter of impeachment.

Often the chaos and discord the President sows distracts from more successful aspects of his presidency, and his raging temperament and insistence on waging perpetual political warfare exhaust many voters.

It will be up to voters in November and in 2020 to decide which of the two interpretations of Trump’s presidency — an era of conservative achievement or a disastrous national distraction — becomes dominant.

But it already seems that Trump’s grand design will be difficult for a future President to quickly reverse.

Less than two weeks ago, foreign diplomats at the United Nations laughed at Trump when he boasted about the historic sweep of his presidency — and there was no doubt that he was, as usual, exaggerating.

But it’s also no longer possible to credibly argue — despite the distracting blizzard of controversy, busted decorum and staff chaos constantly lashing Washington — that there is not something significant taking place that is changing the political and economic character of the nation itself.

Read More | Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN,

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak, in 2018-10-06 07:43:09

[internetbetterforall]

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak http://www.nature-business.com/business-president-donald-trumps-winning-streak/

Business

(CNN)Donald Trump may have never had a better time being President.

Only a re-election party on the night of November 3, 2020, could possibly offer the same vindication for America’s most unconventional commander in chief as the 36 hours in which two foundational strands of his political career are combining in a sudden burst of history.

Trump will become an undeniably consequential President with the Senate

due to vote Saturday to confirm Brett Kavanaugh

to the Supreme Court, consecrating the conservative majority that has long been the impossible dream of the GOP.

On Friday, Trump had celebrated

the best jobs data for 49 years

as the unemployment rate dipped to 3.7%, offering more proof of a vibrant economy that the President says has been unshackled by his tax-reduction program and scything cuts to business regulations.

While his 2016 election campaign was most notable for swirling chaos and shattered norms, Trump’s vows to nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to fire up the economy were the glue for his winning coalition.

The struggle to confirm Kavanaugh split the country, deepened mistrust festering between rival lawmakers and threatens to further drag the Supreme Court into Washington’s poisoned political stew. But Trump stuck with it and ground out a win.

So he has every right to return to voters in the next four weeks ahead of the midterm elections to argue he has done exactly what he said he would do. He now has a strong message to convince grass-roots Republicans that it’s well worth showing up at the polls.

Testing the new message

He will get his first chance to road-test his new, improved message at a campaign rally in Topeka, Kansas, on Saturday night.

It’s ironic that it was Trump, a late convert to conservatism — not authentic Republicans like President Ronald Reagan, both Bush presidents and beaten GOP nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain — who finally delivered the Supreme Court majority.

If he is confirmed as expected, Kavanaugh will be Trump’s second nominee to reach the court in less than two years, following Neil Gorsuch.

Of course, the Supreme Court win is the culmination of decades of work by conservative activists and was masterminded by the cunning of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell. But Presidents get credit when they are in the Oval Office when things go well and Trump, whether it is his fault or not, has taken more than his share of criticism.

Trump has so far been uncharacteristically quiet about his banner day — perhaps to avoid any last upsets before Saturday’s scheduled Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

He did pump out two short tweets.

“Very proud of the U.S. Senate for voting ‘YES’ to advance the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh!” he wrote.

Earlier, he had tweeted: “Just out: 3.7% Unemployment is the lowest number since 1969!”

A President of consequence

There is more evidence than the soon-to-be reshaped Supreme Court and the roaring economy to make a case that Trump is building a substantial presidency that in many ways looks like a historic pivot point, despite its extremely controversial nature.

Largely unnoticed in the Washington imbroglio over

sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh,

the Trump administration is engineering significant changes at home and abroad that often represent sharp revisions of direction from traditional American positions.

This week, for instance, the White House initiated a potentially

momentous shift in the US approach to China

, recognizing the Asian giant as a global competitor and a threat to American security, prosperity and interests — reversing decades of policy designed to manage Beijing’s ascent as a major power and eventual partner.

The administration is also

tightening a vise around Iran in a strategy

that threatens to escalate into open confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Elsewhere in the Middle East, a bolstered anti-ISIS strategy has blasted the radical group from its strongholds in shattered Syria. And Trump has rejected decades of US orthodoxy in managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could have uncertain results.

Trump’s bullying approach to trade negotiations has recently yielded remodeled agreements with Canada, Mexico and South Korea. While he exaggerates how much he changed existing deals, he can still boast that his “Art of the Deal” negotiating strategy — another core component of his appeal to his supporters — is working.

An announcement of a

deeper slashing of refugee admissions by the United States

further cements the “America First” philosophy that has changed global strategic assumptions.

At home, Trump’s assault on regulations at agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency is accelerating, in a blitz against what Steve Bannon once called

the administrative state

that fulfills another long-dreamed-of goal of the conservative movement.

The case against the President

Many of Trump’s perceived achievements are hugely controversial, and his opponents will argue that they stain America’s image, reverse a march toward human progress and justice, and will ultimately exert a price the nation will be paying for many years to come.

And Democrats carp that Trump is only building off the far more significant economic work of his predecessor Barack Obama in the wake of the Great Recession and argue that his tax cuts sharply worsened inequality and exploded budget deficits in a way that will haunt the economy for decades.

Trump’s critics say his approach to the world threatens to buckle the international system of alliances and a rule-based trading system that made America the richest and most powerful nation in US history and a beacon of democracy.

They say his presidency is in fact most notable for a culture of corruption, falsehood and demagoguery.

There is a case to be made that Trump’s constant twisting of truth, invention of false political realities and strategy of tearing at the country’s racial, gender and societal divides in order to capture and wield power threaten the eternal values and institutions of the nation itself.

This week, the President stood accused of tax fraud after a

New York Times investigation into his family finances in the 1990s

. And, though special counsel Robert Mueller has gone quiet in election season, Trump’s campaign is under investigation to see whether it conspired with a foreign power to win his election.

The voters will choose

Most credible pollsters have the President at only around 40% approval, a level that is rarely conducive to successful congressional elections. Republicans are in danger of losing the House of Representatives, a scenario that could cripple Trump’s White House with relentless committee investigations and even the specter of impeachment.

Often the chaos and discord the President sows distracts from more successful aspects of his presidency, and his raging temperament and insistence on waging perpetual political warfare exhaust many voters.

It will be up to voters in November and in 2020 to decide which of the two interpretations of Trump’s presidency — an era of conservative achievement or a disastrous national distraction — becomes dominant.

But it already seems that Trump’s grand design will be difficult for a future President to quickly reverse.

Less than two weeks ago, foreign diplomats at the United Nations laughed at Trump when he boasted about the historic sweep of his presidency — and there was no doubt that he was, as usual, exaggerating.

But it’s also no longer possible to credibly argue — despite the distracting blizzard of controversy, busted decorum and staff chaos constantly lashing Washington — that there is not something significant taking place that is changing the political and economic character of the nation itself.

Read More | Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN,

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak, in 2018-10-06 07:43:09

[algarithmblognumber]

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak http://www.nature-business.com/business-president-donald-trumps-winning-streak/

Business

(CNN)Donald Trump may have never had a better time being President.

Only a re-election party on the night of November 3, 2020, could possibly offer the same vindication for America’s most unconventional commander in chief as the 36 hours in which two foundational strands of his political career are combining in a sudden burst of history.

Trump will become an undeniably consequential President with the Senate

due to vote Saturday to confirm Brett Kavanaugh

to the Supreme Court, consecrating the conservative majority that has long been the impossible dream of the GOP.

On Friday, Trump had celebrated

the best jobs data for 49 years

as the unemployment rate dipped to 3.7%, offering more proof of a vibrant economy that the President says has been unshackled by his tax-reduction program and scything cuts to business regulations.

While his 2016 election campaign was most notable for swirling chaos and shattered norms, Trump’s vows to nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to fire up the economy were the glue for his winning coalition.

The struggle to confirm Kavanaugh split the country, deepened mistrust festering between rival lawmakers and threatens to further drag the Supreme Court into Washington’s poisoned political stew. But Trump stuck with it and ground out a win.

So he has every right to return to voters in the next four weeks ahead of the midterm elections to argue he has done exactly what he said he would do. He now has a strong message to convince grass-roots Republicans that it’s well worth showing up at the polls.

Testing the new message

He will get his first chance to road-test his new, improved message at a campaign rally in Topeka, Kansas, on Saturday night.

It’s ironic that it was Trump, a late convert to conservatism — not authentic Republicans like President Ronald Reagan, both Bush presidents and beaten GOP nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain — who finally delivered the Supreme Court majority.

If he is confirmed as expected, Kavanaugh will be Trump’s second nominee to reach the court in less than two years, following Neil Gorsuch.

Of course, the Supreme Court win is the culmination of decades of work by conservative activists and was masterminded by the cunning of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell. But Presidents get credit when they are in the Oval Office when things go well and Trump, whether it is his fault or not, has taken more than his share of criticism.

Trump has so far been uncharacteristically quiet about his banner day — perhaps to avoid any last upsets before Saturday’s scheduled Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

He did pump out two short tweets.

“Very proud of the U.S. Senate for voting ‘YES’ to advance the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh!” he wrote.

Earlier, he had tweeted: “Just out: 3.7% Unemployment is the lowest number since 1969!”

A President of consequence

There is more evidence than the soon-to-be reshaped Supreme Court and the roaring economy to make a case that Trump is building a substantial presidency that in many ways looks like a historic pivot point, despite its extremely controversial nature.

Largely unnoticed in the Washington imbroglio over

sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh,

the Trump administration is engineering significant changes at home and abroad that often represent sharp revisions of direction from traditional American positions.

This week, for instance, the White House initiated a potentially

momentous shift in the US approach to China

, recognizing the Asian giant as a global competitor and a threat to American security, prosperity and interests — reversing decades of policy designed to manage Beijing’s ascent as a major power and eventual partner.

The administration is also

tightening a vise around Iran in a strategy

that threatens to escalate into open confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Elsewhere in the Middle East, a bolstered anti-ISIS strategy has blasted the radical group from its strongholds in shattered Syria. And Trump has rejected decades of US orthodoxy in managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could have uncertain results.

Trump’s bullying approach to trade negotiations has recently yielded remodeled agreements with Canada, Mexico and South Korea. While he exaggerates how much he changed existing deals, he can still boast that his “Art of the Deal” negotiating strategy — another core component of his appeal to his supporters — is working.

An announcement of a

deeper slashing of refugee admissions by the United States

further cements the “America First” philosophy that has changed global strategic assumptions.

At home, Trump’s assault on regulations at agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency is accelerating, in a blitz against what Steve Bannon once called

the administrative state

that fulfills another long-dreamed-of goal of the conservative movement.

The case against the President

Many of Trump’s perceived achievements are hugely controversial, and his opponents will argue that they stain America’s image, reverse a march toward human progress and justice, and will ultimately exert a price the nation will be paying for many years to come.

And Democrats carp that Trump is only building off the far more significant economic work of his predecessor Barack Obama in the wake of the Great Recession and argue that his tax cuts sharply worsened inequality and exploded budget deficits in a way that will haunt the economy for decades.

Trump’s critics say his approach to the world threatens to buckle the international system of alliances and a rule-based trading system that made America the richest and most powerful nation in US history and a beacon of democracy.

