Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #4

 Striving for consensus: when the work is a burden

Whether the decision under consideration is one of public policy, institutional policy, or corporate policy, the traps that doom consensus are only avoided when two things happen. 

1. Facilitation is skilled. 

2. Those included in the process have honest and beneficial intentions. 

So, for example, when the actual effort is being put forth to use a robust consensus process, that implies that the time has been set aside to pursue it properly. This hearkens back to an original decision made by the person or small group of people to actually engage in a consensus process. 

Overuse of this can lead to frustrated groups who rush things. When an executive decision can get something accomplished in a relatively minor question, but people are put through a rigorous process of seemingly endless discussion and debate over minor issues, consensus begins to look like a chore and a waste of time. A balanced approach, with all minor decisions simply made by the person tasked with that authority, and a serious consensus process undertaken only in the truly weighty decisions, gives consensus its proper role. 

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #3

 Your group is multicultural, including some from marginalized groups

Even if you are not engaging in a formalized consensus-based decision-making process, a partial consensus process can help reduce the inequalities that marginalized members feel and, in their reticence to participate, participate in some ways in perpetuating that marginalization. One study of this intersection of phenomena revealed by post-process discussion to be perceived by all as a helpful tactic. In this particular case a professor noticed that some students participated far more and some not at all--including some who were likely self-censoring out of caution of being silenced by others. The professor simply wrote a name on the board when a student raised a hand and wrote the next name underneath when a different student raised a hand. Students quickly began to enforce a no-talking-out-of-turn process and later told the professor they liked that process very much. It's not pure consensus (the professor is still responsible for the process) but it gave far more agency to students and felt much more empowering to them as they later expressed (Johnson, 2023).

References

Johnson, S. (2023). From free‐for‐all (free‐for‐some?) to speakers’ list: Using consensus‐based decision‐making practice to enhance student participation in the theological classroom. Teaching Theology & Religion, 26(4), 129–134. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1111/teth.12650

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #2

 Consensus vs hierarchy

Virtually all forms of decision-making tend to favor a hierarchical organizational structure except for consensus. Ah, one might say, so consensus is anarchy! No hierarchy!

Well, if so, it is the most solid, informed, deliberate form of anarchy imaginable. And, in many cases, like some situations of anarchy, it's only briefly anarchical before returning to some form of hierarchy. 

But when a group commits to making a particular decision using consensus, the hierarchy is flattened. Positions with titles--President, Chief Operating Officer, Grand Poobah--are all checked at the door, as are all intelligence-gathering for purposes of revenge. No disagreements that flare up in a consensus process may be used for later punitive purposes. 

In short, willingness to engage in a real consensus process involves trust. Any violation of that trust may doom future use of consensus, and that is crucial for the facilitator to emphasize. 

It is not a coincidence that many feminist-value groups use consensus, as they usually feature a nurturing, flatter hierarchy than typical command-and-control organizations. This is partially why consensus is a natural component of a conflict transformation practice (or degree program).

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #1

What is consensus decision-making?

The best little handbook helping us learn consensus decision-making is Consensus through conversation: How to achieve high-commitment decisions by Larry Dressler (2006). He defines consensus as, "Consensus is a coöperative process in which all group members develop and agree to support a decision that is in the best interest of the whole" (p. 4). 

Consensus decision-making is not perfect for all decisions. It takes time and time priorities for low-impact decisions often preclude a laborious consensus process. But when stakes are high, consensus can be well worth the investment of time taken to arrive at the wisest course of action. 

As an example, as a result of the outbreak of covid-19 the European Union health experts undertook a complex and time-consuming consensus process to develop an on-the-shelf plan for public health emergencies preparedness, response, and recovery (PHEPR). Public health experts from across the EU eventually reached consensus on developing checklists for the EU to be ready for a wide range of possible public health emergencies (Kagma, et al., 2025). High stakes deserve the time and the gathered expertise that true consensus can, and should, deliver.

What to have for dinner shouldn't take more than a bit of conversation unless it's a high stakes event. The host can make a command-and-control decision without a great deal of risk. Knowing the difference can tailor the process appropriately.

References

Dressler, Larry (2006). Consensus through conversation: How to achieve high-commitment decisions. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Kamga, L. S. K., Voordouw, A. C. G., De Vries, M. C., Koopmans, M. P. G., & Timen, A. (2025). Which sectors should be involved in public health emergency preparedness, response, and recovery decision-making? A RAND-modified consensus procedure among European Union country experts. BMC Public Health, 25(1), 1–11. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1186/s12889-025-23557-8

Countering the bizarre world of Trump: Constructive coercion: Nonviolence and momentum

Some people consider nonviolence to be pacifism. That, of course, misses the historical reality of nonviolent victories. Masses of Serbs caravaned to the capital, Belgrade, in October of 2000 to overthrow the dictator, Slobodan Milosevic. Film of that day shows the huge crowd massed up around the Parliament building and the movement leadership exhorted the crowd to remain nonviolent, which they did--and they won. The police and military abandoned their enforcement actions and stepped to the side of the people. Milosevic was done. 

Serb society was not previously known for its nonviolent civil society campaigns; indeed, it was the opposite, with a robust vendetta culture that kept hate and grudges alive quite literally for centuries and was still in the throes of many levels of violence[1]in Kosovo, the horrific massacre at Srebrenica, and the relentless slaughter in Bosnia and Herzegovina and more. But the 2000 revolution, led by college students, was 100 percent nonviolent and a reasonable observer of that region would estimate the percent of pacifists in the huge crowd on the day of deposing the dictator to be shy of one percent. 

Many view nonviolence as a pipedream that only privileged classes can practice. They argue that calling for nonviolent conduct is arrogant elitism. That is an ahistorical assertion when we think about the early nonviolent victories and the decades of them--e.g., India's liberation from the British in the 1940s, decolonization in Zambia, Ghana, and Tanzania in the 1950s and early 1960s, the US civil rights victories in the Deep South from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s, the defense of democracy and stopping a civil war in 1986 in the Philippines, the successful end to apartheid in South Africa in the late 1980s, the complete victory for the Anishinaabe treaty rights in the same period, and then we reflect on the truth--that each of these victories were achieved by people of color, and that mass nonviolent civil society power was created by people of color for the most part, in resistance to white oppressors. Nonviolence is the most gain with the least pain[2], used by wise resisters who understand that the best way to both advance a social agenda and keep people as safe as possible is clearly the use of nonviolent methods of struggle. In truth, throwing a soda can at a cop and then not being shot dead is an act of supreme privilege that people of color know they do not likely have.

