People In The U.S. Must Adapt To Lower Standards
Having the government dictate the quality of one’s day-to-day life is new to many in the U.S.
The above mural is at the entrance of the school my children attended in the Philippines. Both the Philippines and the school claim to be English speaking. When I first walked in, I asked, “Where is the good character?” Nobody got it. Even when I pointed to the sign.
After two decades of living in and traveling around various countries, my return to the United States was neither made blindly nor with Pollyannish idealism. Having children has altered my life course. And even though the winds of change were already blowing violently across the United States, I’d determined that moving there would give our eight-year-old twins the best education we could afford.
Project 2025 had already been released, making the overhaul of the U.S. system of government, changes in policy priorities, and a redistribution of resources imminent. Still, unlike in many other countries, local school districts have substantial control over what and how students learn. The resources available to teach them also vary widely depending on where you live. While federal funding and policies affecting public education might change, local control and private dollars would not. We just needed to find the school district that gave us what we needed and could afford.
Most importantly, though, we knew we could adapt to where the U.S. was heading, at least for the foreseeable future. We’d done it before. We’d won and lost battles and weathered storms imposed by others. Amongst the many lessons we’d learned is the absolute truth found in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s. words, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Sometimes, you don’t miss your water till the well runs dry
Watching Elon Musk at the Conservative Political Action Conference rant about slashing bureaucracy while brandishing a chainsaw made the intent to cut the federal workforce by as much as 75% an even more bitter pill to swallow for many. After all, much of the country still pedestalizes leaders.
From another lens, however, Musk’s behavior was no different than seeing the jubilant exiled Philippine Marcos family leave a U.S. military transport, sent by Reagan (1986), their entourage carrying Pampers boxes stuffed with cash. Thuggery is thuggery, no matter the class or wealth of the thug. It’s only the viewpoint that differentiates theft by class. And those in power know it. That’s what Musk was really celebrating!
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
The Washington Post reported in early May 2025 that, “Since Trump took office, the government has pushed at least 130,000 people out of jobs, with more than 50,000 fired and 76,000 accepting buyouts, according to media reports. Additional reductions planned in the coming weeks could double that total.” According to CNN, that number doesn’t count workers placed on administrative leave or those who took voluntary buyouts.
The body count is just the tip of the iceberg
The citizens of twelve mostly African or Muslim countries, banned from entering the U.S.; Senator Padilla (D-Cal), forcibly removed from DHS Secretary Christi Noem’s press conference; the CDC’s Advisory Board, fired and replaced within a week; the National Guard and the Marines, sent to police L.A. streets, despite the governor and mayor’s protests; and a Budget Bill expected to increase the national debt by 2.4 trillion dollars while cutting Medicaid and services to the poor. All, and more, are changing the way citizens in the U.S. live.
Brookings reported that by early April, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had canceled or frozen $2.4 billion in grants and contracts. That action, coupled with over $12 billion in cuts to city, county, and state funding, virtually eliminates the nation’s capacity to be ahead (if we ever were) of infectious disease prevention and response. This May 25, 2025, NPR article says it all: Diseases are spreading. The CDC isn’t warning the public like it was months ago.
Alarmingly, certain communities seem to be being targeted. Programs focused on sickle cell research, birth defects, adult disability, HIV and STDs, and water safety (EPA) programs that impact Indigenous and Black communities are also being eliminated.
Comedian and activist Dick Gregory famously said, “You are what you eat.” Well, be prepared not to know what you’re eating, unless you grew it, raised it, and caught it yourself. According to Reuters (April 17, 2025), cuts to Health and Human Services have caused the suspension of several FDA food safety assurance and quality control programs.
Interestingly, many people think U.S. AID cuts only affect people in foreign countries, which is concerning enough! USAID, however, also contracts with U.S. farmers to supply food to foreign countries, like people in war-torn Ukraine or Gaza. Food that is now rotting on docks or in their fields. Colleges and universities also received USAID funds to engage with stakeholders in solving some of the world’s most pressing problems. Researching medicines to fight communicable diseases was among their work. Now, world class facilities sit idle, no longer filled with the talent needed to address the next global or environmental crisis.
According to Newsweek, “Researchers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) … say DOGE cuts plus revised SSA protocols are estimated to require people to make over 1.93 million additional trips annually to understaffed field offices each year…” Approximately one in five U.S. citizens received benefits from the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 2023. Therefore, though your local SSA office might be open (which was a question until recently), who will be there to serve you and how long you will have to wait for service will be a question.
The U.S. is becoming more like those countries where standards were lower
Expectation of equitable treatment fades when met by lower standards, we found while living abroad. Rule of law protections often depended on who was enforcing the rules. Any belief that fairness would prevail was never taken for granted. We saw that opportunities were often given based upon position, loyalty, class, or exchange. Research, knowledge, credentials, and innovation were no guarantee of value. In fact, too much knowledge or the prospect of intelligence could be dangerous. Fiefdoms, cronyism, lineage, and pigmentation were more likely determinants of one’s value. Class mobility was almost non-existent. Lives shrink, as do hope, aspirations, and self-determination.
Militaristic enforcement of the rules and rigid responses are the norm. Whether the people in front of you are customer service agents or security personnel, they neither have the skills, nor the will, nor perhaps the caring, nor are they empowered to do anything more than what they’ve been told to do. The problem is not theirs, it’s yours. It’s not about whether what they are doing makes sense, it’s about the control of the people.
There are no safety nets - no scholarships for low-income students; no Social Security for seniors; no Medicaid for the impoverished; no programs like STEM that cultivate talent. To elevate one’s life or even get stuff done, someone has to be paid (one way or another). Or you have to find a way to do it yourself without angering those in charge. Frustration is futile. Better to bear it than make a scene. Scenes get you unwanted attention.
Al fin: Learn from people who’ve had to adapt to lower standards.
The new controls, cuts, and oversight being imposed by the Trump administration will change the lifestyles most of us have had for all or most of our lives. Many of us will have to lower our expectations of life in the U.S. For some, even our needs will have to be lessened. Others, like us, will have to find other ways to meet our daily needs or maintain our lifestyles. For a while, in the Philippines, we baked and sold cookies as a side hustle.
Simplifying our lives, focusing on friends and family, helped us manage the stress that comes from lowering our standards. Getting away from the drama that’s always on the media was another thing that helped us focus more on each other than the drama around us (We were in the Philippines during the time of the Duterte presidency and COVID, and a measles outbreak). Even though becoming technology savvy is a must these days, as is learning new ways to do more yourself, just don’t bite the “click” bait meant to take you away from the hugs we all need.
Adapting to lower standards has helped us get pretty good at resourcing free and low-cost stuff to take care of our needs and wants. We do picnics instead of restaurants and take advantage of free or low-cost stuff, like outdoor festivals, music, parks, and playgrounds. We shop at second-hand stores for clothes (especially kids), bulk shop for household and personal stuff, and do farmers markets for locally sourced food, and take advantage of give-aways as much as possible. Living in other countries gave us most of these habits. Now it’s our lifestyle.
The worst thing one can do, I’ve found, is sit and stew about the state of the country or one’s life! Having spent many a day and night trying to figure out how to get stuff done without being taken advantage of, I can’t stress this enough. Yes, the traumas are real. Yes, many will have to reorient their lifestyles. Some decisions that were once possible might now be off the table. Living a good life is doable, though. You just have to see what is required through different lenses.
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