They say his presidency is in fact most notable for a culture of corruption, falsehood and demagoguery.

There is a case to be made that Trump’s constant twisting of truth, invention of false political realities and strategy of tearing at the country’s racial, gender and societal divides in order to capture and wield power threaten the eternal values and institutions of the nation itself.

This week, the President stood accused of tax fraud after a

New York Times investigation into his family finances in the 1990s

. And, though special counsel Robert Mueller has gone quiet in election season, Trump’s campaign is under investigation to see whether it conspired with a foreign power to win his election.

The voters will choose

Most credible pollsters have the President at only around 40% approval, a level that is rarely conducive to successful congressional elections. Republicans are in danger of losing the House of Representatives, a scenario that could cripple Trump’s White House with relentless committee investigations and even the specter of impeachment.

Often the chaos and discord the President sows distracts from more successful aspects of his presidency, and his raging temperament and insistence on waging perpetual political warfare exhaust many voters.

It will be up to voters in November and in 2020 to decide which of the two interpretations of Trump’s presidency — an era of conservative achievement or a disastrous national distraction — becomes dominant.

But it already seems that Trump’s grand design will be difficult for a future President to quickly reverse.

Less than two weeks ago, foreign diplomats at the United Nations laughed at Trump when he boasted about the historic sweep of his presidency — and there was no doubt that he was, as usual, exaggerating.

But it’s also no longer possible to credibly argue — despite the distracting blizzard of controversy, busted decorum and staff chaos constantly lashing Washington — that there is not something significant taking place that is changing the political and economic character of the nation itself.

Read More | Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN,

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak, in 2018-10-06 07:43:09

[computacionalblog]

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak http://www.nature-business.com/business-president-donald-trumps-winning-streak/

Business

(CNN)Donald Trump may have never had a better time being President.

Only a re-election party on the night of November 3, 2020, could possibly offer the same vindication for America’s most unconventional commander in chief as the 36 hours in which two foundational strands of his political career are combining in a sudden burst of history.

Trump will become an undeniably consequential President with the Senate

due to vote Saturday to confirm Brett Kavanaugh

to the Supreme Court, consecrating the conservative majority that has long been the impossible dream of the GOP.

On Friday, Trump had celebrated

the best jobs data for 49 years

as the unemployment rate dipped to 3.7%, offering more proof of a vibrant economy that the President says has been unshackled by his tax-reduction program and scything cuts to business regulations.

While his 2016 election campaign was most notable for swirling chaos and shattered norms, Trump’s vows to nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to fire up the economy were the glue for his winning coalition.

The struggle to confirm Kavanaugh split the country, deepened mistrust festering between rival lawmakers and threatens to further drag the Supreme Court into Washington’s poisoned political stew. But Trump stuck with it and ground out a win.

So he has every right to return to voters in the next four weeks ahead of the midterm elections to argue he has done exactly what he said he would do. He now has a strong message to convince grass-roots Republicans that it’s well worth showing up at the polls.

Testing the new message

He will get his first chance to road-test his new, improved message at a campaign rally in Topeka, Kansas, on Saturday night.

It’s ironic that it was Trump, a late convert to conservatism — not authentic Republicans like President Ronald Reagan, both Bush presidents and beaten GOP nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain — who finally delivered the Supreme Court majority.

If he is confirmed as expected, Kavanaugh will be Trump’s second nominee to reach the court in less than two years, following Neil Gorsuch.

Of course, the Supreme Court win is the culmination of decades of work by conservative activists and was masterminded by the cunning of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell. But Presidents get credit when they are in the Oval Office when things go well and Trump, whether it is his fault or not, has taken more than his share of criticism.

Trump has so far been uncharacteristically quiet about his banner day — perhaps to avoid any last upsets before Saturday’s scheduled Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

He did pump out two short tweets.

“Very proud of the U.S. Senate for voting ‘YES’ to advance the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh!” he wrote.

Earlier, he had tweeted: “Just out: 3.7% Unemployment is the lowest number since 1969!”

A President of consequence

There is more evidence than the soon-to-be reshaped Supreme Court and the roaring economy to make a case that Trump is building a substantial presidency that in many ways looks like a historic pivot point, despite its extremely controversial nature.

Largely unnoticed in the Washington imbroglio over

sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh,

the Trump administration is engineering significant changes at home and abroad that often represent sharp revisions of direction from traditional American positions.

This week, for instance, the White House initiated a potentially

momentous shift in the US approach to China

, recognizing the Asian giant as a global competitor and a threat to American security, prosperity and interests — reversing decades of policy designed to manage Beijing’s ascent as a major power and eventual partner.

The administration is also

tightening a vise around Iran in a strategy

that threatens to escalate into open confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Elsewhere in the Middle East, a bolstered anti-ISIS strategy has blasted the radical group from its strongholds in shattered Syria. And Trump has rejected decades of US orthodoxy in managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could have uncertain results.

Trump’s bullying approach to trade negotiations has recently yielded remodeled agreements with Canada, Mexico and South Korea. While he exaggerates how much he changed existing deals, he can still boast that his “Art of the Deal” negotiating strategy — another core component of his appeal to his supporters — is working.

An announcement of a

deeper slashing of refugee admissions by the United States

further cements the “America First” philosophy that has changed global strategic assumptions.

At home, Trump’s assault on regulations at agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency is accelerating, in a blitz against what Steve Bannon once called

the administrative state

that fulfills another long-dreamed-of goal of the conservative movement.

The case against the President

Many of Trump’s perceived achievements are hugely controversial, and his opponents will argue that they stain America’s image, reverse a march toward human progress and justice, and will ultimately exert a price the nation will be paying for many years to come.

And Democrats carp that Trump is only building off the far more significant economic work of his predecessor Barack Obama in the wake of the Great Recession and argue that his tax cuts sharply worsened inequality and exploded budget deficits in a way that will haunt the economy for decades.

Trump’s critics say his approach to the world threatens to buckle the international system of alliances and a rule-based trading system that made America the richest and most powerful nation in US history and a beacon of democracy.

They say his presidency is in fact most notable for a culture of corruption, falsehood and demagoguery.

There is a case to be made that Trump’s constant twisting of truth, invention of false political realities and strategy of tearing at the country’s racial, gender and societal divides in order to capture and wield power threaten the eternal values and institutions of the nation itself.

This week, the President stood accused of tax fraud after a

New York Times investigation into his family finances in the 1990s

. And, though special counsel Robert Mueller has gone quiet in election season, Trump’s campaign is under investigation to see whether it conspired with a foreign power to win his election.

The voters will choose

Most credible pollsters have the President at only around 40% approval, a level that is rarely conducive to successful congressional elections. Republicans are in danger of losing the House of Representatives, a scenario that could cripple Trump’s White House with relentless committee investigations and even the specter of impeachment.

Often the chaos and discord the President sows distracts from more successful aspects of his presidency, and his raging temperament and insistence on waging perpetual political warfare exhaust many voters.

It will be up to voters in November and in 2020 to decide which of the two interpretations of Trump’s presidency — an era of conservative achievement or a disastrous national distraction — becomes dominant.

But it already seems that Trump’s grand design will be difficult for a future President to quickly reverse.

Less than two weeks ago, foreign diplomats at the United Nations laughed at Trump when he boasted about the historic sweep of his presidency — and there was no doubt that he was, as usual, exaggerating.

But it’s also no longer possible to credibly argue — despite the distracting blizzard of controversy, busted decorum and staff chaos constantly lashing Washington — that there is not something significant taking place that is changing the political and economic character of the nation itself.

Read More | Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN,

Business President Donald Trump’s winning streak, in 2018-10-06 07:43:09

[markjsousa]

Brands Must Redefine Their View Of Competition

A few years ago, we were in a meeting with a consumer goods company talking about the way Trader Joe’s laid out its product displays. The conversation quickly turned into an assault on how inefficient the design was and how it was violating a number of product display rules that the rest of the industry had learned years ago. For example, the open freezers—while inviting—allowed cold air to escape. And shelves above those open freezers tended to offer nonfrozen goods from completely different product categories. But while the freezer design may have been inefficient and costly, and the organization scheme may have been atypical, the increasing popularity of Trader Joe’s (along with its private label products) was undeniably cutting into the company’s sales at an alarming rate. And there was nothing to suggest that the trend would change anytime soon.

Companies that fail to challenge the established views of what their industries sell and how they operate miss valuable opportunities and leave themselves vulnerable to potential disruptors. Look at the interior design industry, which has long catered to wealthy clients and priced itself too high for the average new homeowner. Interior designers fight tooth and nail for those clients. And then there’s Décor Aid, a New York–based start-up we’ve worked with that focuses on bringing interior design services to customers who have, until now, been completely ignored by the industry. Décor Aid has used Jobs to be Done principles to understand what jobs people are trying to get done when they move into a new home, apartment, or office, regardless of whether those customers currently consume design services or could reasonably afford what’s being offered today. By establishing partnerships with dealers of attractive modern furniture and creating proprietary technology that simplifies and strips cost out of the design process, Décor Aid has been able to undercut the prices of traditional interior design firms, quickly capturing market share from incumbents and attracting customers who used to rely on DIY alternatives. In addition to the traditional design markets of attending to an entire home, the company also targets jobs that were previously unaddressed by the industry, such as refreshing a room or preparing a home for a major event.

Focusing too narrowly on traditional competitors also leads companies to become complacent. They focus narrowly on innovations that sustain the business on its current path, further increasing the likelihood that they’ll miss new potential. A few years back, Kraft noticed that it had fallen victim to this kind of complacency. In 2011, the company decided to turn things around with the launch of MiO, a water flavor enhancer that enabled consumers to create their own personal types of water. This was followed by MiO Energy and MiO Fit in the next two years. Prior to launching MiO, Kraft hadn’t created a new category since DiGiorno frozen pizza (now owned by Nestlé) in 1995. Its last new beverage brand was Crystal Light (launched in 1988).3 Kraft was rewarded for its efforts to stave off stagnation: MiO reached $100 million in sales in its first year.

An Alternate View Of Competition

Looking through a Jobs-based lens provides a different view. Competitors can be any offerings that satisfy the same jobs. Importantly, this means that in different contexts, the field of competitors changes.

To see what we mean, let’s think about footwear. What is the competition for a pair of Nike sneakers? If the job is defined as providing comfortable foot support for runners, the competition may well be sneakers from New Balance or Brooks. But what about the people who are trying to accomplish emotional jobs when they buy a pair of sneakers? If the job is expressing individualism, for example, the competition could be a bumper sticker or a radical change in hairstyle. If the job is projecting status, the competition could be a watch. Nike recognizes that its core customers have more jobs than just those of comfort and support in footwear. Nike also recognizes that every time a customer satisfies one of those emotional jobs by visiting the hair salon or buying an expensive watch that customer has less incentive (and less extra cash) to buy a new pair of sneakers. That is why Nike has moved beyond traditional tactics—such as associating athletes with its products—to find new ways to satisfy emotional jobs for customers. NIKEiD, for example, allows customers to design custom shoes by choosing the style, materials, and colors of the shoes. The tagline for the new venture? “Express your identity.”

