There are Just Two Kinds of People: Those Who Get the Joke and Those Who Do Not
How Should We Prepare For What Is About to Happen to Us All?
You know, friends, the next few years are not going to be easy. With that in mind, I’d really like to lay out some ground rules for how I’d prefer to address developments. This is not a definitive list. But, I hope it is a start and that within and among my thoughts you may find something more than just a list of things other people do that annoy the hell out of me. (Although, look closely and you’ll see that below, as well.)
These, by the way, are in no particular order, they’re just some thoughts I’ve had during the past few days about how we go through another four years of living in a sitcom that has behind every door on its set a different kind of nightmare.
Lets remember this is a marathon not a sprint. Expending all of our emotional resources before breakfast is just no way to live your life. It’s possible what with overnight Truth Social postings or Elon’s Twitter philosophizing or the latest diplomatic initiative of Kimberly Guilfoyle or Charles Kushner in Europe. For example, sure, Chris Wray probably shouldn’t have capitulated and quit his job and made it easy for Trump to replace him. Because there is, after all, a principle at stake. The reason the FBI director job has a 10 year term is to avoid it being politicized and Wray’s action probably undermines that objective by setting a terrible precedent. But Trump would’ve been able to fire him and he would’ve and howls of sanctimony from all of us aside, Wray would’ve been gone in days or weeks anyway. So, sure, I’m happy to note such things, but I really want to keep my powder dry for bigger issues.
Taking a “bigger picture” perspective by the way, is not what you will get most of the time on social media because such views are actively penalized on much social platforms. The big “hot” accounts stay big by staying hot. They launch molten takes into the air like a volcano which leads to viral reactions which leads to big followings which leads to more dollars into their YouTube accounts or wherever. I’m all for more dollars, believe me. (If you are not a paying subscriber, step right up folks. It’s not much money and it will allow me to keep doing this rather than working in a salt mine.) But, frankly, baying at the moon is for the dyspeptic hound that lives down the street from me and not for me.
I’m going to try to zero in on more important stories and issues where i can even if they are not the thing making headlines in the newspapers that fewer and fewer people are reading. For example, just to take the Wray example, that might be what the FBI might end up looking like after a few years of Trump. That’s not just a commentary on who the next director is. Wray noted, for example, that one of the greatest threats we face in the U.S. is from right wing extremism. That’s notable because a.) Wray is a Republican who was appointed by Trump, b.) it’s true (especially if you count some of the sponsors or intended beneficiaries of right wing terrorism who may soon have important official titles), and c.) our law enforcement community is ill-prepared for combatting such threats. We don’t have any laws to speak of that provide a legal framework for acknowledging or combatting such extremism. But, in the context of a new, MAGA-fied FBI, it is very likely that efforts to curtail white supremacists or other such threats will be dialed back, un-funded, or even eliminated. Further, some bad actors from militias and thug squads and overly armed incel brigades might actually get released from prison or pardoned by Trump because he feels their participation in the January 6th uprising, for example, was heroic. But then, once released, they might be ready to “stand back and stand by” yet again as a kind of informal enforcement arm of the Miller-Patel Brigades.
It is easy to get mesmerized by political theater. Over the next four years many of the most important developments are likely to happen in non-political, not overtly political or not domestic political settings. Developments in artificial intelligence technologies will change our lives, even in the next four years, in important, disruptive and unimaginable ways. These might occur far from the hype (not in terms of world-destroying superintelligence but, for example, in terms of labor force disrupting or inequality exacerbating upheaval). These might be several steps removed from their final consequences. Like regulatory roll-backs advocated by tech CEOs close to the next president that could open the door to future challenges…or, alternatively, future promise. They could be the unintended consequences of even well-intentioned U.S. policies—such as our desire to maintain our competitive edge by denying key technologies to our rivals but not recognizing that information flows around the world in ways that make such efforts unlikely to be successful or that while we might remain at the cutting edge most of the world will be perfectly happy to buy almost-as-good tech from our rivals in ways that could strengthen them and/or weaken our leverage around the world.
While difficult moments are times to remain on alert, it is also important to set prejudices and preconceptions aside. It’s always important to do that. But, Trump is going to do some things as president that are actually good. Or his aides will. It happened last time (and I don’t just mean if you were a centi-millionaire looking for a tax cut.) For example, recently, his son Don, Jr. was in a bind because he wanted to move on from his fiance and so Trump came up with a plan to send the fiance to Greece for a few years. That’s customer service from your government that we all can appreciate. But, snark aside, while Trump’s COVID policies were largely a disaster and it looks like he is seeking to compound them with a stunningly ill-prepared set of policy advisors whose views are, in some cases, deranged, but he also did oversee and actively encourage a major push to develop a vaccine. Or even though his NATO policies were dangerous and pro-Russian and based on a complete misunderstanding of the obligations of NATO allies, his pressure did help lead to greater burden sharing within the alliance. Now, his views on NATO may go too far this time and he may succeed where he did not last time in weakening the alliance or, alternatively, he may inadvertently stumble into a way for Europeans to develop more strategic self-sufficiency which frankly, is not a bad thing.
Not everything nor every day will be of momentous importance. Fortunately, we do not live in the overwrought world of certain cable news channels in which everything always is “Breaking News!!!!” It’ll be possible every so often to take a deep breath. It’ll also have to be possible to maintain our sense of humor and laugh at some of what is happening because otherwise we will end the next four years curled in a fetal position in our bedroom closets drooling and wimpering for our Mamas. There’s plenty about Washington and Trump and the world that’s funny. (As I have written before, among the few hard and fast axioms I have about life is that there are just two kinds of people on this earth. There are those who get the joke and those who do not get the joke. And life is too short to devote much time or attention to those who get the joke. Now, you may interpret that to mean refer to those who literally understand or do not understand humor (try to weed out people who respond to jokes with an unsmiling “funny” or “oh, I see what you did there”…they are joyless and someday you will die so make the best use of the little time you have.) Or you may interpret it to mean something much grander, to be an allusion to the great cosmic joke of which we are all part. Once again, while it may not be easy to laugh in the face of oblivion or our fleeting perhaps meaningless existences, given the alternatives, you might as well find the humor in it.
See. Now don’t you feel better? Ok. maybe that’s another rule…
We won’t always be able to make each other feel better in the face of what is about to come. But we damn well ought to try.
You put into words what I’ve been thinking the past couple of days. I’m stressing myself out anticipating what might happen and I have to change my approach or I’m going to waste a lot of precious time and energy on stuff I can’t control. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
FWIW, I got calmer after finding writers and podcasters who could replace the MSM which discredited itself during the year before the election. I find that davidrothkopf.substack.com, heathercoxrichardson.substack.com, Michael Podhorzer (www.weekendreading.net), timothysnyder.substack.com, and Anne Applebaum in her book, “Autocracy Inc.” and her podcasts for “The Atlantic” do a good job answering two main questions: “What is happening now?” and “What should we do now?” Reading them helps keep me from pointless rumination on one hand and hysteria on the other. Also, they address a question I habitually ask myself in stressful times: “What’s the worst that could happen right now.” For Americans, the answer is that Trump could transform our democracy into a cruel, predatory autocracy.
These writers don’t have all the answers and we have a lot to learn, but they have started educating us about how autocrats enact this transformation more gradually than in the past and use similar techniques like lying relentlessly, capturing the courts, creating a cadre of billionaire oligarchs, suppressing the Media, etc. So now I don’t erupt like Mt. Etna every time I hear a ridiculous, illogical lie. I can sometimes realize lying is a tactic and think of the need to counter every lie as, sort of, the equivalent of household drudgery; something that has to be done, but never seems to end. Like ironing.
Putting up an effective resistance is just easier and less fraught with emotion (in our better moments, anyway) if we know what’s happening, know what to expect, and have a plan.