GameStop Rallies - small investors vs Wall Street.

I am no investor. Just a curious reader and occasional thinker. But the quirks of the market have always piqued my interest. 

The market is a great allocator of what people want and can produce. When demand meets supply, the settlement process is the price. The producers get a fair margin of what is sold and the consumers get what they want. That’s simple enough. And that is the reason for its existence, the market that is. 

The power of the market is that it sends out reliable and timely signals to get people to produce goods and materials because they are wanted. Real goods pass from the hand that desires it to the hand that makes it. The motivation is usually the price, the common currency, the medium of exchange, and yes, the market eventually decides on that. Everybody is happy, contented, and life goes on. 

But, like religion, the market can be distorted; at times, with disastrous consequences - the 2008 recession. 

In other word, it can be used for good or for bad. It can be a place to efficiently allocate scarce resources for a fair profit, and a place to blindly reap millions at the expense of millions. This accounts for why the apex of the pyramid for the ultra rich is getting sharper and sharper, or narrower and narrower, splitting wide open the rich and poor income gap.

 

Investors may think they can control the beast that is the market, and some of them inevitably profit immeasurably from it when the speculation goes their way. But the beast at times comes alive on its own and devour even the most savvy investors, when greed boils over, beyond what good sense can rein in.

History has shown that speculation has to be curbed or regulated. and regulators have to stay vigilant and tough against personal enticement.

But, speculation profits the rich immensely with nothing to show except for a burgeoning bank account and an attitude of superiority and indifference. 

Mind you, nothing changes hands with speculation. No producers contribute to society because nothing is produced. No workers earn a more decent wage because there is no rise in productivity. And no consumers benefit because there is nothing of necessity demanded for by them. 

Stripped bare, speculation is about gaming the market, using its own rules to enrich yourself. The rule is how you beat the market over short and/or long runs. For many, it is making money work for you by capitalising on price differences. 

And there is really nothing wrong with it (yes, you heard me the first time), until you risk other people’s money (and/or your family savings or savings for your kids’ education) and then lose everything because you can’t help yourself or you think for that second that you are different, you are invincible. 

Speculation is thus nothing more than gambling at the Casino with the hope of striking it big on credit. And instead of spinning the roulette wheel, you stake it all on online trading platforms. 

Sometimes greed is secondary to such mindless or extreme speculation. There is usually more to that when one puts leveraged funds at the whims and fancies of the mercurial market. There are pride, competitive ego, godlike superiority, market fame to preserve, and the desperation to be proven right to contend with. Those are complex emotions that often turn the investors (whether a lone wolf or an institution) into an obsessive-compulsive wreck, living from one glittering mirage to another. 

And such extreme speculation adds nothing to the society. It is blind to climate change, to the widening income inequality gap, to the plight of the retirement savings of millions, to regulations which they are wont to circumvent, to the soul of the society and their own. I guess you only live once right? And who dies with the biggest toys wins?

This brings me to the GameStop rallies. It is an international hit because it has that David-vs-Goliath feel, or for modern context, that OccupyWallStreet movement. 

I repeat here that I am no investor and I have limited knowledge on terminologies like short selling, margin trading, or hedging risks. All I know is that history repeats itself and greed is but one of the engines that drives that mindless repetition of historical blunders. 

You will have to read the whole GameStop saga, about how little david thwarts the big boys of investments, to understand the intricacies involved. But, in layman language, it is about a group of institutional investors betting on the demise of a business (yes, GameStop). And that demise is earmarked by the fall in its share price. 

Mind you, nowadays, you can bet on anything, even the failure of businesses. Not much of an American dream right? And that has been done before with relish in the 2008 crash where billions have been made on that alone to the insane enrichment of just a handful. 

So, at the risk of oversimplifying it, the equation is that you buy short (by borrowing the shares) in the hope that the price will fall, and then you buy it at a much lower price. That difference is the insane profit to be reaped. 

And for investors who want to hedge against the fall in prices, they bet on that too. They do that by buying insurance against the downward pricing. And when that happens, that is, a business collapses, its time for popping champagne as the happy hedger (or investor) skips over to collect on its insurance policy. 

So, everything hedges on a business failure. The funeral of GameStop is the wild celebration of these speculators. The morality of such investment is highly questionable, but the morality of market is to beat it and make lots of money from it right? 