Businesses that take a broad view of competition not only differentiate their products within the market but also broaden the overall market by bringing in spending that traditionally belonged to other industries.

Competing Against Nonconsumption

Closely related to the topic of competition is the idea of nonconsumption. As consultants, we often hear of organizations that claim to be the first or only ones doing something. Our first reaction is skepticism. Many of these organizations fall into one of three groups.

The first group is the business that defines what it is doing so narrowly that it creates the superficial appearance of nonconsumption. This type of business does not lack competitors; it has simply put on blinders. A business that operates only on Tuesdays and sells only children’s DVDs may be able to claim that it is the only business of its kind, but it still competes with movie retailers, toy stores, playgrounds, and other businesses that satisfy jobs related to entertaining children. Look at the experience of Digital Equipment Corporation, a business that dominated the disappearing industry of minicomputers in the 1990s. As recently as the mid-nineties, it was defining its market segments in terms such as “workstations that cost $6,000–$10,000,” even while customers were shifting in droves to the cheaper and more flexible PCs. The company was bought by a PC maker.

The second group is the business that is doing something truly unique in its market but does not recognize that the concept has already been tried elsewhere. This group reminds us of the importance of learning by analogy. We can gain valuable insights by looking at how other organizations have solved product design challenges or satisfied similar jobs in other markets.

For example, micro apartments are becoming a popular way to increase affordable urban housing in the United States, especially as people stay single longer, but the concept is hardly considered new in high-population-density locations throughout China and Japan. Companies that are launching new offerings in their markets can often reduce their risks by looking first to similar concepts in other markets.

The third group consists of those with actually new ideas, often as the result of a new or emerging technology. Areas of true nonconsumption can present attractive opportunities for growth, but they can also pose significant risks. Organizations exploring truly new ideas need to identify the reasons for nonconsumption and measure their ability to overcome those factors. When Microsoft launched its WebTV (later MSN TV) in the late 1990s to provide Internet access on televisions, it was by no means pursuing a bad idea. Today’s most successful companies have come out with products that are variations on that same theme: Apple TV; Google Chromecast; Amazon Fire TV; smart TVs by electronics leaders such as Samsung, Panasonic, and LG. But it failed for a number of jobs-related reasons, including the fact that it could satisfy no jobs particularly well. Large high-definition TVs weren’t around in the late 1990s, and the average tube TV did little to improve the browsing experience. At the same time, dial-up Internet was still the norm, so the experience was painfully slow and unreliable. Today, companies are succeeding in this arena because there is sufficient infrastructure (including bigger TVs, faster Internet, and more Internet content) to satisfy the entertainment and information-seeking jobs that consumers have. Even great ideas may be dependent on underlying infrastructure, behaviors, and other preconditions that need to change prior to mainstream uptake.

Stacking Up Against Competitors

Don’t get us wrong. While we see far too many organizations ignoring asymmetric competitors and other threats, we are not suggesting that you ignore your traditional competitors as well! Too much of writing about strategy and innovation focuses on responding to the usual suspects, but it would be foolish not to pay them close attention. One reason we leave competition to the final part of the Jobs Atlas is so that your examination of rivals will be well informed by the other aspects of the Atlas. You’ll be able to assess the full-range competitors, including ones that you wouldn’t have prioritized had you begun your work with a typical competitive analysis.

There are three principal factors to consider in your competitive assessment:

First, what are your relative advantages in delivering against key jobs and success criteria? Procter & Gamble likes to call this the Right to Win. Do you have advantages in proprietary technology, complementary offerings, brand perceptions, customer access, distribution and alliances, or cost structure? If rivals have some advantages, how will you render them moot?

Next, what is your relative flexibility to adjust plans? Plenty of large incumbents have been upended by new market entrants (not just start-ups) because the behemoths have been unable to adjust course quickly enough. In our experience, far too many entrants worry about an industry Goliath knocking them off quickly. Outside some fields where that’s the modus operandi, such as fashion, the incumbents generally will take a while to notice something different and take longer to do something about it—and even longer to do that something well. This creates an advantage in fast-moving fields, although not everywhere. Some markets will take a much longer time to gestate, so your flexibility isn’t as vital.

Finally, what will be rivals’ impact on marketplace perceptions? Competitors may be slow to respond effectively, but they can still cause problems. They can price their subpar offerings at rock-bottom levels to force your pricing down as well. Equally, they can resort to the time-honored strategy of sowing FUD—fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Innovations struggle when customers perceive risks in adopting a new solution, even if those risks are unfounded. Industry Goliaths can be quite effective in spreading FUD throughout the marketplace. It’s frustrating, and it slows innovation, but it works. Figure out how you will respond.

Marketing Beyond Your Core Competition

Darren Coleman, a UK-based expert in brand marketing, recently shared a number of stories about organizations—from banks to real estate sellers to consumer goods companies—that have used Jobs-based strategies to differentiate and grow their brands. His experience spans Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. One example that stuck out was a prestigious racquets and lifestyle club in the United Kingdom. After engaging in some qualitative research with existing members, the club came to an interesting realization. Upon asking these members what jobs they were trying to get done in their first weeks and months, the club noticed that the answer of “play tennis or squash” was actually showing up much lower on the list than expected.

On one end of the spectrum, members talked about jobs related to staying fit and healthy or enhancing their overall well-being. On the other end of the spectrum, however, a surprising number of members talked about how they joined the club as a way of meeting people. Some were looking for business-oriented networking opportunities. Others were simply looking to meet new friends. Armed with this new knowledge, the club focused on delivering experiences that were specifically designed to satisfy those jobs.

It used its newly created Jobs-oriented experiences to focus its customer segmentation efforts, attract new members, and upsell on its memberships. Furthermore, these efforts helped the club attract premium-brand partners that wanted to expose their brands to the club’s high-net-worth membership base. Collectively, these efforts were able to boost the club’s financial performance.

Looking at what the industry is selling—or at how things have always been done—may offer some helpful insights, but it’s not the key ingredient for innovation. Organizations need to recognize that they are not simply selling products or services; they are selling ways to get jobs done. Taking a Jobs-based point of view and truly understanding what your customers are trying to get done in their lives increases the number of ways in which you can satisfy your customers, and it lets you do so in ways that set you apart from the competition.

Keep These Points In Mind:

Taking a traditional view of competition—looking simply at what your direct competitors are doing—can limit your long-term prospects. It’s important to challenge established views of what an industry sells or how it operates.

Adopting a Jobs-based lens can create a broader view of competition, illuminating more avenues for growth and sharpening your view of where potential disruptors might appear. This approach can also help ensure that your brand staves off complacency and remains fresh as the world evolves.

Areas of nonconsumption—those areas in which your competitors are not already playing—can offer substantial potential but not without some degree of risk. Thoughtful planning can help you understand what those risks might look like before you overinvest.

While a broader industry view is essential, that’s not an excuse to ignore traditional competitors. Your Jobs-based insights should prove valuable as you evaluate how your own advantages can set you apart and develop plans for remaining flexible as your industry changes.

Remember that even though industry incumbents may be slow to change, they’re still an important force with the ability to impact your expectations related to product quality, price, and functionality.

More of this approach is featured in my new book JOBS TO BE DONE: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation.

The Blake Project Can Help: Disruptive Brand Strategy Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

[glenmenlow]

Brands Must Redefine Their View Of Competition

A few years ago, we were in a meeting with a consumer goods company talking about the way Trader Joe’s laid out its product displays. The conversation quickly turned into an assault on how inefficient the design was and how it was violating a number of product display rules that the rest of the industry had learned years ago. For example, the open freezers—while inviting—allowed cold air to escape. And shelves above those open freezers tended to offer nonfrozen goods from completely different product categories. But while the freezer design may have been inefficient and costly, and the organization scheme may have been atypical, the increasing popularity of Trader Joe’s (along with its private label products) was undeniably cutting into the company’s sales at an alarming rate. And there was nothing to suggest that the trend would change anytime soon.

Companies that fail to challenge the established views of what their industries sell and how they operate miss valuable opportunities and leave themselves vulnerable to potential disruptors. Look at the interior design industry, which has long catered to wealthy clients and priced itself too high for the average new homeowner. Interior designers fight tooth and nail for those clients. And then there’s Décor Aid, a New York–based start-up we’ve worked with that focuses on bringing interior design services to customers who have, until now, been completely ignored by the industry. Décor Aid has used Jobs to be Done principles to understand what jobs people are trying to get done when they move into a new home, apartment, or office, regardless of whether those customers currently consume design services or could reasonably afford what’s being offered today. By establishing partnerships with dealers of attractive modern furniture and creating proprietary technology that simplifies and strips cost out of the design process, Décor Aid has been able to undercut the prices of traditional interior design firms, quickly capturing market share from incumbents and attracting customers who used to rely on DIY alternatives. In addition to the traditional design markets of attending to an entire home, the company also targets jobs that were previously unaddressed by the industry, such as refreshing a room or preparing a home for a major event.

Focusing too narrowly on traditional competitors also leads companies to become complacent. They focus narrowly on innovations that sustain the business on its current path, further increasing the likelihood that they’ll miss new potential. A few years back, Kraft noticed that it had fallen victim to this kind of complacency. In 2011, the company decided to turn things around with the launch of MiO, a water flavor enhancer that enabled consumers to create their own personal types of water. This was followed by MiO Energy and MiO Fit in the next two years. Prior to launching MiO, Kraft hadn’t created a new category since DiGiorno frozen pizza (now owned by Nestlé) in 1995. Its last new beverage brand was Crystal Light (launched in 1988).3 Kraft was rewarded for its efforts to stave off stagnation: MiO reached $100 million in sales in its first year.

An Alternate View Of Competition

Looking through a Jobs-based lens provides a different view. Competitors can be any offerings that satisfy the same jobs. Importantly, this means that in different contexts, the field of competitors changes.

To see what we mean, let’s think about footwear. What is the competition for a pair of Nike sneakers? If the job is defined as providing comfortable foot support for runners, the competition may well be sneakers from New Balance or Brooks. But what about the people who are trying to accomplish emotional jobs when they buy a pair of sneakers? If the job is expressing individualism, for example, the competition could be a bumper sticker or a radical change in hairstyle. If the job is projecting status, the competition could be a watch. Nike recognizes that its core customers have more jobs than just those of comfort and support in footwear. Nike also recognizes that every time a customer satisfies one of those emotional jobs by visiting the hair salon or buying an expensive watch that customer has less incentive (and less extra cash) to buy a new pair of sneakers. That is why Nike has moved beyond traditional tactics—such as associating athletes with its products—to find new ways to satisfy emotional jobs for customers. NIKEiD, for example, allows customers to design custom shoes by choosing the style, materials, and colors of the shoes. The tagline for the new venture? “Express your identity.”

Businesses that take a broad view of competition not only differentiate their products within the market but also broaden the overall market by bringing in spending that traditionally belonged to other industries.

Competing Against Nonconsumption

Closely related to the topic of competition is the idea of nonconsumption. As consultants, we often hear of organizations that claim to be the first or only ones doing something. Our first reaction is skepticism. Many of these organizations fall into one of three groups.

