EP10 | American Bureaucracy & the Draining of Institutional Expertise

Episode summary introduction:  America’s executive branch is comprised in part by “the bureaucracy,” those agencies which buttress American institutions.  Historically, those agencies are led by the most prominent experts in the country, if not the world.   Historian Tom Nichol’s book, The Death of Expertise; The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, delves into the crisis of trust in expertise, and the damage done to American institutions by propaganda.  

Transcript

Episode 10: “American Bureaucracy & the Draining of Institutional Expertise”

Welcome to American Musecast, Episode 10: “American Bureaucracy & the Draining of Institutional Expertise.”  I’m your host, Susan Travis, exploring American politics using the construct of the hero’s journey and archetypes of the psyche.  

Today, we’ll look at how the structure of the American government both supports and hinders our civil society, and how some of the finest experts in the world have contributed to the strength of this incredibly interwoven system.  We’ll also look at the destruction of that system under our current administration and ways the average citizen can not only mitigate the damage but also prepare for a healing future.

Now, obviously, America can be characterized as a vast living system, and as such it needs us to tend it and raise it into a healthy body of service.  We, the citizenry, in very specific ways, responsibly or irresponsibly determine how the systems in America thrive, and through the quality of our tending we create a democratic legacy for our progeny – our children, and their children, that is.  Today’s citizens represent a transient, fleeting window of American history; we’re just passing through with the future generations yet to inherit our contribution.  The question is whether that will be an America tended or an America in shambles.  So.  How hard are we willing to fight for our kids?  What will we leave to them?  Frankly, our legacy should be more than the stinky motheaten scraps of a promised American democracy, and certainly not the dystopian tyranny promised through Project 2025 carried out by means of the current president’s executive orders.  

It all starts with the people – the citizenry, you, and me, and that guy over there.  For purposes of solidarity, peace of mind, and tenacity, our first obligation is to remain hopeful, to protect our mental health, and to live our best lives.  Stave off despair.  It’s now almost a contemporary proverb, to “put the mask over your own nose and mouth before helping the person next to you,” because you can’t help others if you’re checked out.  So.  Starting with self, we work outward, employing the power of a strong psyche confidently infused with courage and resolve.  Honoring that obligation defiantly strengthens our citizenry, ensuring that we’ll remain steadfast in our commitment to a just and decent world.  Stave off despair.  Don’t surrender your hope; because despair gives satisfaction to those weaponizing despair for their gain.

Now, I get it.  The strategy of chaos, cruelty, and buffoonery characterizing this administration is meant to aggravate us, make us anxious and fearful, and the firehose of chaos is meant to numb us, make us exhausted and despondent.  So, don’t surrender to that strategy.  

And we are equally ill-served by bleary cynicism and hopelessness which surrenders our trust and delivers the best of our civil society into the clutches of vandals and profiteers.  Because we hear it every day.  “There’s nothing we can do; they’re all crooks.”  That’s defeatism, and a sorry excuse for not doing the work of suffragettes, abolitionists, and freedom fighters resisting colonialism and oppressive regimes.  If we can’t step up now, we aren’t what made this country the beacon of hope; we’re part of the problem. 

But beyond self-care, there’s also the obligation of each generation to do the work of stewardship, to speak truth to power, and to ensure a healthy good-faith discourse of assessment.  We can’t be fragile about this; we need to cultivate our grit and resilience.  We are ill-served by any delicate Pollyanna discourse which, whether through fragility or denial, refuses to articulate the shadows in our governance.  “We’ll be okay – we’re America, and we haven’t fallen yet!”  That’s the same shallow, vapid denial of current political trends befell the Roman Empire.   It demonstrates the complacency born of naivete, and blind faith.  Hope and confidence differ because their strength derives through thoughtful attention and action, rather than wishful thinking.  Wishing is not an active plan.

So.  I begin with a heartfelt thank you to those already engaging in the hard work ahead.  You’re the “good news” of the modern era, and our children and multi-great-grandie kiddos will thank you for channeling your inner Harriet Tubman and for drawing inspiration from her examples of heroism, because clearly, America needs its Harriets. 

