#like the fix of your manager being racist is not making their immigrant workers to conform to japanese standard

[sapphire-theseainequator]

I am still angry with people who defend Maruki, because if a world known psychiatrist tweets about "Racism is bad, but minority should conform" or "The cure to male loneliness is finding them good girl", people would clown the shit out if him.

Like, did you know that Maruki fix "pick up artists" by giving them 100 women who is somehow suddenly willing to date weird sexist pricks? Phantom thieves would beat them up and tell them to not be jackass to women, but no, Maruki needs to "turn" women into obedient sex slaves for incels.

Like even if they consent, the pick up artists turn into a better boyfriend because of maruki's magic shenaningans, and there is no risk to this at all. It is still a horrifying shit to see.

If persona 5 is brave enough to have non jokey gay npc who struggles with his parents, I will assume the Maruki's way is to make his parents more accepting, but make him act "less gay more normal".

And Maruki's defender is still insisting that his reality is good and not horrifying! It still is even if well they are happy and willing. Especially when the reality is giving Andrew Tate wannabes 100 women who wants to date them

[morlock-holmes]

I've been stewing over this for days now.

@mitigatedchaos I am not "twisting myself into pretzels to support race science"

I am trying to explain that modern American racial policy is the result of taking your OP very seriously.

I'll try to explain one more time, I'll use an example that my brother recently told me about from his diversity training (Without any real company names).

There's a guy who works for ConglomCo, his name is Tom. Tom is white. Tom is pretty sure he's been passed over for a promotion because he is white.

What's Tom's evidence? Well, for one thing, exactly what you say. Biden has come out for race science. The people around Tom are loudly clamoring for race quotas. Maybe there's some disturbing jokes at Tom's workplace about white people. Also, pulling from that example my brother told me about, 70% of frontline staff at Tom's workplace is white, but only 20% of management is.

Do you think Tom is being reasonable when he says he was likely passed over for a promotion for being white?

I am willing to concede that it's a reasonable fear.

Which is bad fucking news for ConglomCo, because passing Tom over for a promotion because of his race is blatantly fucking illegal and so if there's a reasonable fear that this happened, the government ought to step in and investigate, yeah?

Now ConglomCo is under federal investigation, and Tom's twitter thread about discrimination at ConglomCo is a huge public relations nightmare for them.

Now let's look at HugeCo, another corporation in the same industry as ConglomCo.

HugeCo isn't secretly racist, but for some essentially benign reason lets say their metrics are also kind of bad. Their frontline staff is also 60% white, while their management is only 40% white. Now, you yourself have argued that these kinds of lopsided ratios can happen for innocent reasons. Maybe HugeCo has an office in, I don't know, India, that's been around a lot longer than their office in Portland so a lot of the management staff is Indian immigrants, because most of their Indian staff has more experience then most of their white staff.

But HugeCo is looking at what happened to ConglomCo, and is asking their lawyers, "Uh, hey, are we also about to face a giant discrimination lawsuit and PR nightmare? Because, uh, it kind of looks like somebody could make a case against us for the exact same reasons they made one against ConglomCo."

What might HugeCo do?

Well, they might hire a diversity officer to try to get the ratio of white frontline staff closer to the ratio of white management, because not doing that might get them sued, just like it got ConglomCo sued.

This diversity officer can't just, you know, hire a bunch of white managers until the ratio is good, because that's fucking illegal.

So the diversity officer has to find some kind of roundabout way to change the racial dynamics without being sued by the federal government or provoking a discrimination scandal herself.

Here's the thing: If Tom is black instead of white that changes absolutely nothing about this thought experiment.

And also, I'm sorry, maybe Biden should say different things about race but since he's not going to I'd really like to know what you think we should tell Tom in the meantime.

If ConglomCo can get sued partially because a politician who is completely unrelated to them said something racially inflammatory, you see how this makes these dynamics stronger, right?

These are the dynamics driving modern diversity stuff, this is so obvious. As in, my brother just a couple of weeks ago came from a company wide diversity seminar where one of the speakers said, as he paraphrased it,

"If the majority of your frontline workers are one race, but that race is a minority in management, you could get in trouble. But you also can't fix it by just hiring more managers based on race, because that's super illegal. So you need to come up with creative solutions for changing the racial metrics without employing illegal quotas like having a strong focus on recruiting management from frontline workers rather than outside the company."