The first group is the business that defines what it is doing so narrowly that it creates the superficial appearance of nonconsumption. This type of business does not lack competitors; it has simply put on blinders. A business that operates only on Tuesdays and sells only children’s DVDs may be able to claim that it is the only business of its kind, but it still competes with movie retailers, toy stores, playgrounds, and other businesses that satisfy jobs related to entertaining children. Look at the experience of Digital Equipment Corporation, a business that dominated the disappearing industry of minicomputers in the 1990s. As recently as the mid-nineties, it was defining its market segments in terms such as “workstations that cost $6,000–$10,000,” even while customers were shifting in droves to the cheaper and more flexible PCs. The company was bought by a PC maker.

The second group is the business that is doing something truly unique in its market but does not recognize that the concept has already been tried elsewhere. This group reminds us of the importance of learning by analogy. We can gain valuable insights by looking at how other organizations have solved product design challenges or satisfied similar jobs in other markets.

For example, micro apartments are becoming a popular way to increase affordable urban housing in the United States, especially as people stay single longer, but the concept is hardly considered new in high-population-density locations throughout China and Japan. Companies that are launching new offerings in their markets can often reduce their risks by looking first to similar concepts in other markets.

The third group consists of those with actually new ideas, often as the result of a new or emerging technology. Areas of true nonconsumption can present attractive opportunities for growth, but they can also pose significant risks. Organizations exploring truly new ideas need to identify the reasons for nonconsumption and measure their ability to overcome those factors. When Microsoft launched its WebTV (later MSN TV) in the late 1990s to provide Internet access on televisions, it was by no means pursuing a bad idea. Today’s most successful companies have come out with products that are variations on that same theme: Apple TV; Google Chromecast; Amazon Fire TV; smart TVs by electronics leaders such as Samsung, Panasonic, and LG. But it failed for a number of jobs-related reasons, including the fact that it could satisfy no jobs particularly well. Large high-definition TVs weren’t around in the late 1990s, and the average tube TV did little to improve the browsing experience. At the same time, dial-up Internet was still the norm, so the experience was painfully slow and unreliable. Today, companies are succeeding in this arena because there is sufficient infrastructure (including bigger TVs, faster Internet, and more Internet content) to satisfy the entertainment and information-seeking jobs that consumers have. Even great ideas may be dependent on underlying infrastructure, behaviors, and other preconditions that need to change prior to mainstream uptake.

Stacking Up Against Competitors

Don’t get us wrong. While we see far too many organizations ignoring asymmetric competitors and other threats, we are not suggesting that you ignore your traditional competitors as well! Too much of writing about strategy and innovation focuses on responding to the usual suspects, but it would be foolish not to pay them close attention. One reason we leave competition to the final part of the Jobs Atlas is so that your examination of rivals will be well informed by the other aspects of the Atlas. You’ll be able to assess the full-range competitors, including ones that you wouldn’t have prioritized had you begun your work with a typical competitive analysis.

There are three principal factors to consider in your competitive assessment:

First, what are your relative advantages in delivering against key jobs and success criteria? Procter & Gamble likes to call this the Right to Win. Do you have advantages in proprietary technology, complementary offerings, brand perceptions, customer access, distribution and alliances, or cost structure? If rivals have some advantages, how will you render them moot?

Next, what is your relative flexibility to adjust plans? Plenty of large incumbents have been upended by new market entrants (not just start-ups) because the behemoths have been unable to adjust course quickly enough. In our experience, far too many entrants worry about an industry Goliath knocking them off quickly. Outside some fields where that’s the modus operandi, such as fashion, the incumbents generally will take a while to notice something different and take longer to do something about it—and even longer to do that something well. This creates an advantage in fast-moving fields, although not everywhere. Some markets will take a much longer time to gestate, so your flexibility isn’t as vital.

Finally, what will be rivals’ impact on marketplace perceptions? Competitors may be slow to respond effectively, but they can still cause problems. They can price their subpar offerings at rock-bottom levels to force your pricing down as well. Equally, they can resort to the time-honored strategy of sowing FUD—fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Innovations struggle when customers perceive risks in adopting a new solution, even if those risks are unfounded. Industry Goliaths can be quite effective in spreading FUD throughout the marketplace. It’s frustrating, and it slows innovation, but it works. Figure out how you will respond.

Marketing Beyond Your Core Competition

Darren Coleman, a UK-based expert in brand marketing, recently shared a number of stories about organizations—from banks to real estate sellers to consumer goods companies—that have used Jobs-based strategies to differentiate and grow their brands. His experience spans Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. One example that stuck out was a prestigious racquets and lifestyle club in the United Kingdom. After engaging in some qualitative research with existing members, the club came to an interesting realization. Upon asking these members what jobs they were trying to get done in their first weeks and months, the club noticed that the answer of “play tennis or squash” was actually showing up much lower on the list than expected.

On one end of the spectrum, members talked about jobs related to staying fit and healthy or enhancing their overall well-being. On the other end of the spectrum, however, a surprising number of members talked about how they joined the club as a way of meeting people. Some were looking for business-oriented networking opportunities. Others were simply looking to meet new friends. Armed with this new knowledge, the club focused on delivering experiences that were specifically designed to satisfy those jobs.

It used its newly created Jobs-oriented experiences to focus its customer segmentation efforts, attract new members, and upsell on its memberships. Furthermore, these efforts helped the club attract premium-brand partners that wanted to expose their brands to the club’s high-net-worth membership base. Collectively, these efforts were able to boost the club’s financial performance.

Looking at what the industry is selling—or at how things have always been done—may offer some helpful insights, but it’s not the key ingredient for innovation. Organizations need to recognize that they are not simply selling products or services; they are selling ways to get jobs done. Taking a Jobs-based point of view and truly understanding what your customers are trying to get done in their lives increases the number of ways in which you can satisfy your customers, and it lets you do so in ways that set you apart from the competition.

Keep These Points In Mind:

Taking a traditional view of competition—looking simply at what your direct competitors are doing—can limit your long-term prospects. It’s important to challenge established views of what an industry sells or how it operates.

Adopting a Jobs-based lens can create a broader view of competition, illuminating more avenues for growth and sharpening your view of where potential disruptors might appear. This approach can also help ensure that your brand staves off complacency and remains fresh as the world evolves.

Areas of nonconsumption—those areas in which your competitors are not already playing—can offer substantial potential but not without some degree of risk. Thoughtful planning can help you understand what those risks might look like before you overinvest.

While a broader industry view is essential, that’s not an excuse to ignore traditional competitors. Your Jobs-based insights should prove valuable as you evaluate how your own advantages can set you apart and develop plans for remaining flexible as your industry changes.

Remember that even though industry incumbents may be slow to change, they’re still an important force with the ability to impact your expectations related to product quality, price, and functionality.

More of this approach is featured in my new book JOBS TO BE DONE: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation.

The Blake Project Can Help: Disruptive Brand Strategy Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/brands-must-redefine-their-view-of-competition/ via IFTTT

[davisgordonc]

Brands Must Redefine Their View Of Competition

A few years ago, we were in a meeting with a consumer goods company talking about the way Trader Joe’s laid out its product displays. The conversation quickly turned into an assault on how inefficient the design was and how it was violating a number of product display rules that the rest of the industry had learned years ago. For example, the open freezers—while inviting—allowed cold air to escape. And shelves above those open freezers tended to offer nonfrozen goods from completely different product categories. But while the freezer design may have been inefficient and costly, and the organization scheme may have been atypical, the increasing popularity of Trader Joe’s (along with its private label products) was undeniably cutting into the company’s sales at an alarming rate. And there was nothing to suggest that the trend would change anytime soon.

Companies that fail to challenge the established views of what their industries sell and how they operate miss valuable opportunities and leave themselves vulnerable to potential disruptors. Look at the interior design industry, which has long catered to wealthy clients and priced itself too high for the average new homeowner. Interior designers fight tooth and nail for those clients. And then there’s Décor Aid, a New York–based start-up we’ve worked with that focuses on bringing interior design services to customers who have, until now, been completely ignored by the industry. Décor Aid has used Jobs to be Done principles to understand what jobs people are trying to get done when they move into a new home, apartment, or office, regardless of whether those customers currently consume design services or could reasonably afford what’s being offered today. By establishing partnerships with dealers of attractive modern furniture and creating proprietary technology that simplifies and strips cost out of the design process, Décor Aid has been able to undercut the prices of traditional interior design firms, quickly capturing market share from incumbents and attracting customers who used to rely on DIY alternatives. In addition to the traditional design markets of attending to an entire home, the company also targets jobs that were previously unaddressed by the industry, such as refreshing a room or preparing a home for a major event.

Focusing too narrowly on traditional competitors also leads companies to become complacent. They focus narrowly on innovations that sustain the business on its current path, further increasing the likelihood that they’ll miss new potential. A few years back, Kraft noticed that it had fallen victim to this kind of complacency. In 2011, the company decided to turn things around with the launch of MiO, a water flavor enhancer that enabled consumers to create their own personal types of water. This was followed by MiO Energy and MiO Fit in the next two years. Prior to launching MiO, Kraft hadn’t created a new category since DiGiorno frozen pizza (now owned by Nestlé) in 1995. Its last new beverage brand was Crystal Light (launched in 1988).3 Kraft was rewarded for its efforts to stave off stagnation: MiO reached $100 million in sales in its first year.

An Alternate View Of Competition

Looking through a Jobs-based lens provides a different view. Competitors can be any offerings that satisfy the same jobs. Importantly, this means that in different contexts, the field of competitors changes.

To see what we mean, let’s think about footwear. What is the competition for a pair of Nike sneakers? If the job is defined as providing comfortable foot support for runners, the competition may well be sneakers from New Balance or Brooks. But what about the people who are trying to accomplish emotional jobs when they buy a pair of sneakers? If the job is expressing individualism, for example, the competition could be a bumper sticker or a radical change in hairstyle. If the job is projecting status, the competition could be a watch. Nike recognizes that its core customers have more jobs than just those of comfort and support in footwear. Nike also recognizes that every time a customer satisfies one of those emotional jobs by visiting the hair salon or buying an expensive watch that customer has less incentive (and less extra cash) to buy a new pair of sneakers. That is why Nike has moved beyond traditional tactics—such as associating athletes with its products—to find new ways to satisfy emotional jobs for customers. NIKEiD, for example, allows customers to design custom shoes by choosing the style, materials, and colors of the shoes. The tagline for the new venture? “Express your identity.”

Businesses that take a broad view of competition not only differentiate their products within the market but also broaden the overall market by bringing in spending that traditionally belonged to other industries.

Competing Against Nonconsumption

Closely related to the topic of competition is the idea of nonconsumption. As consultants, we often hear of organizations that claim to be the first or only ones doing something. Our first reaction is skepticism. Many of these organizations fall into one of three groups.

