The term anticipatory obedience is popping up a lot these days to describe educators, politicians and bazillionaires who are crawling on their bellies like reptiles before anyone is forcing them to do so.
As Timothy Snyder writes in “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” people will preemptively do what they think the authorities want them to do either to avoid harm or to gain advantage.
Here in Trump’s America, universities are abandoning their DEI commitments before Elon’s Musketeers defund them. Members of Congress are ceding the power of the purse to the executive branch. News executives are leashing the watchdog to stave off attacks on press freedoms.
It’s a sickening spectacle. At a time when we most need profiles in courage, we’re seeing capitulation. When tech titans and U.S. senators grovel, it’s inexcusable. These are people with considerable power, yet they’re behaving like sniveling courtiers.
Of course, not everyone can afford heroism. We can’t blame workers with mouths to feed and rent to pay for trying to dodge Musk’s chainsaw.
Which brings me to a third group: retirees, or those (like yours truly) who are close enough to retirement to make a big noise because they ain’t got nothin’ to lose. It’s up to us elders to speak on behalf of those who cannot safely speak for themselves.
There’s got to be some advantage to getting old, right? We may be losing a few miles per hour off the fastball, but we who are past the career-building years and needn’t worry about getting forced out or marginalized are free to speak our minds. And so I am calling on my fellow Baby Boomers to march on Washington to let Congress know that we’re mad as hell.
I’m calling it the Million Alte Kaker March, alte kaker being a Yiddish term that, politely translated, means geezer. My march takes it inspiration from the Million Man March, held 30 years ago – a gathering of African-American men meant to combat stereotypes and promote unity and responsibility among Black men. (Note: This is not an endorsement of Million Man March organizer Louis Farrakhan.)
The Million Man March begat the Million Woman March, which begat the Million Family March, which begat the Million Worker March, which begat the Million Puppet March (in support of continued funding for public broadcasting, i.e., Big Bird).
None of these marches actually drew a million people (or puppets). The Million Man March came closest, with as many as 800,000 participants (which, btw, is more than attended Trump’s 2016 inauguration).
We Boomers, 73 million strong, should be able to top that, even minus the older Trump voters who think everything’s hunky-dory in our teetering democracy and those who, alas, still need their jobs and are not in a position to speak freely.
I originally came up with the idea of the Million Alte Kaker March to stop the madness in a war zone. I pictured the geezers striding (or shuffling) onto the field of battle armed with nothing more than waggling fingers and shaming the combatants into ceasing and desisting.
Now, clearly, the waggling and shaming are needed closer to home.
Do I think it will do any good? Not with Trump, it won’t. But think of all those Republican senators who voted to confirm so many grossly unfit nominees to the big guy’s cabinet. Some of those lambs of the Senate are surely delusional in that MAGA way. Most, though, held their noses and voted against their conscience. Why? Because they fear losing their precious seats to a Trump loyalist.
The job of being a U.S. senator pays $174,000 per year – a nice living for most of us, but, as Thomas Friedman recently implied in The New York Times, chump change compared to what these gutless wonders can make in the private sector. That tells you how much they value the prestige and power of the position, which in turn tells you how susceptible they are to shifting political winds.
It’s easy to dismiss political protests as rites of self-soothing that don’t accomplish much; history tells us otherwise. When enough people raise their voices in opposition to a senseless war or to demand justice for all, the world changes. People power is real. Leaders must follow if they want to keep their jobs.
So what do you say, my fellow alte kakers? Trump thought his and his vice president’s tag-team bullying of Volodymyr Zelensky made great television. Let’s see how the National Guard manhandling a bunch of 70-80-90-year-olds plays on TV. Hey, JD, you wanna piece of me?
Am I serious? As usual, I’m half-serious, in this case maybe more than half-serious. I can’t organize my sock drawer let alone a protest march, but I’d love to see someone else take this idea and run with it.
Let’s march for our kids and grandkids – and for the kids and grandkids of the most vulnerable among us.