Yet, one 34-year-old Keith Gill, the David in our saga, threw his stone at the temple of Goliath. He went long, that is, putting in money (S$70k) in the hope that GameStop will prosper, that is, its price will surge. And surge it did (from US$4 a year ago to US$325) as he rallied small time investors, by the sheer strength of numbers, to invest together to push up the price. 

This rise caused the big boys to endure a serious financial beatings losing up to S$26.2 billion over the weekend. That’s a lot of other people’s money. 

Here is what is written about the ArabSpring-like GameStop rallies on Wall Street.

“Inspired by (Keith Gill) and a small crew of individual investors who gathered around him, hordes of young online traders took GameStop’s stock on a wild ride, putting themselves against sophisticated hedge funds and upending Wall Street’s norm in the process.”

“Their actions - pushing up GameStop’s price by buying so-called option contracts that offer a cheap way to bet on a stock’s direction - have shocked established investors because Mr Gill and his online comrades are the antithesis of the Wall Street Titans who have long ruled the stock market.”

Ok, that is the long and short of this episode (pun unintended). And the lesson is that of the celebration of small investors seriously disrupting the profit-reaping norm of the empire investors of Wall Street. 

The victory is one of morality in the market where saving a business is more important than earning a quick profit from its demise. Hopefully, it will cause the rich investors to think "long" and hard about the path they have been taking, that is, taking huge risks that is liable to destabilise the market just so that they can profit insanely, But then, as I have been writing...history always repeats itself, especially when the high risk pays off so damn well. 

So, alas, fingers crossed right?

 

Jenni - the world of sugar daddies.

 

Jenni is a looker. She is young, 28, and has a svelte body. She is also taken, for a price of course. 

Currently, Jenni has three long-term exclusive arrangements with different men. They are her “sugar daddies”. The arrangement is transactional. It is pay per company. 

Jenni said: “When I meet someone through a traditional dating app like Tinder or Tantan, there’s no setting of expectations. I don’t know how it’s going to go and, after a few dates...we end things. That’s such a waste of time. With sugar dating, at least I get compensated for my time.” 

Jenni gets paid $400 to $500 per meet and such initial dates exclude physical intimacy. “I don’t dive straight into sexual relations with someone new. I may do it in a long-term arrangement though.”

Mind you, Jenni is living it up. One of her sugar daddies gives her allowance of $8000 to $10,000 a month. And her daily collection can chalk up to $14,000 monthly. 

She saves a third of it and “spends the rest on facials, manicures and holidays to Europe and the United States. She also sends money home to her family in Malaysia.” (as reported by Jan Lee). 

Jenni is aware of the stigma of being a sugar babe. It is controversial. However, she has this to say: “I don’t feel a lot of guilt or anything. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong or illegal. Sugar babies are not prostitutes. I think prostitutes get paid to do what they have to do - they cannot reject or say no - whereas if I’m uncomfortable, I can always say no.” 

Well, I guess that’s freedom to contract.

Curiously, Jenni is not abashed telling friends about her saccharined life. But she keeps it from her family. 

“My parents and siblings don’t know. My parents have a pretty traditional mindset, so I don’t feel the need to tell them. But if they find out, I’ll be upfront.” 

Well, with that front page close up (see picture below), let’s hope her parents in Malaysia are not fans of ST. 

Anyway, Jenni has her own principles when it comes to being a sugar babe. “She does not date men who say they are married or those above the age of 45.” 

Jenni also said she “tries not to be too emotionally invested in her sugar daddies, but it is not against a daddy becoming a marriage prospect.”

She added: “Who knows? I may meet Mr Right.”

Lesson? Erm...I guess Jenni is on top of things, having control of her choices and finding for herself an unorthodox way of making a living that pays handsomely. 

I know at this point there is a surging urge to judge Jenni on her uncommon occupation. However, some good-will advice has been given out in the papers about Jenni’s choice of lifestyle, mainly expressing concerns.

Ms Vanessa Ho, of non-profit support group for sex workers, said: “With sugar babies, there is a greater risk of emotional abuse because it is less transactional than sex work - there’s more relationship-building and that can expose one to more mental abuse.”

“Power can manifest itself in many ways in any relationship and money is one of those ways. In a sugar relationship, the sugar parents has financial power over the baby, so the babies need to draw very clear boundaries for themselves and have a great sense of self-awareness about when those boundaries are overstepped.”