The first group is the business that defines what it is doing so narrowly that it creates the superficial appearance of nonconsumption. This type of business does not lack competitors; it has simply put on blinders. A business that operates only on Tuesdays and sells only children’s DVDs may be able to claim that it is the only business of its kind, but it still competes with movie retailers, toy stores, playgrounds, and other businesses that satisfy jobs related to entertaining children. Look at the experience of Digital Equipment Corporation, a business that dominated the disappearing industry of minicomputers in the 1990s. As recently as the mid-nineties, it was defining its market segments in terms such as “workstations that cost $6,000–$10,000,” even while customers were shifting in droves to the cheaper and more flexible PCs. The company was bought by a PC maker.

The second group is the business that is doing something truly unique in its market but does not recognize that the concept has already been tried elsewhere. This group reminds us of the importance of learning by analogy. We can gain valuable insights by looking at how other organizations have solved product design challenges or satisfied similar jobs in other markets.

For example, micro apartments are becoming a popular way to increase affordable urban housing in the United States, especially as people stay single longer, but the concept is hardly considered new in high-population-density locations throughout China and Japan. Companies that are launching new offerings in their markets can often reduce their risks by looking first to similar concepts in other markets.

The third group consists of those with actually new ideas, often as the result of a new or emerging technology. Areas of true nonconsumption can present attractive opportunities for growth, but they can also pose significant risks. Organizations exploring truly new ideas need to identify the reasons for nonconsumption and measure their ability to overcome those factors. When Microsoft launched its WebTV (later MSN TV) in the late 1990s to provide Internet access on televisions, it was by no means pursuing a bad idea. Today’s most successful companies have come out with products that are variations on that same theme: Apple TV; Google Chromecast; Amazon Fire TV; smart TVs by electronics leaders such as Samsung, Panasonic, and LG. But it failed for a number of jobs-related reasons, including the fact that it could satisfy no jobs particularly well. Large high-definition TVs weren’t around in the late 1990s, and the average tube TV did little to improve the browsing experience. At the same time, dial-up Internet was still the norm, so the experience was painfully slow and unreliable. Today, companies are succeeding in this arena because there is sufficient infrastructure (including bigger TVs, faster Internet, and more Internet content) to satisfy the entertainment and information-seeking jobs that consumers have. Even great ideas may be dependent on underlying infrastructure, behaviors, and other preconditions that need to change prior to mainstream uptake.

Stacking Up Against Competitors

Don’t get us wrong. While we see far too many organizations ignoring asymmetric competitors and other threats, we are not suggesting that you ignore your traditional competitors as well! Too much of writing about strategy and innovation focuses on responding to the usual suspects, but it would be foolish not to pay them close attention. One reason we leave competition to the final part of the Jobs Atlas is so that your examination of rivals will be well informed by the other aspects of the Atlas. You’ll be able to assess the full-range competitors, including ones that you wouldn’t have prioritized had you begun your work with a typical competitive analysis.

There are three principal factors to consider in your competitive assessment:

First, what are your relative advantages in delivering against key jobs and success criteria? Procter & Gamble likes to call this the Right to Win. Do you have advantages in proprietary technology, complementary offerings, brand perceptions, customer access, distribution and alliances, or cost structure? If rivals have some advantages, how will you render them moot?

Next, what is your relative flexibility to adjust plans? Plenty of large incumbents have been upended by new market entrants (not just start-ups) because the behemoths have been unable to adjust course quickly enough. In our experience, far too many entrants worry about an industry Goliath knocking them off quickly. Outside some fields where that’s the modus operandi, such as fashion, the incumbents generally will take a while to notice something different and take longer to do something about it—and even longer to do that something well. This creates an advantage in fast-moving fields, although not everywhere. Some markets will take a much longer time to gestate, so your flexibility isn’t as vital.

Finally, what will be rivals’ impact on marketplace perceptions? Competitors may be slow to respond effectively, but they can still cause problems. They can price their subpar offerings at rock-bottom levels to force your pricing down as well. Equally, they can resort to the time-honored strategy of sowing FUD—fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Innovations struggle when customers perceive risks in adopting a new solution, even if those risks are unfounded. Industry Goliaths can be quite effective in spreading FUD throughout the marketplace. It’s frustrating, and it slows innovation, but it works. Figure out how you will respond.

Marketing Beyond Your Core Competition

Darren Coleman, a UK-based expert in brand marketing, recently shared a number of stories about organizations—from banks to real estate sellers to consumer goods companies—that have used Jobs-based strategies to differentiate and grow their brands. His experience spans Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. One example that stuck out was a prestigious racquets and lifestyle club in the United Kingdom. After engaging in some qualitative research with existing members, the club came to an interesting realization. Upon asking these members what jobs they were trying to get done in their first weeks and months, the club noticed that the answer of “play tennis or squash” was actually showing up much lower on the list than expected.

On one end of the spectrum, members talked about jobs related to staying fit and healthy or enhancing their overall well-being. On the other end of the spectrum, however, a surprising number of members talked about how they joined the club as a way of meeting people. Some were looking for business-oriented networking opportunities. Others were simply looking to meet new friends. Armed with this new knowledge, the club focused on delivering experiences that were specifically designed to satisfy those jobs.

It used its newly created Jobs-oriented experiences to focus its customer segmentation efforts, attract new members, and upsell on its memberships. Furthermore, these efforts helped the club attract premium-brand partners that wanted to expose their brands to the club’s high-net-worth membership base. Collectively, these efforts were able to boost the club’s financial performance.

Looking at what the industry is selling—or at how things have always been done—may offer some helpful insights, but it’s not the key ingredient for innovation. Organizations need to recognize that they are not simply selling products or services; they are selling ways to get jobs done. Taking a Jobs-based point of view and truly understanding what your customers are trying to get done in their lives increases the number of ways in which you can satisfy your customers, and it lets you do so in ways that set you apart from the competition.

Keep These Points In Mind:

Taking a traditional view of competition—looking simply at what your direct competitors are doing—can limit your long-term prospects. It’s important to challenge established views of what an industry sells or how it operates.

Adopting a Jobs-based lens can create a broader view of competition, illuminating more avenues for growth and sharpening your view of where potential disruptors might appear. This approach can also help ensure that your brand staves off complacency and remains fresh as the world evolves.

Areas of nonconsumption—those areas in which your competitors are not already playing—can offer substantial potential but not without some degree of risk. Thoughtful planning can help you understand what those risks might look like before you overinvest.

While a broader industry view is essential, that’s not an excuse to ignore traditional competitors. Your Jobs-based insights should prove valuable as you evaluate how your own advantages can set you apart and develop plans for remaining flexible as your industry changes.

Remember that even though industry incumbents may be slow to change, they’re still an important force with the ability to impact your expectations related to product quality, price, and functionality.

More of this approach is featured in my new book JOBS TO BE DONE: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation.

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Brands Must Redefine Their View Of Competition

A few years ago, we were in a meeting with a consumer goods company talking about the way Trader Joe’s laid out its product displays. The conversation quickly turned into an assault on how inefficient the design was and how it was violating a number of product display rules that the rest of the industry had learned years ago. For example, the open freezers—while inviting—allowed cold air to escape. And shelves above those open freezers tended to offer nonfrozen goods from completely different product categories. But while the freezer design may have been inefficient and costly, and the organization scheme may have been atypical, the increasing popularity of Trader Joe’s (along with its private label products) was undeniably cutting into the company’s sales at an alarming rate. And there was nothing to suggest that the trend would change anytime soon.

Companies that fail to challenge the established views of what their industries sell and how they operate miss valuable opportunities and leave themselves vulnerable to potential disruptors. Look at the interior design industry, which has long catered to wealthy clients and priced itself too high for the average new homeowner. Interior designers fight tooth and nail for those clients. And then there’s Décor Aid, a New York–based start-up we’ve worked with that focuses on bringing interior design services to customers who have, until now, been completely ignored by the industry. Décor Aid has used Jobs to be Done principles to understand what jobs people are trying to get done when they move into a new home, apartment, or office, regardless of whether those customers currently consume design services or could reasonably afford what’s being offered today. By establishing partnerships with dealers of attractive modern furniture and creating proprietary technology that simplifies and strips cost out of the design process, Décor Aid has been able to undercut the prices of traditional interior design firms, quickly capturing market share from incumbents and attracting customers who used to rely on DIY alternatives. In addition to the traditional design markets of attending to an entire home, the company also targets jobs that were previously unaddressed by the industry, such as refreshing a room or preparing a home for a major event.

Focusing too narrowly on traditional competitors also leads companies to become complacent. They focus narrowly on innovations that sustain the business on its current path, further increasing the likelihood that they’ll miss new potential. A few years back, Kraft noticed that it had fallen victim to this kind of complacency. In 2011, the company decided to turn things around with the launch of MiO, a water flavor enhancer that enabled consumers to create their own personal types of water. This was followed by MiO Energy and MiO Fit in the next two years. Prior to launching MiO, Kraft hadn’t created a new category since DiGiorno frozen pizza (now owned by Nestlé) in 1995. Its last new beverage brand was Crystal Light (launched in 1988).3 Kraft was rewarded for its efforts to stave off stagnation: MiO reached $100 million in sales in its first year.

An Alternate View Of Competition

Looking through a Jobs-based lens provides a different view. Competitors can be any offerings that satisfy the same jobs. Importantly, this means that in different contexts, the field of competitors changes.

To see what we mean, let’s think about footwear. What is the competition for a pair of Nike sneakers? If the job is defined as providing comfortable foot support for runners, the competition may well be sneakers from New Balance or Brooks. But what about the people who are trying to accomplish emotional jobs when they buy a pair of sneakers? If the job is expressing individualism, for example, the competition could be a bumper sticker or a radical change in hairstyle. If the job is projecting status, the competition could be a watch. Nike recognizes that its core customers have more jobs than just those of comfort and support in footwear. Nike also recognizes that every time a customer satisfies one of those emotional jobs by visiting the hair salon or buying an expensive watch that customer has less incentive (and less extra cash) to buy a new pair of sneakers. That is why Nike has moved beyond traditional tactics—such as associating athletes with its products—to find new ways to satisfy emotional jobs for customers. NIKEiD, for example, allows customers to design custom shoes by choosing the style, materials, and colors of the shoes. The tagline for the new venture? “Express your identity.”

Businesses that take a broad view of competition not only differentiate their products within the market but also broaden the overall market by bringing in spending that traditionally belonged to other industries.

Competing Against Nonconsumption

Closely related to the topic of competition is the idea of nonconsumption. As consultants, we often hear of organizations that claim to be the first or only ones doing something. Our first reaction is skepticism. Many of these organizations fall into one of three groups.

The first group is the business that defines what it is doing so narrowly that it creates the superficial appearance of nonconsumption. This type of business does not lack competitors; it has simply put on blinders. A business that operates only on Tuesdays and sells only children’s DVDs may be able to claim that it is the only business of its kind, but it still competes with movie retailers, toy stores, playgrounds, and other businesses that satisfy jobs related to entertaining children. Look at the experience of Digital Equipment Corporation, a business that dominated the disappearing industry of minicomputers in the 1990s. As recently as the mid-nineties, it was defining its market segments in terms such as “workstations that cost $6,000–$10,000,” even while customers were shifting in droves to the cheaper and more flexible PCs. The company was bought by a PC maker.