It bears remembering that WE, the people, are the sovereigns of this unwieldy contraption we call democracy.  America is governed by the people, and we do ourselves a disservice when we perpetuate -an adversarial relationship of people-versus-government.  Our government is of our own making, and it SERVES the people. When “the government” appears to forget this and when it strains against our will, well, WE decide what we want, and we get what we work for, what we steward, and what we permission.  The direction is determined as much by those who work in its service as it is by those who stand by, arms hanging.   Think of it this way.  When a car is stuck in the mud, two people can struggle to extract the car from the mud, while ten stand by and watch, heckle, hide their eyes, or look at their phones.  But those ten bystanders have as much to do with the outcome as the two struggling for success.  It was Martin Luther King who reminded us that the ultimate measure of one is not where we stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where we stand at times of challenge and controversy.

Now, we can put together a healthy democracy rich with expertise, and through our votes either refine that democracy or, we can let it fall prey to saboteurs and a dysfunctional system.  WE are the architects of our democracy.  You are what you eat, and democracy is what we work for and who we hire for the job.  We, the people, are all of us together: those seeking a healthy democracy, those seeking to vandalize, and those who assume the role of the heckling bystander, arms hanging.  Together, we author our future, and even those standing by, are part of that authorship. 

It bears admitting that we’ve used the strong bones of our constitutional democracy to create a Rube Goldberg Machine, one of those complex contraptions designed to perform a simple necessary task in an overly complicated way, utilizing a series of interconnected events.  You’ve seen those wonderfully silly drawings, big, complicated rickety contraptions that ultimately pop a balloon, or place our slippers within reach.  However unintentionally, Americans have built the most complex of such machines and it’s called, the American government.  And these complicated processes hinder our societal progress and our outcomes in general.  We see that, and most recognize that our contraption bears improvement.  But we’re young yet, still learning how to best drive our democracy, and we know we can do better by reimagining our systems.  So, the silver lining is opportunity to do better.

Yet rather than dismantling strategically to preserve and streamline into better systems, the current administration smashes through as Trump’s acolytes clap and whoop in glee as the rubble of our institutions piles higher around us.  Meanwhile, those with the professional expertise to rebuild with state-of-the-art precision are battered, cast aside, and in the greatest brain-drain of our generation, they exit stage left, seeking more appreciative countries and corporations.

While we’ve long seen the tops of our institutional icebergs and felt their dysfunctions, the real nuts and cogs of the operation generally rest in an underbelly away from our rarely prying eyes.  And we can neither fix nor defend what we can’t see, what we don’t understand, and what we don’t value.   So, today, let’s look at the functional characteristics of our institutions, bureaucracies, and the contributions of our civil servants.  

Institutions 

I’ve noticed that if I say, “Our institutions are in trouble,” the most immediate understanding relates to educational institutions – universities, so let’s spend a minute on the wider understanding of institutions as systems within civil society. 

Civilized societies are built on institutional systems, such as cultural or religious practices, laws, and power structures that guide behavior and enforcement. Institutions receive support both from citizens and government agencies.

Institutions and the rule of law underpin a stable, orderly, and prosperous society by shaping conduct, regulating business, and encouraging social progress. They set non-partisan guidelines rooted in evidence and integrity, creating trust vital for investment and long-term growth.  

Although facing challenges and complex procedures, our institutions are filled with exceptional talent and expertise, spanning individuals, businesses, and government. Expertise is a defining feature of every institution.  Yet today, that expertise is being stripped and hollowed from every institution, wrenched away by our own governing body, as surely as if the clothes had been ripped from the body politic.  Our institutions now stand quivering, vulnerable, and violated. 

I want to explore this a bit further, because I’m not sure it’s being made clear to the American people. 

While there are four categories of American institutions: political, economic, social, and cultural, it’s the first, our political institutions, which buttress and support the remaining three in various ways including funding, regulation, and legislation.  

Our political institutions include the three branches of government:  First, an independent judiciary, that’s the court system and law enforcement. Secondly, there’s the legislative body of our Congressional representatives – those folks make the laws.  And finally, the executive branch, which includes the presidency and approximately 400 agencies of the bureaucracy.  

