Scheming


 We watch President Trump scheme to overturn President-elect Biden's electoral win in the recent election. As I played an online game this morning, I wondered about the President's will and ability to scheme.

What is scheming? Does it ever hold value? What is the difference between schemes and strategies?

As I played the game, I was reminded of the need to be aware of all aspects of the board at the same time. I was also in awe of the way the individual I was playing against could put multiple winning strategies in place at once. I couldn't keep up with my opponent--their timing, strategies, and skill were beyond me, and left me with something to strive for. That's what makes a game enjoyable and challenging. That makes me want to go back for more and get better. It is a positive pasttime.

Yet President Trump schemes via multiple resources and a will to prop up his personal power, privilege, pocketbook, and power. I recognize that this is not a game, but people's lives and livelihoods instead. While he stubbornly uses every plan he can think of to obstruct a peaceful transfer of power, he puts people's lives in jeopardy here and abroad. While most of us save scheeeming of sorts for games of strategy, Trump uses that scheeming in real time, he games with people's lives for his own gain, rather than strategize to work with us and for us.

People decry Trump's heinous, evil, self-serving behavior. We hate the way he wastes our government's good capacity to make life better. What can we do to hault this time-waster, self-server, me-first President?

So far, I know that we can do the following:

  • Contact our elected officials and ask them to act.
  • Support Ossoff and Warnock's wins in Georgia
  • Speak out via your channels to alert others of the Trump team's dangerous and destructive behavior
  • Find ways to support those who are doing good for others in your community
  • Do good yourself
  • Research the issues, forumulate your own set of values and beliefs, and work with and join organizations that forward what you believe in
Trump's Presidency has demonstrated to us what can happen to our good country when hateful Hitler-like leaders like Trump and his bogus cronies gain leadership. We can do better and we must all work for that betterment in ways that we can.