The second group is the business that is doing something truly unique in its market but does not recognize that the concept has already been tried elsewhere. This group reminds us of the importance of learning by analogy. We can gain valuable insights by looking at how other organizations have solved product design challenges or satisfied similar jobs in other markets.

For example, micro apartments are becoming a popular way to increase affordable urban housing in the United States, especially as people stay single longer, but the concept is hardly considered new in high-population-density locations throughout China and Japan. Companies that are launching new offerings in their markets can often reduce their risks by looking first to similar concepts in other markets.

The third group consists of those with actually new ideas, often as the result of a new or emerging technology. Areas of true nonconsumption can present attractive opportunities for growth, but they can also pose significant risks. Organizations exploring truly new ideas need to identify the reasons for nonconsumption and measure their ability to overcome those factors. When Microsoft launched its WebTV (later MSN TV) in the late 1990s to provide Internet access on televisions, it was by no means pursuing a bad idea. Today’s most successful companies have come out with products that are variations on that same theme: Apple TV; Google Chromecast; Amazon Fire TV; smart TVs by electronics leaders such as Samsung, Panasonic, and LG. But it failed for a number of jobs-related reasons, including the fact that it could satisfy no jobs particularly well. Large high-definition TVs weren’t around in the late 1990s, and the average tube TV did little to improve the browsing experience. At the same time, dial-up Internet was still the norm, so the experience was painfully slow and unreliable. Today, companies are succeeding in this arena because there is sufficient infrastructure (including bigger TVs, faster Internet, and more Internet content) to satisfy the entertainment and information-seeking jobs that consumers have. Even great ideas may be dependent on underlying infrastructure, behaviors, and other preconditions that need to change prior to mainstream uptake.

Stacking Up Against Competitors

Don’t get us wrong. While we see far too many organizations ignoring asymmetric competitors and other threats, we are not suggesting that you ignore your traditional competitors as well! Too much of writing about strategy and innovation focuses on responding to the usual suspects, but it would be foolish not to pay them close attention. One reason we leave competition to the final part of the Jobs Atlas is so that your examination of rivals will be well informed by the other aspects of the Atlas. You’ll be able to assess the full-range competitors, including ones that you wouldn’t have prioritized had you begun your work with a typical competitive analysis.

There are three principal factors to consider in your competitive assessment:

First, what are your relative advantages in delivering against key jobs and success criteria? Procter & Gamble likes to call this the Right to Win. Do you have advantages in proprietary technology, complementary offerings, brand perceptions, customer access, distribution and alliances, or cost structure? If rivals have some advantages, how will you render them moot?

Next, what is your relative flexibility to adjust plans? Plenty of large incumbents have been upended by new market entrants (not just start-ups) because the behemoths have been unable to adjust course quickly enough. In our experience, far too many entrants worry about an industry Goliath knocking them off quickly. Outside some fields where that’s the modus operandi, such as fashion, the incumbents generally will take a while to notice something different and take longer to do something about it—and even longer to do that something well. This creates an advantage in fast-moving fields, although not everywhere. Some markets will take a much longer time to gestate, so your flexibility isn’t as vital.

Finally, what will be rivals’ impact on marketplace perceptions? Competitors may be slow to respond effectively, but they can still cause problems. They can price their subpar offerings at rock-bottom levels to force your pricing down as well. Equally, they can resort to the time-honored strategy of sowing FUD—fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Innovations struggle when customers perceive risks in adopting a new solution, even if those risks are unfounded. Industry Goliaths can be quite effective in spreading FUD throughout the marketplace. It’s frustrating, and it slows innovation, but it works. Figure out how you will respond.

Marketing Beyond Your Core Competition

Darren Coleman, a UK-based expert in brand marketing, recently shared a number of stories about organizations—from banks to real estate sellers to consumer goods companies—that have used Jobs-based strategies to differentiate and grow their brands. His experience spans Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. One example that stuck out was a prestigious racquets and lifestyle club in the United Kingdom. After engaging in some qualitative research with existing members, the club came to an interesting realization. Upon asking these members what jobs they were trying to get done in their first weeks and months, the club noticed that the answer of “play tennis or squash” was actually showing up much lower on the list than expected.

On one end of the spectrum, members talked about jobs related to staying fit and healthy or enhancing their overall well-being. On the other end of the spectrum, however, a surprising number of members talked about how they joined the club as a way of meeting people. Some were looking for business-oriented networking opportunities. Others were simply looking to meet new friends. Armed with this new knowledge, the club focused on delivering experiences that were specifically designed to satisfy those jobs.

It used its newly created Jobs-oriented experiences to focus its customer segmentation efforts, attract new members, and upsell on its memberships. Furthermore, these efforts helped the club attract premium-brand partners that wanted to expose their brands to the club’s high-net-worth membership base. Collectively, these efforts were able to boost the club’s financial performance.

Looking at what the industry is selling—or at how things have always been done—may offer some helpful insights, but it’s not the key ingredient for innovation. Organizations need to recognize that they are not simply selling products or services; they are selling ways to get jobs done. Taking a Jobs-based point of view and truly understanding what your customers are trying to get done in their lives increases the number of ways in which you can satisfy your customers, and it lets you do so in ways that set you apart from the competition.

Keep These Points In Mind:

Taking a traditional view of competition—looking simply at what your direct competitors are doing—can limit your long-term prospects. It’s important to challenge established views of what an industry sells or how it operates.

Adopting a Jobs-based lens can create a broader view of competition, illuminating more avenues for growth and sharpening your view of where potential disruptors might appear. This approach can also help ensure that your brand staves off complacency and remains fresh as the world evolves.

Areas of nonconsumption—those areas in which your competitors are not already playing—can offer substantial potential but not without some degree of risk. Thoughtful planning can help you understand what those risks might look like before you overinvest.

While a broader industry view is essential, that’s not an excuse to ignore traditional competitors. Your Jobs-based insights should prove valuable as you evaluate how your own advantages can set you apart and develop plans for remaining flexible as your industry changes.

Remember that even though industry incumbents may be slow to change, they’re still an important force with the ability to impact your expectations related to product quality, price, and functionality.

More of this approach is featured in my new book JOBS TO BE DONE: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation.

The Blake Project Can Help: Disruptive Brand Strategy Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

[therightnewsnetwork]

Jeff Sessions Is Not a Racist

Is it not incredible the lengths that the Democratic Party will go in order to shift blame, manufacture lies, and rewrite history all in the effort of hiding their dark, blemished past? Then again, perhaps it isn’t so astounding, when one considers that such duplicitous behavior is the inevitable result for an organization that is fully unmoored from truth, principle, and integrity. After all, the end goal of a post-constitutional, Ameritopian paradise justifies any means necessary in the eyes of the statist—even attempting to destroy the reputations of some of the finest Americans.

Last week, such an attempt was made on a great American, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

On Tuesday evening, Sessions, in an interview with nationally syndicated talk radio host Mark Levin, commented on the judicial proclamation that was issued last month by a federal judge in Hawaii—Judge Derrick Watson—who sits on the bench of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Levin asked Sessions about the status of the U.S. Department of Justice’s appeal to rescind Judge Watson’s proclamation, which blocked Executive Order 13780 (the revised version of Executive Order 13769 which was issued by President Donald J. Trump on January 27th, 2017). Both executive orders seek to protect the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States through halting the admittance of refugees arriving from a specifically delineated set of nations.

“We’ve got cases moving in the very, very liberal Ninth Circuit, who, they’ve been hostile to the order,” Sessions responded to Levin. “We won a case in Virginia recently that was a nicely-written order that just demolished, I thought, all the arguments that some of the other people have been making. We are confident that the President will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the Ninth Circuit. So this is a huge matter. I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power.”

Now, most people who read his statement carefully would agree that in no such case did Jeff Sessions make any sort of racially bigoted or ignorantly disrespectful statement. In fact, take a moment to carefully examine and break down the last sentence of his response. Sessions simply noted that he, as the chief legal officer in the United States, was amazed that a member of the judicial branch—albeit, audaciously ignorant of his constitutional limitations—would seize the authority to set policy in such a fashion that clearly violates the separation of powers between the three co-equal branches of government.

The next part of the sentence is where the Left totally takes Sessions’s words out of context. Here are the words that come next: “a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific.” Now, consider three important parts of this phrase.

First, we know that Derrick Watson is a judge on the Ninth Circuit. A basic question to begin with is whether Judge Derrick Watson is a human being? If yes, then he certainly retains the physical limitations of all human beings. One of those limitations is the inability to be ubiquitous (i.e. every human is in exactly one place at one time).

Second, consider the geography of Hawaii (see map below).

Is Hawaii not a state whose geography is undeniably that of a system of islands? The map confirms that it is.

Finally, does Hawaii sit in the Pacific Ocean? Again, the answer is yes.

So, we have established three things: Judge Watson can only physically exist in one place, Hawaii is comprised of a grouping of islands, and those islands exist in the Pacific.

Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for the District of Hawaii is located in the state’s capital, Honolulu. Thus, it can be concluded that Judge Watson sits on the bench in the Ninth Circuit courthouse in Honolulu, a city located on the singular island of Oahu.

In this light, Sessions’s statement clearly neither misrepresents any geographical information regarding Hawaii nor makes any sort of racial jest. Instead, his comment is a completely valid and accurate statement.

Yet, if all you paid attention to this past week was the mainstream media, you would’ve thought that Sessions was Ross Barnett or George Wallace. Ideologically motivated commentators, politicians, and media mouthpieces all took turns mocking the former senator from Alabama with the goal of trying to paint him as a caricature of all of the typical accusations liberals make against anyone that subscribes to a different ideology than theirs.

Funny enough, that’s the one thing that was crystal clear from the conga line of feckless Democrats from the Aloha State’s congressional delegation attempting to pick Sessions apart with their litany of insults: if you are not a liberal — that is, if you do not agree with their political philosophy — you are automatically unqualified to serve in any position of government, despite any exceptional credentials, merit, or experience. Sardonically and pretentiously, Representative Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii), who represents Hawaii’s 1st congressional district, tweeted this out:

Spent today on Kauai at PMRF, the world’s largest instrumented multi-environment training/test range. @jeffsessions is clueless re: Hawaii.

— Colleen Hanabusa (@RepHanabusa) April 21, 2017

She was joined by her counterpart, Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), and both of Hawaii’s senators, Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii):

Amazed @USAGSessions doesn’t know Hawaii is a State, not just an “#IslandinthePacific.” Another reason Sessions should step down.

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 20, 2017

Our 50th state #IslandinthePacific is home to the only US WWII battlefield at Pearl Harbor. AG Sessions, have some respect.

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 20, 2017

Mr. Attorney General: You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. It’s my home. Have some respect. https://t.co/sW9z3vqBqG

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) April 20, 2017

State of Hawaii has many islands, not one island. We have around 1.5 m people. Island of Hawaii has 186,000 people. Please use the google. https://t.co/aoZewx7jzT

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) April 20, 2017

Hey Jeff Sessions, this #IslandinthePacific has been the 50th state for going on 58 years. And we won’t succumb to your dog whistle politics

— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) April 20, 2017

Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences- including my own. Jeff Sessions’ comments are ignorant & dangerous

— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) April 20, 2017

The delegation was then joined by Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had this to say:

Someone please tell Sessions that Hawaii is a state. An American in Hawaii is as American as one from Alabama. Or Indiana. https://t.co/kZb43EmCFp

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) April 20, 2017

But if trying to suggest that Jeff Sessions was ignorant to the fact that Hawaii was a state, Congresswoman Gabbard took her asinine attack one more step further by suggesting that the Attorney General is not even versed in the fundamental concept of separation of powers.

