By Rinaldo S. Brutoco
December 15, 2025
For nearly 40 years, the World Business Academy has warned that democratic stability, ethical leadership, and a well-informed public, are essential foundations for addressing the environmental, energy, and social risks confronting our society. Our work on stakeholder capitalism, climate change, energy security, and global systemic threats has shown that when political institutions come under authoritarian pressure, the entire ecosystem of responsible business, civic trust, and long-term problem-solving begins to destabilize. In moments like this, the Academy’s call to “take responsibility for the whole” reminds us that as business executives, civic leaders, and everyday citizens, we cannot stand apart from these shifts because the health of our political system directly shapes our capacity to respond effectively to society’s most pressing challenges. And, as the World Business Academy, we feel compelled to track those political shifts due to the potentially tectonic implications for the US and global economies.
With this in mind, the Academy is mindful of a possible inflection point emerging over the past 45 days, one that brings to mind a familiar metaphor. We’ve all heard the “boiling frogs” fable that claims if a frog is placed in lukewarm water and the temperature is slowly increased it won’t notice the change and will stay in the water until it boils to death. On the other hand, it is said that if the water temperature is suddenly raised, the frogs will notice their peril and jump out at once. This article is about the many metaphorical “frogs” that have already “jumped” out of the boiling “MAGA pot” because the Trump Administration is turning the water temperature up too fast and too hot.
What We’ve Seen Thus Far:
ABC News’ reversal of the decision to fire Jimmy Kimmel
The first “frog” that jumped out of the MAGA pot was ABC when it reversed its decision to fire Jimmy Kimmel. ABC realized they would lose far more money complying with the Administration than they would if they re-hired him, which they did 5 days later.
Pentagon Press Corp.
Virtually every major Pentagon correspondent across a broad spectrum of news outlets, including Fox, walked out rather than agreeing to have the Pentagon be able to control who they could talk to, or what they could write, without Department of Defense prior approval. To the professional newspeople from the NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and dozens of others, the Pentagon’s directive would be the equivalent of transmitting them from
independent news gatherers to formal additional PR outlets for Secretary Hegseth. Their personal and professional ethics would not permit them to become a propaganda megaphone for the Administration, so they ceremoniously turned in their badges as a show of mutual support. As a result, there is no longer any neutral news organization covering the Pentagon from inside, even as most of the reporters continue to have a “Pentagon beat” by covering military matters from outside that famous building.
Marjorie Taylor Greene (“MTG”)
MTG began by complaining (correctly, it appears) that the Republicans were sustaining far more damage from the government shutdown than the Democrats, urging the former to return to Washington from their 7-week taxpayer-paid vacation and negotiate with the Democrats to extend medical benefits. More recently, on November 21st, Greene resigned her seat in Congress (effective January 5th), citing her deep disagreement with Trump because he turned on her, a most emphatically loyal partisan, causing both, she and her son, to receive death threats. She specifically objected to: the Republicans refusing to stop the assassinations of 84 people (and growing) who happened to be in boats moving in international waters; the fact the Republicans have released no plan to ensure that her constituents won’t suffer enormous medical insurance payment increases in January, when the Affordable Care Act or ACA (aka Obama Care) expires; concern that the Administration had not done anything to address the “affordability issue;” and a number of other issues like failing to reduce the Federal deficit that has gone unaddressed. MTG was the poster child for the MAGA movement. She concluded that if Trump could turn on her, no one was safe. She should have read Rick Wilson’s (long-term Republican strategist) famous book “Everything Trump Touches Dies.”
Two-year extension of the ACA from Josh Hawley
Christian Nationalist Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, proposed a bill in the Senate to do a two-year extension of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) so the government could reopen. Yes, that is the same Josh Hawley who, while serving as the Attorney General of Missouri, sued to block the introduction of the ACA!
