Author: A.T.

CNN:  How liberals are preparing for Congressional Recess.

Enter your zip code and join them!

You don’t even have to be all that liberal — just horrified.  (That’s what I am: just horrified.)

Since I suggested it last month, SPRT reported a quarterly loss, driving its shares even a bit lower.

I bought more at $2.16 Friday.

The company burning through $1.1 million of its cash and short-term investments last quarter, bringing them down to $53.4 million — $2.85 a share.  That compares with a burn of $2.7 million in the same quarter a year ago.

The new CEO‘s distinctions include having graduated summa cum laude from Wharton and, perhaps even better, not being the old CEO.  If he is able to fully stabilize the company — which actually earned $10 million once upon a time — we could find ourselves having paid $2.16 for:

• $2.85 in cash and short-term securities (or perhaps $2.50 after a few more quarterly losses until the ship is righted)
• a business with $60 million in sales and motivated new management (if it ever commanded 1X current sales, that would be $3 more)
• $120 million in net operating losses applicable against future profits

In the company’s words:

Support.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPRT) is the leading provider of cloud-based software and services to deliver next-generation technical support. Support.com helps leading brands in software, electronics, communications, retail, Internet of Things (IoT) and other connected technology industries deepen their customer relationships. Customers want technology that works the way it’s intended. By using Support.com software and services, companies can deliver a fantastic customer experience, leading to happier customers, greater brand loyalty and growing revenues.

There are no sure things on Wall Street — to say the least — so, as always: only with money you can truly afford to lose.

Now go join a peaceful protest.

So I have this terrific, tall, lean, wry pal — Arthur Lambert — one of whose several portraits by David Hockney you see here.

Recently, he wrote to say he’d been badgered into writing something for his college reunion.

My class is doing a 60th anniversary yearbook, although for the life of me I can’t imagine why.  All my class is over 80 and practically dead.  Isn’t it a little late for such a compendium?  In any event, the Yearbook people have been unrelenting in torturing me for this thing.  I had no idea what to write.  They said we could include political views, grandchildren, but we must note classmates whom we particularly admire.  Other than Robert Caro, my class has Carl Icahn, but do I admire him? Anyway, here is the result of my efforts.  I thought you might like it.

I did — and got his permission to share it with you. I thought you might enjoy meeting him. A family snapshot in two minutes.

ARTHUR LAMBERT, CLASS OF 1957

My father, Princeton Class of 1922, practiced law in Washington, D.C. He was an attorney, his father (class of 1874) was an attorney, and his father as well. He hoped that either I or my brother (class of 1949) would land in the firm, but we escaped. My father had contacts with various Agency directors and used to play golf with Stansfield Turner, Director of the CIA. Once to arrange a golf date, my father had his secretary phone Turner’s office but was put on hold for so long she forgot she had initiated the call. She picked up the receiver lying on her desk to check who was on the phone and heard “Central Intelligence.”  With conviction, she replied, “You  must have the wrong number. There’s no intelligence here. This is a lawyer’s office.”

While I didn’t completely agree with this assessment, I tried law school for two years but was then offered the opportunity to work as a foreign correspondent for a 2nd class newspaper. I thought it was too good a chance to pass up and a great excuse to depart from law school.

After that it was the Army*, and then four years of working in the UK in a financial firm. Upon return a high school classmate and I took over a failing savings and loan in Maryland and recapitalized it. The first few years, growth was slow and I left the bank in the hands of my partner while l moved to California to run two answering services with live operators. We had all the stars. The girls knew more about Joan Crawford’s activities than Christina did even though listening was not permitted. However, this was a business soon to be eliminated by technology. While in California I met the English painter, David Hockney, and the only fame I have managed is to be drawn or painted by him numerous times. That is a little concerning as he always points out, “I don’t flatter.” After four years I returned to the bank and stayed until we were bought out for a small profit in the 1980’s after almost being destroyed by the rise in rates during that time and the resulting partial collapse of the savings and loan industry.

