Central to any kindergarten curriculum are the sociable arts. Tots need to know how to share, take turns, and collaborate to succeed in school and life. Such obvious skills may seem innate, but they’re not, they must be taught. Without the lubricant of please and thank you, the gears of civilization chafe and crack.
I’m puzzled how the Republicans in Congress graduated from kindergarten. Maybe their teachers, eager to be rid of them, winked at their deficiencies. Or maybe, unreminded by neighbors, these miscreants forgot the rudiments of neighborliness. Whatever the cause, the result of their ignorance is bone-chilling. They don’t know how to share, take turns, even bid good morning without offense. Dogs unschooled in basic manners get put down. The day’s headlines make me feel like Ko-Ko in The Mikado:
I’ve got a little list.
And they’d none of them be missed.
Manners are as essential to conversation as words. One must act as well as speak agreeably to be heard. In my boyhood home, misbehavers were remanded to their room and a hairbrush or belt on bared behinds. One might think obnoxiously as long as one behaved impeccably.
Trump has the worst manners I’ve ever witnessed. He interrupts, sneers, lies, insults, boasts, smells, where were his parents? My aversion to him was visceral long before it was political. His followers blatantly swagger after him. The parents of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Jim Jordan would face the death penalty in a world more just.
Vile behavior is worse than despicable, it’s dangerous. Mistakes are made if you can’t share, take turns, make nice. Negligible faux pas escalate into vicious food fights. Petulance drowns out sense. In kindergarten, teachers detach raging tots; where are the grown-ups in Congress to tamp tantrums and avert calamity?
The present spat over border legislation must humiliate every American. (I glimpsed Washington, Jefferson, and Madison puking in the Capitol men’s room if I’m not mistaken.) Conservatives have long argued for a stricter admissions policy to America. I think they’re wrong – immigrants invigorate America, they don’t deplete us – but the debate is legitimate, arguably the oldest in human governance. The Other has always been the bugaboo of the insecure – and a convenient scapegoat. Whatever’s amiss it’s those foreigners to blame.
The Democrats, recognizing the toxicity of this issue, sensibly opted to “take it off the table” – oh, the cliches of politics! – by giving the conservatives what they want. But now, uh-oh, Trump realizes that what he wants isn’t what he wants, a bipartisan border deal would deprive him of a political cudgel, so guess what? No deal. No need, even, for legislation. If good for America means bad for Trump, Trump trumps! That this ludicrous fracas delays or cancels aid to Ukraine to combat global vandalism is a shame but, hey, tantrums take precedence, as any testy tot knows.
Color me nauseous – fulminous – fearful. America’s is not a political dispute but a broken marriage, where neither spouse can agree on the time of day. To hell with patriotism, sobriety, society, let acrimony reign!
How to respond? As the Minutemen did at America’s inception: quit our fields, grab our muskets, and shoot the bastards. There are two sides in today’s Revolution, but they are not Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Progressives, but Tyrannizers and Patriots. Also, tots and grown-ups. Does my rhetoric sound hateful, contemptuous, unbecoming a well-bred lad? You bet. Because we’re at war and they’re coming after us, after civilization and civility and freedom and decency, to impose their ruthless and rapacious power. Panic, no – that helps no-one – but take arms.