Dearie I long to see, that's good to hear. With my penchant for sharing, I like thinking I'm stoking everybody with what will be meaningful. It's said that one opinion expressed stands for multitudes not expressed, so hopefully that's the story here!
Suzanne, I really appreciate how you connect so many of the forces shaping this moment. The sense that we are living through a kind of systemic unraveling across political, ecological, and technological spheres resonates deeply.
The burn metaphor you shared particularly struck me. My connection to Lahaina and the devastation of the fire has made that image feel very real to me. After devastation, the question is not only what was lost, but what kind of world we choose to rebuild. Fire clears the ground, but it does not determine what grows next.
What I also appreciate about your writing is that you are not stopping at reflection. You are inviting people to think about action, planning, and collaboration in a time when many feel overwhelmed or powerless. That invitation matters.
Thanks, Christy -- I always feel so gotten by you. It's like what you hope will happen with a mate. I hope you read the whole burn piece. I didn't have your loss in Laheina in mind, but it's so wise, relating to fire as delivering a new fertility. "Fire Seeds: What Might Grow As the Old World Burns" https://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv22n03page6.html.
What is missing is a “catalytic leader,” the person who steps forward and unifies the moment. And that person rarely begins by announcing themselves as the leader. They usually began by doing something simpler and more powerful: telling the truth about what was actually happening.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a clear example of a catalytic leader—someone who suddenly focuses a nation's will and mobilizes people who were previously uncertain, fragmented, and afraid.
What I understand are the 5 conditions needed for a catalytic leader to show up:
1. Widespread Dissatisfaction (yes)
2. Loss of Institutional Trust (yes)
3. Fragmented but Active Movements (yes)
4. A Clear Narrative Waiting to Be Spoken (In these moments, many people sense the truth of a situation, but no one has articulated it that galvanizes. (so, not yet)
5. Moral Credibility (missing)
The catalytic leader is usually perceived as acting from a sense of purpose rather than ambition. People believe the leader is serving something larger than themselves. E.g., Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela carried such influence. Their authority comes less from position and more from perceived integrity to the cause they articulate.
Trump will not leave, no matter what the incentives. But all fires eventually burn themselves out. But what is missing at this moment, mission-critical, is to recognize that context is decisive. To date, there has been a lack of dynamic leadership with presence and voice to create a new context in which the Trump context is rebuffed. Leadership that grabs the headlines, moves people, and generates a future that is possible that people believe in.
Um, this post is about what we -- you and me --might do to get him gone, so let's just talk about that. Or at least preface your remarks differently, like "Uh oh, I don't see that anything would get him out of there," so you are in the flow of what was presented.
No we aren't "dead," just reality. We are looking at "what's so," the reality in front of us, and what's needed to cause Trump's departure. The key: determine what is missing first. That's step I. And yes, we need to continue and expand the social media, individual, small-group, community, and national efforts. We need to expand the heat of discontent. We need No Kings Day to be more millions than last time. All that is also necessary. All I'm saying is the missing piece is a powerful leader to galvanize all these activities so Trump's actual departure can occur.
I don't want to keep beating a dead horse, but you keep breathing life back into it. This dialogue isn't for wishful thinking, but it's for what we can do with what we have. Like, how about trying to get Trump to resign,..or what?
Power has momentum. Once someone occupies the presidency, they are not just an individual — they are sitting atop an enormous system: party loyalty, government machinery, media reach, donors, and millions of supporters who have invested their identities in Trump.
You don’t dislodge something that large with complaints or feelings of righteous anger. You can pause it for a moment with protests, but as we've seen, it soon snaps back.
You need an equal counterforce.
Think basic physics: an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an equal and opposite force. Politics works the same way. A president is removed only when institutions, party leaders, courts, media, donors, and citizens collectively apply enough pressure to overcome the inertia of the office.
Only a powerful leader can galvanize these elements into a force strong enough to displace Trump. We need a Gandhi, a Mandela, a Martin Luther King Jr., a Václav Havel — leaders whose moral authority can organize courage across institutions and across the public.
Because in an environment this polarized and entrenched, only leadership with that level of moral gravity can generate a counterforce strong enough to move the system.
I love your drive and focus on the possibilities ahead of us. I worry that a confluence of events, traumas,and. Institutional collapse have left many people struggling just to keep their heads above water. Multiple lenses on human development and growth capacity suggest that the higher emotional, cognitive, and ethical capacities required for tolerance of pluralism and community engagement require a baseline of stability, predictability and safety. For decades now, this baseline has been eroded, and many people are in crisis and survival mode. The question I keep landing on is how do we begin to establish the stability and safety required for the implementation of the structurally focused creative ideas that so many people have carefully developed?
