“Defining Deviancy Down” is a 1993 essay by sociologist and then U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Its core idea is “societies survive disorder by redefining it—at the cost of moral and social coherence.”

In my lifetime, America has redefined commerce. Scale now dominates.

We have redefined marijuana—it is now “recreational”.

Gambling has been redefined as “fun” and is featured in promotions during games.

Love is now “making love,” and too often friendship has been caught up in a transactional zeitgeist—“what is in it for me.”

And maybe most tellingly, let’s look at governance or what we call politics.

The great fisherman, Donald Trump, is certainly good at chumming the water. Trump stands tall on the bow deck of the statecraft, tossing pieces of fish in the water.

I have seen what chum does. Chumming is baiting the water with stuff fish like to eat and then slipping a hook into one or more of the baits. Trump on most days chums the water, much of the media and a too credulous audience rush to the bait. I want to shout: “watch out for the hooks.”

The President wants history to record him as a mythic leader. In his view, right up there with Washington and Lincoln. He will be recognized not as a great leader but as a mythic chummer. Maria Machado’s, Venezuela’s opposition leader, harrowing journey from Venezuela to Norway was mythic. She deserved the Nobel recognition.

But when it comes to chumming, wow! I watched its effect when I objected to the President’s use of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory authority to help favored media at the expense of free speech. In a 48-hour cycle, I was called a number of times and interviewed.  But then the circus left town—my phone quit ringing.

The larger question: has Trump bent America’s institutions of government in such an egregious way that they will not straighten out?  Or will a true democrat (not the party) again occupy the White House? And, will the institutions that balance America’s government once again serve as intended?

But let me return to the chum. The public, especially independent voters, have begun to rebel. Even some in the Republican Party seem fed up. At some point, tactics are revealing. Increasingly, they reveal a President who will bend and reshape words and actions in self-justification. “The hell with democracy,” he says to himself, “I will do what I want to do. And celebrate myself.”

In my view, he is in a competition with himself for the most loathsome actions. Favoring Russia over Ukraine. Driving prices higher with tariffs. Failing to deal with our national debt. Disparaging. Bullying. Lying. Where to start? Stop?

But he has achieved one overriding tactical success—intimidating Members of Congress. Their compliant behavior proves what a woeful bunch of wannabes occupy many of the Congressional seats.

And in my list of mythically bad actions what about taking a wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White House? Once again, the Congress proved prey as Trump got his rich collaborators to pay for the destruction and presumably the rebuild. Transactional politics at its most egregious.

Final word. The President is clear; he wants to run things. He doesn’t want the Congress or States or Courts to get in the way. He wants what judicial theorists call the “unitary presidency”—the President as corporate Chief Executive (CEO) with authority to do anything and everything.

Similarity with CEOs is absent. Perhaps the theorists willfully overlook the obvious. CEOs can be immediately fired by their Boards.

If the Supreme Court, in a pending case on tariff authority, rationalizes Presidential authority, the court will join Trump in infamy. And if Congress persists in acting like a compliant board of directors it too will join Trump and his Supreme Court in disgrace. Importantly, if the scaffolding of checks and balances are removed our building will fall down.

Right now Trump is “defining deviancy down”. Can Americans reclaim it?

Breaking News

When learning of Rob Reiner’s death, Trump verbally applauded, referring to him as a “deranged person”. Surely this won’t define deviancy down any further.

The Days Ahead

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Especially, “Peace on Earth and Good Will to All! And, sorry for the dark lead-in.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

My Dad was a retailer in a small town in Southeast Missouri. Name: Kendall Sikes. In my youth, Dad and his brother had a store that, among other things, sold toys. In our family, Christmas was a really big deal—earthly and beyond.

Beyond the transcendent part, our Church was important. Mom, Marcia Sikes, was the organist at the Church, and I heard Christmas songs being practiced by her every day for well over a month. The melodies were layered with lyrics of love, joy, kindness—the fruit of the faith.