---

[1] https://www.britannica.com/event/Bosnian-War

[2] https://www.youtube.com/live/QoeYypa007E

Countering the bizarre world of Trump: Deëscalation in order to escalate the struggle

The gold standard method of deëscalation used by unarmed civilian protection teams around the world is the CLARA[1]method. This acronym breaks down into Calm, Listen, Affirm, Respond, and Add information.

How is this germane to managing Trump, to managing his Make America Great Again MAGA followers, many of whom are violent? How can a deëscalation method be used to reduce the harms from Trump's ICE, his Homeland Security officials such as Kristi Noem, notoriously noteworthy for having shot her young dog because it didn't respond to her training as she wished?

On an individual basis, the CLARA method, while not a guarantee of success every time (nothing is), is recognized by those working to protect civilians in hot conflict zones as the most likely to succeed. Just as a Gazan who wished to survive does not scream or even argue with an Israeli Defense Force member, dealing with an ICE agent in the US is best done with some finesse, not hurling epithets or even making accusations based on a legal or moral argument.

In the literature on civil resistance we find a key to dismantling Trump's bizarre grip on America: security defections based on loyalty shifts (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011). This is unlikely to occur with military or law enforcement when they are under actual attack, even with nonlethal violence arising from the passions of the moment--a thrown stone, or a shove in the chest--but also when they are vilified and met with scorn and rage. However natural and understandable that outrage may be, expressing it to the armed agents of the state will not generally do much except cause them to close ranks and jack up repression. 

Part of how to bolster such needed defections is the strategic use of humor, especially humor that mocks only the leader, not law enforcement, not military, and not his mass of supporters. This was one of the key elements of the success led by young people in Serbia to overthrow dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The components of that strategic strand of their resistance included exactly those admonitions from the core leadership of university students as they led the group Otpor!, the Serb word for resistance; they told the growing number of Otpor! chapters throughout the country to poke fun only at Milosevic, not anyone else. This helped lead to a fissure between the autocrat and those who had been loyal to him.

Activists err when they regard law enforcement as a monolithic block of oppressors; recent research drawn from interviews in Germany on police attitudes about authority, compliance, and enforcement vary considerably by individual, concluding:

"current ideas on authority are reflexive, meaning that they are not solely determined by police culture or formal rules, but are individually reconsidered, questioned and reconstructed, allowing room for maneuver and can be shaped by different contexts, internal and external to the police" (Weber & Schophaus, 2024, p. 169).

It is axiomatic in the field of Conflict Transformation that one universal for humans is that all cultures highly value being respected as an extremely important factor in the process and progress of managing conflict. When any person or any group is convinced that they are held in contempt by others, conflict with those others is much more likely to escalate and become destructive. When, on the other hand, the very same issues are at stake but a party feels respected, the chances for that conflict to be constructive, even productive, generally rise.

Some worry that mocking Trump by infantilizing him might by extension diminish the reality of the harm that Trump does by his behavior that seems stuck in the most narcissistic stage of normal human life, a period during infancy. "President Trump’s critics come by their rhetorical infantilizations quite honestly. He emotes like a child. He lashes out against resistance and criticism. He is, by many standards, mischievous and untrustworthy" (Gilbert, 2021, p. 333). Pairing characterizations of Trump's petty, grotesquely immature behavior with the disastrous results is one key to making that humor more effective.

The other danger in overuse of some targeted humor is the sense that the resisters are discourteous and petty themselves. The balance may not be easy to achieve, so many nonviolent leaders stress simple constant respect for all, even those who may not be worthy of it at times, to keep the image of the resistance spotless. 

For example, when Gandhi advised the Dalits (Untouchables) in India who wished to pray in the temple, he told them to be respectful of all, to not curse at those who oppressed them, but to show nonviolent courage under all circumstances. They did so, setting up a human blockade on the road to the Vykom temple, and did so for months, even during the monsoon season, sometimes standing resolutely in chest-deep waters. In the end, after such a display, the temple opened its doors to them, acknowledging the devotion with which the resisters kept their presence, a devotion that wore down those who were in charge of the temple (Bondurant, 1965).

With any nonviolent campaign, leadership is best done with many tested methods, including what some term adaptive management, that is, constant openness to assessment and reassessment, reset and adjustment. What worked 40 years ago may not find fertile soil so easily now. What works in Guatemala may flop in Hong Kong. Being alive to the signs and signals and being able to quickly evolve is part of the art of resistance, an art to which no strongman is impervious.

One of the many paradoxes of strategic nonviolence is that deëscalation of many situations enables the escalation of resistance. When we held an Easter day gathering at a remote thermonuclear command base in Chequamegon National Forest, there was a lot of singing and a musician named Glen Walker Johnson circulated amongst the crowd--which included armed forces personnel and law enforcement officials and officers--playing a soothing hand-held harp, smiling. Meanwhile, we had brought saplings with us and digging tools, we pickaxed holes in the gravel road right in front of the base gates, and planted trees while the military commander, local sheriff, and deputies observed. I had talked to the base commander the day before to tell him of our plans. He had said, "You will be hurt worse than you can imagine." But after digging up the road, we concluded our demonstration without any arrests and, as we were walking out, I lingered to make sure everyone was safe and found myself strolling with the base commander and the sheriff. I thanked the commander for not making good on his threat. "Y'all behaved yourselves," he said. Even though we had just done serious property damage, I knew what he meant. We showed no disrespect to anyone, we sang instead of chanted at them,[2] and when we broke bread during our ceremonies, we had offered them some. We continued our deëscalation of all who had seemed to support the evil of nuclear weapons while we continued to escalate our campaign to shut down that base. It worked. We won. The base is completely dismantled and returned to nature in the national forest.

