What’s Worse than Weaponized Incompetence ?

The viral discussion on weaponized incompetence illuminates the inconsistencies between capability and execution. America’s greatest social experiment, TikTok, houses these theories on why simple activities like washing the dishes or folding the bed’s fitted sheet are not done well by individuals who simply do not want to. While most examples are of men who weaponize their incompetence in an effort to abstain from stereotypically “feminine” household duties, I would like to turn our attention to another elite player in this game, politicians. Political leaders on all levels historically embody weaponized incompetence in a nefarious manner. Today, we Strategic Cognitive Dissonance as an intentional will to misunderstand a tangible connection, involvement or implication between two entities while promoting a presence of inculpability. As a nation, we have watched officials of congress publicly belittle Supreme Court Nominee, Judge Kentaji Brown Jackson, based on assumptions of race and gender rather than engage with her prodigious professional qualifications. A congressional culture rooted in strategic cognitive dissonance breeds this behavior on both a small and a large scale.

In 2015, the United Nations drafted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals intended to directly address the major social issues currently challenging our collective humanity. This plan commits to eradicate global plagues like poverty and world hunger while building institutions literate in accountability and inclusion all by 2030.

This feels like yet another marketing ploy to offer the people aspiration while simultaneously allowing certain socio-political structures to wield their power limitlessly behind the scenes. When we comb through the fine print of this plan, we see that “the SDGs are not legally binding” but rather “governments are expected to take ownership and establish national frameworks for the achievement of the 17 goals.”

The strategic displacement of power and resources we witness must first be addressed before the 17 SDGs can be effectively realized. This entire ordeal feels like a game of Where’s Waldo? except Waldo is the elephant in the room. The socio-political players expected to establish frameworks to achieve a society free of poverty, hunger and unjust institutions benefit the most from the social ills that predicate these goals, hence their continuation.

GOAL 1 : “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”

The weight of poverty ripples and bends the entire globe. There exists a rapacious habit of mining valuable resources from golden sites which creates recurring modern-day implications. The UN’s first goal identifies the “significant mobilization of resources” as a necessary component when eliminating the struggles of families living on less than $1.25 a day. They then sing praises of a Stakeholder Consultation Workshop organized to gather a group of “policymakers…entrepreneurs and researchers”. To hold a workshop of this size, resources were in fact mobilized. The UN website lists no other measures or movements to follow up on this stakeholder workshop. This gap between goal and gesture moves the needle at an obtuse pace and does little more than ignite the question, who are the stakeholders of poverty?

On March 28, 2022, New York Mayor Eric Adams announced the impending destruction of 150 homeless encampments in his district. The Department of Sanitation and NYPD began the destruction the next day before establishing any rehousing plans or responsive resources. Poverty is not impeded in America, it is policed.

Senator Bryan Hughes of Texas has personally taken the helm to concretize poverty in the South with the Heartbeat Bill. Penalizing birthing people from safe and legal abortions not only disturbingly breeches upon their bodily autonomy, but also can have lifelong implications on the financial stability of families and generations to come. The National Library of Medicine published a journal evincing the inextricable link between poverty and pregnancy, specifically noting a birthing parent has “50% chance of becoming poor within 12 months” of childbirth when they must continue without partner, community, and/or financial support. The members of senate pushing this legislation proclaim they are protecting new life but are blind to the implications this legislation will have on the quality of new life. The governing body’s cognitive dissonance between belief and behavior surpasses coincidental. This shit is strategic.

GOAL 2: “End hunger. Achieve food security and improved nutrition. Promote sustainable agriculture”

The seed of hunger roots itself in poverty. The two are so close in comfort that defining food deserts requires an analysis of two main factors: the limited proximity to a supermarket within 1 mile from 30% of the population and poverty levels of 20% or greater. The accessibility to healthy and whole foods narrows considerably when barriers of both distance and price are introduced. In an era of thunderous inflation, The USDA identifies 13.5 million Americans who live within a food desert.

These statistics compound when we begin to identify a history of restrictive legislation from our strategically and cognitively dissonant political leadership. Ron Finley, who often refers to the food deserts of South Central Los Angeles as “food prisons”, went head to head with city council officials after they slapped him with citations for planting vegetables in his parkway. Two years prior to Finley’s entanglement with the food police, Michigan resident Julie Bass faced misdemeanor charges and 93 days in jail for a similar offense of attempted food autonomy. In a distorted parallel, the Obama-era nutrition policies boosted nationwide school campaigns to transform children’s access to healthy foods. Julie Bass faced jail time in 2011, “improved nutrition standards for school meals were put into action across the United States in 2012” and Ron Finley battled and BEAT the Los Angeles City Council in 2013. To fight for food autonomy against a governing administration who simultaneously preaches the need for accessible and healthy foods is not only maddening, but also impedes our progress as a collective. Are these battles inevitable before the 17 SDGs can be realized by 2030 ?

GOAL 16 : “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.”

Steve’s Hassan, an author and mental health counselor specializing in the psychology of cults, contemplates the strategies of dominance in his BITE Model for Authoritarian Control. Although there are so many fascinating connections between the US government and authoritarian control, today we will highlight the formulaic “rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, [and] constructive criticism” that enables the restriction of free thought. The crusade against teaching critical race theory has been introduced in 42 states and legally imposed in 15 of those states. Incomplete historical teaching has been the status quo for the American school system for generations. In my nearly 20 years of education, I not once learned about the devastating impact of reservation schools in my own classroom. I was misinformed about medical advances considering no biology books spoke of the transformational impact of Henrietta Lacks and her stolen genes. To claim that we will encounter accountable and inclusive institutions without accountable and inclusive education is wishful thinking at best, and maniacal at its worst. Contemporary American legislators believe they can ban critical thinking while the United Nations believes these same legislators will codify accountability and inclusion. It’s giving delusion.

No one social issue exists in a vacuum; they are deeply entrenched in interconnectedness. A common thread is profitability and the strategic cognitive dissonance needed to keep the production plant moving along. Fred Hampton, the historical Black Panther who’s life was taken at bay due to the magnitude of his work, believed “everything would be alright if everything was put back in the hands of the people, and we're going to have to put it back in the hands of the people.” Adrienne Maree Brown asks us in her Octavia’s Parables Podcast, “what are the skill sets of the future?” We will soon need to answer her. Our ability to witness communities bountiful in their autonomy has been subverted for generations but I guarantee, these communities will be necessary in our future. The time to reclaim our community power is here. Strategic Cognitive Dissonance be damned.

Bibliography

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