Dwain Northey

The Art of the Deal, the Memorandum of Understanding, and Other Fairy Tales

Donald Trump loves to tell us he’s a master negotiator. The Art of the Deal. The ultimate dealmaker. The guy who can walk into a room, stare down world leaders, and emerge victorious carrying a signed agreement and a photo op.

The problem is that many of these so-called deals increasingly resemble something less like diplomacy and more like an abusive husband standing in the kitchen saying, “Look, sweetheart, I won’t punch you in the face this week if you just remember to do the dishes.”

That’s not a deal.

That’s extortion with better branding.

The latest Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, being hailed as some great diplomatic achievement appears to follow the same basic formula. We agree not to do something harmful that we shouldn’t be doing in the first place, and in return the other party agrees to make concessions. Then everyone gathers around and applauds because civilization has apparently reached the point where basic decency is now considered a negotiating tactic.

Imagine your neighbor standing on your lawn holding a gas can.

“Nice house you’ve got there. Sign this memorandum and I probably won’t set it on fire.”

You wouldn’t call that a successful negotiation. You’d call the police.

Yet somehow when it happens between governments, corporations, or powerful individuals, we’re supposed to marvel at the strategic genius involved.

Of course, this approach shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with Trump’s business history. Contractors have been telling versions of the same story for decades.

“Do the work.”

“Will I get paid?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you have a contract?”

“Sure.”

“Will you honor it?”

“We’ll see.”

For countless small businesses, plumbers, painters, electricians, and construction companies, that was reportedly the Trump version of an MOU. You perform the work, then spend months or years fighting to get compensated. If you’re lucky, you settle for pennies on the dollar because you can’t afford an army of lawyers.

That’s not the Art of the Deal.

That’s the Art of Being Bigger Than the Other Guy.

And now we see the same playbook elevated to international politics. Threaten tariffs. Threaten sanctions. Threaten retaliation. Threaten economic pain. Then offer to temporarily stop threatening people if they give you something in return.

The headlines call it leverage.

Most normal people would call it bullying.

The truly absurd part is that supporters often point to the existence of the agreement itself as proof of success. Never mind what’s actually in it. Never mind whether it solves anything. Never mind whether both parties walk away equally satisfied.

There’s paper.

There are signatures.

There are cameras.

Mission accomplished.

It’s the diplomatic equivalent of putting a “Mission Accomplished” banner over a leaky roof.

The older I get, the more I realize that genuine negotiation usually involves compromise. Both sides give a little. Both sides get a little. Nobody gets everything they want.

But that’s not flashy enough for reality television politics.

Reality television requires winners and losers.

Heroes and villains.

Deals that can be marketed like steak knives at two in the morning.

So every MOU becomes the greatest agreement ever signed. Every handshake becomes a historic victory. Every temporary ceasefire in hostilities becomes evidence of unparalleled genius.

And yet somehow we’re constantly back at the negotiating table, facing the same problems that were supposedly solved by the last historic agreement.

Maybe that’s because a real deal creates stability.

A shakedown creates compliance—at least until the other party gets tired of being shaken down.

The Art of the Deal was always sold as a blueprint for success. Increasingly it looks more like a manual for turning every relationship into a protection racket.

“Nice economy you’ve got there.”

“Nice trade agreement.”

“Nice alliance.”

“Be a shame if something happened to it.”

And somehow we’re supposed to applaud the guy who threatened the damage when he agrees not to cause it for another six months.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The Trillionaire and the Taxpayer

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, a billion dollars was cartoon-villain money. A billionaire was someone who lived in a mansion on top of a mountain, probably had a secret lair, and appeared in movies as the guy trying to buy a country. Most of us couldn’t even comprehend a billion dollars. It was simply too much money to fit into a normal human brain.

Now we have a trillionaire.

Not a country. Not a government. Not an empire.

One guy.

A trillion dollars.

That’s a number so absurd that our grandparents didn’t even use it in everyday conversation. A million seconds is about eleven days. A billion seconds is over thirty-one years. A trillion seconds is nearly thirty-two thousand years. Human civilization wasn’t even writing things down thirty-two thousand years ago.

Yet somehow we’ve reached a point where one person can accumulate that much wealth and half the country shrugs and says, “Good for him.”

The latest milestone comes as Elon Musk’s fortune explodes thanks to SpaceX’s valuation and public trading. SpaceX is undoubtedly an impressive company. Reusable rockets are remarkable engineering. But let’s stop pretending this was some lone genius building rockets in a garage with spare parts and a dream.

SpaceX has received billions upon billions in government contracts. NASA contracts. Department of Defense contracts. Launch agreements funded by taxpayers. The company was nurtured and sustained by public money from its early years. The same taxpayers who are told there’s no money for affordable housing, no money for healthcare, no money for student debt relief, no money for infrastructure, and certainly no money to make sure kids don’t go hungry.

Funny how money always appears when corporations need it.

Tesla tells a similar story. Federal tax credits. State incentives. Subsidies. Regulatory credits worth billions. Public investment helped create the environment where Tesla could flourish.

Again, none of this means the companies aren’t innovative. They are.

But let’s not rewrite history into some fairy tale about rugged individualism. The American taxpayer was an investor whether they wanted to be or not. The difference is taxpayers don’t get stock options.

They get potholes.

They get higher grocery bills.

They get lectures about fiscal responsibility.

And they get to watch the richest man in history become even richer.

The truly staggering part isn’t that Elon Musk has a trillion dollars. It’s that we’ve somehow normalized it. We live in a society where people struggle to afford rent, where working families juggle two or three jobs, where seniors choose between prescriptions and groceries, and where homelessness exists in virtually every major city.

Meanwhile, one man’s net worth exceeds the economic output of many nations.

Think about that for a second.

A trillion dollars isn’t wealth. It’s power.

It’s the ability to influence markets, media, politics, technology, and public discourse on a scale previously reserved for governments.

Could one person solve world hunger? Not permanently. The problem is more complicated than writing a check.

Could one person dramatically reduce homelessness, fund medical research, transform education, provide clean water, build infrastructure, and improve millions of lives?

Absolutely.

Instead, we’ve built a culture that treats extreme wealth as if it’s an Olympic sport. Every new billionaire is celebrated. Every new hundred billion is applauded. Every new record becomes proof that the system works.

But if one person can accumulate a trillion dollars while millions struggle to survive, maybe that’s not evidence the system is working.

Maybe it’s evidence the system is working exactly as designed.

The billionaire era was already difficult to justify. The trillionaire era is something else entirely. It’s a flashing neon sign announcing that wealth has become detached from any reasonable human scale.

And the irony is impossible to ignore.

The taxpayers helped build the launchpad.

The taxpayers funded the contracts.

The taxpayers absorbed the risk.

Then the profits blasted into orbit.

And now we’re supposed to stand on the ground, looking up, and cheer while a trillionaire waves from space.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, we were taught that knowledge was power. Teachers said it. Parents said it. Television specials said it. Every after-school program, public service announcement, and educational cartoon hammered home the same message: learn things. Read books. Ask questions. Get an education. The more you know, the better your life will be.

It wasn’t a controversial idea.

Nobody looked at the smart kid in class and accused him of being part of some elitist conspiracy. Nobody claimed scientists were enemies of the people. Nobody suggested that universities were dangerous because they exposed students to facts.

Knowledge was considered a virtue.

Fast forward to today, and somehow we’ve stumbled into a political movement whose unofficial motto seems to be, “Please stop learning things.”

The man who famously declared, “I love the poorly educated,” wasn’t joking. It has become a governing philosophy. Expertise is suspect. Education is suspect. Science is suspect. Journalism is suspect. History is suspect. If you spend your life studying a subject, apparently that makes you less qualified to discuss it than somebody who watched a three-minute video on social media while sitting on the toilet.

Climate scientists? Can’t trust them.

Medical researchers? Probably hiding something.

Economists? Part of the deep state.

Historians? Woke propagandists.

Teachers? Brainwashing children.

At some point, ignorance stopped being something to overcome and became something to celebrate.

The strangest part is that every advancement we enjoy came from people who knew things. The phone in your pocket wasn’t invented by someone screaming at experts. The internet wasn’t built by people who thought education was a scam. Modern medicine wasn’t developed by folks who believed feelings were a substitute for evidence.

Every bridge, airplane, vaccine, computer chip, GPS satellite, and MRI machine exists because somebody spent years learning complicated things.

Knowledge built the modern world.

Yet we’re living through a period where facts themselves are treated as political opinions. If reality disagrees with someone’s worldview, reality is the thing that gets rejected.

Imagine telling our parents and grandparents that one day politicians would campaign against universities, research institutions, libraries, and scientific expertise. The Greatest Generation fought a world war with engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and codebreakers. They understood that knowledge wasn’t weakness; it was a strategic advantage.

