What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal. We all need to get on “The Same Page” of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s maladjusted / “I am proud to be maladjusted and wish all men of goodwill would be maladjusted until the good society is realized.”
David Brooks
What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.
April 17, 2025
In the beginning there was agony. Under the empires of old, the strong did what they willed and the weak suffered what they must.
But over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization: Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life. These institutions make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short.
Trumpism is threatening all of that. It is primarily about the acquisition of power — power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men, so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed. Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice.
So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks. In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they’re attacking our universities. On yet another front they’re undermining NATO and on another they’re upending global trade.
But that’s the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.
So far, each sector Trump has assaulted has responded independently — the law firms seek to protect themselves, the universities, separately, try to do the same. Yes, a group of firms banded together in support of the firm Perkins Coie, but in other cases it’s individual law firms trying to secure their separate peace with Trump. Yes, Harvard eventually drew a line in the sand, but Columbia cut a deal. This is a disastrous strategy that ensures that Trump will trample on one victim after another. He divides and conquers.
Slowly, many of us are realizing that we need to band together. But even these efforts are insular and fragmented. Several members of the Big Ten conference are working on forming an alliance to defend academic freedom. Good. But that would be 18 schools out of roughly 4,000 degree-granting American colleges and universities.
continues: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/opinion/trump-harvard-law-firms.html
I’m not making a moral argument, I’m describing the state of things.
According to the law as it is now enforced, murder is less bad than protesting against the genocide in Palestine, because murderers get a trial. Protesters don’t, they just get shipped straight to a foreign gulag.
I’m describing the state of things, a moral problem of people who think the Quran vs. Torah vs. Bible problem of Levant clergy hate-preaching values should continue instead of all repeating and giving attention to Malala.
People are attracted to terrorism, Palestine terrorism on October 7, 2023, people are attracted to Israel dehumanization and killings, people are attracted to Russia’s aggression and hate, people are attracted to the 2025 White House values of mass dehumanization and hate.
There is nothing wrong with what Malala has been saying to do and her messages. The problem is 99% of the population flocks to hate leaders. The morality crisis is that people only choose bad or more bad. They don’t even know what “good” means and do not support “good” such as Malala’s ideas.
There are millions of good ideas to share from the public library. But people flock to share hate messages and dehumanize people they disagree with. This is a morality problem of people not even realizing they are the ones who can not distinguish good from bad and continue to spread and share bad, creating a shitty current reality and passed-down future.
End all hate. Doesn’t matter what nation, doesn’t matter what skin color, gender, race, economic class, all hate needs to be stopped. People don’t even try, they lack any moral understanding of how hate networks to other people and furthers hate. We have known this global problem since 1954, people continue and choose to flock to shit messages (bad values) of hate and dehumanize the out-group / hate the others.
::: _________________
“I couldn’t understand what the Taliban were trying to do. “They are abusing our religion,” I said in interviews. “How will you accept Islam if I put a gun to your head and say Islam is the true religion? If they want every person in the world to be Muslim, why don’t they show themselves to be good Muslims first?” ― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban