How not to be above the fray?

What does engagement look like in a world such as ours?

It’s been another weird summer. (2020 was, of course, characterized by the pandemic lockdown. I spent Summer 2021 in my recliner (when I wasn’t off to the bathroom to vomit), laid up with MRSA from a hip replacement gone awry and an allergic reaction to the first antibiotic prescribed to combat it.) This year, I watched my sister’s final months of decline after she’d managed to live a fairly normal life since being diagnosed with stage-four lung and bone cancer last fall. I spent a Sunday afternoon with her three days before she passed away. Two days after her passing, I was back in surgery, getting my right shoulder replaced. I’m writing this with my arm in a sling.

Once again I find myself offering excuses to you, dear Precipice community, hopefully not too lame, for lapses in regularity in posting.

But I also wasn’t sure how to articulate more reflections I have on what seems to be the theme of most essays here these days. That theme, as you know, is how to avoid paralysis while situated on what I’ve depicted as an ever-shrinking slice of ideological terrain.

The question remains the most pressing thing on my mind these days.

A quick summary of the steep cliffs that hem me in on various sides may be in order:

• I obviously can’t come anywhere near Trumpism, for reasons I’ve given repeatedly. It’s a cult in thrall to the most solipsistic, narcissistic, bombastic, sybaritic, cold and developmentally stunted figure to ever enter American politics.

• The Republican Party has continued to show that it has no room for anyone who is not a coward, nut or sycophant. Trumpism’s grip on it is not lessening to any significant degree.

• Signs of drift in some of the institutionalized efforts to provide a safe harbor for actual conservatives concern me. All too often, The Bulwark lends credence to Trumpist mockery of it. On any given day, one finds articles that sign on to collectivism, abandonment of acknowledgement of a transcendent order, and equating political success on the part of Joe Biden with doing a good job. The leadership at Principles First has likewise recently dismayed me, with its position that households headed by two parents of the same sex ought to be encouraged in the name of strengthening the family as society’s cornerstone.

• Theologians I admire, such as Andrew T. Walker and Russell Moore, continue to bravely assert sound doctrine regarding human sexuality, but they’re not reaching anywhere near the number of people that icons popular culture and self-appointed arbiters of what is good and true are reaching. They certainly don’t figure into the above-mentioned efforts to provide conservatives a safe harbor.

• Democrats offer nothing but identity politics militancy, climate alarmism and wealth redistribution.

Evidence that amplification of these trends continues apace has been plentiful since my last piece here at Precipice (“Living Out The Consequences Of Having Nowhere To Go”).

The Inflation Reduction Act, a rebranding of Build Back Better with a pared-down price tag, has been rendered null and void by the student loan cancellation that Biden imposed solely by executive-branch fiat:

• We estimate that President Biden’s proposed student loan debt cancellation alone will cost between $469 billion to $519 billion over the 10-year budget window, depending on whether existing and new students are included. About 75% of the benefit falls to households making $88,000 or less per year.
  

• Loan forbearance for 2022 will cost an additional $16 billion.
  

• Under strict “static” assumptions about student borrowing behavior and using take-up rates within existing income-based repayment programs, the proposed new IDR program will cost an additional $70 billion, increasing total package costs to $605 billion.
  

• However, depending on future details of the actual IDR program and concomitant behavioral changes, the IDR program could add another $450 billion or more, thereby raising total plan costs to over $1 trillion. These details require future study.

On the other side of the political ledger, Trump’s handling of classified documents looks even more reckless, criminal and in utter disregard of national security:

Even with about half of its 38 pages blacked out for security reasons, the Justice Department’s affidavit to get a warrant to search Donald Trump’s residency at Mal-a-Largo is more damning than many of the former president’s critics expected.

The affidavit, written on Aug. 5 and released by a judge on Friday, reported that 15 boxes of documents, which had already been retrieved from the Florida estate early in 2022, contained 184 documents, including 25 marked Top Secret—and that some of those were marked HCS, SI, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN.

In these acronyms lies a scandalous, perhaps literally incriminating story.

HCS means HUMINT Control System, and HUMINT means Human Intelligence—in other words, intelligence gathered from spies. Documents marked HUMINT may contain the identities of spies, as well as information obtained from them.

SI means Special intelligence and concerns intercepts of foreign communications, including information about the technology and operations used by foreign governments to transmit or collect information.

FISA means information, also concerning communications intercepts, processed through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

ORCON stands for Originator-Controlled, meaning that dissemination—even within the government, even to officials who hold Top Secret clearances—must first be approved by the originator (for instance, the CIA, if the document originated with the CIA).

NOFORN means that the document cannot be released to foreign governments or citizens.

In other words, at least some of the documents in Mar-a-Lago were among the most sensitive in any president’s files. The FBI special agent who filed the affidavit wrote that he had “probable cause” to believe there were more boxes, containing more highly classified documents, still hidden away at Mar-a-Lago, many of them in unsecured locations. The judge who approved the request agreed.

With the court-ordered search of the estate on Aug. 8, the Justice Department has now reportedly retrieved more than 300 classified documents.

The precise contents of these documents are not publicly known—they are probably hidden beneath the black lines of redaction—and may never be. But earlier this week, when release of the affidavit was still pending, an official familiar with the search told the Washington Postthat the documents contained “among the most sensitive secrets we hold.” Judging from the security markings alone, this may very well be true.

Now, here’s the dilemma for someone in my position: I am keenly interested in avoiding charges along the lines of, “Well, doesn’t that make you clever, to be above the fray, watching all this happen to our society and civilization from a vantage point the absolves you from getting your hands dirty making a difference?”

I know of some pundits who come close to making a world-weary pose out of their disillusionment. One sort of wonders what the point of writing can even be for them.

But what does engagement look like for someone for whom principles are primary in a world where said principles are generally either mocked or ignored?

In the more recognizable world of my younger years, the political calculation to cast one’s lot with forces best aligned with one’s values seemed like a wise course. There always seemed like another day before us in which to fight anew.

That way of proceeding now looks to me like the unavoidable unleashing of toxic forces.

Why do I continue to write, particularly about this set of circumstances?

Maybe I’m being called to offer that above-mentioned port in the storm. I do hear from Precipice readers that this site gives voice to their deep frustrations.

Maybe among us we can begin to see a viable way forward.

Your feedback is proof that we’re not alone, and that’s no small thing.