Now we have leaders who seem terrified of educated people asking inconvenient questions.

Why are prices rising?

Where did the money go?

What does the data actually say?

Who benefits from this policy?

Questions are dangerous when your argument depends on people not asking any.

As a Gen Xer, maybe that’s what bothers me most. We were raised on curiosity. We were told to look things up. Go to the library. Read the encyclopedia. Learn how things work. Figure it out yourself.

Now we’re told that expertise is elitism and ignorance is authenticity.

God forbid we advance anything.

God forbid we solve problems.

God forbid we invest in research, education, or innovation.

Because if knowledge is power, then an informed population is difficult to manipulate. And maybe that’s the real problem.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that knowledge is still power.

The difference is that when I was a kid, everyone admitted it.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Somewhere along the way, we went from “suck it up” to “tell me how that made you feel.”

And before anybody gets defensive, I’m not saying one is right and the other is wrong. What fascinates me is how dramatically society has changed in barely a century, not just in how we treat adults, but in how we raise children and how we define hardship itself.

Think about the generations that came before us.

The men who fought the Civil War, World War I, and World War II witnessed things most of us can’t even imagine. They saw friends die, came home with physical and emotional wounds, and were expected to simply continue living. There was no PTSD diagnosis. There was no therapist waiting for them. There was no discussion about processing trauma.

The expectation was simple: get back to work.

Many of those men carried their experiences to the grave without ever talking about them.

The same mindset existed throughout society. Life was hard, and hardship wasn’t considered unusual. It was considered life.

The Greatest Generation grew up during the Depression. Childhood wasn’t about discovering your passions or building self-esteem. Childhood was about survival. Kids worked farms. Kids delivered newspapers. Kids sold whatever they could sell. In earlier generations, children worked factories, mines, fields, and family businesses because the family needed the income.

The Silent Generation wasn’t treated much differently. The rules were straightforward: obey your parents, do your chores, get a job when you’re old enough, and don’t complain.

Then came the Boomers.

They grew up during a period of greater prosperity, but the expectation of work remained. Teenagers stocked shelves, pumped gas, bagged groceries, babysat, mowed lawns, and worked summer jobs. Nobody was particularly concerned about whether employment might interfere with their personal growth journey.

You worked because that’s what people did.

Then came Gen X.

Our parents invented a revolutionary parenting philosophy called, “Be home before dark.”

We were the latchkey kids. The feral children. We disappeared on bicycles for entire days. We drank from garden hoses. We settled disputes ourselves. We learned independence because there often wasn’t anybody around to help us.

Most of us worked too. Maybe not in coal mines or textile mills, but we worked restaurants, retail stores, movie theaters, grocery stores, and whatever jobs would hire teenagers.

We learned early that life wasn’t always fair, and nobody was handing out participation trophies for showing up.

Then something interesting happened.

Gen X became parents.

Many of us looked at our own childhoods and decided our kids should have something better.

Maybe they shouldn’t have to struggle quite so much.

Maybe they shouldn’t have to figure everything out alone.

Maybe they should have more support than we did.

So we became more involved. We attended every game. We helped with homework. We monitored grades. We encouraged feelings. We wanted our children to have opportunities that previous generations never had.

Millennials became the most supervised and supported generation in history.

Then Gen Z arrived.

The trend accelerated even further.

Parents could track their children’s location through their phones. Schools became increasingly focused on emotional wellness. Mental health became a mainstream conversation. Every challenge, struggle, or setback was examined through a psychological lens.

At the same time, our understanding of trauma evolved.

By the time we got to Iraq and Afghanistan, society had finally acknowledged something previous generations largely ignored: psychological wounds are real.

PTSD wasn’t weakness.

It wasn’t cowardice.

It was injury.

A soldier returning from combat with emotional scars deserved treatment just as much as a soldier returning with physical injuries.

That recognition was genuine progress.

The conversation didn’t stop with veterans, though.

It expanded to everyone.

Children.

Parents.

Students.

Workers.

Retirees.

Today we have psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, therapists, social workers, trauma specialists, addiction specialists, and countless experts trying to understand why people become who they become.

Fifty years ago, if someone was anxious, depressed, angry, self-destructive, or unable to maintain relationships, the diagnosis was often highly scientific:

“Well, he’s screwed up.”

That was the entire treatment plan.

Today we know more.

We understand childhood development. We understand trauma. We understand brain chemistry. We understand how experiences shape behavior.

That’s unquestionably valuable.

But it also creates an interesting question.

