KEEPING BUSY – by Jim Kent

In the current climate, outrage fatigue is a real likelihood and a mortal threat.  In order not to be outraged every day, it might help to spread the work around.   Suggestions:

First, hold yourself to one product every week at least until the second week of November in 2026—a letter, an op-ed piece, a social media post.  After you’ve sent that out, take the rest of the week off and sleep the sleep of the just until next week.

The letter can be to a publication’s editor or a Republican elected official or a Republican party organization.  The publication, letter recipient or media site should be a reliably Republican one, the least crazy you can locate. 

Your communication should pick one topic and stick with it for at least six months or even a year.  Repetition helps.  

It will be more effective if you can claim to be a former or current Republican, or at least an independent.  Change your registration temporarily if necessary.  This will lend your arguments heavier credence, and depending on where you live, may allow you to vote for sensible candidates in the primaries.

If you can round up several friends, everybody can take one day a week with the assurance that the work will continue in good hands while they rest up and live a normal life.  You can each pick a topic, or you can all hit the same topic, but stick with it for at least six months or even a year. 

Second, remember to attribute outrages to Republicans, not to any individual.  Whoever did what you’re going on about is the Republican President (or the Republican Administration, or the Republican Congress).  It is important to make Republicans uneasy about their future, and to make voters uneasy about Republicans.  No one should think the world will get better when Littlefingers is out of office.  Never fail to mention that the Party will be the ultimate loser as voters tire of the drama.

Third, remind people of some key realities:  that a tariff is a sales tax paid by US consumers, for example, or that bullies are really cowards just as Mom said. Use words like “cowardly” every chance you get.  Take note that the finance and trade community has adopted the acronym TACO, for Trump Always Chickens Out, to describe his constant flip-flopping on those issues.  He is tough until someone stands up to him, or just ignores him.  TACO also works for our foreign policy related to Putin and Netanyahu, inter alia.

Four, flip his language back on him.  His actions make America ridiculous and weak, not admirable and great.  RINOs are fake Republicans who follow his random eructations instead of the party’s philosophy and tradition. Tariffs are taxes on Us, not Them. He is a lousy negotiator and an unsuccessful businessperson, since his only negotiating approach is bullying and his businesses have all failed. His vaunted intelligence  is fading fast, and probably never existed in the first place. He is not physically attractive, since he looks more like a frog every day and he has bad hair.  And of course little fingers. 

The main thing is to keep at it.  Fatigue is often hard for people to survive, but it’s always fatal for movements.  Excelsior.