Patriotism Belongs to All of Us

On By TonyIn History, PoliticsLeave a comment

For too long, Democrats, independents, democratic socialists, and anyone who believes in an inclusive America have surrendered one of the most powerful words in our language: patriotism.

It’s time to take it back.

Somewhere along the way, a political movement convinced millions of Americans that waving the flag, wearing red, white, and blue, and proclaiming love of country belonged exclusively to one side of the political spectrum. It doesn’t. It never did.

I refuse to surrender the American flag to a movement that too often uses it as a prop rather than a promise.

Because when I look at that flag, I don’t see one man. I don’t see one political party. I don’t see one religion or one race or one ideology.

I see the first three words of our Constitution:

We the People.

Not “We the Republicans.”

Not “We the Democrats.”

Not “We the MAGA faithful.”

We the People.

That simple phrase is perhaps the most radical democratic idea ever written. It says that this nation belongs to all of us, not just those who agree with whoever occupies the White House.

Real patriotism isn’t measured by how loudly you chant “USA.”

It’s measured by whether you believe every American deserves the same rights, the same opportunities, and the same dignity.

That is why I reject the idea that progressive values are somehow “un-American.”

Public education? That’s patriotism. An educated citizenry is the backbone of a democracy.

Scientific research? Patriotism. America led the world because we invested in knowledge.

Protecting our national parks? Patriotism. We preserve what previous generations entrusted to us.

Supporting veterans after they return home? Patriotism.

Standing up for workers? Patriotism.

Protecting Social Security and Medicare? Patriotism.

Defending the right to vote? Patriotism.

Welcoming immigrants who believe in the American dream? Patriotism. Unless your family descends from Native Americans, your story began with someone who came here seeking something better.

Standing up for the rule of law—even when it is politically inconvenient? That is patriotism.

Supporting a free press that can challenge those in power? Patriotism.

Defending the Constitution rather than demanding loyalty to a single individual? That may be the highest form of patriotism there is.

By contrast, I struggle to understand how demanding unquestioning loyalty to one political leader can be described as patriotic.

Patriotism isn’t blind obedience.

It isn’t pretending elections only count when your side wins.

It isn’t attacking judges because they rule against you.

It isn’t dismissing the Constitution when it becomes inconvenient.

It isn’t threatening political opponents or journalists.

It certainly isn’t redefining loyalty to America as loyalty to one man.

A republic survives only when its citizens remain loyal to the principles that created it—not to personalities.

This country has never been perfect. It wasn’t perfect in 1776. It wasn’t perfect during the Civil War. It wasn’t perfect during Jim Crow. It wasn’t perfect when women couldn’t vote. It wasn’t perfect when LGBTQ Americans were denied equal rights.

But generation after generation, Americans expanded the promise of “We the People.”

That is the American story.

Not perfection.

Progress.

Not exclusion.

Expansion.

Not fear.

Hope.

As a city councilor, as a business owner, as a coach who has represented this country overseas, I’ve often been asked what makes America special.

It isn’t that we’re flawless.

It’s that we have always aspired to become better than we were yesterday.

That aspiration belongs to Lincoln.

To Roosevelt.

To Eisenhower.

To Kennedy.

To King.

To every soldier who defended our Constitution.

To every teacher who opens a classroom door.

To every volunteer who serves a meal.

To every citizen who votes.

Patriotism isn’t ownership.

It’s stewardship.

So here’s my challenge to everyone who shares progressive values.

Stop apologizing for loving your country.

Fly the flag.

Stand for the anthem if you choose.

Celebrate Independence Day.

Teach your children American history—all of it, the triumphs and the failures—because loving your country enough to tell the truth about it is more patriotic than pretending it has never made mistakes.

Do not let anyone tell you that compassion is weakness.

That inclusion is un-American.

That democracy is optional.

Or that patriotism belongs exclusively to one movement.

It doesn’t.

The American flag belongs to every citizen.

And every time I see it, I want to be reminded of those three extraordinary words that define who we are and who we are still striving to become:

We the People.

That flag should never stand for one man.

It should always stand for all of us.

Podcast Episode: America at 250

On By TonyIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Pip: Tony Retrosi is writing from Iceland, which feels about right for the vantage point this episode requires.

Mara: He's looking back at two hundred and fifty years of American history — what the country built, what it chose, and what it put on the White House lawn to mark the occasion. Let's start with the anniversary itself.

America at 250

Pip: The premise here is simple and brutal: a quarter-millennium of unmatched power and resources, and the question is what we actually have to show for it.

Mara: The post opens with a quote from Oliver Kornetzke that sets the frame, and then the piece itself extends that frame into a list. Here it is: "250 years. Two hundred and fifty fucking years of the most powerful, most resourced, most theoretically capable nation in the history of human civilization and here is what we have to show for it."

