The Boiling Frog Theory of 2024
I have made it a point to highlight this fact to those who drone on about the “Biden is old” trope. It is a fact that the group of Americans who won World War II won it in the end without the help of FDR. In the final months of the war, in 1945, Roosevelt died at around the same time Hitler did! But life went on and we still were able to win the war in Europe and in the Pacific thanks to the democratic system of government we had in place.
In other words, life would go on with the administration of Joe Biden with or without his actual physical ‘being there.’
On the other hand, if TRUMP were to take office, things would not go as smoothly. We can’t guarantee the Justice Department would run the same. Or the weather bureau or the Civil Service division. Or for that matter, we can’t guarantee trash pick-ups or mail delivery or public school systems or local elections would continue to function smoothly! In other words, this person is not coming in as an “Agent of change’ that promises sweeping reforms that will help to modernize or revolutionize old thinking or worn-out systems. This group of people is promising to come in and ‘burn the place down’ and end government as we know it.
Of course, his followers are clapping along and jumping up and down. And they are the same group that has turned against the wars they were so gung-ho to support with the Bush family about 20 years ago. And they are also the Tea Party Darlings that wanted to shake up the health system and replace the ACA with ….nothing? Because there is no plan. The plan is just “Blow things up.” It’s the Grinch-like plan for governing without a plan
And it is akin to the Boiling Frog Theory.
What is The Boiling Frog Theory?
The reason the frog doesn’t know it’s dying is the water is nice as it swims along and it feels good and warm and soothing. But suddenly, when things heat up to boiling point, it’s too late to escape and there’s no recourse other than to die a horrible death. So the people who follow Trumpism like to hear the ‘feel-good’ messaging of apocalypse, death, and destruction to all liberal policies and ideas.
And by the way, those ‘Own the Libs” tropes and slogans and hilarious asides that earn guffaws from the crowd are for the most part pretty much lost on the rest of society. So there is a bubble of misinformation surrounding a whole swath of people in the USA who follow Trump & Trumpism and it may end up literally killing them.
It seems an extreme thing to say save for the fact that the Pandemic did literally kill a chunk of these people who just couldn’t bring themselves to follow along with Vaccine “Mandates’ because, as the song says, They ‘gotta be FREE!” And their freedom from reality and scientific observation came at a high price. Many people died needlessly because they were not vaccinated. And that is just one slice of the pie that is like a Chinese puzzle that surrounds the gulf of followers who are swallowed up in Trumpism and its harmful side effects.
Warning: Democracy & The Boiling Frog Theory
Warning: The Boiling Frog Theory is here and it’s coming for you. Many of us don’t know enough about living on the ‘other side’ of a democracy. And that may be why many don’t care enough to defend it by voting and working to preserve the basic tenets of a true democracy. That includes freedom to vote, freedom to worship, freedom to speak and freedom to travel from state to state without threats of ‘papers please’ and other fascistic rules in place in Authoritarian regimes.
There has been a frightening warning in my own home town. In Tampa, Florida, over two years ago our elected State Attorney, a democrat named Andrew Warren was frog-marched out of his office by the governor’s hand-picked law enforcement ‘Brown Shirts’ of the 21st Century.
Our elected Sheriff and County Sheriff in the area proudly stood behind the Governor of Florida as he bragged about ending this evil practice of vowing to help women by not prosecuting them for abortion-related practices in the Tampa Bay Area. This had come in the form of our State Attorney. Andrew Warren, signing on to a letter pledging not to prosecute women who had been known to receive abortion-related care! So there was no crime but the ‘thought-police’ didn’t like this letter signing business and Gov DeSantis wanted to, as Barney Fife would say, “NIP IT’ in the bud!
That is where we are. People allowed this to happen without much of a peep in my area. I couldn’t believe this was happening, and yet, the frog boiling state of mind continues for most Americans. Biden is old and alas, that may be how we end our experiment in democracy in these United States. Do we know what we are facing in a mounting crisis filled with disinformation and hate and ignorance and prejudice? It’s a daunting task to tell people to be fearful of something they have never experienced.
But we do have something to fear besides fear itself. It’s our own neighbors and it is “US” in the form of a complacent state of mind that surrounds those who don’t know what Project 2025 means and have no idea or no worries about an impending Trump regime. It seems the Boiling Frog Theory is upon us. But the good news is this: There is still time to jump out of that nice warm water!
