We are officially a nation of nincompoops. Thank you, Ronald Reagan.

It’s taken awhile for the reduction in education spending, which Reagan initiated at the federal level, to reveal its deleterious effects. Yet the United States’ level of educational achievement in science, math, and language skills now ranks below more than twenty other countries. We are, in act, not smarter than a fifth grader.

A downward spiral
We used to be the envy of the world, and our universities still draw thousands of students from abroad. Those attendees, however, are often here because they didn’t make the cut “over there” where competition is often so fierce that applicants suffer from multiple psychological maladies — before, during, and after the entrance exams.

Republicans have tried on multiple occasions to eliminate (or further emasculate and eviscerate) the Department of Education. The latest Cabinet secretary may have achieved a new high in lowness. Fortunately, the ineptitude of Betsy DeVos is on its way out. What is unfortunate is that she’s given cover to countless members of the idiocracy who are further encouraged in their ignorance by Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting, and the likes of Rush Limbaugh and his misleading legion of radio and online companions.

Without the rigors of high quality education, American students have lost the analytical skills that help them determine fact from fiction or, at the very least, a healthy skepticism about claims that “just don’t seem right.” Any current conspiracy theory would be quickly dismissed in the 1960s, an era when Americans watched “The G. E. College Bowl” and knew the answers.

The profit of propaganda
Today, to our national detriment, the most brazenly outrageous claims are given credence by people who aren’t smart enough to know they’re stupid. Senator Ron Johnson is a standout in this cretinous crowd. Or by broadcast “personalities” who, as long as they can profit from the spread of disinformation, seem determined to do so. Confront them, and they’ll claim to be expressing opinions, not fact, and providing entertainment, not news. 

Our allies look at us in horror as political partisans try to turn a loss into a victory, judicial decisions into temporary obstacles, and reality into a distortion field of absolute nonsense. It is in this mindset of myopic arrogance that the State of Texas has sued four other states in the U. S. Supreme Court, claiming that the election results in those states were obtained through unconstitutional means. 

Illogical losing
If the Dallas Cowboys lose the next Super Bowl they play in, will Texas claim they really won and sue the winning team? Or will they go further to assert that the victor’s earlier triumphs were illegally obtained and, therefore, the winner wasn’t qualified to play against the Cowboys?

That’s the approach the Lonestar State is taking. It’s the approach that Republicans have backed. And it’s the surest sign that, from one end of the political spectrum at least, we’re not only not the bright shining light on the hill any more (and Reagan helped reduce it to the wattage of a night light), we’re a nation of grifters. 

What has become of America?

Where is the nation that used to believe in the law, the Constitution, and the ballot box? How did we descend into conspiracy theory as guidance, into megalomania as acceptable, into support for a man who believes in the divine right of self-serving privilege?

The Anti-role Model
What is appealing about someone who has cheated his vendors, welched on his bankers, ignored obligations, assaulted countless women, committed adultery multiple times, engaged in non-stop slander and, according to his siblings, has lied from the moment he learned how to speak? Exactly what do his supporters think that they’ll gain? 

Is it power alone? Dominion over working class citizens? A return to the era of kings and aristocrats who owned all the land and waged war to gain more? 

Or are they simply a Third Reich of riches? A new iteration of the robber baron era when money meant everything and nothing else mattered? When Federal troops were used by corporations to fend off strikers… or kill them for standing their ground?

Anarchy Incarnate
The nation is confronted by a traitor in the White House — a president more comfortable with tyrants than the U. S. Constitution. A man who believes he deserves to get his way all the time.

So, like tenants in his buildings who were served with eviction notices, he may need to be forcibly removed. But who will serve as marshals when the nation’s Department of Justice is led by an enabler of lawlessness? Who will show him out of the building when his army of supremacists are likely to show up fully armed?

Mr. Trump is terrified of going to jail and, based on the cases that are pending in New York, that is, indeed, a real possibility. Are there that many Republican officals who fear their misdeeds will emerge and, without Mr. Trump in the White House, they will never be pardoned?

It’s got to be something that the rest of us don’t see, but what we do see is psychosis in an ill-fitting suit.

I believe in certain things. Deeply. But I still double check when those concepts or systems or programs or beliefs reappear in conversation, on the air or online, or in print. To skip that step could affect all the other ideas and activities that those things are connected to.

COVID-19 is an instructive example. When it first was announced, we knew almost nothing about it. There was a connection to bats, Chinese markets, and Wuhan. Then there was evidence of massive infection with no clue about how to treat it. As it spread around the globe, we saw how nations were responding, how contagion expanded exponentially, and what people could do to avoid  (or increase) contamination. 