As I was living in NYC, I stayed at my parents when I was in Maryland working at the bank. In the 1980’s my father was having problems with his sight which was affecting his driving. The only way he could renew his driver’s license was by getting an optometrist to certify his vision. To achieve this he had found some optometrist in MS willing to affirm his vision without an examination. While he drove very slowly he would often bump into the rear of other cars when they halted at a stop sign. For this he kept a checkbook in his glove compartment and would write the driver a $500 check. When the accountant asked what all these $500 checks were he wouldn’t say. My friends were always after me to find out his route. Another time he remarked that he was amazed how many people seemed to know him, as, when he was driving, people would constantly honk and wave at him. I pointed out this was because he drove in the middle lane over the double yellow line so no one could get by him.  Everything changed when he got his cataracts removed, however. I asked him if he were driving more comfortably. He assured me it was much better. He said, “Now, I can finally see what I am running into.”

My father was devoted to Princeton. He and my Mother were obsessed with books and my Mother had a large library. As a child I was often ill so I was at home and accessed her library from a young age. However, all her books were about famous women in history, Elizabeth the Great, Catherine of Russia, Madame Curie, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It wasn’t until I was about eleven that I discovered that men had also done things. I think this childhood experience and the years at Princeton stimulated a life long interest in learning. I often have the desire to be back studying and discussing – so many things, how would Nixon have handled the Bay of Pigs or the Cuban missile crisis? My speculations are endless even though I realize in this case there are no answers.  Works such as those by classmate Robert Caro make life even more interesting. I like the saying attributed to various people including Plato and Ghandi which directs, “Live life as if you are going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you are going to live forever.” Phyllis Diller said she didn’t know who else would miss her, but she knew she would miss herself when she died. I will probably miss myself but I’ll also miss Robert Caro. I’m waiting for his next volume.

Have a great weekend!

*As for that, Arthur tells me, “I had a strange experience when I showed up for active duty at the American base in Frankfurt.  When I entered headquarters I noticed a very cute boy scrubbing the floor before I went off to the duty clerk for assignment. The duty clerk turned out to have an obvious interest in me so I got cushy assignments.  The kid scrubbing the floor had been caught by the MP’s a few days before [doing something untoward] and this was his punishment.  No expulsion then.  Remember my service was in the late 1950’s, long before “don’t ask.” Practically the whole headquarters staff was gay and every night we exited to go to a gay dance bar in Karlsruhe.  The only guy left in the barracks always wanted to know how come everyone was so busy every night and he was just sitting around.  At the club it was an eye opener for me to see American military officers dancing with each other.  I really had had little experience in the whole scene by this point so I was transfixed.  It reminds me of  James Lord, My Queer War.  He was busier than me as I never did anything at that point but look.”

He is the only Libyan refugee we allowed in last year.  (Libya is one of Trump’s seven.)  His story brings to life the current vetting process that some consider insufficiently extreme.  Let me know what you think — and any questions you might have for him.   (Here’s a good one: “Did you literally see friends of yours beheaded? Really?”)

Also, let me know if you have connections to a medical school that might give him credit for some of his course work.  He was one exam away from graduating.

If you want to help him repay his airfare to America (the US gives refugees six months to do that), and perhaps help a bit with other expenses of starting a new life, here’s how.  But truthfully, he’s one of the lucky ones: he’s here.

I keep coming back to BrainHq partly because I want to get rich enough to be able to quit writing this column and retire* . . .

. . . and partly because if I don’t quit writing it, I don’t want to lose your readership to dementia — the chances of your becoming afflicted with which 10 years from now are apparently reduced 48% with just 14 hours of exercise (so perhaps 90% with 14 hours a year).

TIME just named BrainHQ to its list of 2016 scientific discoveries.  Tom Brady, as you know, swears by it.  And old folks will have fewer car crashes if they use it (according to at least one insurance company study).

You can watch a four-minute summary of it here on “The Today Show.”

It’s free to try.

Get to work!

Meanwhile, is this piece in The Atlantic by a former George W. Bush speechwriter all hokum? Or could there be something to it?  What do you think?