I think all bets are off. The past always is a guide, but less so than usual in the unprecedented challenge going on to the existence of humanity. And the search is on, that I've jumped into wholecloth, for how this leaderless majority can make impact. Even a few people, blazing with the passion and the smarts to move the world, might just do it.
I agree that the passion for this is essential. And while we seem to be moving outside of history, developing organic change will take passion, smarts and widespread buy-in and capacity to absorb the changes. History has shown that great ideas without generalized buy-in don’t always work out. That’s not to say that the passion, the drive, the smart ideas shouldn’t keep coming! Only that alongside of them there needs to be work on re-kindling the emotional and psychological capacity to function more pluralistically.
I can see where the race for survival, given overshoot, catches everybody up in it. It's not so imminent as to freeze everyone in terror, but it generates a time of renaissance, where all minds are in play and the creativity is awesome. A noble purpose bringing out the best in us! And that goes along with a new creation story that has us not as sinners but sacred creatures. Why not?
It kind of feels like your thoughts about making an offer. We’re both thinking out of the box at the same time. I do think out going of the box is the only path for this.
And like you, I wasn’t kidding. He’s the same type of genius as Rain Man only about words and manipulating people. If we can get this thought out there, we’ll make progress.
Please watch the movie again and see the parallels. He’s so not normal. Both he and Rain Man are fascinating and mesmerizing to people who don’t think a lot.
It will also help you see the connection to education. Too many people are just plain stupid. The guy is off the wall and they think he can lead a country.
I’d like to get a version of my article published in a major magazine so we can get people thinking critically about what severe imbalance means in a person. Can you help me?
He is a genius as was Rain Man. And a total idiot as was Rain Man.
I see this as a path forward—something we can put our heads together over—-a path to disempower him.
The guy is not just a narcissist. He’s just like Rain Man only with words; he seems more normal than Rain Man when he’s not. And perhaps he’s the first, so doctors didn’t identify his condition.
I read they now have a name for what the real rain man had. It was so unique.
I think like a teacher. I always got to the core of my students so I could help them grow. Some were very complicated but I was good at figuring out their needs so I could keep my classrooms working well. A teacher can’t let a disturbed student ruin things for others. So she has to figure the tough ones out. I always did. So I see him from that perspective—the kid who’s ruining it for the rest of us.
When I wrote my book I hadn’t yet figured him out. I knew he was a disaster and people were falling for him because of our schools having not done their job. I saw him as some type of abnormal force-almost spiritual from the negative side of the other world. Perhaps the universe gave him to us as a warning about AI. We can’t let AI run things either. Balanced human minds must do that.
I think it’s all coming together in that we desperately must fix our schools before AI takes over. AI is for words what calculators are for numbers. People never learning math is not as disastrous as people never learning words and thoughts and ideas.
I remember that learning to write was really hard. I finally got it but who’s going to bother now unless teachers like me make kids learn and teachers like me create the curriculum. We are the teachers they trashed.
I honestly hadn’t studied AI until recently. I was avoiding it. I never use it to write so I thought I could not learn it. Having done so I see it as my best talking point for listening to teachers like me. I’m so glad I did for that reason.
So sticking a “word-version” Rain Man in our midst seems like a spiritual lesson to me, which is why the answer is so hard.
The man is not normal. Normal solutions aren’t going to work. I have a track record of reaching the toughest students. I think I have him pegged and by getting others to see this, we will get many of his followers to do so also.
That was the story of that movie. Tom Cruise needed time to accept Rain Man could not live in the world. Trump followers do also but we must speed it up as he’s such a disaster.
They need to learn we don’t hate him. We hate what he’s doing. We need to identify Trump derangement syndrome as a legitimate concern. I haven’t heard one dr mention anything close to this. They only know their manual. He needs to be added to it!
Look forward to your thoughts knowing how inquisitive your mind is!
I sent your article to Frank George, who is brilliant at diagnosing Trump. This was earlier on Trump's cognitive decline: https://sgcarney.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-trumps-brain. I find everything of Frank's interesting, and he'd be better at dealing with what I don't know enough about that he might get excited about.
Thanks. Good idea. I look forward to his thoughts. The only thing we know for sure is he’s one of a kind. Another theory could be a Martian. That’s a hard one to sell. Whereas Rain Man existed and was so imbalanced. The goal is to find a way to get those who love him to wake up. Every time I hear someone talk about him as so wonderful I feel like this is so beyond logic, how can we solve it? It’s going to take creativity.
Thank you always, Suzanne. Your words and sharing of other brilliant writers' words mean so much to me.
Dearie I long to see, that's good to hear. With my penchant for sharing, I like thinking I'm stoking everybody with what will be meaningful. It's said that one opinion expressed stands for multitudes not expressed, so hopefully that's the story here!
Suzanne, I really appreciate how you connect so many of the forces shaping this moment. The sense that we are living through a kind of systemic unraveling across political, ecological, and technological spheres resonates deeply.
