When government goes bad – and all human institutions are flawed, and so can & do go bad now and again – its faults are predictable: announcing grandiosely, acting discriminatorily, spending profligately, distributing corruptly, and interfering destructively. (There’s no pleasure in stating the obvious: if government were incapable of these wrongs, then Trump Administration would be far less dangerous.)
At all levels of government, but especially at its local level, the widest range of action is, truly, the simplest action of all, if it should even be an action: mere declaration, mere announcement.
These announcements have significance, but when the government is weak, they’re less significant than when the government is powerful (as is the federal government).
The destructive forces that grip many local communities in the Midwest including Whitewater – stagnation, pandemic, conspiracy theories about the pandemic, recession, racial & ethic biases – have no rhetorical solution.
One could jump quickly at one local declaration or another, but only at the expense of discernment.