At Federalist 2.0 we are in the positive change business.
This may seem like a challenging task in light of the new Trump administration
and the Republican Congress. But we have been handed a gift, the gift of
Donald, Minority Donald, the gift
that may just keep on giving.
We are too small and immature to even think about making
substantive change for now. We will need to help rally large numbers of
concerned citizens to make that happen. But perhaps we should start by being
strong advocates for resistance in the near-term.
RESIST
What do we do with the Donald? We
should resist him. Aggressively and at every opportunity.
Resistance may only slow him down; it almost never points
the way to change. But the Donald is a
natural magnet for resistance, and the energy of resistance can then be
channeled to more productive ends.
We should promote resistance in any way people feel moved to
commit and act—rallies, yelling at town hall meetings (they are content free
anyway, so making a lot of noise is just making visible what lies underneath),
picketing, buttons, demonstrations, sitting in at Trump Towers—anything that
makes noise and can get noticed in the media.
In doing this, we should rationalize resistance: Yes it does
not directly affect change, but we have to slow the train down before turning
it around. Resistance is also fun and relationship forming / community building.
What is crucial in Resistance is persistence; as soon as it goes quiet, it goes
away, it has no life beyond the moment.
Resistance is the energy we need to get to the next step.
PROVOKE
The next stage of civic engagement is taking on something
specific, but not with a plan for remediation.
This can be mixed with Resistance, but is generally more effective
separated, as provocation usually needs some kind of logical argument.
Think in terms of massive letter or e-mail campaigns, and
active discussion in social media about not repealed but rather repairing
Obamacare is Provocation. We may think
of any interaction with the political establishment that is issue based as
provocation.
We can promote provocation by offering sound arguments about
why to be against something, and organizing efficient ways of reaching your
congressman. But letters to others and
social media posts will help as well, or organizing a letter or e-mail
campaign, or creating a sustained force of provocation, something that goes on
and on and on.
A sequence of compelling
anecdotes work well in this area of civic engagement.
People get mad and focused about things that
are specific.
CHANGE
This is what we hope to do, which is make specific
recommendations to our elected officials about what they should do and organize
sufficient quantities of people behind the ideas that our officials have to pay
attention. This is what we mean by effective civic engagement.
SATIRE
Satire in the political world is probably necessary, is fun,
and can be engaging. We suggest considering
the Trump as an object of ridicule, of satire.
Two thoughts come to mind immediately:
(1) Always call him Minority Trump. He has a very thin skin. He was not elected by a majority. He does not speak for us, he speaks for the
other America, the minority of Americans rooted somewhere in our racist past,
before the Civil War. We can abbreviate
this to MT at times, an abbreviate with an interesting pun built in as you
sound it out. He is MT!!!
We should consistently portray him as diminished, below the
people, underneath the power curve, not of the people, for the people, and
certainly not by the people; he looks up at the Lincoln Memorial with envious
eyes but a look in his face that knows he will never be there, swaddle in his
own flag, his rattle leaking pellets.
If we can get some traction and we are successful at this
imaging, he will tweet us out, and we will be made, an audience guaranteed for
a long enough period to turn them into real political creatures.
(2) A part our Federalist 2.0 web site will be a continuing
lampoon of MT. We are working on the “Lie
of the Week section”. There will features
of the best editorial cartoons and cartoon contests. There will be the persistence image of a
sandbox and a drawing of Trump in diapers, ranting with the scepter and
grain. There could be Swiftian short
pieces of direct satire which could try to be fresh.
Why not just kill off all those who cannot afford health
care (modeled after “A Modest Proposal”) If we insist on limiting health care
to those who can afford it, we should do the same with education. Draining the swamp just creates a
desert. America is First in Weapons of Mass
Destruction and infantile movies; we are way down the list around the world in
education performance, health care, health itself (obesity rate),
infrastructure, train speed, national debt, income gap, carbon abatement: Trump
is amplifying every area in which we are behind to make us further behind (this
could be a moving set of bar charts with MT pushing down the bars where we are
below others).
Wonder what President Lincoln might be thinking as Trump
discussed healthcare reform recently: “I have to tell you,
it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew that health care could be so
complicated.” Duh.
It could be argued, and is being argued, that the best
treatment of Trump is to ignore him, the one thing he really cannot stand. That might have been effective before the
election (but probably not); now it is simply opting out.
Trump will dominate the headlines and social media for as
long as he is in office. Some think he
is manipulating the press intentionally; I think he is just being Trump, the C
actor wishing he was on reality TV still and could go home afterward with no
consequences, “Your Fired” his only contribution to the world.
Trump cannot and should not be ignored. So best to exploit his huge gravitational
force.
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