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The more things change, the more things stay the same. Shocks in my life have been the moon landing; Watergate; helicopters picking up the last Americans off the Embassy roof in Saigon; a matinee idol — Ronald Reagan — moving into the White House; COVID; and now a New York realtor in the Oval Office.
We’ve managed to survive it all. This is a very durable country. I discount the lament of “uncertainty.”
Yes, we are shifting gears from globalization to isolation and from government by a group of old hands to the amateur hour. The Bangor Daily News editorial of April 25 presumes that only experts should sit in the Cabinet, singling out Pete Hegseth, Kirsti Noem, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr as unfit for office.
But, the reason they are there, I believe, is the sleaze factor that comes hand-in-hand with DC operatives. The experts know too much. They have their pet journalists to stab rivals in the back. They are versed in the revolving door that requires cultivating patrons in the private sector. They know how to handle congressional hearings. They’re pros.
By and large, I believe these hardened bureaucrats are not a threat to democracy, but, on the other hand, democracy can struggle along without their “expertise” for a while. The built-in inertia of the federal government is — in itself — a safeguard.
Pearl Harbor was a shock. 9/11 was a shock. John F. Kennedy’s assassination was a shock.
This peaceful transfer of power doesn’t call for clutching our pearls.
Tom Deegan
Orono