Is Trump Responsible for Discord?

Unwittingly, Lane clarified the situation. When Obama skated for
eight years with virtually no press review and then they turned
immediately on his successor, Lane has said what the real problem is –
they have put Trump in a box. Either act more “presidential” by their
words and take it in the gut or fight back and be accused of not being
“presidential.” The reason Trump was elected and remains popular with
Republicans is he does not take their attacks lying down like Bush did.

Lane
has called for Trump to unilaterally disarm. Just like we should not
against our foreign enemies like Russia, China and Al Qaeda, Republicans
should not against Democrats and their propaganda machine: the MSM.

Is Trump Responsible for Discord?

Americans don’t trust their government, its institutions, or each other. This is not a good place to be

We are careening dangerously from a high-trust to a low-trust society. We trust one another less, we trust government
and other mediating institutions less. This trend, which like many of
our pathologies predates and arguably helped give rise to the Trump
presidency, has ominous consequences.

High-trust societies have lower transaction costs, lower crime rates and less corruption.
People are nicer and better behaved when they’re reasonably confident
that the local grocer won’t steal their credit card information and the
IRS won’t audit them based on their politics.

Low-trust countries
are clannish, unable to develop the civil institutions of a free
society, and those in power tend to use government authority like a club
to punish political enemies. The resulting disorder builds demand for
strongmen, for more centralized state power. None of this is good.

Americans don’t trust their government, its institutions, or each other. This is not a good place to be

Adaptability and optimization are on a see-saw: as a general rule, adaptability requires flexibility, buffers and redundancies that are costly to maintain. So in a world driven by efficiencies in service of maximizing profits, these costs have been ruthlessly eliminated from complex systems. The adaptability of optimized systems is very low unless they have been specifically optimized to be highly flexible and adaptive.

The Two Paths To Collapse | Zero Hedge