Hi everyone,

I'd like to discuss some thoughts on the negative effects of the Trump administration on the personal and professional lives of Americans. Specifically, I argue that the push for less sensitivity and openness to prejudice has really damaged the country in both of these ways.

Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and said, "I am very intelligent and interpersonally skilled, and yet I am finding myself unable to make social connections in my community. I need to find some sort of activity or other 'excuse' to socialize with other people, since political conditions have weakened the relevance of my hard-earned social and professional skills." ? One reason I ask is: Because I don't know--I don't know anyone, and I don't think I'm the only one in this position these days.

We now live in a culture where people are pushing to judge each other based on involuntary group memberships, not choices or acquired skills. This idea has been so frequently expressed in slightly different ways that it sounds old to people now. What would you think if you realized what the consequences for people were for this, in their communities and personal lives as well as their careers? That is, what if I explained to you what the fairly recently instilled American aversion to basic friendliness has done to all of our lives?

In a previous post about Hillary Clinton, I discussed a "sound bite" of hers. Here is a cool little quick sound bite of my own that I thought of:

"Almost no one wants to hurt your kids any more. Unfortunately, almost no one wants to work for your kids any more, either."

Pretty cool and not too dorky, huh? I wonder which news network in the US would air a sound bite like that? If you said, "none," I don't disagree.

While I and various others from the "chosen groups of misfortune" brainstorm hobbies to take up to try to re-integrate ourselves into US society, I encourage readers thinking about community and professional life to think about the consequences of abandoning tolerance, basic friendliness, "authoritative self-respect" as I would term it (the idea of not letting people issue you illegal and immoral commands that you will follow, no matter what), and, as a result, way too many of our American Constitutional values.

-Philip White (philipjwhite@yahoo.com)