Tom Hanks, Please Don't Stop Playing Gay Characters

MG Kaplan

Sept 7 2022

Tom Hanks’ recent statement reported in New York Times Magazine (July 14, 2022), that he wouldn’t play his gay character in the movie Philadelphia if it were being made today, contains a contradiction at its core. While likely his intent is to be inclusive, the impact is one that if applied broadly, would interfere with progress towards inclusion and pluralism.  Hanks says the audience wouldn’t “accept the inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy.” The argument appears to be that a straight character can’t play a gay character because 1) a member of the dominant or majority group (heterosexual) can’t understand the life experiences of a member of the subordinated or minority group (gay), and 2) it takes away an opportunity for a gay actor, who’s roles may be limited by bias and discrimination.  While there are truths in both of these arguments about the challenges of operating in a diverse society, the inherent opportunity is missed.  The U.S. has a core strength built into our system:  diversity is what feeds our creativity, and creates our resilience.  The more we push ourselves to work with and across difference, the stronger we become.  The world’s most diverse democracy, constituted to create equality and opportunity, should aspire to become more inclusive and pluralistic.   

Hanks’ argument does have a truth based in the very real power dynamics connected to difference.  It is true that a straight person would be challenged playing a gay character.  When we are in the dominant group on any issue of difference, such as gender identity/gender, race, culture, and sexual orientation, we aren’t compelled to deeply understand the life experiences of those groups less powerful.  Correspondingly, the person in the subordinated group often faces the reality of needing to understand the dominant group in order to thrive, fit in, or even survive.  This power dynamic is reflected in the different amount of awareness, energy and real work required by each.  Using myself as an example, as a white person I generally don’t have to understand or adapt to black people in order to fit in or be successful.  Yet as a gay person, I have invested much energy in understanding straight people, in order to be seen as acceptable, and to have access to opportunities.  It was a lot of work to figure out how to fit in, eventually to come out, and to become a fully functioning and free person.  I appreciate Mr. Hanks’ sensitivity to this struggle, and he is right that he faces a real challenge in playing a gay character, even moreso given the substantial progress made since the filming of Philadelphia.  His good work in portraying Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia is the sort of work that helps this country grow, because it flips the power dynamic concerning who needs to learn about whom.  By the way, should Bruce Springsteen not have written the theme song for the movie?  His highly acclaimed “Streets of Philadelphia”, the lyrics of which captured a deeply resonant moment for the gay community, also resonated broadly.  Both Hanks and Springsteen are models for growth and change, and for pluralism. 

His comment to the Times that “one of the reasons people weren’t afraid of that movie is that I was playing a gay man” indicates the problem of a sort of bias that could impact a gay actor’s opportunities.  However, he also states that we are “…beyond that now”, and this reveals a counterproductive irony.  Should progress lead us to be more separate, and less able to authentically empathize and portray the experiences of someone different?  Hanks’ work in Philadelphia helped to reduce bias and discrimination, yet by not playing a gay character today he would embrace a perspective that would help freeze in place these non-inclusive, non-pluralistic dynamics.  To imply that identity in a subordinated group is so sacred that a member of the dominant group shouldn’t even attempt to portray that experience, even actors who are constantly seeking to embody the experiences of different others, will only cause bias to persist, and thicken the boundaries around our group identities.  Change can’t wait until we have a “perfect” bias-free world, which will likely never exist.

The national conversation about creating a diverse society that is inclusive is perhaps our most important conversation.  Our history represents the best and the worst, when it comes to tolerance and acceptance of difference.  Pluralism, which focuses on both creating the space for diversity to be expressed and the broader value add to the society, should be a guiding construct.  If we focus primarily on the power dynamics of dominant and subordinated, or oppressor and oppressed, it is that broader value add that is missed, and we risk remaining unnecessarily polarized.  This doesn’t mean we should ignore bias and discrimination, but we should also see the ways we are changing, the good intent of many, the opportunities in front of us, and the risk if we stay stuck. 