You are making an argument that the current status quo approach to race in the US is entirely sensible and we are basically doing exactly what we should be doing.

Or, alternatively, you are making the argument that we ought to tell Tom to grow up, because he's encouraging exactly the kind of dynamic that you hate, and the people telling him off are working to keep the raceblind policy that you want.

This is what I keep asking you: How do we take Tom seriously when he says he might have been the victim of illegal racial quotas without also creating exactly the diversity dynamics faced by modern American businesses?

Telling me that I am promoting race science or that Biden and the Democrats should embrace different messaging are not answers to that question.

There's been some complaining, lately.

"How dare these people think that they were passed over for their race or sex! Obviously, they're just mediocre and trying to make up for it through racism or sexism!"

See the problem with this is that, if you very loudly and publicly support race quotas, and someone is not chosen for the position, people are going to assume that there is a chance it was due to a quota.

They can't read your mind. They don't know if you actually implemented a quota or not.

If you don't want people to assume they were passed over due to a quota, do not loudly and publicly support quotas.

[feministdragon]

Some things you can do to save democracy in the US

from Gaslit Nation   https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/action-guide

Democracy is a lifestyle:

Trump is a symptom of the corruption, institutional failure, and indifference that we can no longer tolerate. 

1. Get a Guide. Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story by Martin Luther King Jr. is an essential guide to self-management, managing others, and building teams. This inspirational case study of resistance, written by a young MLK after successfully leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott, shows how smart organization took on the authoritarianism of the Jim Crow South.  Never forget that MLK was considered a radical in his day even though there’s nothing radical about demanding human rights and dignity. Today, the same remains true: it’s not “radical” or “socialist” to demand that corporations stop polluting for profits and to call for an end to tax breaks, like for sending jobs overseas, that worsen the income inequality crisis.  To help communicate these urgent issues, another essential guide is The ALL NEW Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff.

2. Focus on State Races. States decide key quality of life issues and local candidates help drive votes up ballot for federal races. Every District and Future Now are two excellent groups working to build a progressive infrastructure and turn states blue from the bottom up. Get involved by donating what you can and/or join or start your own group with their help in your state. Here are our interviews with Every District (full episode) and with Future Now (last ~20 minutes of the episode) for more background.

3. Join. Grassroots power is one of the strongest forms of power we have left in America, especially with Mitch McConnell and Trump packing the courts. Don’t succumb to savior syndrome by expecting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- or whoever else you admire -- to do all the work. Representatives are human and need our help. Fulfill the far-right’s worst nightmare by creating generations of AOC’s by helping build a more progressive union. Join a local group from any of these great national organizations for important action-alerts like demonstrations and getting out the vote:  Indivisible, Swing Left, Sister District, MoveOn, Flippable.  

4. Fight Global Warming. Sunrise Movement is a grassroots organization demanding a Green New Deal. There are a lot of other groups working to adopt urgently needed green initiatives: C40 Cities connects cities around the world committed to taking climate action; 350.org helps activists rise to the challenge of the climate crisis; and here are more trusted organizations that need our support!

5. Unionize. In the age of Trump, there should be no more fear of starting or joining a union: just tell your boss that you saw how unions protected workers during the universally unpopular Trump shutdown. Fight for 15 and its local variants are also working to ensure a fair wage and strengthen unions in the service sector. Don’t know how to get started? Read Organizing to Win: New Research on Union Strategies and No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age.

6. Run for Something. There are a lot of great groups out there that demystify the process of becoming a candidate and running a campaign. Run for Something is one of our favorites. There’s even a book to help get you started: Run for Something: A Real-Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself by Amanda Litman. If you believe in facts/science and are a compassionate human being, you need to run for something and recruit others to as well. Even if it’s a longshot, you can still create urgent conversations and treat your campaign like a platform for discussions you care about, helping bring together like minded people to work for change even long past the election. Just look at what a refreshing discovery “long shot” Mayor Pete has been and all the great work Andrew Gillum continues to do to register 1 million voters in Florida.

