Common sense is “the ability to use good judgment in making decisions, and to live in a reasonable and safe way.”

What is happening in our federal government right now defies common sense, and is counter to the country’s most basic interests. Common sense demands that we push back against the foolishness that has upended our identity and our security as Americans.

For example, in March, the government “disappeared” an unknown number of people to a prison in El Salvador. Their names and crimes are secret. Families and lawyers cannot contact them. How long will they be gone? What will happen to them? 

We cannot answer those questions any better than Argentinians could between 1976 and 1983 during “one of the darkest periods in Latin American history,” when that nation was ruled by a military junta that “disappeared” over 10,000 people. We have seen, however, the photos of men, their heads shaved, their arms shackled, kneeling on the floor surrounded by uniformed men with weapons.

Common sense tells us that such images and such behaviors are contrary to America’s rule of law. No one in this country should fear a knock on the door that leads to a foreign prison where they are subject to brutal conditions, isolated from their families, and denied legal representation.  

It’s not only suspected criminal aliens who are disappearing — so is our history. The rush to scrub anything that can be labelled “DEI” from federal websites and policies defies common sense. The history of Black Americans, women and Native Americans is being expunged — first from libraries and schools, but also significantly from the Pentagon. Websites that highlighted the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen, Jackie Robinson, the code-talkers of World War II, and the first women to serve or to serve with distinction were removed. Some sites have been restored, but not all.

Currently, 35% of active-duty men in the military are Black or Hispanic. Fully 50% of active-duty women are Black or Hispanic. When you erase the history of these people’s predecessors, and eliminate any reference to or observance of Black or women’s history, how do you suppose those soldiers, Marines, flyers or seamen feel? Does it inspire loyalty? Will it help the Pentagon recruit new people and maintain readiness?

How about the chainsaw budget cuts being made by Elon Musk — with the approval of our president and the passive acceptance of the Republican majority in Congress? Does it make sense to eliminate weather balloons from the National Weather Service’s toolkit for forecasting weather? When a nation has sophisticated, proven technology that benefits its citizens, why stop using it?  

Does it make sense to cut staff from institutions that are already shorthanded, like the IRS, the VA, or the National Parks? Only if your long game is to destroy those institutions completely, on the excuse that they are no longer working like they are supposed to work (because you have cut their staff).  Common sense sees through that ploy.

Where is the sense in rolling back environmental protections for air and water? This administration doesn’t believe in climate change, but does believe in fossil fuels. Therefore, they want to eliminate regulations that restrict pollution. Ask Californians if their air is cleaner today than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Ask residents of Cleveland if the Cuyahoga River has caught fire lately, or if the EPA rules restricting industrial waste have worked. Does it make sense to go back to a time when environmental regulation was non-existent or extraordinarily weak? Does it make sense to jeopardize the quality of air and water, just to give industry free rein to pollute?

Does common sense tell us that Canada is a threat to our national security or to our economy? We share a language, and the longest (as yet) unguarded border between any two nations in the world. Our economies are linked in a way that has benefited us both. Why the tariffs? Why the snide insults about “Gov. Trudeau” and the weird offer to make a nation geographically larger than our own the 51^st state? This makes no sense.

And wasn’t the era of colonialism something we studied in school? Why the aggressive posture toward Greenland and the Panama Canal? Does our government have the tools to administer such faraway places? Does the culture in those places resemble our own? Do those people want to be Americans? And why extend our borders when we have issues to tend to at home? It makes no sense.

Does it make sense to upend or eliminate government services that Americans expect and rely on? The Post Office, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, the Veterans’ Administration, food safety inspections, tracking disease outbreaks, supporting science at our universities, welcoming international students to our classrooms — all of these are under threat. Each makes life better for some group of Americans. But when wealth and privilege insulate people from the larger public, such services can seem like “fraud” or “waste.” 

The new secretary of Commerce has remarked that if his 94-year-old mother-in-law missed a Social Security payment, she wouldn’t complain. Of course not. Her son-in-law is a billionaire. Duh. The rest of us would have a much harder time.

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A side note: the administration has made “DEI” a scapegoat for much of this disruption. Say the words out loud: Diversity, equity and inclusion. Diversity acknowledges the benefits of different backgrounds and points of view. Equity removes barriers that apply only to certain groups. (Remember how in the movie "Hidden Figures" the women of color's restroom was a half mile away?) Inclusion opens the door to people who are marginalized: the amputee who checks you into the hospital lab, the person in the wheelchair who teaches, the individual whose service dog alerts her to seizures, so that she can take her meds and get back to work. How can you make a sensible argument against these values, which are the hallmarks of a mature democratic civilization? The only way is to argue for homogeneity, inequality and exclusion. That might work for gangs or fraternal organizations. It has no place in America.

What is happening in our federal government is part of a radically undemocratic coup by people who lack a commonsense understanding of life in the 21st century. What the Trump people are doing will not make life for ordinary Americans any better. It is designed by and beneficial to the already wealthy and powerful.  

Common sense tells us that resistance is the only righteous response.  

— Community Columnist Barbara Mezeske is a retired teacher and resident of Holland. She can be reached at bamezeske@gmail.com.