If you are anything like me, this last fortnight has felt like it was two years long. The constant barrage of cruel and often inept Executive Orders, the firehose of incompetent actions and rescissions, not to mention Congress’ total abdication of the “advise” portion of their role in “advise and consent,” has made the simple act of getting out of bed each morning a ponderous chore. And this, after I’ve already dramatically reduced my intake of current events. Frankly, there are times when I don’t know if I can make it through . . . however this is going to go on.
But then I remind myself: That is the entire point.
Proposing wholly unqualified candidates for high office, demolishing decades-long diplomatic agencies, purging competence and expertise from critical sectors, shuttering life-saving research and aid activities, starting a totally useless trade war with our closest allies, blaming every perceived woe on multiculturalism, threatening to invade/take over friendly nations, issuing pardons to persons who committed violence and riotous mayhem against the Capitol police and the seat of Congress, giving a wholly unreliable and arguably unhinged billionaire complete and unfettered access to the personal data of every single taxpayer in America (and more). Where to start? What to do? Where to look?
Take a step back, and you will see it. This is a blitzkrieg maneuver, a “shock and awe” tactic, to carpet bomb the Left into complete disarray, to start so many political wildfires that those who, like me, believe that our government should be by and for the people, become stunned into ineffectiveness simply because we do not know which fire we should fight first.
There is a famous quotation attributed to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, who was by all accounts a brilliant military strategist. Translated and distilled over the centuries, it comes to us finally as this:
He who defends everything, defends nothing.
There is no hidden meaning to this quotation. It means what it says: if you run around trying to defend every inch of territory—political as well as physical—you will eventually lose; one must take small losses to focus on the primary points of contact.
And so must we, to counter this wholesale dismantling of systems that, though flawed, do provide safety and comfort to Americans. We must focus our efforts, concentrate our will, and do our best to “not sweat the small stuff.”
Pick two issues, maybe three. Read about those so you know what exactly is going on—you don’t want to get bogged down in conspiracies or tripped up by mis/disinformation—and then call your congress-critter, go to one of the town hall meetings they will be scheduling or, better yet, both. Register your concerns. If we all do that, our representatives and senators will have either (for Dems) data they can use to hone their focus or (for GOP) an idea of how upset their constituency truly is.
My main issues? Of the myriad choices, my two bugbears are:
- Giving Elon Musk and his JV Squad of tech-noobs my personal information and total access to petabytes of sensitive government data. Having worked in the health insurance industry, the concept of providing the “minimum necessary” amount of data is a standard precept; no one—especially a group of unvetted non-government employees—should have full read/write access to the entirety of any government database.
- The shutdown of USAID, which only takes up 0.7% of the national budget but which saves lives, promotes democracy, provides alternatives to growing drug crops, feeds starving kids, and has been the front line of our diplomatic “soft power” for over half a century. Shutting these efforts down is a huge gift to autocracies such as Putin’s and Xi’s, because who do you think is going to rush into the vacuum just created?
Those two might change as this sh!t show continues its run, but they’re what I will try to defend for now.
Find your focal points. Marshal you resources. Decide the issues that fire you up the most—personally, morally, legally, ethically—and defend those things. Then take a break. Then get back to it.
Onward.
k
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 