When the rain overwhelms our storm sewers, black sludge oozes its way up through the drain in my basement. There’s no stopping it. I put on boots, grab rubber gloves and move the piled-up laundry to a higher spot. The sludge rises, the smell is intolerable: I call around trying to locate a pump I can borrow. No point in calling the city: it can’t help; no one can.
After it finally stops, after the black sewage tainted sludge is cleaned up, the stench lingers.
When Trump loyalist Steve Bannon converted the sports term “flood the zone” to politics, his words were “flood the zone with sh,t” — a tactic of overwhelming the media with so many news items that they would be unable to respond effectively. It’s a perfect analog for the excrement our newly- elected President and his non- elected power tzar, Elon Musk, have flooded the media with in his first weeks in the White House.
Suddenly everything that comes out of the Oval Office is planned as a media event; it’s as if his role is to star in reality tv. It’s not just that he has endangered his political opponents; it’s not just that he pardoned hardened criminals (many of whom have been rearrested for violent crimes already) it’s not just that he has taken medicine and food out of starving mouths around the world; or that he destroyed a long friendship with Canada and Mexico; or that he ludicrously is trying to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Mt. Denali; and he is riding rough-shod over the Constitution and taking pride in it. There’s more. Much more.
He and Elon Musk have their fingers in your wallet.
While you were watching reality tv and perhaps thinking it’s about time migrants were sent back — not to their homelands but to Guantanamo! — while you were thinking government spending needs curtailed… Musk’s cohort of inexperienced, unvetted, 20-somethings were happily digging about in federal computer systems which hold your bank account routing number and your social security information.
So all that trouble you take to protect your financial information; all the time you spend protecting passwords; all the care you devote to your credit cards… gone. Not to some evil syndicate in Bangladesh, but to some nineteen-year- old who has forced out career public servants who have been vetted, who have high security clearance. Now this nineteen year old can break into your data.
Who’s in your wallet? A kid with acne, bad hair, and tattoos.
In addition to that: expect the price of everything to go up. That’s what tariffs do. Expect those jobs tied to infrastructure improvements to go away; and expect the quality of the air you breathe to decline. If you have supported Ukraine’s valiant effort to remain independent, that won’t happen. If you pity the inhabitants of Gaza, you will soon see them forced out completely so the Trump real estate moguls can build a playground for the rich. But maybe you won’t notice: there’s an absolute flood of executive orders oozing continuously out from the White house.
The only possible recourse concerned citizens have is to flood the zone ourselves; to wash back the sh.t. Time to break out the firehose because we are living through a crisis which may cost us our constitutional republic. As we have done with our basements; as football teams do to overcome an opponent, so each of us must act. It’s not some abstract political disagreement: it’s your way of life threatened.
It’s become apparent that phone calls do influence lawmakers in the House and Senate. They have been overwhelmed by phone calls, and are finally beginning to show some wee bits of courage, to demonstrate to the President that he cannot over-ride the Constitution. Resistance must come from each of us.
It’s easy with the downloadable app, 5 Calls, available on android and on google play.
The sewage is rising: we’re calling around for a pump. We’re calling our congresspersons: Walberg, Slotkin, and Peters.
— Sharon Kourous is a a member of Stronger Together Huddle, a group engaged in supporting and promoting the common good. She is a retired teacher and resides in Monroe. She can be reached at mcneil102@icloud.com.
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