If every generation has been raised with more comfort, more protection, more emotional support, and fewer physical hardships than the one before it, why do we seem to be talking about anxiety, trauma, depression, and emotional distress more than ever?

You would think the trend would move in the opposite direction.

A child working twelve-hour shifts in a factory should logically experience more hardship than a child whose greatest stress is a dead phone battery or a disappointing social media post.

Yet here we are.

Part of the answer may be that previous generations weren’t healthier.

They were simply quieter.

The World War II veteran who drank himself to sleep every night wasn’t necessarily fine.

The Depression-era father who never expressed affection wasn’t necessarily emotionally healthy.

The Boomer who buried every feeling under work, alcohol, cigarettes, or anger wasn’t necessarily coping successfully.

They may have had the same wounds. They just lacked the language to discuss them.

At the same time, it’s fair to wonder whether modern society sometimes swings too far in the opposite direction.

The old generations often ignored emotional suffering.

Modern society sometimes seems determined to diagnose every unpleasant experience.

Life contains disappointment.

Life contains rejection.

Life contains failure.

Life contains heartbreak.

For most of human history, those experiences were viewed as unavoidable parts of being human.

Today we sometimes treat ordinary adversity as though it requires a clinical explanation.

The old generations often lacked compassion.

The modern era sometimes lacks perspective.

One side believed emotions didn’t matter.

The other sometimes acts as though every emotional bruise requires professional analysis.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

The Greatest Generation had resilience but often suffered silently.

The Silent Generation mastered endurance but rarely discussed pain.

Boomers challenged old assumptions but still believed in pushing through.

Gen X learned independence, though sometimes what we call independence looked suspiciously like neglect.

Millennials received unprecedented support but sometimes inherited unrealistic expectations.

Gen Z possesses greater awareness of mental health than any generation before it but may occasionally mistake normal adversity for catastrophe.

Every generation has been reacting to the one before it.

The hard parents raised sensitive parents.

The sensitive parents raised protective parents.

The protective parents raised children who expect support.

Each generation trying to fix the mistakes of the previous one.

The question isn’t whether toughness or compassion is better.

We need both.

Human beings need understanding.

Human beings need treatment when treatment is necessary.

Human beings need empathy.

But they also need resilience.

They need the ability to hear “no.”

They need the ability to fail.

They need the ability to recover from disappointment without viewing every setback as trauma.

Maybe wisdom lies somewhere between the worldview of our grandparents and the worldview of our grandchildren.

Somewhere between “walk it off” and “let’s unpack that for the next decade.”

Because pain is real.

Trauma is real.

Mental health is real.

But life keeps moving forward.

And perhaps the challenge for modern society is learning how to acknowledge our scars without allowing them to become our entire identity.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

It must be exhausting living in a world where you only recognize the legitimacy of an election when your side wins.

Welcome to another election year, where one of the most predictable traditions in American politics is about to return. Forget campaign ads. Forget attack mailers. Forget candidates kissing babies and pretending to enjoy corn dogs at county fairs. The most reliable tradition of all is the Republican Party’s election theorem:

If Republicans win, democracy worked perfectly.

If Republicans lose, democracy was rigged.

We’re already seeing the opening act in California. The complaints have started about the state’s jungle primary because the Republican reality-show candidate didn’t make it into the top two. Therefore, according to the usual chorus, the system must be corrupt, unfair, manipulated, or some combination of all three.

The funny part is that this argument requires ignoring one very important detail: we’re talking about California.

California isn’t exactly a swing state hanging on the edge of a knife. It’s about as deep blue as the Pacific Ocean sitting next to it. The fact that a Republican candidate was even competitive enough to be discussed is arguably evidence that the system is working exactly as designed. Yet somehow the conclusion isn’t, “Maybe our candidate wasn’t popular enough.” The conclusion is always, “The game was fixed.”

That’s become the default setting.

When Republicans win governorships, elections are secure.

When Republicans win congressional seats, elections are secure.

When Republicans win the presidency, elections are secure.

But when they lose? Suddenly voting machines are suspicious. Mail ballots are suspicious. Early voting is suspicious. Late voting is suspicious. Counting votes is suspicious. Not counting votes fast enough is suspicious. Counting them too fast is suspicious.

The only thing that never seems suspicious is a Republican victory.

As a Gen Xer, I remember when both parties occasionally lost elections and then spent a few years trying to figure out why. Maybe the message was wrong. Maybe the candidate was weak. Maybe voters didn’t like the platform. Maybe demographics were changing.

