Talk about the Fifth Risk

At the end of 2018, as the first Trump administration was winding down, it looked like we had more or less survived the chaotic start up of most unconventional, least prepared, dumbest, and destructive presidential term in recent history without too much catastrophic damage. Covid 19 wasn’t spinning up in China yet, but Trumps’s surprise at winning and complete lack of preparation meant that the government wasn’t really functional in some important places that were missing appointments and staffing. But after a year, most observers of government were ready to accept that Trump hadn’t been able to do the worst case scenario damage. And the worst case story was told by Michael Lewis in a book called “The Fifth Risk”.

Lewis is one of the most popular storytellers in American nonfiction writing, and he became really interested in exploring the lesser known corners of the government to try to figure out what horrible things could happen when people with no regard or understanding of government took over its administration. He deliberately avoided the more dramatic examples of agencies like the Defense Department and instead focused on Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture to assess what wasn’t being done and what kinds of catastrophes were awaiting neglect of government. Steve Bannon was squawking about destroying the “deep state” and eliminating big chunks of government, but Trump didn’t have enough willing sycophants around him to overwhelm what remained of checks, balances, and the remaining normies in the Republican Party.

Fast forward to week 4 (I think?) of Trump 2.0 and we’re in a different situation. There are no competent, ethical, experienced, intelligent civil servants anywhere in sight around the upper echelons of the administration. It is now exclusively staffed by people completely compromised ethically, ideologically radicalized zealots, and fanatical fascists - none of them fully appreciate what government does or have enough empathy or foresight to think through the ramifications of thoughtless decisions.

I’ve written before about “complicated” vs. “complexity” and federal administrative state is beyond complex. There are so many parts, pieces, and connections that no one has perfect visibility into the whole thing or what it does. That can create a lot of inefficiency and frustrating bureaucratic inertia - no one disagrees with that. But it also means that eliminating things, pulling wires out of the system, randomly eliminating line items or programs have a giant range of consequences. Some outcomes are intentional for the extremists that want to tear down government (yay, another agency decimated?), but many are likely not intended since a whole lot of people who voted for the distruptors are ultimately going to suffer.

There is already a building groundswell of disbelief and discontent as it slowly dawns on the public that things are quickly getting out of hand. As much as I can’t marinate in all of it or allow my outrage to grow with every idiotic, malevolent move, I think it is incumbent upon all of us to tell stories about the Fifth Risk. Big, giant systemic issues tend not the change minds since they are far removed from the low information, low engagement voters that got us here. But small stories of real human lives being impacted might break through if we keep them centered.

What is the real human toll of chaotic, thoughtless governance? There are already people dying in places far away as food aid is frozen, programs stopped, medications abandoned, and US aid workers are stranded. But there are also MAGA farmers realizing that they are not getting paid from the Inflation Reduction Act funds that promised reimbursement for important conservation work and fences around their farms. There are recent immigrants learning that Trump’s promises about only targeting criminals for deportation were bunk, as people in their circles live in fear or get scooped up and sent to Guantanamo Bay. There are people getting experimental cancer treatments now literally waiting to hear if they’ll be able to continue or have to resign themselves to slow death.

There are big, scary things as we radically remake our commitments to the world and appear to be en route to tanking the global economy. But our best messaging and advocacy is going to be granular and local. Elon Musk makes $8 million per day from government contracts while the average senior citizen survives on $65 per day. The Trump family has taken in over $100 million in fees from speculative trading on a worthless Trump coin launched as he was being installed in government, while millions of dollars of food supplies sit in warehouses and rot because a 19 year old who didn’t get hugged enough as a child illegally erased some lines of code and stopped the flow of funds.

I don’t do social media and I don’t really talke to people, but I stand ready to support, to coach, to cheer on, and to amplify any and all of the stories about real suffering and impact that none of these chuckleheads could anticipate, and about which none of the extremist elites seem to care.