Tommy Tuberville and the elevation of incompetence
Now. Not to toot my own horn. But I'm damned good at my job. And I've been damned good at every job I've ever held. I've always been promoted, I've always been "that guy" that everyone goes to when shit needs to get done. I don't aspire to competence; I aspire to excellence.
Most people are merely competent, and that's fine. Competence keeps the world turning, since not everyone can be a rockstar.
And then there are the likes of Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville.
Mr. Tuberville is in the news because for months he's blocked all military appointments and promotions requiring Senate approval. Why? Who the fuck knows? He brays that it has to do something with abortions. Or with "woke" culture. Or with "diversity". I really don't know, and don't care. Why don't I care about his reasoning? Because his reasoning is that of a child who wants a thing he is not allowed to have. He's that petulant brat who has gotten an idea into his head and won't let it go, obstinately holding onto his misconceived notion, an idée fixe which has no basis in any reality which normal human beings inhabit.
It's been made clear to him that his remonstrances are harming national security. His response? "We have plenty of generals and admirals to fill in." And now? Due to his obstreperousness, for the first time in its history the United States Marine Corps is without a Commandant. A military organization which is this country's "tip of the spear" is without a head. All because this unfit man is in a position of power.
I have often spoken about how in the late Roman Republic one could not simply aim for the top job of consul. One had to work one's way up the political ladder, the cursus honorum. Was it a perfect system? No, of course not. After all, the Republic fell and was replaced with a monarchy in all but name. But the idea is sound. Senator or president are not entry-level jobs. One shouldn't be able to go from hosting a game show to occupying the White House. Likewise, one shouldn't be able to go from coaching college football, badly, to holding one of a state's two senate seats. What's more galling is that the state which Mr. Tuberville represents has a population one-seventh the size of California's, and yet he has as much power as my two senators. The ramifications of empowering the smaller, slave-holding states continue to reverberate two centuries later.
There has always been a broad road of anti-intellectualism in this country. There was a 19th century political party called the "Know-Nothings". In a recent House committee hearing, Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene averred that she had no desire for her staff to be "educated" on an issue before the panel. The fact that this country has produced artists and scientists of renown is a minor miracle. But now one of the two major political parties has embraced idiocy as a party plank. The Republican Party has no positive program. It is a collection of the stupid and moronic. You have the likes of Nancy Mace and Elise Stefanik, who were lauded as "sensible", spewing as much gibberish as Lauren Boebert does. It is a party of nihilists, reflexively against anything which political opponents are for, and not bothering to give coherent reasoning behind their opposition. They don't have to give reasons; the small-brained who vote them into office will simply revel in them sticking it to the libruls.
But Mr. Tuberville's antics are on another level. The party which pretends to be pro-military is now ravaging military readiness. It is depriving the military of needed leadership. All for things which the military is not doing. If you had told me twenty years ago that liberals would be standing up for the military and law enforcement, while conservatives would be calling for defunding the FBI, I would have asked you to share some of that wacky tabacky. And yet here we are.
Former president Barack Obama broke many people's brains. "If that n***er can get elected president, then so can I!" Look at almost any GOP candidate and that's the impetus behind their candidacy. That a Black man held an office his kind were never supposed to hold turned their worlds upside-down, and they have been struggling with that ever since. This fever won't break soon. We simply have to ensure that it doesn't kill the patient.
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