Of our many social and civic institutions, the press, is often referred to as the fourth pillar or the fourth estate of American democracy.  This notion of a fourth pillar places the importance of the media just under the three branches of government, because it’s a bridge between governance and citizenry – the realm of transparency, responsible for informing the public about events and issues, serving as a watchdog over power, and helping to shape public opinion all by providing accurate information, promoting public discourse, and ensuring that diverse voices are heard.  The voice of the press is the media; just as, in many ways, the voice of the people (once confined to protests, articles, and letters to the editor) is now the Internet, fraught as it may be.   And just as expertise is critical to institutions, truth and transparency are critical to the voice of the people.

Meanwhile, among our social institutions we also find religious institutions, education, and health. 

Our economic institutions lie in a category of their own.  They include our banks, and our businesses, as well as agriculture/food, labor, and our housing and real estate systems.   

And finally, our cultural institutions include the arts, museums, libraries, sports, and entertainment.  They facilitate dialogue and creativity, diversity, and discourse of the imagination.  

Our institutions are closely connected and influence one another. Political, economic, social, and cultural systems shape every aspect of American life—from government offices to schools, workplaces, and homes. While they provide protections and benefits, institutions also present challenges like inequity and excessive regulation, but ultimately, they define a civilized society.  

Yet, when we come to deem civilized society a waste of time or perceive structure as expendable, our institutions gravitate into harm’s way.  And this is where we find ourselves today. In these dawning days of the Trump Administration, every institution meant to stabilize civil society, every hub of expertise is being bombarded and gleefully, publicly dismantled THROUGH its governmental system of support.  So let’s talk about that.  

The Bureaucracy

Let’s talk about the bureaucracy, the very critical governmental support structure of our institutions.  

Our three branches of government are organized and given power through the language of the US Constitution, known as “the supreme law of the land.”  When our democracy is healthy, everything done by the American government and the American people must align with the Constitution.  If we don’t like something about that guiding document (such as when it originally held that blacks were three fifths of a person), well, we change the Constitution through an amendment process . . . and we’ll talk about that process in an upcoming episode.

For now, let’s start our focus on the Executive Branch, specifically, the bureaucracy, often referred to as “the administrative state,” remembering that the bureaucracy is the primary supporting engine of our institutions.  The bureaucracy is right there, snuggled into the executive branch, and that’s how it comes to be an easy target in these difficult times.  The bureaucracy enjoys such coziness because of its importance to civil society, but that proximity also affords vulnerability.  

Now, the president and vice-president perch at the top of the executive branch, accountable for what happens amid their branches and twigs.  So, today that’s where we’re going, into the branches and twigs of the executive branch, where Elon Musk and his merry band of DOGE dismantlers recently so publicly and proudly wielded a golden chainsaw to promote their demolition of American institutions.  I don’t baselessly accuse them of this; they proudly take credit for this destruction.

Anyway, most of us don’t give much thought to the advisors within the Executive Office of the President, but historically, they are meant to comprise a specific pinnacle of knowledgeable professionals and experts drawn from the executive offices within the White House.  In what has been the most powerful country in living history, these are the people in the room, advisors with walk-in privileges closest to the president.  Yet, within the Trump Administration, the experts have been dismissed, and we now find conservative talk show hosts and religious zealots, white supremacists, grifters, and conspiracy theorists, each comfortably presenting their opinions and ideations in lieu of expertise.  This corruption of leadership we now accept with little action to match our dismay.  

The President’s Cabinet consists of the leaders of the 15 executive departments which comprise the bureaucracy.  Appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, part of the legislative branch, this structure is established in the Constitution, and these departments correspond to major political, social, economic, and cultural institutions.  So what are those departments, and how are they compromised by corrupt leaders?  

Well, departments related to the security of our country include homeland security, CIA, FBI, Secret Service, justice, state, and the department of defense (or war) renamed by Trump, at least on the government website.  These leaders are no longer vetted for clearance, and they daily demonstrate a careless disregard for the sensitive missions and identities of subordinates, agents, and officers.  They demonstrate a lack of understanding about foreign policy, diplomacy and consequence, and publicly acknowledge that their loyalty to the president outweighs their loyalty to defense of the country.  They brag that Trump critics will be investigated and convicted at his whim.  Masked thugs without markings raid schools and hospitals for potential immigrants, and without due process to determine status, ship them to penal colonies in foreign countries. Absent professionalism and expertise, used only as a tool of power, this is a weaponization of our security apparatus puts the United States in great peril.

