For those too young or forgetful, the Mule was a character in Isaac Asimov's fantastic, award-winning Foundation trilogy.
The Mule is a hugely disruptive outlier.
Harry Seldon and his psychohistorians accurately predict the fall of the galactic empire - to be followed by 10,000 years of dark ages, strife, and suffering. Naturally, no one in power believes it or wants to act on it. You know, like climate change.
With his limited resources and predictive powers, Seldon sets in motion a secret sequence of events that will shorten the collapse to more like 1,000 years.
After Seldon's death, every once in a while, a hologram of him appears saying something along the line of "here's what should be happening" or "you should have just worked through this problem." And for a while he's always right and the new generations are gratified that they are on the right track.
Until one day the Mule - a capable, ruthless and aggressive dictator of a star system - emerges on the scene. Since it's time for Seldon's hologram to appear, they wait to see what he has to tell them about this threat. Only Seldon never predicted the Mule.
Trump is like the mule. What will he do? After he's gone, will things recover, or will things have irrevocably changed?
The Mule is a hugely disruptive outlier.
Harry Seldon and his psychohistorians accurately predict the fall of the galactic empire - to be followed by 10,000 years of dark ages, strife, and suffering. Naturally, no one in power believes it or wants to act on it. You know, like climate change.
With his limited resources and predictive powers, Seldon sets in motion a secret sequence of events that will shorten the collapse to more like 1,000 years.
After Seldon's death, every once in a while, a hologram of him appears saying something along the line of "here's what should be happening" or "you should have just worked through this problem." And for a while he's always right and the new generations are gratified that they are on the right track.
Until one day the Mule - a capable, ruthless and aggressive dictator of a star system - emerges on the scene. Since it's time for Seldon's hologram to appear, they wait to see what he has to tell them about this threat. Only Seldon never predicted the Mule.
Trump is like the mule. What will he do? After he's gone, will things recover, or will things have irrevocably changed?
