Fast, furious, and chaotic are the intended methods of deceivers and warlords. Their strategy is to keep the enemy always guessing, reacting, on the move, disoriented, and exasperated. By creating shock and disruption, their tactics allow less noticeable but more consequential moves to occur when the enemy isn’t looking. It’s an old and well-tested battlefield tactic among militaries and well-resourced kingpins. But what happens when the strategy is deployed by the leadership of a nation against its citizens and residents? It would suggest everyday people are now considered enemies of the state. It would also mean, by definition, the leadership resembles a textbook dictatorship that uses fraud, intimidation, propaganda, oppression, and force to achieve its goals and abuse its power for personal gain.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have publically foretold and unashamedly applied a strategy intended to “flood the zone” with chaos, confusion, and distraction. The numerous actions and blanket executive orders are intended to disrupt vast areas of government responsibilities and continuity, eliminate accountability with targeted and discriminatory layoffs among non-partisan government employees, incite fear through nationwide immigration roundups with deportations that deny due process, create anxiety by disrupting economic markets, and just recently, create confusion with an order to immediately stop government-funded payments to vital human services such as school meals, housing assistance, food stamps, child care, preschool programs, suicide hotlines, and Medicaid. These are just a few of the cataclysmic moves made in the last ten days as part of a strategic fast, furious, and chaotic plan.

What is emerging is a clear battle plan intended to disorient and distract everyday people since the President has taken office. Despite the flurry of propaganda through enablers and supporters who claim a righteous victory as immoral and unjust actions are applied to stated enemies, the impacts are more sinister and far-reaching. Everything from fundamental and constitutionally protected human rights to national security, programs that support the disabled, elderly, veterans, and the poor, to the price of everyday goods, including milk and eggs, are at stake.

More importantly, a prosperous future—the very thing promised by the President during the campaign—will only be for a select few in a war against the people. This is the clear work of an autocratic regime fulfilling its campaign goals to upend government norms and seek retribution against its enemies. As it turns out, its enemies also include the people who voted the newly elected President into office.

We are not without hope or agency. These are truly alarming times in every sense of the word. Creating a better tomorrow requires becoming situationally aware with well-informed facts, listening, and retelling the stories of our real-life neighbors who are under threat and fear. Additionally, empathy, patience, courage, and bold truth are necessary to invite our lost neighbors and loved ones home and help them see the unfolding harsh reality around them. The imaginations of our family members, friends, and neighbors have been taken in by a master illusionist who intentionally deceives for personal gain. Many of them have fallen prey to his magic tricks, but the show will inevitably come to an end. 

Progress is about collaboration and problem-solving, even when your elected government uses its seemingly unchecked power to oppress and limit the freedoms of others. So long as we are divided, we cannot create momentum to build a better tomorrow. Unity and strength will come when we keep in sight what’s most important: everyone belongs and is meant for goodness. A movement of hope requires clear-eyed participation, believing in, and taking action on the values that cultivate a better tomorrow for everyone.