References

Bondurant, Joan V. (1965). Conquest of violence: The Gandhian philosophy of conflict. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.

Chenoweth, Erica, & Stephan, Maria J. (2011). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Gilbert, C. J. (2021). The diapered Donald: Comic infantilizations of a U.S. American president. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 107(3), 328–353. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/00335630.2021.1945132

Weber, M., & Schophaus, M. (2024). Personal theories of police officers about authority. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 27(2), 168-181. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1177/14613557241293588 (Original work published 2025)

---

[1] https://nonviolentpeaceforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/CLARA.pdf

[2] Music seems invitational and inclusive; chanting can seem confrontational and exclusionary. In one Peruvian study, researchers found that, "in general, exposure to music and dance improves levels of intergroup empathy, reduces social dominance, and fosters a greater positive stereotype toward the Andean social group, producing greater emotions and positive attitudes toward the artistic expressions of this group in comparison to the control group. It is concluded that music and dance, as cultural expressions, can be elements that help improve the stereotypical representation and appreciation of other groups and their members, thus establishing a path toward building a culture of peace" (Espinosa, Pacheco & Janos, 2023, p. 203).

Countering the bizarre world of Trump: Transforming conflict from destructive to constructive and productive with Restorative Justice

Restorative justice work is an effort to help victims of crimes seek the emotional wholeness that perpetrators shattered. Part of the goal is to help a victim no longer self-assess as a victim, but as a strong player with sovereign agency. This is not the litigious search for monetary compensation, nor the prosecutorial efforts to criminally convict and punish. This is an effort to remove revenge and retribution from the struggles to hold everyone accountable.

In some ways, the initiatives that are meant to reduce the hostility and polarization must incorporate elements of restorative justice into their methods. They may do so in direct fashion or in more oblique ways. Dialog without debate--setting up identifiable oppositional sides with the idea that the dialog is meant to seek out the greatest and tiniest components of what and why people hold their views is quite direct. Hosting a monthly potluck with families is oblique. They can work together to advance a restoration of a society in which opponents in a policy discussion can do so without rancor, objectification, or enemy-making. While psychologists explain why people are actually comforted[1] in many ways by regarding others as enemies, restorative justice aspects of the work to undermine the autocratic drive that Trump embodies can reorient that need for an enemy to something else that can be seen as cruel and oppressive to a much wider range of the populace. Working with regular working people to create a social bonding over loss of Medicaid, for example, can help restore some unity that has been lost.

---

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-big-questions/201110/enemies-enhance-the-meaning-of-life

Countering the bizarre world of Trump: Transforming conflict from destructive to constructive and productive with Consensus processes

There are two related categories of consensus process: consensus decision-making and consensus organizing. The consensus organizing is named for the inclusive, non-adversarial style of community organizing, and for the drastically flattened hierarchy in any group of participants, organizers, and deciders. It seeks a very big tent of participants, driven by the parties with the greatest vulnerabilities and needs, but organized so that oppositional factions are minimized. 

Consensus organizing can affect the spectrum of allies--that is, the various parties in any civil society struggle. This work is done using organizing styles that may or may not create an unstoppable mass movement, but the tactics are meant to have a net recruiting gain and to move all sectors slightly toward the goal. Organizing without villainizing any other sectors can reduce the resolution toward combat to which the most ardent supporters of Trump respond. Organizing with hope and promise can prompt heretofore inactive but sympathetic groups to become at least slightly active. In other words, organize to attempt to move everyone even a small step toward making the goal manifest is the spectrum of allies approach and that requires the most skilled consensus organizing.

Countering the bizarre world of Trump: Transforming conflict from destructive to constructive and productive with Mediation/Alternative Dispute Resolution

Mohandas Gandhi is credited with being the grandfather of mediation-Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) when he was a young lawyer. Unlike his training or normal law practice, he brought the parties together in his office one time and helped them work out a deal in which everyone won. Even though it meant he would not be profiting from trial, possible appeal, and all the expenses of doing that billable work, he wrote later that, "at last I had learnt the true profession of the law." The first law school ADR courses were developed in the late 1940s. 

Diplomats are trained in this competency and can be put to work to manage the diminution of Trump's power in many scenarios, especially when synthesized with political organizing of civil society so that, once again, Trump can be divided from his normal allies instead of maintaining his dominance over what is actually a fragile coalition. White nationalists who visualize a theocracy have been loyal to Trump, but they are a minority. Working class people who have been afraid of immigrants taking their jobs are not, in the majority, enemies of democracy who wish to replace it with Christian domination. Trump's support can be targeted with specific tactics and initiatives meant to reveal just how separable the demographic components of his support really are. 

One of the primary skills that mediators employ is "the work before the work," or assessment. Civil society organizers refer to this generally as power analysis, but mediators carry it a step further by caucusing with those who can answer this question, "What does a good outcome look like to you?" Eliciting these answers from those who are deciders or who are influencers and then doing the work that helps create potential options that can help divide Trump's groupings from each other is a clear step toward regaining leverage.

Countering the bizarre world of Trump: Transforming conflict from destructive to constructive and productive with principled negotiation

Pioneered and developed by the principals at the Harvard Negotiation Project, this is a method of negotiation that is based on four principles: Separate the people from the problem, Interests instead of positions, Agree on fair standards, and Invent options for mutual gain. This is neither adversarial nor accommodating, neither aggressive nor passive, but rather assertive and focused on creating win-win options. It includes developing a bottom line--a floor to what parties can accept (and is kept confidential by the parties)--and a best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA, which is most adaptively shared in order to incentivize negotiations in good faith).

Integrating principled negotiation into talks with civil society sectors who are increasingly aghast at some or all of Trump's irrational or cruel actions can be a part of flipping the divide and conquer script that has served autocrats so well for centuries. Dividing those who have been either willingly or coerced into supporting Trump can reveal his power base to be separable instead of monolithic, which is a prerequisite to removing Trump from power.