Pip: And what follows is the accounting — forty million on food stamps, thirty million without health insurance, the highest incarceration rate on earth, an opioid crisis past half a million dead, infrastructure collapsing, life expectancy going backward.

Mara: The list runs long deliberately. The point is accumulation — that no single failure is an accident when they all arrive together, sustained across decades, across administrations, across every available opportunity to choose differently.

Pip: And then the anniversary gift itself arrives: a wrestling arena on the White House lawn. Not a hospital. Not a school. A wrestling arena with cranes and pyrotechnics.

Mara: The post is direct about what that means. "Truthfully, this is not a departure from American values. This is the fullest possible expression of them. Because this is what we chose. Every single time the choice was presented."

Pip: That's the turn the whole piece hinges on — not outrage at a single bad decision, but the argument that the decision is consistent. The football coach making forty times what the physics professor makes. The Nobel laureate's school getting a budget cut while the state championship school gets a parade.

Mara: The military spending section makes the same case in harder numbers: more spent on defense than the next ten countries combined, while veterans sleep on the streets of the cities they returned to.

Pip: Rome had bread and circuses. The post's version lands a little differently.

Mara: "Rome had bread and circuses. We Americans have food stamps and a wrestling ring outside the Oval Office." That's the closing image, and it earns its place.

Pip: Two hundred and fifty years is a long time to confuse the noise you make with the work you never did.

Mara: The question the post leaves open is whether naming it clearly is the first step toward something else. We'll see what comes next.

Watergate vs. Today’s Political Climate

On By TonyIn Belief, Elections, History, PoliticsLeave a comment

When Watergate Looks Cute

Yesterday I flew back from a work trip in Iceland.

One of the interesting things about traveling internationally is that people inevitably ask questions about America. They ask about our politics, our economy, our culture, and increasingly, Donald Trump. This wasn’t the first time I’ve found myself trying to explain the Trump administration to people overseas, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

The question is usually some variation of the same thing:

“How can Americans allow this to happen?”

It’s a fair question.

The uncomfortable answer is that many Americans aren’t allowing it. Millions of us have voted against it repeatedly. Millions more have protested it, written about it, organized against it, and warned about it. But our system was designed with checks and balances that require institutions to do their jobs.

Right now, Congress largely isn’t.

The founders envisioned Congress as a co-equal branch of government capable of checking presidential power. Instead, it has become increasingly polarized, increasingly dysfunctional, and increasingly unwilling to challenge presidents from its own party.

The growth of executive power didn’t start with Donald Trump. Every administration since Reagan has expanded the authority of the presidency in one way or another. Democrats did it. Republicans did it. Congress often stood by and watched.

Trump simply took that trend and put it on steroids. Like everything he does, he turned it up to 11.

On the flight home, I was looking for something to have on as background noise while finishing some work on my laptop. I settled on All the President’s Men, the classic film about the Watergate scandal.

Movie poster for 'All The President's Men' featuring two men in suits looking serious, with a background of newspaper text.

I hadn’t seen it in more than a decade. As the movie played, I found myself thinking something I never expected to think: Watergate almost looked cute.

Not because it wasn’t serious. It was. Nixon’s operatives infiltrated the Democratic Party, engaged in political espionage, and attempted to manipulate an election. The cover-up ultimately brought down a president.

At the time, Americans were horrified.

Republicans and Democrats alike eventually concluded that what Nixon had done was unacceptable. Members of his own party confronted him. The institutions worked. The rule of law prevailed.

Front page of The Washington Post from June 19, 1972, featuring headlines about the Watergate scandal, including 'GOP Security Aide Among 5 Arrested In Bugging Affair' and 'FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats'.

Now compare that to where we are today.

A sitting president lost an election and spent months spreading lies about voter fraud. Those lies culminated in a violent attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. A mob assaulted police officers, smashed windows, hunted elected officials, and attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power that has defined American democracy for nearly 250 years.

A large crowd of protesters gathering outside a building, some holding flags, while smoke fills the air and police are present on the upper levels.
FILE PHOTO: Police release tear gas into a crowd of pro-Trump protesters during clashes at a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo

Think about that for a moment.

Watergate involved burglars breaking into an office building. January 6 involved thousands of people attacking the Capitol itself!

Yet somehow, in today’s political environment, the latter is treated by many as a partisan disagreement rather than an assault on democracy.

Many participants were investigated, prosecuted, and convicted. Then Trump returned to office and pardoned them! That is INSANE! Not just because I do not agree with it. BUT A SITTING PRESIDENT WHO TALKED ABOUT LAND AND ORDER PARDONED PEOPLE WHO ASSAULTED POLICE OFFICERS. Now Trump and his allies have even discussed mechanisms to compensate participants for what they describe as unjust prosecutions.

You can’t justify that to your neighbor here. Can you imagine explaining that to someone in Iceland? How can the generation who lived through Watergate explain it to themselves?