Crazy concept, I know.

Now the first instinct isn’t self-reflection. It’s conspiracy.

The modern GOP has created a political version of the toddler who flips over the Monopoly board because they’re losing. The rules are fair right up until the moment they aren’t winning anymore. Then suddenly everyone else cheated.

What’s particularly remarkable is that this strategy creates a no-lose narrative. If Republicans win in November, they’ll point to the results as proof that America’s election system is trustworthy. If they lose, they’ll point to the exact same election system as proof of corruption.

It’s a self-sealing argument. Any outcome validates the belief.

And that’s dangerous, because democracies don’t actually survive on elections alone. They survive because the losers accept the results. That’s the whole deal. That’s the social contract. We all agree to play by the rules, and when our side loses, we grumble, complain, write angry Facebook posts, yell at cable news, and come back for the next election.

The moment one side decides that every loss is evidence of fraud, the foundation starts cracking.

Maybe the California primary wasn’t a conspiracy. Maybe voters simply preferred other candidates.

Maybe losing doesn’t automatically mean cheating occurred.

Maybe democracy includes the possibility that people disagree with you.

I know that’s a radical idea in today’s political climate.

But as we head into another election season, get ready. The script has already been written. If Republicans win, we’ll hear endless speeches about the triumph of democracy. If Republicans lose, we’ll hear endless speeches about stolen elections.

The only mystery left is how long we’re supposed to pretend we don’t already know the ending.

Dwain Northey

Monday Doesn’t Mean Shit

Every Monday, social media fills up with the same tired memes. Garfield hates Mondays. Coffee memes. “Is it Friday yet?” memes. Pictures of people face down on their desks because apparently the greatest tragedy in modern civilization is that the weekend ended.

Monday. Monday. Monday. We get it.

What always strikes me as odd is how these memes assume everybody works the same schedule. The classic American dream—or nightmare depending on your perspective—is still portrayed as a 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday office job.

The problem is that a huge chunk of America doesn’t live in that world.

If you work in healthcare, patients don’t stop having heart attacks because it’s Sunday night. Nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, EMTs, and countless others are working every day of the week. Monday isn’t some dramatic return to reality. It might be their second day on shift. It might be their day off. It might be the middle of a twelve-hour stretch they’ve already lost track of.

The same goes for food service. Somebody has to cook the burgers, stock the shelves, wash the dishes, deliver the groceries, and pour the coffee while the rest of America complains about going back to work.

Transportation workers don’t get to tell airplanes, trains, buses, and trucks to take Mondays off. Law enforcement doesn’t close for weekends. Fire departments don’t lock the doors on Saturday night and reopen Monday morning. Utility workers don’t ignore power outages because it’s a holiday.

Even beyond those careers, millions of people work rotating shifts, overnight schedules, split schedules, weekends, holidays, and whatever hours their employer decides are necessary.

For a lot of us, Monday is just another square on the calendar.

I’ve worked enough odd schedules in my life that I sometimes had to stop and think about what day it was. Tuesday felt like Saturday. Thursday felt like Monday. Sometimes your weekend lands on a random Wednesday because that’s when you happened to get a day off.

The sun comes up. The alarm goes off. You go to work.

The calendar doesn’t care.

What’s funny is that the Monday obsession says something about who gets represented in popular culture. The office worker with weekends off became the default setting for what Americans think work looks like, even though millions of people are living completely different realities.

The nurse getting off a night shift at 7 a.m. Monday isn’t worried about Monday. They’re worried about sleep.

The line cook isn’t worried about Monday. They’re worried about making rent.

The truck driver isn’t worried about Monday. They’re worried about getting the load delivered on time.

The single parent working two jobs isn’t worried about Monday. They’re worried about surviving another week.

Monday is mostly an inconvenience for people lucky enough to have predictable schedules.

For everyone else, it’s just another day.

So every time I see the avalanche of Monday memes, I can’t help but laugh a little. Not because they’re wrong, but because they’re written from a very specific slice of American life that gets treated as universal.

Meanwhile, millions of us are standing there wondering what all the fuss is about.

Monday?

Monday doesn’t mean shit.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

From Clone Wars to Drone Wars

As a Gen Xer who grew up on Star Wars, I can’t help but notice that George Lucas may have accidentally predicted part of the future. The prequel trilogy gave us the Clone Wars—vast armies of identical soldiers fighting across the galaxy while politicians debated strategy from safe conference rooms. What we’re witnessing today isn’t the Clone Wars. It’s the Drone Wars.