We are in a time of change and progress, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.  Not only, according to social science research, are our attitudes about diversity improving, our demographics are shifting in profound ways.  At the center of this shift is the inevitability that in about 2 decades whites will become less than 50% of the population.  At such an important time of change and progress, some want to keep us stuck in the past.  On the right, the goal seems to be a return to a time when certain groups, particularly whites and men, were in a dominant position.  This is obviously untenable and would likely lead to the downfall of our country and system of government.  On the left, there also seems to be a desire to stay in a past where the power dynamics of dominant and subordinated groups remain unchanging, and progress is not acknowledged.  While the threat from the right is more extreme and particularly palpable, real change rarely involves shifting just one group or one perspective.  Real change involves a sense of a shared future that we can collectively own. 

Our demographics, and our Constitution, are to a large extent our destiny, and we should embrace it.   Diversity is our biggest strength, our biggest challenge, and our biggest opportunity.  We need to spend more time deepening empathy across our differences, not less.  The constant polarization around identity groups needs to be allowed to evolve towards pluralism, in which we have space to thrive in our differences and allow those differences to make us stronger, more creative, and more resilient.   Tom Hanks should be encouraged to stretch himself in his portrayals.  His courage should push him, and perhaps help us, to develop more empathy.  He should eagerly seek feedback from gay and straight people alike, about his impact.  Yes, because of our progress it might be harder for him to play a gay character today, but should he step up to that challenge, he, and others like him, will be role models for what it looks like to live together in a rich, diverse, pluralistic society.

Big Change is Never Easy: An Unapologetically Optimistic View

 Big Change is Never Easy:  An Unapologetically Optimistic View

MG Kaplan

June 26, 2022

At a moment that seems dark and scary, our country thrown back to a pre-1973 era where women’s reproductive freedom was heavily restricted and their life and health sometimes at risk, it is possible to see an optimistic outcome.  The overturning of Roe v. Wade is an event that has been feared for 50 years; it has been a focal point of our political dialogue for almost that entire time.  It has caused a great cultural polarization, and was at various times the main policy issue that defined political affiliation and voting in this country.  The feared, or wished for, day has arrived, and the question is “What is next?”.  I won’t try to answer that from a public policy or political strategy perspective, but I suggest that this scary and abrupt shift probably reflects that deep change is occurring, and the result may help to clarify and depolarize the issue of reproductive freedom, as well as a number of other flashpoint issues.  We are in a moment when the threat of regression is high, but the opportunity for progress is likely higher.

Big change never comes easy.  It is much more common for the momentum of the status quo to continue to provide incremental shifts in one direction or another.  That is why big change is relatively rare.  People change slowly, institutions as well, and usually we just muddle along.  In the background though, progress and resistance to that progress battle on in a quiet war that sometimes heats up.  The “heat” is the resistance to change which gets activated when change is actually happening.  If there was no real change or shift, then there would be nothing to resist.  As change deepens, and this often happens below the surface, it generates first discomfort and fear, and then resistance gets hotter.  When it comes to socio-cultural change, in a historical political context, conservative forces tap the discomfort and fear and often have some success, but it is usually temporary.  For example, conservatives won the 2004 Presidential election by barely winning Ohio, a victory that has been attributed to getting anti same-sex marriage ordinances on the Ohio ballot to generate high turnout among conservatives.  It worked in 2004, but 10 years later same-sex marriage was the law of the entire country, not just individual states.  This demonstrates how social change often occurs:  one step forward and then one step back, but then 2 steps forward.  Abortion rights have been manipulated politically by conservatives for 50 years.  But conservatives have been joined by progressives for much of these 50 years, as each side demonized the other for political advantage, and a reasonable compromise seemed impossible.   That time, and dynamic, is at the beginning of its end, as we are well into the “heating up,” meaning a big shift is near.  That shift is highly likely to be one that continues the progression of human rights and freedom. 

You might be thinking that the shift is in the other direction, but I don’t think so.  Even though times of big change are always risky, and it is possible we could take 2 steps backwards, the underlying dynamics show a continuing arc towards more freedom, as evidenced by what has actually been happening socially and culturally, reflected by behavior and attitudinal shifts that continue to show progress.  We are no longer in the theoretical world of “if Roe v. Wade was overturned…”  Though it would’ve been nice to avoid the risk and the real pain and suffering that some are going to be experiencing, this does force the issue and will cause a clarification of what we really think should be our public policy as it relates to reproductive freedom.  Polarization, by definition, involves 2 sides, and so does change.  The end of Roe v. Wade forces all of us to engage practically, to shift our energy from the constant demonizing of each other, to the solving of real problems.  The recent success in passing a bi-partisan gun safety bill, though very modest in scope, shows that we are not as stuck as we think we are.

