The Great, Horrible Unraveling — And Heroes March 13, 2025 Tom Friedman explains what’s happening. You have to read it and decide what to do. I’ve bought more puts. The only solution I can see is for judges to continue to stay strong and for Republican Senators and Congresspersons to impeach the President and Vice President. But that is not going to happen because, increasingly, we are becoming a nation ruled by fear rather than law. Legislators afraid of angering Trump and his base (not least those MAGAs, now pardoned, who tried to kill Vice President Pence). Business people afraid. Media executives afraid. Government bureaucrats afraid. University presidents afraid. Election officials afraid. This is how it works in autocracies. The people who overcome their fear often wind up in prison or, like Navalny and dozens if not hundreds of Russian journalists, dead. Barring some extraordinary bravery on the part of Republicans, Putin has won. The American-led democratic world order he has sought to destroy is unraveling. Tiny Russia! With an economy smaller than Texas! But isn’t that how judo works? I’ve long noted that Putin is a legitimate judo black belt, whereas Trump is a fake wrestling hall of famer. See the difference? Cry, the Beloved Country, about South Africa, was on my parents’ bookshelf when I was growing up. The title has somehow always gripped me; never more than now. Maybe judges will continue to stand firm — and not be overruled by Trump’s Supreme Court. Maybe Republicans will risk their jobs — and their personal safety — to stop this horrible unravelling. Maybe a tanking stock market, ever-growing civil outrage, and a military that remembers its oath is to the Constitution, not Trump, will save us. God, I hope so! Needless to say, nothing would make me happier than to see my puts expire worthless. Amidst all this gloom — for which I apologize, but I think alarm is warranted — there are so many people to admire and applaud — beginning with Liz Cheney a while back. Another is Sarah McBride, who, when introduced as “Mister McBride” Tuesday by Keith Self, the Texas Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, calmly and without missing a beat responded, “thank you, Madam Chair.” And her Democratic colleague, Bill Keating of Massachusetts, who rose immediately to her defense. If you haven’t already seen it — watch! It’s wonderful. (Much more to say on the trans issue, but for a future post.) A third, is profiled today in Vanity Fair: How Elissa Slotkin, a Moderate Michigan Democrat, Is Fighting Trump Tooth and Nail. The contrast between her patriotism and competence and, say, Tulsi Gabbard’s, is stark. The section in the profile where newly elected Senator Slotkin (former CIA agent and so much more) questions her former House colleague Tulsi Gabbard (now, horrifyingly, Director of National Security), is worth buying a lifetime subscription to Vanity Fair — but it’s free to read. A fourth is you, if you’re doing things — in the gentlest, most respectful way — to inspire others to “join the resistance” or, if they voted for Trump, to see they’ve been betrayed. We will prevail! I don’t quite see how — but we have to, and we will. Watch Congressman John Larson crying “shame!” yesterday! Join Indivisible! Read Tom Friedman.
Things I’m Buying March 11, 2025March 11, 2025 But first . . . a two-minute view from Canada. And now . . . I bought some puts last week (not nearly enough!) because Trump seems to be wrecking the economy . . . giving us stagflation that could prove very hard to work our way out from . . . and to have lost the confidence of the Free World and the good will of the Third World. This is great for Putin — his wildest dream come true — but not for a stock market that, in the main, was selling at a very rich multiple of earnings on Inauguration Day. So what to do with your money? I fear it’s not too late to buy more puts on the various market indices; but — don’t. Or at least think long and hard before you do. First, you could easily lose 100% of the bet even if you’re right that the market has a lot further to fall — because the market might rebound or fall or stay flat before your puts expired worthless, even if it plunged the following day. Second, even if you do “win,” your gain will be fully taxable. (I bought most of mine inside a tax-deferred retirement account, where taxes are not an issue; the rest in a taxable account as a hedge, rather than sell highly appreciated stocks on which there’d also have been a high tax bill.) And don’t be tempted by stocks just because they’ve dropped a lot. I’m often a sucker for those — but by no means for all of them. Most obviously a bad idea . . . TSLA. Though down to $224 from its $488 high 90 days ago, consider that as recently as June, it was $170. Why is it worth more than that now that perhaps 90% of those who worry about climate change — Tesla’s best market — kind of hate him? Why is the company worth more than 100 times its trailing 12-month earnings when next year’s earning could be much worse? To drop to 20 times its trailing 12-month earnings, it would have to drop a further 80%. (Ford, by way of context, pays a 7.5% dividend and sells around 7 times its trailing 12-month earnings. I don’t know enough about Ford’s prospects to know whether to buy it, but it seems less wildly overpriced than TSLA.) A few I do like here, all of which I’ve written about here more than once (use the search box to see): CHRB UNIT OPRT SQNS HYMC ANIX PRKR CHRB is limited to the $25 upside it promises to pay next year, plus the very nice dividend you get in the meantime. My UNIT guru thinks it will be $12 after their merger and that the merged company will then be bought out at an even higher price by one of the giants, like Verizon or AT&T. The next three. I think. have pretty solid underpinnings (as speculations go) and could easily triple in the next year or two. (Or not!) The last two are swing-for-the-fences speculations. For better or worse, I have lots of all of them.