The alarming reality is that the scandal that brought down Nixon would barely survive a single news cycle today. I find that terrifying.

The corruption isn’t just the actions themselves. It is the normalization of behavior that previous generations would have found unthinkable.

  • Conflicts of interest that would have triggered investigations are now shrugged off.
  • Attempts to pressure institutions are dismissed as politics.
  • Open attacks on judges, prosecutors, journalists, and civil servants have become routine.
  • The outrage has been exhausted.
  • The public has become numb.

That may be Trump’s greatest achievement—not convincing Americans that corruption is acceptable, but convincing many that it is inevitable.

I don’t believe that. I cannot accept that.

I still believe most Americans, regardless of party, want honest government. I still believe most Americans value the Constitution more than any politician. I still believe most Americans understand that loyalty to a country must always come before loyalty to a leader.

But belief isn’t enough.

The institutions that protect democracy only work when the people inside them have the courage to defend them.

Congress was designed to be one of those institutions.

Right now, it is failing that test. And until it finds the courage to act like a co-equal branch of government again, Americans will continue finding themselves overseas, trying to explain the unexplainable.

Trying to answer a question that becomes harder every day:

How did we get to the point where Watergate looks small?

More importantly, what are we going to do about it?

Congress must start acting like an independent branch of government again, not a cheering section for whichever party happens to hold power. Lawmakers of both parties need to remember that their oath is to the Constitution, not to a president, a party leader, or a political movement. Oversight is not optional. Accountability is not partisan. Defending democratic institutions is the job they were elected to do.

And for the rest of us, the responsibility is just as real.

We cannot afford to reward cowardice. We cannot keep sending politicians back to Washington who remain silent when principles are tested. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or something else entirely, demand more from the people who ask for your vote.

Vote for people with the backbone to tell their own side when it is wrong. Vote for people who will defend the rule of law even when it is politically inconvenient. Vote for people who put country before party and Constitution before career.

Because if enough Americans do that, then maybe someday the question people ask overseas will change.

Instead of asking how Americans allowed this to happen, they might ask how Americans found the courage to stop it.

The growing concentration of power in the presidency will not be solved by the White House alone—it requires Congress to step up and fulfill its constitutional responsibilities. This fall, voters have an opportunity to demand that change. If you are unhappy with the direction of the country, make your voice heard at the ballot box. As I travel, I find myself increasingly frustrated trying to explain the state of American politics. I remember when conversations about the United States centered on its innovation, opportunity, and democratic ideals. Today, too often, those discussions are overshadowed by concerns about political dysfunction, corruption, and a government that seems unable or unwilling to address the challenges facing the nation.

And – NO. I am not running for anything.

Smiling man in a blue blazer and white shirt seated, with a dark background.

America at 250

On By TonyIn economy, Education, History, PoliticsLeave a comment

My work has me traveling to other countries quite frequently (I am actually writing this from Iceland). I am proud to be an American, but it has become harder and harder to explain where we are at.

I have never read a more brutally honest assessment of who we are and what we’ve become.

OLIVER KORNETZKE

250 years. Two hundred and fifty fucking years of the most powerful, most resourced, most theoretically capable nation in the history of human civilization and here is what we have to show for it.

Forty million people on food stamps, thirty million without health insurance, the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, the highest incarceration rate on earth, an opioid crisis that has killed over half a million people and counting, a housing market so broken that working people cannot afford to live in the cities they work in, an education system that buries young people in debt before they earn their first dollar, infrastructure that is literally collapsing, a life expectancy that is going backwards, a political system so thoroughly purchased by concentrated wealth that the laws it produces bear almost no relationship to what the public actually wants or needs, a working class that has not seen meaningful real wage growth in thirty years, a mental health crisis so severe we normalized it, a gun violence epidemic so routine we don’t even act when preschoolers are slaughtered, and a climate hurtling toward catastrophe while the people paid to address it collect checks from the industry causing it.

Two hundred and fifty years of that. And to celebrate, we built a wrestling arena on the White House lawn.

Not a hospital, or a school, or a housing development. Not a single fucking thing that addresses a single goddamn item on the list above. A wrestling arena. With cranes and pyrotechnics and a steel arch that probably cost more than the annual budget of three rural counties combined, erected in front of the building where Lincoln and Roosevelt and every president who ever tried to make any of this mean something once lived and worked and in some cases died trying.

Truthfully, this is not a departure from American values. This is the fullest possible expression of them. Because this is what we chose. Every single time the choice was presented.

We built a culture where a football coach makes forty times what a physics professor makes and then express genuine bewilderment at the outcomes. Where a reality television star becomes president and a school district cuts its art program in the same fiscal year. Where children know every statistic of every player on their favorite sport team and cannot locate their own country on a map. Where scientific consensus on vaccines, climate, evolution, and basic nutrition gets weighed against a Facebook post and the Facebook post wins at the dinner table. Where the school that wins the state championship gets a parade and the school that produces a Nobel laureate gets a budget cut.

