The State of the Dis-Union

foxiness.com

     Human behavior is human behavior. Age and education might refine it some, but it is still there. Be it benevolence or greed, having grace and style or being rude and boorish, considerate or inconsiderate, kind or mean, all these traits exist in all of us to varying degrees. From my experience, the percentages of people with extremes of these traits are the same across all strata of education and socio-economic classes. We like to think that doctors, lawyers, elected officials, clergy, professors, and others in influence and leadership positions ought to be above this but that is not the case.
     We are in a partial government shutdown. As of this writing, it has gone on a month. Furloughed government workers without enough savings are really being adversely impacted. Meanwhile, our leaders, namely our President and the Speaker of the House are exhibiting the kind of tit-for-tat pettiness I wish our government leaders were above.
     On January 16th, the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Trump stating that she wanted to postpone the State of the Union Address until after the partial government shutdown was ended. The State of the Union is an annual speech by the President of the United States given to both Houses of Congress to set the legislative agenda for the year. Until this happened, I was unaware that the President is formally invited by the Speaker of the House has to come and speak. So, Speaker Pelosi’s suggestion was, in fact, a disinvitation.
     A day later, per CNN, “President Donald Trump said Thursday he was denying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a military plane for a trip to Afghanistan that was set to begin in the afternoon, a tit-for-tat retaliation that deepened the divide between the leaders and brought the government no closer to reopening.” The trip was not publicized and used military aircraft for security reasons. The news report was the first the public knew about Pelosi going to Afghanistan. The NPR report I heard said that Speaker Pelosi was en route to the airbase for the trip when she got the news that President Trump had cancelled her flight.
     This is indeed  tit-for-tat retaliation and petty gamesmanship.
     Some will read this and venomously blame either the President or the Speaker. I am certain to get an earful either supporting the Speaker or the President while vilifying the other. To me, it shows how polarized we are both in government and as a people. We are at a record number of days for this kind of government shutdown and it is unclear when this will be resolved. Both sides are intransigent and blame the other.
     I understand that conflict can be good if there is room for negotiation and compromise. I adhere to the school that antithesis can lead to synthesis and provide better results than one extreme making all the decisions. That is not the way our government has worked for the past ten years. I also thought our leaders were above such pettiness when there are huge issues to be tackled. Color me naïve… I guess.