Having spent a lifetime around Greeks, and a couple decades working in the restaurant business with many Greeks, I’ve been well-exposed to the intricacies and eccentricities of Greek profanity. Greeks, being in general a religious people, have quite colorful ways of intermixing religion into insults and profanity. One particular form stands out: Greeks don’t curse God, they curse your God. I won’t speculate as to the origins of this style of insult, religious, etymological, or otherwise. Instead, I offer it as a parallel to how people view our government.
Democrats commonly complain about the shenanigans of Republican governments. Republicans commonly complain about the shenanigans of Democratic governments. How many, however, complain about the shenanigans of their own governments? More broadly, how many complain about the shenanigans of government in general, especially when it might reflect badly on the party with which they identify?
Worse yet, how many, when the shenanigans of their own governments are brought up by others, put forth equivalences, tu quoque/”the other guys did it too!” deflections, or “nobody’s perfect” excuses? How many dismiss those who’d condemn the lot with accusations of idealism, or “not getting” that the other side is an existential threat to all they hold dear? How many close their eyes to their own party’s/team’s/tribe’s failures while exaggerating the other’s?
The election of Donald Trump was deemed, by his detractors and by loyalists to the opposition party, a combination of failure and toxicity before he or any of his cabinet even had a chance to do anything. It was also deemed by his supporters, again, before he even had a chance to do anything, as an epic success.
Sound familiar? Much the same sentiment was expressed at the time of Obama’s election.
“Yes, but Obama WAS a success and Trump IS a failure!”
“Yes, but Obama WAS a failure and Trump IS a success!”
Perhaps, perhaps not, perhaps (make that probably) both.
No President has ever gotten everything right, and no President has ever gotten everything wrong. But, the point today isn’t about judging either Obama or Trump, or any previous President or administration for that matter. The point at hand is the tribalism that manifests as grotesquely disparate double standards, because…. “the other guys are worse!”
Thus, when revelations come out about “your guy,” like the recent news that the Obama administration broke the law in efforts to collect information on the Trump campaign, people pretend it didn’t happen, or wave it off with rationalizations, or claim it was necessary because “the other guy” is so awful, or actually condone it because “your guy” is a good guy. And, indeed, many considered and still consider Obama a good man, despite the blatant abuses of power exhibited by his administration, as demonstrated by the IRS targeting of conservative groups, by the domestic spying news, and in other ways. If he were indeed the be-haloed paragon some proclaimed, he would have halted such abuses dead in their tracks.
But, perhaps he indeed was unaware or incapable of reining in such abuses. What does that tell us?
Tribalism, double standards, excusing one’s own team for its failures and transgressions – all this is how and why government’s excesses and abuses continue to go unchecked. It’s why the Deep State is a thing, it’s why the bureaucracy has grown so large, it’s why there are people leaking stuff that shouldn’t be leaked. It’s why it’s so hard to shrink government, or get rid of ineffective programs, or cut wasteful spending, or tackle fraud. It’s why some are outraged by Edward Snowden but not Chelsea Manning, or vice versa. It’s why some people are suddenly getting the vapors over news that the Obama administration oversaw domestic spying, but not so much when it happened under someone else. Or vice versa. It’s why almost no one has truly been punished for the IRS scandal.
Some people think that a change of administration means big changes are going to happen in government. The old adage “the more things change, the more they stay the same” comes to mind. So does the common observation that the two major parties are far more alike than different. Both these platitudes rest on the fact that most of the government doesn’t get affected by elections. The bureaucracies, agencies, cabinets, etc, get new leadership, but this is government, where most employment is for life, and where that fact infuses the culture with a sense of entitlement and noblesse oblige.
The premise of America was, as Lincoln noted in the Gettysburg Address, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Today, do you feel that the government that is so deeply involved in managing, regulating, and controlling so many aspects of your life is any of those things? Or do you feel it is a creature unto itself, opaque, inscrutable in its ways, and mostly immune to outside influences? Hasn’t government become something “unto” the people, something that does to us rather than, of, by and for us?
Sadly, it’s been my experience that most people understand this, understand how tribalism has enabled betrayal and disappointment, but aren’t willing to break from it. Push comes to shove, people would rather keep doing the wrong thing to keep “the other guys” from winning the next election rather than do the right thing and start to break out of this death spiral. It’s hard to be optimistic for America when the majorities don’t mind losing the war as long as they win the next small battle.
Thomas Hobbes called government a Leviathan, a primeval monster, nearly four hundred years ago. The Boston Tea Party protested an increase in a tax from 2% to 3%, nearly two hundred fifty years ago. America’s Founding Fathers imagined a limited government, restricted to a list of specific roles, and tasked beyond that only to protect individuals’ rights. I doubt either Hobbes, the BTP protestors, or the Constitutions drafters could possibly have imagined a government so large and so pervasive as the one we have today, and indeed the one that tens of millions believe cannot be trimmed one whit or believe should be even larger. We’ve grown inured what would have astounded and horrified people of yore. And, rather than truly step up to attack the monster, we support its continued existence lest the people we deem our enemy win a skirmish. I am depressed.
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Regarding government that is nearly impossible to shrink you should read the novel “Weed Agency” about an agency that doesn’t exist but could easily. It doesn’t matter who the president is but abolishing an existing agency much less an entire department is nigh impossible.