Departments related to the economy include the departments of energy, commerce, transportation, labor, and treasury are now realigned toward privatization and profit.  Investigations by Forbes and the New Yorker estimate that within this second term of his presidency, Trump alone has pocketed over three billion dollars in “deals” that benefit his company, never mind monies directed to his supporting oligarchs.  Saving the US money through the DOGE firings?  No. That fraction saved simply removed accountability.  One website, Did Trump Golf Today, reports that as of early September, 2025, Trump has golfed 58 of the 238 days of his second term costing the US taxpayer and estimated $81,200,000 in travel and increased protection. Retrofitting the aircraft gifted by Quatar – between 400 million and a billion.  The new ballroom which he plans to pay for?  200 million. Let’s remember that Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall.  Regardless, it’s the removal of accountability and regulations that are the problem. 

Departments like education, health, housing, veteran affairs, the interior, and agriculture are all social institutions. Blue states tend to contribute more taxes which help fund social programs in red states. Recently, citing their political leanings as “disloyal,” Trump has withdrawn federal support from blue states, including vaccines, educational grants, and funding for veterans and housing. Taxes should return as public services, not be redirected toward corporate profits for lower-quality offerings.

Now, I counted 31 agencies under the department of agriculture including the Forest Service, the Food and Nutrition Service.  The Rural Telephone Bank.  I won’t presume having an opinion on these because it’s not my area of expertise, but each department has similar divisions in this way, addressing different aspects of the institution, and they are easy and fascinating to research.

In addition to the cabinet departments and their supplemental agencies, the bureaucracy also includes independent federal agencies, like NASA and the FCC (the Federal Communication Commission which  regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, Wi-Fi, satellite, and cable across the United States.) These are not required to report to the president, but which still fall under the executive branch, and which are vulnerable to presidential influence.   

So much of governance occurs outside the public view, but that governance is often of the most importance; for instance, CIGIE (pronounced, “Siggy”)  – the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. Comprised of apolitical (non-political) experts, CIGIE was established in 2008 to ensure integrity, economy, and effectiveness on issues that transcend individual government agencies.  Seems important, right? Well, these inspectors fired by DOGE, in the earliest days of the current Trump administration were replaced by DOGE itself, claiming to have the same mandate of ensuring integrity, economy, and effectiveness.  But consider that the firing of the independent inspectors general effectively removed unbiased oversight of the departments.  Instead, DOGE wanted to do this important work themselves, using recent tech graduates without institutional expertise.  

In addition to the independent federal agencies, the executive branch also includes regulatory agencies like the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Reserve, answerable to Congress.  What could possibly go wrong should the federal election commission have its hands tied, its funding cut, and a corrupt leadership cutting “deals” with whatever puppets replace expertise?  

And finally, there are governmental corporations, like the US Postal Service, the FDIC and the Federal Prison Industries.  Each of these is self-sustaining, and they also fall under the Executive Branch.  We saw political attacks on the postal service during Trump’s first administration, attacks which affected voting habits. 

Over 400 agencies make up the executive branch, collectively known as “the bureaucracy.” This system operates hierarchically, assigns specific roles, and enforces strict rules—often at the expense of flexibility or individual consideration. Exceptions are limited to maintain consistency across the system.

Like most Americans, I always thought that “bureaucracy” was solely a pejorative term referring to that Rube-Goldberg characteristic of overcomplication that we discussed earlier. But the thing to remember is that generally speaking, no one set out to create a Rube-Goldberg government.  Nonetheless, we want letters delivered, lumber for building, food NOT grown in a polluted swamp.  There were always aspects of our institutions to be managed and protected from exploitation and corruption, although sure, it is cumbersome and often thwarted from efficiency by its own rules.   And YES, some bad faith rules have been instituted specifically to gum up the works, but the public servants working within bureaucracy receive a lot of scorn born of propaganda, and of course, the gumminess that I mentioned.  In fact, public workers can tell you EXACTLY how they would streamline these processes and instill a bit of humanity, if allowed.   But because the SYSTEM is cumbersome, we’ve come to blame and disdain the experts themselves, and to worry and fret if they are unelected . . . notwithstanding DOGE.

Whatever the rules surrounding federal programs, the civil servant gets the heat, the scorn – FEMA, OSHA, MVD – “Get a real job – you’re part of the problem.”  They get the heat for all the cumbersome regulations established.  At times established to legitimately guard personal and environmental safety.  In other instances, put in place to guard against an economic predisposition to exploit the institution for profit.  Established at other times to deliberately sabotage departments to demonstrate incompetence.   The old, “yes, you may build a car, but no steering wheel or carburetor and it must run on oatmeal.” 

The inclination to prioritize self-interest over the interests of the many – that inclination leads to establishing governmental guardrails against exploitation.  Greed might inspire the poor, or the rich, to exploit the system.  So, the more greed, the more regulation; the more regulation, the more annoyance at regulation, inspiring a Project 2025 blueprint to dismantle those very guardrails.  So here we are careening into the consequences of ignoring Project 2025, here we are surrounded by those celebrating the vandalism of constitutional protections designed to prevent exploitation of individuals, groups, our environment and our allies.  

Now, our citizenry was meant to elect officials based on merit, and elected officials were meant to appoint others, based on merit.  This would be an informed citizenry, in good faith choosing their leaders.  That’s the healthy intent, and YET, we’ve elected a president who in no way measures up to the merit found in professional public service, judicial service, or military service.  His business dealings were sketchy enough to warrant 34 convictions on fraud.  So merit was not in play for those who believed empty promises of border walls and inflation reduction – those who demanded cruel immigrant penalties, and the ones who just like him, think he’s funny or a new messiah.  Absent merit, this is a cult of personality.  Regardless, in each scenario, his followers elected this president specifically to kneecap the American system.  To own the libs.  It’s no wonder that he repeatedly tosses aside merit and places zealots and talk show hosts in positions of power formerly held by experts.  

The cynics say, “well, they can’t do any worse.”  But can they hear themselves?   We are led to believe that the Pentagon is BEST led by a talk show host with a publicly acknowledged drinking problem rather than by any seasoned military professional?  That the FBI is BEST led by a podcast host famous for his extremism and profanity rather than by anyone with law enforcement or intelligence background.  That our health systems are BEST led by a science-denier without a science background, rather than by anyone from among the most accomplished scientists in the world.  We are asked to see the sense of discontinuing covid vaccines, cancer vaccines nearing availability; that decades of research should be scrapped and scientists fired.  Citizens without expertise in these areas are making these decisions.  But how have we come to believe that craven ignorance trumps expertise? How is this becoming normal? 

The ongoing dismantling of institutional safeguards poses a significant threat to the credibility of once-respected agencies that have historically operated above the partisan fray. These agencies provide essential information—not only for individual decision-making but also for shaping the nation’s direction and its influence on the global stage. Undermining their independence and impartiality shifts the traditional checks and balances, funneling oversight and authority toward the office of the president. As a result, decision-making becomes heavily centralized, effectively granting the president unchecked control over every agency—transforming the role from public servant to something resembling monarchical power.  

Congressional representatives responsible for oversight barely bleat and take no action regarding the firing of experts managing crucial areas like nuclear waste and disease control. The administration's approach seems disinclined to repair or reform; instead, its focus appears to be profit-driven destruction rather than meaningful improvement. Through Project 2025, America now risks harming its own democracy more than upholding it; of being exceptional only through the infamy of self-harm to our democracy.

Many countries lack the resources we now squander as our future points to reduced health and safety standards, weakened infrastructure, and rising costs. Education is set to decline further, while vulnerable groups face harsher conditions. National security may be compromised by lax information control, and trust in government, neighbors, and institutions continues to erode.  

It’s intentional, and it’s celebrated by our conservative flank, slamming hard against reform, checks and balances, the rule of law, and human decency.  From DOGE to the appointed conspiracy theorists and supremacists – from the grifters to the zealots, these presidential loyalists are the unelected henchmen – the muscle, kneecapping our institutions and reducing democracy into a boneyard as a spectacle.  Citizens of moral conscience are horrified at the incompetence of these deeply unqualified departmental leaders.  But I submit that we’re looking at the wrong markers of expertise; I submit that they are entirely qualified to accomplish the goals of Project 2025, because loyalty, cruelty, and a thirst for indiscriminate chaos? Those were the qualifications sought by this administration.  

