 |
| Chaos Rules - But Why? |
The following is the blog post to
accompany our February radio show, “Schmidt Happens,” which was recorded 15
February 2017, and aired Saturday night 18 Feb 2017 on WBCA-LP 102.9 FM Boston,
hosted by Jumana Hashim and Rosemary Schmidt.
Audio Link via SoundCloud:
Preface: When Jumana and I started planning our
February show, what struck us was just how much has transpired since our first
show, and even within the first four weeks of the new administration. Realize
that when we taped the December show, we were still reacting to the election
results, and asking the question: How did this happen? Now, we find ourselves
reacting to the new presidency, and everything that has gone down since the
inauguration, and asking a new question: What’s really going on? What is behind
all of this manic, frantic, chaotic activity? We speak and write purely on
topics of public concern; never seditious; but of primacy, out of concern for the
health and very future of our Democracy.
We
are not necessarily the first to put forth some of these thoughts; there are
many voices, but we have at least brought many of these sources together for
the reader.
Read
on!
The opening chords for this show were from the Buffalo Springfield song, “For What It’s Worth (Stop Children What’s That Sound),” or at least my ‘transformative interpretation’ of it. I was happy to welcome Jumana back from her travels, and again send out a big thank-you to Ellen for helping out on the January show. So much has happened, since then, even, the stark contrast between the somberness of the inauguration that Friday, January 20, 2017, followed by the Women’s March the next day, with all the songs, and signs, and pithy sayings, and yes, pink kitty hats. Then, on Monday’s Morning Joe show on MSNBC, they played the alternating footage from the two events, with the 1966 song by Buffalo Springfield playing in the background. At the time, this is the verse that stuck with me, as it captured the feeling perfectly:
“A thousand people in
the street
Singing songs and
carrying signs.”
You can find the video
on Joe Scarborough’s twitter feed on 23 January 2017, or view an unofficial
version on YouTube:
It turns out we had both
gone to the rally and march in Boston, but somehow didn’t manage to run into
each other, maybe because of the other 175,000 people who were also there! What
an amazing day! The sun even came out by the end of the day. And then there
were all those pink hats, which in my mind linked up with one of the last
things I’d said on the January pre-Inauguration show, that everything felt just
so tenuous, like it could all come undone, with the pull of a thread. That
Monday, the Executive Orders started rolling out and the unraveling began.
Jumana shared some of
her observations, based on her personal experience, of all that had transpired
so far in the first four short weeks of his presidency. Certainly, there were
the Executive Orders, the Cabinet picks, the travel ban and how that was so
poorly implemented, with no clear nexus between the countries on the list and
national security. It makes it hard to predict what President Trump will do
next; plus we may be hearing only a third of what’s really happening. In
conversation with her peers, the question people keep asking is: What is his
bigger goal? What is he trying to do? What’s really going on?
I said I had probably at
least five different answers, possibly more.
1. Maybe he is just doing what he said he was
going to do, and is delivering on his campaign promises, fast and furious, to
please his constituents.
2. Maybe President Trump is being genuine, and
is genuinely doing what he believes is best.
But, maybe there is something else going on, something
behind the scenes, something more creative. It’s pretty easy to start down the
road of conspiracy theories. Let’s explore some of these Alternate Theories.
3. What if it the writers for “Saturday Night
Live” are behind it all, to boost their ratings. Maybe they even rigged the
election in Trump’s favor to ensure having years of material.
All kidding aside,
though, what if there is something else going on?
4. What if we are all just falling into a trap,
the trap of endless marches, constant distraction, and exhaustion? Jumana noted
that she has personally been questioning her own efforts. She has been going to
the marches and gatherings, which all feel really good, seeing the strength in
numbers, yes the unity and community, but then what next? She fears that the
rallies and marches can also be falsely cathartic. We feel like we’re doing our
part, but is it enough, or is it even anything at all? What are the tangible
effects? Can we harness this energy and translate it into actual outcomes, such
as Senate seats. Or are people going to get exhausted and overwhelmed? There
have been multiple articles expressing this precise concern, that as we react
to each day’s newest Executive Order, and ensuing outrage, and sign up for the
rallies and protests and marches, are we being played? Is the frenetic pace and
pandemonium emanating from the White House intended to distract and overwhelm
us and wear us down?
We aren’t the first to
put this theory on the table. Yvonne Abraham’s column in The Boston Globe on February 5, 2017, talked about a FaceBook post
by Boston College history professor, Heather Cox Richardson, postulating that
all the disruption has been a “deliberate attempt to throw us off balance and
deepen divides between us…” which “makes the country more hospitable for a
strongman” to take power.
5. What if it’s all a massive test, to test public
reaction, and the loyalties and compliance of agencies and individuals in the
Government? You can do surveys and polls all day long, but if you really want
to find out what they care about, do something, and see how they respond. For
example:
·
Federal
hiring freeze – No marches.
·
Gag
order on EPA and some other federal agencies – Meh.
·
Travel
ban – Ding! That got people in the streets.
The entire execution of
the travel ban was so haphazard and poorly coordinated, surprisingly
uncharacteristic of Mr. Trump. He’s a person known for razor-sharp business
execution. So, you start to wonder whether the poor execution reflects simple
incompetence; poorly done, due to poor planning.
But, what if it was
poorly done on purpose? Poorly done, done well? What if this is also part of
the test of the system, such as probing the strength of judiciary powers, and
who will be compliant and who will rebel against his orders?
