The opposite of vandalism is beautification
Trump and his allies are tearing everything down. The economy. Leading institutions of education and research, systems for public health and safety, and with no other apparent motive but the gleeful destruction itself. NOAA, USAID, Department of Education, US Institute for Peace, the EPA, the NIH, The Kennedy Center for the Arts, the Smithsonian Institution; each has experienced, or is targeted for, a deliberate, and in some cases complete, dismemberment.
And the demolition crew is targeting not just the important work done by civil servants at these many institutions, but also the deeper social commitments that these institutions represent. They are not just dismantling the CDC, for example, they are disavowing the role of the state in public health. They are not just tearing down the EPA, they are tearing up the precautionary principle and rejecting the very premise of environmental justice.
But Why?!
Just about every imaginable strategy that could be driving these dramatic actions by Trump and Co. has now been debated at length. Some think they’re playing checkers, others n-dimensional chess. Some point to their undeniable racism and supremacism, and a few just chalk it all up to utter stupidity. There’s probably something a little right about all of these explanations, though I do think we assume these people are stupid at our own peril.
But there’s no easy explanation for all of this; no single strategy that fully accounts for all their behavior, all the time. To some extent, that is because each character in Trump’s circle is pursuing their own agenda. Musk, for example. is certainly not in this for the same reasons as Stephen Miller.
But what if there simply isn’t a specific instrumental goal behind many of the harms they are inflicting? I think we’re looking too hard for clear rationales when in many cases these are just acts of vandalism. They are not intended to fit into any bigger strategy, except perhaps out of happy coincidence. The damage is the point. That, and also the sadism they enjoy in inflicting it.
Musk didn’t merely close the US Institute for Peace, he took their building as a trophy. The scrubbed history from National Park websites, the deleted datasets on environment and climate, the photo-ops in front of illegally detained and deported Venezuelans, these are their trophies. These are their Abu Ghraib photos.
Reaction and fortification
One thing I’ve noticed something in my own reactions to what this administration has done over the last 11 weeks is that I keep finding myself adopting what I can only describe as conservative (lowercase C) positions: appeals and arguments made in defense of existing institutions. And if you know any of my work, you know I spend most of my time arguing against the status quo. Two years ago, radical change was the premise of my podcast. Radical change to our food systems, radical change to our economies, radical change to how care for and protect one another, radical change to how we care for and protect the environment. Protect the EPA or FDA or USDA? I was talking about how each of these needed to be improved.
But now I’m putting so much of my energy into making the case for preserving them as they were a few months ago. It pains me to realize how fully I’ve allowed this group of vandals to abandon my own imagination, how much I’ve allowed myself to retreat into fortification, to become a turtle pulled into its shell.
To be fair, everyone ducks when they hear a loud crash or explosion. And to be clear, I think people should absolutely stand up for the institutions they care about and stand against the bully that would vandalize them. But to be successful, those acts can’t comprise the core of a political countermovement to Trumpism. A successful political countermovement needs to be framed around its own aspirations. And what better aspirations are there than expanding equity, redressing past harms, and making our communities more tolerant, pluralistic, and just?
The opposite of vandalism is beautification
Vandalism is an act of defamation. The vandal is saying, “this thing, this place, this monument, has no inherent value.”
One option, when confronted with vandalism, is preservation. To put up fences and cameras, to hire security, to fortify the thing from the vandal. Preservation is what we’re doing as we seek out any and all means to protect the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. But while preservation is a reasonable goal, it is not the opposite of vandalism.
To oppose the vandal, we need to do more than preserve what we have. We need to see ways to further beautify the things we value.
Consider litter. Research has shown that when people are in spaces already littered, they are more likely to litter themselves. But in spaces that are well maintained and beautified, people behave very differently.
On April 5th, something between 3 and 5 million people showed up at protests around the country. I was at the event at the Capitol Building in Sacramento alongside thousands of other Californians. My number one take-away was the joy and humor that people brought to the event. There were people in all sorts of costumes and attire. There was an Easter Bunny, a dinosaur, even a penguin. People had all manner of clever signs and banners. And at the center of it all was a taco truck and a rock band playing songs like “American Idiot.” There was lots of energy, lots of color, and a whole lot of people smiling and laughing.
Some on social media criticized the protests as being too unserious or “cringe.” For me, the joyfulness of it all is what made the event day so inspiring and cathartic. Each person chose how to show up, and most chose to show up not just with resolve, but with flair.
If vandalism is about taking value away through deliberate destruction, beautification is about finding unexpected and radical ways to instill value. Street artists beautify urban neighborhoods with murals and graffiti art that instill abandoned lots and marginalized streetscapes with aesthetic and cultural value. And On April 5th, the protest was a sort of living street mural: spontaneous, irreverent, and self-styled. Sacramento is a city known for its murals, so the protest, IMHO, fit right in.
A provocation
Any candidate for vandalism is also a candidate for beautification. They want to tear down federal science? Instead of just defending the NSF and NIH, we should advocate for the many amazing things would be possible if we invested even more in their strategic development. They want transgendered women out of sports? Instead of just defending the rights of transgendered people, we could be advocating for how a nation that fully accepts diversity is a better place for everyone. They want to repeal the ACA? Instead of just defending Obamacare, add our voices to the vision of Medicare for all. They attack unions? Instead of only defending workers’ rights or the minimum wage, call for a basic income guarantee and expanded collective bargaining. Don’t just support taxes on billionaires, share your vision for what our society might look like fully enriched with that money.
These may seem like platform-level issues, the realm of the pundits and aspirational politicians. But I think beautification is a form of direct action we all have access to. We can support local libraries, host book groups, serve on school boards, participate in book swaps and tool libraries, do some guerilla grafting, paint a new mural in the dark of night, no opportunity to inject radical positivity into the world around us is too small.
The thing about vandalism is that it has a bottom. There’s a point of destruction where there’s nothing left to destroy. In other words, their strategy is limited, and on diminishing returns. That isn’t true about beautification — there will always be opportunities to bring more color and joy into the world.