This is a weaponization of the system.  Claim that seasoned professionals are unelected hacks, then toss them out and replace them with actual unelected hacks . . . loyal only to the project of dismantling, of replacing these systems with profiteers and privatized corporate interests.   And loyal to Trump – civil servants now must complete a loyalty essay, praising their favorite Trump executive order and policies.  That’s the real goal – not merit, but loyalty to the autocrat to ensure his profits.

But our institutions are not garbage.  Trust in institutions like the media, education, elections, and the economy is vital to democracy.  Despite long-term challenges they are now deeply and deliberately damaged, yet they remain valuable and deserve our commitment to repair and strengthen them.  Our institutions are not garbage. 

So, understanding their value, it’s important that we publicly discuss their value.  Discourse serves us through teachable moments, when we hear “they’re all just a bunch of damn bureaucrats, and we need to get rid of all of them” or “they can’t be any worse,” well, in this moment, the garden variety heroic citizen might find the courage to pipe up and note that the bureaucracy is meant to be comprised of experts in service of the people, and that this is not normal.  We need to reimagine and encourage a new dawn of efficiency in place of our historically cumbersome processes.   

Within the first 100 days of this second Trump Administration, over 300,000 federal workers were indiscriminately fired, arguably leaving the most powerful country in the world in a state of a system-wide vacuum, devoid of expertise.  

In his 2017 book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, Tom Nichols examines the growing trend of dismissing experts and expertise in favor of personal opinions, misinformation, and populist sentiments. Somehow, in today's world of easily accessed information, many are increasingly skeptical of experts and more likely to trust their own beliefs or the opinions of unqualified individuals.  It’s a battle between facts and ideology, and if facts get in the way of ideology, out they go! 

In a recent Tom Nichols interview, Nichols remembers a time when we didn’t afford the weight of expertise to the random “you gotta wonder” musings of Cliff and Norm at the Cheers bar.  But today, this cultural shift diminishes respect for professional knowledge in fields like science, medicine, politics, and academia. We trust the plumber to know about our pee-traps, but we’re coming to question whether the brain surgeon plots against our medulla oblongata.  Particularly in the fields of science and politics, disdain for expertise rampantly contributes to the spread of conspiracy theories, mis- and dis- information, and a general distrust in the institutions that once guided society. So, here we are, awash in fascist MAGA policies, conspiracy theories, and crumbling public discourse, the consequences of rejecting evidence-based decision-making.

Tom Nichols urges a return to valuing specialized knowledge and expert authority. He emphasizes that expertise is essential for addressing complex global challenges, and that society must resist the temptation to downplay or ignore it, and to resist populist movements which elevate "common sense" over specialized knowledge.  We must wrap our heads around a fundamental truth, that our opinions are not FACTS, and aren’t equivalent to empirical evidence derived within a laboratory and supported by peer-reviewed research.  We are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts, and it really helps if we develop our opinions through facts and evidence.  

As the Trump administration insidiously repopulates our institutions with unqualified leaders, we’re meant to distrust the poisoned wells and just “go with our gut.”  Replacing experts with media hacks, frat brothers, and posturing ICE Barbies is a time-honored authoritarian tactic designed to undermine trust in institutions for generations.  These extremes begin to seem normal, confirming our worst impressions, that bad clowns run the government, and that as a whole, it merits replacement.  This is the normalizing of incompetence, the weaponizing of incompetence.

The DOGE-driven purge of our federal workers and civil servants emerged from the same disdain for expertise and government that we’ve seen for decades.  Reagan did our public servants no favors when he famously claimed that the most terrifying words are “I’m the government and I’m here to help.” (A little spit of contempt to the side for emphasis).  The message: distrust government.  Undermine it using sarcasm.  Distrust your own representatives, and someday, you’ll welcome the purge and offer your own spit of contempt when they’re lost.  We’ve steeped in decades of that rhetoric, and for those seeking power, it’s paying off.  

