Chunk 37: Murder, he wrought.
Some of you will remember the television show “Murder, She Wrote”, which ran for 264 episodes between 1984 and 1996. It starred Angela Lansbury as the author, Jessica Fletcher, who lived in Cabot Cove, Maine (three electoral votes to President-Elect Biden, thank you very much).
Because watching someone write a book makes for extremely dull viewing (take that from personal experience), each week the series would feature some grisly death that only Jessica, using her astounding powers of deductive reasoning and general nosiness, could manage to solve.
That killing people seemed to follow Ms Fletcher around like a bad smell oddly never seemed of real concern to anyone. I mean, if one woman happened to be in the proximity of 264 murders, you’d think someone might start to get a little suspicious, or be tempted to stay the hell away from her? But I digress …
Now, after just four seasons, Donald Trump’s reality show at the White House has abruptly been cancelled. He, of course, had hoped for a much longer run and is heading to court - seemingly without evidence - to try and extend it. Yeah, good luck with that.
Trump is good riddance, but unfortunately - like JB Fletcher - hanging out with him has led to the premature demise of many others as well. Certainly there were some bad eggs, but there were also many patriots, people who - whether you agreed with their politics or not - answered the call to “serve at the pleasure of the president”. Like James Mattis, John Kelly, Alexander Vindman, HR McMaster and Sally Yates, all who dedicated their entire professional lives to their country. No government can function unless there are smart people such as these patriots willing to choose public service over the private sector.
One of Trump’s many broken promises was to “be a cheerleader for the country”. Yet his appalling treatment of those closest to him (let’s call them the “non-family members”) has led to worryingly low take-up of government jobs.
Look at the US State Department, America’s representatives to the world: the exam numbers to become a diplomat are now at the lowest level since 2008. In just one year, between 2017 and 2018, they dropped 22%. Because as Trump was busily firing people, he was also killing off enthusiasm for new people to join the business of government.
The economic rub-off of Trump’s complete mismanagement of the Coronavirus will only make matters worse. Less people working means less tax revenue, and less tax revenue means fewer government jobs.
You could argue that fewer public servants means less bureaucracy, fewer mouths feeding from the federal trough. Personally, I think that’s being shortsighted. Inspiring citizens to want to improve their country is the cornerstone of any successful democracy, and after Trump’s four years attempting to undermine it, now more urgently required than perhaps ever.
So, over to you, Joe. Hopefully you can sprinkle some of that electoral fairy dust across the land and truly get folk working to make America great again.
And as for Donald Trump, I wonder if he’d be up for a visit from Angela Lansbury?
