Tag: life

I’ve been told I can’t be taken seriously until I acknowledge that the left has been hijacked by radicals. So, here goes…”

Alright. Let’s check the evidence. When people say “the radical left took over,” they usually mean the progressive wing — AOC-types, big ideas, big rhetoric.

So let’s look at outcomes.

They wanted Medicare for All, court packing, a wealth tax, abolition of private insurance, Green New Deal–scale change, national rent control.

They got:

a bipartisan infrastructure bill negotiated down to the bone,

modest climate policy routed through markets,

limited drug price negotiation,

and student loan relief partly undone by the courts.

That’s it.

No Medicare for All.

No court packing.

No wealth tax.

In fact, the people most furious during the Biden years weren’t Republicans — they were progressives, loudly complaining they were being ignored.

That’s usually your first clue the party hasn’t been hijacked.

So why am I told I “can’t be taken seriously” unless I accept this story anyway?

Because right-wing media has repeated it for so long it’s hardened into a premise, not an argument. The left is radical. Everyone knows this. Move on.

Once that happens, policy stops mattering.

Now try the same test on the right.

What the far right wanted was power: loyalty tests, punishment for dissent, criminal investigations of enemies, mass deportations, aggressive ICE raids, law enforcement as a weapon.

And they’re getting it.

ICE raids aren’t rhetoric anymore.

Mass deportation isn’t a chant — it’s an operational goal.

Institutions are pressured. Independence is treated as defiance.

Foreign adventurism is back on the menu — enthusiastically.

That’s the difference.

One side has a loud flank that tweets and fumes when it’s ignored.

The other has a loud flank that’s setting norms and bending institutions.

One side asks for sweeping change and gets incremental policy.

The other asks for norm-breaking and gets… norm-breaking.

A loud fringe is annoying.

A governing fringe is dangerous.

Calling these two things the same is ridiculous.

If you can’t tell the difference between activists being ignored and institutions being bent, you’re not being fair-minded.

You’re just refusing to look.

And pretending not to see it is its own kind of extremism.

January 26, 2026
People sometimes ask if my politics are “far left.”

People sometimes ask if my politics are “far left.”

They’re not.

I’m center-left by any serious U.S. standard. Boring. Functional. Regulated-capitalism-with-guardrails center-left.

I believe markets are useful but not moral.

Capitalism works best when it’s regulated.

Voting should be easy.

The law should apply to everyone.

Healthcare and education should be accessible.

Public education should be well funded and not ideologically captured.

Peaceful protest should be protected—even when it’s uncomfortable or disruptive.

Religion should be protected—but not imposed.

Pluralism is a strength, not a threat.

That used to be called mainstream.

I didn’t move left.

I stayed put.

If this now sounds radical, it’s not because these ideas changed.

It’s because we quietly stopped agreeing on what democracy requires.

In 1995, this would’ve made me a normal Democrat—or a very reasonable Republican.

In 2026, it apparently makes me dangerous.

What changed is the scenery.

At some point, the party that wrapped itself in the American flag started flirting with foreign strongmen, talking about “illiberal democracy,” and—small detail—waving the Union Jack at rallies while lecturing everyone else about patriotism.

That’s new.

So when people call views like mine “radical,” I can’t help but wonder:

When did believing in elections, rule of law, and regulated capitalism become the extreme position?

If this is “far left,” the news isn’t where I stand.

It’s how far the map has shifted.

That’s where I stand.

January 21, 2026
How The US Stayed On Top for Decades

For most of modern history, great powers didn’t have allies — they had enemies in waiting. When a country gets strong enough, everyone else starts planning for the day it turns on them.

The United States was the exception.

Not because we were perfect.

Because we understood something basic: power works better when it looks like leadership instead of entitlement.

I’ve been traveling internationally for about forty years. Here’s something that would shock most Americans who haven’t left the country in a while:

Much of the world has moved on.

Cities are cleaner. Infrastructure is newer. Trains run on time. Healthcare is simpler. Daily life, in many places, is smoother, safer, and more modern than what we tolerate at home.

In some corners of the U.S., we look like the developing country now.

You don’t see that if you never leave.

And here’s why that matters.

For decades, other countries put up with our messiness because we were predictable, fair enough, and broadly aligned with a rules-based system that benefited everyone.

That’s changing.

We walk away from international institutions like they’re optional.

We talk openly about “running” other countries and taking their resources.

We stop using the language of partnership and start using the language of ownership.

That doesn’t project strength.

It projects risk.

And our allies are reacting exactly the way history says they should.

Europe is building trade and security plans that don’t depend on Washington.

Canada is quietly reassessing whether the relationship is still special.

Mexico is hedging — paying protection money while preparing backup options.

These aren’t acts of rebellion.

They’re acts of self-preservation.

Once a superpower starts saying, “Power entitles,” every smaller country asks the same question:

Entitles you to what? And am I next?

That’s how leadership collapses without a single shot fired.

That’s how “America First” becomes “America Alone.”

History is full of strong nations that ruled by fear.

It’s also full of strong nations that woke up one day surrounded by better, calmer, more functional alternatives.

America avoided that fate for a long time — not because we were saints, but because we understood that trust compounds.

We’re burning that capital fast.

And once the world learns it doesn’t need you, it doesn’t come back just because you feel tough.

That’s the path we’re on.

And it ends badly — not for them.

For us.

January 19, 2026
Why Is Christianity Declining In America

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what’s killing Christianity in America. I don’t think it’s the drag brunches or TikTok witches or the “liberal media.” I kinda think it’s the Christians.

Let me explain.

For centuries, Christianity grew because of what people saw in those who followed Him. They saw kindness. Integrity. Sacrifice. They saw someone who fed the hungry, healed the sick, sat with the outcasts, and asked His followers to do the same. They saw people living in ways that made others say, “I don’t know what that is, but I want it.”

That’s how faith spreads. Not by force. Not by law. By witness.

But something’s shifted.

More and more Americans—especially young ones—aren’t just walking away from church. They’re running. And not because they’re lazy or sinful or corrupted by culture. They’re walking away because the loudest voices in American Christianity no longer sound anything like Christ.

They hear cruelty. Smugness. Power grabs. Tax cuts for billionaires. Votes against feeding the poor and healing the sick. They hear talk of guns, walls, surveillance, punishment. They hear fear dressed up as faith.

And then they look around at the people in their lives—their friends, coworkers, neighbors. The ones who don’t believe. The ones who left church years ago. The ones who don’t talk about Jesus but somehow act more like Him than the ones who won’t shut up about Him.

And it gets awkward.

When your billboard says “love your neighbor” but your actions scream “just not that one,” people notice. When the folks claiming moral high ground are publicly more obsessed with bathrooms than hungry kids, it starts to feel like a parody of itself.

The problem isn’t that Christianity has failed. The problem is that too many self-professed Christians have become terrible advertisements for it.

And if you’re reading this and feeling defensive, maybe pause and ask yourself why. Are you following Him—or just following people who say they are?

Because at some point, if the church has become the leading supplier of hypocrisy in your town, you don’t get to blame the devil for the empty pews.

January 12, 2026
On Accidentally Becoming the Kind of Person Who Says “Marvelous”

The other day, I horrified myself.

I told someone something was marvelous. Not ironically. Not as a bit. Just… marvelous.

I heard it leave my mouth and felt my internal timeline shift. Since when do I say marvelous? When did that replace solid, killer, or the all-purpose cool? At what point did my vocabulary quietly file for social security?

For most of my life, there were words I avoided on principle. Words that signaled softness, pretension, or—worst of all—enthusiasm. Words that would get you gently, but decisively, bullied by your friends in a bar.

Apparently, my fear of that judgment has expired.

This is what aging actually looks like. It’s not gaining wisdom; it’s just caring less about the performance. You slowly realize you’ve earned the right to use words that sound like they belong to a retired British colonel.

I’m trying a few on for size. No commitment yet. Just a trial period. Here is the current inventory:

“Lovely.” This word used to belong exclusively to grandmothers and people who own ceramic cats. And yet, here we are. It turns out “nice” is lazy. “Lovely” does the job.

“Delightful.” I don’t use it often, but when I do, I mean it. Which is unsettling. Nothing delights you by accident. To call something delightful is to admit you are having a good time, which is a dangerous precedent.

“Pleasant.” An underrated power move. Calm. Unambitious. In a world screaming for attention, “pleasant” is a relief. I used to think it was faint praise. Now I realize it’s the goal.

“Rather.” As in, “I rather enjoyed that.” This one worries me. It sounds like I’m about to order sherry. But it feels precise. And precision is intoxicating.

“Sensible.” This one hurt. The first time I described a pair of shoes or a decision as “sensible,” I felt 25-year-old me shake his head and walk out of the room. He’s right to leave. He wouldn’t get it.

“Content.” Not happy. Not thrilled. Content. This word has no interest in impressing anyone. It’s the linguistic equivalent of staying home on a Friday night because you want to.

What’s interesting is that none of these words are flashy. They don’t try to win the room. They sit there, comfortable with themselves, wearing a cardigan.

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe I’ve simply reached the age where I can say marvelous without instinctively checking to see if anyone is rolling their eyes.

I’m not abandoning cool entirely. I’m not a monster. But if something is marvelous, I’m saying it.

December 17, 2025
Why It’s So Hard To Change Someone’s Mind

I used to believe facts were currency.

If I put enough solid data on the table, I assumed the other person would eventually look at the pile, nod, and cash out their wrong opinion.

This belief lasted longer than it should have. About as long as I believed eating cereal for dinner was a phase, not a lifestyle choice I would later defend vigorously.

Here’s the uncomfortable reality:

Facts don’t compete with other facts.

They compete with identity.

Most arguments fail not because the evidence is weak, but because the argument is aimed at the wrong target. We assume people are trying to be correct. Usually, they’re just trying to belong.

Beliefs aren’t opinions.

They’re uniforms.

When you challenge someone’s belief, you’re not disputing a fact. You’re challenging their tribe, their past decisions, and the role they’ve been playing for years.

That’s not a debate.

That’s a threat assessment.

This is why evidence loses to belonging.

Once something becomes tribal, truth becomes secondary. Agreeing with the “wrong” fact isn’t growth — it’s defection. And people don’t defect casually, especially not in public, and especially not online.

At that point, the argument is no longer about truth.

It’s a loyalty test.

This also explains why correcting people rarely works.

Correction doesn’t feel helpful. It feels like exposure. The brain doesn’t hear new information — it hears you’re in danger. Curiosity shuts down. Defenses go up.

The cleaner the correction, the harder people cling to the position. From the outside, this looks like stupidity. It usually isn’t.

It’s self-preservation.

Changing your mind is expensive.

It costs pride.

It costs status.

Sometimes it costs relationships.

Admitting you were wrong doesn’t update a belief. It rewrites a story. It forces you to revisit things you said, shared, defended — and sit with the possibility that you were wrong.

Most people would rather be wrong than embarrassed.

So bad arguments survive. Not because they’re persuasive, but because they’re safe. They keep you in good standing. They let you avoid that quiet, unwelcome realization — usually late at night — that you might have been played.

I’m not exempt. I’ve held losing positions far longer than I should have because exiting felt like admitting defeat. Doubling down feels like strength, even when it’s just damage with confidence.

Facts still matter.

Just not on the timeline we want, and not in environments where being wrong carries a social cost. Facts work when accepting them costs less than ignoring them.

Most public arguments fail for a simple reason.

They think they’re debating information.

They’re negotiating identity.

And until we’re honest about that, we’ll keep wondering why the facts were solid…

and the argument went nowhere.

December 16, 2025
I Fed My Entire Life Into ChatGPT and All I Got Was… Insight? Closure? Mild Humiliation? Hard to Say.
At some point in adulthood, a man has to confront the paper trail he’s been leaving behind since childhood — the journals, the planners, the frantic lists written in moments of optimism and panic. Most people shove theirs in a box and wait for their kids to one day throw them out.
I, on the other hand, uploaded mine into ChatGPT.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this:
If you give an AI 40 years of your handwriting, it will happily psychoanalyze you without even blinking.

And yes, ChatGPT can read handwriting now.
Let me repeat that for the people in the back:

ChatGPT. Can. Read. Handwriting.

Cursive. Print. Scribbles.
The stuff I wrote in 1986 when my hormones were louder than my personality.
The frantic 1991 Barcelona planner pages that read like I was being chased by creditors, self-doubt, and the ghost of my future obligations.
The Day One digital entries chronicling my existential crises, business collapses, emotional resurrections, and occasional triumphs.

It gulped it all down and said, essentially:
“Thanks, Mike. Delicious. Here’s your life.”

Apparently other people are doing this too.

I thought I was being innovative — the first man to hand his entire autobiographical archive to a machine.
Turns out, no.

People across the internet are feeding their diaries, old letters, family archives, grief journals, therapy notebooks, and even high-school love notes into GPT. Some want closure. Some want clarity. Some want to rediscover who they were before life flattened them into mortgage-paying, sleep-deprived adults.

We’re all out here saying, “Hey AI, decode me,” like it’s the world’s weirdest confessional booth.

And honestly?
It works.

The Throughline of My Life, According to My AI Biographer

After reading everything from my baby book to my Barcelona meltdown years, ChatGPT came back with a diagnosis I didn’t expect:

I am a man who has been trying to get his life together since 1981.

Not in a sad way.
In a charming, heroic, repetitive way — like if Sisyphus had a Franklin Planner and high hopes.

Every notebook, every decade, every entry seems to include some variation of:
“Tomorrow I get my shit together.”

It’s practically my family crest.

The other throughlines didn’t surprise me as much:
- I reinvent constantly.
  Apparently I have shed more skins than a reptile with commitment issues.
- I archive everything.
  Why live a life when you can also footnote it?
- I’m brutally hard on myself.
  If anyone else talked to me the way 1991 Mike talked to me, I’d block them.
- Beneath all the ambition is a tender streak.
  Who knew? Not me.
- I care too much and forgive too slowly.
  A winning combination if you enjoy emotional turbulence.
But the most unexpected observation?

Despite everything — the failures, the reinventions, the wrong turns — the same hopeful, restless kid is still in there.
The one who wants to do something meaningful.
The one who believes tomorrow’s list might actually work this time.
The one who thinks the next version of himself might finally be the one who sticks.

The Unlikely Threads

Every life has themes. Mine has… tangles.

Here are a few of the threads GPT pulled on — the ones I didn’t notice until a machine laid them out like evidence:

1. The Eternal Reset Button

I am the human embodiment of “Okay, starting Monday.”
This has been going on for forty years.
Consistency is my inconsistent superpower.

2. The Archivist Instinct

I documented my life long before influencers made it fashionable.
Except I did it with spiral notebooks and regret instead of ring lights.

3. The Geography of Reinvention

Nebraska → Spain → New York → Barcelona → My companies → The Music Industry → Trading → Writing → Whatever’s next.
My life story reads like someone was trying to outrun themselves — and accidentally became interesting.

4. The Reluctant Optimist

Every time I wrote a harsh entry, there was always this little shimmer of hope.
Some people have grit; I have recurring optimism with a head injury.

5. The Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility

My journals reveal that I’ve been blaming myself for global events, interpersonal dynamics, and weather patterns since adolescence.

So… was it worth it?

Honestly, yes.
Handing my life to ChatGPT didn’t break me, ruin me, or reveal that I’m a secret sociopath.
Instead, it gave me something I’ve never had before:

A clear view of the narrative arc beneath the noise.

It showed me the patterns I repeat.
It showed me the parts of myself I carry from decade to decade.
It showed me that the kid who wrote, “I hope I become someone someday,”
actually did.

Not perfectly.
Not cleanly.
But unmistakably.

Tomorrow I’ll try to get my life together again.
Some traditions shouldn’t die.
December 6, 2025
What Makes Trump Bad at Business, Life, and As President?

I don’t build companies anymore. I may go back someday. When I found myself with time on my hands, I decided to learn a new skill. Now. I trade gold on the financial markets.

