Marcus Alden Meredith

April 29, 2025

100 Days of Chaos

Tyranny and Self-Deception

Since the days of FDR, American presidents have had to compare themselves with the first 100 days of the Roosevelt presidency who gave us the idea of the 100 days after he came into office and reminded us that, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Objectively, its a stupid and poorly constructed benchmark, but in FDR’s time at the height of the Great Depression it was a necessity to calm the chaotic waters of the politics of Hoover and his anemic response to the crisis before him. It was, of course, the birth of The New Deal. But 93 years ago is a long time and the evolution of the body politic has seen major changes since then… an yet some things still stay the same too. Let’s examine things…

Just listing the historical events is daunting: The Great Depression, WWII, The Cold War, Vietnam, Civil Rights for so many, the decline of the manufacturing economy and the rise of the service economy, the Apollo/Moon missions, the information revolution, the internet, iPhones, Social Media, and on, and on, and on.  Looking at the social changes is just as dizzying and for some perhaps more so. When I was still young, my mother couldn’t have a credit card in her own name without my father co-signing for it. The thought of that is ridiculous now but it was just as much so back then. When I was going through high school, we had 4 channels on the TV and the biggest show on was Happy Days, a retrospective on the 50’s. I couldn’t understand why then… now I get it. When the power dynamics of a culture start to shift, those who had the power (ie. straight, white, christian males mostly) began to yearn for when their ascendancy was unquestioned and “everyone” knew their place and theirs was “on top.” It’s not entirely crazy to see that those who were in power would feel like they were being discriminated against when they always took it as a given that “they” were special but not anymore. It’s a false view, but an understandable one. It’s this delusional thinking that has given us a  twice divorced, twice impeached, sexual predator and 34 time felon in the Oval office (again). And it’s other delusional thought processes that gave him a chance to “move fast and break things.” It only goes to prove two old adages: “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.” and “Countries get the governments they deserve.” They thought that just because he is a “business man” he would run things better (as if business has EVER had ANYTHING to do with public service… it doesn’t) is just another nail in the coffin of confidence in the American people to make good choices. I hope I’m wrong, but I have yet to see the proof.

So, 100 days into the administration we see less freedom, the utter disregard for the rule of law, a feckless Congress no better than the Senate in Imperial Rome, financial chaos, verbal spitting in the face of our friends and allies, all the while playing to the supposed grips and complaints of Americans who are neophobic, xenophobic, and willing to abandon some freedoms for what they think of as more security while utterly forgetting the admonitions of Benjamin Franklin about deserving neither. The Democratic party has done no better and certainly doesn’t seem to have any clue about how a big chunk of men feel they have been abandoned by the elite in this country (which they have, just not in the way they always think they have been). And the educational system I was once a part of moves and changes at such a glacial pace as to be candidates for a complete overhaul. So there’s plenty of grips and blaming of “others” to go around. But if we are to truly be upright and honest, the person to blame is the one we see in the mirror. Perhaps no one said it better than the essayist and journalist H.L. Mencken when discussing democracy as he saw it almost 100 years ago:

“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental…

So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge. …

All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men.

As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.

We move toward a lofty ideal.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

– H.L. Mencken, July 26, 1920

And so we have finally achieved what Mencken was warning us about. And yet, it could be even more insidious. This president believes his own mythology and feels it his God-given right to rule without discretion or any form of accountability as a potentate who tells us, “Only I can fix it!” The reality is that he is a narcissist, a social reprobate, and and authoritarian with delusions of grandeur who in another time we would call Caesar. He is an agent of Chaos, not some savior of the people. His first 100 days are testament to his pathology. His administration is a kakistocracy. The Markets know it, but so browbeaten are their C.E.O.’s that they are like abused dogs not willing to bite back at his market and tariff insanity. The courts, institutions based on deliberative and logical administration of justice and logical argumentation, are under constant attack by this fascist… will they be able to survive? Remember that this president is a product of a Yale education (supposedly), and so here we have a perfect example of a man certified as educated but who rarely if ever reads. Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers…. not this one…

So what do we do? That is a very personal choice. I am a just a blog writer and essayist. I can only hope that the American people will come out of their mental and spiritual stupor before it is too late. I know I will resist where I can, but compared to the world, I have power only over myself… and the power of my words. Resist… resist. It may only be that you don’t buy a TESLA. It may be that you send money to the ACLU. It may be that you switch from Republican to Democrat or Independent. Whatever you do, think long and hard on this. Reason is the antithesis of Chaos. Be discriminate in your news intake. Question everything the Administration says. Write your representatives. March if you think you must. Even the grandest of rocks will fade and break with a million drops of water hitting it every day over time. Resist the darkness… resist. If the body of Democracy in America is to die, do not be party to it’s demise. Resist. Do not let it’s light fade away unchallenged. Remember the words of Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.