Where are our leaders? There are A LOT of people in positions of authority at the Federal, State, and local level that are yapping, flailing, kowtowing, surrendering, apologizing, and of course hiding but where is the true leadership that we expect – and maybe take for granted – as an American birthright (or as voting taxpaying customers)?
It’s been clear for the past few decades that the US citizenry is pretty much adrift, caught between two political parties that have become so divided and divisive that simple common sense decision making appears more like warring adversaries meeting at the truce table, where nothing uttered is acceptable to either side unless it includes complete surrender and an admission of wrong-doing. Bipartisanship is just a friendly buzzword tossed to an angry constituency to perpetuate the facade of civility. In fact, American politics is nothing more than a political football game. Anything the rival side proposes – regardless of merit – is countered, discounted, or dismissed. The result… abject failure and frustration.
But now we’re at a crossroads. America has been at this intersection several times before and has miraculously found the right path, in spite of the fact that there is no yellow brick road with a happy mindless scarecrow pointing us in the right direction. Leadership is now defined by finger-pointers and chest-pokers who apparently ignore history, turning a blind eye to the past. Even when implicated in wrongdoing that would get a rule-follower jailed (or worse), the best they can come up with as a defense is falling back to that annoying kid we all knew in grade school that pointed an angry finger and whined, “NO, YOU!”
It doesn’t work anymore. We’re fed up. I think there is a general misconception with politicians, the media, and fringe elements that find it acceptable – even appropriate – to violate conventions of society with impunity.
The behavior has been indulged, even applauded, regardless of how self-serving, destructive and abhorrent. And while history is rewritten and erased… or smashed… or toppled… and cities and communities are violated, rule-followers watch in shocked disgust – abandoned – left to their own devices to quench the inferno.
The promise has been broken.
But leaders have broken more than their promise, they’ve broken a contract. The government’s chief responsibility is to protect its citizenry from foreign and domestic threats. In turn they thrive under the protections of their political annuity and taxation.
Leaders have abandoned the rule-followers. Those sworn to protect and serve have been told to stand down – watch – as communities are decimated. Lawlessness and destruction is now an acceptable societal pressure valve, with the misguided rationale being, protests are like shooting stars that quickly flash and burn out. It’s simply head-in-the-sand stupidity that discounts the darker side of human nature, gravity, and the laws of physics… specifically those pertaining to wildfires: they spread and indiscriminately consume everything if not quenched immediately.
But that simile could be countered by the web-weavers that would argue that wildfires take care of dead useless overgrowth and underbrush that has been ignored and left untended.
OK, but at what expense and to whom? American history? National security? Liberty? Life savings and investments in one’s community? The loss of “the American way?”
I believe there is the dire misconception with our leaders that the silent majority will stand quietly idle with clenched teeth while a fraction of our population has a destructive tantrum. It’s a dangerously false assumption that will end badly. Americans are – and have always been – a slow burn. History has shown that when pushed to the point of no escape Americans will fight with devastating hate, unable to simply “turn off” retribution. This is nothing new. American history has documented remarkable pacifism until life and liberty are threatened.
But where and when does it end? Democrats and Republicans are in a self-serving stalemate while Rome burns. Both parties clearly understand that law and order needs to be restored through intervention by true leadership.
So why hasn’t it happened… yet?
Because everyone knows America has become a tinderbox that’s been shoved too close to a space heater through decades of failed leadership. Both parties are to blame. Neither wants to take the forceful steps necessary to quell rebellion, especially with an election looming.
Neither party wants to be culpable for the second shot heard round the world.
I fear it’s coming.
