Let’s keep our focus on the right target.
Our heads are spinning. Each day brings a barrage of bad news about the new administration’s haphazard and harmful decisions. As we’ve written, that’s their strategy.
You know what else is part of the strategy? Getting us to turn on one another, arguing about direction, while they plow forward.
Many organizations we care about—including NGOs and universities—are in the fight to address these wrongs. But they’re also finding themselves in the difficult position of having to pick their battles in a multi-front war. Or having to do business differently under threat of losing critical funding or the access they need to make their case on issues.
To be sure, the choice of which orders to comply with and which threats to prioritize and how should be a matter of open debate. Constituents should engage. None of this is easy, particularly in this new terrain.
But let’s approach these questions with a sense of empathy for the organization and pragmatism for the situation we’re in. And above all, let’s not turn on ourselves. Because I already see that happening.