Monday, June 10, 2019

Chaos


It seems like the partisan argument for removal of Donald Trump from office is not the most pressing reason to be concerned.  His criminal behavior is well documented over the past 2+ years since he has been in office.  Whether or not he is actually impeached is almost beside the point. 

The Republican party has abandoned any notion of Constitutional process, so there would never be an actual removal of him from office.  Republicans have corrupted our two-party system by eschewing the rule of law and the governmental rules that our republic has followed for 242 years.  All I have to say is: Mitch McConnell.

What is of greater concern is the chaos that is becoming apparent throughout the world as a result of Trump’s constant presence in the spotlight.  Chaos is increasingly the operant condition all over.

How do we define chaos?  It is complete disorder and confusion.  It is the utter disorganization of things.  Chaos is a condition that provokes stress and anxiety.  It is a vicious re-enforcing circular condition…..chaos provokes stress which provokes increased chaos causing more stress…etc.  

And chaos is caused by events or conditions that defy reality or the truth.  As a human being is exposed to event after event, or statement after statement that defies reality or truth, the structure that a person creates in their own mind to organize their lives is subject to corruption.

As Americans, the truths that we use to organize our society revolve around honesty, integrity and the rule of law.  If those constructs are corrupted day after day by chaotic conditions, a person will eventually come to question what his reality is.  It is a known fact that if a statement is repeated over and over again, it eventually can become perceived as truth, even though it is by all measures simply a fallacious statement. 

That is what is happening today in America.  Our President, the one person who we look to for guidance; for interpretation of complex domestic and world events is simply not providing us with consistent truth or perception of reality. He lies constantly and creates his own reality, which we can all see is false.  There is no guile in his method.  He lies in ‘plain sight’ and masses of people simply accept it as truth or simply don’t care if it is true.  Trump’s professional and personal history is testament to his dwelling in chaos: three turbulent marriages; bankruptcy after bankruptcy; business enterprises skirting the law and fleecing his customers, etc.

So what is the effect of that?  Relationships around the world with our allies are muddied.  Our allies are uncertain of what has become of our values and creed.  Our citizens have become numbed to the constant stream of falsehoods that come from Trump and his minions.  Because we cannot predict what he will say or do, and how it will conflict with our own perceptions of truth and reality, we are paralyzed. We wait for each emanation from either his tweeter or his mouth.  Our ability to predict and plan is corrupted.  We don’t know how the rules of our lives as proscribed by our system of laws will be  corrupted.  Trump’s actions and statements are not concerned with established norms and rules.  The rule of law is not part of his reality, so we cannot rely on his leadership to guide us as citizens.

We have slowly descended to a level of perception of what our government is doing that approaches chaos.  And chaos that is unending will eventually lead to failure of our organized society.

There are so many indicators that chaos approaches.  Here are a few examples, some that I have lifted from the headlines just to make my point:

--in an article about the accelerating trade war with the Chinese, Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies who studies Chinese economic policy  said, “This is now extremely delicate because the Trump administration, through its brinkmanship tactics, has destabilized the entire relationship, commercial and otherwise,”

--in an article about the recently released scientific analysis by NASA and the State Department about the increasing peril of climate change and what it will mean for national security, White House officials barred a State Department intelligence agency from submitting written testimony this week to the House Intelligence Committee warning that human-caused climate change could be “possibly catastrophic.”

 Trump officials sought to cut several pages of the document on the grounds that its description of climate science did not mesh with the administration’s official stance.

--In an editorial in the Washington Post, a political science professor writes about how his students are questioning the concept expressed in the Federalist Papers that the 200 year +veneration of the foundational law of the nation prevents the instability and collapse of the republic.  Yet Trump is eroding it: “His election and subsequent behavior is diminishing respect for the entire system the Framers created. And once people lose faith in the constitutional order, politics can spiral out of control.”

--In his Fox interview at the 75th anniversary of D-Day Trump said we pay 100% of the defense of all the EU countries, in addition to several other false statements.  This is simply false!  And yet no one calls him on it.  The world at large is left to just accept that as fact.  This happens time after time and is an everyday occurrence.

--Business experts say industry and corporate interests don’t know how to plan because of erratic trade policies and inconsistent policy decisions.

--Our allies cannot count on the US for any consistency in foreign policy.  What was a 70 year sharing of values has disintegrated with Trump’s actions and behavior with respect to our global allies and cozying up to global dictators.

Chaos is closer in all our realms than we have seen in the 71 years I have been on this earth.  All the machinations that our political parties are going through now to try to make sense of our disintegrating society may not be able to bring clarity to what is happening.  If Trump and Trumpism is extended for another 4 years then we will perhaps pass the tipping point that all great civilizations that have passed into history before us have experienced.

I want to be optimistic about how all this turns out next November, but without a reversal of the increasingly chaotic state of our societal systems, there is an increasing chance of passing the point of no return.

We can rest assured that if Trump is re-elected, the accelerating change of our climate change extinction level event alone will overtake any possible solutions for our political future. Global social upheaval will make attempts to maintain social order all but impossible.

Can you see how important the control of chaos is?


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