Vanessa has a good point. It is still about power play, and most times, the proof is in the pudding. At 28, and with youthful looks, Jenni has what it takes to do what she does. She lacks no suitors looking for this kind of transactional relations. 

She thus sets the price in a “friends-with-benefits” relationship. But I guess her mindset is that of a squirrel (saving up for the winter of aging), because time works against you in this kind of job. 

As you age, your “value” drops. Like soccer or basketball stars who auction off their skills to the highest bidder, Jenni sells her beauty/youth before it withers. 

It is therefore a strictly supply and demand situation. And while there is always abundance of demands for it, your supply of what is timelessly demanded comes with an expiry date because the relationship works at the lowest hanging common denominator, that is, it’s transactional. 

Let me end by repeating what Jenni said about her family: “My parents have a pretty traditional mindset, so I don’t feel the need to tell them.”

Well, being a parent with two young daughters. I can’t say I don’t identify with her parents. If I were to find out, however enlightened or “woke” I believe myself to be, I would be equally confounded (if no saddened). And this is personal and it does not apply to all. 

You see, my lamentation is not so much because she has chosen this line of work. But it is more because money holds such a great importance for her over virtues like viewing life in its proper context beyond the superficial and material. 

Of course, my love for her (my daughter) will not change an iota, because I believe you don’t judge a life over a season, for your hope for that life is for all seasons. And as a parent, it is redemptive love, because we ourselves are fallen too. 

So I wish the best for Jenni, especially her parents. And I know however controversial, one sparrow does not a spring make. A life is too complicated to pin it down to one success or one falling. It is much more resilient than that. And that is what makes us exceptional, if not extraordinary.

 

Luo Tianze - music of the heart.

The meaning of “grit” is courage and resolve, that is, strength of character. And in today’s Generation Grit series is Luo Tianze, 31, a music teacher, who lost both his parents during the pandemic. 

His struggles touched me deeply because Tianze confronted many crossroads in his life, especially during Covid, but he never lost sight of the narrow path to growth and maturity. His story today is reported by Malavika Menon. 

It was a seven year ordeal for Tianze from the time his mother, Mdm Chia, in 2013, found out she has a rare condition called Neuromyelitis Opportunity Optica (“NMO”) to her passing in May this year. 

NMO is a ”central nervous system disorder that primarily affects the eye nerve and spinal cord.”

In 2016, Mdm Chia was also “diagnosed with second-stage lymphoma, a cancer that attacks infection-fighting white blood cells.” She was 60 years old then. 

While caring for his mother, Tianze’s father (Mr Low) was also diagnosed with fourth-stage pancreatic cancer in January this year. He passed away in September. Mr Low was 68 when he died with three of his children by his bedside. 

Tianze said: “I remember watching him sitting in his hospital bed during Chinese New Year and I knew he was scared; he was terrified about the future. I knew I had to stay mature, and keep pushing because becoming overly emotional was not going to solve anything.”

You must know that Tianze is an award winning musician. Struggling financially, his two siblings helped him to realise his ultimate goal of gaining admission into the Royal College of Music (RCM)-Nafa degree programme as well as winning the San San Music Merit Award and Higher Education Bursary, which covers half a year’s tuition. 

In fact, one month after his mother passed away, Tianze clinched the RCM Musical Excellence Award. The award was given away annually for “an exceptional student in the programme based on academic performance and financial needs.”

Tianze recalled this: “I was numb. I remember feeling surprised that I had received the award, and sharing the news with my siblings. But when I saw my mother’s empty bed every morning, I knew that the award did not make up for her absence.” 

He added: “The grief that comes from a loss like this is hard to describe. My parents were always around to greet me when I returned home after a long day of classes or a performance. They started this journey with me but I am finishing it on my own.”

Tianze misses his parents deeply, and the memory of their constant presence and love before their passing gave him hope and strength to face his days without them. He said he is “holding fast to his dream of teaching and helping others discover music as he did in school.”

Lesson? Just one. 

Indeed, some journey are hard to describe. It comes to an end before the map of that life runs out of road.

At that point, a trial becomes a crossroad, and you are confronted with choices you never knew you will ever have to make (or want to make or face it). And everyone of those choices forces you to take a step in one direction, towards hope or one empty of it. 

Tianze nevertheless took his, that is, one day at a time, since that day he sent his parents off. But it was no less a life-awakening journey that has transformed his life’s outlook.

He said: “I learnt compassion and above all patience during this period. I know I will be able to apply this as an instructor in a classroom.”

