So, here we are. In a new, fantastical world unlike any we've previously seen. Everything is reversed. A government run by the Mad Hatter. Executive Departments, if positions filled at all, are led by doconstructors, each and every one dismantling the EPA, the State Department, HUD, VA, Justice Department. The list is endless. Right wing nuts replacing moderates and liberals and even a few traditional conservatives.
Here's the huge irony. The conservative stereotype we imagined before were tightly wrapped, buttoned up, strategic people. But look Through The Looking Glass and what have we? Hip shooters, go with the moment, intuitive managers, inventing facts and lying about them, I guess just for the fun of it. The liberal stereotype, go with the flow, lets try something new, think out of the box crowd, join the crowd in the Woodstock mud pit types bringing us the enlightenment, but not sure where it will take us. Out but not gone, because the conservatives/alt-right crowd have totally reversed their M.O. and opted for the ready, fire, aim approach. It is a Topsy Turvy America many of us barely recognize.
We've gone from Kansas to Syria almost overnight. I guess America just got tired of thoughtful, deliberative, pretty predictable, cautious governance, maybe even bored. From not much drama to waking up every morning to the totally unexpected. From the left hand knowing what the right hand was doing to "look ma, no hands". Crash, bang. From no corruption and no conflict of interest to hands and feet in the cookie jar. And everyone buying first class tickets to avoid the riff raff holding us accountable.
I heard a great show on NPR today. Seems we really don't know what really drives success.We really don't know what management theory gets the best results. There seems to be no single winning approach. So, I'm trying to keep an open mind here. Chaos management? Authoritarian management? We seem at the moment to have both concurrently , which seems, well, quite Mad. I'd be much more comfortable if I knew which works better. We've generally associated democracy with messy, complicated negotiations and relationships. And autocratic, despotic rule as predicable, linear and much less complicated. America, in its founding, opted for the uncertainties of democracy. I guess we just got tired of the uncertainty, opting for the despotic. People ruled by despots know the way things work in the system and there are really many more of these around the planet than messy democracies. I think this is what the Trumphians thought they were getting. But that is not exactly what we have here. I guess we'd just have to describe it as Chaotic Despotism.
What I do know, though, is that Alice, once she finished her trek through the looking glass, was really happy to get back to Kansas. It was a grand adventure, but too unsettling and way too unpredictable to have a life of some calm and order which she greatly preferred. I am hoping our story goes similar to Alice's. And the sooner home, back to Kansas, the better.