*I own a sliver of BrainHq.

Long-time readers of this column know I have entrusted an ever-growing portion of my retirement account to Chris Brown’s small Aristides Fund, because he’s smarter than I am (which is annoying) and far more disciplined when it comes to investing (which is why it’s the portion of my retirement account that’s been ever-growing).

I thought you might find his February 4 letter, in which he’s become increasingly cautious about the market, interesting.  Between longs and shorts, he is now only 23% long.

He writes:

Dear Partners,

I feel oddly disconnected with the general confidence reflected in the broad market these days. . . .

When the fire alarm goes off in your office building, what do you do? Most people tend to look at the other people around them, to see what they are doing. If everyone else just goes back to work, it is likely you will also just go back to work. If people start to leave, you will probably leave. It’s like in college where if a couple of folks stand outside of a closed classroom door, the other folks who come behind them will assume it is locked, and wait for someone to unlock it. I’m the odd bird who can’t resist just trying to twist the knob anyway, even if I am the 14th person to arrive.

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of President Donald Trump. Because he is the President of the United States I want him to succeed, from a policy perspective. I’d actually be very happy to see him reelected in 2020 if it was because of successful policy and not because we were engaged in a major war or because people come to be brainwashed by a propaganda campaign. I am trying my best not to let my personal opinion of the President influence my view of the U.S. macroeconomy, but it is hard. . . .

Since Trump’s election, other than one brief trade on election night, we hadn’t really tilted our total net exposure one way or the other because of him. But it seems like it might be time for that to change, and on Thursday, we tweaked our net exposure down from 26% to 23%, via a short in the Russell 2000 Index ETF.

In the first two weeks of the Trump presidency, instead of getting the best parts of Trump, and the best parts of Bannon, and the best parts of the Republican leadership, instead of there being some sort of thoughtfulness and synergy, where meaningful conversation cancels out most of the bad ideas or the rash moves, and sensible policy prevails, what has actually emerged has been nearly the opposite.

Take Steve Bannon, the President’s chief adviser, for example. Bannon believes that the force for good in the world is an enlightened form of capitalism tightly combined with Judeo-Christian beliefs. This good is under assault from state-sponsored “crony” capitalism, from a kind of libertarian capitalism (a Marxist caricature of capitalism, in which people are treated as commodities), from atheists, secularists, from elites and globalists, and most notably, from the new Caliphate, which we are we are in the early phases of a global war with. Islam, in Bannon’s public comments, is not ever similarly placed as Judaism and Christianity as a major world monotheistic religion, but is only discussed as an ideology, for example “the ideology of expansionist Islam.”

Now, let’s compare Steve Bannon’s stated belief system with the things Republicans did in the last week: ban travelers and U.S. permanent residents from seven predominantly Muslim nations (Bannon approves), eliminate the fiduciary rule for financial advisors (crony capitalism), allow coal companies to dump pollution in streams (crony capitalism), allow oil and natural gas companies to make undisclosed payments to foreign governments (crony capitalism), make it easier for mentally ill people to buy guns (libertarian capitalism). Literally, only the worst, most objectionable parts of Steve Bannon’s agenda are actually getting done.

I am somewhat at a loss as to how Americans are currently demonstrably more afraid of terror attacks than they are of gun violence (this has been shown in reputable polling), in spite of gun violence being greater than 50-fold more of an actual threat. I am also at a loss as to how American fear crime from immigrants, who have been shown to commit less crime than non-immigrants. And I am likewise at a loss that people are scared of men and women who literally risked their lives to translate for and to help our soldiers in Iraq, so scared that they don’t want to let them into our country, even after two years of vetting. It doesn’t make rational sense. But it does make sense in the realm of confirmation bias, if one is constantly exposed to anecdote upon anecdote that paints a picture, an untrue picture, that we live each day under an existential threat of radical Islamic terror, and that we “don’t know anything” about these people who want to come live here. The administration is constantly fomenting this fear, both with ridiculousness such as Kellyanne Conway’s “Bowling Green massacre,” and with choices about what facts they do and not consider worthy of attention. For example, Trump quickly and repeatedly condemned the “radical Islamic terrorist” who threatened the Louvre with a machete, while saying nothing about the slaughter of six Muslims by a Christian white extremist in Quebec this week. Trump’s recent immigration order even included a provision to publish a weekly comprehensive list of crimes committed by non-citizens.