Let me end with these heartfelt reflection by Tianze. He said: “In the past, when I played music, a sad song was simply sad and a happy song was just happy.” 

“But now I understand the nuances. I can relate to the composer’s melodies or the change in notes. The loss of a loved one helps me relate to the songs beyond a generic negative or positive feeling, and it brought maturity to my music.”

What a reflection! I have learned from Tianze that you can live life generically or live it beyond the feelings, to experience the empowering nuances that an overcoming life has to offer. 

Life like music can be received with a passing appreciation of its catchy or wistful tunes to make you happy or sad. They are but momentary. But they can also be received with such depth that even in sadness, you still find hope, community and joy. And such resilience and maturity are for life. 

For the magic of a melody that ministers to a soul with such nuanced depth is that even in happiness, you are never led to a place of self-conceit and self-delusion. Your reality in life and music is anchored on much firmer foundation, where you would go beyond generic understanding to one that brings out the best in you, that is, to a safe and nurturing place where virtues like wellspring pours forth to fill and heal your broken soul.

Drawing a scriptural parallel here, you can listen to Amazing Grace and be amazed by a life sacrificed, or listen to the same melody and be amazed by how your life is transformed by a life sacrificed. That is the defining difference between a generic faith and a Christ-centric one. 

So, going back to Tianze, I guess that is why he said this when he was caring for his mum: -

“I would stay with her till about 9pm and then go back to school to rehearse alone. My music healed me and kept me distracted from pondering about the next day. It was cathartic.” 

Indeed, the power of music in our life depends on how we choose to receive it. Music can titillate the flesh for momentary pleasure, or it can minister to our soul to heal it for good. One is about a buoyancy that is unstable and unpredictable, and the other is about an anchorage that is undaunted and unshakable.

 

Mama Oon - the 104 year-old doctor of charity.

When you live up to 104 years old, you have already broken the one record that many can only hold their breath in awe. But Dr Oon Chiew Seng’s list of firsts broke even more records. 

Here’s what reporter Joyce Teo (Snr Health Correspondent) listed as her achievements: - 

“(She) was one of the first women in the region to qualify as a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (O&G) in 1955. She was also the first O&G specialist to start her own private practice in 1959 after leaving the then Kandang Kerbau Hospital.“

And here’s what she’s been doing after retirement.

“She retired in 1991 at the age of 75 and travelled extensively. But travel and mahjong could not fill all her time, she said. Dr Oon, who drove herself till she was 91, said in her speech that mahjong therapy is her favourite brain exercise.“

”After retiring, she worked on setting up the Apex Harmony Lodge for dementia patients in Pasir Ris and made trips to Australia to learn how dementia homes were run.”

“Singapore's first dementia home opened its doors in 1999, with Dr Oon serving as its chairman till 2012.”

That’s not all. Retirement had repurposed Dr Oon’s life for bigger things.

 

She “volunteered her time at a home for the aged sick and made services to the community her life’s theme.” She was awarded numerous accolades for her clinical and humanitarian work, which included “Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ministry of Health in 2011 and the Public Service Star in 2013.”

And yesterday, Dr Oon received “an honorary National University of Singapore (NUS) degree from President Halimah Yacob....at a ceremony held at the University Cultural Centre.”

That’s her journey after retirement, that is, more than 20 years of active participation in community, living out her legacy for humanitarian work. Her life is undeniably inspiring, and it holds up a public mirror to us (her readers and those who know her) to signal the many possibilities a life can offer. 

Now, I have no delusion to believe that such a life is common. It’s one in a million. Living to that age is already an accomplishment.. But, while such a life is uncommon, her purpose for living, living beyond self, is not.

 

Dr Oon’s tireless outreach in the community (even after retirement) is exceptional, yet her spirit is infectious, and she, to me, is like that first pioneering drop of hope and example that sends ripples of soul-nudging changes to whoever bothers to open themselves to the unpredictability of living, and its soul-enriching rewards. 

Alas, there are more than 6 billion people in this world. There are also more than 6 billion stories to tell. Each story narrates a life; some shortlived, and others have crossed that century threshold like Dr Oon. 

Each life begins with a scribe that writes his or her story. You can expect all emotions of angst and joy, pain and sorrow, hope and love in each tale. It is anything but linear, because each experience is anything but predictable. 