Back then, there were radio stations that broadcast church services on Sunday morning and then reverted to regular programming by the afternoon. During the holidays, regular programming often meant Christmas music, and quite a bit of it recalled biblical stories related musically. The song, “Mama Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” was still decades off.

My job at the store included re-shelfing. Dad knew most of the customers and if, for one reason or another, they had to return items, he accepted them and I put them back on the shelf. It was, he said, “the right thing to do.” Those little episodes of life linger.

We are now in what the Christian faith calls the Advent Season; the dawn before the sun comes up, as I think about it. The staging before the main event, the birth of a baby, the world calls Jesus.

But the main Christmas event now, for most, is a variation on Kings (wise men from the East) bringing gifts to celebrate Jesus’s birth.  Gift buying and giving are the propulsive features of the season.

And gift giving, I know from my broadcast days, results in peak advertising in the fourth quarter. A recent report found a 20% quarter-over-quarter increase in overall digital advertising in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Today a popular social media descriptive is “Influencer”. Merriam-Webster defines an influencer as: “one who exerts influence: a person who inspires or guides the actions of others.” And that is just the way people in the media business, old and new, see themselves—especially in podcasting and social media.

Media salespeople, a part of the mix, are “influence advocates”. They talk in impressions per thousand of people reached. They can tell you about repetition, specifically, how many impressions each person will hear or see. Somewhere along this line of ad creation, volume, and repetition, companies, agencies, and media prevail. Compromised on a societal level are the transcendent messages of “love, joy and kindness.”

We, the collective, are coming around. Social media is providing searing lessons. Many schools, for example, are taking cell phones away as classes begin. There is, at least I hope, a 21st Century understanding that turning kids over to various media, social and legacy alike, is harmful. While this has always been true, we are now in an age when performative outrage used to break through media noise compounds the problem.

But back to lessons and going outside the family. The Pledge of Allegiance, with its transcendent message, for example, is absent in many schools today. A 1943 Supreme Court ruling said that requiring students to recite the Pledge violated their First Amendment rights.

It is, of course, impossible for me to know what ultimate effect my Mom’s rendition of sacred holiday music had on my young mind and its lingering effects. But it was not nothing, and society’s swing to intense consumerism and, more recently, increased creative noise and profanity is also not nothing. When the prevailing culture finds God an irrelevance, the Judeo-Christian moral codes follow.

It is easy to blame parents or schools or politics for societal breakdown. Let me add to the list—not at the adornment level, but at the foundation one—when the profane transcends the sacred, trouble is the offspring.

Thank you, Mom and Dad.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Is intuition obsolete? What about our accumulated layers of information and feelings or what we might call seasoning? Including, of course, the lessons from failures and the information-laden seams of character? Or, the fruits of relationships—the improvisational values of collaboration?

It was 1959. One of the greatest jazz pieces ever composed, “Take Five”, was performed by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The melody was written by Paul Desmond, but the band collaborated on the final fusion of ideas and musical notes. Brubeck created the harmonic foundation and Joe Morello the famous drum pattern.

“Take Five” is both Desmond’s composition and a Brubeck Quartet creation. A collaboration for the ages.

Are the coders with their artificial intelligence (AI) tools going to upstage fertile minds? Minds shaped and reshaped by life? Can they turn the generative algorithms  into 21st-century creators without pirating previous works? Can AI models take humans out of the equation?

At the risk of mixing up input and outcomes, here are some recent experiences—the complex and simple kind. When I got my knees replaced, I offhandedly referred to the surgery as robotic chainsawing. Thank goodness for the strides in pain management. My research and subsequent experience suggest that doctors working with robotic tools are a generation or two more effective in the removal of the old and integrating the new.

But then how much do we want tools to get in the middle? For example, in a recent trip back from New York, I came face-to-face with both a person and a screen at the same service area on the New Jersey Turnpike. As required by New Jersey law, a human pumped gas and cleaned the car window while my wife had to figure out the tablet interface at a ShakeShack. Best in show: the gas attendant, not the interface,

Whether we are dealing with a medical breakthrough or ordering sandwiches, humans can be either crucial or welcome. I am afraid that when they are just welcome they will disappear. Too bad, variations on the default format go missing, and hospitality is nonexistent.

