Thursday, February 2, 2017

American Bureaucracy vs. Trump

Roman generals, Chinese emperors, Russian Czars, British Queens, and American presidents have all been destroyed by the same auto-immune system: bureaucracy. When my Dad got sick he couldn't fathom how awful his healthcare plan was treating him. One day we were driving to the hospital when he started in on another rant about the incompetence of the system. Finally I blurted out, 'dad, healthcare bureaucracy doesn't exist to serve you. Bureaucracy exists for itself. It exists for its own proliferation: to grow, multiply, and infiltrate new spaces like a virus. It doesn't give a f**k whether you live or die, get educated or stay ignorant, get fed or get poisoned. We are all just packing boxes being shuffled around on a bunch of assembly lines.' (I probably used more curse words.) He sat back in his chair and laughed. He got it. With Zen-like calm he had a satori (instant awakening or enlightenment). He never complained or expressed confusion again. We just found alt. ways around the rules by making it seem like it was for the benefit of the healthcare workers.

In order to make 'the system' work you have to play into all its little petty rules, bow to all the bridge trolls, grease the wheels with gifts and kind words. These are all things a narcissist like Trump is terrible at doing. He wants his presidency to be 'about him' and his glorious victory and huge crowd of supporters. But it surely be about his steady, consistent unraveling, growing paranoia (both justified and unjustified), and trickle-down panic. And 'his government' will leak, sabotage, drag its feet, leave their phones off the hook, seethe and -finally if comes to having all-out war- side with protestors in strikes. It will grind itself to a halt in defiance. It's already happening and he hasn't even made it into his first month.

I don't have faith in American democracy. I have assurance in American bureaucracy preserving itself and destroying any invasive species. 

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