The battlefields of Ukraine and the conflicts erupting around Iran are showing us what warfare may look like for the rest of the century. Instead of thousands of troops charging across open ground, we have swarms of flying robots hunting tanks, artillery, supply convoys, and sometimes individual soldiers. Instead of a pilot risking their life in a cockpit, someone may be sitting miles away—or even hundreds of miles away—guiding a machine with controls that look disturbingly similar to a video game controller.

The terrifying part isn’t that this technology exists. It’s how quickly it has evolved.

For centuries, military power was measured in soldiers, ships, tanks, and aircraft. A nation needed massive factories and enormous budgets to compete. Now a relatively inexpensive drone carrying a small explosive charge can destroy equipment worth millions of dollars. A machine that costs less than a used pickup truck can cripple a tank that costs more than a mansion.

That changes everything.

Ukraine has become a laboratory for modern warfare. Both sides are throwing drones at each other in staggering numbers. Reconnaissance drones spot targets. Kamikaze drones strike targets. Naval drones attack ships. Long-range drones hit infrastructure hundreds of miles away. It’s beginning to look less like the wars of the twentieth century and more like two giant technological ecosystems trying to out-innovate each other.

Meanwhile, the tensions involving Iran demonstrate that this isn’t a regional phenomenon. Drone technology has spread across the globe. Nations no longer need fleets of expensive bombers to project force. Increasingly, they need engineers, software developers, satellite links, and warehouses full of autonomous or semi-autonomous machines.

The old image of war involved armies meeting on battlefields. The new image may involve operators staring at screens.

That’s where the ethical questions become uncomfortable.

Human beings evolved with a natural psychological barrier against violence. It’s one thing to pull a trigger while looking someone in the eye. It’s another thing entirely to observe a target through a camera feed thousands of feet in the air. Distance can create emotional detachment. The operator still knows there are human beings on the receiving end, but the experience resembles technology more than combat.

The consequences, however, remain painfully human.

Families still lose loved ones. Cities still burn. Infrastructure still collapses. The only thing changing is the distance between the person making the decision and the person suffering the outcome.

And we’re only at the beginning.

Today’s drones often require human operators. Tomorrow’s drones may not.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing target recognition, navigation, and coordination. Military planners around the world are undoubtedly imagining swarms of autonomous systems that can communicate with one another, adapt to changing conditions, and continue operating even when communications are disrupted.

That’s where the conversation starts sounding less like current events and more like science fiction.

Not quite The Terminator. Not yet.

Nobody is building self-aware killer robots plotting humanity’s extinction. Reality is usually far less cinematic and far more bureaucratic. The danger isn’t a robot deciding to destroy humanity. The danger is governments gradually delegating more decisions to machines because machines are faster, cheaper, and more expendable than people.

History suggests that if technology can be weaponized, it eventually will be.

Gunpowder changed warfare. Aircraft changed warfare. Nuclear weapons changed warfare. Cyber warfare changed warfare.

Drone warfare appears poised to become the next revolution.

The irony is that science fiction warned us for decades. We laughed at the droids in Star Wars. We watched Skynet become self-aware in The Terminator. We treated those stories as entertainment.

Now we’re watching the early chapters unfold in real time—not as an apocalyptic robot uprising, but as something much more mundane and therefore much more likely.

Warehouses full of machines.

Algorithms selecting targets.

Operators sitting behind screens.

And somewhere on the other end of that data link, real human beings experiencing very real consequences.

The Clone Wars belonged to a galaxy far, far away.

The Drone Wars are happening right now.

Dwain Northey

It’s Sunday, which means at some point someone is going to tell me to “have a blessed day” or “I’ll pray for you.”

And every time it happens, I have the same reaction: thank you, I think?

I know it’s meant kindly. I know most people who say it are sincere. They’re wishing me well in the language that makes sense to them. But if I’m being honest, I never quite know what I’m supposed to do with it.

Maybe that makes me a heathen.

When someone asks if I pray, the answer rattling around in my head is usually, “I talk to myself, but I don’t expect answers.”

That’s probably the closest thing I have to prayer.

I spend plenty of time having conversations in my own head. I argue with myself. I analyze things to death. I replay conversations from ten years ago at three in the morning. I imagine alternate outcomes to events that are long over and done with. If there were an Olympic event for overthinking, I’d be standing on the podium.

But I don’t expect a voice to answer back.