I was recently reading a book by author Bruce Feiler, “Life is in the Transitions - Mastering Chang at Any Age” - and he wrote this interesting observation about life’s transitions: -

“The Italians have a wonderful expression for how our lives get upended when we least expect it: lupus in fabula. Fabula means “fairy tale”. The fabula is the fantasy of our lives, the ideal version, our lives when everything is going right. Lupus means “wolf”. The lupus is the trouble, the conflict, the big, scary thing that threatens to destroy everything around it.””

Bruce said that it is alright when we “can’t get past the wolves.” 

He wrote: “And that’s okay. Because if you banish the wolf, you banish the hero. And if there’s one thing I learned: We all need to be the hero of our own story. That’s why we need fairy tales. They teach us how to allay our fears, and help us sleep at night. Which is why we keep telling them year after year, bedtime after bedtime. They turn our nightmares into dreams.” (@ pg 18-19). 

But heroes come with sacrifices, some of which seems endless. Fairy tales tend to downplay that. The happily-ever-after doesn’t spell out in big bold print the gut-wrenching travailing that comes before (or that “unhappily-ever-before”). 

Heroes pay a high price. Not with money so much as with unforeseen changes or transitions that challenge them to the core. 

For the young, it may be a breakup that consumes their world. For the old, it may be impending death that keeps them awake. For others, it may be financial ruins, reputation tarnished, hope seemingly diminished and a spirit crushed. 

Heroes are called to rise from the ashes. They are called to ignore the threatening tides, the devouring high waves, but to look for the ripples of hope that a resilient, indefatigable water droplet makes (like the overcoming life of Dr Oon). 

Heroes may not win awards the way Dr Oon did in her life. But their stories (or fairy tales) are no less inspiring to those whose lives they have made a difference. 

Heroes are busy scriptwriters, frenzy scribes, who never run out of paper or scroll, because every stumble for them, though heart wrenching, is an opportunity to plan and write out a new script to inspire a generation. 

And heroes don’t wear their underwear outside, they however put on the garment of thankfulness, the cloak of humility/contentment and the girdle of hope and inspiration. 

Mind you, every tale of this nature ends with this theme: an undaunting love for life, for every breath one takes. For every breath is never wasted, whether in tears, in pain, in joy, and in hope. 

Let me end with what the centenarian has to say about life. In a previous interview, Dr Oon said: - 

"People have asked me whether I have arrived and am satisfied with my achievements. I asked them: Arrive where? Life is not a race. To me, there is no finishing line. It is a journey which I will complete in my own time and at my own pace."

Well, to some extent, the race ends when a life heaves her last breath. That is about crossing the mortality line. But I believe what Dr Oon meant is that a journey, as long as one is breathing, has no arrival(s). Retirement is just a social construct, a technocrat’s terminology for planning an economy. 

Your life is like a river, and it should always be kept flowing so that you get the opportunity to water the lives of others, be it your spouse, your children, your friends or the society at large. And in turn, the flowing keeps you alive. 

And indeed the finishing touch to a good story with an encouraging plot always has this theme in mind: “It is a journey which I will complete in my own time and at my own pace.” Your season of growth will come - believe and work towards it. You own the pace, you write your own story. 

Happy notes taking and life scribbling then. Cheerz.

 

Biden & Trump Sage 7.

 

Trump is not going silently into the night. 

I flipped the papers this morning and this caption surfaced: “Trump opens office to carry on agenda of his administration.”

Yes, the ex-president is not letting it go. He wants to be heard. But that is all fine until the goal of such a set up is to “advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda” of his administration. 

I believe his particular agenda-advancing office is the first of any former presidents. And we can tell what he is up to, knowing how he resented bitterly for not being re-elected for the second term. Losing to sleepy Joe was a painful defeat he cannot take lying down. 

According to a statement, the “office will be responsible for managing president Trump’s correspondence, public statements, appearances and official acitivites to advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda of the Trump administration through advocacy, organising and public activism.”

And whether he endorses the new set up or not, I suspect Trump is not going to do anything about it. He has sown enough discord by spreading conspiracy theories before he became president and it is not going to surprise anyone if he had allowed this para-presidential office to exist (even directed it by sheer will) just to continue his sinister legacy to supplement Qanon, if not supersede it. 

Anyway, we all had expected it somehow. Trump will be trump. And this kind of reminds you of the tale of the scorpion and the frog. This is the Google extract of the tale.

“A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, both would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog then agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature.”