We are meant then to welcome this dismantling of laws against child labor, environmental harm, and consumer protection.  The real message?  “We are the government, and we’re not here to help - we’re here to burn it down.”  THIS government is telling us so, with their administration comprised of henchmen kneecapping each institution designed to serve Americans.

We place value in our heroes, so who do we see of this century?  We can name our corporations Sony, General Motors, Amazon, Netflix, Ford, Serta, and we can name sports teams, movies, and musicians, and Hollywood stars.  But come on.  Pull up a name in science, literature, art, education or medicine – name those heroes!  Name our famous educators, our famous Chinese Americans, our famous inventors of this century.  Crickets.  Expertise has lost its prestige, its patronage by our citizenry, and with all my heart, I hope that this is just a phase and that we will regain our sanity.  

Being “woke” means living a lifestyle of alertness, vigilance, and willingness to resist injustices.  It means fighting fascist policies and inclinations, not our fellows on Facebook.  It’s the willingness to fight every day with the goal of a just world, not for a political office.  So, I’m always surprised at how someone can aspire to the presidency in America, or any office, and yet, at losing or ending, be swept into footnotes like yesterday’s confetti.  Al Gore, Hillary & Bill, Barack, Kamala, even George Bush, they’ve never evolved into serious activists or leaders in the aftermath of defeat or a term at end.  In fact, Donald Trump is the only one who consistently rallied his base when not in office.  Rallies of grievance rather than expertise, but his consistency is instructive.

Granted, the norm was to allow a new president to do his thing, but always, in the retreat from the public eye, all that expertise is left in the dustbin when the election is lost, or a presidency ends. Maybe it’s public disinterest or media quashing, but where are the voices of those eloquent would-be leaders who once captured our attention?  THEY hold much of the experience we’ve been looking for, yet beyond issuing a random statement from time to time, they’ve receded to the woodwork, perhaps as part of the epidemic of growing disinterest in expertise.  To my mind, it’s a travesty, but then, did they leave or us, did we leave them?  The right flank has their Charlie Kirks, now a martyr.   Yet, the pro-democracy flank has no Alexi Novalny or Vladimir Kara Murza.  No Eva Peron or MLK.  Perhaps it has Bernie Sanders.  But because the American citizens are the sovereigns of our democracy, we should be willing to take our power and LEAD, wield it with all our might, and be the heroes needed to preserve democracy.  Be voiced and brave.  Fill the vacuum with the courage of our freedom to speak.

What began as a need for maintenance-driven stewardship in mere months has shifted to a new imperative to engage on behalf of civil servants, the protection of Medicaid, our 401Ks, and due process for people being exported to penal colonies, to name only a few of a thousand skirmishes currently underway.  We’re being buffeted and flung about by a gushing firehose of chaos and an emotionally abusive disrespect toward our beloved nation, its institutions, and its citizens.  Apparently, the orders were to break it ALL, to sell it for parts until there’s nothing salvageable.  It’s as though Project 2025 were subtitled, “Stripping America for Parts,” because there’s a great delight coming from those who think they will get some of the parts and the profit, and none of the consequences.

So here’s our call to action.  Find organizations in your field of interest or expertise. What do you love? The elderly, the disabled, libraries, travel, public lands, children?  Well, this administration is coming for all of it.  So, this week, find your niche and engage to strategically support and fuel the creative recovery of our institutions.  Donate time, money, or both.  

Today’s travesties offer opportunities to reimagine our institutions.  So, don’t despair, troubleshoot, and leave out the nonsensical obstacles.  What aspects of former institutions hold us back from our dreams for a better future?  What’s always been needed?  What should these things REALLY look like in a functioning democracy?  Because recovering offers an opportunity to recreate from scratch, simply, more elegantly, more efficiently, holding tightly to the greater good of the populace.  Change the language, change the players, change the money, change the laws . . . change our democracy into the people’s governance.  Because when the pendulum swings back our way, as it will, we’ll need a plan.  So, let’s get to it. 

For my dear listeners with a fire in the belly, please follow this weekly podcast and share it with others. Tell them how much you like it!  Give it stars! And comment, because sometimes your thoughts offer a sparkle of ideas to include in other episodes.  Just use your manners.  I’m a real person.  Now, buckle up buttercups!  Let’s get out there, and steward democracy!