The burn metaphor you shared particularly struck me. My connection to Lahaina and the devastation of the fire has made that image feel very real to me. After devastation, the question is not only what was lost, but what kind of world we choose to rebuild. Fire clears the ground, but it does not determine what grows next.
What I also appreciate about your writing is that you are not stopping at reflection. You are inviting people to think about action, planning, and collaboration in a time when many feel overwhelmed or powerless. That invitation matters.
Thanks, Christy -- I always feel so gotten by you. It's like what you hope will happen with a mate. I hope you read the whole burn piece. I didn't have your loss in Laheina in mind, but it's so wise, relating to fire as delivering a new fertility. "Fire Seeds: What Might Grow As the Old World Burns" https://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv22n03page6.html.
Thanks Suzanne. I will definitely read!!
There's an awesome AI video of Trump taking ayahuasca and becoming peaceful
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDymVbyuqEu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Very awesome. Scroll down: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/report-from-the-future. I wasn't kidding about what could work!
I would pay money to see if MDMA would work on Trump. That would be fascinating.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDymVbyuqEu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Are you applying for Liza's money?
That would be a blessing, but what to do without having such a person is what’s on our table to talk about.
What is missing is a “catalytic leader,” the person who steps forward and unifies the moment. And that person rarely begins by announcing themselves as the leader. They usually began by doing something simpler and more powerful: telling the truth about what was actually happening.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a clear example of a catalytic leader—someone who suddenly focuses a nation's will and mobilizes people who were previously uncertain, fragmented, and afraid.
What I understand are the 5 conditions needed for a catalytic leader to show up:
1. Widespread Dissatisfaction (yes)
2. Loss of Institutional Trust (yes)
3. Fragmented but Active Movements (yes)
4. A Clear Narrative Waiting to Be Spoken (In these moments, many people sense the truth of a situation, but no one has articulated it that galvanizes. (so, not yet)
5. Moral Credibility (missing)
The catalytic leader is usually perceived as acting from a sense of purpose rather than ambition. People believe the leader is serving something larger than themselves. E.g., Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela carried such influence. Their authority comes less from position and more from perceived integrity to the cause they articulate.
Trump will not leave, no matter what the incentives. But all fires eventually burn themselves out. But what is missing at this moment, mission-critical, is to recognize that context is decisive. To date, there has been a lack of dynamic leadership with presence and voice to create a new context in which the Trump context is rebuffed. Leadership that grabs the headlines, moves people, and generates a future that is possible that people believe in.
Um, this post is about what we -- you and me --might do to get him gone, so let's just talk about that. Or at least preface your remarks differently, like "Uh oh, I don't see that anything would get him out of there," so you are in the flow of what was presented.
No we aren't "dead," just reality. We are looking at "what's so," the reality in front of us, and what's needed to cause Trump's departure. The key: determine what is missing first. That's step I. And yes, we need to continue and expand the social media, individual, small-group, community, and national efforts. We need to expand the heat of discontent. We need No Kings Day to be more millions than last time. All that is also necessary. All I'm saying is the missing piece is a powerful leader to galvanize all these activities so Trump's actual departure can occur.
I don't want to keep beating a dead horse, but you keep breathing life back into it. This dialogue isn't for wishful thinking, but it's for what we can do with what we have. Like, how about trying to get Trump to resign,..or what?
Power has momentum. Once someone occupies the presidency, they are not just an individual — they are sitting atop an enormous system: party loyalty, government machinery, media reach, donors, and millions of supporters who have invested their identities in Trump.
You don’t dislodge something that large with complaints or feelings of righteous anger. You can pause it for a moment with protests, but as we've seen, it soon snaps back.
You need an equal counterforce.
Think basic physics: an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an equal and opposite force. Politics works the same way. A president is removed only when institutions, party leaders, courts, media, donors, and citizens collectively apply enough pressure to overcome the inertia of the office.
Only a powerful leader can galvanize these elements into a force strong enough to displace Trump. We need a Gandhi, a Mandela, a Martin Luther King Jr., a Václav Havel — leaders whose moral authority can organize courage across institutions and across the public.
Because in an environment this polarized and entrenched, only leadership with that level of moral gravity can generate a counterforce strong enough to move the system.
If that's all that would save us, we are dead.
I love your drive and focus on the possibilities ahead of us. I worry that a confluence of events, traumas,and. Institutional collapse have left many people struggling just to keep their heads above water. Multiple lenses on human development and growth capacity suggest that the higher emotional, cognitive, and ethical capacities required for tolerance of pluralism and community engagement require a baseline of stability, predictability and safety. For decades now, this baseline has been eroded, and many people are in crisis and survival mode. The question I keep landing on is how do we begin to establish the stability and safety required for the implementation of the structurally focused creative ideas that so many people have carefully developed?
