Outside Box and Time
Blue in a Red State
It is time to think outside the box and outside of time.
Trump’s obvious decline makes waves on Substack and other social media platforms. Hegseth’s use of “it wasn’t me it was him” as a defense against possible war crimes or murder floats like the burned wreckage of small boats.
Speculation about what the Republicans are doing behind the scenes in Congress includes just about everything - except impeachment.
Others look at the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to keep all of those pieces in the light.
I wonder what the think tanks are doing. Do they have plans for the future collapse of this government? Do they have ideas about how, or if, we can redress all the brokenness and have a more perfect union?
I don’t know.
I do know, however, that some of the folks here and on other social platforms need to be thinking about the “after time” after the collapse. If Trump dies in office or is impeached, then J.D. Vance becomes president. Wonder who he will choose to be vice-president? Thoughts? Suggestions?
Congress is fractured. The various departments that helped oversee the government have been decimated. The history, the institution knowledge scattered across the country. Do any of those people want back in to repair, improve what is left? Does Congress have the fortitude to write bi-partisan legislation?
I don’t know.
Dystopian fiction gives no references or direction signs. So, where do we look? What do we do?
I know these are the same questions I’ve asked since Trump was sworn in. It’s been eleven months of hell. We are probably in for a few more hellish months. What do we do?
Look for the educated people, the ones who know history, politics, government, philosophy. Not so much to get them to rewrite our Constitution but to find elements with which we agree. Two-hundred forty-nine years ago, such a group met. The group wanted a better place for themselves. They didn’t do it perfectly. They knew it as they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution. Still, they tried.
(Before someone says these were elites worried about their own businesses, let me say they were elites.)
The people in favor of a strong central government (the Federalists) wrote essays to dispel fears in New York. New York was a crucial state for ratification of the Constitution. The technology of the time was used to its potential.
Are we confined by the technology of our time? When the president has AI created memes and videos showing him as a king or flying an airplane and dumping sh*t on protesters, that is political commentary.
When the minority leaders of the House and Senate hold press conferences, that’s old-school. Most people today do not watch press conferences or read about them. Newspapers on the internet have pay-walls. Television news outlets have sections A, B, and C with maybe fifteen minutes to talk about an issue. Then they move on to another issue, another place.
Do I want us to go back to newspaper, rotary dial telephones, and magazines like Life? No. I want us to find how to reach people, how to effect change without the feeling like the winner or the loser.
I laid out chairs and desks in my classroom this fall so that four or five students would be sitting and facing each other. Some chose different people to sit with. So, for 90 minutes, these 20 somethings talked to each other. Laughter echoed around the room. Students were smiling. Some were leaning in to hear better. The last group to leave the room asked if they could get extra credit because they were still talking.
Instead of looking at their mobile phones, they looked at each other, thought about what was said.
The point is we took a step outside the normal workings of a college course.
Can we have that type of discussion? Can we see each other as human beings? Can we listen to the ideas and suggestions of compromise to find a workable plan?
We have boxed ourselves into “them” and “us”, the good guys and the bad guys. We look backwards rather than forward. We remember the slights, the insults not the things we did to be “we the people”. We seek retribution not reconciliation.
What are your ideas?