Public opinion is strongly in favor of protecting a right to abortion for the 1st and most of the 2^nd trimester.  If states continue to push overly restrictive laws, they will get backlash from voters because the Roe protections no longer exist.  This will, over time, push many states to be more reasonable in their restrictions.  It will eventually force a policy at the Federal level, that is likely to be consistent with public opinion. This never needed to be an all or nothing battle.  Most of the Western world has strong abortion and health-of-the-mother protections, and some restrictions, including some countries with strong religious cultures.  Justice Ginsburg warned about the weakness of Roe and suggested that reproductive freedom needed a stronger constitutional basis.  As many people come together in the short-term to help women, especially those with the most challenges in getting healthcare services, a broader consensus will form around fair and effective public policy.  Eventually reproductive freedom will stand on solid ground and become a less politically motivating force in what is now a polarized socio-political zeitgeist.  The same will be true more broadly as our 50-year culture war simmers down.

Justice Thomas suggested directly that the precedent that underlies Roe, now rejected by the court, should mean that other protections covered by or related to that precedent should be removed, specifically citing cases related to same-sex marriage, contraception, and private sexual behavior.  This blatant overreach and threat to the rights and freedoms of every single person will eventually lead to a solidifying of much of the social progress that has been made on privacy, and individual freedom over the basic and essential parts of our lives.  So, I say “thank you” to Justice Thomas for saying the quiet part out loud; the agenda of a theocratic, reactionary group is now clear and will be rejected.  The right-wing backlash to all kinds of progress on gender, race, sexuality, and other issues is just about played out.  This is the most powerful way for resistance to change to be transformed into progress.  For many strong conservatives, they have now gotten what they’ve been striving for on their biggest defining issue:  Roe v. Wade is overturned.  What will happen next is that their extremism will be rejected in most of the country and progress will now solidify on many issues such that policy begins to reflect the reality of where we really are, because “where we really are” reflects tremendous shifts in attitudes over several decades.  For example, public support of same-sex marriage is now 70% and increasing.  Interracial relationships are much more common as public attitudes about race have improved.  Pew’s decades of social research show that in 1990 63% of non-black people would be somewhat or very opposed to a close relative marrying a black person.  In 2017, that figure was 14%.  Consistent with this data, rates of interracial marriage have more than tripled since 1980.  In striking irony, and deep hypocrisy, Justice Thomas’s interracial marriage was a result of these changing attitudes and made legal by the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia!

This sort of attitudinal progress has been building, but our polarized political dynamic has made it hard for these gains to be solidified and embedded.  George Friedman in his 2020 book, The Storm Before the Calm, makes the case that we are in a once-a-century or so time of transformational change.  His title captures the key dynamic at play today:  It is the moments that feel the most risky and chaotic that often foreshadow big change, and once that change is solidified, a quasi-consensus, and calm, emerges.  I believe this is where we are headed, and though we probably have several stormy years ahead, we should begin to allow ourselves to envision the outcome in an optimistic way.  We should step back from our polarized responses to current events, avoid getting sucked into hopelessness, join efforts to help fellow citizens who will need help navigating these stormy seas, and begin to take stock in the progress that has been made.  After all, change never really stops.  While the time is coming when we can consider real challenges that have been largely unaddressed, such as economic inequality, lets enjoy the vision of a calm sea in our socio-political zeitgeist, that while not quite here yet, is coming soon.

The Singularity and Familiarity of the Holocaust Informs Us Today: Reflections from a visit to Yad Vashem

 

On Yom HaShoah 28 April 2022 27^th Day of Nisan

By MG Kaplan

Earlier this year, for the first time, I visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem.  I’d been to Israel several times before, but this time a visit to Yad Vashem was a priority, following a couple of years of genealogical research of my family, which revealed both the tragedy and devastation of so many lost people, including dozens of family members.  I expected an emotional time at Yad Vashem, and that is what I experienced.  It was made even more resonant when I thought about our current state of affairs here in the U.S.   How are we doing in managing the kinds of dynamics that when not managed can lead to something as extreme as the Holocaust?  How are we doing in trying to become the pluralistic democratic republic based on Enlightenment values, that we were intended to be?  

The Jewish Holocaust was a singular event.  It is not just the number of people; it is both the intent to destroy an entire group of people but also the way in which it was done.  The planning, the precision, the efficiency, and the ability to get much of German society (and other European countries) on board with the annihilation of all of the Jews of Europe was a singular historical event.  From a distance, the Jewish Holocaust of almost half of the world’s population of Jews, the murder of another several million people including targeted groups such as Roma, people living with disabilities, LGBT folks, and others seems so obviously misguided and horrific that it can’t be conceived of as something that could happen again.  I always felt that way, knowing theoretically that my family (and Jews in general) had lost many people, but not feeling too personally connected to that loss, and believing that it would never happen again.  Never Again.  It all seemed so unreal.  My view was that progress had and would continue to unfold, that human beings had learned an important lesson.  I knew little about the early part of the 20^th century, which were not great times for Jews in the U.S., featuring extensive targeting and stereotyping, exclusion from social institutions, blatant exclusion from top universities, and more.  Growing up during what has been called the “golden years” of Jewish life in the USA, antisemitic targeting and hatred was not a significant part of my experience.  I knew and observed stereotypes about Jews, but that seemed both limited and far away from the life of my family, the exception but not the rule. 

At the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, the first exhibits are of the propaganda campaign against Jews which began well before large-scale murders and deportation to concentration camps.  This detailed and extensive propaganda, which I describe below, was a reflection of fear and insecurity in Germany, probably a more intense version of the kinds of fears and insecurities that we can see today in the U.S., and much of the western world.  In the U.S. we are in the midst of a steady and accelerating demographic change in which Whites, who are still by far the largest racial group (60% of the population), are decreasing, while groups of color, particularly Latino/as and Asians are increasing.  This kind of demographic and cultural change, though in the background for a long time, is now accelerating and appears to be increasingly connected to economic factors, including a rapidly expanding wealth and income gap, and socioeconomic stagnation which makes it harder for Americans to progress up the economic ladder.  The economic fears were resonant in Germany in the period after WW1, but also at play were cultural issues.   Germany was characterized by 2 conflicting dynamics:  1) an increasingly progressive and open society, and 2) economic disruption and anxiety, at first related to crushing debt and humiliation after WW1.  The global Great Depression quickly ended the social progressiveness.  The economic disasters, and perhaps a feeling among many Germans that something was being lost in their traditional culture helped create a backlash that focused on blaming others.  In this environment, Hitler and The Nazis rose, and focused the blame for Germany’s problems on “the other.”  Jews were their main target, and this is captured in the first part of Yad Vashem, with articles, advertisements, pamphlets, etc. which pictured Jews with extremely exaggerated physical features, and described them as evil, conniving, threats to children, etc.  On display in the museum are actual devices that would measure the size of the skulls of Jews, to prove that they were Jewish and defective or abnormal in some way.  Looking at this, especially given a couple of thousand years of harshly negative anti-Jewish stereotypes, it isn’t hard to see how Hitler was able to foment such visceral antisemitism.  The propaganda campaign of lies and gaslighting about Jews was intense and ongoing; there was no room for truth.  The interplay of socioeconomic difficulties with cultural polarization is familiar, and similar, today.

We don’t have to suggest that what is happening here today exactly parallels Germany in the 1920s and 30s to ask ourselves if some of the dynamics at play then, are occurring today.  After all, these are constantly repeating human dynamics, even if they show up different and with different levels of intensity and impact.  Which groups do you see being stereotyped and demonized now?  Desperate immigrants who illegally cross the US border, Asians during the pandemic, Trans people in general, and the ongoing mistreatment of Black people?  Think about the ways in which we demonize each other around political identity.  As you think about this, consider our shrinking middle class, the cost of higher education, and the difficulties many have with socio-economic mobility.  Take note of a rapidly growing wealth and income gap and the increasing focus on the elites vs. the rest of us.  Now think about the level of polarization in our politics.  This is more concerning than anything I can recall in my life, and probably the biggest most multi-faceted social, cultural and political challenge that we’ve faced since the 1920s and 30s.

