Earlier, I said the Warren G. Harding administration was corrupt. It happened 98 years ago so nobody called me a Nazi or banned me from Facebook. Most Americans think history started about the time they were eight (which is true of many generations) so nobody gives a rat’s ass when I blog about “dusty musty” Harding. Nobody who voted for Harding is sending me comments; “before you bitch about Harding you should really look into Taft who was even worse”.
The whole thing was hashed out and digested. The people went through the experience and then forgot about it.
Except they didn’t forget about it, we forgot about it. For them it was traumatic. It was a series of nasty revelations. Ugly facts were discovered, discussed, dissected and debated. Favoritism was unearthed, money was followed, some rich dudes got embarrassed, etc… Testimony was read, depositions were typed up, speeches were made, congressmen harrumphed, moralists clutched pearls, and newspapers complained. I’m sure friends and family bitched about it over Thanksgiving dinners.
The whole deal sucked for them but means nothing to us. We, the people of the future, don’t react because it’s “from long ago”. Take a leap with me and imagine a time in our future; a time as far from now as we are from Harding (who took office in 1921). Imagine the year 2117.
Do you suppose some history lecture in 2117 will sound like this?
“In the early parts of the 21st century, despite a good standard of living and promising developments in what would be the ultimate game changer of sexbots delivered by drone, the populace was not at ease. Governance in the United States was mired in corruption or at least allegations of it. The people tried distracting themselves with many things: movies about superheroes, memes with cats, lawsuits about cake bakeries, boycotts of chicken sandwiches, debates about healthy diets, recycling, rearranging bathrooms in public spaces, elaborate decision matrices about which kind of gun is more dangerous than some other kind of gun, the colorful antics of what folklore researchers have dubbed “Florida Man”, and so forth. Someone (for reasons we still don’t understand) even launched a car into space! (We’ll be visiting that strange artifact on our next field trip.) Some of the issues of the early 21st century remain ill understood. For example, we’re not sure why there was alarm about an opioid epidemic simultaneous with the multi-state decriminalization of marijuana. The “Ted Nugent Theorem” seems inadequate to address this matter. (If you check your footnotes you’ll see ‘marijuana’ is the historic term for the herb we now add to our morning coffee under the brand name “California Sanka”.)
Regardless, circular debates weren’t entertaining enough to calm an increasingly alarmed citizenry and everyone was running around complaining about how terrible things were. Historians suspect an underlying malaise was compounded by the psychosis inducing effects of social media. We now understand the ill effects of social media can be ameliorated by “getting a life” but this was not well understood at the time.
Turning back to governance; of course, we know now that the corruption of the time was largely related to…”
I’d like to hear the rest of that lecture, wouldn’t you? It might be an eye opener.
Look around yourself in 2019 and think about what it’ll look like to someone from 2117. Among other things we’re probably in a time of corruption. Such a simple answer, yet it feels vaguely unreal.
We’re up to our armpits in information that hints at the situation but it’s hard to digest. We cling to the normalcy bias that this current era isn’t a time of stupidity. Who wants to be in a time of corruption and stupidity? That sucks! More comforting to assume it’s a one-off thing and and all the bad shit definitely has a lot to do with the others anyway.
But the unease we feel is a real thing. It tells us the easy answer isn’t sufficient to explain away events that don’t seem… right. We find ourselves conflicted between what we expect and what we experience. It’s because we’re too close to the situation to stand back and say “yep, that’s a standard generic case of cyclic asshattery, they happen from time to time.”
Before I let this idea drop, ask yourself to whom you’re applying my blanket word “corruption”. You’re likely a fan of one team and you might think it’s the other team that’s the entire problem. Maybe that’s true. Or maybe not. I don’t have a time machine so I don’t know. I do know that for every person that breathes a sigh of relief Hillary Clinton didn’t win in 2016, there’s an equal and opposite person who wakes each day pissed that Donald Trump is alive and breathing. Doesn’t that seem at least a little… odd?
