It’s one of the lessons we are all taught by our parents when we are young children – responsibility and consequences.  Maybe you failed to listen to your parent, or come home late from playing outside, or you grabbed that Hot Wheels from your sibling when he was playing with it.  You got that stern lesson from your parent about being responsible and if you didn’t, ‘there would be consequences’ (the biggest word you ever learned at a young age).  And you learned what the consequences were – physically, mentally, morally.  And the lesson would be taught to you over and over again, presented by your elders and leaders of the community (teachers, police officers, clergy, etc).  You would learn to respect those who rose up in the community to leadership positions as they would create an example for you, an example of accountability.

That basic lesson is being tested today, since January 20th.  For on January 20th, the very first thing the President of the United States did was give pardons to more than 1,500 people.  Not because they didn’t commit their crimes (over 1,000 pled guilty to their crimes) or because they they expressed contrition for their assaults on police officers and millions in property damage – but because the President didn’t believe should be held accountable for what they did.  So the lesson is crimes can be committed with the blessing of our political leaders – accountability is situational.  In fact, the President taught all of America how to deflect accountability during his State of Union address – joking that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be blamed ‘if anything goes wrong’ – this would only seem like a joke if it weren’t for the President’s habit deflecting accountability and attributing blame for anything unfavorable to him.

This same lesson has been taken up by the President’s right hand, Elon Musk and DOGE.  Musk is frequently touted by the President as “brilliant” and for his business acumen.  And we all learned long ago that if you make mistakes in business (either too many or too large), you will be fired.  The lessons of Musk and DOGE is creating a brand new standard of accountability – or unaccountability, as the case may be.  As Musk professed that “nobody can bat 1000” (as if a batting average would ever be acceptable in real life), he has wracked up an astonishing scoreboard of errors.  Firing of nuclear weapon management employees, firing probationary employees (irrespective of job performance or critical need), FDA workers in cardiac device unit, and FAA personnel who work on safety systems, has often resulted in a scramble to re-hire them.  It has not simply looked bad – it looks incompetent.  DOGE has been touting its transparency with its ‘Wall of Receipts’ accounting for its savings achievements – but the wall appears to made of disappearing or invisible ink, with claimed savings being removed from the Wall as soon as reporters investigate their veracity.  The ‘Wall’ has never added up to the total amount of savings claimed, aside from drastically overstating savings, claiming savings for contracts that had already been completed, and claiming lease terminations (the most voluminous cuts on the list) for commercial properties whose leases can’t be terminated or for leases that are still needed to house essential government services.  So many mistakes, impacting so many citizens – with no consequences.  Perhaps the probationary employees of DOGE should be fired.

The Legislative Branch has been taking these leadership lessons as well.  At town halls across the country, Congresspeople have heard from disgruntled and upset constituents regarding the actions of their government and the inaction of the Congress.  At town halls in red districts, the questions have been so challenging as to make the Congresspeople uncomfortable.  At town halls in blue districts, the demands are universally for their representatives to do more to stop the administration and enforce accountability.  It has gotten so bad that the Speaker of the House has recommended that his party’s reps stop holding town halls entirely.  And this would be the natural result from an unaccountable group of representatives that have been gerrymandered so expertly that it’s highly unlikely for the vast majority of the incumbents to face any real competition.  If you are not really going to be accountable at election time, why pretend to be accountable at town halls?

Accountability is too hard.  It’s too much to expect.  Its unfair.  Its too old fashioned.  Accountability is dead.

And the national disgrace continues…