Tag Archives: political malfeasance

The Kingdom of Cowardice

Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , ,

In this dangerous political moment where is the necessary and countervailing assertiveness from the nation’s corporate leadership and those sitting in the co-equal branch of the Congress?

It is revealing that a culture ostensibly immersed in the values of individual initiative and freedom of thought—virtues celebrated endlessly in the cowboy mythologies of popular entertainment—we would see its actual corporate and political leaders wither in the face of serious government malfeasance. Where is the assertiveness of the nation’s industrial powerhouses and the once co-equal Congress? With some notable exceptions most news giants have also folded and retreated into safe compliance with gag orders and payoffs to appease this president. All of this is happening in the face of a blizzard of presidential attempts to sabotage once secure American values and policies. Where are fearless figures like Indiana Jones when we need them?

Trump has destroyed the nation’s once historic leadership of former allies and democracies.  Now they feel threatened by America’s new and growing rogue status. We are not Russia, but the comparisons are more apt. We clearly have many new billionaires who have sold their souls for photo ops with the President and the chance to profit from his absurd whims. In the years to come the silence of leaders at Apple, Amazon, Paramount and other tech giants is going to make them look ruthlessly opportunistic and small.

And while there are some signs that some in the Senate and house are rousing themselves, it is not fair that octogenarian Bernie Sanders should stull be the most effective advocate question Donald Trump’s real and threatened raids on other nations. There are too few profiles in courage from the supposedly dominant party in Congress. Most members of the GOP seem to be doing everything except hiding under their desks to avoid calling out the unamerican actions of their political leader. Politicizing federal agencies and violating international law by kidnapping the leader of Venezuela represent the latest offenses against the Constitution that stack up weekly like a midwinter supply of cordwood. In lieu of the silence of the Speaker of the House and most tech and news chiefs we look to look to older seniors with handmade signs standing on street corners who have taken up the cause against administrative malfeasance.

The irony is that political and commercial “leaders” who have thrown their support to this President seem to be ignoring evidence of Trump’s clear unpopularity with the American public. Their indifference to their own constituents and customers does not bode well for our future.

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A Low Tax Dystopia?

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It seems like only the most punitive souls would enact legislation that mobilizes the dead hand of reactionism.

This website is predicated on the assumption that there are better, if not “perfect,” responses to exigencies that need remedies. Humans are problem solvers.  Challenges that block our objectives are met with responses that—with some effort and empathy—provide suitable solutions or workarounds. In the realm of communication studies, “exigency theory” is a bedrock idea used to explain why humans are motivated to verbal or physical action. In this model, a policy that is enacted by a political unit should be a response that solves a persistent problem. Without this core assumption, the ongoing enterprises of our political life can’t make much sense. We rightly assume that policy is guided by the impulse to ameliorate a serious condition or injustice.

All of this brings us to the policy-making processes unfolding in some of the states. Many along the southern tier of the nation are benefiting from a continuous migration of families and corporate headquarters to warmer climates, where the candy of low tax rates and available workers easily outweighs sometimes failing school and social services. And this gives rise to a paradox.

Policies that have a basic effect of exposing people to greater risks are hard to fathom.

Political bodies particularly in Texas seem determined to enact policies that create challenges rather than alleviate them. Newly enacted laws that impose hardships on individuals are difficult to fathom, especially when it is evident that no greater social good is being served. Specifically, the state’s executive and deliberative bodies have faced several challenges where something approximating a perfect response eludes them. To be sure, we can have different policy preferences.  But it seems like only the most punitive souls would enact legislation that mobilizes the dead hand of reactionism, for instance: allowing citizens to deputize themselves as bounty hunters to criminalize women or girls who are trying to end an ill-timed pregnancy; permitting firearms to be carried on to the campuses of public universities;  prohibiting the teaching of the nation’s checkered racial and social history in schools; or forbidding institutions to require face masks to stem the spread of disease. These sorry examples of reactionary policy may help explain how a school administrator in the Lone Star State could have reminded teachers dealing with The Holocaust to be sure to teach “both sides.”

It is impossible to imagine how citizens are made safer or more secure by these examples of ersatz leadership. It only adds to our sense of dismay to know that seventeen members of the Texas congressional delegation sought to void the election of President Biden and disenfranchise four other states.

Of course, all of this pretends not to notice the obvious: that our political life has become a series of calculated set pieces: dramas of status and resistance intended to be more expressive than instrumental. We know the impulse when we would like to scold someone rather than try to find common ground.  As the Austin-based journalist Molly Ivins once noted, “three Texas themes are religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and machismo.”  None of these postures need much cooperation from others; they are also not up to the demands of policy-making in the 21st century.

Corporate Texas generally shelters itself against the rest of the state by settling in enclaves surrounding Austin, Houston or Dallas. But companies like A.T. & T., Frito-Lay, Dell Computer and (most recently) Tesla, need to begin to notice that they are at least indirectly enabling parties and candidates mobilized to sabotage the fragile machinery of governing. At least from the northeast, it is hard to see key political figures like Governor Greg Abbott as authentic public servants. At some point he must have supported actions to make the lives of his constituents better.  But from a distance they are hard to find.