We Are Schrödinger's Cat

Some Trump/politics thoughts during a high variance age

I don’t tend to address feedback, but I’ve been getting one sort of feedback in particular lately and I think it’s worth discussing. First, the backdrop, in my own head and outside of it.

I’m a little distracted by recent global turbulence and perhaps you are too. Or maybe you aren’t. I ran into one of my neighbors on Wednesday evening, who commented that I looked a bit tired after lugging my toddler and some bags with less than Tanzanian dexterity. I said that I’d foolishly stayed up late following the previous evening’s financial turmoil, only to see a wild swing in the other direction hours after I woke up. He said, “Why would you do that?” My friend wasn’t absorbed in the day to day and had been fresher for it. He follows events, don’t get me wrong. Just not by the minute.

He’s got a point. When the news gets crazy, consuming it moment by moment can make you crazy. It’s not that the events are irrelevant or immaterial to your life. It’s more that, Western Conference standings notwithstanding, it’s inherently unhealthy to mainline a high variance situation beyond your control. And yet I do it on occasion. When we’re living in history, it’s sometimes hard to put down the history book.

My subscribers run the gamut and so I get many different types of political feedback. With Donald Trump in power, and the Trump Moon having given way to this current rollercoaster experience, the anti-Trump faction is understandably louder. He is perpetually in variance and so we are perpetually in variance. The entire world’s economy turns on his often inconsistent whims. If this situation was highly concerning to you before the current moment, it’s understandable if you’re in overdrive right now.

This segment, in emails and comments, beseeches me to match their energy. How am I not horrified, terrified, etc. Why criticize anything else? Why make fun of anything else? I could demure about this feedback and say that I effectively run a sports media blog so leave me alone, but I get it. Political topics come up here. People like to see their perspective reflected when they come up.

I can’t really get on that segment’s level though, even if I too am concerned. It’s not even that I think they’re wrong about Trump. Not sure where I’d put the odds, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they’re right.

There’s a reason you don’t hear me use phrases like, “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” even if some pundits are quite obviously driven mad by this particular obsession. I don’t say “TDS,” because, if this term begets a historically cataclysmic meltdown, the TDSers will be at least spiritually validated. I don’t know what the odds of disaster are, but given the constant action, that scenario has to be on the table.

If the end of this road is financial ruin and/or losing World War 3, whatever could have been dismissed in the present as overwrought hysteria will pale in comparison to the result. Sure, many of the people freaking out right now never cared about “trade war” politics prior to 2025, but their fixation is mostly characterological. They believe that the reckless man will find a way to ruin and are seeing returns in keeping with that prediction.

I also don’t know they’re right. You can call that relativism or wishy-washy or whatever else. It’s just how I honestly see it. The last guy in charge wasn’t exactly awake at the wheel and life continued. That’s not an invitation for getting into an argument over which scenario is worse. The point is I don’t know how the game ends and would rather not act like I do. I’m queasy in the present, though less so than April of 2020, but I don’t presume to see the future.

That’s in part because I’m obsessed with history and have largely come to the conclusion that it’s far more chaotic than I’m comfortable with. Certain rulers are obviously bad, at the time, but there’s less correlation between prudence and results than feels right. A leader who seems like a steady hand on the tiller can create chaos with inaction. Or a leader who seemed rather popular in his day, like Bill Clinton, gets downgraded on the basis of how his policies impacted the longterm. Should Queen Elizabeth I have challenged Spain at the height of its power? Well, the Spanish Armada’s attack on England failed in adverse weather conditions, so it really doesn’t matter what her hypothetical win probability was. Speaking of England, William the Conqueror’s invasion could have gone either way, but he won, so that’s why he’s “Conqueror” and why we use French origin words like “invasion.”

Is Trump like those leaders? Truth be told, he reminds me a bit more of Napoleon before he lost 600,000 soldiers in Russia, but the broader point is I don’t know.

I doubt what I’m saying will make anyone happier, but I see the current moment as one where we are Schrödinger's Cat. I don’t know if we’re dead. I don’t know if we’re healthy or thriving even. Some of you have the right guess but only time will open the box. Believing this makes me anxious. Believing this makes me relaxed.

In the meantime, I aim to be calm, perhaps even to the point of glibness on topics that deserve sobriety. I don’t think I can compartmentalize whatever’s going on with politics away from the sports media cultural topics, but I’ll mostly try to be dispassionate. Times are crazy. I can reflect aspects of the culture, but I cannot completely mirror the energy of these times.