My Resolutions For Others, Chapter 1

New Year's Resolutions are Usually A Waste of Time. But I Have Resolutions for Others, Especially Those Engaged in Politics and Media. Stay Tuned for Corporations, Voters, and Social Media.

New Year’s Day is a traditional time for new beginnings. We should all have visionary goals along with strategies and tactics to meet them, but in reality, they don’t have to be made around New Year’s Day. You can make and amend them anytime. Some may take more than a year, even a decade, maybe longer. Any successful strategic planner will tell you that “resolutions” can and should be adjusted as circumstances change.

Instead, I choose a different, more fun, and less accountable approach: making resolutions for others, especially our elected and other public officials and the media. I’ll save a future post for corporate leaders, especially American voters and social media. Maybe two or three posts.

Joe Biden

First, resolve to stop the delusional talk you’re planning or even open to running for a second term in 2024 when you are 82 years old. Only equally delusional people want or expect you to run again. You are already too old and infirm to be President, much less run again.

Second, start thinking about your legacy. Remember that you were “elected” not to be Franklin Roosevelt’s second coming, but because you weren’t Donald Trump. You met that expectation early. Now, you’re paving the way for his return.

Third, admit your first year was disastrous, especially the final six months, starting with the disgraceful Afghanistan surrender and withdrawal. You quickly discarded promises to unify America. You allowed yourself to be held hostage by the phantasmagoric extremes of your party on a host of legislative proposals and nominees. You tossed all bipartisanship aside with one notable if dubious exception (the so-called infrastructure deal). You increased the money supply by 40 percent (with help from Congress and your predecessor) and gave us the highest inflation rate in 40 years. You consistently project weakness, appeasement, and incoherence abroad and invite foreign aggression by China and Russia. And don’t get me started on your utter disaster at our southern border and wildly broken promises and mismanagement over COVID.

You promised to “shut down the virus.” More people have died from COVID under your watch than did your predecessor’s. You’ve got, at best, three years to overcome the enormous damage of your first year. It’s a heavy lift and starts with a rich diet of crow.

Start by resolving to admit, directly and personally, that 2021 was a failure for your presidency. Resolve to demonstrate humility. Resolve to admit your mistakes (e.g., failing to control the virus, which was an overpromise from the start); promise to project strength abroad and return to the promises of your inauguration; abandon any talk of a new nuclear deal with Iran; stand up to Chinese and Russian aggression, and tell Democratic leaders in Congress that you’ll sign no bill that doesn’t have broad bipartisan support. Throw that AOC-inspired and idiotic agenda out the window.

Resolve to govern from the center and eschew being held hostage by either extreme. It is what many of your voters expected when you were elected, and you let them down. Change direction on immigration and work carefully to get inflation under control. You’ll be amazed at how much your political fortunes improve, and the cost of angering “the squad” will be worth every penny.

Start with a promise to return to civility as the basis for bipartisanship and the unity you promised. Fix the failed policies and disastrous mixed messaging from your now-discredited senior health care officials over COVID by showing 81-year old Dr. Anthony Fauci and others the door. Rebuilding public confidence starts by jettisoning the people who lost it. Launch a serious bipartisan commission to investigate every aspect of the pandemic, including a cost-benefit analysis on everything from lockdowns to Operation Warp Speed. Switch public health strategies to focus on mitigation, promoting therapeutics, keeping schools open, and getting back to normal.

You made a great start by admitting that, as when Trump was President, that states would need to take the lead in controlling the pandemic. But let’s be realistic. I’ve been around you - self-awareness is not your strong suit. Except maybe here, if this is even true. And if you don’t keep up with the turnabout, you will wind up with no friends other than your new dog, Commander (what did you do with the previous one, Major, by the way? Please tell me he’s not with Hunter).

But you’ll have to lead the way on the turnabout. I am not holding my breath.

Donald Trump

Thanks to Biden’s disastrous first year with plenty of assists from his Democratic allies in Congress, Republicans are poised for big wins in the 2022 congressional midterm elections. Start by dedicating yourself to helping elect all Republican nominees. Take a big hint from Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) successful 2021 race in a state you lost by 10 points in 2020. Maybe you should try not to be center stage in the 2022 general election. The 2022 elections aren’t about you, Mr. President.

This is as close as you will get to a photograph of Donald Trump and Glenn Youngkin together, at least that I can find. Yes, I know.

Thank you for not announcing your 2024 election plans (to run or not) until after the 2022 midterms. That freezes the field, minimizes distractions, and keeps potential successors from muddying the 2022 elections. But it would also help if you would keep your profile at a minimum as you did in Virginia last year.

Promise to keep your endorsements and comments positive in GOP primaries. Try to resurrect Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment - Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. Do something really radical and even promote it. Yes, I know it is a bit late for that and contrary to your combative style, but we’re looking ahead here. Hope springs eternal.

Lastly, think hard about running for a final term as a 78-year-old candidate in 2024. You demonstrate more vigor and mental acuity than Joe Biden, for sure, but while everyone is different, the decline can happen quickly once age 80 approaches and may manifest itself in different ways. Yes, Bob Dole was more on top of his game on his 98th birthday than Joe Biden is today, at least mentally. It is impressive and enviable that you have such power to shape the GOP and its 2024 nominating process. Perhaps the best way to capitalize on it isn’t with a third act. The best legacy often is a solid succession plan. That’s often how the best legacies are measured.