Astounding AG Sessions doesn’t understand how 3 co-equal branches of government work – executive, legislative, & judicial. #SessionsMustGo

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 20, 2017

What is truly ironic, however, is that Representative Gabbard and Senator Schatz, who both asserted that Sessions should “have some respect,” have no respect for separation of powers. If these members of Congress cared about separation of powers, their outrage would be directed at the very person Sessions’s initial comment described—Judge Derrick Watson—for his participation in judicial tyranny. That all for another day, though.

To some, their outrage mirrored the disgusting witch hunt that was orchestrated by members of the Democrat Party and those on the Left leading up to Sessions’s confirmation, sampled by these tweets:

30 yrs ago, a GOP Senate rejected @SenatorSessions’ judicial nomination, affirming no compromise with racism; no negotiation with hate.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 18, 2016

Jeff Sessions, a man deemed too racist to be a judge in the ’80s, will be Attorney General. And there is no evidence he has changed at all

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) November 18, 2016

Just in case there is doubt, Jeff Sessions as AG means that a Trump administration will be exactly as racist as our worst fears indicated.

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) November 18, 2016

Jeff Sessions was too racist to be a judge so Donald Trump just made him America’s top cop. Any questions?

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) November 18, 2016

The outright lies, hateful reconstruction of history, and twisted distortion of this man’s record shows that the Democrats seek nothing short of a complete character assassination of Jeff Sessions. They targeted Sessions’s response, completely distorted it, and attempted a drive-by hit on his personal character. They are relentless — attempting to rewrite his longstanding record of legal objectivity and loyalty to the law, by perpetuating this narrative the Democrats fabricated long ago: that he is an ignorant, stupid, white supremacist bigot from the deep, old South.

And what an outrageously egregious misrepresentation of the truth that is.

Through their attempts to manufacture their own version of Jeff Sessions, they reveal their own ignorance of their own party’s racist history and their cluelessness on the Attorney General’s actual record of defending civil rights and fighting racism in his home state.

Mark Hemingway, a writer for The Weekly Standard, laid out Gen. Sessions’s record on civil rights quite effectively. Hemingway reminds readers that “Sessions’s actual record of desegregating schools and taking on the Klan in Alabama…strains credulity to believe that he is a racist.”

In the early 1980’s, “as a U.S. Attorney [Sessions] filed several cases to desegregate schools in Alabama. And he also prosecuted Klansman Henry Francis Hays, son of Alabama Klan leader Bennie Hays, for abducting and killing Michael Donald, a black teenager selected at random. Sessions insisted on the death penalty for Hays. When he was later elected the state Attorney General, Sessions followed through and made sure Hays was executed. The successful prosecution of Hays also led to a $7 million civil judgment against the Klan, effectively breaking the back of the KKK in Alabama.”

In Jeff Sessions, Americans have a true class act serving as the nation’s chief lawyer — not only administering justice in an objective and egalitarian fashion, but one who has the temperament and poise suited for the job. Oh, and by the way, Jeff Sessions has no issues discerning whether a certain behavior constitutes as ethical conduct for the Attorney General of the United States — something that has been a gray area for the previous officeholders serving in the Obama Administration.

What Chelsea Clinton, Mazie Hirono, and Brian Schatz fail to remember is that they hold membership in the Party of Racism, not Sessions. They have chosen to align themselves with the party of slavery, the party of segregation, the party of Jim Crow, and the party of the Klu Klux Klan.

And so my question to those exclaiming that the Attorney General is a racist — namely the Democrat Party — is this: must you be intellectually dishonest? Stop rewriting Jeff Sessions’s record. If any record needs to be set right, it should be that of the Democratic Party — not Jeff Sessions, who fought the Klan in Alabama…

…unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt—who put the Klan’s lawyer on the Supreme Court of the United States and who rounded up Japanese-Americans and imprisoned them in internment camps during World War II

…unlike the founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson, who seized Cherokee territory, sold it off to the highest bidder, and forced Native Americans onto the Trail of Tears

…unlike Woodrow Wilson, a racist, who re-segregated the federal government and screened pro-KKK films in the White House

…unlike John F. Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose father Joe Kennedy was a rabid anti-Semite and appeased Adolf Hitler during his tenure as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.K.

…unlike Gov. George Wallace, who employed “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” as a method for segregating the Univ. of Alabama

…unlike Senator Robert Byrd, a Grand Kleagle in the Klu Klux Klan, who was elected by Senate Democrats to be the Senate Majority Leader and who filibustered the passage of multiple drafts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

…unlike Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose mentor was Sen. J. William Fulbright, a racist who opposed Brown v. Board of Education

…unlike Al Gore, whose father, Sen. Al Gore Sr., voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964

…unlike the phony Black Lives Matter movement who perpetuate anti-Semitism in their own published policy platform

…unlike Keith Ellison who defends and identifies with avid racist Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam

…unlike the Democratic Party, which not only fought Abraham Lincoln every step of the way on emancipating slaves and opposed the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution granting them citizenship and voting rights, but waited 60 years to denounce the horrific execution method of lynching and embraced the Klu Klux Klan—which had become the party’s military arm for fighting a race war against blacks—at the disastrous 1924 Democratic National Convention in Madison Square Garden.

There is more, but the list becomes quite lengthy. The point is that the extent that the Democratic Party will go to in order to retain power is really quite nonexistent. They will tell any lie that needs to be told, steal any historical narrative that needs to be rewritten, and distort any facts that need to be twisted to achieve their ends. The Attorney General said nothing that was racially questionable or factually false. The hyperbole is only a mere tool for the Democrats who will stop at nothing to try to take down Jeff Sessions—an honorable, decent man who has done more for civil rights then any Democrat in office today.

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Jeff Sessions Is Not a Racist

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Jeff Sessions Is Not a Racist

Is it not incredible the lengths that the Democratic Party will go in order to shift blame, manufacture lies, and rewrite history all in the effort of hiding their dark, blemished past? Then again, perhaps it isn’t so astounding, when one considers that such duplicitous behavior is the inevitable result for an organization that is fully unmoored from truth, principle, and integrity. After all, the end goal of a post-constitutional, Ameritopian paradise justifies any means necessary in the eyes of the statist—even attempting to destroy the reputations of some of the finest Americans.

Last week, such an attempt was made on a great American, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

On Tuesday evening, Sessions, in an interview with nationally syndicated talk radio host Mark Levin, commented on the judicial proclamation that was issued last month by a federal judge in Hawaii—Judge Derrick Watson—who sits on the bench of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Levin asked Sessions about the status of the U.S. Department of Justice’s appeal to rescind Judge Watson’s proclamation, which blocked Executive Order 13780 (the revised version of Executive Order 13769 which was issued by President Donald J. Trump on January 27th, 2017). Both executive orders seek to protect the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States through halting the admittance of refugees arriving from a specifically delineated set of nations.

“We’ve got cases moving in the very, very liberal Ninth Circuit, who, they’ve been hostile to the order,” Sessions responded to Levin. “We won a case in Virginia recently that was a nicely-written order that just demolished, I thought, all the arguments that some of the other people have been making. We are confident that the President will prevail on appeal and particularly in the Supreme Court, if not the Ninth Circuit. So this is a huge matter. I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power.”

Now, most people who read his statement carefully would agree that in no such case did Jeff Sessions make any sort of racially bigoted or ignorantly disrespectful statement. In fact, take a moment to carefully examine and break down the last sentence of his response. Sessions simply noted that he, as the chief legal officer in the United States, was amazed that a member of the judicial branch—albeit, audaciously ignorant of his constitutional limitations—would seize the authority to set policy in such a fashion that clearly violates the separation of powers between the three co-equal branches of government.

The next part of the sentence is where the Left totally takes Sessions’s words out of context. Here are the words that come next: “a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific.” Now, consider three important parts of this phrase.

First, we know that Derrick Watson is a judge on the Ninth Circuit. A basic question to begin with is whether Judge Derrick Watson is a human being? If yes, then he certainly retains the physical limitations of all human beings. One of those limitations is the inability to be ubiquitous (i.e. every human is in exactly one place at one time).

Second, consider the geography of Hawaii (see map below).

Is Hawaii not a state whose geography is undeniably that of a system of islands? The map confirms that it is.

Finally, does Hawaii sit in the Pacific Ocean? Again, the answer is yes.

So, we have established three things: Judge Watson can only physically exist in one place, Hawaii is comprised of a grouping of islands, and those islands exist in the Pacific.

Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for the District of Hawaii is located in the state’s capital, Honolulu. Thus, it can be concluded that Judge Watson sits on the bench in the Ninth Circuit courthouse in Honolulu, a city located on the singular island of Oahu.

In this light, Sessions’s statement clearly neither misrepresents any geographical information regarding Hawaii nor makes any sort of racial jest. Instead, his comment is a completely valid and accurate statement.

Yet, if all you paid attention to this past week was the mainstream media, you would’ve thought that Sessions was Ross Barnett or George Wallace. Ideologically motivated commentators, politicians, and media mouthpieces all took turns mocking the former senator from Alabama with the goal of trying to paint him as a caricature of all of the typical accusations liberals make against anyone that subscribes to a different ideology than theirs.

Funny enough, that’s the one thing that was crystal clear from the conga line of feckless Democrats from the Aloha State’s congressional delegation attempting to pick Sessions apart with their litany of insults: if you are not a liberal — that is, if you do not agree with their political philosophy — you are automatically unqualified to serve in any position of government, despite any exceptional credentials, merit, or experience. Sardonically and pretentiously, Representative Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii), who represents Hawaii’s 1st congressional district, tweeted this out:

Spent today on Kauai at PMRF, the world’s largest instrumented multi-environment training/test range. @jeffsessions is clueless re: Hawaii.

— Colleen Hanabusa (@RepHanabusa) April 21, 2017

She was joined by her counterpart, Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), and both of Hawaii’s senators, Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii):

Amazed @USAGSessions doesn’t know Hawaii is a State, not just an “#IslandinthePacific.” Another reason Sessions should step down.

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 20, 2017

Our 50th state #IslandinthePacific is home to the only US WWII battlefield at Pearl Harbor. AG Sessions, have some respect.

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 20, 2017

Mr. Attorney General: You voted for that judge. And that island is called Oahu. It’s my home. Have some respect. https://t.co/sW9z3vqBqG

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) April 20, 2017

State of Hawaii has many islands, not one island. We have around 1.5 m people. Island of Hawaii has 186,000 people. Please use the google. https://t.co/aoZewx7jzT

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) April 20, 2017

Hey Jeff Sessions, this #IslandinthePacific has been the 50th state for going on 58 years. And we won’t succumb to your dog whistle politics

— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) April 20, 2017

Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences- including my own. Jeff Sessions’ comments are ignorant & dangerous

— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) April 20, 2017

The delegation was then joined by Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had this to say:

Someone please tell Sessions that Hawaii is a state. An American in Hawaii is as American as one from Alabama. Or Indiana. https://t.co/kZb43EmCFp

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) April 20, 2017

But if trying to suggest that Jeff Sessions was ignorant to the fact that Hawaii was a state, Congresswoman Gabbard took her asinine attack one more step further by suggesting that the Attorney General is not even versed in the fundamental concept of separation of powers.

