The State and the Union

In the two years since a lethal contagion forced us all into lockdown, much has happened in the World and the USA. Much has also happened along this the most conservative stretch of Old Route 66. We all who have survived a global pandemic thus far have demonstrated the ability to do what needed to be done to keep ourselves and our loved ones out of harm’s way. In the course of doing so we have learned to deal with life in socially austere conditions which imposed on most of us a level of tedium and monotony the likes of which we thought we’d never take seriously outside a dystopian novel let alone ever experience. As a return to an almost near-normal life continues, we can feel a welcomed newfound appreciation for simple pleasures such that few things said or done by our elected officials can deprive us of any of our regained joys. Lucky for us that our chief executives, both state and federal, understand the concept that few people like to hear them speak of the condition of our collective life and status of the shape of our communities and be burdened with an annoying sense of consternation. Yes, ’tis the season for pumping universal sunshine, slathering lipstick on the economic pig and putting the maximally best spin on a slow but steadily improving recovery. Leave it to politicians with tanking approval numbers to tell it like they wish it was. That is not really a cheap shot. The metric of effective leadership is the distance between the stated goal and what the actual numbers indicate. The closer those points are, the more effective the leader. That said, let us not get too carried away with excessive criticism or praise. At the end of the day and looking forward, things now are not nearly as bad as they may seem nor as good as we would like. That concept may vary widely between state and nation.

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt delivered his fourth State of the State Address before the Oklahoma Legislature last month. One pertinent detail that went unmentioned is that 2022 is a milestone that marks ten years of all-Republican governance in the Sooner State. In a decade that has seen consistent decline under conservative policies, Governor Stitt said as much as he could say that his most ardent supporters wanted to hear. It was impossible to ignore that in the runup to his speech, the Governor was being dogged by negative TV ads which have been relentlessly choking the airwaves since. What’s worse, some of the nastiest of those ads are funded by a dark money group backed by a Conservative organization, that being Conservative Voice of America. In all fairness to the Governor, those ads may contain a ring of truth but omit too much to be considered credible, as do most negative attack ads. The upside to the use of political attack ads is they work. There is also a downside to them, that being they work. It also has not helped that for all the Governor’s lip service to the theme of making Oklahoma a Top Ten State, the numbers indicate we still have a long way to go in order for that to happen. Not to worry however, the time between now and Election Day 2022 is an eternity in politics. Even still, I have met at least as many Republican voters who are dissatisfied with Governor Stitt’s policies as are fine with them. We may rest assured he will have no shortage of primary opponents as he makes his case for reelection.

The previously noted sentiment is especially true at the federal level. In Washington, things are not as bad as some wish they were and certainly not as rosy as the picture President Biden painted in his State of the Union Speech earlier this month.

State of the Union Fact Check

We cannot blame the President for getting carried away with his effervescent sense of positive enthusiasm. On the home front things are improving with varying degrees of rapidity. Had it not been for an overseas foreign policy crisis in Ukraine, he probably could have gotten more than an eight-point bounce in approval rating out of his State of the Union performance. Not too shabby for a speech to a mostly unsympathetic audience. Therein identifies the Achilles Heel of the Democratic majority going into the midterm election cycle: ineffective messaging. Telling a tale of woe in an uplifting and palatable fashion of how things really are offers the potential to overcome a whole lot when there is actually more improvement than decline despite perception. One grievance chief among all others that is brutally factual is the cost of a barrel of oil and, by extension, that of gasoline. It is apparent that we have a crop of relatively new automobile owners who have little or no knowledge of how things were not that long ago for so many of us. We indeed have had to slog our way through the land of the $75 fill-up at the self-service pump before. All of a sudden every Biden critic is ready hang the blame for these ridiculously high gas prices around his neck. What I would like to know is if those same aggrieved folks are okay with oil companies reaping exorbitant profits that are at a seven-year high in spite of all corporate pandemic losses. Despite the President’s lip service to increasing green energy options, over 9000 drilling permits remain in effect. Regardless of any well-intended efforts made by the White House, there really is not much any U.S. President can do to influence the price of gasoline, at least in the short term.

As we emerge from the pandemic, economic strength is returning as those in the workforce return to their jobs despite the large number of people opting for retirement in the preceding two years. The latest unemployment numbers reveal this. The job creation numbers over the past twelve months have also been very encouraging. In spite of all this there are many naysayers who take the term ‘malcontent’ to a whole new level. Because the restorative improvements are not happening fast enough to their liking just like with gas prices, it is as if they blame President Biden for not having a magic wand he can pull out, wave, resolve all problems immediately or at very least make it the way it was pre-pandemic. I realize just about everyone with an “R” next to their name would never give President Biden credit for anything regardless how positive it might be, and a fair number of his own party are not happy with him because his policies are not liberal enough to suit them. Such is the bane of the existence of a chief executive who governs as a centrist. Will Rogers once articulated a wonderful solution to this particular universal dissatisfaction:

As the second year of his term gets underway, President Biden is doing exactly what 81.2 million Americans elected him to do, that being carry out the duties of his office like a seasoned public servant, execute policy decisions that place the overall good of the nation first and foremost and to be the one who answers that proverbial 3 AM phone call. The big elephant in the middle of the room in the waning days of winter is the aforementioned foreign policy crisis: the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Thus far, President Biden has done all that is not only indicated but necessary to cripple Putin’s Russia via economic sanctions and support of Ukraine in coordination with other NATO members short of actually declaring a hot war. I must say as a Cold War era veteran, I never thought thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union that nuclear deterrence would still be a thing, but here we are. I will go out on a limb and say that if Vladimir Putin did not have access to a launch-ready nuclear arsenal that the complexion of the NATO involvement opposing the Russian adventurism in Ukraine would look to be a great deal different. That is material for post unto itself, but for the here and now we should be glad to have a foreign policy veteran making decisions of state. As we continue to emerge from two years of universal dystopia, the best we can wish for is a scarred but fully functional Constitutional Republic in which all mechanisms of government work as intended. This would provide all the dissatisfied and disgruntled among us that elusive sense of hope required to move forward. Such is the state of the World in which we now live.