These actions, aside leading us towards an unwinnable perpetual war against 1.6 billion people, strike at the very heart of the American economy. The number one correlate of long-term economic growth is educational attainment. In the United States, we have experienced unprecedented prosperity in spite of a fairly middling K-12 educational system, because we have the best university system in the world, attract many of the world’s top students to our colleges and universities, and keep many of those graduates employed here, in many job-creating enterprises. We also have immigrant-visa programs that attract high- skilled labor from other countries, helping to power our most successful businesses, and in turn creating more jobs. Sergei Brin, Andy Grove, Jerry Yang, Elon Musk, Do Won Chang, Vinod Dham, and other immigrants have created tens of millions of American jobs.

The number of students, professors, physicians, and engineers affected by the recent ban of travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries is relatively small, but it speaks to a growing sense that immigrants of all stripes, or at least non-white/non-Judeo-Christian immigrants are less welcome here. It has been reported that certain agency heads advised President Trump against including green card holders (U.S. permanent residents) in the recent ban, but Steve Bannon prevailed over their objections. This is the same Bannon who believes there are too many Asian and South Asian executives in Silicon Valley, and the same Bannon that, when Trump expressed in a radio interview that we should try to keep the best and brightest students from around the world as citizens after they have studied here, did not agree. The result of Trump’s presidency thus far is that the rest of the world is starting to view us as unwelcoming.

My father-in-law, a typical Right-leaning, family values, middle-class Hindu engineer, in Hyderabad, India, doesn’t usually talk politics when he calls his daughter, but this week he couldn’t resist commenting on the “crazy” stuff Trump was doing and hoping that Americans speak out against it. This cannot be good for foreign student enrollment in U.S. universities.

We don’t know what the Federal budget is going to look like yet, but there are strong rumors that the President’s advisers are using a blueprint from the Heritage Foundation which would largely gut non-defense spending by nearly 40% in several large categories. If that happens, it’s highly likely that there will be large cuts to the funding of scientific grants which now sustain America’s global lead in basic science research.

If, as has been rumored, visa programs change such that Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, First Solar, and other advanced technology companies will no longer be able to hire sufficient talent in the United States, these companies will be forced to hire incrementally more staff in other locations, or to outsource work to companies outside of our borders.

Direct investment in U.S. has benefited tremendously from the fact that we have such strong institutions, world-leading intellectual capital, and a reasonable and welcoming immigration policy. Capital goes where it is treated best. Tax rates are certainly a huge part of that equation as well, but it’s important to remember that effective U.S. corporate income taxes are already in-line with other large developed nations around the world. There’s only so much room to lower them, and lowering them in a revenue neutral fashion (while closing loopholes) is only a very small net positive catalyst for the economy. Most people are only going to want to put their capital here if they feel welcome here.

So, long story short, I’m quite wary of the political influence on the U.S. economy right now, and stock market prices (and recent asset flows) suggest there is a pretty good amount of optimism already baked into valuations. We are likely to proceed with caution “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” to quote our President. Kidding, but not kidding. I am not sold on a bearish view; anything as complicated as running the country is a learning process, and hopefully our strong institutions, including the judiciary and business leaders, can help the President put things on a more constructive path going forward. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, though, is a really big challenge for a guy who has to look out for 319 million people who are not himself.

Also, you should probably know that we spend almost all of our time working on bottoms up, one company at a time, investment ideas, not top down macroeconomic thinking, especially now, when it is earnings season. But, this letter was more fun to write than one that describes the selection process behind a bunch of new small positions. I hope it was more fun to read.

Thank you, as always, for your partnership. Have a kind February.