I am convinced that the U.S. will be managing these kinds of dynamics for as long as we can keep the democratic republic given to us almost 250 years ago.  Some of this is to be expected.  A diverse democracy is a hard thing to keep.  An ebb and flow, a give and take, is essential; our progress will never be in a straight line.  Change followed by backlash to change is to be expected in most societies and organizations.  Two steps forward and a step back are the norm of our national evolution when it comes social change and diversity.  Tolerance needs to be the minimum standard, with acceptance, empathy and admiration as the goals.  We need to be able to see the ways that we all benefit when we strive to be a pluralistic democracy.  Human existence isn’t a zero-sum game in which we have to constantly identify with a group and pit ourselves against another group.  That may seem like a contradiction given that this essay started with my reflections about the experience of Jews, but we will always be balancing our group identities with our individuality. 

In these difficult times the most patriotic thing any of us can do, is figure out how we can make our diverse, pluralistic democracy work.  This means we have to be able to see our fellow humans as individuals, not just members of groups.  At the same time, we can’t ignore their group identities.  I have frequently had the experience of meeting people in any number of groups of which I had been explicitly or implicitly encouraged to see only through stereotypes.  Almost always when I can connect to individuality, stereotypes drift into the background.  An Israeli friend of mine shared a profound experience of meeting another young woman from Iran, in a 3^rd country.  My friend identified as a European, not an Israeli, and the young woman she met was not wearing the chador, and dressed in a very modern and western style.  As they each revealed themselves to the other, their strongly-held stereotypes were replaced by an interest to understand each other as individuals.  I had a version of this at a recent dinner with friends who have very different political views than I.  I told myself to focus on them as individuals, not on our different political identities.  It not only made for a much nicer dinner conversation, it also laid the groundwork to help us manage to stay connected as societal tensions continue to rise, which I believe will happen over the next several years.  We were building our bank account of good will.  In order for a pluralistic democracy like ours to survive difficult times and prepare to thrive as those dynamics wane, we need to have these relational bank accounts.  The Holocaust shows us what can happen when we don’t. 

We should hold the Holocaust as a singular event, but at the same time we should see the similarity – the familiarity – with how easily we objectify and dehumanize others.  Post-WW1 Germany didn’t have the history, laws, and constitution that we have in the U.S.  We have tried to balance group-ness and individuality for our entire history.  From the start we represented various groups that occupy the same land, and we are at least supposed to have the same opportunities to pursue our individual happiness.  After all, it is from these various groups that we emerge as individuals.  

Ultimately our individuality, meaning our individual experience of being human, is the most basic and  important experience we have.  The values of The Enlightenment, the philosophical backbone of our Constitution, are passionate about individuality and individual rights, while giving us guidance in balancing individuality with other people and other groups.  This balance is hard to keep. We have work to do, always, but sometimes we have extra work to do.  That time is now, and if we step away from it, where are we?  More importantly, who are we?

"When I grow up and get to be twenty 

I'll travel and see this world of plenty.

In a bird with an engine I'll 

sit myself down, Take off and fly, into

space far above the ground.  I'll fly,

I'll cruise and soar up high Above, a

world so lovely, into the sky...

Abramek Koplowicz, murdered in Auschwitz at age 14

Poem exhibited at Yad Vashem with Abramek's original journal

 

 

10 Reasons Why I am Glad Joe Biden is President

 

Mark Kaplan

March 3, 2020

President Biden is an easy guy to pick on.  He is old-fashioned and acts like an old-fashioned politician.  He uses expressions that are both antiquated and corny.  He likes quaint homilies.  He tells the same stories over and over again.  His age shows.  He can barely put together 2 sentences without a flubbed word.  It is pretty easy to criticize him, especially in a time of intense polarization where each side looks for every possible reason to dislike the other side.  If you step back though, he’s having a successful presidency, and think about it, can you even imagine what would be going on now if he hadn’t won?  That brings me to Reason #1 of “why I’m glad Joe Biden is President.”

#1:  He beat Donald Trump.  Really his whole presidency is a success because he beat Trump.  That is enough for me.  I could stop writing here.  Undoubtedly 4 more years of Trump would’ve led to something, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been good.