Putin Is Winning. We Can’t Give In To Fear. March 10, 2025 Franklin Foer: The Russian dictator has bent the world. He’s gotten us to switch sides. We are now the bad guys. Republican legislators need to read that — and this: Marc Elias: We can’t give in to fear. . . . It is often said: When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. If that is true, then only weeks into Donald Trump’s four-year term, we are approaching tyranny. It does not surprise me that people are worried. I expected many to be concerned. But I did not anticipate that so many leaders across industries and professions would allow fear to silence them. Even worse than their silence in the face of Trump’s actions against our democracy is their silent complicity as they watch their peers be targeted, humiliated and punished. Trump targeted the legacy media. Its owners paid for the privilege. Trump targeted Mitch McConnell. His Republican Senate colleagues did nothing. Trump targeted lawyers and law firms. The biggest, most prestigious firms looked away. We were all taught about the immorality of silence in the face of evil. We all read Martin Niemöller’s poem: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. We all said never again. We promised we had learned the lesson of history. We would never be silent. We would be righteous. We all read Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: The greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Our generation will have to repent not only for the acts and words of the children of darkness but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light. We told ourselves we would stand up against injustice wherever we saw it. We would do better than previous generations. We would be stronger. We would be braver. Hannah Arendt, one of the 20th century’s greatest chroniclers of totalitarianism, described fear as an emotion indispensable for survival. It is precisely because fear is so deeply hardwired within us that we can demonstrate courage. She wrote: The courageous man is not one whose soul lacks this emotion or who can overcome it once and for all, but one who has decided that fear is not what he wants to show. If I could speak to billionaires quivering in fear, I would ask: Is the risk of losing some money worth sacrificing your dignity? If I could speak to media executives pandering to Trump, I would ask: Is the risk of losing access worth compromising your principles? If I could speak to Republican politicians, I would ask: Is the risk of losing an election worth being remembered as a coward? If I could speak to the heads of big law firms, I would ask: Is the risk of losing some clients worth betraying your oath to the rule of law? To everyone nodding in agreement but refusing to take a stand, I say this: You are ignoring Martin Niemöller’s message. It is you that Martin Luther King Jr. was condemning. Go ahead and stay silent. Let fear rule you. Watch injustice happen. Just don’t act like you did not know and accept that you are the latest in a long line of cowards who learned nothing from the past. Join Indivisible! Plant the seeds of DIS-disinformation.