Countering the bizarre world of Trump: Integrating three skill set bodies of knowledge

There is a growing number of unarmed civil society responses to aggressive actors, based on three related bodies of knowledge: conflict transformation, including principled negotiation, restorative justice, mediation, and consensus process; deëscalation via a method, CLARA, that relies on listening skills and psychological awareness, as well as nonviolent coercion done in a conflict transformative fashion. How might it be possible to manage Donald Trump in some fashion using these methods?

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: DINOs, RINOs, and Banana Republicans

In the House and Senate during Biden's term, a couple of the Democrats frequently voted against the rest of them, earning themselves the Democrats In Name Only appellation--DINOs. That seemed particularly descriptive, especially for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who voted against his party in the interests of Big Coal. 

At the same time, someone taught Donald Trump a term to use in tandem with his threat to primary any Republican who didn't vote his way all the time, Republican In Name Only--RINO. Once he added that to his stock of hackneyed slams it was a common one for him. Indeed, most of those Republicans in Congress or the Senate who have disagreed with him either retired during his first term or have announced their retirement during his second term.

Janet Yellen has inspired another term when she referred to the construction of Trump's economic ideas if he is allowed to replace Jerome Powell as the head of the Federal Reserve as those of a "banana republic economy,"[1] a country run by a dictator who let's inflation run rampant by, as she says, just "printing money" for his own use. Let's call Trump and all in his party who support his strongman takeover of the US economy Banana Republicans.

---

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/janet-yellen-on-the-danger-of-a-banana-republic-economy

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: For our consideration

What does the current DSM 5 TR say that we might ascribe as possibly something Trump suffers from (and is sharing that suffering with us all)? Most likely fall under the section Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders:

"Disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders include conditions involving problems in the self-control of emotions and behaviors. While other disorders in DSM-5 may also involve problems in emotional and/or behavioral regulation, the disorders in this chapter are unique in that these problems are manifested in behaviors that violate the rights of others (e.g., aggression, destruction of property) and/or that bring the individual into significant conflict with societal norms or authority figures. The underlying causes of the problems in the self-control of emotions and behaviors can vary greatly across the disorders in this chapter and among individuals within a given diagnostic category.

The chapter includes oppositional defiant disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder (which is described in the chapter “Personality Disorders”), pyromania, kleptomania, and other specified and unspecified disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders. Although all the disorders in the chapter involve problems in both emotional and behavioral regulation, the source of variation among the disorders is the relative emphasis on problems in the two types of self-control. ¼the criteria for intermittent explosive disorder focus largely on poorly controlled emotion, outbursts of anger that are disproportionate to the interpersonal or other provocation or to other psychosocial stressors.

Intermediate in impact to these two disorders is oppositional defiant disorder, in which the criteria are more evenly distributed between emotions (anger and irritation) and behaviors (argumentativeness and defiance). ¼The disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders all tend to be more common in boys and men than in girls and women, although the relative degree of male predominance may differ both across disorders and within a disorder at different ages. ¼ the high level of comorbidity among these disorders and their frequent comorbidity with substance use disorders and antisocial personality disorder. However, the specific nature of the shared diathesis that constitutes the externalizing spectrum remains unknown." (Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders, 2025).

While it remains best practice to avoid attempts at professional diagnosis unless one is a professional mental health care worker with diagnostic training and has done in-person sessions with the potential subject, it is not hard to see obvious correlatives to what the DSM 5 TR says and the behaviors, utterances, and posts made by Donald J. Trump. 

Reference

Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders. (2025). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787.x15_Disruptive_Impulse_Control

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: The one-trick pony

Trump seems to have compartments into which he sorts his challenges and, in each compartment, he trots out variations of the same "solution" to all the problems in that category.

Trade? Tariffs. 

Disloyalty in the party's elected officials? Primary them.

Foreign heads of state disagreeing with him? Oh--tariffs again. Or bombs.

Opposition in the US by the other party? Threaten lawsuits or even arrest. Call them names and brand them as evil and crazed.

Accurate media revealing his faults and grifts? Again with the lawsuits and threaten arrests and loss of license as well as Hitler-like characterizing them as the enemy of the people.

Judges rule against him? Accuse them of being loony radical leftwing activist judges and just ignore them otherwise.

Trump has led a life fronted by lawyers, virtually all of them willing to break the law, lie, and use dirty tactics to get to a win for him. In the past, his corporations have had to cover those billable hours; now the US taxpayer covers the $millions paid to his many lawyers.

His lawyers scheme and manage clever cons to draw exorbitant fortunes to themselves and to Trump himself. His campaign machinery works hand and glove with those lawyers to funnel campaign donations to line Trump's pockets, including, for example, more than $107 million[1] in campaign donations straight to his lawyers to cover all the fees from his dissembling and flatly illegal actions, with the remainder of the $254.1 million contributed between January 2021-March 2024 just for Trump and his campaign. As the New York Times discovered investigating federal records: "The remarkable sum means that Mr. Trump has averaged more than $90,000 a day in legal-related costs for more than three years — none of it paid for with his own money."

Tariffs, attorneys, name-calling, and threats to primary some and arrest others. Each problem is sorted into the one-trick pony compartment where it gets that reaction. In the end, the blowback is referred to the lawyers, who, at billable rates estimated[2] at about $1200/hour, are thrilled to do his dirty work and heavy lifting, giving him the little boy freedom he loves.

---

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/27/us/politics/trump-cases-legal-fund.html

[2] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/08/trump-legal-fees-indictments-fundraising-2024-campaign.html

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: Make colonialism fashionable again

Seriously. Donald Trump floats one bizarre idea after the next, several of them clearly imperialistic. Retake Panama. Take Greenland for the US. Make Canada the 51st state and, while we're up, rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. While this land-grabbing may be just so 19th century, his friend Putin is at war for exactly that in his fever dreams of a new Russian empire, and his other friend Netanyahu is closing in on his own irredentist vision of Greater Israel. No one outdoes Donald Trump! The subtle difference of attempting to seize land that once was part of a country and just grabbing someone else's sovereign nation may be lost on The Donald--aren't all nuances?--but we get the point; he aims to claim the best and most in all categories. As Susan Glasser pointed out[1] in The New Yorker, his post on Christmas 2024 laid out his goals and then concluded with a grand and obviously sincere Merry Christmas to the “Radical Left Lunatics” who were the losers to him in “the Greatest Election in the History of Our Country.” Oy gevalt!

