The most important lesson for protecting yourself from financial fraud might well have come from the talented pen of Douglas Adams, and it boils down to two words that echo across Life, the Universe, and Everything: Don’t Panic.
Digital scammers are among the most inventive of low-lifes, if not always the most grammatically adept (although that’s changing, no thanks to AI). They can come at you from many directions: texts, emails, phone calls, phone calls with AI-generated voice forgeries, etc.
They want you to act without thinking. Free money; threats of arrests; your accounts are in danger, Will Robinson; we’re a narco-cartel and we have your grandson, Grandma, even though you just saw him this afternoon and thought he was working a double shift at Target. Disinformation and manipulation is their stock in trade.
I’ve worked with credit unions for *mumble* years, and my best advice for you is: “Be skeptical of drama.”
Banks and credit unions WILL NOT call or text you out of the blue and expect you to enter critical personal information, like your card number, SSN, or PIN. The IRS WILL NOT demand you pay them in iTunes Gift Cards.
The point is don’t rush into acting when you don’t have all the facts. If you’re in doubt, call your financial institution at a trusted number, such as on their website. Don’t rely on links and contact info from unexpected messages.
Now, if you don’t want to be stampeded into compromising your checking account, why would you let yourself be scammed into panic-changing your party’s candidate for President?
President Biden is old, yes. He’s not perfect. There’s plenty of room to criticize policy. He’s still the establishment, and I get the drive to topple all the tables in the temple. There are still a lot of tables that deserve toppling.
However.
President Biden doesn’t have 34 felony convictions.
And yet there’s this hysteria demanding he withdraw. That he can’t possibly win.
Where’s the outrage demanding Trump withdraw? Trump is barely three years younger than Biden, in worse physical condition (regardless of what he paid Ronny Jackson to say—or was it Ronny Johnson?), has a worse track record for disinterested governance. Trump is on tape trying to steal the election in Georgia. And President Biden didn’t throw a temper tantrum that resulted in a riot at the Capitol.
So what’s with this sudden focus on getting President Biden to withdraw?
A sound Administration can make a succession plan. It should have a succession plan. And that succession plan should be respected, even if it involves a woman. Heck, given society’s track record, especially if it involves a woman.
You can’t have a succession plan when someone wants to rip out any pages in the rule book that they can’t profit from personally.
Will President Biden last for another full term? Who knows? None of us knows how long we have left. Yes, President Biden is old. But so is Trump.
President Biden never said he wanted to be a dictator on Day One.
And have you seen this Project 2025 agenda? It’s apocalyptic, anti-constitutional, and anti-American, while playing on racist fears and hatred of the ‘other,’ which I suppose is what the designers are counting on. The leader of the Heritage Foundation flat out says the “revolution … will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.” They are smug bigots threatening violence not for the betterment of society but to conserve their own power and wealth. They are out to suppress diversity of all kinds.
So I can see the temptation to panic. But that’s what the Heritage Foundation, digital scammers of the culture wars, wants us to do.
They must not win.
And they don’t need to win. Recent elections in Europe have stemmed the tide of right-wing ascendancy.
Here’s the thing. Changing a candidate now, especially if it surrenders the theoretical advantage of incumbency, does not seem like a measured response. Changing candidates now just looks like panic, and it’s not going to convince anyone on the other side to change their vote. Anyone still willing to vote for Trump is not going to change their minds because there’s a new, younger name on the other line on the ballot.
So let’s stick the course, and remember what matters. Talk to people, make sure they understand why they need to vote. Do not go gentle into that good night of autocracy. Do not let the sacrifices of our veterans get cast aside to benefit plutocrats. Vote, so you continue to have a voice. Vote, so we can continue to argue over policy and still work towards compromise.
Vote to tell the bullies no.
Life is more than sound-bites, knee-jerk calls for President Biden to step aside because of a bad debate, stories manufactured to whip up panic. Kind of like the modus operandi of a digital scammer. We’ll shut this scam down too. We will not meekly hand our freedoms over, not when we’ve come so far, and not when we still have so far to go.
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
Writing At 1 AM 