We Are Living in a Time of Shock and Awe.
Can we build vision in times of chaos? I think we can .
Most of the last week I sat watching what was transpiring in the United States with abject horror.
I watched as Trump stripped trans and non-binary people of their identities.
I watched as the new government subjected migrants, refugees, and other displaced people with threats of deportation.
I watched as he defunded and cancelled all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs obsolete.
I felt despair for my friends and colleagues in the United States who were being terrorized by their own government.
But that is the point, isn’t it?
Trump and his aides are using a strategy called “shock and awe” which is used by the military to destabilize and paralyze the enemy.
This strategy is not new.
This technique was used by Nazi forces during WWII when they subjected their enemies to something called the Blitzkrieg (“lightening war”). German forces would overwhelm the enemy with a quick and violent series of attacks along narrow front lines. They would punch a hole in enemy lines and use that advantage to cause chaos and fear amongst the allied troops.
Americans learned from this experience and during the Gulf Wars in the early 2000’s the U.S. Military developed a doctrine of Shock and Awe to overwhelm their enemy. The goal of the doctrine is to:
“impose this overwhelming …doctrine… against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on ... [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels.”
Does that quote feel eerily familiar? It should.
The entire point of Trump’s recent blitz of executive orders is to paralyze us. While I am not an American, I live just north of the U.S. border and our country has been subjected to threats of 25% tariffs, economic take-over, and recommendations we become the 51st State. The result of these statements is division and derision between provincial leaders. It is even resulting in a divide between the Conservative politicians on how to tackle this threat.
This is the point. Trump has had four years to plan his tactics, to build a strategy of shock and awe to disorient and distract his opponents. While he blinds the public with horrendous and harmful rhetoric he is making himself rich. So few people have commented on how the Trump family launched a bitcoin just days before the inauguration. It’s the political equivalent of throwing a smoke bomb into a room full of crowded people. This is how the villains in Batman behave. Trump is the equivalent of the Joker.
Human beings are unfortunately predictable in how we react to chaos. Our instinct is to fight back, to run away, or to freeze. We cannot think clearly. We are not able to react rationally. It is akin to an assault on your system.
Don’t be embarrassed if that’s how you’ve been feeling over the last few weeks- this is a perfectly normal reaction to this level of assault. The key is to recognize the chaos and remember not to react to it instinctively. We need to look past the floating dumpster fire burning in front of us and find a way to not only survive, but to find a way to see the pattern in the chaos, and find our way through to the other side.
Do Not Obey in Advance
The first thing we need to know about shock and awe is that there is a predictability to the chaos. That may sound counter-intuitive, but there is a pattern to this form of attack. The “smoke bombs” are a way of distracting us and keeping us confused. They intend to blind us to what is happening. The pattern in the chaos is to turn us against one another. This is why must remain committed to the collective vision of liberation. We must remember this is a time of resistance.
Remember - do not obey in advance.
In 2021, Harvard professor and American Historian Timothy Snyder published a book called “On Tyranny” which examined the way emotions - particularly fear and greed - can be manipulated to create tribalism and drive people to harm one another. The first chapter is titled “Do Not Obey in Advance” in which he tells the reader how those who comply with tyrannical powers teach them what they are capable of.
“Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
It’s important to remember in times of shock and awe that we are not required to obey tyranny in advance.
In this chapter, Snyder reminds us that we have a choice. Which kind of normal should we choose? Do we choose oppression and hatred as “normalized”? Or do we choose love and liberation as normal?
Right now, in this moment, we must note that what is happening as abnormal and that we will not comply.
When we lay down our marker and declare that this conduct will not be “normalized” we are saying we will not tolerate shock and awe. We will not participate in the chaos. We will are morally, socially, and culturally committed to a liberatory future.
It is so important not to obey in advance.
We must watch what companies like Target, Walmart, Amazon, and META are doing and we must note that they are choosing to bow down to an tyranny in advance. We must note it and we must remember it.
Move money to move power.
Choose wisely.
Remember to support those Black and Indigenous businesses that will be most deeply impacted by these changes. Buy their products, follow their accounts. Remind these businesses why obeying in advance is not the way forward.
Regenerative Visioning
So what do we do in the midst of this chaos?
We envision a regenerative future.
But what does this mean?
In the scientific world, regenerative visioning is the technique by which a surgeon restores someone’s vision. In the political and social spaces, this is the method by which a collective comes together and restores their focus on their vision for the future.
Now, more than ever before, we must envision what will take place past the next political cycle. We need to envision the next generation, the next movement, the next moment in history where we move our society forward.
We need vision now more than ever before.
Think of our collective vision as a road. We need to remain focused on the horizon and not lose sight of where we are heading. As soon as we grow distracted by the bumps in the road ahead, we may lose our way. We need to keep our heads up and focus on the future we desire. We must not loose sight of what is ahead of us.
In the movie “Women Talking", a 2022 American drama film written and directed by Sarah Polley, one of the main characters, Greta, uses the analogy of her two horses, Ruth and Cheryl, as an analogy for confronting fear and distancing oneself to gain perspective. In this part of the film, Greta tells the group of women who are trying to decide whether to leave or stay how her she managed to avoid disaster on the road when her two horses panicked.
“I was always frightened of the Northern Road out of the colony. There are so many gullies on either side of the road. The buggy used to lurch side-to-side. Ruth and Cheryl (the horses) were only following the command of my reigns, but they were jerky and frenetic.
When I learned to focus my gaze on the road in front of me, and not on the road immediately in front of Ruth and Cheryl, that I began to feel safe.”
- Greta (Women Talking)
The road ahead of us is fully of gullies. Our path is uncertain. There will be times where we are distracted and afraid, but we must focus on the road in front - the horizon - and march forward one foot at a time.
We must act as if it is possible.
Do not let shock and awe allow you to forget that we are moving towards something better. Something greater.
We must act in ways that are true to our values.
“You have to act as it was possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”
Angela Davis
Until next week my friends.
Remember, we will walk this path together.
In solidarity.
Liz