7. Protect the Vote. EveryDistrict Action Fund just launched a “report card” identifying states with enough progressive support in the local governments to push through important voting reforms like automatic registration and the abolishment of racist voter ID laws. Is your state on the list? If so, EveryDistrict Action Fund empowers you to help your state reach the gold standard of voting. Concerned about vote hacking and Ivanka Trump-branded voting machines? Secure Our Vote provides background info and other resources to take action. Other groups to check out are Spread the Vote, Let America Vote, and Project ID which help people get the information they need to register, vote, and get an ID.

8. Launch Ballot Initiatives and Laws. Why not launch a ballot initiative? Katie Fahey turned her Facebook post into the movement Voters Not Politicians to end gerrymandering in Michigan. It passed overwhelmingly. Read more on her story here! Or you could build a grassroots coalition to get a law passed in your state. In our episode on how to “Pass a Law,” Andrea interviewed her mother about how she, while pregnant with Andrea and a young mother without any political experience, mobilized a grassroots army to pass the child carseat law in California. Yes, it can be done!

9. End Terrorism in America. Moms Demand works to elect candidates and lobby for sensible legislation to stop the gun violence epidemic driven by the blood-money gun lobby, the NRA. Southern Poverty Law Center exposes white supremacy, a leading terrorist movement in America. To help immigrant communities deliberately terrorized by Trump’s cruel border policies, here’s a list of groups to support.

10. Make Art. To say that art cannot make a difference stems from a tone deaf attiude of privilege: Ukraine’s EuroMaidan revolution of 2013-2014 relied on art and artists of all kinds to sustain protesters living in arctic-cold temperatures and under the threat of government-sanctioned violence; North Korean dissident Yeonmi Park said that Orwell’s Animal Farm helped her heal after escaping the cult-like dictatorship; and in our episode “The Blue Wave Continues: Kansas Rising” we share Davis Hammet’s account of how painting a rainbow house created a ripple effect in Kansas, leading to major electoral victories. We need the artists and storytellers of all kinds more than ever.

This is not a comprehensive list of suggestions on how you can create a more progressive America and stop entrenched corruption. There are many paths you can take, and we encourage you to think for yourselves and work together. There is no one solution.  Whether you’re in a blue state or red state, these ideas apply to you — do not take any of the freedoms you have left for granted. Never underestimate the power of hard work.

It’s also essential to read widely to understand how we got here and the best ways to navigate the challenges of the 21st century. Check out our Reading Guide for some books that we have found helpful.

[sharingshane-blog]

Why I am a Leftist

I thought I would spend some time discussing some of my socio-economic beliefs and how I came to where I am today.  My battles with poverty, disability, chronic illness, and discrimination (being genderqueer and bisexual) have largely informed my current beliefs about how society should function.  Just like anybody else, my environment and struggles have shaped who I am and what I believe today.

I have been registered in every party with the exception of the libertarian party.  Currently I have no affiliation.  I have become increasingly more frustrated with the socio-economic and political climate of today, and it is not due to how divisive people are after the orange was elected in 2016.  That divisiveness was always there, and it was always meant to be there.  The so-called problems in this current system are not really problems at all.  They are simply injustices, but those injustices were meant to be there.  The United States was never founded as a land of freedom and democracy.  Hell, only about one-third of the population in the American colonies actually wanted to break away from England.  The vast majority were either ambivalent or actively opposed separation.  The Constitution was drafted and ratified by a legislature that consisted solely of white, cisgender, heterosexual, wealthy, privileged men.  Some were rapists such Thomas Jefferson.  Some were frauds such as George Washington.  Some were narcissists such as Benjamin Franklin.  All of them were racists.  They all possessed power and influence in their given states.  The America today is exactly what America was always meant to be, a place where those privileged few controls and uses the rest of the population for their own personal gain.  It is an oligarchy disguised as democracy and exploitation at its finest.  I am completely pessimistic about the future of America unless the entire system is uprooted and we begin again from scratch.  Anyone who believes that the system can be fixed are unfortunately sorely deceived.  