If I had a time machine, I could go to the future and see how it all pans out. Alas all I’ve got right now is the feeling that nobody in America is simultaneously happy with both parties. Is there a person who’s happy with the content of debate? Is there a single voting citizen who thinks Trump and Hillary were both morally square? Did anyone have the idea that both sides were simultaneously “honorable” when they voted in 2016? Most of us can, at best, extend our sympathies to half the equation. If I were playing poker I’d say that’s a “tell”.
While damn near nobody thinks both sides are clean, a growing percentage of us are thinking “a pox on both their houses”. That sounds like a populace starting to accept they’re in a time of corruption. Perhaps we’re starting the long slog of working through it.
I think today is what it felt like in 1921. They didn’t know future historians would say “of course that was a very corrupt situation” but they knew weird shit was afoot. (It also occurs to me the people of 1921 were just starting the interesting journey of prohibition. It was the first few years of a time when damn near everyone broke a clear and unambiguous law. Why? Perhaps they no longer felt bound by a law that was “dumb”? Is there the whiff of “consent of the governed” at play in way prohibition made so many citizens act like criminals in the roaring twenties?)
The folks in 1921, and most of us over a certain age in 2019, know things don’t always suck. Maybe that’s the key? One must recognize what’s right before your eyes: “This situation is not average but rather the part of a cycle. It’s unpleasant but not unprecedented. It’s a low ebb but it’s not forever. Like that one time I ate bad guacamole, this too will pass. The manner of the passing will be just like the guacamole. Time to process some political corruption. Hand me a roll of toilet paper and let’s get this over.”
(Forgive the metaphor but FFS look at politics both in America and elsewhere. What metaphor would be better?)
In my life I’ve seen things work more rationally. I’ve seen, elections that were resolved without rancor. There was a time before hanging chads (Al Gore versus Bush Jr.). Before there was “voter intent” and “lets sue” there were times of “we counted this shit and even though we don’t like it, here’s the number”. (There was a time when even the folks on NPR acknowledged a president they didn’t like as legitimate!) Looking around now, you almost need to have seen those times yourself to know it’s possible. Rationality can (and likely will) happen again.
Sure, there’s always pockets of corruption (I’m looking at you Chicago) but that’s a different story. I’m talking about the saner world which I’ve been fortunate enough to experience.
There was a time when folks might vote for Person A without calling all of Person A’s opponents racist shitheads or lying bastards. When Person B gets elected, the ones who preferred A could shrug their shoulders and think “oh well, maybe next time”. No shit… I’ve seen it with my own eyes! Going into hysterics isn’t the way every election necessarily plays out. It’s just the way they play out recently.
Governance is the same. I’ve seen laws that were sorta popular on one side and sorta popular on the other side and congress muddled through in a generic mushy unsatisfying middle ground and it wasn’t quite so nutty. There would be whole years without one group or another dressing strangely and marching around the streets.
I’ve also seen politicians try to do something that “will change things in a big way” and then decide to not crush their opposition in hopes of getting their brass ring. I’ve seen them back off when it’s viciously opposed by a large portion of the electorate. There was this feeling that the opponents, even if they weren’t the guy’s core voters, were still citizens. Occasionally a politician could squeeze out enough votes to make their signature thing into law but they didn’t want to create an unhealthy level of butthurt. Perhaps, in those times, the American people had fewer mutually exclusive demands?
Call 2019 what you want but not every political era is a series of scorched earth, knife fight, cage matches where the winner dances with glee at the humiliation of their mortal enemy. A congressmen didn’t always act as if their opponent was from hated alien territory of Tennessee or New Hampshire and therefore should not jut be outvoted but righteously hated and if possible completely destroyed. I’ve even seen presidents that we’re widely accepted as “clean” by basically everyone. It can, and has, happened, perhaps even a majority of elections but not in all times. Not in the time of Harding (which we don’t care about) and not recently (which has us acting like fools).
I propose that right now, when people are shrieking as if this politician or that is lurking in the bushes by their back door and might kidnap the dog or pee in the mailbox… it’s a time of corruption. More importantly it’s a time of corruption as experienced by a people not yet ready to fully grasp it but who are getting there. I think the time is approaching soon. I don’t know how long it’ll take. 98 years is enough to opine about Warren G. Harding without getting sued or fired. Hopefully, it’ll be faster than that.