Unknown Unknowns

A few thoughts on history and humility

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face –Mike Tyson

The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Democrats are hurting. And they are angry; looking for someone to blame; casting ominous predictions about what to expect in the coming four years. But if history tells us anything, it is that world events-like the aforementioned punch to the face-have a way of laying the best laid plans to waste.

Recent history points to George W Bush. On August 9, 2001, federal funding for stem cell research was important enough an issue that he addressed the country from his ranch in prime time. Easy to forget how much oxygen this was consuming in the public discourse.

On September 11, his visit to Emma E. Booker Elementary School, was to champion his No Child Left Behind program. This is where we were the morning his administration was upended. Only the Richard Clarke’s of the world saw this coming. Maybe the current incarnation of Clarke is really who the walking wounded left media should be searching for to find clues of a future Trump catastrophe, once they have come off the therapist couch.

All of this is not to diminish the commentary we are hearing and reading about the threat of a Trump presidency. What history does show however, is that there are always incoming global and domestic volleys and shocks. And they are hard currents to navigate or even to predict. The domino effect of the Bay of Pigs invasion is another example. And it’s only in hindsight (our deeper understanding of his paranoia) that anyone would think the result of a 520 to 17 electoral win would be Richard Nixon leaving the White House in disgrace via Marine One in 1974.

Of course the other side of this argument is that Trump himself will be the agent of chaos, and it will be the rest of the world on the back foot, reacting to some rash decision. Understood, loud and clear.

But I am in the history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes camp. And perhaps the political pundits on the blue team should see something in themselves in the famous quote of screenwriter William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything”