Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Black coffee, please.
Demolition.
By definition it implies collapse. There’s a perception laws are being upheld against the government’s thousand illegal actions, maybe even the hope for enforcement against itself, given the SCOTUS last ruling on USAID funds. We are deep into a Constitutional crisis, but the demolition is ongoing. Strong.
USAID is a case study in demolition; the proof collapse is not just an abstract post crisis event but an actual process happening in real time. The demolition crews are busy doing what they were hired for. They shut down the logistics, fire the personnel, freeze contracts and funding, force the people in charge to move out and find an alternative to their lives and their families lives. The results of the demolition are the immediate collapse of the targeted institution.
They are no longer able to do their job, the people they’re supposed to be helping and the assets they’re supposed to care for are abandoned to their fate. Then a few good lawyers step in and if they are lucky they find a judge with integrity. If they are really lucky the SCOTUS may even uphold the favorable ruling. They show up at the site they allegedly saved with a court order that says: “All good!” And they find themselves standing on a pile of rubble.
They saved nothing. It’s all gone. They just got a (maybe) permission to rebuild from scratch. Who will rebuild the collapsed institution? The very same people who demolished it. Even assuming they will, every step will require yet another judicial uphill battle. While all this happens, the infrastructure is gone, the logistics are gone, the few people who are told to come back to work have no phones, no computers, no money (the cheque is in the mail), and no directives.
Now it’s the Department of Education’s turn. Its new Secretary is about to enter the last phase of her “final mission”, as directed by an unlawful executive order. I am certain some court, somewhere, will “stop it” in the terms described above. It will stop nothing. By the time the order arrives at the site it will find a pile of rubble. Then there will be a victory dance on it and the order to rebuild. An order directed at the demolition team.
It’s not only a problem of Constitutional crisis when the perpetrator condemned by the court is the enforcer supposed to correct it. It’s a matter of a collapsed system whose authors are the demolition managers the courts direct to rebuild their handy work. “Sorry, your honor, we know how to blow shit up. No clue how to put it back together.” All the appointees this administration got through Congress (plus Musk Incorporated) are demolition managers.
They don’t know how to run things except to the ground. They have no clue how things work because demolitions don’t require such knowledge. And it’s no consolation they are not experts: they really don’t know where the best place to put the charges is, but at the end of the day it doesn’t take a demolition expert to blow shit up. It’s actually much worse. It’s like bringing down a high rise in the middle of a city block without a controlled implosion. It’s chaos.
But chaos is the point. Expertise is not a requirement for these demolition teams. It’s actually not welcomed. The sloppier, the better. As I see it, “response teams” are not the solution to this crisis, just as FEMA is not a solution for hurricanes. Response teams just help after the catastrophe has happened. These illegal actions by our government are as inevitable as a natural disaster. It is the nature of this administration to destroy everything, just as a hurricane would.
The solution to this type of catastrophe is not to respond to it. It’s to limit the damage to the maximum extent by early warnings, preemptive actions, and safeguards to protect the most of the people and structures that will inevitably be affected. Including those affected down the damaged pipeline. Response is NOT a strategy to prevent collapse. Response happens AFTER the collapse. And when the responders who are expected to fix the damage are the ones who caused it…
This is why I get so mad and frustrated at Congress Democrats who come to us with warnings of catastrophes we already are aware of, assuring us their response is being studied in their little response groups and panels. We know collapse will happen, what we want to know is what’s being done to prevent the damage from being irreparable. And how soon can we reverse this chaos.
It’s like watching climate change happening without doing anything to prevent its inevitable impact but assuring us that once half the Eastern seaboard is gone there will be a great response. Not to worry. We have no use for response; we need preemptive and preventive actions. We know damage WILL happen, there’s no stopping it in this crisis. Collapse is not imminent, it’s happening. How much of it can we prevent and how many people and infrastructure can we protect?
The only way to stop this madness is to change the government. Together with those efforts, Democrats need to stop responding and start preemptively acting to preserve and protect as much as they can. This is the kind of leadership we need. I don’t see it, but I still hope it will happen. It better happen fast, though, or we will be doing our victory dance on a pile of rubble.
Resist & Oppose!