As one friend of mine often quips, “Here’s the thing.” I started with a slide rule, welcomed the electronic spreadsheet, and then the calculator, followed quickly by the computerization of most things.

Technology attracts investment. And, return on investment will require volume—a robust demand side. The capital investment in AI is without precedent and that will help to assure the ultimate flipped script. Will we flip from humanics to mechanics? If so what will be lost, a civilization?

A recent headline in the Wall Street Journal proclaimed “The College Students Who Can’t Do Elementary Math.” The underlying story verified that many students at the University of California, San Diego can’t round numbers or add fractions. If you cannot tally up numbers, trouble will follow.

Regardless, as momentum flips the script, the depth of human creativity will remain crucial to progress and humanity. But, if AI becomes a substitute for thinking, the incurious will need to muscle up.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Many of us have been caught in a snow blizzard at least once. Mostly, not intentionally. Visibility—well, it closes in on nil. Cold—my few experiences were in high winds, and on one occasion, I got frostbite. No sympathy, please—I was in a duck blind and refused to call it a day.

Today, our nation’s finances are careening toward nil. We can’t see or understand a $38 trillion debt. We, the United States of America, owe other people that amount of money, and our debt obligations have been going up and up for several decades. Think Treasury Bills, Bonds, Notes, and more. The last time America balanced its books was in fiscal year 2001.

If we paid off our national debt over a generation, let’s say 25 years, and the interest rate on the debt was 5%, we would need to pay $2.7 trillion dollars a year in principal and interest. I should add, a credible debt retirement program would reduce the carrying cost. Indeed, a credible program would facilitate debt as a normal element of a dynamic economy.

But back to the payment plan: $2.7 trillion a year! Our defense budget in 2024 was $865 billion, 13% of the annual budget. We, of course, will not quit spending on defense. The annual cost of Medicare in 2023 was $1.03 trillion.

Enough, you get why I suggested our nation’s finances are a low visibility event. We can’t fathom that amount of money. We can’t fathom where we are going to get almost triple the amount paid out for Medicare to make the necessary annual payment to retire our debt eventually.

One might look at the policy platforms of each political party to see how they would retire our national debt, but guess what, they don’t say. Surprise! Cynicism follows.

The dominant political parties should not be allowed to get away with a national bankruptcy trajectory. If you are a Democrat, don’t try to tell me there is some Valhalla that awaits our nation if we just add costly new programs. And if you are a Republican, don’t tell me we will resolve our fiscal mess without any additional tax revenue. We will not grow ourselves out of our shame.

Maybe we need to come inside. Snow blizzards are not pleasant. And yet that is where we are in our national politics. Neither Party is serious. Both are too caught up in their childish games of blame. And neither are attracting blue-chip candidates for office. How do I know? Because in office, the vast majority do not treat money in and out with any seriousness. For at least a generation, promises of new spending pile up, and then each year, the political speeches call for more programs on top of programs that leave the body politic with an increasingly dark outlook.

President Trump is a fruit of cynicism—cause and effect. Trump recently floated the idea of $2,000 payments to low- and middle-income households, funded by revenue from his tariffs. Earlier he had suggested tariff income could be used to reduce the deficit. His polling numbers are down and now he is going to give away even more money than in the “big, beautiful bill” to get them up.

Thanksgiving thought. In an international ranking of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the United States is the top-ranked large country at $75,492. Yet our massive appetite has resulted in a $38 trillion dollar debt. Indisputably, we have much to be thankful for. Our unfunded appetite is not on that list.

I have no idea when this folly will stop, but it will. As the cost of borrowing goes up and up something will give and maybe somebody will step up. But if somebody steps up, will we be capable of recognizing him/her? Or will our inebriation continue?

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books. 

Emoluments! Look it up. It is constitutionally important and has a long history, including even the title of America’s head of State. Before landing on the title President, John Adams recommended that our head of state be called: “His Highness, the President of the United States, and Protector of their Liberties.” This was said to be an attempt to imitate the titles of the British monarch. It was only six years earlier that George Washington had proclaimed the Cessation of Hostilities, after Britain and the U.S. agreed to stop fighting. America’s early leaders didn’t want a “Highness.”

Why do I bring this up? Well, titles were bought and sold and considered by many as a ticket to nobility and financial reward. As to titles and other rewards our Constitution writers explicitly said that the President could not: accept “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State” without the consent of Congress.” There is also a domestic preclusion.

While I am too late in life to consider investing in cryptocurrencies, I am nonetheless curious. After all, the President’s sons have huge investments. Maybe they know something I should know.

My back story. In 1986, I was reminded why those of us who work for the government are not supposed to take advantage of the job. I became the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. It was shortened to NTIA so it could fit on a business card.

I won’t bore you with what NTIA did, but its actions did affect the allocation and use of government frequencies. I had been in a private frequency-based business: radio broadcasting.

Before accepting the government job, I sold a radio station and took back a note in partial payment. I was told by the White House ethics officer that I must sell the note back to the buyer because of a potential conflict of interest. Man, was that a long shot, but sell I did at a discounted rate.

Today worry about conflicts of interest seems to have evaporated as the waves created at the top of the government wash over the government as a whole.

One of the next likely targets of increased government regulation is the cryptocurrency industry. And the way the Trump White House uses the Executive Branch, it, not the Congress, is likely to set up the ground rules. After all, the executive branch includes the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

If I understood the crypto industry better, I would detail what further actions the government might take that would be in the public interest. What I do know is that governments want to protect their currencies. In the case of the United States, our currency, the dollar, is one of the most important international assets we have.

A Reuters news report recalled President Trump’s comment about cryptocurrencies in 2021: Donald J. Trump, speaking to Fox Business, criticized cryptocurrencies as a threat to U.S. dollar supremacy and said bitcoin “seems like a scam.”

As Reuters reported three years later, Trump’s take on crypto had changed. Just weeks before the November 2024 presidential election, he kicked off sales of World Liberty tokens with a social media post: “This is YOUR chance to help shape the future of finance,”

As Reuter’s noted more recently: “As World Liberty Financial raised more than half a billion dollars, President Donald Trump’s family took control of the crypto venture and grabbed the lion’s share of those funds, aided by governance terms that industry experts say favor insiders.”

I am astounded by this unfolding story. The President and his family, by all telling, are quite wealthy. He should not want his fairness questioned as he deals with important issues affecting the dollar.

During my time in Washington, I attended several swearing-ins. A typical pledge required fidelity to the Constitution and rule of law and a pledge to avoid “divided loyalty and to provide honest and faithful service.” My, being forced to sell a Buyers-note, falls under this umbrella.

Now as I emerge from an hour long trip down a rabbit hole its pretty clear the President does not have to make a similar pledge because much of what he does affects society and the economy. However, he does take a pledge to not receive emoluments from either international or domestic sources. As noted, that strange word refers to things of value.

The kicker: the enforcement mechanism is impeachment. We’ve been down that hyper-partisan road. What I don’t understand is why a wealthy man holding the highest office in the land would seed a cloud cover in place over the White House by using his office for his family’s interests.

Along with what seems an ancient word, emoluments, recall an event in 62 BCE at a trial of Caesar’s wife, Pompeia. Plutarch reported that Caesar, while testifying on her fidelity, said he had no knowledge of a reputed affair between his wife and Clodius Pulcher, but that “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.”

My advice: ask your sons to divest their crypto holdings. Maybe they will miss a big payday, but you will gain a reputational boost. And, when you leave the White House, I imagine you will not want to be on the other end of dozens of subpoenas.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.