As Truth Goes, So Goes the Nation

I have long subscribed to — and attempted to live up to — the idea that the goal of journalism is to lend comfort to those in need, and to make uncomfortable those comforted by greed.

Seven non-negotiables

As a journalist long past his prime, I continue to hold these non-negotiable tenets of what my profession’s aspirations were, and what they still may be:

• To illuminate the dark alleys of ignorance with the unfiltered light of facts and to shine not a ray of that bright beam upon whataboutism, alternate truths, outright lies, or intellectual shaming.
• To raise up to public scrutiny the virtues of men and women of courage and strength, and to entomb for eternity the rotting philosophies of those who prey on the frightened and weak.
• To underscore that while science is never absolute, the scientific method provides guardrails to keep humanity from veering into a landscape of magical thinking, fantasy, hucksterism, and social collapse.
• To expose the vicious and gutless mobsters of discord and the preachers of destruction who are nothing more than snake-oil vendors of hatred, bigotry, self-indulgence, and self-righteousness.
• To view, and cover, civil disobedience not because it may be a precursor to tyranny, but, absent violence, because it is a right to be protected.
• To stand firm on principle when personal or institutional resolve is threatened by the purveyors of chaos.
• To die on the sword of truth, if need be.

If you don’t stand for something, you stand for nothing

Such sentiments have been written many other ways by writers of greater eloquence and wider influence. Despite my irrelevance in today’s world of journalism, I believe those opinion writers and editorialists I admire greatly would agree that my non-negotiables were once common benchmarks in our pursuit to represent the broad ethos of journalism writ large.

Many journalists and their organizations continue to practice these, and other tenets of fairness, honesty, and facts, but I am afraid that a rising tide of public dismissiveness and corporate greed is dissolving the shoreline of journalism in which I trained and worked. Every day, a once-healthy and vitally-needed newspaper slides into the ocean of “who-cares?” and is lost beneath the waves of “too bad.”

The bonds of community are dissolving in an acid bath of separatism

And yet, never — certainly not in my lifetime — has there been a moment when the clarion calls from reputable newsrooms about the pending collapse of the structure of our nation’s existence were needed. What is happening is not about democracy or socialism, or a rising oligarchy or autocracy. What is happening is the dissolution of the bonds of community, the fraying of the ties of humanity, the shredding of the very fabric of reasonable social discourse without which no society can long survive.

What is happening is the dissolution of the bonds of community, the fraying of the ties of humanity, the shredding of the very fabric of reasonable social discourse without which no society can long survive

It is when we stop talking to each other and begin stove-piping and echo-chambering our opinions, sheltering-in-place against contrary views, building bunkers to shield us from inconvenient truths, that we edge closer to the cliff of historical oblivion.

It is when we do not call out the lickspittles and sociopaths and intellectual terrorists and power-thirsting mongrels — those who derive their power from inaction, indifference, and carefully-nurtured ignorance among those they wish to control — that we give permission for the inhumanity such individuals and corporations and political parties exhale on society while they continue their rape of all that is good and just.

No crystal ball

I am not a seer. I haven’t a clue who can lead us out of this miasma, or when, or even if, that might happen. I know the current administration, which I initially supported, does not have the answers (it can barely articulate the problems we have).

Dems are doomed — and it’s their own fault

The disarray within the Democratic party, magnified by internal Luddites like Joe Manchin, shows no sign of abating, and Joe Biden’s inability to sense and act on the undercurrents of disappointment felt by his early supporters is only working to strip them away from his shrinking sphere of influence.

Even without a crystal ball, the forecast for the Dems in the fall of 2022 does not bode well for either their slim majority in the House or their one-vote majority (by Kamala Harris) in the Senate. As if 2022 won’t be bad enough for the Dems, 2024 does not look good for Joe Biden absent a major shift in public confidence in the Dem’s ability to deliver on Joe’s social programs. And should it come to be that Harris is the party’s nominee, the Republicans may well have a field day up and down the ballot.