I don’t expect divine guidance to arrive in a beam of heavenly customer service.

And if I eventually come up with a solution to a problem, my first thought isn’t that an omnipotent creator of the universe just slipped me a note.

My first thought is usually, “Well, after obsessing over this for three weeks, I finally figured something out.”

I suppose that’s where I land these days—somewhere in the agnostic neighborhood, with one foot drifting toward atheism.

I don’t know.

And unlike a lot of people, I’m comfortable saying I don’t know.

Maybe there’s something bigger than us. Maybe there isn’t.

Maybe there is some grand architect of the cosmos. Maybe the universe is simply the result of physics, probability, and an absurd amount of time.

The truth is that nobody knows for certain.

What fascinates me is how confidently people speak about things that are, by definition, unknowable.

Some people talk about God as if they have Him on speed dial.

They’ll tell you exactly what He wants, who He approves of, who He disapproves of, which political candidates He likes, which football teams He blesses, and apparently which parking spaces He reserves.

Meanwhile I’m over here wondering what to have for lunch.

The older I get, the more suspicious I become of certainty.

The universe is unimaginably large. We are riding a rock through space around an average star in one galaxy among billions. We understand only a fraction of how reality works.

Yet somehow people are absolutely positive they know the intentions of the creator of all existence.

That’s a confidence level I can’t even muster when choosing a streaming show.

So when someone says they’ll pray for me, I genuinely appreciate the goodwill behind it.

They’re expressing care in the framework they understand.

But for me, prayer looks a lot more like reflection.

It’s sitting quietly with my thoughts.

It’s wrestling with questions.

It’s examining my own actions and motivations.

It’s trying to be a decent human being because it’s the right thing to do, not because I’m worried about a cosmic performance review.

Maybe that’s faith.

Maybe it’s skepticism.

Maybe it’s just being a Gen X kid who grew up questioning everything and never quite stopped.

Whatever label applies, I find more comfort in questions than answers.

I don’t need certainty.

I don’t need to believe that every good outcome was divinely arranged or that every bad outcome is part of some master plan.

Sometimes life is beautiful.

Sometimes life is cruel.

Most of the time it’s complicated.

And when I sit alone talking to myself, trying to make sense of it all, I don’t expect answers from the heavens.

I’m just trying to understand the world, one internal conversation at a time.

If God is listening, that’s fine.

But I suspect most of the answers I’ve ever found came from the same place they always have:

the messy, confused, stubborn little voice inside my own head.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Legalize Freedom

I was driving the other day and passed one of those giant billboards planted squarely in Trump Country.

The message was simple:

“Legalize Freedom.”

Now, maybe it’s because I’m Gen X and my brain immediately goes to the sarcastic setting before it reaches neutral, but my first thought wasn’t agreement. It was a question.

Freedom for who?

Because that’s become the real question in modern America.

Everybody loves freedom when they’re talking about themselves.

Freedom to say what they want.

Freedom to own what they want.

Freedom to worship how they want.

Freedom to live how they want.

No argument there. That’s the whole point of freedom.

But somewhere along the way, a lot of people stopped at that sentence and never read the next chapter.

Because the moment someone else’s freedom enters the conversation, suddenly there are conditions.

Freedom for them, but not for those people.

Freedom for my religion, but not yours.

Freedom for my speech, but not your speech.

Freedom for my lifestyle, but not your lifestyle.

Freedom for my opinion, but if you disagree with me you’re a communist, socialist, Marxist, groomer, traitor, globalist, or whatever insult happens to be trending this week.

The loudest self-proclaimed defenders of freedom often seem remarkably uncomfortable with the idea that freedom applies equally.

What they really mean is freedom from consequences, freedom from criticism, and freedom to remain the dominant voice in the room.

That’s not freedom.

That’s privilege wearing a freedom costume.

I keep hearing people scream about freedom while simultaneously demanding book bans, restricting what teachers can discuss, deciding who can marry whom, determining which religions belong in public spaces, regulating medical decisions, and telling private companies what speech they should permit.

Apparently freedom is sacred right up until somebody uses it differently than you would.

The irony is almost impressive.

America’s founders argued, fought, and eventually built a system around the radical notion that people would disagree. Freedom wasn’t designed for unanimous opinions. Freedom is easy when everyone agrees with you.

The test comes when they don’t.

The real measure of whether someone believes in freedom isn’t how they treat people who think exactly like them.

It’s how they treat people they can’t stand.

Do they still defend their rights?

Do they still support their ability to speak?