I came to this understanding during my one-year hiatus from college in 2017.  During this time, I was working at Panera Bread as a cashier. As the year progressed, the job became more difficult.  I was unable to work full-time because of my health.  I was in intensive therapy for the first half of 2017 spending about 10 hours doing that and 20 hours working each week.  It was emotionally exhausting and my chronic fatigue was weighing heavily on me.  During the course of the year my anxiety and PTSD became more intense.  Near the end of my intensive treatment, I began to develop these disassociative episodes or stupors when I was triggered or overwhelmed. It happened to me once while I was driving causing me to have car accident and total my car.  They began happening more at work and I would have to be sent home.  During these episodes, I cannot respond to most external stimuli and am largely unresponsive.  I am unable to speak or speak very little.  I lose track of reality.  I cannot feel different parts of my body particularly my arms and legs.  There became an increase fear that they may be seizures.  Sometimes it appears I am having a stroke.  So far there is no evidence of either.  I developed more chronic pain.  It is highly suspected that I have endometriosis although I haven’t had the opportunity to have the surgical procedure to confirm the diagnosis. There is more, but I will not get into that now.

During this time, I realized how little my health seemed to matter to my employers.  They could make some accommodations for me, but in the end, it was their priority to make sure that business ran smoothly.  If my health got in the way too much, then I could face the chopping block.  I watched as two other fellow coworkers got fired for taking too many sick days. Both have debilitating chronic conditions that could become life-threatening if not treated.  Of course, it would be outright discrimination to fire them based solely on their health conditions.  So, they took another route.  I was terrified of losing my job.  I pushed myself as hard as I could and would neglect my health in the process. It became clearer; however, that I could not maintain the work.  My managers began cutting hours.  I was already not making enough to satisfy basic necessities and now I was making even less.  I was forced to have to live with my parents which was an unhealthy situation for me (which I will refrain from explaining why for the time being).  I felt like a burden on everyone which took a toll on my mental health.  I attempted to return to school after my hiatus while still working my job at Panera and living with my parents.  This proved to be too much for me to handle.  I quit college and moved in with a friend.  I came out as transgender and my hours were cut more at work.  I was eventually forced to quit.  I caught my manager complaining about my health issues behind my back to other coworkers.  This is actually a HIPPA violation, and I could potentially press charges.  In the end though, I am poor.  I do not have the financial and emotional resources to fight her.

Be patient.  I promise you this is all relevant.

In all this, I tried to develop a better way to organize the business in order to make the employees feel less like they are part of a massive machine and more like individual human beings.  I felt as though I was part of that machine, and if I became too weak, the machine would break.  Another thing I realized was that I was easily replaceable.  There is not much incentive for employers to work with me when they could easily switch me out for a stronger part.  No matter how nice they seemed, their primary duty is business.  If they are not successful at it, they will lose their position of power.  The system requires them to be exploitive towards the lower-wage workers.  I could not develop a system in my mind that would fix this unless capitalism as a whole was completely abolished.  If we remove CEO’s and had the workers run the industries democratically, that would fix the problem.  However, this would require a complete uproot of the system today.  I became more familiar with the term class-consciousness.

I am a hard worker and a fighter.  However, I am human and limited.  Because of my disabilities, employers consider me to be a malfunctioned part. I cannot lift heavy things or be on my feet for too long without feeling like I’m about to collapse.  I have now been reduced to a cane.  There is nothing that I can do to change this.  The phrase, “pick yourself up by the bootstraps,” did not work for me.  It did not matter how much effort into the system, I was stuck.  It would have to take sheer luck and a willingness to exploit others to rise up in the ranks.  The latter goes against my moral compass.  I realized that I could never bring myself to ever be a manager.  I cannot ethically justify being in such a position where I have to treat money with greater importance than the human beings that would work under me.

However, in order to create a society in which people are treated as human beings, and true equality is obtained; it would mean that those on the top would have to relinquish their power and wealth.  There is this narrative in which people believe that it is perfectly natural and necessary for there to power figures; otherwise, society would turn to chaos. It is true that we make decisions on our self-interest, but that is why an anarcho-communist society could honestly work.  It is in the workers’ best interest to distrust power figures, to have control over industry, to regain their humanity, to maintain industry and do their part in society, and to be a part of a society.  It will not happen without a fight though.  Millionaires and billionaires will not relinquish their power easily.  The system was created to keep those people at the top.  Racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia have been perpetuated to pin those on the bottom against one another, to keep them from uniting. The police were established to enforce this narrative and protect capitalist interests.  In the North, they were established to protect the transportation of goods and keep poor workers, largely immigrants, from collectivizing and prevent them from having a voice.  In the South, the police were derived from overseers with the intent to preserve slavery. The police system is not broken. It is running exactly how it was intended to run.  The narrative that there must always be people on the top and those on the bottom was a common defense of African-American slavery.  It is an idea with the sole intent to keep people oppressed.