Christopher M. Brown

I’d also like to put in a word for red cabbage.  It’s been a while since I offered a Cooking Like A Guy™ recipe, so here it is.  Buy a head of red cabbage.  It’s cheap.  And heavy!  But you’re a guy!  Just carrying it home along with the beer will work biceps.  Now put it in the refrigerator.  It will stay good for weeks.  Now, when you’re hungry, just peel off a leaf and eat it.  Kinda crunchy.  Or use those leaves instead of bread — if you’re on some kind of low-carb cave man diet — to make sandwiches.  (That’s right: with the chicken salad wrapped in a cabbage leaf.) I’m not a fan of red meat, as you know — bad for the planet, bad for your arteries, no fun for the cows — but I’m a fan of red cabbage.

Oh! And don’t forget to call your Valentine.

Bad enough that Trump has needlessly handed China a major victory, getting nothing in return.*

Or that with all his talk of banning Muslims he has advanced ISIS’s effort to ignite a war of civilizations.

The person who’s really happy about Trump’s election is Putin, who dismantled Russia’s fragile democracy and is now hard at work on ours.

All without firing a shot.  (Except for killing the occasional journalist or political opponent.)

From Foreign Affairs: “Russia’s Art of War.”

Trump, writes Mark Sumner for Daily Kos — perhaps recognizing this — “has successfully buried the story that worries him most.”

Don’t let him.  Click the links and spread the word.

*Instead of pulling out of Obama’s TransPacific Partnership, Hillary would have won a few face-saving improvements and then signed it.

Holy Cow.  I hate the cold, but I think we need to go!  Look!  I know Northeast China is a bit of a trek but . . . check it out!  Especially those pictures.

Looking for something to binge on?  I’m only two episodes into Grace and Frankie — talk about late to the party! Netflix is about to launch season 3 — and I’m not sure future episodes could possibly be as good.  But if you like Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen, Jane Fonda, and Sam Waterston, for sure give it a try.  The first episode is wonderfully titled: “The End.”

Joe V: “Do we agree that the Dems can learn something by analyzing how the GOP has attained a net gain of 700+ seats in state legislatures … and control of the whole government?  Watch this 4-minute clip or the complete 43-minute documentary.”

☞ Yep.  It’s the story of REDMAP, based on the unfortunately-titled book by David Daley that I told you about a while back.

The only thing wrong in the 4-minute clip is the last line, where he says we have to wait until 2031 to make it right.  In fact, if we all put our minds to it — or just vote — we can turn it all around in 2018 and 2020.

I don’t care that Kelly Ann Conway promoted Ivanka Trump’s clothing line.  I care that our President lies constantly (or believes what he says, which makes him delusional), is “a national disgrace” (Colin Powell’s all too accurate words) . . . undermines respect for our “so-called” judges and our “very dishonest” press . . . is undignified, dangerous, ignorant, incompetent and somehow in the pocket of Vladimir Putin, who murders journalists and political opponents (but are we such great shakes, Trump asks?) and who has attacked the United States with the goal of destabilizing our precious democracy . . . toward which goal, if the last three weeks are any indication, he has made considerable progress.

We need to fix this. Kelly Ann Conway’s clothing promo is the least of our problems.

Have a great weekend.  And — if you’re of age and not driving or in recovery — a drink.

I saw a comedian — Trevor Noah? — commenting on our concern for dolphins . . . something along the lines of, “So there’s one dolphin trapped in a net with 1,000 tuna and everyone’s all trying to save the dolphin, and the tuna are going, Hellloooo!  We’re in here, too, people!”

Fair enough.  Still, show me a team of tuna that can do this.  (Thanks, Mel!)

I’m sure you’ve seen it, but is it not breathtaking that our new president has issued an executive order designed to relieve financial advisors of the obligation to act in their clients’ best interests?   Take a minute to think about that.

Or that he would announce that the murder rate is the highest it’s been in 47 years when in fact it’s hovering around half-century lows?*

Or that his administration would, in effect, come out against puppies?  And try to blame that on Obama?  Watch it here.