We chose the bomber over the teacher. The tank over the clinic. The aircraft carrier over the water treatment plant. We spend more on military than the next ten countries combined, including our allies, while veterans sleep on the streets of the cities they came back to. We built the most expensive killing apparatus in human history and then told the nurse she made too much money. We sent young men to die in wars that made defense contractors rich and called it freedom and put a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of the car and called that support. We made the soldier and the police officer into sacred untouchable symbols of national identity and then cut their benefits, denied their PTSD claims, let them die waiting for VA appointments, and sent them back for third and fourth tours because it was cheaper than taking care of them when they came home. We worshipped the uniform and neglected the human inside it because the uniform is a symbol and symbols are cheaper than healthcare and housing and the therapy that would actually help. We built bases in a hundred and fifty countries and could not build enough affordable housing in fifty states. We funded a military budget that could have ended homelessness and medical debt and student debt several times over and we did it with bipartisan enthusiasm and called the people who questioned it unserious.

We chose entertainment over education so many times and for so long and at every available level of society that we forgot there was a distinction worth making. Spectacle over substance, performance over policy, the aesthetics of greatness in place of the actual thing, and the feeling of winning instead of asking what was being won and who was paying for it and what it would cost the people who came next.

Rome had bread and circuses. We Americans have food stamps and a wrestling ring outside the Oval Office.

250 years. This is what we built. This is what we chose. This is what we are celebrating. And the most perfectly, catastrophically, irreducibly American thing about all of it is that anyone pointing at this image and asking what it means will be called unpatriotic by people watching it on a television they bought on credit they cannot afford to pay back, rooting for a sport they cannot explain, in a country they cannot describe, celebrating a birthday they cannot contextualize, for a nation that has spent two and a half centuries confusing the noise it makes with the work it never did, all while claiming to be the greatest country on Earth.

Happy Birthday America! You have never looked more like yourself!

Citizenship Requires More Than Blind Loyalty

On By TonyIn Belief, economy, Education, Elections, PoliticsLeave a comment

Maybe It’s Not Trump Derangement Syndrome After All

Every time I criticize Donald Trump, someone inevitably tells me I suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The accusation usually goes something like this: “Why can’t you acknowledge the good things he’s done?”

Fair question.

As a business owner for more than three decades, a coach who has spent a lifetime teaching accountability, and a city councilor responsible for spending taxpayer dollars wisely, I believe in giving credit where credit is due. If someone does something well, I will say so. If a policy works, I will acknowledge it.

But leadership isn’t judged by a handful of talking points. It is judged by character, integrity, competence, and whether the person in charge is working for the people or for themselves.

That’s where my concerns begin.

Supporters often point to immigration enforcement, NATO spending, tariffs, or cultural issues as evidence of Trump’s success. We can have legitimate policy debates about any of those topics. Reasonable people can disagree.

What troubles me is something deeper.

It is the corruption.

It is the constant blurring of the line between public service and personal profit.

As a city councilor, if I voted on matters that directly enriched my business interests, people would rightly demand answers. If city contracts consistently benefited my friends, family, or financial partners, residents would be outraged. They should be.

The same standard should apply to the President of the United States.

Yet we have become numb to behavior that would be unacceptable from virtually any other elected official.

The Trump family has expanded its business interests while Trump occupies the Oval Office. Cryptocurrency ventures, real estate projects, private fundraising efforts, and relationships with wealthy donors all seem to intersect with public policy decisions in ways that should concern anyone who believes government should serve the public first.

This isn’t a Republican issue or a Democratic issue.

It’s an ethics issue.

It’s a leadership issue.

It’s an accountability issue.

What concerns me even more is the growing use of government power against perceived enemies. In America, we are supposed to settle political disagreements at the ballot box, not through investigations designed to intimidate critics or punish opponents.

One of the great strengths of our democracy has always been that no one is above the law—but equally important, no one should be beneath its protection.

The machinery of government should never become a personal weapon.

As a coach, I often tell athletes that character is revealed when nobody is watching.

As a businessman, I’ve learned that trust takes years to build and moments to destroy.

As a city councilor, I’ve learned that public confidence is fragile and must be earned every day.

Those same principles apply to presidents.

I understand why many Americans voted for Donald Trump. They were frustrated by rising costs, worried about immigration, concerned about national security, and convinced Washington wasn’t listening.

Those concerns are real.

But voting for someone to solve problems does not require blind loyalty.

In fact, patriotism demands the opposite.

We should expect results.

We should demand honesty.

We should insist on transparency.

And we should be willing to call out misconduct regardless of whether it comes from our political opponents or from people we supported.

That’s not Trump Derangement Syndrome.

That’s citizenship.

The real question isn’t why some of us continue to criticize Donald Trump.

