In Search of a Silver Lining

It’s the New Year and tradition decrees that I produce a review of the past year and a preview of the next.  This time around, however, I have been very reluctant to do either.  The times have been out of joint and it looks like they will continue to be for the foreseeable future. 

I have been in search of a silver lining, but to date have not found one. Instead, I conjure up images of Chuck Schumer gloating over the opportunity to shut down the government. He looked like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary when Trump declared that he would take the blame for doing so.

As I listened to Schumer explain why no Democrats would vote to spend an additional three billion dollars on a wall, I was reminded of how brilliant he was supposed to be.  A couple of decades ago, I was at a conference where a former high school teacher of his could not stop singing his praises.  Chuck was the second coming of our savior.

But how smart was it to veto a trillion dollar budget over what amounted to pocket change.  Oozing over how ineffective a wall would be and why Trump would mismanage its construction, it sounded to me like Schumer was leading us into the twilight zone.

The government spends more on toilet seats than it would on the wall. Was spending additional pennies somehow going to break the bank.  This was ludicrous coming from a party that proposes to expend trillions on health care.

As for oversight over construction, was congress supposed to do this on a day-to-day basis.  Would the senators appoint some of their number to inspect the building activities? How would that work out when they cannot even make sure their cafeteria is run according to sound business practices?

All of this was so absurd that I wondered why the public wasn’t laughing. How could they blame Trump for the budget impasse when it was Schumer and company who refused to shift a few billion dollars?  Arguing that Republicans control the senate is ridiculous when Democrat votes are needed to overcome a filibuster.

Then I thought about students at Kennesaw State University. My colleagues and I have been aware of a decades long dumbing down process.  As is true around the nation, our students don’t read.  They instead consult their iPhones for snippets of disconnected information.

One of the latest farces on our road toward national mediocrity is decreasing the quality of on-line courses.  While some faculty members attempt to hold the line, many more have been seduced into offering shells of college curricula.  These are easier to oversee and students, who don’t want to work, don’t mind.

So how is this going to fix what is politically broken?  When members of the current generation go into the voting booth, will they be able to tell the difference between what makes sense and what doesn’t?  They are certainly not going to get help from the media.

With so many reporters and editors determined to destroy Donald Trump, these journalistic vigilantes are happy to withhold vital knowledge, while inventing a slew of unsavory canards.  They, like Schumer, hate our president.  From their perspective, accuracy is irrelevant if they can spread their venom.

So why should I be optimistic about the future?  This next year promises to be more viscous and dim-witted than the last.  With the House of Representatives now in ultra-liberal hands, partisan attacks—including impeachment—should be more malicious than ever.

 At the moment, I am writing a book about irrationality.  Whatever our pretentions, we humans seldom use facts and logic to come to conclusions.  More often we allow our prejudices to hold sway.  This is the case for both sides of the political spectrum.

If we are careful, we can keep these tendencies in check. Nevertheless, I see little evidence of a desire to do so.  Both liberals and conservatives are so angry that they are not prepared to give their adversaries a fair hearing.  Irrespective of what is good for the nation, the goal is to injure the other side.

As I say, Schumer is gloating.  He has had his gottcha moment and is savoring it.  Fear not conservatries, Trump will do the same if he gets the chance.  In the meantime, we all suffer from an unwillingness to cooperate.  So vituperative have we become that next year looks like a calamity in waiting.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University