There is so much to read these days that I don’t have time to read any books. I have been working on Stanley Karnow’s Paris in the Fifties for two weeks, a chapter here and a chapter there. Typically I would have read it in two or three days. It, by the way, is a marvelous book, chapter by chapter. I especially enjoyed the chapter on French executions and the humane invention of the guillotine, which I may report on when things calm down. It really showed you a “slice of life”, or as Karnow reported, when talking about the executioner being paid by the execution, this might have been the first example of severance pay.

Onward.

Our beloved president issued one of the few orders yesterday with which I substantively agree (whether he followed correct procedure, I don’t know). He has ordered the Mint to stop making and circulating pennies. I had previously read that one day the government would pay people 5 cents for every penny they turn in, as a part of getting pennies out of circulation, but now I doubt this will happen. I have several large jars of pennies awaiting my 5:1 conversion, but it looks like my collection will lose, not gain, value. We will, of course, see.

Did you see Masha Gessen’s column in yesterday’s print edition of the New York Times? I thought it very interesting, and helpful, since it gave a different slant on what is going on today. The article talked about Gessen’s parents who, for the first time, 40 or more years ago, took a trip outside of the USSR. They went to Poland and saw the American film, Cabaret. They returned and told young Masha that they were chilled when they heard the young, vibrant, blond haired, blue eyed Germans singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”. It was the first time that they, living under Communism their entire life, realized that there actually could be a better time, but that better time could suddenly end.

Of course, Gessen is using this story as an analogy to the start of Trump2, and went on to discuss several ways to react to this time in American life. You can read the article to see what she said.

But it reminded me of the two other times in my life when things changed on a dime (not on two pennies), and my reaction to each.

The first was in February 1968, now 57 years ago. With a friend who shared my predicament, I got on an airplane at Lambert Field and disembarked at the San Francisco airport. We were on our way to Ft. Ord, outside of Monterey, for four to six months (we didn’t really know) of basic and advanced training in the U.S. Army. We were newbie members of an Army Reserve unit based in St. Louis and were happy that we would be civilians (sort of) in several months and that it was unlikely that we were going to see Vietnam.

We had a day and a half wandering around San Francisco (first time for me anywhere in California) and in 1968, San Francisco was another world. Everyone was either a hippie or overly dapper, the city was clean and progressive, the weather could not have been better. It was as different from St. Louis as it could be. We reported to any Army building at the appointed time, with the minimal luggage that we were told we could bring, joined a significant number of other young men (obviously, men only) and were politely escorted onto an Army bus for the hour or so trip to our new home.

The bus trip was relaxing. Everyone was in a good mood, although we noted that, as we neared the Monterey Peninsula, the sun hid itself and everything was gray and damp, which did cast a shadow on our mood. We did not know, at that time, that the overcast sky was going to last our entire time in Monterey.

The bus pulled onto the base, as we looked around with curiosity, and stopped in front of one of the many white painted wooden buildings, and we were told to get off.

The second we got off, people started yelling at us. Screaming at the top of their lungs. Like I always imagined it would be at a German concentration camp, if truth were known. Cursing. Personal remarks about appearance. Yelling at us to get our belonging. Yelling at us to start running. Giving us orders and changing them before we even really heard them. It was chaos.

The chaos continued through basic training (and then miraculously stopped). We were no longer subject to American constitutional protections. Freedom was gone. We did not belong to ourselves anymore. We belonged to them.

And how did we react to that? We, a group of young men, ages 19 to 25 or so, raised in the freedom of America. Did we revolt? Did we make our feelings known? Did we form a clandestine organization? Did we just fall apart?

None of the above. We simply accepted and accommodated to our new situation. And it took us less than two seconds to do so.

So, whether it’s the US Army, the USSR, or Trump’s America, my guess is it is pretty much the same.

My second example is maybe less extreme. I joined my first DC law firm in 1972. It was a very successful and comfortable firm, and it grew rapidly. But by 1989, it outgrew itself, its parts became more valuable than its whole, and it split up.

About 20 of us stayed together and, with about a dozen other lawyers, became the Washington office a large and well established New York firm. We stayed in our offices, and the others moved in so that, in a sense, nothing had changed. But in fact, everything changed. At the time,  I remember feeling: this is how it would feel if I woke up one day in my house and discovered that the Soviets had taken over.

It didn’t get better, by the way. The Soviets remained in charge until I walked out the door in 1991, my two year commitment fulfilled. The others from my firm remained longer, unhappy, grousing to each other, but accommodating themselves to their circumstances.

So my conclusion? People give in and accept new circumstances more often than they don’t. And Presidents Trump and Musk know that and count on it.