---

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2024-in-review/the-weird-new-normal-of-donald-trump-in-2024

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: Swing that pendulum back or else!

Arguably, the US has been generally improving since its founding. Slavery ended. Women got the vote. Native Americans got citizenship. Social Security and other advances under FDR and then LBJ created a social safety net. Black people earned their civil rights. LGBTQ people accrued rights. People with disabilities finally got protections and accommodations.

Boy, did that make white men angrier and angrier.

While America generally seemed to be on track toward a stronger safety net for the most vulnerable, civil rights for more classes of people, and other progressive trends, Trump happened along just as more of the world hopped on the pendulum swinging back against that, toward toxic nationalism and repression of The Other. In Hungary, the Netherlands, France, the UK, Poland, and elsewhere, reactionary politics are gaining purchase and Trump was already there, with quicker insults, harsher language, and his claim to be the only one capable of exacting the retribution that would be so cathartic to resentful whites. It was timely, and the simplistic “'Make America Great Again,' with thinly veiled racism against the browning of America" (Fitz-Gibbon, 2025, p. 171), made Trump's bizarre behavior look exactly like he meant it, retributive, a Dirty Harry for the white race unafraid to destroy whatever might elicit that desire for vengeance.

References

Fitz-Gibbon, Andrew (2025). Nonviolent perspectives: A transformative philosophy for practical peacemaking. New York, NY: Anthem Press.

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: Deëscalation in order to escalate the struggle

The gold standard method of deëscalation used by unarmed civilian protection teams around the world is the CLARA method. This acronym breaks down into Calm, Listen, Affirm, Respond, and Add information.

How is this germane to managing Trump, to managing his Make America Great Again MAGA followers, many of whom are violent? How can a deëscalation method be used to reduce the harms from Trump's ICE, his Homeland Security officials such as Kristi Noem, notoriously noteworthy for having shot her young dog because it didn't respond to her training as she wished?

On an individual basis, the CLARA method, while not a guarantee of success every time, is recognized by those working to protect civilians in hot conflict zones as the most likely to succeed. Just as a Gazan who wished to survive does not scream or even argue with an Israeli Defense Force member, dealing with an ICE agent in the US is best done with some finesse, not hurling epithets or even making accusations based on a legal or moral argument.

In the literature on civil resistance we find a key to dismantling Trump's bizarre grip on America; security defections based on loyalty shifts (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011). This is unlikely to occur with military or law enforcement when they are under actual attack, even with nonlethal violence arising from the passions of the moment--a thrown stone, or a shove in the chest--but also when they are vilified and met with scorn and rage. However natural and understandable that outrage may be, expressing it to the armed agents of the state will not generally do much except cause them to close ranks and jack up repression. 

Part of how to bolster such needed defections is the strategic use of humor, especially humor that mocks only the leader, not law enforcement, not military, and not his mass of supporters. This was one of the key elements of the success led by young people in Serbia to overthrow dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The components of that strategic strand of their resistance included exactly those admonitions from the core leadership of university students as they led the group Otpor!, the Serb word for resistance; they told the growing number of Otpor! chapters throughout the country to poke fun only at Milosevic, not anyone else. This helped lead to a fissure between the autocrat and those who had been loyal to him.

Some worry that mocking Trump by infantilizing him might by extension diminish the reality of the harm that Trump does by his behavior that seems stuck in the most narcissistic stage of normal human life, a period during infancy. "President Trump’s critics come by their rhetorical infantilizations quite honestly. He emotes like a child. He lashes out against resistance and criticism. He is, by many standards, mischievous and untrustworthy" (Gilbert, 2021, p. 333). Pairing characterizations of Trump's petty, grotesquely immature behavior with the disastrous results is one key to making that humor more effective.

The other danger in overuse of some targeted humor is the sense that the resisters are discourteous and petty themselves. The balance may not be easy to achieve, so many nonviolent leaders stress simple constant respect for all, even those who may not be worthy of it at times, to keep the image of the resistance spotless.

For example, when Gandhi advised the Dalits (Untouchables) in India who wished to pray in the temple, he told them to be respectful of all, to not curse at those who oppressed them, but to show nonviolent courage under all circumstances. They did so, setting up a human blockade on the road to the Vykom temple, and did so for months, even during the monsoon season, sometimes standing resolutely in chest-deep waters. In the end, after such a display, the temple opened its doors to them, acknowledging the devotion with which the resisters kept their presence, a devotion that wore down those who were in charge of the temple (Bondurant, 1965).

With any nonviolent campaign, leadership is best done with many tested methods, including what some term adaptive management, that is, constant openness to assessment and reassessment, reset and adjustment. What worked 40 years ago may not find fertile soil so easily now. What works in Guatemala may flop in Hong Kong. Being alive to the signs and signals and being able to quickly evolve is part of the art of resistance, an art to which no strongman is impervious.

One of the many paradoxes of strategic nonviolence is that deëscalation of many situations enables the escalation of resistance. When we held an Easter day gathering at a remote thermonuclear command base in Chequamegon National Forest, there was a lot of singing and a musician named Glen Walker Johnson circulated amongst the crowd playing a soothing hand-held harp, smiling. Meanwhile, we had brought saplings with us and digging tools, we pickaxed holes in the gravel road right in front of the base gates, and planted trees while the local sheriff and deputies observed. I had talked to the base commander the day before to tell him of our plans. He had said, "You will be hurt worse than you can imagine." But after digging up the road, we concluded our demonstration without any arrests and, as we were walking out, I lingered to make sure everyone was safe and found myself strolling with the base commander and the sheriff. I thanked the commander for not making good on his threat. "Y'all behaved yourselves," he said. Even though we had just done serious property damage, I knew what he meant. We showed no disrespect to anyone, we sang instead of chanted at them, and when we broke bread during our ceremonies, we had offered them some. We continued our deëscalation of all who had seemed to support the evil of nuclear weapons while we continued to escalate our campaign to shut down that base. It worked. We won. The base is completely dismantled and returned to nature in the national forest.

