Nobody But Us Chickens

It was once a movie cartoon cliché.  The fox was in the hen house seeking a yummy chicken dinner.  Outside the dim watchdog heard something and shouted, “Who’s there?”  To which the fox replied, “Nobody but us chickens.”  The hound quickly responded, “Oh, OK.”

Today it is the Democratic Party that is playing the role of the fox and much of the American public that of the guard dog.  The Dems are in the political hen house running riot, while most people are passive observers who take the desperadoes at their word.

We have just witnessed the Democrats close down the federal government and immediately blame the Republicans.  What is worse is that many ordinary Americans were taken in by this ruse.  Polling showed that they too believed the Republicans responsible.

Chuck Schumer and his merry band of outlaws say this is so because the GOP controls the presidency and both houses of congress.  This, however, is an egregious falsehood.  While the Republicans have majorities in both houses, they do not possess the sixty votes needed to get a finance bill through the Senate.  The Dems can—and do—filibuster.

The Dems also feign disgust that federal financing now depends on temporary continuing resolutions.  Why, they ask, are the Republicans not doing their job?  The reason, of course, is that the Democrats blocked previous attempts to pass a budget.

In other words, to use another analogy, the Democrats are like the man who killed his parents, but then plead for mercy because he was an orphan.  You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t be both the victim and the perpetrator.

Yet a large percentage of the American public seems not to notice.  They shake their heads in agreement as the villains and their media henchmen spin fairytales about how president Trump and his allies want to shutter the government.  The liberals know this isn’t true, but they say it anyway.

So why don’t regular folks see through this charade?  Why don’t they realize that if you voted “No” on the continuing resolution, you were voting to close down the government?   Since the overwhelming majority of Democrats voted in the negative, whereas most Republicans voted “Yes,” it is perfectly plain who did what.

We don’t need tortured explanations about when the DACA program will expire.  Indeed, anyone who has been paying attention knows that the Democrats sought the leverage to legalize young illegal migrants.  They were prepared to put the military and every other federal activity in jeopardy to do so.

They also sought, whenever possible, to make president Trump look bad.  Their unmistakable goal was to embarrass him into capitulating to their demands.  If this entailed misrepresenting their own proposals, this was a small price to pay.

So, to return to the hen house analogy, what are people expecting?  Do they need to see the fox with a chicken in his mouth?  Will it be enough to notice feathers all over the coop?  Or must there be a verbal confession?  Does the fox have to say: “I done it”?

Well, the Democrats will never admit they were guilty.  Neither will their media cronies.  These folks will go to the grave asserting their innocence.  Moreover, they will do so surrounded by a cordon of lies.  Nearly every day there will be a new set of fabrications intended to deflect suspicions.

So why do so many Americans believe this rubbish?  Are they as dim as that watchdog?  Do they lack the intellectual capacity to recognize they are being deceived?  Or are they simply not paying attention?

While I believe the latter is partly at fault, I also believe that millions of basically decent folks are suffering from ideological blindness.  Thanks to years of being force-fed neo-Marxist pabulum, they genuinely consider the Democrats the party of the people.  Counter-evidence does not get through this filter.

As a result, we are experiencing a period of unprecedented dishonesty.  Never, in my more than seventy years, have I witnessed as much hypocrisy and mendacity.  There is so much deception that it has become business as usual.

The problem is that along with this duplicity comes a lack of trust.  Because it is difficult to be sure whom to believe, we doubt nearly everyone.  This is how great societies decline and fall.

P.S.  The can has again been kicked down the road.  Stay tuned.  There will be a rerun in two weeks.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University