Surrendering Our Role In The World — But Beanie Babies March 9, 2025 Fareed Zakaria: Trump is helping Russia and China by upending the world order. . . . The United States spent eight decades building an international system of rules, norms and values that has produced the longest period of great power peace and global prosperity in human history. Its alliances are the greatest force multiplier for its influence around the world. The United States has been the greatest beneficiary of this system, even now, decades later, still setting the agenda and dominating the world economically, technologically and militarily. As that world unravels, America’s privileged position [and the immense advantage we get from the dollar’s being the world’s reserve currency] will also decline, creating a more dangerous and impoverished world — and a more isolated, mistrusted and insecure America. . . . So sad. Entirely self-inflicted. Must reading. Elon’s Grok Chatbot Calculates Probability That Trump Is a Russian Asset Elon Musk’s supposedly “anti-woke” chatbot, Grok, keeps spewing outputs that are hilariously opposed to the billionaire’s views — including that newly-minted President Donald Trump is likely a Russian asset. Responding to a prompt from Arizona Republic columnist EJ Montini, Musk’s “maximally truth-seeking” AI, which is built into X, said after an analysis that the probability of the president being in the pocket of Vladimir Putin is between 75 and 85 percent. . . . Grok said that although there is no “smoking gun [that] proves direct control,” there’s a good chance that Trump is a “useful idiot” for Putin — especially given that “Trump’s ego and debts make him unwittingly pliable.” CRYPTO STRATEGIC RESERVE Crypto investors within the Trump administration, like Trump and Musk themselves, are pushing the idea of a “strategic crypto reserve.” It would be like our well-established, well thought-out “strategic oil reserve” . . . . . . only completely stupid. More like setting up a Strategic Beanie Baby Reserve.
The Good News About Trump’s Tariff Tax March 9, 2025 Yes, it will make almost everything more expensive. But it will help Trump give millionaires and billionaires a tax cut, so it all evens out. How great is that? TRUMPCESSION Seven weeks in, a recession looks more likely. Consumer confidence is down more than at any time since 2021, “as inflation fears take hold.” The Trump Tariff Tax will dampen consumer demand. Interest rates are staying high because of the now-expected higher inflation. Massive government lay-offs and canceled government contracts slow growth . . . uncertainty breeds business caution . . . a drop in foreign tourism . . . a drop in foreign purchases of our goods . . . Maybe it will all be fine. (Who can say for sure the Smoot-Hawley tariffs caused a global depression?) But taken together, we just might be in for Trumpcession. Or Trump Stagflation. I’m the guy with the happy gene — I still have it — but he bankrupted six of his companies (well, four, but two of them twice) and added trillions more to the National Debt in his first term than Obama in his first term (which began with the massive deficit spending required to keep the world from sinking into depression brought on by the financial collapse) . . . let us hope America’s not the next thing his chaotic management will bankrupt. BONUS: Starving Children Are Not Our Concern — We’re Christians The children from whom we’ve suddenly cut off aid live in “shit-hole countries.” What business is that of ours? What have they ever done for us? America First, baby. Haven’t you read the Trump Bible? Charity has its limits.* *In the decade leading up to his foundation being shut down for mismanagement, it distributed $19 million. “[Trump] admitted . . . to directing $100,000 in foundation money be used to settle legal claims over an 80-foot flagpole he had built at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, instead of paying the expense out of his own pocket. In addition, the foundation paid $158,000 to resolve a lawsuit over a prize for a hole-in-one contest at a Trump-owned golf course . . .” (By contrast, Mike Bloomberg’s foundation gave away $3.7 billion last year alone. And none of it, as far as I know, to buy a six-foot portrait of himself.)
It’s In French — But You Gotta Watch And Share March 8, 2025March 7, 2025 “This speech is like that moment in Casablanca when they sing the Marseillaise!” There are subtitles, of course.
OUR Kind Of Billionaire March 6, 2025March 7, 2025 In no particular order: 1. J.B. Pritzker. Take 73 seconds to watch. 2. Mark Cuban. His CostPlusDrugs saves consumers a fortune. The “Shark Tank” star and Dallas Mavericks owner has ruled out running, but what a great president he would make. 3-4-5. Oprah Winfrey! Taylor Swift! Judith Faulkner! Self-made but not self-ish. 6. Nick Hanauer, whose must-watch 6-minute TED talk and must-read Pitchforks article I’ve shared here a hundred times. 7. Warren Buffett, whose wisdom, humility, decency, business success, and integrity make him Trump’s polar opposite. No king of debt or master of bankruptcy, he. Did you know that Buffett’s dad was a super-conservative Nebraska Congressman? “So why are you a Democrat?” I once asked. “Well, if you’ve read John Rawls and considered his ‘veil of ignorance,’ how could you be anything else?” was the gist of his reply. (Needless to say, I had not read John Rawls.) John Rawls’ veil of ignorance: You’re in the womb and somehow have the power to design the world you’re about to be born into. The only thing is: you don’t know whether you’ll be born male or female; black or white; straight, gay, or trans; mentally gifted or challenged, great-looking or palatoschistic; with a killer immune system or immuno-compromised; to wealthy parents or a single drug-addicted mom . . . how would you order society? Aristocracy? Kleptocracy? Communism? Dictatorship? Unregulated, Darwinian, monopolistic capitalism? Voting rights only for white men of property? If you would want universal health care and a living minimum wage . . . the wealthy paying higher marginal tax rates than their secretaries . . . capitalism with lots of opportunity to get rich but regulated to assure consumer protection, investor protection, safe food, water, drugs, and workplaces, clean air and robust competition . . . an adequate social safety net, sensible gun safety regulation, and collective action to prevent “the tragedy of the commons” (as in, for example, climate change) . . . checks and balances that require compromise . . . respect for the rule of law and for long-established norms of civility . . . if you would want these things, then welcome to the Democratic Party. I think MAGA Republicans want at least most of those things but have been skillfully misled. That’s what demagogues do: skillful misdirection. Look at Hugo Chavez. How did his demagoguery turn out for the once relatively prosperous, democratic Venezuelans? Or, a lifetime earlier, how did demagoguery turn out for the Italians and the Germans? Why are we suddenly on the side of the Russians and North Koreans? Did MAGA-ns realize this is what they were voting for? Chaos instead of competence? Higher inflation and interest rates? A Trumpcession and lower 401k balances? Shutting down medical research in mid-experiment that might one day save their children’s lives? I know a lot of good people who voted for Trump. This is not what they voted for. Many Republican senators feel the same way but are afraid for their personal safety. Anne Applebaum: We have become the bad guys. “Trump and Vance Shattered Europe’s Illusions About America.” If Reagan was a white-hatted cowboy, Trump and Vance are Mafia dons. The chorus of Republican political leaders defending them seems both sinister and surprising to Europeans too. Worth reading in full: The Rise of the Brutal American. Or this: U.S. Joins Axis of Evil. TODAY’S ACTION STEP Check out Indivisible’s Musk or Us Recess Toolkit. Share it widely. CORRECTION Yesterday I claimed Trump said he was the best president since George Washington. Actually, he said Washington may have been #2. Have a great weekend!
Stocks And Facts March 6, 2025 If you care more about democracy than money, by all means skip ahead. Either way, don’t miss Claire’s investment update at the end. STOCKS CMRX, first suggested here in 2022 at $1.74, is being acquired at $8.55. As posted recently, I sold half at $4.83. Yesterday, at $8.40, I sold the rest. (Whoever bought it is welcome to the extra 15 cents.) VERU has a drug in development that it believes everyone taking the new miracle weight-loss drugs will consider taking as well. Early indications are that with their drug, the weight loss patients experience is 99% fat and only 1% muscle — versus 69%/31%. Most people would much rather lose fat than muscle. This one is highly speculative — with no revenues and big expenses, they could, for one thing, run out of cash. But it comes recommended from the same wonderful reader who suggested CMRX, and who thinks VERU has the potential to be a 10X or 20X winner, so I bought a bunch yesterday at 52 cents a share. Only with money I could truly afford to lose. PRKR keeps sliding, down to 65 cents last night from its recent $1.26 high. But you know what else keeps happening? Time keeps passing. Which means we grow ever closer to the hoped for trials in its numerous lawsuits. In the meantime, there was this press release yesterday. It seems encouraging. Ultimately what’s at stake is whether patents mean anything and small inventors still have a shot in America. I think they do, and that a jury might agree (as one did to the tune of $173 million 12 years ago). Only with . . . OPRT has given up some of its gains as well, but my same thinking applies: Time will pass. If a year from now they really do report earnings in the range of $1.10 to $1.30 a share, as projected, I would expect the company to be awarded a multiple of 12X or more, so a double from here. To me, the reward outweighs the risk . . . though only with . . . And since you’re interested in money, here is Warren Buffett’s annual letter from a couple of weeks ago. The foregoing speculations notwithstanding, he drives home the point that the market as a whole is hardly a bargain here. FACTS The President told us Tuesday night Joe Biden handed him a horrible economy and stratospheric inflation. In point of actual fact, President Biden handed him inflation under 3%, and falling; and an economy that both the Economist and the Wall Street Journal called “the envy of the world.” Trump said he was the best president since George Washington; Biden, the worst. We all know that little he says is true. Even Republican senators privately know that. But the MAGA base eat it up. They know Ukraine started the war against Russia (by being invaded?); that the January 6 cop-beaters were heroes, unjustly imprisoned; that contracting measles builds valuable immunity; that John McCain was no hero; that Trump will absolutely release his tax returns as soon as the audit is completed. Here, with much less snark (I can’t help myself — his breathtaking dishonesty and narcissism scream for snark), is NPR’s Fact Check of the Joint Address. COMBINING STOCK PICKING AND FACT CHECKING Claire Margaret Brown — former Air Force doctor and exceptional trans woman whose Aristides Capital has compounded my IRA at 15.83% since 2008 (growing each $1 into $11.30) — has given me permission to share excerpts from her latest monthly investor letter: . . . [T]he elimination of USAID Global Health funding will, in the very short run, save $18 per American per year and will result in the deaths of tens of millions of people worldwide. I don’t know if it matters to the financial markets or not. I do know it is, without a doubt, the darkest moment for the American government in my adult life. In the long run, it’s also incredibly stupid. In a global economy, disease does not stop at borders. More HIV, more malaria, more measles, more tuberculosis, more chikungunya…they will come for us. Had Trump been President in 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa would have been several regional Ebola epidemics around the globe. It would have easily cost $100 billion or more in knock-on trade effects. Instead of saving millions of lives, President Trump this weekend announced a national “Strategic Reserve” of cryptocurrency, to include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Ripple, and Cardano. I don’t really understand what those last three things even are, but I’m 99.99999% certain that none of them are a strategic asset. I do know that Trump donor and “Crypto Tzar,” David Sacks, happens to own all five. That is probably all you need to know about them, too. Our President had a nifty episode of narcissistic rage in the oval office on Friday, as he and his toady Vice President lectured Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for daring to ask what would make Vladimir Putin honor a new ceasefire this time, when he has broken three already (the Budapest Memorandum, First Minsk Agreement, and Second Minsk Agreement). This is the sort of thing markets absolutely do care about because for the last eight decades the Western world has been led–politically, militarily, and economically—by the United States, while in the first six weeks of Trump’s second administration, he has unilaterally done more to damage U.S. hegemony than anything else that has happened in the last eighty years. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas commented “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It is up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.” . . . Today, the U.S. equity market sold off again on a Trump plan for tariffs against Canada and Mexico, which makes no economic sense, unless one were clumsily trying to destroy the entire American auto industry except for Tesla. The policy of this administration is utterly incoherent other than fairly consistent in its awfulness. It’s a mix of Project 2025, white nationalism, Christian theocracy, Curtis Yarvin, aggrieved Silicon Valley sociopathy, Trump’s unpredictable narcissistic ego wounds, and the most brazen corruption ever seen in the United States. There’s no point even writing an outlook for the year or the month because it’s hard to know what cruel idiocy will happen next. My expectations for the second Trump administration were incredibly low, and Trump has delivered well beneath them. Humans are prone to normalcy bias, but nothing about this administration is normal. The decline of our country that I thought might take years to materialize is being delivered in mere weeks. As always, I tend to be very mild in the way my political views bleed into the portfolio, and we tend not to run the portfolio net short, ever, and this year has been no exception. Fortunately we’ve been positioned generally okay so far . . . We have close to 25% of the portfolio long foreign securities, whereas nearly all of our short positions tend to be in the United States, so, effectively, we are close to market neutral in the United States (on a beta-adjusted basis), and our modest net long exposure comes mostly from Europe, Japan, and Canada. . . . [T]he share prices of our longs have held up much better than the prices of our shorts . . . . . . But the last six weeks . . . to see millions of deaths getting queued up globally for no good reason and to see our nation weakened dramatically and its institutions gutted for nothing but some crazy ideology of destruction . . . it’s a good reminder that the world needs me and you. The world needs all of us. We, here at this moment, each of us the only one of us who has ever been or will ever be, the product of 13.7 billion years of the universe striving to see what is possible, we each make so many changes in the lives and the futures of everyone with whom we interact. Our country, the most gifted nation in the history of earth, is in such a stupid, needlessly dark time right now, but hopefully your response to that is to be a light in the lives of those around you. We’re incredibly fortunate to be here. . . . Thank you, as always, for your partnership. Good luck navigating all of this. The money part is not the hard part right now, and hopefully we’ll help to keep it that way. Join Indivisible! Plant seeds of DIS-disinformation!
It’s Not A State of the Union It’s A . . . March 4, 2025March 4, 2025 State of Emergency! HERE’S WHY We are abandoning our allies to align with Russia! Doing everything Putin wants us to do! Switching sides! Losing the Cold War! Relinquishing our role as Leader of the Free World! Dismantling our government! We are also starving children and enabling malaria, polio, and AIDS to flourish, even as we surrender our “soft power” to China and Russia. And launching a Smoot-Hawley-reminiscent trade war that, if continued, will spike inflation and interest rates, tank the world’s economies and stock markets, tank 401k’s, and cause widespread hardship. Most of you get all that. (Carl sees the emergency as men playing in women’s sports and immigrant-perpetrated crime.) WHAT TO DO In a word? More than ever. (Well, three words.) So if you’ve been avoiding the news or taking a break — welcome back. We need you. Here’s my checklist: 1. Watch (or listen to) Rachel Maddow every night. She’s sometimes shrill or unfair; but most of the time she’s right on target, and often she’s invaluable. Last night, for example, which you may be able to watch here. And should definitely be able to listen to here. Everything Trump is doing is what Putin wants him to do. Why is that? What are we getting in return? Is this what the American people voted for? The parallels to the late 1930’s and 1940 are chilling. 2. Consider Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, and Morning Joe when you have time, too. 3. Join an Indivisible chapter, if you haven’t already, or start one of your own — and get all your friends and relatives to do likewise. Participate in the actions they suggest. 4. Plant seeds of DIS-disinformation. 5. Live even more frugally than before, if you can, to build savings to fund the struggle. 6. Watch tonight. Technically, it’s not a State of the Union — but, however awful, it is history in the making. And don’t be too angry if Democrats don’t do something brilliant, because it’s not entirely clear (at least to me) what would be most effective. I liked the idea of our all just boycotting — what a statement it would be to show the chamber half empty. But someone pointed out that it wouldn’t be empty — the Rs would likely just fill those seats with cheering Republican staffers. 7. Know that ultimately we ARE going to turn things around because this is NOT what most Americans want, and at the end of the day, ours is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. We are NOT going to give in to dictatorship as they did in Russia after their brief fling with democracy. 8. Spread the word. It’s not easy to move from watching the news to becoming part of it, attending a town hall or demonstrating in front of a senator’s local office holding up a witty home-made sign. It’s a sacrifice to redirect part of one’s Travel & Entertainment budget to one’s budget to help save the world. But compared to what our forefathers had to sacrifice for democracy? Or what our lives will be like if we fail? It’s thrilling to have a chance to be part of something this important. 9. Lists are better with TEN things, so add one of your own — and share it with me! READER FEEDBACK: PRONOUNS [I haven’t cherry-picked these. If any of my LGBTQ+ readers disagree, they haven’t me-mailed. But realistically, my readers skew older and less gender-nonconforming than those who’d be most likely to push back. I’m sure my view is not universally accepted — and I respect theirs . . . unless, that is, they advocate for the possessive — he/him/his. That I can’t respect — but, as I argued yesterday, on grounds of grammar and logic, not politicals.] Gloria: “THANK YOU for posting this. I agree 100%. Speaking of signaling, I think all liberals, progressives, Democrats, etc, who are attending protests and demonstrations should proudly carry the American flag along with their signs. The flag is a symbol that belongs to all of us, not to MAGA, yet they have appropriated it. It is important to signal that we demonstrate precisely because we love this country.” David T.: “Thank you for saying what nobody else seems willing to say: stop with the ridiculous virtue-signaling pronouns, unless (as you said) you are someone who uses pronouns that are not obvious to the rest of us. I absolutely agree that, despite good intentions, they’ve done us far more harm than good.” Drew W.: “Far and away the most damaging ad in 2024 was the one that ended, ‘She’s for they/them. He’s for us.'” → So I would argue that a more effective way to express support for the gender-nonconforming — rather than specifying your pronouns in solidarity — is to send something to one or two of these 100 groups.” Rich G.: “It’s not just pronouns. There are 500,000 athletes under the auspices of the NCAA. Maybe 10 transsexual athletes. My friends say they don’t want their daughters to have to compete against men. Duh! We allowed Trump to make this tiny example a big issue.” → Yes. Here was my discourse on that: “The Elephant In The Bathroom.”
Enough With The Pronouns – UPDATED March 4, 2025June 27, 2025 I got an email from a 78-year-old heterosexual partner in a major law firm whose first name is clearly male. His signature block specified his pronouns: he/him/his. The grammarian in me wonders why anyone needs to include the possessive. Is there an imaginable gender identity that would allow for he/him/hers? The progressive in me believes that most people who specify their pronouns, though wonderfully well-intentioned, should stop. I can think of only two reasons to specify pronouns. 1. To provide needed guidance, which the world should be grateful for and enthusiastically respect. This makes total sense. In most cases, however, guidance is not needed. Most people identify as — and are readily identifiable as — men or women. So the only reason for them to specify their pronouns is . . . 2. To signal support. Which is a beautiful thing but which raises this question: Does the comfort it provides our gender-nonconforming brethren outweigh the discomfort it may cause good people who are not yet at ease with gender-nonconformity? I want to win elections — not least to help protect the gender-nonconforming, who do not fare well in MAGA land or autocratic states like Russia and North Korea (our latest allies at the U.N.). By specifying pronouns when they’re not needed, we signal that we think everyone should — that specifying pronouns is what all enlightened people do. It kind of says (not literally, of course, but subtly): Democrats do this, Republicans don’t. (Well? Do you know Republicans who specify their pronouns?) If we controlled one or two branches of government, and if the Republican Party had not become the party of the Proud Boys and autocracy, I might feel differently. But when so much is at stake, I think we should avoid signaling to millions of good people that they really don’t fit in with us. Because on almost every policy that matters to them — from health care to the economy to climate, from taxing billionaires to sensible gun safety to not pardoning cop-beaters — we are exactly the party they fit in with. UPDATE! In June, I sent the above to a recent Rhodes Scholar who runs an LGBT nonprofit, urging him to stop specifying their pronouns unless they thought guidance might be needed. He replied: From our point of view, given that we work with Gen-Z LGBTQIA+ community members who generally support pronoun use, we think it is strategic for us to continue stating pronouns in OutVote-related communication. But we do understand your argument and think this is an important conversation to keep having! See: How Gen Z Changed Its Views On Gender | TIME 2023 To which I replied: Thank you for the TIME link – not new, but new to me. Wow. I guess I should amend my screed to suggest pronouns not be +indiscriminately+ used. I.e., it makes sense to use them in addressing a Gen Z audience, especially a queer one. But – until the world changes some more – candidates should generally not use them unless the gain they expect from young voters will outweigh the loss they can expect from everyone else. Does that make sense? He said it did. And so I have. BONUS Did you see Heather Cox Richardson’s recent post? “Putin is on the inside now.” It is so worth reading in full.