From the start, I heard of the ways we could protect ourselves. Most of them were based on things we knew about: the flu, measles, plague, and epidemics that has decimated people in Third World nations. 

Valid inquiries
That’s when the questions began. “What’s the same about these conditions?” “What’s different?” “Why is the country in a panic about toilet paper?” “If masks are good, which ones are better and why?” “How can the government provide proper guidance?” “Why aren’t laws that could help being enforced?” 

As answers began to arrive, though, the questions evolved. “Since existing treatments do not seem to work, what will?” “Is the latest suggestion truly effective or truly dangerous?” “Since officials seem at odds, who’s more accurate (and why)?”

It’s so easy to accept rosy assumptions or statements from experts when they fit with the world as you want it to be. Yet doing so without a raised eyebrow, without wondering whether it’s true, and without being willing to both verify and validate is, possibly, a shortcut to disaster.

The virtue of verification
Whenever there’s a hint of the arrogant myopia of ignorance, all of us need to be vigilant. We need to look out for ourselves by checking facts and proceeding only after we get all of them. That’s what makes professional journalism so vital: the best reporters get three sources to confirm a stated fact before they accept it as actual. I did that myself when I worked at NBC, ABC, and PBS. Without confirmation, my reports would have been based on mere hearsay, and that’s not journalism. That’s gossip.

So be a journalist for your own best interests. Be suspicious. Check things out. And pray that the people who won’t make that effort to uncover the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth are just as lazy when it comes to standing up to those who will.

Protests are ingrained in my memory. I’ve marched for civil rights, the end to violence and war, and the rights of workers. It has never made an enduring difference. Not in more than 50 years.

Laws have been passed, but enactment has always been lax. New regulations have been passed that seemed designed to undermine the intent of prior acts. Reversals of oversight have led to more inequity along with loss of basic rights. If this time is different, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

The pain to come
Nothing will be easier than it has been in the past. Cities will wrestle with budget allocations and entrenched union interests. Minority communities will expect to see change that may take years. Businesses will struggle to balance the cost of labor and community investment with the expectation to return the greatest profit to investors.

To date, there have been a lot of mea culpa statements. Of vows to recognize the promise at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance so that no one will want to “take a knee” — “with liberty and justice for all.”

Yet the leaderhip vacuum in Washington — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — continues to suck all the air from our lungs. Lobbyists have learned to relax as hard-won protections of our health, the environment, and our earning power have been rolled back or ignored. The divide remains clear to any partisan, no matter where they live: those who seek to expand the divide between Americans remain steadfastly opposed to those who hope to unify the country through equal protection, equal rights, and equal opportunity.

Government alone cannot fix this. Business has a real role to play.

The best interests of business
Until the 1980s, corporations often had summer and school-year internship programs for students, offering high school and college kids a chance to get a sense of what it’s like to work in engineering or finance or manufacturing or the arts. As the business community began to believe that Gordon Gekko was right — that “greed is good” — those programs disappeared. It’s time to bring them back; to give opportunities to young men and women in the communities in which corporations are either headquartered or have branch offices.

It’s time to make a shift in things that businesses get to deduct. Investments in community redevelopment, in education programs, in diversity training and practice, and in efforts to reduce a firm’s harmful environmental processes all pass muster. What should not be deductible (as a marketing or business expense) is the payment of tens of millions of dollars to name a major league sports stadium.

It’s time for doing more than improving wages. Training programs have to expand, giving entry level workers the chance to move up in the organization (even if it’s from porter to chef or field hand to combine driver or loading dock worker to operations manager). Companies have to recognize the shift in essential skills and offer educational programs to workers who want to acquire them… rather than passing over current employees and hiring people who already have them.

It’s time to reach out to inner cities and pockets of poverty everywhere, offering support to schools, community centers, after-school programs, and municipal programs that provide housing and healthcare. When people are secure, their work productivity goes up exponentially, and that lowers the effective cost of labor.

Invested in incomplete solutions
It’s time to confront the “pharmaceutical medical complex” that makes treatment unaffordable, puts more effort into treatment than cures, and doesn’t have a focus on outcomes. When businesses object to paying premiums or workers can’t afford to pay their share, the businesses will suffer, as well as the employees. Sick employees are non-productive employees, and sick employees who can’t afford to take or don’t get sick days  and, as a result, go to work only risk sickening co-workers. In the age of COVID-19, that’s potentially lethal.