References

Bondurant, Joan V. (1965). Conquest of violence: The Gandhian philosophy of conflict. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.

Chenoweth, Erica, & Stephan, Maria J. (2011). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Gilbert, C. J. (2021). The diapered Donald: Comic infantilizations of a U.S. American president. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 107(3), 328–353. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/00335630.2021.1945132

Sombatpoonsiri, Janjira (2015). Humor and nonviolent struggle in Serbia. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. 

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: He's a monster but he's our monster

In one study of voter perception of the personality traits of presidential candidates--Trump and Biden--Democrats saw some narcissism and Machiavellian traits in Biden, but much greater levels of both in Trump, along with a clear predominance of sadism in Trump, none of that in Biden. Republicans, on the other hand, reported the narcissism and Machiavellian traits as about equal in both and had little concern over the question of sadism (Prusik, 2025). Other studies[1] have also looked at various voter emotions, including some that correlated men with weak self-image attracted to aggressive, dominating, authoritarian candidates, identifying Trump as such.

Indeed, sadism seems to be political theater[2] to Trump, showing his base that he is indeed their retribution, with tendencies toward both ethnic cleansing (e.g., move as many Hispanics as possible out of the US, utilizing false labeling of them as violent criminals) and genocide (support for the IDF slaughtering Gazan civilians). Firing or demoting most high-ranking women in the military seemed to be red meat to his MAGA base, possibly many of whom seemed to be resentful that a big strong man isn't necessarily the best leadership of a highly technical, complex organization tasked with keeping the US secure. That simplistic identification--I'm big and strong and I should have been promoted to lead when I was in the army--could help explain Trump's appeal and the positive feedback loop of support for increasingly brutal and unfair actions by Trump and by his handpicked hatchet actors such as Pete Hegseth (the one firing women from commands in the Pentagon and even ordering DoD libraries stripped of what he determines to be DEI content).

References

Prusik, M. (2025). Dark tetrad traits in politicians and voter behavior: Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Journal of Research in Personality, 115, N.PAG. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1016/j.jrp.2024.104568

---

[1] https://www.psypost.org/the-psychological-puzzle-of-donald-trump-eye-opening-findings-from-20-studies/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/06/trump-sadism-judith-butler

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: It's all out of his depth

Donald Trump may be a shallow person (e.g., clearly obsessed with gold and glitz, naming everything after himself, pouts and perennially claims to be the victim, jokes about having sex with his daughter), but nowhere is he less able to make coherent conversation or decent decisions than in international politics, according to University of Limerick political scientist Scott Fitzsimmons (2022), in his examination of Trump's personality as it affected his processes or lack of processes in navigating international relations, agreements, and foreign policy decisions. 

Fitzsimmons parsed Trump's simplistic refusal to participate in trade agreements (pulling the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership), environmental stewardship (ending US participation in the Paris Accords), and nuclear weapons agreements both new and long-standing (no other US president blew up so many highly effective constraints on possession, proliferation, and prevention of nuclear war and nuclear arsenals, including many tough and effective deals that included Russia and including the complex and highly effective Iran nuclear deal). Fitzsimmons concluded: 

"Although Donald Trump’s foreign policy behavior is often characterized as erratic and unpredictable, he was remarkably consistent in his hostility toward international agreements. The president withdrew or threatened to withdraw the United States from several agreements and consistently characterized agreements as ‘horrible deals’ that ‘cheat’ his country" (p. 40).

Others have noted that his pattern seems to be that no deal ever made by any US president other than Trump deserved to continue to exist. Trump has been using the stick of tariffs to not only punish other countries, showing his overreliance on simplistic single tools rather than any actual ability to negotiate complex win-win outcomes; indeed, his sole tool of zero-sum approaches, absolutely adversarial and endlessly seeking dominance, has reached its zenith in some ways as the European Union and NATO seemingly capitulated to every one of Trump's whims, likely with the hope of outlasting Trump until the US can regain its senses and stability. 

While boasting relentlessly about his brilliance at deal-making, he first unraveled the Iran deal that took many countries years to finesse into existence, and then, out of some grandiose need to use huge explosive weapons, just bombed Iran's most protected uranium enrichment facilities. His childlike need to bomb a nation that was not capable at that point of building even one nuclear weapon was underscored by his sudden thanks to Iran for letting him know that they would strike a US base in the Middle East in response, and to actually say that he gave them permission to do that military strike. Trump's instant rage at anyone questioning him in any way may be preventing mainstream media from pondering what Trump and the Republicans might do or say if a Democratic president had given permission to another nation to blast a US military base.

References

Fitzsimmons, S. (2022). Personality and adherence to international agreements: The case of President Donald Trump. International Relations, 36(1), 40–60. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1177/0047117820965656

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: I'm Boss of everyone!

The first term ascendancy of Trump to power was accompanied by his overwhelming self-confidence, bragging about his power (e.g., claiming that Article 2 of the Constitution lets him do whatever he wants), and behavior described in the journal International Affairs as "possessing the maturity of a petulant child rather than a man in his seventies" (Dezner, 2020, p. 384). This immaturity and impulse-control failure, along with his childlike refusal to read normal presidential reading, such as the daily intelligence briefing, meant that his accomplishments in office in his first term were predictably few, mostly enabled by then-Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who drove through the tax cuts largely benefitting the über-rich and the stacking of the US Supreme Court.

That court gave Trump virtual immunity from federal prosecution no matter what he did, as long as it was done during his presidency. In addition, during the Biden years a highly detailed plan was developed for the takedown of the so-called deep state (the non-partisan guard rails structurally built into the US federal government that survived all elections and kept the government running), Project 2025. This has enabled the most impetuous Trump behavior, especially his raging revenge impulses toward any and all critics and those who have tried to hold him to account at any point.

Indeed, this sense of omnipotence is so utterly infused in Trump's thinking that he will make absurd commands to any and everyone, telling Harvard University what they can teach, even telling the head of the Federal Aviation Authority that all air traffic controllers must come from MIT because they all must be "geniuses[1]."