The real question is why so many people have stopped holding him to the same standards they would apply to anyone else.

Last night, I attended the Dover High School graduation as a city councilor. As I watched those young men and women cross the stage, I found myself thinking less about today’s political battles and more about the world we are leaving them.

These graduates are entering adulthood at a time of declining trust in institutions, growing political division, and leaders too often focused on winning arguments instead of solving problems. Yet I left hopeful. Every generation inherits challenges. Mine inherited the Cold War, economic uncertainty, and environmental concerns. Today’s graduates face different problems, but they possess the same capacity for innovation, courage, and change.

What struck me most was that the future belongs to them, not the politicians dominating today’s headlines. They will be the entrepreneurs creating jobs, the teachers inspiring children, the healthcare workers saving lives, the public servants strengthening communities, and the citizens shaping America’s future.

That reality places a responsibility on us. We should model integrity, accountability, and respect for democratic institutions. We should show that public service is about serving others, not ourselves, and leave behind examples worth following.

Someday these graduates will sit in city council chambers, state legislatures, corporate boardrooms, and perhaps even the halls of Congress. The question is whether we are giving them a model of leadership worth inheriting.

Turning 60: Reflections on Luck and Life Lessons

On By TonyIn Belief, Hope1 Comment

There are moments in life when you stop and look around and think, “How in the world did I get here?”

A week from now I turn 60.

A smiling man standing on a sidewalk wearing sunglasses, a beige shacket, and cream-colored pants, holding a brown crossbody bag, with parked cars and trees in the background.

That number feels strange to even type. When I was younger, 60 seemed old. Not “getting older.” Old. The age of retirement parties, early dinners, and conversations about blood pressure medication. Now? It just feels like…now. Another mile marker on a road that somehow went by both incredibly fast and painfully slow at the same time.

My wife surprised me with a trip out to Colorado to see our children and their partners. Sitting here looking at the mountains, realizing that the little kids who once ran through our house are now building lives of their own, I understand something I probably should have realized years ago: I am incredibly lucky.

A group of six friends celebrating a 60th birthday, with one person holding a cake that reads 'Happy 60th Birthday!' decorated with whipped cream. The setting appears to be in a bar or restaurant, and there are digital screens in the background.

Not “successful.” Not “important.” Lucky.

I have my health—mostly. Thanks to a pretty solid workout regimen, I am still in pretty good shape. A little more worn down than I was at 25, obviously. A few more scars and surgeries than the average person too. But every scar has a story attached to it. I once read a quote that said, “Scars are just tattoos with better stories.” That feels about right.

And there are a lot of stories.

After college and a brief time teaching school, I knew pretty quickly that my life was not going to follow the traditional path. I wanted to coach gymnastics. Not casually. Not as a side job. I wanted it to be my life.

One thing led to another, and Stephanie and I opened a gym, Atlantic Gymnastics Training Center, in Portsmouth NH. Then another location in Dover, NH. Somewhere along the way, this crazy dream became a business, a community, and honestly, part of our identity. Today we employ around 50 people and have roughly 1,500 students a week come through our doors. Sometimes I walk into one of the gyms and still cannot believe it exists.

A gymnastics coach stands in front of a group of young gymnasts lined up on a mat, with a Puerto Rican flag visible in the background.

What is funny is that I do not actually coach in my own gym anymore.

When my youngest son was in middle school, I made a conscious decision to step back from daily coaching and spend more time at home. I concentrated on the business side of things because I knew those years with my kids were limited. I do not regret that decision for one second.

Then, when he went away to college, life opened another door.

I had time again. So I started consulting. Coaching overseas. Working in different gyms, with different systems, different philosophies, different cultures. I would like to believe I was already a good coach, but traveling made me a far better one. The beautiful thing about teaching is that if you are paying attention, you are also learning.

Switzerland. Italy. Central America. Canada. Different programs. Different methods. Different ways of communicating. Different ways of thinking about athletes and performance and fear and pressure and success.

And somewhere along the way, I grew.

Not just as a coach, but as a person.

I had the opportunity to work with Olympic athletes and world champions. Experiences that a kid from New York who simply loved gymnastics could never have imagined. And now, somehow, I spend a great deal of my life coaching in Italy—to the point where Stephanie and I bought a home there.

There is something about the lifestyle in Italy that fits me. The pace. The emphasis on relationships. The understanding that life is supposed to be lived, not simply survived.

A smiling woman with blonde hair and a man with dark hair enjoying a sunny day at the beach, with the ocean and sky visible in the background.

At almost 60, I still feel like I am learning who I am.

These days, much of my time is spent working with coaches. Helping them grow. Helping them communicate better. Helping them understand that coaching is really teaching. It is education. It is leadership. It is human connection.

Maybe that is the strange gift of getting older.