It’s time to consider diversity broadly. It isn’t confined to minority communities, to people of color, or to gender. It applies to age, as well. A workforce that’s all under 40, regardless of its race and gender and cultural diversity, isn’t truly reflective of the nation.  

It’s time to decriminalize race, reorganize police departments (and modify the training that their officers receive), and shift money from reaction to prevention. Put more cops into communities they live in where they have a vested interest in stability and safety. Put them on foot so they can visit local businesses and meet the proprietors and customers. Accelerate the process for examining improper behavior and eliminate protections that shield offending officers whose actions would put anybody else behind bars.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
It’s time to start telling the truth. Not the partisan version that serves a political purpose. The kind that  offers bad news (so that people understand situations completely), that offers good news that gives them a reason to hope, that acknowledges that abusive behavior that shows up on cellphone videos is real, and that admits when things are murky and the answers aren’t clear or consistent. Lying for advantage disadvantages everyone with possibly disastrous effects.

And it’s time to expand the Truth in Advertising statutes to apply to politicians and elected officials. If consumer packaged goods manufacturers and drug makers and car brands can’t make claims that are untrue or could, potentially, cause harm to consumers, false claims and outright lies can’t be a part of a political campaign. They, too, can cause harm to the voters’ best interests and change government of, by, and for the people into the very tyranny that America was founded to prevent.

I am not a fan of podcasts. At least not the business-focused variety. That may seem odd for someone whose father is in the Radio Hall of Fame, but it's not. Radio understands the value of editing - of extracting the most cogent information and fitting it to time. Informational podcasts, too often, don't do that.

They can meander for a seeming eternity, putting the burden on the listener to extract the most relevant content. (If moderators were more skillful, they might keep their guests on track, but most, well, aren't... and don't.) Even in lockdown, I don't have an hour to devote to streams of unfocused babble.

So when I read this morning's edition of the Inside Security emailed newsletter, this stood out: "Every Wednesday, I summarize a podcast about cybersecurity so you can read it in about ten minutes or less."

How refreshing. With a journalist's judgment and an editor's skill, any podcast offering business-related advice, insights, and current information can probably be reduced to ten minutes or less.

Of course, when so many business podcasts seem to involve turning the mic on at the start, turning it off when the time runs out, and posting the recording online, that's an effort that podcasters don't seem to want to make.

When a lunatic is running the asylum, the inmates think the sane are deranged. Welcome to Trump 2.0.

This version is the buggy response to all the problems that he’s never been able to solve — running businesses that don’t have a permanent seat in the bankruptcy court, avoiding indiscretion with women who are not Mrs. Trump, taking on challenges that force him to do real work, and forming a simple declarative sentence that a) makes sense and b) isn’t immediately contradicted by the next blur of nonsense he utters.

We are, for the moment at least, “led” by a man who will gladly share whatever misperceptions he might have, won’t listen or defer to actual experts, refuses to accept responsibility, and won’t consider people’s safety if it interferes with profit. While some are content to describe him as a narcissist, which few would contest, he’s better defined as a mumpsimus, which is a great deal more dangerous.

The press seems to have found its courage lately, challenging his unsupported statements. His response is to call them rude or not nice… without responding to their questions. Even novice politicians can provide direct answers, even though they may not be appropriate to the questions being asked. But they don’t resort to insults.

Our Grand Poobah of Nincompoopery can attack, but he can’t parry. He can call people names that are demeaning but cannot endure being labeled anything unflattering. To call him shallow is an insult to the depth of a droplet. To assert that he’s petty makes spare cash look like a fortune. And to suggest that he’s the leader of the free world makes slaves of us all.

We used to be the model for the world. We did things bigger and better than anyone else. We invented, improved, inspired, and imagined — what other nations everywhere aspired to.

Now, we’re getting face masks and respirators from Asia as we ratchet up the number of infected individuals. We no longer serve as the world’s disaster safety net; we can’t provide a net of our own.

Instead, we are told about how well things are going, how quickly we’ll recover, and how everybody acted just as soon as they were warned about the threat. We were lied to.

Are we still the greatest country in the world? Aaron Sorkin had an answer several years ago and put it in the voice of Will McAvoy on “The Newsroom."

No one is to blame for COVID-19. Maybe the bat in Wuhan that, supposedly, started it all but not, as some have claimed, George Soros or Asian operatives who are hell-bent on destroying America.

Yet many in this country are to blame for the spread of the disease, both in Washington D.C., on the air, and in communities nationwide. Even Forrest Gump understood that "stupid is as stupid does," but too many Americans, faced with the inconvenience created by a global pandemic, see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.