Do they still recognize their humanity?

Or do they immediately try to shove them outside the circle?

That’s the part that keeps bothering me.

Because increasingly, “freedom” has become less about individual liberty and more about tribal membership.

If you’re inside the tribe, you’re free.

If you’re outside the tribe, you’re a threat.

And once you’re labeled a threat, suddenly all those lofty principles become negotiable.

So when I drove past that billboard proclaiming “Legalize Freedom,” I found myself agreeing with it.

Absolutely.

Let’s legalize freedom.

For everyone.

Not just Christians. Not just atheists.

Not just conservatives. Not just liberals.

Not just white people. Not just minorities.

Not just men. Not just women.

Not just people we agree with.

Everyone.

Because freedom that only applies to people who think like you isn’t freedom at all.

It’s just another form of control with better marketing.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

A few weeks ago, I found myself in one of those conversations that reminds me why it’s a miracle I don’t need to see a psychologist or psychiatrist daily just to keep my head from exploding.

I was talking to a MAGA supporter who was passionately defending Trump’s decision to bulldoze part of the White House complex to build a ballroom. Now, everyone is entitled to their opinions. You like the ballroom? Fine. You think it’s classy? Fine. You think every government building should look like a casino lobby designed by someone with an unhealthy relationship with gold leaf? That’s your business.

But then came the history lesson.

Apparently, according to this self-appointed scholar of American architecture, the White House was built “over 250 years ago,” was basically falling apart, and the East Wing was one strong windstorm away from collapsing into a pile of colonial rubble. Trump, in his role as America’s greatest builder, was simply saving the nation from imminent disaster by knocking it down and replacing it with a ballroom.

I just sat there blinking.

You ever have one of those moments where someone is so confidently wrong that your brain stalls out? Like a Windows computer trying to process an impossible command?

Because here’s the thing.

This person didn’t realize they were talking to somebody who actually spent time in Washington, D.C. I lived in the Maryland-D.C. area during my military years in the 1980s. I’ve toured the White House multiple times. I’ve been through the East Wing. I’ve seen the interiors.

Now, am I claiming to be a preservation architect? No.

But I know the difference between an aging historic building and a structure that is supposedly one gust of wind away from becoming a historical reenactment of The Three Little Pigs.

The White House isn’t some abandoned farmhouse leaning at a forty-five-degree angle while raccoons nest in the attic. It’s one of the most maintained buildings on the planet. Every administration spends money preserving it. Structural engineers inspect it. Preservation specialists monitor it. Renovations happen constantly.

The notion that the East Wing was held together with duct tape, prayer, and George Washington’s ghost is absurd.

Then there was the claim that foreign leaders don’t visit because the interior is embarrassing.

Really?

So for decades presidents have hosted kings, queens, prime ministers, diplomats, military leaders, Nobel Prize winners, and every imaginable head of state, but somehow nobody noticed the White House was secretly a run-down Motel 6?

That’s quite the conspiracy.

I’ve seen the White House. Millions of Americans have seen photographs, documentaries, tours, and state events from inside the White House. It is not embarrassing. Historic? Yes. Traditional? Absolutely. Different from a luxury hotel? Thank God.

Because it’s not supposed to be a luxury hotel.

It’s the White House.

There’s something fascinating about the way partisan loyalty can create alternate realities. The argument wasn’t really about architecture. It wasn’t about preservation. It wasn’t even about the ballroom.

The conclusion had already been reached:

Trump did it.

Therefore it must have been necessary.

Therefore the building must have been falling apart.

Therefore the East Wing was doomed.

Therefore everyone who disagrees is wrong.

It’s a chain of logic that starts with the answer and works backward to invent the evidence.

As a Gen Xer, I grew up believing that if you were going to make an argument, facts mattered. You didn’t have to agree with me, but at least bring something to the table besides fan fiction disguised as history.

The truly funny part is that if this person had simply said, “I like the ballroom and I think it’s an improvement,” we’d have had a perfectly normal conversation.

Instead, they had to invent a version of reality where the White House was apparently moments away from being condemned by the Department of Buildings.

At some point I realized there was no point arguing. You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

So I just nodded and let them continue explaining the White House to someone who had actually walked through the White House.

Sometimes wisdom is knowing when a debate has become performance art.

And sometimes the most patriotic thing you can do is quietly marvel at the fact that the East Wing somehow survived another gentle breeze without collapsing into a heap of historical debris, proving once again that reality remains stubbornly resistant to political fan fiction.