References: 

Drezner, D. W. (2020). Immature leadership: Donald Trump and the American presidency. International Affairs, 96(2), 383–400. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1093/ia/iiaa009

---

[1] https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/new-email-reveals-trump-s-aggressive-new-claim-of-executive-power-tpm-233841733963

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: Tossed off Twitter, back on X

Before Elon Musk purchased Twitter and renamed it X, Donald Trump posted there incessantly, frequently to bully, harass, insult, name-call, demean, and harm his enemies--and he seemed to count anyone who may have failed to endorse all his claims and ideas as his dire threat enemy. Twitter blocked him, ending his account because of his bullying and provable lies. 

Features of cyberbullying include the targeted person's knowledge of both the permanence of posts and that the posts can be shared (Bingaman & Caplan, 2023). Thus, even if deep emotional harm is not the immediate intent of the sender, it operates as a harm to various degrees on its targets. For cyberbullies, that is either the endgame goal or an additional benefit, but for those who engage in this sort of cyber-behavior over time, it indicates a knowledge and even satisfaction from the targeted person's pain.

While it is true that cyberbullying as generally studied by psychological researchers is focused on adolescent bullies and adolescent targets, it is telling that Trump fits right in, with the possible research protocol anomaly that he seems to have so many transitory targets that his quantitative spread shows insufficient repetitive attacks on one target to classify him as an official cyberbully (Bingaman & Caplan, 2023). Unofficially and in real world analysis, his cyberbullying is unprecedented in many respects. Certainly no US president has ever communicated in such a fashion.

References

Bingaman, J., & Caplan, S. E. (2023). Cyberbully-in-chief: exploring Donald Trump’s aggressive communication behavior on Twitter. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 31(4), 342–353. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/15456870.2022.2047683

Excursion to the bizarre world of Trump: In the Twilight Zone

Is Trump in mental decline? How else can his performances during the 2024 campaign in particular be interpreted? For instance, at a campaign rally, he stood on stage for almost 40 minutes, saying nothing, just swaying during campaign music. And his interviews seemed to tell the same story. 

Clinical psychologist Dr. Ben Michaelis told[1] PBS interviewer Amna Nawaz describes his analysis of Trump's speaking style over the years as decreasing in complexity, but more important to his thought patterns, he's becoming less linear, more tangential, and even into circumstantiality, which Michaelis describes as "losing the thread entirely."

Michaelis is clear that neither he nor anyone else can make a clinical diagnosis of dementia without face-to-face analysis, but he points to many suggestive signs of it, buttressed to some measure by the dementia suffered by Trump's father, Fred Trump. Nothing is definitive, yet the bizarre behaviors are at the least a legitimate concern. 

---

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trumps-rambling-speeches-raise-questions-about-mental-decline

Stop saying "Trust me", "Calm down," and "To be honest"

Some common expressions may help smooth disagreements and some may frequently introduce the opposite effect. 

When someone is agitated, the best way to make them escalate is to tell them, "Calm down." It usually seems to be received as an attempt to control without any knowledge of the reason the other is agitated. It can exacerbate a somewhat dysregulated state of mind in the person who is disrupted and trigger the amygdala hijack, that is, a loss of a degree of the reasoning, logical, executive functioning pre-frontal cortex. 

Another common expression that can backfire is "To be honest." The other person may hear that as, "I'm only honest at times, and this is one of those times," hardly helping to build trust.

Which brings us to another ill-advised expression, "Trust me." It may be received as a command to have faith based on little or no data offered. People frequently like to come to a conclusion about who to trust on their own, not on being told to do so.

How does this fit into an analysis of principled negotiation? 

Researchers into the methods of negotiation used by food producers and their retail customers show that trust improves the outcomes of those negotiations, tending to produce more win-win results (Rahmoune, Alsagaf, Abdeltawab, Azhari & Hofaidhllaoui, 2023). This may tend to also result in a positive feedback loop: more win-win outcomes produce more trust which produces more win-win results, and so forth.

Small edits to some of the expressions can reduce or eliminate the backfire. For instance, "Please, in this regard, trust me," or, "To be real," or "To be frank," can substitute with better effect for the simple "Trust me," or, "To be honest." 

"Calm down" needs much more than a small revision. It needs a deëscalation approach, which starts with active listening and can eventually produce the calm being sought, not demanded.

Reference

Rahmoune, M., Alsagaf, M., Abdeltawab, A. M., Azhari, A., & Hofaidhllaoui, M. (2023). Influence of Benevolence and Credibility on Conduct of Integrative Negotiation Behaviours. Marketing & Management of Innovations / Marketing ì Menedžment Ìnnovacìj, 14(1), 213–223. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.21272/mmi.2023.1-18

Supermodels and saving the world

There are many paths to learning negotiation; the Trumpian adversarial model is a zero-sum, high conflict, no ethics, high cost, positional model, also sometimes referred to as transactional or distributive. The principled negotiation model is based on finding a fair outcome, wise decision based on serving the interests of the parties, not the original stated positions. It lends itself to collaboration toward an outcome of mutual gain.

Turns out that the principled negotiation model, sometimes referred to as integrative, tends to lead to a transformative process, that is, it often transforms a destructive conflict into a productive, constructive conflict. 

One might expect, then, for training done with students entering a Model UN simulation experience, they would be taught the different styles and be informed that using principled negotiation is more often the method used in successful negotiated outcomes toward, for example, peace, international agreements, global humanitarian processes, planetary environmental protection, and more.

Researchers have found, however, that, in general, students in Model UN simulations are not generally taught much about how to negotiate, but rather what the formal structures of the UN are and how UN business is conducted (O’Dell, Scott, Nealon & Franzino, 2024). 

Is it any wonder that it is so tough to create enforceable international treaties to protect people and the planet? Are there examples of such agreements that are in existence? 

I would point to the Montreal Protocol:[1]

"The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is the landmark multilateral environmental agreement that regulates the production and consumption of nearly 100 man-made chemicals referred to as ozone depleting substances (ODS). When released into the atmosphere, those chemicals damage the stratospheric ozone layer, Earth’s protective shield that protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Adopted on 16 September 1987, the Protocol is to date one of the rare treaties to achieve universal ratification."

Enforceable? How? Some country refuses to give up manufacturing ODS and the UN conducts a military campaign to force compliance? Shoots the soldiers of the country? Assassinates the leaders?

Nope. It's all economic sticks and carrots, with mutually beneficial outcomes for literally every country on Earth. I am not privy to the precise negotiation methods, but for the US the diplomats first under George H.W. Bush and then under Clinton operated in the interests of the US but apparently did not regard also serving the interests of other countries as a bad thing or a dealbreaker.

Getting to yes for each and every country on Earth is possible. Peace is possible. Human rights are possible. 

---

[1] https://www.unep.org/ozonaction/who-we-are/about-montreal-protocol

References

O’Dell, R. K. M., Scott, A. B., Nealon, M. J., & Franzino, B. N. (2024). Training for the United Nations in the Twenty-First Century; Professionalism Training on Leadership, Negotiation, and Gender for Model United Nations Simulations. International Studies Perspectives, 25(2), 246–264. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1093/isp/ekad011

My foe my friend: Skilling up labor negotiators

The basics of principled negotiation have been taught for many decades, with the first little edition of Getting to Yes published in 1981, yet as any observer of labor-management negotiations can easily conclude, those successful approaches are frequently--even typically--missing from the conduct of collective bargaining, which is often just practiced as straightforward adversarial processes.

Research into that phenomenon includes the finding that: 

"union negotiators are cautious about integrative negotiation, which could be due to a lack of belief in interested-based negotiation per se, as well as the fear of being taken advantage of by the management (adversarial relationship) or concern about how this negotiation approach might be perceived by constituents" (Mann, Warsitzka, Hüffmeier & Trötschel, 2024, p. 445).

The barriers to better practice, then, might involve more than cursory exposure to principled negotiation for those who engage in labor-management negotiations; rank and file should learn the basics and be exposed to both empirical findings of improved outcomes as well as a few salient case narratives.

Integrating the knowledge of the empirical research into relative success of nonviolent vs violent uprisings has taken years, but increasingly activists at more mass levels are aware. Presumably, the same could happen with rank and file, reducing the anxiety labor negotiators might have about the perceptions held by union members. When that knowledge become generalized, some less destructive and more transformative outcomes might be more common.

References

Mann, M., Warsitzka, M., Hüffmeier, J., & Trötschel, R. (2024). United we stand: a principle-based negotiation training for collective bargaining. International Journal of Conflict Management (Emerald), 35(2), 427–452. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1108/IJCMA-05-2023-0088

Now...or later?

When there are identity issues at play in conflict, and when an expressed view is really hard to handle, it is very legitimate, wise, even, to request a break. Re-centering, re-casting your compassionate curiosity in an environment of fear and anxiety, is tough. 

It is also critical to take the shortest break possible, the most brief time when you can reasonably process what is transpiring in a way that you can re-enter the conflict conversation with good balance. Asking for 10 minutes is right there for you; asking for 10 hours, 10 days, or more is not necessarily a healthy or helpful request (let alone demand). 

Gathering your sense of caring for all--including yourself--and then resuming dialog across difference is adaptive and can avoid a jumbled trainwreck of ineffective reactions to challenging information, ideas, assertions, or conclusions.

Pro-life: Seriously?

Ah, those pro-lifers. 

Walking, talking, shooting oxymorons.

You can tell the pro-life extremists. They're the ones who want their enemies--the women and men who support a woman's sovereignty over her own body--dead by any means at their command.

Mike Lee, the brilliant Republican US Senator from Utah, went on Elon Musk's social media platform, X, and posted about the fatal shooting of Democratic politicians in Minnesota over the weekend, that, “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.”

Allegedly, the shooter in Minnesota left a notebook that included some of his "reasoning," and also a list of future targets of his, 100 percent of whom were Democrats if they were elected officials.

Mike Lee, explain how this relates in any way to Marxists (sorry, Mike, nobody likes the Marxists, so just cut it out), to Democrats, to anyone except Trump-supporting Republican anti-abortion zealots like the shooter.

Yes, there are plenty of abortion opponents who do not include murdering anyone on a different side of that question as an enemy who qualifies for assassination. Swell. Is the bar really that low in our Trump era?

I am on a peace team. We do some accompaniment work occasionally. We've helped escort for Planned Parenthood. They had folks on the shooter's list too. It has never computed for me. Kill in the name of being pro-life?

Then again, there are many other threats to life that "pro-lifers" frequently either ignore or outright support the life-threatening side. I'm thinking about: 

·       Radioactive material, all of which causes cancer, as well as mutagenic and teratogenic harm. This applies to the nuclear material in power plants, bombs, and waste.

·       Petrofarming with biocides that cause cancer.

·       Big Oil, which causes and is accelerating climate chaos, taking more and more lives every year.

·       Assault weapons.

·       War.

Of course there are many more such anti-life threats that many "pro-life" people support. Am I being a radical idealist here, or just asking us to try to hold what the late Jesuit priest, Fr. Daniel Berrigan named a "seamless philosophy" about it all?

Dan was pro-life. He opposed abortion, war, industrial practices that cause great harm, and he repeatedly went to prison for his lack of hypocrisy. His late brother Phil, a Josephite priest and then a radical anti-racism, antiwar nonviolent resister, also held a set of values that were for life without exception, and went to prison even more than his little brother Dan.

Few can live lives of complete adherence to values and principles that do not effectively contradict each other. It is basic decency, however, to at least attempt to practice our places in the world that are not ethically or morally mutually exclusive, to the best of our abilities. 

I'm waiting for our "leaders" begin demonstrating such golden rule lives. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is one version of the Golden Rule. He who has the gold rules is, of course, the opposite other golden rule. 

Back in the day, zealots would preach that you need to follow their moral practices or go to hell. I hope we've begun to evolve to teach our children that doing right by everyone, practicing nonviolent conflict transformation, is its own reward, right here, right now.