Are we being too rational?

Have we been too confident in our systems? No wonder this is making us crazy.

                         Trump wants to bulldoze Gaza and build a new playground 
                         for the rich. (Trump Beach with golden sand?) 
                         Obviously, that idea struck pay dirt in his own 
                          “everything is a real estate deal” brain.

                         Musk can’t be elected president (damn pesky citizenship rules). 
                         So he buys himself one and takes his boys on a cyber spree.  
                         Obviously, he didn’t run that idea by a focus group.

So, while we try to come up with legal, rational answers to serious issues, Musk and his tech kids, as well as the Project 2025 boys, are running through the halls looking for things to break while the titular president golfs and dreams of a new resort.

Cover of Time: Musk at the Resolute Desk

As week 3 of #47 ends, it strikes me that the days, weeks, and years of each of us going about the business of living our lives pretty much unconcerned about the government around us going on about its business are coming to a tech-bro wrecking-ball halt.

I find myself penduluming between wanting to drop everything in order to work 24/7 to save our democracy or taking a long nap and hoping for a redo of Nov 5. Neither are useful choices.

Many of us in this ongoing nightmare are probably asking the same thing:

What can I do? How can I help when my life is already so full;

my energy already so over-committed?

Clearly we are in a crisis, rightfully called a coup, as an unelected money-man with no allegiance to the US Constitution, has started breaking the systems that have been built up over time by both Republicans and Democrats. There was no bipartisan vote to eliminate USAID, destroy our intelligence system, or buy Gaza.

Each one of us has to determine our own role in these fateful days. The actions we take (especially in these opening days) could change everything. You’ve probably seen the photos of women in Afghanistan in the early 70s. Like me, you probably sighed in relief that we’re different … that it couldn’t happen here.

But, it could.

With these three weeks and the assault on our systems done without the military or a single shot being fired, my eyes have opened to the possibility that we are also vulnerable to losing our way of life.

Radical change happens when a few “men” (generally) want unrestricted power and money. Administration #47 includes at least 13 billionaires in its ranks, including the man who might be the richest in the world who also seems to have delusions of ruling the world. (Trump with his fantasies of a Middle East golf course (Gaza) is playing with Lego blocks compared to his “buy-me-a-presidency buddy Musk.)

I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering if our veterans will continue to receive the care and benefits they earned, if our poorest children will go to bed hungry, if my own Social Security check will show up this month.

I’ve been proud to be a part of this generous country (even if it hasn’t been perfect), and saw a tiny example of the effectiveness of the USAID approach to diplomacy when I was in the Soviet Union in 1990 as it was embarking on it’s own radical change. I wound up in a conversation with a teacher in Moscow and asked her if they hated us as we were taught to hate them during the Cold War.

She said, “Oh, no … we love the Americans. After the war, when everything had been destroyed, they dropped winter coats to us.” Suddenly, I wondered if dropping winter coats might be almost as effective as building bigger missiles. But, winter coats aren’t sexy, so the co-presidents just cancelled USAID (that just happened to be investigating one of Musk’s projects, but surely that had nothing to do with its being the first on the cancel list.)

So now we watch as a rocket man and a real estate deal maker known for not paying his debts implement everything Project 2025 directed them to do. They also seem to share a long list of vengeance to be wreaked, with a legion of lackeys following along behind them with a checklist of chores.

This leaves us with the question of: What are we going to do? What role will each of us play in resisting this coup?

I didn’t come to Substack to be political. However, I’m delighted to be surrounded by so many powerful voices for good and am considering ways to amplify their voices. Today, I heard

Jim Acosta

’s podcast with Beto O’Rourke and Congressman Eugene Vindman. Thank you, Jim, for making these podcasts free (paid subscribers get to be on the chat).

I would love to hear from all of you … please share your ideas for being part of the resistance … it doesn’t have to be big. I’ve decided to be a Democracy Activist and made myself a badge. Not quite sure what that means yet, but my mind is open to possibilities.

I’d also like to leave you with two other voices: Bill Bryson reminding us we have been through a LOT and still we are here:

“So at various periods over the last 3.8 billion years you have abhorred oxygen and then doted on it, grown fins and limbs and jaunty sails, laid eggs, flicked the air with a forked tongue, been sleek, been furry, lived underground, lived in trees, been as big as a deer and as small as a mouse, and a million things more.”

And Rev. Julia Hamilton, the minister at our local Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, who ends each week with a gentle suggestion and the words:

“… for these are the days we are given.”