When you are young, you spend so much time trying to prove yourself. When you get older, you begin to understand that what really matters is what you leave behind in other people. The athletes you helped believe in themselves. The coaches you helped become better educators. The people whose lives became just a little bit better because you crossed paths with them.
Lately, much of my energy outside the gym has been going into writing. I am pouring my heart into a book called Coaches as Educators. In many ways, it is the culmination of everything I have learned over decades in gymnastics—not just about training athletes, but about teaching human beings.

Logo featuring the phrase 'Coaches as Educators' with an open book design, depicting a coach assisting an athlete in a handstand.

I genuinely believe coaching is education. A coach is not simply someone who teaches a skill or prepares an athlete for competition. A coach helps shape confidence, resilience, communication, discipline, and self-worth. We are often with young athletes during some of the most important and vulnerable years of their lives. That responsibility should mean something.

The book is my attempt to move the needle, even slightly, within the coaching community. To challenge coaches to think deeper about how we teach, how we communicate, and how we lead. I want younger coaches to understand that the technical side of gymnastics matters greatly, but the human side matters even more. Athletes may forget scores and medals over time, but they rarely forget how a coach made them feel.

And maybe the funniest thing about being almost 60 is that instead of slowing down, my mind keeps racing toward the next project.

When Coaches as Educators is finished, I already have plans for a second book: From Practice to the Podium. That one will be far more technical—a practical training manual built from decades of coaching, observing, learning, failing, adjusting, and growing. A book designed to help coaches and athletes better understand the long journey from developmental training to elite performance.

A person wearing a pink shirt with the words 'OLYMPIC DREAMS START HERE' printed on the back, standing in a gymnasium filled with athletes and equipment.

I still feel like I have something to contribute. Maybe that feeling never goes away if you truly love what you do.

If that is my legacy, I am more than okay with it.

America Can’t Afford Trump’s Ego

On By TonyIn Belief, economy, PoliticsLeave a comment
  • The Price of Narcissism

There is a difference between political loyalty and political worship. One is healthy in a democracy. The other is dangerous.

What we are witnessing with Donald Trump and much of the MAGA movement no longer resembles normal politics. It resembles a cult of personality. Every failure is someone else’s fault. Every criticism is labeled “fake news.” Every warning from economists, generals, historians, judges, or former allies is dismissed as betrayal. The movement has become centered not around conservative principles, fiscal responsibility, or even patriotism—but around protecting one man’s ego.

And while the cheering crowds chant his name and wear the hats and wave the flags, ordinary Americans are getting poorer.

Trump was elected promising economic strength. Instead, families are watching grocery bills climb, paying painful prices at the gas pump, and struggling with the rising cost of basic goods. His reckless tariff obsessions drove up prices for consumers and businesses alike. His aggressive foreign policy rhetoric and impulsive leadership helped drag the country into another conflict after promising “NO MORE WARS.” Once again, working Americans pay the price while politicians and defense contractors profit.

This is the pattern of narcissistic leadership throughout history: the leader’s image always comes first.

While Americans worry about rent, mortgages, and retirement savings, Trump obsesses over monuments to himself. A ballroom project taxpayers will ultimately subsidize. Talk of a triumphal arch in Washington, D.C., as if America should imitate emperors instead of republics. Vanity projects nobody asked for while roads crumble, schools struggle, and healthcare costs bury families. Reports of unnecessary no-bid contracts handed to friends for cosmetic projects around Washington only reinforce what many Americans already suspect: this administration treats public money like a personal checking account for political loyalty and ego.

And yet his followers defend every bit of it.

Not because it helps them.

Not because their lives are improving.

But because cults require loyalty above reason.

A movement that once claimed to stand for fiscal conservatism now cheers deficit spending if Trump does it. A movement that once screamed about government overreach now applauds when law-abiding immigrants, students, or political opponents are targeted to feed outrage cycles on cable news and social media. A movement that once called itself anti-war now rationalizes another conflict because admitting failure would mean admitting Trump was wrong.

That is the power of narcissism when combined with political tribalism. Truth becomes secondary. Loyalty becomes everything.

The saddest part is this: Donald Trump has shown people exactly who he is for years. He has openly spoken about admiring wealth over service, loyalty over competence, spectacle over substance. He measures success by applause, television ratings, and personal enrichment. The country was supposed to become “great again,” but instead the focus became making sure one man never feels defeated, criticized, or held accountable.

Meanwhile, the American people keep footing the bill.

We are paying more.

We are divided more.

We are respected less internationally.

And we are once again watching America stumble into conflict while being told everything is “historic,” “beautiful,” and “the greatest ever.”

Real leadership is not about building monuments to yourself.

It is not about humiliating enemies or demanding constant praise.

Real leadership is sacrifice. Restraint. Competence. Humility. It is putting the country ahead of your own ego.

America was founded rejecting kings, emperors, and dear leaders.

Somewhere along the way, too many people forgot that.

