The Times They Are A-Changin’ 2: Election Boogaloo

Both the song's author and I are trying to convey that American society is on the precipice of great and significant change. How we respond matters.

Jeff Feldman, MSW, LSW

Mar 09, 2025

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Hear ye, Hear ye, everyone, everywhere! We are in a world of shit.

Or, as it was more sweetly put by the bard, Dylan: “Come gather 'round people wherever you roam; And admit that the waters around you have grown.”

Yeah. We’re in it deep.

Both the poet and I are trying to convey that American society is on the precipice of great and significant change. Warning tremors went mindlessly unheeded and now seismic upheavals rock our shores. There is no question. We are balanced on a tight rope between two heaving poles. And the rope is about to snap. Something is going to give, if it hasn’t already. The questions we need to consider now are which way will we fall, how far, how fast, and can we survive the landing?

As I see it at this moment, the answers are we are falling in a way that will lead to great harm, falling farther and faster than most of us thought possible, and falling in a way that may not prove fatal, but will at least be crippling to our nation and its people.

Incredibly wealthy, incredibly undisciplined, incredibly dishonest, corrupt, and power-hungry actors are misusing the people’s legitimate and passionate desire for radical change—stoked by the tinder of rage, fear, and hate—as an excuse to take a chainsaw to a situation requiring a scalpel.

Should we seek, for instance, to root out fraud and waste? Absolutely. But to do so takes time and thorough investigation. It plays out over months and even years, not days. You measure. You assess. You plan a skillful intervention. You wind down programs over time to ensure the least disruption and the least possible harm to whomever will be impacted by the program discontinuation. Smart leaders know that. What’s happening now is simply wanton, vengeful, gleeful destruction.

Seriously, can we get an adult in the room? Because the president of the United States and the richest man in the world are demolishing our country’s institutions and causing harm with the wicked delight of two four-year old sadists plucking the wings off bees. Sure, it’s a laugh riot for the guys doing the plucking; but ask the bees how they feel. This is rule by the bullies. It’s a fan fiction sequel to the 2020 election, written by the frat boy jock Alpha Betas who were dethroned in the 1984 movie, “Revenge of the Nerds.”

Are these hyenas really the best we can do? Let’s not forget, the current president once declared during the 2016 presidential campaign that he "could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and [he] wouldn't lose any voters." Is this the kind of sociopathic braggadocio, reckless privilege, and sheer disregard for the laws of our land that should result in someone occupying the highest seat in American government? No matter how strong the desire for change, the ends can’t justify these means.

Time for a hard truth. We screwed up the 2024 election. All of us, the American electorate. That’s the Boogaloo. We danced with the wrong partners, to the wrong tunes, for far too long, for what we thought were all the right reasons, and now we’re paying for it.

Yes, this country needs change. Many, many things are broken. I see that now more clearly than I did six months ago. But I believe we have the strength and ability to fix those supports that are failing and rebuild those frames that have fallen. Forces whispering otherwise in our ears—or more accurately screaming at us through screens—want to weaken our resolve. They want us to be so filled with rage, hatred, disgust, and lust for revenge that we rejoice in their reckless and destructive behaviors. They want us to see enemies everywhere, even among our trusted friends.

However, we need not dance to that piper’s tune. I still truly believe in the promise of America and the good of the vast majority of the American people.

So, here’s my tea. I don’t care who you voted for anymore, or even whether you voted. I know why most of us made the choices we made on Election Day. We tried to make the best decision we could, with the information we had, for what we felt would be our own well-being and the well-being of our families and loved ones. Who can fault that? We are humans; logical at times, but at other times driven by passionate and wild sentiment. We strive to make the best decisions we can under the dueling influences of logic and emotion. I still believe that the majority of us did not cast our votes with the intent to cause harm to others.

But look at the results. Cut-first-measure-later decisions. Giddy retribution. Utter disregard for morals, ethics, the rule of law, common decency, intellect, kindness, compassion, altruism, and basic humanity. This is not how good and wise leaders behave.

Please, believe me when I tell you THIS WANNA-BE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES. He and the richest man in the world are selling fake magic beans. We are living out the very fables we have told ourselves for generations.

I firmly believe millions of Americans voted for this president, and this regime, desperately hoping for change, but without a full understanding of what could be the negative outcomes of that vote. Now, we’re seeing the darkest timeline emerge. I suspect many people will slowly awaken to the reality of what we have allowed to take hold in this country. When they do, we need to be willing to receive them with open arms.

I suggest one way we can do that is by Leading with Love. We must not meet the shock, remorse, and confusion people may express with derision, anger, dismissal, shame, and smug “told you so’s.” Instead, we must remember they are human beings with flaws, a feature we all share. We should recognize them as people who are learning and growing daily, as are we all. Rather than ostracize and further estrange, we should welcome them back warmly to community, lest they seek to return to the arms of hatred and extremism. They are our family members. Neighbors. Coworkers. The people who enrich our lives. Listen to them. See them. Heal with them. This is how we can truly reclaim our nation’s greatness.

If this regime breaks too many things, or the wrong thing, we risk societal collapse. What, then, becomes of us, the average, everyday people? I care about the answer to that question. I bet you do, too. We have a shared interest in halting the death spiral in which we now find ourselves.

You know who doesn’t? Billionaires.

Consider this: the richest man in the world is obsessed with colonizing Mars. Why do you think that is? He claims it is in the name of human progress, and perhaps it is, on some level. But he’s ultimately playing a game of unending, compassionless consumption focused on the massive accumulation of wealth. He will literally drain us dry. And when the billionaire oligarchs have stripped our planet of its vital and limited resources, when they are done pillaging and raping Lady Liberty, when they have stripped from her desecrated carcass the tattered remains of the fabric upon which our country was founded and left her broken, bereft, and barren on the ash heap of history… they are going to go to Mars. Because there won’t be anything left of the Earth worth owning.

Those of us who will be left behind are beneath their notice. They don’t care about us. They never did. It’s going to be you, me, and the rest of the wingless bees trying to make do in a world stripped of natural resources, buried in the rubble of once enviable infrastructure, and littered in the waste of their industrial run off. Welcome to the Thunderdome, my friends.

So here we are. We cannot undo what has already been done. As Dylan observed more than 60 years past, “the line [has been] drawn, the curse it is cast.” From this point forward, there is no turning back.

This is where we, the American people, find ourselves in early March 2025. And while our “present now will later be past,” our future is yet unwritten. Until then, we have the present. We have this moment.

We can live with humility and choose to learn from our mistakes, rather than heed the destructive call of hatred. We can choose to grow. To learn. To heal. We can actively choose to Lead with Love.

Hate is divisive; it cannot repair. Hate only destroys. But Love can unite.

As the great Mahatma Gandhi taught, we can be the change we want to see in this world. It is my emphatic belief that if we strive to be our best selves, if we’re prepared to let empathy and understanding blossom, if we can live with humility, curiosity, and patience, then the times, indeed, will be a-changin'.

Words over Swords

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