And it’s only Wednesday.

*He wants us to be afraid of the “carnage” that plagues us — including zero terrorist acts committed on our soil since 1975 by immigrants from the seven countries he’s seen a sudden urgency to fear. He wants the media to report more aggressively on the nearly 200 Americans killed by terrorists since 9/11 (versus about half a million in car crashes).  He assures us he will “absolutely” release his tax returns if he runs for office — though “no one but the press wants to see them” — and he will sue the 11 women who claim he did what he bragged he does because, frankly, he could walk down Fifth Avenue shooting people and Kelly Ann Conway and Sean Spicer would attack anyone who criticized him for it. But I digress.

But first:

I last wrote about BKUTK at $420.  (Two years earlier, at $340.)  Recently, I bought a little more at $464.  These are non-voting shares but otherwise the same as BKUT, currently quoted at $570 bid, $650 asked.  As I don’t usually take the time to vote anyway, I like that that my $464 shares are all but identical to shares someone is willing to pay $570 for — and that no one is willing to part with for less than $650.

In a vaguely similar vein, I bought more SPRT yesterday at $2.30. As recently noted, the company appears to have more than $2 a share in cash and short-term securities; an operating business that could be worth a buck or more; $120 million in NOLs that could be worth yet another dollar; and activist shareholders who recently bought in at $3 hoping for a good gain. So it may not have much downside from here (famous last words!); and given what savings accounts are paying these days, the extra risk could be worth taking.

And now:

Der Spiegel sparks controversy with its cover depicting our President beheading the statue of liberty.

It editorializes: “The United States president is becoming a danger to the world. It is time for Germany and Europe to prepare their political and economic defenses.”

. . . Germany must stand up in opposition to the 45th president of the United States and his government. That’s difficult enough already for two reasons: Because it is from the Americans that we obtained our liberal democracy in the first place; and because it is unclear how the brute and choleric man on the other side will react to diplomatic pressure. . . .

It is literally painful to write this sentence, but the president of the United States is a pathological liar. . . . He is attempting a coup from the top; he wants to establish an illiberal democracy, or worse; he wants to undermine the balance of power.  . . .

Among the things that counted as true progress during the 20th century were multilateralism and free trade. The world has become so complex that no single country can solve the major problems on its own — that was our recognition. Organizations like the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NATO and the EU were all created for this reason. None of these organizations is perfect, but they are what we launched — and we do need them. Bannon now wants to wipe them away, and either Trump is executing Bannon’s intentions or he shares them.

. . . The fact that the United States, a nuclear superpower that has dominated the world economically, militarily and culturally for decades, is now presenting itself as the victim, calling in all seriousness for “America first” and trying to force the rest of the world into humiliating concessions is absurd.

The Germans are understandably sensitive to leaders suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, given their history.  Some find parallels to 1933 concerning. (“They argued he would grow more reasonable once in office and that his cabinet would tame him. . . . “)  And while it would be a mistake to read too much into it — who knows why he chose to do this? — I continue to be ever so slightly freaked out that our president literally kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.

Nell Ziehl, chief of planning, education and outreach for the Maryland Historical Trust, writes about Coping With Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the White House.  (After which I append a list of the world’s foremost narcissists.)

I want to talk a little about narcissistic personality disorder. I’ve unfortunately had a great deal of experience with it, and I’m feeling badly for those of you who are trying to grapple with it for the first time because of our president-elect, who almost certainly suffers from it. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1) It’s not curable and it’s barely treatable. He is who he is. There is no getting better, or learning, or adapting. He’s not going to “rise to the occasion” for more than maybe a couple hours. So just put that out of your mind.

2) He will say whatever feels most comfortable or good to him at any given time. He will lie a lot, and say totally different things to different people. Stop being surprised by this. While it’s important to pretend “good faith” and remind him of promises, as Bernie and others are doing, that’s for his supporters, so *they* can see the inconsistency. He won’t care. So if you’re trying to reconcile or analyze his words, don’t. It’s 100% not worth your time. Only pay attention to and address his actions.

