Never have Americans endured such a dose of law.
The other day I listened to arguments before the Supreme Court about Trump’s eligibility to run for President. After a dozen minutes I gave up; these justices and advocates could have been talking Swahili. I’d read the disputed paragraph: it’s short and simple: if you’ve tried to topple our government, you can’t be a candidate to lead it – that’s its gist. That gist was lost in a blizzard of definitions, citations, precedents; I couldn’t make heads or tails of the back-and-forth. They were talking English, I was pretty sure, a language with which I’ve some familiarity. They were discussing America, a nation of which I’ve some notion. The principle hardly seemed arcane. (Seemed right to me.) What in blazes were they saying? Whom were they talking to, if not to me? I was reminded of President Clinton’s smarmy defense against self-incrimination: “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” To hell with it – it was beyond me – I had better uses for my time.
The same mystification by clarification has shrouded all our professions in impenetrable fog. Law, electronics, medicine, taxation, those small-print disclosures we click impatiently to complete an on-line purchase… No inexpert newcomer can pierce the Laocoon lexicon or jungle of lingo. No sane person is tempted to try. Let the experts tell us what’s being said, we surrender wearily – which is what the experts want, for it keeps them employed.
Systems like other organisms ramify with time, with each new branch requiring its own ecosystem – experts, specializations, definitions. We watch this gratefully in medicine, where doctors turn orthopedists turn shoulder or ankle guys, each subgroup with its hierarchies, orthodoxies, protocols.
When the Founding Fathers or Lincoln and Douglas debated the shape of their emerging nation, ordinary folks might comprehend if we listened close. We might participate in the discussion, that is, feel a part of it. Now we need advanced degrees and concentration beyond ordinary strength. Experts exclude non-experts, the clergy the laity, to buttress their importance.
Sly Trump saw an opening for his politics of paranoia and ignorance. Persuade his befuddled followers that all government was bullshit, a rigged game, and they were geniuses to figure this out. Hire smart lawyers to make a mockery of overcomplicated law. His own baboonish blather made mincemeat of sense, facts, and grammar, right on, why not, they’re the devil’s snares. (The foregoing’s probably unjust to baboons, whose communications are efficient and sufficient.)
The educated gasped aghast: Lies! Nonsense! Libels! But that was the point: ignite outrage, then aim the blowtorch at self-promotion: WE’ll show THEM!!! The ferocity of vox populi cowed wannabe defenders of probity. U.S. Senators – Senators! – assured cameras that what was being said wasn’t what was being said – “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” To escape this cacophony of contradictions, let’s repose our trust in the BIG GUY, however looney he seems.
I write to quell my confusion, rein rampant reality so it pulls my cart. Though my analogies may get flowery, my aim is perception, as much as I can glean and express. I’m avid, even frantic to know what in blazes is going on!
What’s going on in America and other democratic nations is the revolt of aggrieved simplicity against incomprehensible complexity, the revenge of the dummies against the smarties. No one likes feeling lost, out of it, condescended to, stupid, patronized – and that’s what our ever-inspissating system has inadvertently achieved. All of us feel left out of the conversation more or less. No wonder so many feel like trashing the joint.