REBUILDING AFTER A DISASTER

Whether Natural or Man-made

When a natural disaster hits an area, whether it be a hurricane, tornado, wildfire or flood, the area eventually gets rebuilt. Survivors of disasters might leave if they no longer have a need or desire to remain in that place, but the vast majority will remain and rebuild. What they rebuild will be similar to what they had before the disaster hit, with one big change: the rebuild will revise or improve aspects of their lives and their property that did not serve them well before the disaster. The rebuild will be sturdier, safer, more efficient, more fire resistant or less flood prone than before, and will better serve their needs.

A man-made disaster hit the United States government last winter and continues to rage on with massive disruption and irreparable damage six months later. This disaster is a perfect storm of hubris, foolishness, incompetence, and pure evil. It was fully predicted in the Project 2025 Report from the Heritage Foundation. But as too often happens with severe weather forecasts, that prediction was largely ignored by the media and other agencies that should have sounded the alarm. Our government has been savagely ripped apart, its basic structures destroyed, and its leadership left in the hands of dangerously incompetent, viciously evil, and truly stupid people.

And just as storm-ravaged areas recover from disasters, our nation will eventually recover from this one. The recovery will not be led by the people now in power, though, or by the legacy Democrats who lost the last election by projecting an elitist, smarter than you, attitude. This recovery will be driven by a new breed of youthful activists who have little use for political parties and refuse to tolerate corruption and political games. Some of them are already in positions of authority and ready to move. They are considered to be extreme radicals by the old guard, but their agenda is basically the same as the Republican platform of 75 years ago under President Eisenhower.

And just as devastated areas rebuild stronger and more efficient communities after disasters, our government will rebuild a more efficient organization that better serves the electorate and treats all social, ethnic, and financial concerns equally. The light of scrutiny has been shown on every federal government agency and program, especially those that have been favored by the Trump administration. While some have been nearly destroyed, all have been damaged to the point that their further usefulness should be carefully assessed.

The next administration will not be starting with a blank slate, as most agencies and programs are still operational to some degree. It will, however, have an unprecedented opportunity to review every program and decide if it should be improved, reorganized, left as is, or ended. The recovery will begin by overturning Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders, as they are the low-hanging fruit that is easiest to pick off. The far more important change requires revision of the income tax code. Rebuilding the government will be expensive and that cost should fall most heavily on the wealthiest individuals and corporations that benefitted from the Republican tax cuts.

Reorganizing the federal bureaucracy will take longer. Deciding which agencies and programs to keep, which are no longer of value, and how they all should be structured will require a level of cooperation and discussion that has been absent from our government for too many years. This task will be exacerbated by the tremendous loss of institutional history resulting from the firing of so many senior administrators. In some way, that loss might encourage more innovative ideas to flourish, but it could also lead to changes that do not work out over the long term.

So, when will the reconstruction begin? If we have a fair and honest election next year, and the Republicans lose control of both the house and senate, it could begin immediately. But that is a huge “if”. Republican controlled states are already taking steps to suppress non-MAGA votes and rig the election in the many ways they have accused the Democrats of doing. An even bigger threat is the real possibility of Trump creating an international incident, declaring martial law, and cancelling the election. And that is why it is essential that every one of us continue to do what we can to ramp up the opposition and oust these monsters from power, so we can begin rebuilding a government that serves its constituents instead of ruling over them.

(Illustration created by MicroSoft Copilot).