Open journal with handwritten text and drawing beside lit candle on rustic windowsill at night

The Worst Things Humans Have Done Were Done to Other Humans

On By TonyIn Belief, Education, HistoryLeave a comment

The Worst Things Humans Have Done Were Done to Other Humans

I studied History as an undergraduate, with a concentration in post-war America rather than World War II. For a long time, I focused more on the systems that emerged after the war: the rise of suburbanization, the Cold War, labor shifts, media influence, corporate expansion, and the changing identity of the American middle class.

Recently, though, I started reading World War II diaries.

Some were written by Italian civilians trying to survive the collapse of their country. Some were written by American soldiers processing what they saw overseas. Others came from people who survived concentration camps and somehow found the strength to record experiences that most of us can barely comprehend.

What struck me was not simply the scale of suffering. History books already teach us numbers. Millions dead. Cities destroyed. Entire populations displaced.

What struck me was the intimacy of cruelty.

The worst acts in human history are not abstractions. They are humans harming other humans directly, personally, deliberately.

A guard deciding another person is no longer fully human.

A soldier learning to suppress empathy.

A bureaucracy organizing suffering with paperwork and schedules.

A crowd convincing itself that violence is justified because the victims are somehow different.

That pattern exists throughout history.

It existed in slavery.

It existed in genocides.

It existed in political purges.

It existed in colonial violence.

It existed in lynchings.

It exists today whenever people are taught to fear and hate one another before they truly know one another.

We often talk about history as though it belongs to the past. But history is not dead. History is a warning.

One of the most dangerous myths people believe is that atrocities are committed only by monsters. The reality is more uncomfortable. Many atrocities are carried out by ordinary people who become convinced that cruelty is acceptable, necessary, patriotic, profitable, or unavoidable.

That is why remembering matters.

Not to drown ourselves in guilt.

Not to endlessly relive suffering.

But to recognize how fragile civilization actually is.

The diaries I read repeatedly showed something else as well: people under enormous pressure searching for someone to blame. That instinct never disappeared after World War II. It simply changed form.

Today, many people are angry, exhausted, isolated, and financially strained. Instead of encouraging solidarity, powerful institutions often redirect frustration sideways. Workers are told their problems come from immigrants, neighbors, political opponents, different races, different religions, or people living in different regions.

Meanwhile, many of the people and institutions accumulating enormous wealth and influence remain largely insulated from the consequences of the systems they shape.

I want to be very clear: I am a capitalist.

I believe markets can create innovation, opportunity, efficiency, and prosperity. Human ambition can build incredible things. Free enterprise has improved countless lives.

But capitalism without limits becomes something else.

When profit becomes the only moral standard, people stop being citizens and become consumers. Workers become expendable. Communities become markets. Truth becomes advertising. Human dignity becomes secondary to quarterly earnings.

Healthy capitalism requires boundaries.

It requires labor protections.

It requires ethical regulation.

It requires accountability.

It requires remembering that an economy is supposed to serve human beings, not the other way around.

History shows what happens when systems become detached from human dignity. Sometimes the result is not immediate violence. Sometimes it is slow dehumanization: convincing people they are disposable, replaceable, or undeserving of empathy.

That dehumanization is the first step toward every historical horror.

And once people stop seeing each other as human, terrible things become possible.

The answer is not abandoning disagreement. People will always disagree politically, economically, culturally, and philosophically.

The answer is refusing to let disagreement erase humanity.

The person next door is probably not your enemy.

The struggling family in another town is probably not your enemy.

The worker trying to survive is probably not your enemy.

History repeatedly shows that ordinary people often have more in common with one another than they do with the powerful institutions profiting from division.

Reading those diaries reminded me that civilization depends on empathy more than ideology.

It depends on resisting the temptation to dehumanize.

It depends on recognizing manipulation when fear is used to turn people against each other.

Most importantly, it depends on remembering.

Because forgetting is dangerous.

The people who lived through humanity’s darkest periods were warning us.

We should listen.

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that’s being dead.”
— Elie Wiesel, US News & World Report (27 October 1986)

LOOK UP.

On By TonyIn economy, Hope, PoliticsLeave a comment

Look Up

In a world that feels impossibly loud right now—war headlines out of Iran, a tumbling economy, the city budget, unstable national leadership, the constant churn of scandal and speculation, it is easy to feel like everything is closing in.

The noise is relentless.

And then, if you let yourself… you stop.

You step outside.

You shut it all off.

And you look up.

Somewhere above us, beyond the noise, beyond the arguments and the fear, Artemis II is making its way home having traveled farther than any humans have ever gone, looping around the Moon, seeing what few ever will: the far side, the quiet side, the side that reminds us just how small our conflicts really are.

There is something profoundly humbling about that.

NASA has always understood the power of naming of poetry in the face of science. The Sea of Tranquility. The Ocean of Storms. And now, Artemis.

