Editor’s Note: We have to dig through the ice of Greenland to try to find the bottom of this regime. The concept of America, long invoked in fights for freedom from the French Revolution to Tiananmen Square, now has to contend with modern-day equivalents of monarchists, lynchings, and Teapot Dome–level scandal. Trump kicked off the week by threatening Minnesota’s governor with a military deployment under the Insurrection Act, claiming with typical fabrication that anti-ICE protesters are “paid insurrectionists.” His Justice Department opened investigations into Minnesota’s governor and Minneapolis’s mayor for supposedly obstructing immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, the current occupant boasted an “I, me, my” level of narcissistic theater at Davos that will long be remembered for its anti-American stance.

How did we get here?

One of the best teachers in life is to travel, to see how others live, and most importantly, to experience a different culture. A humorous episode I once saw was a lone gorilla at a Japanese zoo. As people stopped to gawk at him or strolled by, he would clandestinely pick up his own excrement and then quickly toss it over the top of his cage at them. With glee, he ran around his confines, beating on his chest as the crowd screamed and ran in all directions. I watched from a safe distance at the actions of this great ape, and laughed until tears were in my eyes.

Today’s example of the ape in the white house throwing verbal excrement is no laughing matter. From my time studying and living in Japan, I keep coming back to the Japanese concept of kao, literally “face,” but more broadly, the moral and social skin we present to the world. Kao is not about vanity or reputation in the Western sense; it’s about maintaining harmony, preserving dignity, and acting in ways that don’t cause others to lose theirs. It’s recognizing that you and your actions are part of the whole, almost like a family. Shame, in that framework, isn’t punishment. It’s instruction on how you represent the family. It teaches you where your edges are and what you are responsible for.

America has long wrestled with shame, though we rarely name it. When the Vietnam War ended, shame hung in the air for years. It clung to soldiers and politicians, even to families who sent their sons abroad. It was partially wrapped in the belief that our government was asking us to participate in a just cause and ultimately losing faith in that relationship. We hadn’t yet learned how to separate a growing opposition to a shameful war from compassion for the people forced to fight it. For years, veterans were met not with gratitude but uncomfortable silence, symbols of something the nation didn’t want to face and just wanted to move on from.

In time, we learned. The memorials came. A healthier understanding emerged that shame can coexist with honor, that remorse need not erase respect. That learning from mistakes mattered. It meant we could look back and treat Vietnam as a lesson rather than a permanent scar.

Yet today, public shame has mostly vanished. We have no shame about what we don’t know, what we say, how much we make, how we made it, how many lies we tell, and how much we amplify those lies. Ignorance has become a mask of confidence. The loudest voices are getting attention and framing it as legitimacy. When the highest officeholder in the land broadcasts a video joking about shitting on Americans, we’re expected to laugh along.

Imagine a culture whose leader doesn’t shame wrongdoing, but uses crudeness as a political skill, a kind of silverback beating the chest and throwing his excrement as a display of dominance.

That’s where we are today, and we will be stuck here until we address the shame it brings.

Shame isn’t always comfortable. It’s not meant to be. It’s that sinking feeling that says there is more here than you. The first time a child is told not to curse or not to throw a tantrum, the lesson is predominately about responsibility to the whole. It’s learning how to act and developing empathy for others. It’s learning that your freedom ends where it encroaches on someone else’s.

Read that again.

Shame, when acknowledged, can correct many wrongs. Since we don’t, we get bureaucracy, policy manuals, debt, divorce, deep-pocketed predators, and a Shakespearean level of “sealing lies with a smile.” We get lawyers who advertise openly for profitable lawsuits. We get wealthy elected officials who have no understanding of how most Americans live. It’s an institutional level of shamelessness that profits!

Modern capitalism runs on hidden shame. We know, somewhere in our subconscious, that the coffee beans we sip, the shoes we wear, and the gadgets we scroll on are born from uncomfortable places: factory floors, slaughterhouses, sweatshops, and mines. Out of sight, out of moral mind. Our entire consumer economy depends on not feeling too much and not paying attention to details.

Nearly every major religion understands shame as vital to transformation. In Christian tradition, shame and sin are siblings. You turn away from Jesus not just because you sin, but because you can’t bear to see what you’ve done reflected in him. He took the fall. He was the scapegoat.

In Buddhism, Siddhartha’s enlightenment begins with that same recognition. He escapes the palace walls and feels shame for what he sees, a profound, shaking empathy for humanity’s suffering. In Islam, shame is modesty before God and guests alike, the feeling that keeps you from dishonoring the stranger at your door and inviting them in.

