Unseriousness Becomes Serious

In September of 2021, the leaders of the National School Boards Association wrote to President Joe Biden to warn him that school boards were the victims of a terrifying wave of domestic terror attacks. For example, parents were attending school board meetings to criticize mask mandates, and some of them were yelling. Many school board members had received email messages that criticized school policies. Chillingly, some parents even went so far as to post criticism on social media.

As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes. As such, NSBA requests a joint expedited review by the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Homeland Security, along with the appropriate training, coordination, investigations, and enforcement mechanisms from the FBI, including any technical assistance necessary from, and state and local coordination with, its National Security Branch and Counterterrorism Division, as well as any other federal agency with relevant jurisdictional authority and oversight.

Helpfully turning to specifics, they asked the president to respond by using “the PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism.”

Like most of you, I’m guessing, I spent the weekend watching footage of terrorism in Israel:

I mostly have nothing to add, because you already know what it is, and you already know what to think of it. But the extraordinary seriousness of the moment reminds me of Warren Buffet’s famous observation about recessions and investors: When the tide goes out, you discover who’s been swimming naked. When serious moments arrive, entire eras of unseriousness are exposed in a flash. Entire structures and systems of unseriousness stand there naked, blinking in the light.

Parking trucks and honking horns is terrorism. Bouncy castles are terrorism. Criticizing the handling of ballots is terrorism. Viking horns dork is a terrorist. Parents at school board meetings are terrorists. None of it is quite like flying paragliders into a rave and murdering everyone who doesn’t run fast enough, but trust us, it’s terrorism.

People are, of course, noticing:

There’s no way to exaggerate the gormlessness of the high-status American clown in the Orange Man Bad era, and they can’t switch it off when the cosplay turns into real action. Why did Hamas attack Israel? Well, here:

Hamas attacked Israel because you didn’t worship Zelenskyy hard enough, MAGAt! Or take this explanation:

See, the mean Republicans are tricking you into thinking the Biden administration is unprepared in a crisis. It was their purpose, their deliberate plan, to pretend-establish the optics of ineptitude. It’s all a rhetorical game, the experts explained, as bullets began to pockmark the wall behind their chests.

My strong impression is that we’re staring down the barrel of a cascading systems failure, with a long year of “WHY IS TRUMP DOING THIS TO US” to come. They’re trying to make you think that Biden is unprepared!

It’s like rolling into battle in a clown car, hunkered down in the back seat while the rest of your platoon adjusts their big red rubber noses and comically giant shoes, until blood and brains litter the upholstery. Beep beep!