Progressives are hollowing out the Democratic Party

Progressives, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, seek solutions rooted in ramrod-straight ethics and shame-based moral outrage. Like their Republican counterparts, they take no prisoners, give no quarter, and dismiss all dissenters. What they have in moral outrage they lack in fiscal persuasiveness in the nation’s hometowns. Whatever our democracy may be becoming, a progressive socialist state is not its future form, if only for the fundamental reason that there is simply not enough money to pay the bills socialism incurs. A thorough read of the “Progressive Promise” should, at least to my mind, bring forth two reactions:

Point 1. Yes, of course all their points are aimed at improving the lot of disenfranchised Americans and the environment in which Americans (and the world) live; down with the bad, up with the good. To quote part of the Progressive Promise: “ The challenges facing this nation are structural — and Congress must be deliberate and explicit in dismantling these institutional barriers to prosperity, peace, and justice.” How could any reasonable person dispute any of that statement? I don’t dispute it; there is social injustice, racial and financial inequality, and environmental decline, and we are running out of time to address these deficiencies in our system. Which brings me to point 2:

There is no chance in Hell that there will ever be enough money to pay for all those good, right, and just things Progressives demand, no matter what they cut, or how they reimagine Congressional financing. For goodness sake, there isn’t enough money to pay for all the things the Democrats want, much less what Progressives are demanding (and I use the word demand because that is a word repeated often in Progressive literature and public statements).

I get the Progressives; their hearts are in the right place, but they treat every debatable critique as a nail to be hammered and silenced, every gesture of compromise as a turd to be avoided, and every social problem as a call to steeper taxation or dismantling of programs they deem overly funded.

Republicans strive for autocracy, oligarchy, and monarchy

Republicans seek solutions that will continue to gut government programs for those most in need and feather the economic nests of those whose needs are few, if any. The damage the Republican Party has done to the foundation of democracy is incalculable and quite possibly irreversible given their headlong acceleration toward a Trumpian state.

In their heart of hearts, Republicans of wealth salivate at the possibility of participating in an American oligarchy, while Republicans cut from the more common cloth of poverty, ignorance, and inbred racism salivate over participating in an autocracy that defends their morally- and ethically-bankrupt lifestyle. Republicans in the middle — those with college degrees, modest incomes, lifestyles of the suburban upper middle class — would settle for either an oligarchy or autocracy as long as their cocoons of self-satisfying White privilege’s are sheltered from the suppressed unwashed masses.

The Republican Party has never been perfect, not even close. I worked for it for many years on Capitol Hill, and I was a presidential appointee under Reagan and GHW Bush. I’ve seen its underbelly and watched it rot. And I left it. No regrets.

What had been a party open to compromise, capable of collaborating across the aisle, and operating under some measure of comity with their liberal colleagues, has now become an unrecognizable monster, summoned up from Hell through Faustian bargains that are already shredding all societal norms and eating democracy alive. No town hall, court, elections office, or state government is too small to be targeted by Republicans eager to stack the deck in anticipation of the mid-terms and the next presidential election. For Republicans, winning has nothing to do with the good of democracy; it is all about what is good for those holding the reins of power, truth and fairness be damned.

I am certain the coming Congress and administration will only enlarge the problems and gorge themselves at the troughs of unbridled power. If you don’t believe 2022 and 2024 will usher in more than a decade of accelerating decline, I cannot help you.

A free, courageous, and vigorous press must survive

In the short run, I’d say we are pretty well screwed. In the long run, I’d venture what we know as a democracy-in-name-only will collapse or, if it’s lucky, morph into something approximating a barely-sustaining society with rigid rules and Draconian punishments.

If there is any hope of dashing my barely-informed vision, it lies in part with a resurgent and courageous press, a media reengaged in human events and committed to calling out the crooks, the liars, the bottom-feeders, and those who target the least-prepared, most vulnerable of our society. Such a renewed news media must be able to call out the ills of its own family and drive those crazy aunts and uncles from their business of lies, deceit, and moral recklessness.

The sad thing is, as I look at that last paragraph, I see the folly in such thinking, and it is a classic example of the magical thinking I took society to task for in the first parts of this article. In the end, perhaps we are beyond saving — vibrant, eager, outraged press or not.