3) You can influence him by making him feel good. There are already people like Bannon who are ready to use him for their own ends. The GOP is excited to try. Watch them, not him. President Obama, in his wisdom, is treating him well in hopes of influencing him and possibly averting the worst. If he gets enough accolades for better behavior, he might continue to try it. But don’t count on it.

4) Ultimately, he will betray anyone who tries to get close to him. It might take a while, though, so we can’t count on that.

5) He only cares about himself and those he views as extensions of himself, like his children. (People with NPD can’t understand others as fully human or distinct.) He desires accumulation of wealth and power because it fills a hole. (Melania is probably an acquired item, not an extension.) He will have no qualms *at all* about stealing everything he can from the country, and he’ll be happy to help others do so, if they make him feel good. That is likely the only thing he will intentionally accomplish.

6) It’s very, very confusing for non-disordered people to experience a disordered person with NPD. They do not observe social conventions or demonstrate basic human empathy. It’s very common for non-disordered people to lower their own expectations and try to normalize the behavior. DO NOT DO THIS AND DO NOT ALLOW OTHERS, ESPECIALLY THE MEDIA, TO DO THIS. If you start to feel foggy or unclear about this, step away until you recalibrate.

7) People with NPD often recruit helpers, referred to in the literature as “enablers” when they allow bad behavior and “flying monkeys” when they perpetrate bad behavior on behalf of the narcissist. Although it’s easiest to prey on vulnerable or malicious people, good people can be unwittingly recruited. It will be important to support good people around him if and when they attempt to stay clear or break away.

8) They like to foster competition for sport in people they control. Expect lots of chaos, firings and recriminations. He will probably behave worst toward those closest to him, but that doesn’t mean (obviously) that his actions won’t have consequences for the rest of us. He will punish enemies. He may start out, as he has with the New York Times, with a confusing combination of punishing/rewarding, which is a classic abuse tactic for control. If you see your media cooperating or facilitating this behavior for rewards, call them on it.

9) Gaslighting — where someone tells you that the reality you’ve experienced isn’t true — is real and torturous. He will gaslight, his followers will gaslight. The GOP has been gaslighting for 30 years. Learn the signs and find ways to stay focused on what you know to be true.

10) Whenever possible, do not focus on the narcissist or give him attention. Don’t circulate his stupid tweets or laugh at him — you are enabling him and getting his word out. (I’ve done this, of course, we all have… just try to be aware.) Pay attention to your own emotions: do you sort of enjoy his clowning? is this kind of fun and dramatic, in a sick way? You are adding to his energy. Focus on what you can change and how you can resist, where you are. We are all called to be leaders now, in the absence of leadership.

Finally, a list of some famous narcissists. Bare-chested Putin is not yet on it for some reason, but Stalin is.

I met Sarah Parcak at a TED Conference a few years ago as we wandered the halls scavenging among the health food stations.  “I’m a space archaeologist,” she said.  (This morning, I was on the phone with a Jamaican/Cuban American with a joint degree in midwifery and finance. A max-out DNC donor, she’s running for vice chair. Could life possibly have been so interesting when only white males with property were allowed to vote?  But I digress.)

“A space archaeologist?”

Yes, she explained; she looks at the earth from satellites trying to spot ancient cities and pyramids hidden by soil or sand.

Last year, she won the TED prize to build out her vision of getting thousands of us — tens or hundreds of thousands more likely — to join her search.

And now you can!

Click here to start combing Peru to discover the next Machu Picchu.

Here, to watch Sarah’s TED talk.  It’s pretty cool.

BONUS:

Mike Rutkaus:  “It Can’t Happen Here, a novel by Sinclair Lewis about the guy who beat FDR in 1936 and became dictator of the U.S. He notes that dictators rarely have a wife present…in the book she is always coming to DC next year.”

Not to mention Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, wherein “America First” candidate Charles Lindberg beats FDR in 1940 and negotiates an understanding with Hitler.

Or My New Order, the book of Hitler’s speeches our current president kept by his bedside.