Yes, that is Trump’s nature. We must not forget that he once wielded great power. He had the trust of the people. They wanted change, real change. And it was never about making America great again, as it is about making sense again. It is about returning the people’s clamour for dignity and humanity back to the center of politics. Unfortunately, he squandered that golden opportunity. 

Trump could not confront the one person that matters most in his term of presidency - that is, himself. He had innumerable chances to turn things around, make amends, admit to his failings as a human leader, embrace real changes to advance the interest of those who trusted his leadership. But he could not capitalise on any of them because he cannot accept the fact that he can be wrong or mistaken. 

The reality is, never once has he publicly apologised for what he had done in the short 4 years, or at least acknowledge that he could have done better next time round. Like I said, Trump will be trump.

 

Incidentally, this news of Trump’s office set up came at the heeds of another, that is, today is UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day. German ambassador Norbert Riedel wrote the article entitled: “The Holocaust - never again must mankind stumble this way.”

He wrote: “The Holocaust refers to the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of about six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. And this also must be said: The perpetrators were human beings. They were Germans. The worst crime in the history of humanity - it was committed by my countrymen.”

In the article, ambassador Riedel wrote about the famous “stumbling stones” or Stolpersteine, in the streets of Berlin. 

“The inscription on each stone begins “Here lived”, followed by the victim’s name, date of birth, and fate: internment, suicide. exile or, in the vast majority of cases, deportation and murder.”” 

There are more than 70,000 Stolpersteine commemorating these lives who just happened to stand in the way of the tyrannical steam-rulers, or were just marked out because of their race, heritage and blood. 

The stumbling stones was designed by German artist, Gunter Demnig about two decades ago. It is the “world’s largest decentralised monument to the Holocaust.”

I brought up the stumbling stones in this post because you will note that, to read the inscription on these stones in the walkway, one has to bow before the victims. This is deliberate, and it was one of the project initiators’ design. 

As you’d have guessed it, it is about humility. It is about what Jesus once said, “whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” And as it is also said, humility is not about thinking less of yourself, it is about thinking of yourself less. 

Come to think of it, this is the simple elegance of the teachings at Sermon on the mount. And this is a much-neglected counterculture (Jesus had taught about) as against the current state of world affairs led by leaders like Trump. He no doubt stands out because he is someone who milks every opportunity to exalt himself. 

Even after going through so much, Trump is not someone who will ever think of himself less. We would in fact be lucky if he even spare the time to think of others a little more (or not sting those who carry his orders on their backs).

And in the same way that the office of presidency can exalt the leader who humbles himself before all, the same office can also abase a leader who exalts himself above all.

 

Biden & Trump Saga 6.

Who cares if a leader “grab ‘em by the pussy,” just as long as he is committed to overturning Roe v. Wade (abortion) and Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage), and calls for prayers and reading of the Ten Commandments in school. 

Recently, I have been reading about the mixed reactions to the new Biden administration. Many local churches here are disillusioned by the Inauguration of Biden-Harris. They have been praying in groups for a second term for Trump because they are really hoping that Trump would make American (or the World) great again by first and foremost making God great again. 

Trump the man was the dawn of a new hope for their faith. He was the believer’s Cyrus the Great, “whose deeds were foretold by Isaiah, and achievements have changed the course of history for the Jewish people.” 

He is their Isaiah 45 president, and yes, reading Isaiah 45, and you will find the feats of Cyrus...coincidence or foretold? 

Alas, Trump, despite all his eye-rolling shenanigans, was their only hope. He is known as ”the wrecking ball to the spirit of political correctness”. And since we are at it, you may as well add ”the elitist establishment” to that wrecking ball list. 

And leaders like him don’t come often in this age of post-enlightenment. Trump is rare (as elected Commander-in-Chief). So, you just have to grab him by the brassy, that is, all of him, the good and the bad, when he happens to walk your way...right?

In fact, a more rational and sincere sentiment about the former Twitter-in-Chief came from the feedback of a 33-year-old member of a local charismatic church. He said: “Most Christians I spoke to were very torn during the election. On the one hand, we wished for a Republican victory, on the other, we couldn’t imagine another four years with Trump.” 

(reported by Justine Ong - “Biden presidency a relief even as some regret Trump’s exit”). 

Another respondent, Mr Ang, prefers Trump because of his support for Israel - including recognising Jerusalem as its capital in 2017 - was more aligned with the interest of Singapore because Israel had helped us build up our military in the 1960s. 

