What to Do?

Stay True

In 1697, William Congreve gifted the world with the opinion that “Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.” I surely hope the sentiment proves correct. Because We the People do have a savage in need of charm.

During the second week of his second administration Donald John Trump pulled the Kennedy Center into his orbit of destruction. He gutted the leadership of the organization by terminating “multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” What vision? This from a guy who admitted he never had attended a performance at that venue. Why not? “I didn’t want to go. There was nothing I wanted to see.” (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post).

Credit. Ann Telnaes

On 11 Feb 25, Robin Givhan of The Washington Post wrote: “The president doesn’t merely want to break the government bureaucracy. He wants to reprogram what the arts mean to the American people.

He is coming after their heart. Their imagination. Their elusive spirit.”

Clearly, some line of effective course correction is immediately necessary. George Washington believed in the power of offensive operations as a defensive strategy. Google AI credits him as saying “The best defense is a good offense.” I am ready to be offensive, for sure.

Let us assess battlefield conditions before taking remedial action.

The Situation on the Ground at Home

In the first three and one-half weeks of his second term in high office, Donald John Trump ordered great domestic damage. He defied the law, customs, and simple good manners of America. He set loose the dogs of retribution, revenge, and deprivation on those persons, organizations, and agencies which embarrassed him during his interregnum. He created a new administrative department headed by a businessman we all hope soon will realize that occupying Mars is an easier goal than destroying America. He cowed Congress and compromised at least one member of the federal judiciary. He fired agency leadership and oversight officials not loyal to him personally and his MAGA brand generally. After that selective culling exercise, he allowed DOGE to execute blanket firings of civil servants unwilling to take a buyout offer. During this self-coup, Elon Musk and his minions occupied the offices of Treasury and other select departments. And denied congressional representatives’ entry to the facilities being digitally reconfigured with private software having “back door” access features. He gave a team of highly-placed partisans 90 days to develop and present to him the strategy and form and function of a Sovereign Wealth Fund for this debt-ridden country.

In this instant, Andrea Shalal, David Lawder and Jeff Mason (Reuters) report Trump just signed a memo ordering agency leadership “to start calculating duties to match those other countries charge and to counteract non-tariff barriers such as vehicle safety rules that exclude U.S. autos and value-added taxes that increase their cost.

“Thursday's directive stopped short of imposing fresh tariffs, instead kicking off what could be weeks or months of investigation into the levies imposed on U.S. goods by other trading partners and then devising a response.”

Trump is reported to have said: "On trade, I have decided for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them. No more, no less."

Elsewhere and Abroad

He invited Canada to join our union, offered to buy Greenland, and threatened to occupy the Panama Canal. He ordered, then withdrew, new tariffs on Mexico and Canada. He added to existing tariffs on China. He betrayed Ukraine and put Europe on a collision course with Putin’s mad dreams of domination.

He supports relocating Palestinians to nearby Middle East neighbors other than Israel. Once that territory is cleared of residents, he proposes to claim their post-apocalyptic real estate and develop it into a new Mediterranean luxury beach venue.

He is not getting a positive response to this or any of his other foreign land grab notions.

Two Profoundly Self-Absorbed Guys

We know Donald John Trump is one of two presidents occupying the White House without benefit of a non-human pet. Andrew Johnson escapes the list of the totally self-absorbed because he tended to the welfare and comfort of some mice he found in his bedroom.

James K. Polk was elected and served as the 11^th president. He had a wife, no children, no presidential pet.

“Though he has become relatively obscure, scholars have ranked Polk in the upper tier of U.S. presidents, mostly for his ability to promote and achieve the major items on his presidential agenda. At the same time, he has been criticized for leading the country into a war with Mexico that exacerbated sectional divides. A property owner who used slave labor, he kept a plantation in Mississippi and increased his slave ownership during his presidency. Polk's policy of territorial expansion saw the nation reach the Pacific coast and almost all its contiguous borders. He helped make the U.S. a nation poised to become a world power, but with divisions between free and slave states gravely exacerbated, setting the stage for the Civil War.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_K._Polk

Notice any similarities of character, attitude, and ambition? Me, too.

Concerned about the results of each guy’s administration? Me, too.

Two Sides of the Same Issue

I tend to try to love a misbehaving pet into some semblance of reasonable conduct. My sister dotes upon her pets with a passionate devotion I never have witnessed in any other person. She also allows no resistance to her authority.

When I suggested treating Trump in terms of soothing his petulant baby mind into pattern of better conduct, she invoked Nancy Reagan, Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Panama, France, Danielle R. Sassoon, Ann Telnaes, Jen Rubin, and Norm Eisen— “Just say ‘No.’” Her point was that the notion of coddling a tyrant not only was not funny, it was dangerous.

At her suggestion, I asked Google to find me an instance where Jesus approached a rich man. The AI app could not find such an example, but pointed me helpfully to where such a person was mentioned in the bible. Here it is: I say Lazarus and your bible study memory bank whirls like a slot machine. At the jackpot moment, it spits out a lot of recall about death, resurrection, and eternal life in a state of blissful union with The Source. My sister is right. In deed and in parables, Jesus gives rich and powerful guys no name. They are chaff. They are immoral elephants with little hope of passing through the eye of the needle of redemption. His ministry is to the underclass. His message is simple. It is easy to understand and difficult to implement.

· “Love one another.”

· “Be and do good.”

It is the high road on which good mischief can find sound footing and reliable companionship when a long march for freedom is required. Like right now.

Going Forward

I take a walk each morning that the weather will allow. I find the neighborhood banners and yard signs proclaiming “God. Guns. Trump.” more than mildly offensive. To which notion my other sibling snaps “Pick two.” There is a concept called the Unattainable Triangle that brain science has established and common sense supports. If one cannot serve two masters, it is unlikely that one can sustain three mutually exclusive lines of allegiance.

So, dear reader, we are back to beating the same old drum as our action plan.

1. Rely upon and exercise the Power of One.

· Every day in every lawful way use your person and your purse to delay, deny, destroy implementation of Project 2025.

· Support every defense of our rule of law.

· Keep banging on your congressional representatives to come alive and do right by their Article One powers.

· Push for creation of a Shadow Cabinet. Name to it persons of good character with specific subject matter experience in each essential administrative area of policy and operation. Use these persons to sort through and rebut executive orders and actions of dubious merit or clearly illegal nature. Exercise this group of back benchers into a field tested and coordinated unit of capable governors immediately ready to resume power wherever and whenever the opportunity to do so arises.

· Insist upon formulation and filing of a third set of Articles of Impeachment.

· Resist. Just say “No” to attempts to make you support, to make you comply with, illegal and corrupt attacks upon your inalienable (and constitutionally protected) rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

2. Keep the faith.

· Be kind to the willfully ignorant. Your example may do more to reshape the plurality in Election 2028 than is immediately acknowledged or apparent.

· Try folding the Preamble to the Constitution of the barely United States of America into your daily meditation moment(s).

3. Stay strong

4. Remember to cherish each day. Let awe and gratitude be a light unto your thoughts and actions.

Don’t settle for surviving chaos. Prevail against it.