When I first made that shift, I was terrible at it. Worse than most. Because I came in wired like an entrepreneur—obsessed with control, allergic to surrender. In business, that mindset serves you. You see what isn’t there yet, and you make it happen. You bend the world until it fits your plan.

But markets don’t bend. Gold doesn’t care about your plans. It doesn’t care who you are. The market humbles everyone eventually.

Even back when I built companies, though, I never lied to myself about the numbers. You could spin the story, but the math still had to work. That was the line between ambition and delusion.

And that’s where Donald Trump went off the rails.

Trump was never really in the real estate business. His true product was himself—the myth, the name, the attention. The buildings and casinos were just props in a lifelong campaign for validation. When your ego is the business, you can’t afford to face reality.

That’s why he’d make a terrible trader.

When the world doesn’t fit his story, he simply changes the story. When a recent jobs report came in weak, he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and called the numbers “phony.” When intelligence briefings on the Iran strikes contradicted his claim that America had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, he dismissed the analysts and replaced them with loyalists. Each time, he traded truth for ego protection.

It’s the same reason his casinos collapsed. The Taj Mahal was financed with nearly $700 million in junk bonds at 14% interest—a structure that guaranteed failure unless fantasy-level profits rolled in. When the math didn’t work, he doubled down instead of cutting losses. That’s not risk-taking. That’s denial.

In trading, denial kills faster than bad luck. You can’t fire the chart. You can’t rebrand a losing position as “fake news.” You take the loss, you adapt, you move on.

When I started trading gold, I had to unlearn my old wiring—the instinct to fix what’s outside my control. The market doesn’t reward force; it rewards alignment. You win when you stop fighting the tape and start listening to it.

Trump never learned that lesson. He can’t. His entire existence depends on never admitting he’s wrong. He’s trapped inside the one product he can’t afford to discount: himself.

That’s why he was a bad businessman.

It’s why he’d be a disastrous trader.

And it’s why he’s a dangerous president.

Because on the world stage—where power, pride, and perception collide—his refusal to face reality doesn’t just cost him money. It costs nations time, credibility, and lives.

In the end, the markets always find the truth. So does history.

And the truth always settles the account.

October 14, 2025
What Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Means for America

(And why it should terrify us—not along party lines, but as citizens.)

Charlie Kirk, was assassinated today at Utah Valley University. This comes just weeks after a shocking double assassination in Minnesota—two state legislators gunned down in what’s now being investigated as a politically motivated attack. You’d be forgiven for losing track. That’s how fast the temperature is rising.

Before anything else, I want to express my deepest condolences to Charlie Kirk’s family, friends, and supporters. No matter where you stand politically, no one deserves this. And no country should normalize it.

But what this isn’t—what this cannot ever be—is just another political tragedy we scroll past. This is unfiltered desperation and failure seeping into our public life.

We’ve had assassination attempts before—on Trump, on members of Congress—but killing a political influencer in broad daylight on a campus? That’s crossing yet another line.

We need to stop pretending that violence is a random accident or “outlier.” Hatred isn’t burbling under the surface—it’s flooding the streets. Killings like this don’t just raise eyebrows; they expose how far tribalism has eroded civility.

Meanwhile, the very infrastructure meant to prevent this—our domestic terror intelligence—is being dismantled. The FBI has slashed staffing in its Domestic Terrorism Operations Section and shuttered its tracking database on hate crimes and school shootings. Prevention is now reactive.

You feel the threat more clearly each day. You wonder: if someone like Charlie Kirk can be killed in public view, are you next? Are we?

This wouldn’t be happening if people believed the system still worked. But they don’t. Polls show falling trust in elections, in the press, even in whether your vote matters. Add in constant messaging from the top that institutions are rigged—or worse, that they’re enemies.

When people believe their voice can’t be heard they begin to feel violence is the message.

I’ve seen people openly whisper and tweet about civil war. That used to sound unhinged. Now it sounds like something that could happen. And that’s the most dangerous whisper echoing across this country.

So Where Do We Go from Here?

If you want to say this is just “rhetoric,” know this: it is already worse than rhetoric. It’s violence.