In sum, it is about a divine-like compromise, choosing of a lesser evil, between Clinton and Trump, and now between Biden and Trump (yet, honestly, as a side-note, surely it is not about choosing the lesser of two evils, right? But, it is about choosing the one who had, at Calvary, dispelled all evil). 

Anyway, coming back to that dastardly choice, even a research professor of theology and biblical studies, Prof Wayne Grudem, said this (when the electoral contest was between Trump and Clinton).

“It isn’t even close. I overwhelmingly support Trump’s policies and believe that Clinton’s policies will seriously damage the nation, perhaps forever. On the Supreme Court, abortion, religious liberty, sexual orientation regulations, taxes, economic growth, the minimum wage, school choice, Obamacare, protection from terrorists, immigration, the military, energy, and safety in our cities, I think Trump is far better than Clinton. Again and again, Trump supports the policies I advocated in my 2010 book Politics According to the Bible.”

Mind you, Biden will not be that different from Clinton. He will let Roe v. wade dogs lie and he is open to the garden-variety types of marriages. You can say that, although they share the same faith, even that of Prof Grudem’s faith, Joe and Hillary are two resonating peas in the same political pod. 

I know what I have written thus far doesn’t help with your Sunday morning hangover, waking up to find that a new leader of dubious/pretentious Christian background will be leading a supposedly God fearing nation for the next four years, or god forbid, more than that. Alas, you know where I stand when it comes to Trump - never been a fan before, during or after his presidency. 

Yet, I can sympathise with that “torn feeling” many are having between Trump and Biden. You see, both are Christians, declaring the faith in public, yet, one has a character of a pagan and their other the policies of a heathen. 

Who then is the real wolf invited to the chicken coop then? Who is more of a Christian, that is, Christlike, Trump or Hillary/Biden? Whose face shines with the real favour of God? 

Well, I really don’t know (for sure). There is so much more that I am ignorant of than those things that I can confidently claim I know. But, one thing I am clear of, that is, by their fruit you shall (over time) know who they really are. 

The fruit Trump has borne after his departure is quite clear. Just to name a few, he has divided the country, made it worse than before. Under his pandemic watch, the last count is 400,000 deaths. And the raid at the Capitol is the last straw (at least for Congress) of a man’s destructive ambition when he doesn’t get his way. 

Having said that, that is, listed the fruit of Trump’s term, let me just caveat that the numbing peril of the likes of Trump is that it is not inconceivable to expect one to swallow whole a rotten fruit and still praise Trump for being juicy and tasty. Nothing ought to surprise you anymore. 

Mind you, the appeal of Trump is not at all subtle. It is not a frog-in-the-pot kind of thing. It is more like dialling up a pot full of frogs to full flame from zero in a short span of 4 years, and then, you can still expect many believers to boil over with unconditional support for him. The boil is the confirmation bias the believers need to seal their devotion to Trump. Go figure. 

Ultimately, torn or otherwise, history, especially the history of religion, always repeats itself, ad nauseam. Our faith is regrettably a very emotional, excitable and impressionable kind. It is also unfortunately myopic or narrow in nature. Most times, such narrow mindset sees things in binary fashion, driven by a pristine, crusade-like ideological POV. This just raises the yeast of self-righteousness even more. 

And, by way of a lamentation, if our faith and hope had been one planted by the good soil of the Sermon on the Mount, that is, one rooted in values that are not of this world, we would not have cared so much about who’s elected, who’s not, or who’s more Christian than who. It seems like no one really cared much about what Jesus once said to Pilate - that my kingdom is not of this world. 

In any event, like it or not, we have been repeatedly reminded that politics and faith are potent, even toxic, mix. And if we are not careful, our allegiance can be easily corrupted because you can’t serve two masters and then boast that you are still anchored and unshakably discerning. That boast is nothing but the self-delusion in us preaching. 

For when you politicise religion, you weaponise faith with the tendency to exalt self. In other words, you are giving it a power that often grows beyond you, with the aim to overwhelm you, and to bring the most carnal desires inside you out in blinding colours. 

Alas, hasn’t history taught us about this before? And no, we are not any different from those who have gone before us. Neither is Trump any different from the leaders before him. The Good News is thus neither new nor old; it is just good, and that should never change. 

And it is good because it is not concerned with the often chaotic affairs of this world, but the change of one’s heart - a change that brings real, enduring change, not one just for show, just for a season.