Artemis: goddess of the hunt, of wilderness, of wild things untamed. Sister to Apollo. A protector. A force. A presence tied to the Moon itself. Her name carries the idea of being safe, unharmed, resilient.

What a perfect name for this moment.

Because while we argue, while we divide, while we question whether our leaders will escalate the next conflict or stumble into something we cannot undo… there are human beings floating in the vast silence of space. Not as Americans. Not as political factions. But as representatives of all of us.

Of humanity.

Think about that.

At the very moment we are looking up at the night sky, searching for perspective, they may be looking back AT US. At a fragile blue planet that holds everything we’ve ever loved, fought for, built, and broken.

And from that distance, none of our noise matters.

Only the question does:

What are we going to do with this place?

We have always been capable of greatness. We have built impossible things. We have crossed oceans, cured diseases, created art that stops time, and sent people to the edge of existence itself.

We are still those people.

But somewhere along the way, we got smaller. Louder. More consumed by the immediate and the trivial.

Artemis II is a reminder that we don’t have to stay that way.

It is a reminder that we are at our best when we are reaching not fighting. When we are exploring not retreating. When we are united by curiosity instead of divided by fear.

So tonight, step away from the headlines.

Look up.

Find the Moon.

And know that above all the noise, something extraordinary is happening. Something hopeful. Something that belongs not to one nation, but to all of us.

As Artemis makes her way home, may she return safely.

And may we, down here, find our way back to something better.

Not just for America.

But for the human race.

Op-Ed: The ‘Final Solution’ Comment…and the Silence That Followed

On By TonyIn History, New Hampshire, PoliticsLeave a comment

By Rep. ANITA BURROUGHS

Recently, Rep. Travis Corcoran (R-Weare) made statewide news, but not in a good way.

He posted on X: “We need a final solution for theater kids in politics,” in response to an invitation to a legislative karaoke night hosted by Rep. Jessica Grill, who is Jewish.

For those unfamiliar, the phrase “final solution” was used by Nazi leaders to describe their plan to commit genocide against European Jews.

That’s not a throwaway line. It’s not edgy humor. It’s a phrase with a very specific and horrific meaning.

Speaker Sherman Packard and Minority Leader Alexis Simpson both condemned Corcoran’s statement. But beyond that, there was silence where it mattered most.

There was no public statement from Governor Ayotte or Majority Leader Jason Osborne. No call for accountability. Just silence. And that silence speaks volumes.

This stands in sharp contrast to what happened in 2020. Then-Speaker Steve Shurtleff asked Rep. Richard Komi (D-Manchester) to resign over a social media comment widely viewed as dismissive of survivors of sexual violence. Komi stepped down.

Leadership acted then. Why not now?

Deputy House Speaker Steve Smith has said that meaningful action would require a majority of lawmakers to agree it’s warranted: “We can condemn it, but there is nothing we can do about it.”

I disagree.

Republican leadership has tools…if they choose to use them. They could pressure Corcoran to resign or rally their caucus to support expulsion. Leader Osborne has shown, time and again, that he can deliver votes when he wants to.

Short of that, they could at least make clear that this kind of rhetoric has consequences, including the option of supporting a serious primary challenger.

And recent elections show that even “safe” districts aren’t immune to voter backlash. Bobbi Boudman’s victory in a traditionally Republican district (Wolfeboro, Tuftonboro and Ossipee) underscores that point.

So why does this matter?

I’ll answer that personally, as a Jewish member of the New Hampshire House.

My grandfather Max came to the United States alone at age 13 from what is now Poland, fleeing the early threats that would later become the Holocaust. He spoke no English. Years later, much of his family was murdered, some at Auschwitz and Dachau.

Max was one of the kindest men I’ve ever known. We lived in the same two-family home, and I saw him every day growing up.

I never experienced antisemitism until I served in the New Hampshire State House.

Several years ago, two state representatives were brought before the Ethics Committee for posting antisemitic content. One sat across from me on the Commerce Committee. She never apologized and even suggested we should get together because we had so much in common.

No, thank you.

Neither representative faced any serious repercussion for their behavior.

Corcoran’s comment is not an isolated incident. It’s part of a broader pattern, of rhetoric and legislation that seeks to marginalize and demonize others.

And when leadership responds with silence, it sends a message.

Not just to those of us who are directly affected, but to everyone watching.

If there is no accountability from within the State House, then it must come from outside of it.

Vote out state representatives who believe they can act with impunity because they are protected by leadership or insulated by district lines.

Help your community recruit strong candidates from both sides of the aisle who reject the politics of hate and are willing to represent all their constituents, regardless of religion, race, or sexual orientation. And get out and volunteer to help get these candidates elected.  Newly elected representative Bobbi Boudman demonstrated that it can be done. 

Rep. Anita Burroughs
State Rep, Bartlett Carroll 2