If you want to say the FBI or justice system can handle this alone, know this: they’re being de-funded and starved of resources.

If you want to say elections still matter, ask yourself: what message are you sending when you don’t defend them?

We need to demand more than prayers. We have to demand two simple things:

1. Rebuild counterterrorism infrastructure. Money. Personnel. Tools. No more willful ignorance. Don’t allow this to be the beginning of events that give a certain someone the excuse he’s seeking to declare martial law.

2. Restore faith in institutions. Hold elected officials accountable for their rhetoric. Defend objective fact. Support independent media.

Because right now, we’re living in what feels like a slow-motion breakdown—not of ideas, but of the very architecture that held democracy together. And when that collapses, violence becomes communication.

So, yeah: Civil war talk? It’s not crazy anymore. It’s proof that our political ecosystem is cracked open.

And if that isn’t a moment when decent people across all divides come together—voting, organizing, standing in unified outrage—then what exactly were we saving democracy for?

September 10, 2025
Gen X: We Were Supposed to Be Too Sharp for This Sh*t

There’s a very specific kind of shame in watching a country fall apart and realizing your generation was supposed to stop it.

We were the skeptical kids. The “don’t fall for it” crowd. We grew up with irony, sarcasm, and a healthy distrust of institutions. We made fun of cults. We rolled our eyes at televangelists. We knew better.

At least, we thought we did.

We were the last analog generation—and the first digital one. We knew how to rewind a cassette and reboot a modem. We brought the internet into being, and with it, the promise of better information, smarter systems, and a more connected world.

We gave the world Google, Amazon, YouTube.

We gave it Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, the Wu-Tang Clan.

We built the platforms. Designed the interfaces.

We were supposed to be the bridge between what was and what could be.

But now?

We’re watching the whole thing buckle—and pretending we’re just observers.

We post memes about how great it was to grow up drinking from hoses, while an entire generation can’t afford rent, let alone a mortgage.

We forward videos about “the good old days” while Gen Z drowns in debt, climate fear, and medical bills for anxiety disorders they inherited from watching us lose the plot.

And who’s in charge now?

Trump. Again.

President 2.0.

This time with fewer guardrails, more power, and even less shame.

And standing right behind him, RFK Jr.—now Secretary of Health—gutting the CDC, firing career scientists, and rebuilding America’s public health policy around gut feelings and internet comment sections.

We used to point at the USSR and say, “Those poor people don’t get real news—just government propaganda.”

Now we’ve got half the country cheering for our own state-run media, rage-bait headlines, and “alternative facts,” while willingly ignoring everything they know is true.

We’re not living in 1984. We’re living in something dumber.

A self-inflicted propaganda state where people know it’s bullshit—and eat it up anyway.

And Gen X?

We were supposed to be immune to this.

Too jaded. Too sharp. Too allergic to fascism.

We were supposed to be the firewall.

But we ghosted.

No Gen X president because the boomers.

No major Gen X political movement.

No defining generational stand.

We just kept scrolling.

Kept reposting.

Kept telling ourselves we were “above it.”

But the truth is—we’re blowing it.

We were there when the rot was setting in.

And we didn’t stop it.

We let the dumbest grifter of our lifetime sell America a cheap hat and a fake war on reality.

We watched as housing became a luxury, healthcare became a subscription plan, and truth became a punchline.

We let RFK Jr. cosplay as a truth-teller while he dismantled actual science.

And now, with AI about to automate our jobs, scrape our souls, and deepfake us into oblivion, we’re busy sharing memes about the 80s while billionaires plug themselves into immortality servers.

We were supposed to be the generation that didn’t fall for bs.

Instead, we’re managing the collapse like theme park actors refusing to break character while the rollercoaster catches fire.

And yeah, I’m a bit crispy about all of this.

Not just at Trump. Not just at RFK Jr.

But at us.

We were supposed to be too sharp for this sh*t.

We were supposed to know better.

We were supposed to do better.

And if we don’t wake up—right now—history won’t even remember our failure.

It’ll be too busy documenting the fallout.

So come on Gen X. It’s time!

September 10, 2025