Start local. Start small.
“Everything that could be wrong with a human being, is wrong with Donald Trump.”
Pilot-journalist James Fallows brings a 10,000-foot view (subscription) to our current crisis. The institutions we’ve relied on to protect us, in many cases for 250 years, are suffering from relentless attack that exploits and reveals their weak points. “We know we have a problem of leadership pathology,” he begins. “Everything that could be wrong with a human being, is wrong with Donald Trump.” The attack is coming from Trump and his fellow travelers. Their amorality and cunning power grabs have revealed the weaknesses “in the institutional infrastructure of US governance.”
Helped along by disinformation, misinformation, culture wars, gerrymandering, vote-suppression and worse. Only good luck, favorable circumstances, and a modicum of self-restraint have kept afloat this ship of state this long. No longer.
The occasion for Fallows’s reverie is coming across his well-thumbed copy of David Halberstam’s 1979 “The Powers That Be.” In its 700 pages, Halberstam considered what was right and wrong with mainstream American media. In particular, as exhibited by Time, The Washington Post, CBS, and The Los Angeles Times. Where once they made money while defending democracy, enfeebled now they document its demise, all to more or less degree, “serving as a reminder of the perils of plutocrats as publishers.”
As those institutions have shrunk, so have others Fallows calls out: the GOP, the US Supreme Court, business leaders, the national press, media companies, local media, and “all the rest of civil society.”
Yeah, this is bad. Some new friends over dinner this week asked what they can do. They are, like most people, focused on our failing national institutions and creeping fascism. I reminded them that many of my liberal friends sit on their hands in frustration (or wring them in despair) rather than take their first small steps. Our self-regard often deems small acts far below our imagined selves.
Being a newsman, Fallows, of course, suggests starting local. “Give financial and mind-share support to your local news organization. Donate. Subscribe. Read. Listen. Discuss. Share.”
I reminded our companions that I and a small team once ran 1,100 30-second radio spots promoting good citizenship and participation in elections. They ran locally for months. We raised and spent less than $10,000. George Soros was nowhere in sight.
As for tackling political dysfunction, we turned our county party committee from an old boys’ club into a powerhouse recognized statewide. When I last spoke to then-Gov. Roy Cooper, he leaned in and said, “You’re going to clean up in Buncombe in November.” We did, in spite of Helene’s devastation.
I’m reminded of a scene late in The Firm. Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) is with FBI agent Wayne Tarrance (Ed Harris). Tarrance is fuming because while McDeere handed over evidence that could take down McDeere’s law partners for racketeering, he didn’t deliver evidence that would take down the Morolto crime family. There’ll be a thousand other lawyers lining up to launder their money tomorrow, Tarrance shouts.
Wayne Tarrance: How the hell you going to get all them?
Mitch McDeere: One at a time. I’m a lawyer and I got mine. You’re the cop, Tarrance. You get the rest of them.
Want to save the country? Start local. Go get yours.
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