Shame is an awareness of being in a state of interdependence. It reminds us that life isn’t only a solo performance. That there are billions of us to contend with. It’s a reminder that our ego hates, but our spirit depends upon.

Shame must be collective, too. After great moral errors, societies often look for a way to cleanse themselves through action, symbolic or real. After Vietnam, America took years to reset. Since 9/11, we have still not regained our bearings. Each war, whether Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, maybe Iran, maybe Venezuela, grows messier, less morally defensible, and when we leave, we try to patch over the unease with fabrications or another quick strike somewhere else. It’s using the military to substitute for our own moral reckoning.

Trumpism is a slow-building shame that no one admits, because there is no shared language for admitting it. We’ve stopped treating shame as a necessary pause before real learning. Mistakes are the best teachers, but now we treat it as weakness. Never admit guilt, never say you’re sorry, never question authority. Our culture glorifies shamelessness as strength. Politicians brag about “telling it like it is,” but what they often mean is telling it with no moral filter, many times resulting in more purposeful fabrications. Now we have the ability to humiliate others or mock norms every minute of every hour being sold as authenticity.

The objective is to do the opposite of shame.

Bringing honor to your group, your family, your business, by your actions. Japan’s idea of kao, the face, still feels relevant. To lose face isn’t just to make a mistake; it’s failing the people around you and disrupting harmony. America would benefit from rediscovering that idea, that progress depends on a shared sense of responsibility.

We must be awoke if we are to have shame. The ability to reflect, to feel, to admit ignorance, to apologize doesn’t diminish our freedom. Maybe the American version of kao is real courage in the face of the current show. The willingness to feel shame and not turn away. A nation that could say, “We don’t do things just because we can.” Families that could say, “We were wrong. He’s a self-serving asshole.”

Shame is not an act of humiliation. It’s a recognition that we have a common reputation to protect. The current climate keeps everyone shifting blame and responsibility on the other, to find another scapegoat.

If things stay that way, as we have seen several times now, people will get away with murder.

Markets are moving faster than ever — but so is the noise. Between clickbait headlines, empty hot takes, and AI-fueled hype cycles, it’s harder than ever to separate what matters from what doesn’t.

That’s where The Daily Upside comes in. Written by former bankers and veteran journalists, it brings sharp, actionable insights on markets, business, and the economy — the stories that actually move money and shape decisions.

That’s why over 1 million readers, including CFOs, portfolio managers, and executives from Wall Street to Main Street, rely on The Daily Upside to cut through the noise.

No fluff. No filler. Just clarity that helps you stay ahead.

Subscribe free today.

Our relationship with death in this life is nothing short of complicated. While I envy those who are at peace with their eventual demise, I am wary of those who are certain of what comes after. That is really where we get into trouble, and many times we use such beliefs to help others get to the end faster, whether through limited thinking or violence.

Since the beginning of humankind, the big question has always been, “What’s next?” I am no longer sure, but that doesn’t stop me from acting in a manner that embraces the life I know while respecting the afterlife I do not know. “Seize every day as if it’s your last” is not a bad contemplation if it helps you cherish things more, to be mindful of every activity you are doing. As I’m closer to the end than the beginning of the journey, this keeps me grounded: the moments I share with others, the time I spend doing things (even the mundane like washing dishes) with the realization that the process will someday end for me. No matter your belief, that awareness can be a quiet grace.

My experience as a public servant falls firmly within the thoughts shared in this piece. Every time I have worked to change procedures and policies for better outcomes, I’ve hit roadblocks. Sometimes they come from those higher up; many times they come from those who simply don’t want to think. There are plenty of examples like the ones mentioned here that show when you give people enough freedom to act, they can get things done well and quickly. Our current system isn’t built for either.​

That doesn’t mean we don’t need government and public services. It simply means we have to keep doing them better. That goes for anything in life as we learn more, as conditions change, as new challenges arise. The bureaucracy and policies put into place in one decade will most likely need to change in the next. It’s unsettling to many, but it is a sign of progress.​

While legalism has created a whole clientele of attorneys, consultants, lobbyists, and mid-level managers who do well, the systems stagnate. That’s why you’ll see well-educated people do things that call their character into question. Status quo means wealth. Change means someone else gets a chance.

It is another sad morning in America to see the propaganda of delusion that has taken hold to sanction the killing of yet another American by armed and masked federal agents. I would urge you to keep up your peaceful protests in any manner possible. Make it harder to do the wrong thing. Make it uncomfortable for those who too comfortably ignore the principles of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Use your pen, your voice, your wallet, your brain, and stay in the streets.

Together.

It’s all part of being a good human, and a truly free American.