I think all bets are off. The past always is a guide, but less so than usual in the unprecedented challenge going on to the existence of humanity. And the search is on, that I've jumped into wholecloth, for how this leaderless majority can make impact. Even a few people, blazing with the passion and the smarts to move the world, might just do it.
I agree that the passion for this is essential. And while we seem to be moving outside of history, developing organic change will take passion, smarts and widespread buy-in and capacity to absorb the changes. History has shown that great ideas without generalized buy-in don’t always work out. That’s not to say that the passion, the drive, the smart ideas shouldn’t keep coming! Only that alongside of them there needs to be work on re-kindling the emotional and psychological capacity to function more pluralistically.
I can see where the race for survival, given overshoot, catches everybody up in it. It's not so imminent as to freeze everyone in terror, but it generates a time of renaissance, where all minds are in play and the creativity is awesome. A noble purpose bringing out the best in us! And that goes along with a new creation story that has us not as sinners but sacred creatures. Why not?
Absolutely, a Renaissance moment is the hope we carry !
I had the exact same thoughts. He’s so transactional he just might go for it.
They say everything has a price, and I wish we could get attention on offers to make to him. And I wasn't pie in the sky about that. I'm serious.
I’d love to get your thought on my last article https://karenhorwitz.substack.com/p/did-we-elect-rain-man
It kind of feels like your thoughts about making an offer. We’re both thinking out of the box at the same time. I do think out going of the box is the only path for this.
And like you, I wasn’t kidding. He’s the same type of genius as Rain Man only about words and manipulating people. If we can get this thought out there, we’ll make progress.
Please watch the movie again and see the parallels. He’s so not normal. Both he and Rain Man are fascinating and mesmerizing to people who don’t think a lot.
It will also help you see the connection to education. Too many people are just plain stupid. The guy is off the wall and they think he can lead a country.
I’d like to get a version of my article published in a major magazine so we can get people thinking critically about what severe imbalance means in a person. Can you help me?
He is a genius as was Rain Man. And a total idiot as was Rain Man.
I see this as a path forward—something we can put our heads together over—-a path to disempower him.
The guy is not just a narcissist. He’s just like Rain Man only with words; he seems more normal than Rain Man when he’s not. And perhaps he’s the first, so doctors didn’t identify his condition.
I read they now have a name for what the real rain man had. It was so unique.
I think like a teacher. I always got to the core of my students so I could help them grow. Some were very complicated but I was good at figuring out their needs so I could keep my classrooms working well. A teacher can’t let a disturbed student ruin things for others. So she has to figure the tough ones out. I always did. So I see him from that perspective—the kid who’s ruining it for the rest of us.
When I wrote my book I hadn’t yet figured him out. I knew he was a disaster and people were falling for him because of our schools having not done their job. I saw him as some type of abnormal force-almost spiritual from the negative side of the other world. Perhaps the universe gave him to us as a warning about AI. We can’t let AI run things either. Balanced human minds must do that.
I think it’s all coming together in that we desperately must fix our schools before AI takes over. AI is for words what calculators are for numbers. People never learning math is not as disastrous as people never learning words and thoughts and ideas.
I remember that learning to write was really hard. I finally got it but who’s going to bother now unless teachers like me make kids learn and teachers like me create the curriculum. We are the teachers they trashed.
I honestly hadn’t studied AI until recently. I was avoiding it. I never use it to write so I thought I could not learn it. Having done so I see it as my best talking point for listening to teachers like me. I’m so glad I did for that reason.
So sticking a “word-version” Rain Man in our midst seems like a spiritual lesson to me, which is why the answer is so hard.
The man is not normal. Normal solutions aren’t going to work. I have a track record of reaching the toughest students. I think I have him pegged and by getting others to see this, we will get many of his followers to do so also.
That was the story of that movie. Tom Cruise needed time to accept Rain Man could not live in the world. Trump followers do also but we must speed it up as he’s such a disaster.
They need to learn we don’t hate him. We hate what he’s doing. We need to identify Trump derangement syndrome as a legitimate concern. I haven’t heard one dr mention anything close to this. They only know their manual. He needs to be added to it!
Look forward to your thoughts knowing how inquisitive your mind is!
I sent your article to Frank George, who is brilliant at diagnosing Trump. This was earlier on Trump's cognitive decline: https://sgcarney.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-trumps-brain. I find everything of Frank's interesting, and he'd be better at dealing with what I don't know enough about that he might get excited about.
Thanks. Good idea. I look forward to his thoughts. The only thing we know for sure is he’s one of a kind. Another theory could be a Martian. That’s a hard one to sell. Whereas Rain Man existed and was so imbalanced. The goal is to find a way to get those who love him to wake up. Every time I hear someone talk about him as so wonderful I feel like this is so beyond logic, how can we solve it? It’s going to take creativity.