COMING TO TERMS?
Trump increasingly realistic about election, won’t concede, might attend inauguration
BLOOMBERG
Donald Trump is not the first presidential candidate to think they got screwed. He’s not even the first person to say it out loud. But just like all of his predecessors, the sun still rises and the question becomes: what’s next?
For Trump it increasingly looks like he knows that he will not be in the White House for much longer. While it doesn’t look like we are going to get a traditional concession out of him he (according to the excellent Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg) might well show up at Biden’s inauguration.
For me, I keep wondering when Trump is going to realize this isn’t a terrible future for him. The media will still dance when he commands, he has an entirely new slate of fresh grievances and he can turn his ire back to his original enemy: The GOP.
Speaking of which…
Trump: I’m ashamed I endorsed GA’s Kemp
AXIOS
PA high court throws out Trump election challenge
POLITICO
Unless evidence is VERY compelling and the margins are VERY thin, courts are very wary to intervene in an election. Trump legal team running out of pathways to operate. Might need more steroids for their Kraken.
Tony Hsieh, 46, dead after house fire
AXIOS
Tony Hsieh founded Zappos. One time I ordered shoes from Zappos. They emailed me immediately and said I’d been upgraded to next day shipping for free. I became a loyal Zappos customer past that. He also pioneered outside-the-box management strategies like paying people to quit after a few weeks on the job as a way to weed out all but very committed employees.
But beyond making a company that sold to Amazon for over a billion, he sincerely cared about where he lived. I use a lot of this newsletter and the podcast and the livestreams to roll my eyes at government. It’s easy to be cynical. It’s hard to make a difference.
Hsieh was determined to make Downtown Las Vegas a place to visit, work and live. He moved Zappos headquarters to an old city hall building. He dumped tons of money into restaurants, bars, tiny home villages, festivals and start-up funding.
And lo, what was once essentially a fried Twinkie served in a bootleg Bart Simpson t-shirt is now a young, vibrant, neon Portland. His dreams made real.
Tony Hsieh’s community pride will not be forgotten by anyone who lives or visits Vegas.
RIP.
Wisconsin recount extends Biden lead
BLOOMBERG
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Wasn't Flynn kind of resigned to serving time? I hadn't heard much about him in a while and he pled guilty, not that pleas are always factual. - SEAN
Got me. Seems like they were in limbo after the initial overturning.
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Now that we're in the waning days of Trumpism, or at least a temporary decline (maybe...?). Is it too soon to objectively analyze what it was? Or at least speculate what the history books will say about it?
I think it's often flippantly labelled "extreme right." Is it though? Is Trump righter than right-wing? Is MAGA the central idea to Trump-ism? If so, could you say Trump-ism = Nationalism?
If Trump-ism = Nationalism, is it a return to classical Nationalism, like say Teddy Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" or does it push the concept somewhere new?
Does Trump-ism outlive Trump? - KEN
My hunch: localization politics combined with media grievances. Basically it’s a massive reaction to the idea of power being collected far beyond where the average citizen can interact with it. That includes the power of the media to shape what we do and don’t talk about.