The Slow-Motion Assassination of President Trump

I saw this quote on CNN.com today: “The episode is the latest woe for Trump, whose administration is engulfed in a series of scandals linked to Russia.” A “series of scandals linked to Russia”? Would it be equally accurate to characterize it as a series of stories manufactured by the media, none…

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The Comey Firing

What do Bernie Sanders’ hair and CNN have in common today? They are both saying, “Comey” every time you look at them. The news coverage of Comey’s firing has become excellent entertainment. This is the biggest cognitive dissonance cluster bomb we’ve seen since election night. This one has everything. For starters,…

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The Healthcare Confusopoly

Years ago I coined the term Confusopoly [archive] to describe any industry that benefits by keeping consumers confused. For example, mobile phone carriers know their offerings are too confusing for consumers to compare one company to another on cost. That is clearly intentional. If consumers could compare offerings it would drive profit…

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Pre-Bribing a President

It is illegal to bribe a president. But it is totally legal to pre-bribe one.  Here’s how a pre-bribe works. When a president leaves office, you offer the ex-president an enormous speaking fee. Let’s say $400,000. The ex-president does the speech and banks the money. The ex-president has no power…

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Using Persuasion to Create Assets Out of Nothing

Yesterday President Trump unexpectedly said he would be “honored” to meet North Korea’s Kim Jung-un.  And that’s how a Master Persuader creates an asset out of nothing. I’ll explain. By holding out the possibility of meeting with Kim Jung-un, President Trump has conjured out of thin air a virtual “asset” that…

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The North Korean Weapons Test Pattern

We’re seeing speculation in the press that the United States might be behind North Korea’s recent failed missile tests. By way of context, North Korea has had some bad patches before, but they experienced a new streak of “bad luck” at about the same time President Trump got into office….

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President Trump’s First 100 Days

Everyone observing politics seems to agree on two things about a president’s first 100 days in office: 1. 100 days is a meaningless, arbitrary marker for a president’s performance that is likely to be more misleading than useful. and… 2. Let’s treat it like it is important! Reeeeeeee! The thing…

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How a Systems-Thinking President Can Settle the Climate Science Debate

This idea in today’s Wall Street Journal [link available, alternative archive] talks about creating a “Red Team” to dig into the climate science debate and come up with a conclusion for the public. I call that a good system. Systems are better than goals. A goal, in this case, might be to “Convince the…

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The Air Comes Out of the Anti-Trump Balloon

In January of this year, President Trump’s critics were marching in the streets because they believed he was about to go full-Hitler. Or maybe he was just crazy, and about to do something dangerously stupid.  Today their biggest complaint is that President Trump hasn’t shared his tax returns with the…

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How to Structure a Deal With North Korea

One of the most useful things I learned in business school was that you can usually make a deal whenever the parties involved don’t want full control of the same limited resources. That’s why a peace deal in Israel is impossible – because both sides want the same land. But…

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Am I Shadowbanned on Twitter?

Earlier this week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey contacted me to discuss my ongoing public observations that Twitter appears to be “shadowbanning” me because of my writings about Trump. Jack introduced me via Direct Message to Del Harvey, Twitter’s Head of Trust & Safety, for the official answer. The official answer is that…

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U.S. and Russian Relationship at a Low?

Everyone is saying the relationship between the United States and Russia is really, really bad right now. President Trump says it is bad. Russia agrees. All the pundits agree too. So it must be true, right? In the 2nd dimension – where things are just the way they look –…

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The North Korea Reframe

Prior U.S. presidents framed the North Korean nuclear program as a problem between the United States and North Korea, with China as an unhelpful third party with its own interests. That framing was weak and useless. North Korea did whatever it wanted to do. President Trump recently changed the frame….

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Trusting Your Government in a Time of War

President Trump’s critics and supporters agree on one thing: Our new president has a history of “stretching” the truth whenever there is some advantage in doing so, and sometimes even when there is not. You might say he is famous for playing loose with the facts. We all expect a…

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