Astounding AG Sessions doesn’t understand how 3 co-equal branches of government work – executive, legislative, & judicial. #SessionsMustGo

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) April 20, 2017

What is truly ironic, however, is that Representative Gabbard and Senator Schatz, who both asserted that Sessions should “have some respect,” have no respect for separation of powers. If these members of Congress cared about separation of powers, their outrage would be directed at the very person Sessions’s initial comment described—Judge Derrick Watson—for his participation in judicial tyranny. That all for another day, though.

To some, their outrage mirrored the disgusting witch hunt that was orchestrated by members of the Democrat Party and those on the Left leading up to Sessions’s confirmation, sampled by these tweets:

30 yrs ago, a GOP Senate rejected @SenatorSessions’ judicial nomination, affirming no compromise with racism; no negotiation with hate.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 18, 2016

Jeff Sessions, a man deemed too racist to be a judge in the ’80s, will be Attorney General. And there is no evidence he has changed at all

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) November 18, 2016

Just in case there is doubt, Jeff Sessions as AG means that a Trump administration will be exactly as racist as our worst fears indicated.

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) November 18, 2016

Jeff Sessions was too racist to be a judge so Donald Trump just made him America’s top cop. Any questions?

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) November 18, 2016

The outright lies, hateful reconstruction of history, and twisted distortion of this man’s record shows that the Democrats seek nothing short of a complete character assassination of Jeff Sessions. They targeted Sessions’s response, completely distorted it, and attempted a drive-by hit on his personal character. They are relentless — attempting to rewrite his longstanding record of legal objectivity and loyalty to the law, by perpetuating this narrative the Democrats fabricated long ago: that he is an ignorant, stupid, white supremacist bigot from the deep, old South.

And what an outrageously egregious misrepresentation of the truth that is.

Through their attempts to manufacture their own version of Jeff Sessions, they reveal their own ignorance of their own party’s racist history and their cluelessness on the Attorney General’s actual record of defending civil rights and fighting racism in his home state.

Mark Hemingway, a writer for The Weekly Standard, laid out Gen. Sessions’s record on civil rights quite effectively. Hemingway reminds readers that “Sessions’s actual record of desegregating schools and taking on the Klan in Alabama…strains credulity to believe that he is a racist.”

In the early 1980’s, “as a U.S. Attorney [Sessions] filed several cases to desegregate schools in Alabama. And he also prosecuted Klansman Henry Francis Hays, son of Alabama Klan leader Bennie Hays, for abducting and killing Michael Donald, a black teenager selected at random. Sessions insisted on the death penalty for Hays. When he was later elected the state Attorney General, Sessions followed through and made sure Hays was executed. The successful prosecution of Hays also led to a $7 million civil judgment against the Klan, effectively breaking the back of the KKK in Alabama.”

In Jeff Sessions, Americans have a true class act serving as the nation’s chief lawyer — not only administering justice in an objective and egalitarian fashion, but one who has the temperament and poise suited for the job. Oh, and by the way, Jeff Sessions has no issues discerning whether a certain behavior constitutes as ethical conduct for the Attorney General of the United States — something that has been a gray area for the previous officeholders serving in the Obama Administration.

What Chelsea Clinton, Mazie Hirono, and Brian Schatz fail to remember is that they hold membership in the Party of Racism, not Sessions. They have chosen to align themselves with the party of slavery, the party of segregation, the party of Jim Crow, and the party of the Klu Klux Klan.

And so my question to those exclaiming that the Attorney General is a racist — namely the Democrat Party — is this: must you be intellectually dishonest? Stop rewriting Jeff Sessions’s record. If any record needs to be set right, it should be that of the Democratic Party — not Jeff Sessions, who fought the Klan in Alabama…

…unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt—who put the Klan’s lawyer on the Supreme Court of the United States and who rounded up Japanese-Americans and imprisoned them in internment camps during World War II

…unlike the founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson, who seized Cherokee territory, sold it off to the highest bidder, and forced Native Americans onto the Trail of Tears

…unlike Woodrow Wilson, a racist, who re-segregated the federal government and screened pro-KKK films in the White House

…unlike John F. Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose father Joe Kennedy was a rabid anti-Semite and appeased Adolf Hitler during his tenure as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.K.

…unlike Gov. George Wallace, who employed “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” as a method for segregating the Univ. of Alabama

…unlike Senator Robert Byrd, a Grand Kleagle in the Klu Klux Klan, who was elected by Senate Democrats to be the Senate Majority Leader and who filibustered the passage of multiple drafts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

…unlike Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose mentor was Sen. J. William Fulbright, a racist who opposed Brown v. Board of Education

…unlike Al Gore, whose father, Sen. Al Gore Sr., voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964

…unlike the phony Black Lives Matter movement who perpetuate anti-Semitism in their own published policy platform

…unlike Keith Ellison who defends and identifies with avid racist Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam

…unlike the Democratic Party, which not only fought Abraham Lincoln every step of the way on emancipating slaves and opposed the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution granting them citizenship and voting rights, but waited 60 years to denounce the horrific execution method of lynching and embraced the Klu Klux Klan—which had become the party’s military arm for fighting a race war against blacks—at the disastrous 1924 Democratic National Convention in Madison Square Garden.

There is more, but the list becomes quite lengthy. The point is that the extent that the Democratic Party will go to in order to retain power is really quite nonexistent. They will tell any lie that needs to be told, steal any historical narrative that needs to be rewritten, and distort any facts that need to be twisted to achieve their ends. The Attorney General said nothing that was racially questionable or factually false. The hyperbole is only a mere tool for the Democrats who will stop at nothing to try to take down Jeff Sessions—an honorable, decent man who has done more for civil rights then any Democrat in office today.

The post Jeff Sessions Is Not a Racist appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

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[gracelewis28]

Doomsday Clock Jumps 30 Seconds Closer to Our Demise!

According to the article, Earth has just jumped thirty seconds closer to it’s destruction.  We are down to two and a half minutes til midnight- our destruction!  A doomsday clock is an imaginary object that represents the time leading to the destruction caused by us humans and our “mechanisms. Midnight represents the end, and the clock was set back in 2015 to 3 minutes.

“The minute hand's new position for 2017 was determined by the Bulletin's Science and Security Board in consultation with a team of experts including 15 Nobel laureates.”  According to LiveScience.com.

The position that the clock is in now, officially makes the hand the closest it has ever been to calamity.  This has been over a 60+ year time period!  Some of the members of the Science and Security Board contemplate factors that determine which way the hands will turn-left or right.   These factors include climate change, nuclear warheads, and the impacts of biosecurity along with other emerging dangers according to LiveScience.com

After looking back on 2016, some expert researchers have found that nuclear weapon testing in the Eurasian areas have put the earth in grave danger.  The controversy between the U.S. and Russia has also caused great concern.  

“Despite the two countries being presently ‘at loggerheads with little prospect for negotiation,’ a man named Thomas Pickering, former U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs (1997-2000) and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria and Jordan said, he expressed hope that President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin might ‘take their now-budding relationship to something further and more meaningful in the area of nuclear arms reduction,’ he said.” to LiveScience.  

Climate change neglection from the government has also played a part in moving the hands closer to “humanity’s calamity.”  David Titley, a professor, also stated that the Trump administration shouldn’t dawdle around when climate change is still happening; it’s something he can’t ignore.  

"There are no alternative facts that will make climate change magically go away," Titley told reporters. (LiveScience)

Here is more information from LiveScience:

"The Trump administration has put forth candidates for cabinet-level positions that foreshadow the possibility that the new administration will be openly hostile toward even the most modest efforts to avert this catastrophic climate change," Titley said. "Climate change should not be a partisan issue. The well-established physics of the Earth's carbon cycle is neither liberal nor conservative in character," he added.

Cybertechnology and biotechnology were also identified as emerging threats on a global scale, Lawrence Krauss, director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, announced at the news conference.

Krauss also said that the purported recent intervention of Russia in the U.S. presidential campaign, as reported by U.S. intelligence agencies, highlights the vulnerability of critical information systems in cyberspace and undermines the workings of democracy. Across the world, increased reliance of governments, companies and individuals on the internet raises concerns about the impacts of sophisticated hacking on financial activities, nuclear power grids, power plants and personal freedoms, he said.

And while the development of DNA-editing technology — such as the one called clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) — offers new hope for disease cures, it also carries the risk of fueling malicious activities, as the techniques become more widely available, Krauss said.

With tech innovation happening so quickly, the input of scientific institutions and experts will be critical for global leaders to confront and manage new and complex threats, he said.

It just so happens that the doomsday clock has existed since 1947 as a warning intended to show to humanity how little time we had to fix our earthly problems and to cut back on the use of atomic/nuclear weapons.  Since 1947, the clock has also moved closer to midnight because of the climate changes.  There is much controversy as to if the clock should be reset, and scientists have been observing what the article states as “deadly global dangers”.

The closest it’s ever gotten to midnight was two minutes, which was in 1953.  This was when the US and the Soviet Union were testing their thermonuclear weapons.  This section from the article talks more about it:

“It hovered as close as 2 minutes to midnight in 1953, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested their first thermonuclear weapons scarcely six months apart, and drifted as far as 17 minutes before the hour in 1991, with the end of the Cold War and the signing of a treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union promising a significant reduction of nuclear arsenals.”

Fortunately, the clock hasn’t moved since 2015, but it has decreased from five minutes to three.  This was due to the following:"unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals," all of which "pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity," which was reported by the Science and Security Board.

The failure of world leaders to act on these threats escalated the probability of catastrophe on a global scale, and "the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon," the board cautioned.

Though the Doomsday Clock is just a metaphor, the current deadly risk to humanity and the planet is all too real, according to the Bulletin. Now more than ever, our future hinges on global leaders who can confront and address the twin threats of climate change and nuclear weaponry, and work together to arrive at solutions that mitigate the peril to us all.

As the Science and Security Board warned in 2015, "The Clock ticks. Global danger looms. Wise leaders should act — immediately."

^LiveScience wrote.

In my opinion, we should be more careful in electing our leaders and things.  We shouldn’t neglect things as important as climate change and nuclear weapons.  War shouldn’t be the way the world operates.  Although the doomsday clock is an imaginary figment, it’s not something to be ignored.  We need to make the world a better place or else we’ll be the end of ourselves.  The scientists are still contemplating ways as to how we can endure the climate change, or how we can fix it.  Unless anyone wants the clock to hit calamity, then we should try to be more conservative.  The amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are also reasons as to why the clock’s hand shifted.  In close, I think we should all think before we do.

Here are a few gifs that represent the consequences  (the over exaggerated consequences) of when the clock strikes midnight: