Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
The Trump Administration will come to an end this week, and not a moment too soon. Trump began his presidency with a surprise win over Hillary Clinton. He ended it with a foolish invasion of the U.S. Capitol. The win was more about the weakness of the Democratic Party than any electoral strength of Trumpism. As soon as the Democrats discarded Clinton, they had little trouble beating him.
But let’s take stock of what we might learn from the 4 years of the Trump Administration.
Any reader not living off the grid knows about the Trump insurrection on January 6 (and second impeachment). Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol. And they did so with a bit of help from some police officers and violent conflict with others. The Trump insurrection involved a conflict between QAnon conspiracy theorists, other Trumpists, and the police. Insofar as that’s true, I’m inclined to grab and modify Trump’s ‘very fine people on both sides’ remark.
In the Trump insurrection there were, indeed, very bad people on both sides, i.e., Trumpism and policing. We might say a great deal about how the left should respond. But I’m inclined to say the left shouldn’t directly involve itself in a fight between a Trump insurrection and police officers. Because that’s not really our fight.
Welcome to the first book post of 2021! As with December, I’ve added a TV show to this one.
Let’s take a look at what I’m reading in the new year.
I made my previous COVID-19 data in Iowa post at the end of August 2020. After spikes in March/April and June, the COVID-19 situation in Iowa had stabilized in August. However, there were some threats looming on the horizon. Primary among those were the upcoming re-openings of K-12 schools and colleges.
Let’s take a look at what happened after August.
Senior executives claim they work a lot. How much? On average, they report working 62 hours per week. If we expand to studies including middle management, we come up with average work weeks up to a whopping 72 hours. Talk about work!
Well, yes. As we’ll see, that’s the idea. Are senior executives and other managers some new proletariat, as they want us to believe? Do they toil away at work all day like real life hero-leaders from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged? Would the world fall apart if they quit doing what they do – if the people working under them took over their roles?
Not exactly.
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