Last week members of Congress on both sides of the aisle tested a new low in political discourse during hearings on financial institutions and climate change. Rep. Thomas Massey (R-KY) used his time during a House Oversight Committee meeting on climate change with testimony by former secretary of state, senator and presidential candidate John Kerry to begin his questioning of “pseudoscience” by equating it to Sec. Kerry’s BA from Yale in Political Science as being also a degree in “pseudoscience.” The entire back and forth where Kerry (for good reason) asked “Is this really happening right now?” was actually more painful to watch than even this sounds, and if you didn’t know already would leave you incredulous that Rep. Massey is also the recipient of a Masters in Electrical Engineering from MIT.
Just down the hallway, while the House Financial Services Committee was hearing testimony from Sec. of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, when he asked to be dismissed at the end of his testimony period to attend a previously disclosed meeting with a foreign dignitary, a standoff ensued where Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), whose committee had fallen behind schedule told Mnuchin that he may leave, but refused to dismiss him. The semantics were not lost on Mnuchin that the Chairwoman intended to later accuse him of abandoning the hearing without being dismissed- something he did not wish to do- eventually after the hearing descended into pettiness and already late for his other scheduled meeting, Mnuchin did leave as he was “free to do” without being formally dismissed.
Neither of these hearings was particularly insightful and in neither case was the member of Congress hoping to learn anything useful from the testimony. The primary objectives were to 1) play to their respective bases by forcing extremely senior members of the current and former cabinet to listen to copious amounts of dressing down that would please their bases in much the same way WWE fans cheer when a wrestler breaks a chair over the head of WWE’s billionaire CEO, Vince McMahon. And while many of those on the sidelines cheered and jeered one and the other, in both cases, Congress, the Cabinet and all of America got a little dumber.
But I took some hope in something else I saw this week…
A back and forth feud ensued between mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg and Vice President Mike Pence. In a similar fashion, they are both on extremely different ends of the political spectrum- although both represent the views of very large blocs of the country and the electorate. And yet their discourse was so much different. It was pointed, direct, biting and civil. People on both ends of the spectrum, in similar fashion, cheered and jeered, and both are men the media on both sides are propping up and tearing down in a personal fashion that doesn’t represent the actual men.. and yet, they remain positive, civil and focused on the issues.
As we head into this election, I’m hopeful that both Buttigieg and Pence will continue to lead us out of this race for the bottom. People on both sides have good reasons to support their candidates and good reasons to have real, honest, heartfelt and passionate fear, excitement and at times anger, but the dumbing down of our leaders has caused us to replace governance with Facebook memes, sound bytes, and personal attacks that distract us from the policies and agendas that underly our elected leaders. You may hate or love what Pence or Buttigieg represent, but either way, the odds are that you judge them by their policies, their agendas, their beliefs and their objectives. And if Congress could follow that example, America would be far better off.