Nancy Pelosi

Resolve not to run again. That is all. Go home to San Francisco and enjoy your and your party’s sordid legacy in that once-great city. You can do nothing more to change it. You’re almost 82 years old. Just remember to step carefully on the sidewalks of your home city as you stroll through your front door for some of that famous ice cream in your Sub-Zero freezer.

I realize that you don’t have much of a bench to turn to as a successor. Other than your octogenarian Majority Leader and Conference Chair, it’s a weak, extreme, and delusional bunch waiting in the wings. You get an F for succession planning, and it’s too late to fix that. Sadly, that is much of your legacy, along with a shovel-full of legislative “accomplishments” that resemble San Francisco sidewalks. That, along with an almost guarantee that Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy will replace you as Speaker one year from now. I know you’ve said otherwise recently, but resolve to go home by the end of 2022. Au Revoir.

Charles Schumer

Where to start?

First, please go back and read the final op-ed penned by the late and former Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole and published on December 6th in the Washington Post, the day after he died. Think about these words in particular.

I cannot pretend that I have not been a loyal champion for my party, but I always served my country best when I did so first and foremost as an American. I fought for veterans benefits not as a Republican but as someone who witnessed the heroism of our service members firsthand. I advocated for those with disabilities not as a member of the GOP but as someone who personally understood the limitations of a world without basic accommodations. I stood up for those going hungry not as a leader in my party but as someone who had seen too many folks sweat through a hard day’s work without being able to put dinner on the table.

When we prioritize principles over party and humanity over personal legacy, we accomplish far more as a nation. By leading with a shared faith in each other, we become America at its best: a beacon of hope, a source of comfort in crisis, a shield against those who threaten freedom.

Like Dole, you have been a loyal champion for your party. But unlike Dole, you haven’t found the balance yet between being a partisan warrior and a true American patriot. I think Dole would agree that one doesn't have to be a wounded war veteran to be one. Or even a Republican. Dole found a way on issues like nutrition and Social Security reform. Resolve to be a Democratic version of Bob Dole. Your predecessor, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), who was very close to Dole as his Senate opposite, may be able to help you. Sometimes, political power isn’t the be-all to end all. Stop being worried about a primary challenge from AOC.

Everything else will fall in place if you do that, and you might even improve your party’s fortunes in the 2022 election. Legacies matter and they ultimately turn on issues, not election triumphs.

A few final ones, all brief. No point endlessly pontificating on resolutions that clearly won’t be followed.

The Washington Post and New York Times

Resolve in 2021 to return your Pulitzer Prizes for perpetuating its misleading and discredited Russian Collusion Hoax. Donate the prize money to legit charities. Definitely not the Center for Tech and Civic Life.

New York Times: Resolve to bring back Bari Weiss as your editor and replace your woke newsroom. Give her complete control over staffing and editorial decisions. You may just be able to regain much-lost credibility.

More New York Times: Resolve to return or disavow the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary awarded to the author of the widely debunked, discredited, and fatally woke 1619 project.

Both newspapers: Resolve to finish the job on five more corrections you need to make and jettison the reporters and editors who perpetuated false and poorly sourced stories around the Russian Collusion Hoax. Get busy.

The News Media

Resolve to discover long-lost standards of journalism, including:

Resolve never to publish a story based solely on anonymous sources, not to republish, quote, or post another story that has.

Resolve never to publish an accusation made by an anonymous source without independent verification from a named source or verifiable documentation. Reject any story from any reporter or source that doesn’t follow that standard.

Resolve to challenge your sources on every allegation or leak. Don’t allow yourself to get played for political or partisan purposes, as many of you were during the Russian Collusion Hoax. Do not allow yourself to become a tool. Assume every source is trying to play you until you’re sure they’re not. Assume that any request for anonymity from the source of a leak has an ulterior motive (if you’re looking to confirm or substantiate information from an authoritative source demanding anonymity, that is different).

Resolved: Resist the urge to push stories for clicks as is often done by partisan and dubious so-called news sites. See Buzzfeed and its publishing of the discredited Steele Dossier.

Resolved: Quit trying to rewrite historical narratives and report actual history. It might help if you learned some first. Start here, since it doesn’t appear to be taught in colleges and universities anymore. Go ahead, read “Our Land of Hope” by Wilfred McClay. It will likely be one more book of history than you read since high school (if ever) and probably more balanced and accurate.

Resolve always to pursue truth above all else, no matter where the facts lead you.

Lastly, resolve to reject any Pulitzer Prize awarded that does not adhere to these standards. Or better yet, the industry should resolve to replace the increasingly discredited Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism with a new one from an institution other than Columbia University. Maybe one already exists. Maybe realize that the best Pulitzer Prize winners stick to their principles, such as Glenn Greenwald. You don’t have to agree with every journalist to admire and respect their work (I think Julius Assange and Edward Snowden were traitors, a topic for another day).

Perhaps if Columbia University and its management of the Pulitzer Prize program for journalists also adopted these standards, they could rescue their reputations as well. Again, arrogance will likely keep them where they are. Thus are the elite among us.

Next: My resolutions for American corporations, consumers, and voters. And maybe social media. What am I missing?