The Responsibility Divide
When a parent is pushed to the extreme by a rebellious teenager and a full-blown, high-volume lecture erupts, I’ve noticed the reaction of the troubled teen falls along a spectrum. The teen will either fight back and make the yelling match more or less even, or they will fall into a kind of apathetic trance–illustrated well by the actor Robert Iler, (“AJ” in the Sopranos). The man-child or the woman-child knows mom won’t kick them out of the house, the anger will pass, and unless the child has committed arson or murder, there is little chance outside authorities will exact any penalty. The glassy-eyed teenager, in the face of parental wrath, looks like he’s about to fall asleep standing up.
That’s why mom or dad, during these encounters, usually yells something like: “Are you even listening to me?”
I had this distinct impression watching disgraced Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle field the wrath of both parties in her appearance before Congress. She was bloodless, somnolent, evasive, and utterly apathetic about her role in nearly getting a presidential candidate killed. Imagine a federal bureaucrat misplacing an atomic missile and then announcing, between yawns, “we’re looking into what happened. Our standard review process takes 60 days.” Given the utterly polarized nature of the American electorate these days, some believe we came a half-inch away from civil war, and yet there is “public servant” Cheatle treating her actions something like a grammar mistake in an HR manual.
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt, when she wasn’t being evasive, she was being downright dumb. When asked why there were no Secret Service agents stationed atop a building 148 yards away from president, she actually opined that a roof shallow enough to accommodate a wheel chair was too steep for agent safety.
That isn’t just stupid, that is Twilight Zone stupid, the sort of response you might hear from someone who is drugged, or disturbed, or internally struggling with a panic attack. The fact that it came from the highest office in the United States Secret Service makes it all the more incomprehensible. It makes you wonder who we currently trust with our Nuclear Subs.
The Accountability Thing
In the middle of this rubbery, bureaucratic incompetence, however, there was one thing Kimberly Cheatle maintained with fiery determination: she would not step down or be terminated. The near killing of a presidential candidate didn’t seem to bother her, but the loss of her position, well, that was completely different. That would represent a kind of personal finality that couldn’t be pondered. Imagine Carmella opening the door for AJ on a rainy New Jersey night and ordering him outside. Imagine a federal bureaucrat actually being forced to use a real measuring stick. Which is worse? A DEI-hire losing her job or a former president losing his life?
That got your attention, didn’t it, Director Cheatle? You wouldn’t have done it voluntarily, but mom and dad were serious this time. You stepped down. Someone with authority yelled, “you’re fired.”
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris
I believe this election, and several before it, have been experiments in sloppy definitions of accountability.
An urban liberal may be annoyed to find out several local public schools are now severely over-crowded as a result of illegal immigration, but he can’t quite bring himself to curtail catch and release. He can’t warm to building a wall, or calling for swift consequences when illegals cross. He may not like stepping on human feces, but he somehow feels good about defunding the police. On some level, his conscience tells him that female swimmers shouldn’t have to share showers with intact males wearing mascara, but he can’t bring himself to demand semi-women compete only against other semi-women. He wants all the colorful unicorns of the brave new world, in other words, but he hasn’t quite figured out what to do with all that unicorn sh*t.
Along comes the Donald, who made his celebrity, and some of his fortune, being willing to tell underperforming employees “you’re fired.”
I realize some will recoil here at Donald Trump being labeled, in any sense, “accountable.” Thrice married, well acquainted with bankruptcy law, and not willing to admit he was played for a sucker by “Dr.” Fauci, Trump has lots of explaining to do. I believe his partial retreat from the life issue will cost him both votes, and credibility, and — to just pick one of a many examples — his excitement about building new headquarters for the FBI, an agency that lied to the courts in order to spy on him, well that’s the definition of rewarding failure, not firing it.
But he’s running against a Marxist, raised by Marxists, in the lap of western capitalist luxury. Quoting Paul Gottfried at American Greatness..
Although Harris encouraged BLM and Antifa rioting last summer, she surely didn’t expect the disorder to reach her Brentwood estate. Our vice president resides in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, where she and her husband Doug Emhoff stay while in California.. Such woke leaders have higher concerns. Harris should not have to worry about the plight of abandoned, desperate children on our Southern border, a crisis that she and Joe devised to increase the Democratic vote, particularly in Texas. This engaged public servant has been busy buying her favorite cakes at the Brown Sugar Bakery in Chicago.
There’s an ancient truth about human nature. When we hear the voice of God walking in the garden, and we’ve done something wrong, we hide. Think about that first time, as a teenager, when your parents trusted you with guarding the castle. It was a tad exhilarating, wasn’t it? For a few days, no one would be reminding you to wash the dishes, mow the lawn, and turn off that crap on television. That voice of reproof, that parental standard, would go radio silent, and even if you weren’t inclined to go rogue, you could blur the lines for a time, without the voice of authority nudging you.
The wealthy, Marxist-sympathizing elites of America (folks like Sean Penn and Kamala Harris), can’t stand fatherly reminders. (“You know, kids, Communism doesn’t really work.”) After all, it felt so good, while scarfing canapés at Le Bernardin, to lament Venezuela’s marginalized. It felt “holy” demanding a better world, especially if the filthy rich were paying for it; but along comes Donald Trump, filthy rich, exclaiming “America will never be a socialist country.” He is horrible buzz-kill during some really good virtue-signaling moments. He’s the voice of reminder, very much like a parent, about truths everyone has to admit, deep down: command economies don’t work. Communism gets people killed by the hundreds of millions.
But you don’t have to be a hyper-wealthy faux Bolshevik to get in on this party. You could be an underperforming federal civil servant in an underperforming federal bureaucracy, and, while your pension piggy bank is being stuffed full of taxpayer dollars, and your vacations and health plan are paid for, woe to anyone who reminds you, daddy-like, that the system is overburdened and has to be scaled back.
It doesn’t stop there, either. There are country club “conservatives,” and evangelical empaths, and squish-pastors who simply can’t stand the idea of responsible parenthood. The Mitt Romney and David French types can’t tolerate the sight of unruly children being scolded by a plain-speaking papa. In their book, gentle, merciful, incompetent leadership beats crude, profane effectiveness every time.
America doesn’t want God, and it doesn’t want dad either. If the “dad” in question is perceived to be a bombastic, flawed, spiritually shallow narcissist, then he’s that much easier to dismiss — even if you have that nagging feeling he’s telling you the truth.
