No joy in Mudville today. Arkansas showed up to play and beat UK. No excuses, they played harder than us. Our ex-players had something to prove and it showed.

That sadness aside, what occupies my mind this morning is an existential question. What can an ordinary US citizen do as the new administration tears down the government, creating chaos? It’s happening right before our eyes. Heather Cox Richardson tells the story better than I can, and it’s frightening. Garret Graff tells the story of how Musk is pulling off a literal coup right before our eyes in his newsletter Doomsday Scenario. It’s hard to understand how/why people aren’t rising up to protest this.

Portions of the conservative party have long said they’d like to tear down the federal government and remake as a smaller, whiter, less powerful body. They’ve begun that process in earnest this past week. I have no idea what the next year(s) is going to look like if they are allowed to continue. It’s not crazy to think that we might slide into an apocalyptic period, with wars (civil and otherwise), lawlessness, financial collapse, hunger, disease, etc. Once you remove the checks and balances of the federeal government, we’re at the mercy of local lawmakers and multinational corporations. (There’s a book idea in there somewhere). I agree with the anarchists on one thing – there’s LOTS that should be changed about the US government. But the way we get there is important, and wholesale, random-ish. petty culture-war destruction is NOT the right way.

So back to the question – what is an ordinary citizen to do? We elected the monster, and now it’s coming for us.