Trump’s Revenge Fantasy, the Press Under Pressure, & Caitlin Clark’s Congress
No one can see into the future, but we can all work to make it better.
What I’m Discussing Today
Kareem’s Quote of the Day: What happens when we mistake a prediction for a guarantee and stop doing the hard work?
Trump Promises Destruction of Iran if He’s Assassinated: A late-night revenge fantasy is especially dangerous when it treats 93 million lives as props.
The White House Orders the FBI to Investigate The New York Times: Reporters as collateral damage anytime the government calls its own embarrassment a national-security concern.
Caitlin Clark’s Congressional Fan Club Should Find Better Things To Do: Congress should worry less about manufacturing outrage over one hard foul and more about the racist abuse aimed at WNBA players after the game.
The Piano Lesson | Malcolm Washington (2024) - Netflix: August Wilson’s family drama becomes a powerful motion picture, thanks to Denzel Washington and his two sons.
Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder and John Legend | “Lean on Me” (2015): Stevie Wonder and John Legend bring so much soul to this performance at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that its creator, Bill Withers, can’t help but join in.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
“If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me.”
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Macbeth
If there’s one thing you learn as a professional athlete, it’s that there’s no such thing as a sure thing. I came out of UCLA with three national championships, three college Player of the Year awards, and an 88-2 won-lost record. My first year in the NBA, the Bucks won 56 games after winning only 27 the year before. The next year we won the NBA championship, and I won my first MVP award. The press said it was only a matter of time before I eclipsed Bill Russell’s record of eleven NBA titles. But it took me nine years and a change of teams—to the Lakers—before I won another title, and in that time I learned a lot about the nature of certainty as an NBA player. Namely, that it doesn’t exist. All you can do is put in the hard work and long hours and hope for the best: stay healthy, have a good team around you, a good coach, and a whole lot of luck. There are hundreds of other guys hoping for the same things. I ended up playing 20 seasons in the NBA, and I won six titles and six MVP awards. That means there were 14 seasons my team didn’t win the title and 14 seasons I didn’t win the MVP award. I was the most successful player in the league, but I was hardly a sure bet.
In the world outside the NBA, success is even harder to predict. That’s what Banquo is getting at in that quote from Macbeth. As it turns out, the three witches who have just told his friend Macbeth he’s on his way to the throne of Scotland can see the future. Because they’re witches. But that doesn’t mean Macbeth can. All the things he sees for himself on that throne—most of all, a long life of plenty—are not going to come his way. He doesn’t put in the long hours and the hard work; he takes shortcuts because he thinks his success is guaranteed. The witches told him that he can’t be killed by any “man of woman born,” so he thinks he’s invincible. He ends up with a crazy, suicidal wife and a final offstage battle with Macduff, a man born by Caesarean section—thus, in the terms of the day, not “of woman born”—and guess what happens? If you guessed Macduff reenters with Macbeth’s severed head, you are correct. So much for a long and happy life.
So what drives someone to claim they can identify “which grain will grow”? I’d call it a need for control pretending to be wisdom and expertise. Admitting “I have no idea how this will end” is uncomfortable, especially for people whose job title implies they should know. In the NBA, that’s scouts, analysts, and coaches. In the real world, it’s politicians, prognosticators, and pundits. But what do any of us really know?
Donald Trump came into office in 2016 saying he would build a wall along the border with Mexico that would stretch from coast to coast, and that Mexico would pay for it. A decade later, the wall is half built and Mexico hasn’t paid a cent. He came into office in 2024 saying he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine on his first day back in office. That war is still happening, and no one should be surprised if it’s still going on when he leaves office in 2029. If he leaves office in 2029. I think he will. But I don’t know for sure, and neither do you. If, like me, you want to see the last of him, you should start putting in the hard hours now. That means working to elect a new Congress in the midterms that will check his worst impulses. That means finding a candidate in 2028 who can win back the White House with a mandate to get the country off the dangerous track we’re on today.
Macbeth’s downfall came from his belief that his success was guaranteed and he didn’t have to do the hard work to achieve the future he wanted. That choice was far more damning than the witches’ prophecy. The real tragedy lies in his attempt to bend that prediction to his own will. That’s the deeper lesson buried in this whole exchange: acting rashly on a prediction mistaken for certainty is what actually ends careers, companies, and in Macbeth’s case, kingdoms. We can plant our gardens carefully and tend them with patience. But none of us can predict, with any certainty, what the harvest will be.