Consumers shunning Tesla
Consumers went from praising and buying TESLAs to shunning them now in the USA and Europe. Those individual buyers are expressing their disapproval of what Musk did to the Federal workforce as “DOGE,” and to the virtually unrestricted billions of dollars he continues to receive from the Federal government. Like Bill Gates, they are disgusted to see the richest man in the world fighting constantly to hurt some of the poorest people in the world.
No Kings rally
7,000,000+ individual citizens in over 2,700 communities across America participated in the most recent “No Kings Day” activities. In the largest march in history, they peacefully protested this Administration’s authoritarian assertion of naked power over us all.
Refusal of Trump’s instructions to end the government shutdown
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, John Barrasso, and former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, all jointly refused Trump’s instructions to end the Senate filibuster. Trump wanted to end the government shutdown by allowing a majority of Republicans in the Senate to vote to end the shutdown without needing any Democratic votes. The Republican Senate leadership unanimously rejected this idea as one that would come back to haunt them one day and has held firm in their refusal to yield to Trump’s demands.
The November 4th elections
An overwhelming majority of voters in New York, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, and even in Georgia have voted an old-fashioned drubbing to Republicans across the electoral board. By massive vote swings compared to Trump’s election, one year ago, many Republicans and a large number of Independents reversed course. In one sense, you can say that these voters collectively jumped out of the water.
Votes to release the Epstein files
On November 18, 2025, the US House of Representatives voted (“Epstein Files Transparency Act”) to release the Epstein files with only one Republican negative vote. The next day, the US Senate voted unanimously to adopt the same legislation. You could say that is the equivalent of hundreds of Republicans jumping out of the rapidly heating water. In fact, it is widely believed that the incredible electoral drubbing they took in the elections on November 4th gave the Republican elected officials the “courage” to oppose something Trump badly wanted them to do. This all occurred in the face of the onslaught of calls Trump and his minions placed to individual Congressmen to take their name off the famous discharge petition. On top of that, famous MAGA regular, Congresswoman Boebert, was “locked in” the Situation Room of the White House with Pam Bondi and Kash Patel to entice her to withdraw her signature—she didn’t! This would appear to be the first overt act of rebellion by a Republican Congress that, up to that point, had fallen in line with every “norm-breaking” and illegal scheme the Trump Administration had come up with. In that sense, the Epstein Files vote is not only a great example of Congress beginning to reassert itself in the face of strenuous efforts by the leader of their party to keep them in line under the threat that they would find a Republican opponent endorsed by Trump pitted against them in their primary.
Five Republican representatives
In the last week of November, five separate Republican Congressmen from Texas announced they will not seek re-election in 2026. This brings the total to six Texas Republicans who will not be seeking re-election in the midterms. No reason was given by any of the six, so we should be cautious in ascribing any motive at this time. What is clear, however, is that they are clearly jumping out of the political “water” for whatever reason.
Indiana lawmakers defeat redistricting plan
We didn’t have to wait long. After putting extraordinary pressure on the Indiana State Legislature, including death threats and multiple calls to state Senators from the White House, and in-person lobbying efforts by J.D. Vance, Trump was unable to persuade Indiana to vote to further gerrymander their Congressional districts to create 2 new Republican seats. On December 12, 2025, by a vote of 31-19 (including 23 Republican Senators), Indiana rejected further gerrymandering and vocally broke both with Trump and the offensive White House tactics.
One more factoid
Republican Chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee speedily announced their intention to investigate the deaths of 84 individuals alleged to be drug dealers in their 30 foot boats some 1200 miles from the US in general, and specifically the “two tap” (later corrected to say the 2nd strike 45 minutes after the first hit) deaths of two incapacitated individuals clinging to the wreckage of their small boat.
As the Academy has long emphasized, understanding these early signals is essential to safeguarding the civic and institutional conditions required for responsible business and effective long-term problem solving. Particularly as it will affect business conditions in the USA and the world. The question of which “frogs” will become increasingly interesting as the “water” gets hotter and the “frogs” either continue to jump or decide they will ride out the rising temperature. We should all be watching carefully in order to assess the optimum strategies to employ as business leaders, as investors, and as ordinary citizens. Time will tell.