Helen Keller, the famous activist who fought for the rights of those disabled, understood that equality for those disabled could never be obtained in a capitalist society. Disabled people will always be seen as inferior.  Safety was secondary; so, businesses can maintain their quotas increasing the possibility of accidents causing workers to become disabled.  It is not commonly known that she became a socialist herself and became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, an organization which believed that that the workers must run industry.  It is a workers’ union dedicated to democracy and solidarity. Their core belief is that you have nothing in common with your boss.

Bernie Sanders is not a true socialist.  He is a social democrat, and lately he has had to tame his speech in order to maintain his power and influence.  He believes in a highly regulated capitalist system.  Socialists believe in abolishing capitalism altogether.  

I am an actual socialist.  I do not believe the system is flawed.  I believe the system works exactly how it is supposed to function and it is disgusting. This ended up being a loner post than I had planned it to be, but I do have much to say on the subject.  It is something I am passionate about even though I will probably not see this come to fruition.  I hope this was insightful to how I have come to my beliefs which I hold today.

[piscesfeet6-blog]

Thomas Friedman: Time for the GOP to Threaten to Fire Trump

Lots of readers of this blog don’t like to hear what conservatives, Republicans, or pundits like Thomas Friedman have to say. I disagree. The only way that Trump will ever be reined in is by the leaders of the GOP. No matter how many progressives are elected to Congress, the fact remains that Trump has two years left in his term, and Republicans control the Senate. He won’t be impeached unless 19 Republican Senators join with the Senate Democrats and tell him the country can’t afford to keep him in the presidency as Tweeter-in-Chief, listening to no one but him gut, destroying the western alliance and the economy. Are there 19 Republican Senators willing to face the wrath of Trump and his angry base?

Thomas Friedman wrote that the time has come for the leaders of the GOP to step in and stop the damage to our country and the world by telling Trump that he is toast. I don’t agree that Trump voters wanted disruption. I think he was elected by a coalition that included longtime Hillary haters, disgruntled workers hoping for jobs, people who believed Trump’s lies that he alone could fix the problems of the country, and racists who came out from under the rocks where they had been hiding for years.

Friedman wrote:

Up to now I have not favored removing President Trump from office. I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot box. But last week was a watershed moment for me, and I think for many Americans, including some Republicans.

It was the moment when you had to ask whether we really can survive two more years of Trump as president, whether this man and his demented behavior — which will get only worse as the Mueller investigation concludes — are going to destabilize our country, our markets, our key institutions and, by extension, the world. And therefore his removal from office now has to be on the table.

I believe that the only responsible choice for the Republican Party today is an intervention with the president that makes clear that if there is not a radical change in how he conducts himself — and I think that is unlikely — the party’s leadership will have no choice but to press for his resignation or join calls for his impeachment.

It has to start with Republicans, given both the numbers needed in the Senate and political reality. Removing this president has to be an act of national unity as much as possible — otherwise it will tear the country apart even more. I know that such an action is very difficult for today’s G.O.P., but the time is long past for it to rise to confront this crisis of American leadership.

Trump’s behavior has become so erratic, his lying so persistent, his willingness to fulfill the basic functions of the presidency — like reading briefing books, consulting government experts before making major changes and appointing a competent staff — so absent, his readiness to accommodate Russia and spurn allies so disturbing and his obsession with himself and his ego over all other considerations so consistent, two more years of him in office could pose a real threat to our nation. Vice President Mike Pence could not possibly be worse.

The damage an out-of-control Trump can do goes well beyond our borders. America is the keystone of global stability. Our world is the way it is today — a place that, despite all its problems, still enjoys more peace and prosperity than at any time in history — because America is the way it is (or at least was). And that is a nation that at its best has always stood up for the universal values of freedom and human rights, has always paid extra to stabilize the global system from which we were the biggest beneficiary and has always nurtured and protected alliances with like-minded nations.

Donald Trump has proved time and again that he knows nothing of the history or importance of this America. That was made starkly clear in Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s resignation letter.

