A Country, And A Mind, Divided: Two Posts In One

Columnist Mark Herrmann’s mind is divided by the state of society, so he writes two remarkable contrasting posts in one.

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

My mind is cleaved by the events of the day. Please read both of the columns that I drafted.

 

 

Here’s today’s first column:

Amerika: A Fable

Once upon a time there was a president with the temperament of a 6-year-old, serving as the executive of a powerful country. This president thought police should be tougher when arresting criminals. He threatened North Korea with “fire and fury.” He said that he was glad to have the guys with guns in his camp.

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I bet he liked vigilante movies.

This president riled up the country for four years. He gave a speech about the other party stealing an election and about how the other party would destroy the country. He said people had to fight for what they believed in. Some of his supporters stormed the Capitol.

For the inauguration of the next president, 20,000 members of the National Guard protected the Capitol. That’s more members of the military than Amerika had deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq (combined) at the time. The guardsmen were issued weapons.

But the National Guard made a mistake. It did not monitor the social media accounts of its members. The National Guard skews white, lower-middle-class, male, which was where the president found much of his support.  During the protests on inauguration day, 10,000 armed guardsmen decided that instead of obeying the chain of command, they would support the protestors.

Thus ended Amerika.

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Here’s today’s second column:

Time For A Pause

I don’t want the government to silence you. I want everybody to voluntarily choose to silence themselves.

For just two years, I want the loonies of the left to stop talking about “defunding the police.” They can talk about “reforming the police.” If a speaker or a co-worker says or does something insensitive or offensive, do not boycott or fire the person. Explain to the person what he or she did wrong, and hope for better next time. Don’t worry about who chooses to urinate in which bathroom. Either bathroom is fine. Just for two years.

For just two years, I want the loonies of the right to stop calling members of the other party “socialists.” They can talk about “progressives.” Don’t say that the people in the other party will destroy your country. Don’t say that people in the other party believe in riots. You can say the other party believes in political protests, and some small groups within those protests sometimes riot. Just for two years.

During those two years, I want legislatures to be guided by nonpartisan or bipartisan committees that think hard about reform. The legislatures should agree to adopt the recommendations made by the committees.

Can we engage in redistricting that makes most Congressional districts competitive, so that radicals of the left or right will lose elections, and moderates will win?

Should we mandate or give a tax credit for voting? Politicians today run negative ads to depress the turnout of the opposing party’s supporters on Election Day. Perhaps, if people were required or encouraged to vote, politicians would stop campaigning this way.

States should experiment with “top-two primary” systems, in which all candidates are listed on the same primary ballot, and the top two candidates, regardless of party, advance to the general election.

And so on, including ideas from people much smarter than me.

Let’s enact those reforms, so that our country leans to the middle and becomes more governable.

And then, after two years, we can go back to shouting.

I promise.


Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.