America hasn't faced a common enemy since the '40s. Eighty years ago, we sacrificed, rationed, lent a hand to our neighbors, and got through it. Now, after decades of nearly uninterrupted prosperity, an unflattering self-preservational selfishness rapidly revealed itself once people started thinking they were vulnerable.

People flocked to markets in droves (ignorning social distancing entirely) to stock up on food -- not enough to see them through two weeks of self-quarantine but to hold them for months. The implication is that no one will forgo the oversized portions that have made the majority of the country obese. And God forbid that anyone should miss a meal.

The good and very bad news is that, in some towns, the lines outside of grocery stores were shorter than the lines in front of gun shops. Gotta keep marauders away from all those rolls of toilet paper.

It makes one wonder. Why would anybody need that much TP? Perhaps Americans really are full of....

I tried to buy a few things at the market today. Few is the relevant word.

That’s because the shelves in the stores that I managed to enter — two of the four had cars queued in the parking lot waiting for space, so I couldn’t go in — were almost totally bare. It was a scene out of Life magazine at the height of the Cold War, showing rows of empty shelves in stores in Moscow.

The pandemic panic has its grips on the country. Despite the official advice to have two weeks of essentials — to tide you over if you have to self-quarantine — this looked as if everyone expected the zombie apocalypse and needed to stock up for months, if not longer.

If there’s a message in this, it isn’t subtle. It’s “as long as I get mine, who gives a damn if you get yours.” It might be self-preservational, but it’s selfish, plain and simple.

Things in people’s baskets overflowed. It wasn’t just food and supplies to tide them over. It was food and supplies to ensure they wouldn’t give up a thing — not the size of their portions or a meal or the volume of hand sanitizer that they planned to slather on.

Sacrifice to aid the common good seems as alien as Washington’s embrace of reality. If Americans had been this way in 1941, it’s possible that our common language now would be German.

With so many Americans likely to suffer as jobs disappear and supplies of essential goods drop with them, the attitude of the shoppers I encountered today is contemptible. It was, also, a little dimwitted: anyone afraid of infection should not be mingling in crowds. You don’t know where they’ve been.

Humans trace their lineage to a site in Tanzania where, millions of years ago, the first hominids appeared in the Olduvai Gorge.

My own history is an infinitessimal portion of that timeline, but the business world seems to think that I am just as old as any of the Leakeys’ fossils.

According to my physician, the tests from my annual physical this year suggest that I’m about 23… and an elite athlete. Those tests aren’t wrong. They’re just not right. Not in absolute, calendar terms.

The gap years
Yet, as far as hiring managers are concerned, I’m C.U. — Chronologically Undesirable. Of course, before they see me, they adore me. In written correspondence, proposals sent online, and phone conversations, I’m exactly what they’re looking for. I understand their business inside out, some have claimed, and they need to take advantage of my insights right away.

As soon as I walk in the office, however, or they look me up online and see a photograph, they’ve suddenly “decided to go in another direction” (I’ve heard southwest is nice) or “put the position on hold” (until they find somebody younger) or “feel that the chemistry wouldn’t be right” (which might make sense if the business made drugs). No one dares to say what they mean: “You’re old.”

That fact can’t be denied. But that doesn’t mean I’m dead or out of touch with current trends or technologies. As J. M. Barrie wrote, “I’m not young enough to know everything,” but my younger peers (or non-peers, in their estimation) feel that they do. But they don’t.

The knowledge gap
For instance…. In advertising, the lust for youth seems never ending. Older creatives either open their own shops or get forced out. They’re seen as incapable of appealing to families, kids, and making products that they use appear essential. However, those same young writers and designers and account execs are given assignments for Depends and geriatric pharmaceuticals and retirement plans and other products used by people over 50.

Those accounts involve products and services that younger people haven’t ever used and probably won’t for decades. The over-50 folk, though, have raised families, put kids through college, paid for weddings, taken everybody on vacations in the same kinds of cars, eaten in the same types of restaurants, bought the same food, and now may have grandchildren who keep them in touch with the latest in fashion, fears, jargon, sports, and what they like and hate the most in school.

A gaping discrepancy
So who really has the background and resources to handle current businessplace needs? Who’s really in favor diversity when different genders and races are acceptable but people in different age groups are not? Who’s got problems managing people when those people are older? Who’s afraid of hiring people who might (just perhaps) be smarter than they are when the whole skill of management is finding people who do what they do better than you do what they do… and then letting them do it?

Yeah, there’s a chasm. An older guy gorge. And when today’s young people, in a world of robotics and AI, find they’re in it, I’ll be glad that I won’t be around to hear them complain.