Trump is in the grip of a mad notion that the entire web of global institutions and alliances built after World War II — which, with all their imperfections, have provided the connective tissues that have created this unprecedented era of peace and prosperity — threatens American sovereignty and prosperity and that we are better off without them.

So Trump gloats at the troubles facing the European Union, urges Britain to exit and leaks that he’d consider quitting NATO. These are institutions that all need to be improved, but not scrapped. If America becomes a predator on all the treaties, multilateral institutions and alliances holding the world together; if America goes from being the world’s anchor of stability to an engine of instability; if America goes from a democracy built on the twin pillars of truth and trust to a country where it is acceptable for the president to attack truth and trust on a daily basis, watch out: Your kids won’t just grow up in a different America. They will grow up in a different world.

The last time America disengaged from the world remotely in this manner was in the 1930s, and you remember what followed: World War II.

You have no idea how quickly institutions like NATO and the E.U. and the World Trade Organization and just basic global norms — like thou shalt not kill and dismember a journalist in your own consulate — can unravel when America goes AWOL or haywire under a shameless isolated president.

But this is not just about the world, it’s about the minimum decorum and stability we expect from our president. If the C.E.O. of any public company in America behaved like Trump has over the past two years — constantly lying, tossing out aides like they were Kleenex, tweeting endlessly like a teenager, ignoring the advice of experts — he or she would have been fired by the board of directors long ago. Should we expect less for our president?

That’s what the financial markets are now asking. For the first two years of the Trump presidency the markets treated his dishonesty and craziness as background noise to all the soaring corporate profits and stocks. But that is no longer the case. Trump has markets worried.

The instability Trump is generating — including his attacks on the chairman of the Federal Reserve — is causing investors to wonder where the economic and geopolitical management will come from as the economy slows down. What if we’re plunged into an economic crisis and we have a president whose first instinct is always to blame others and who’s already purged from his side the most sober adults willing to tell him that his vaunted “gut instincts” have no grounding in economics or in law or in common sense. Mattis was the last one.

We are now left with the B team — all the people who were ready to take the jobs that Trump’s first team either resigned from — because they could not countenance his lying, chaos and ignorance — or were fired from for the same reasons.

I seriously doubt that any of these B-players would have been hired by any other administration. Not only do they not inspire confidence in a crisis, but they are all walking around knowing that Trump would stab every one of them in the back with his Twitter knife, at any moment, if it served him. This makes them even less effective.

Ah, we are told, but Trump is a different kind of president. “He’s a disrupter.” Well, I respect those who voted for Trump because they thought the system needed “a disrupter.” It did in some areas. I agree with Trump on the need to disrupt the status quo in U.S.-China trade relations, to rethink our presence in places like Syria and Afghanistan and to eliminate some choking regulations on business.

But too often Trump has given us disruption without any plan for what comes next. He has worked to destroy Obamacare with no plan for the morning after. He announced a pullout from Syria and Afghanistan without even consulting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the State Department’s top expert, let alone our allies.

People wanted disruption, but too often Trump has given us destruction, distraction, debasement and sheer ignorance.

And while, yes, we need disruption in some areas, we also desperately need innovation in others. How do we manage these giant social networks? How do we integrate artificial intelligence into every aspect of our society, as China is doing? How do we make lifelong learning available to every American? At a time when we need to be building bridges to the 21st century, all Trump can talk about is building a wall with Mexico — a political stunt to energize his base rather than the comprehensive immigration reform that we really need.

Indeed, Trump’s biggest disruption has been to undermine the norms and values we associate with a U.S. president and U.S. leadership. And now that Trump has freed himself of all restraints from within his White House staff, his cabinet and his party — so that “Trump can be Trump,” we are told — he is freer than ever to remake America in his image.

And what is that image? According to The Washington Post’s latest tally, Trump has made 7,546 false or misleading claims through Dec. 20, the 700th day of his term in office. And all that was supposedly before “we let Trump be Trump.”

If America starts to behave as a selfish, shameless, lying grifter like Trump, you simply cannot imagine how unstable — how disruptive — world markets and geopolitics may become.

We cannot afford to find out.

Source: https://dianeravitch.net/2018/12/26/thomas-friedman-time-for-the-gop-to-threaten-to-fire-trump/