The outcome of the 2024 election (and not just at the presidential level, but across the board) is prompting me to undergo a top-to-bottom reassessment of my understanding of this strange political/geographic/ontological construct I was born into 71 years ago.
And one of the first by-products is the final admission on my part that trump isn't the source of our problem, but rather the most obvious and easily identifiable manifestation of the cancer that has been gnawing away at our country's soul for an indeterminate length of time. I already knew this, of course, but have resisted making it central to my worldview. No more. "We have met the enemy, and he is us."A potent catalyst for this new resolve was reading the following transcript of a radio call-in show from 1994 with guest Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Thirty years ago, the defect in our national character was already on full display.
TRANSCRIPT:
On the Air in the Midwest (October 29, 1994)
“You’re on Talk Radio 95, The Charles Walter Show, where you hear the news when it’s news! Joining us this evening, the United States secretary of labor [Robert Reich]! Here to take y-o-o-o-u-u-u-r calls! … John from Garden Park. You’re on Talk Radio 95!”
“Hello?”
“You’re on the air, John! Do you have a question for the secretary?”
“Yes. Mr. Secretary, have you ever held a real job in your entire life?”
“Well, John, I used to teach.”
“Just what I thought. You don’t know nothing.”
“Thank you, John! Diane from Oak Brook, you’re on the air!”
“Hi, Charlie.”
“Hi, Diane!”
“Love your show, Charlie.”
“Thanks, Diane! A question for the labor secretary?”
“Why does the secretary think government has all the answers?”
“I don’t think government has all the answers, Diane.”
“Yes you do. You and all the other liberals in the Clinton administration. Ever heard of free enterprise? Socialism doesn’t work!”
“Thank you, Diane! Next up, Peter from Lakeview! Pete, you’re on the air!”
“Great show, Charlie.”
“Thanks, Pete! Your question?”
“I don’t understand something.”
“What is it you don’t understand, Pete?”
“I don’t understand where these guys get off.”
“Your question for the labor secretary, Pete?”
“Mr. Secretary, why do you think you have the right to tax honest hard-working people? It’s our money.”
“Pete, your federal taxes pay for national defense, Medicare, highways, environmental protection, air-traffic control, safe workplaces, all sorts of things you rely on.”
“It’s my money. I should decide what I need. You have no right.”
“Thank you, Pete! We’re cooking tonight, folks! The board’s all lit up! Ted from Orleyville, you’re on the air!”
“I really appreciate your show, Charles.”
“Thank you, Ted! Your question for the secretary?”
“Yes. Mr. Secretary, you’re a fucking —”
“Michelle in Garden View! You’re on the air!”
“I’d like to know why we spend billions and billions of dollars on welfare for people who do nothing all day but sit around and watch TV.”
“Michelle, all welfare spending is less than 3 percent of the federal budget, and most people on welfare are off it and into jobs within two years.”
“You’re lying.”
“Tony in Lakeview! You’re on the air!”
“I just lost my job. My company went to Mexico. I want to ask the labor secretary how anybody can get a good job in America if we have to compete with Mexicans who are paid a nickel an hour?”
“Good question, Tony! Mr. Secretary?”
“Tony, I’m sorry you lost your job. But there are millions of good new jobs out there, some of them exporting to Mexico and other countries. You can get —”
“Good new jobs? Where? The new jobs pay nothing. They pay shit. You’re talking out of your asshole.”
“Afraid that’s all the time we have! Mr. Secretary, thanks so very much for being with us this evening!”
We have let ourselves become a nation of hateful, angry, spiteful, ignorant, selfish people who have no concept of what is required to live in healthy, mutually responsible community with one another.
And yesterday, we elected the infantile poster child for THIS America to a second term, opening the door for him (and HIS Masters) to end democracy as we know it.
The marriage of boorish, myopic ignorance and unrestrained oligarchy.
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