Move Slowly and Mend Things

Thoughts on repair in a time of destruction

Etty and the Ford Excursion (for scale)

We arrived in Montana on Monday to find our friend’s house encased in a thick duvet of snow. Before we could get inside Ross and Owen had to get shovels out of the garage and create a path from the drive to the front porch. Another six or seven inches fell that night, but since then the skies have cleared and we’ve ventured out a little further. Yesterday we were in Whitefish, a large ski resort where we ate Nutella crepes, and today we dropped Ross back to the airport in Kalispell.

Montana is quiet right now. People are hunkered down and riding out the sharp end of winter inside of their houses. The mountains spend their time completely shrouded by cloud or amongst clear skies; there doesn’t seem to be a happy medium. I suppose the same could be said for American politics wherein the most extreme and dystopian version of Trumpism is playing out writ large. But like the tops of these mountains, Trumpism is both omnipresent and invisible to the average person on the street.

‘Move fast and break things’ say the tech bros. And they are doing their best – dismantling federal agencies and backtracking on their commitments to DEI now that it’s not politically expedient to do so. Elon Musk seems to be revelling in his new role as destructor in chief, giving interviews as if he’s embarking upon some noble quest for which he was uniquely ordained.

On the flight from Texas to Montana I listened to an episode of Ezra Klein’s podcast in which he spoke to tech reporter Kara Swisher, a journalist who has covered Musk for several years. She pointed out that Musk is deeply influenced by video game culture, in which he is ‘Ready Player One’ and ‘everybody else is an N.P.C, a non-player character. He always has to be the hero or the person who matters most … He tends to overstate problems. Most companies have problems, but: Everything is a disaster here, and I’m here to fix it.’

As the interview progresses, Swisher points out that these tech bro types are often quick to offer their ‘disaster’ prognosis without offering any meaningful solutions. The sheer fact of their intervention itself is presented as a way by which the problem can be solved, and we should just be grateful for it. (Thank you DOGE!) And yet, far from ‘fixing things’, the drama and events of the past few days are intended to undermine not just the system of fabric American governence, but the very foundations of Western liberal democracy, upending the whole thing as if it’s some clapped out business in need of a do-over.

Fascism is might over right, conspiracy over reality, fiction over fact, pain over law, blood over love, doom over hope. - Timothy Snyder

We are now experiencing what a full-throated fascist presidency looks like for the first time in American history. Gone are the pretences and teething pains of Trump’s first term, in which he didn’t understand how to fully rig the system. His second term is designed to rectify these weak spots through a series of shock and awe proclamations. Of course this time round we no longer have the energy to be shocked. We read with horror Trump’s efforts to blackmail Ukraine into a ‘peace deal’, but we no longer feel unsettled in the way we once did. This is just Trump being Trump, after all.

These men are banking on our sense of apathy, or more specifically, on our inaction in the face of their wanton and reckless destruction. They think of us as ‘non-player characters’ who lack agency in our world and in our lives, and who will willingly accept their analysis of how things are.

In the face of fascism, part of our work is to see things for what they are, and to reject their counterfactual version of events. Of course, one snag is that fascists tap into real feelings of frustration and unhappiness with The Way Things Are in order to exploit them for political and economic gain. Those of us wanting to reject fascism must recognise the legitimate concerns and needs of those who have succumbed to the fascist narrative. So yes, we must acknowledge that liberal democracy isn’t perfect; too often it has created a system of leadership which is removed from the urgent and practical needs of the people. But it is not, as some argue, a system which is broken beyond repair. It can and should be fixed by people of good faith; not those who stand to gain from its destruction.

I come from a family of repairers. The spider is a repairer. If you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it. - Louise Bourgeois

I’m not sure repair work is something that comes naturally to America. For example, as a relatively young nation with unlimited land and resources, it perhaps instinctively makes sense to level out tired buildings start over in pursuit of something bigger and better.

The friends who are hosting us here run a Texas-based business which repairs and restores old Model T cars. Hours and hours are spent dismantling, cleaning, fixing and reassembling these machines, which were never expected to still be on the road after a century or more. In many ways, it is a deeply counter cultural activity to undertake. The money spent on restoration is often more than the price of buying another, much more reliable vehicle. Ross, Jennifer and their colleagues are fixers, people who see value and joy in the act of repair itself.

Whilst he was with us this week, Ross set about fixing the heating system in the Excursion (above), an absolute monolith of a 4x4 which he brought up from Texas to Montana. It’s over twenty years old and no longer in production. When Ross bought it, it was completely broken down. People with less confidence would most probably have junked the van, believing it was the natural end of the road. But Ross, knowing his ability to extend the lifespan of cars, was able to resurrect the engine and drive it 2000 miles north, where it is now ferrying us safely around.

Our democracies require people committed the work of repair, which, unlike its destructive counterparts, is often slow and inconspicuous. The good news is that these people already exist and are already making the case for rebuilding our sense of trust and possibility in the democratic project. They are your local counsellors and school teachers, campaigners and yes, even your politicians. These are the non-player characters which Musk and Trump don’t account for: are you ready and willing to join them?

Some things helping me make sense of the world:

1. ‘What Elon Musk Wants’ The Ezra Klein Show

2. This review of Ash Sarkar’s forthcoming book ‘Minority Rule’ which I plan to read as soon as I get my hands on a copy. ‘Her hyper-caffeinated prose and acid observations are unquestionably a joy to read. Here she is on a leafy enclave in Islington: ‘Ocado delivery vans glided serenely through the streets … A moment of eye contact with a chic young mum improved my credit rating.’

3. ‘Reality is Right Here’ from Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter The Imperfectionist (H/T Emma Winterleigh) - ‘there’s one piece of advice I’m confident applies to basically everyone: as far as you can manage it, you should make sure your psychological centre of gravity is in your real and immediate world – the world of your family and friends and neighborhood, your work and your creative projects, as opposed to the world of presidencies and governments, social forces and global emergencies. This will make you happier. It will make you more meaningfully productive. And to whatever extent it falls to you to be an active citizen – to be engaged in politics, say, or in otherwise addressing world events – it’ll make you better at that, too. There really is no downside.’

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