#2:  He got us vaccinated.  Well, he got those of us who wanted to be vaccinated, vaccinated.  His administration rolled out an ambitious, fast, well-organized, and highly effective vaccination program.  It isn’t his fault that our polarized politics, and propensity to like conspiracy theories, meant that a large number of people wouldn’t get vaccinated.  He did everything he could, and he did it well.

#3:  He used the tenuous but real power that the winning of the Senate gave him to get a huge (1.9T) pandemic relief bill passed almost immediately after inauguration.  Some felt it wasn’t necessary, but the unwillingness of many to get vaccinated, combined with an unexpected Delta variant surge, showed that bill to be a lifesaver for many, and for the economy.

#4:  Dude actually got an infrastructure bill passed!  A big one!  This legislation was decades overdue.  After 4 years of “infrastructure week” failures by Republicans despite their 2 years of having Congressional and White House majorities, Biden got it done, and in a bipartisan manner.  To quote him:  “This is a big (effing) deal.”

#5:  He takes a lickin’ and he keeps on tickin.”  He has had a rough time.  Unfortunately, when people aren’t happy, they blame the person in charge.  He doesn’t seem demoralized, and he keeps pursuing his goals.  When you’re getting – or you’ve gotten – on in years, taking risks is less consequential.  There is a certain freedom that comes with aging.  There really might not be a tomorrow.  So Biden keeps on truckin, and I admire him for that.

#6:  He has advanced inclusion and diversity in historical ways.  Regardless of your opinion of the VP, he chose a woman of color as his running mate.  He has nominated the first ever African-American women to be on the Supreme Court.  His cabinet is beautifully diverse, the most diverse in history.  Even in a polarized environment, and well after he’s been elected, he keeps talking about race and focusing on diversity in general.  His cabinet looks like America, and he speaks to a pretty broad spectrum of us…from working class whites to people of color to military veterans, to moderates, to progressives, and to the many in-between, even if we aren’t quite ready to hear him.

#7:  He doesn’t demonize people.  It has to be tempting.  I admit I’ve been doing way too much demonizing the last few years.  He sees the consequences of the stupidity and selfishness (there I go again) of so many in our country lately.  Yet he always tries to pull people in, to speak to their better selves.  It is a good example that I should follow.  Here, I’ll try:  he sees through our dysfunction, and our pain; he perceives how much we struggle to be kind to each other, to be better, and he appeals to our better angels.  There…that feels so much better.  Thanks Mr. President.

#8:  He’s from Delaware!  I’m from Delaware too! (he even went on a couple of dates with my Mom while they were both at the University of Delaware).   Isn’t it a little bit interesting, maybe even ironic, that at a time of such historic struggle and strife, someone from our 2^nd smallest state is the President?  Though small, Delaware had a big role in the founding of the country, and was the 1^st state.  I think history will say that Biden, like Delaware, was a very consequential leader.  And Mom remembered him as someone who was clearly “going places.”  You were right, Mom.  And by the way, thanks for marrying Dad.  I would’ve been a bad First Son.

#9:  He is saving and strengthening NATO and helping the world stand up for democracy and participatory government, at a time when autocracy and dictatorship are on the rise.  Do we really want to live in a world where dictators are empowered and freedom is shrinking?  We learned in the last couple of decades that we can’t force democracy on unwilling countries.  But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep standing up for freedom, helping countries that want participatory government and more individual freedom, and standing up to dictators where we can.  This is an issue abroad, and as we’ve learned recently, at home as well.  Ultimately our freedom is enhanced when the freedom of others is enhanced.  I think President Biden deeply understands this.

#10:  He has a sense of the moment.  When he decided to run, he said it was to save the soul of the country.  He knew this was a big moment in history, he understood that something essential about our great pluralistic, democratic republic was at risk.  He wanted - and wants - to help save it.  He was willing to heed the call and jump into the abyss, like a protagonist in a hero’s journey.  He, and we, are now in the abyss, struggling with the beast, so to speak.  His lessons will be our lessons, and if we are fortunate, he will help lead us forward from the abyss, with new knowledge, and stronger.  This is what I hope for and believe he will ultimately be known for.

He has made plenty of mistakes.  Don’t they (and we) all?  I won’t list them out.  But we should be rooting for him.  His struggle is our struggle.  His success is our success - especially now.  Thank you for your service, Joe Biden.  I’m glad you are our President.