The very first article
we had read when we started preparing for this show was one by Jake Fuentes, in
which he asks the question: What if the entire travel ban fiasco was just a
giant “headfake” intended to test the system of checks and balances within the
Government? This was probably one of the most insightful articles I have read
in trying to make sense of things lately.
What’s horrible, of
course, is that this would mean that we really can’t take anything at face
value anymore. It feels like we have to constantly question everything. There
could be ulterior motives, alternate explanations, and truly something else going on.
When I first heard the
Buffalo Springfield song again, after so many years, I’d focused on the lines
about the crowds, and songs, and signs, but now I am drawn to the last verse:
“Paranoia
strikes deep
Into
your life it will creep”
It feels like we have to
question everything. Nothing feels safe. These are not normal times. Such
chaos. (Ironically, this show was taped the night before the Press Conference
Thursday February 16, 2017, which put this chaos on full display.) Not boring,
true, but what could be the purpose of all this chaos?
What if we look at the
new Presidency through the lens of a businessman? Maybe what’s happening is
essentially like a business takeover; perhaps a hostile takeover. Think about
what happens typically. The new company imposes its culture, values, and
beliefs, and replaces key positions with their people. For example, in the
midst of all the confusion and turmoil surrounding the travel ban, President
Trump quietly slipped Steve Bannon onto the National Security Council. I remember
seeing a tweet from one of the travel ban protests at LAX airport, and a guy
was holding a sign that read:
“Don’t
Think We Don’t See This Shit You’re Pulling With The National Security Council”
This brings us to The
Daily Beast article by Ronald Radosh, that talks about Steve Bannon’s motives.
Ellen was the one who showed it to me.
This article came out all
the way back in August; at a time when a Trump presidency was still completely
inconceivable to most people. In this article, Steve Bannon tells the author
that he is a Leninist, and his goal would be to tear down, destroy, and
deconstruct the current establishment. If that was truly someone’s end goal,
then a very good first step would be to test the system, perform a stress test,
to identify its weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
This last Alternative
Theory might well be the most plausible. We would like to be wrong, and would
like to hope that higher motives will prevail, but for now, this seems to be
the best explanation so far.
Stay tuned. Stay woke!
Post-Script
Today’s Boston Globe offered yet another angle
on what’s happening behind the scenes at the White House, essentially the
tactic of developing a set of rival teams. Worth a read!
Today 19
February 2017:
·
Science
Rally at Copley Square, Boston
·
Today,
I Am A Muslim Too Rally at Times Square, New York City
·
Special
screening of the movie, Allegiance, commemorating the 75-year anniversary of
the signing of the Executive Order by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that
led to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII. www.allegiancemusical.com
Coming Soon:
·
Watertown
Welcomes Immigrants Rally in Watertown Square, Sunday 26 February 2017, at 3
PM.
About
WBCA-LP 102.9 FM Boston & Schmidt Happens:
WBCA is a low-power FM radio station
sponsored by the Boston Neighborhood Network, and is on the air from 6 PM to 2
AM each night.
Radio Beantown is on the air! Jumana
Hashim is a current member of Beantown Women’s Rugby Club, while Rosemary, aka
Rosebud, Schmidt has been retired a few years.
Beantown practice starts soon! Check
out www.BeantownRugby.com for more details. No experience necessary; a place for
everybody. All are welcome. Go Forward, Support!
Thank you again to guest host, Ellen
Iorio, for helping out with the January show, bringing all her pithiness,
and pointing us to the article in The Daily Beast that helped us complete the
thread.
Song
For The Day:
From Jason Mraz, “Details in the
Fabric,” which just struck a chord w/ me, and ties into the whole theme of knit
caps, threads getting pulled, everything coming undone, keeping it together
while it seems things are unraveling before our very eyes. Listen to the very
end, let us be an “island of reality” for each other in this “ocean of
diarrhea.”
References
Abrahams, Yvonne. 2017. Our Chance to
Write History. The Boston Globe. 5
February 2017.
Dennis, Brady. 2017. Acting EPA head:
Hiring freeze challenges ‘our ability to get the agency’s work done.’ The Washington Post. 15 February 2017.
Fuentes, Jake. 2017. The Immigration
Ban is a Headfake, And We’re Falling For It. A Medium Corporation. 30 January
2017.
Hess, Amanda. 2017. How a Fractious
Women’s Movement Came to Lead the Left. The
New York Times Magazine. 7 February 2017.
Linskey, Annie. 2017. Warring West
Wing factions dismay management experts. The
Boston Globe. 18 February 2017.
Radosh, Ronald. 2016. Steve Bannon,
Trump’s Top Guy, Told Me He Was ‘A Leninist’ Who Wants to ‘Destroy the State.’
The Daily Beast. 22 August 2016.
Takei, George. 2017. How ‘America
First’ puts many of us last. USA Today.
15 February 2017.
©
2017 Rosemary A. Schmidt
Rose
Schmidt is the author of “Go Forward, Support! The Rugby of Life” (Gainline
Press 2004). The views expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do
not reflect the views of any other agency or organization. Use of individual
quotes with proper citation and attribution, within the limits of fair use, is
permitted. If you would like to request permission to use or reprint any of the
content on the site, please contact me.
Radio
Broadcast © 2017 Jumana Hashim, Rosemary Schmidt. For
permission to re-print or re-broadcast the radio shows, please contact the
radio hosts and/or WBCA-LP 102.9 FM Boston for permission. The views expressed
in the radio broadcast are those of the hosts, and not any other agency, entity
or organization. Every effort has been made to give proper credits and
citations for material quoted/cited. Any errors or omissions are not
intentional and every effort will be made to make corrections as soon as they
are brought to our attention.
