Those of you who are old enough to remember the dawn of the computer age, somewhere in the early '70's, will remember this phrase: Garbage In- Garbage Out. As the first shards of light began to break over the horizon of the cyber-world we now live in, computers were already creating frustrations with the first pioneers in the business world to experiment with their everyday use. The early code writers and programmers found they encountered quite a bit of criticism from folks who sometimes blamed their own mistakes on those "damned new computers". The programmers had a simple and unfailingly correct answer to the early nay-sayers, "garbage in- garbage out". And, they were right! Their point was this; the machine cannot discern the bad information and data from good information that's loaded into it. So, if you put in bad data and bad information, don't blame the computer- it's only reporting the crap you gave it. By the end of the '70,s this simple phrase had spread to the cultural lexicon of the times and people used it to explain a whole host of issues in which bad input can only get you bad outcomes.
I was thinking about that phrase, Garbage In- Garbage Out, as I was reflecting on the political scene surrounding the Presidential contests as they heat up just ahead of the actual election year. I know it seems that we've been at this so long now, and we haven't even gotten to the year when it really happens- but that's what we get for allowing ourselves to far too many 24- hour news networks and a thriving system of social media where these two behemoths feed off of each other. Nonetheless, I confess to being hopelessly hooked on a news addiction myself. In my reflections I thought this phrase is such an apt analogy for the non-sense we've all seen since last winter. Normally I would have been writing and thinking about the sad state of the body politic a lot, but each time I had a thought where there might be a temptation to write a few lines, I thought of the over-all silliness and just said, "nah.."
But in this essay I've finally come to some words that sum up the totality of the silliness into one old phrase form the '70's. I think just about everyone over the last couple of weeks, for various reasons, have come to see our political processes, and thus our future leadership issues, as just plain broken. Of course once we recognize a problem the next instinct is to blame it on someone else. The most blatant example I've seen of this time-honored tradition (of blaming someone else) is the Republican Party's efforts to blame CNBC for the disastrous debate that took place this week- as they did Fox News the first time. I've watched all three Republican debates (because of my sick addiction) and this one by far was the craziest of the three. All three were crazy- but this one was not only crazy, it wasn't even entertaining. The CNBC moderators, like the Fox moderators were horrible. They asked stupid, childish questions, they did not hold anybody to the facts, and they lost control of the format-without ever addressing the major issues. Horrible on every level! The candidates have now banded together to demand a new debate platform. Even the RNC has called the debates shameful, and they are group who set them up. All three debates featured non-sense and childishness from start to finish.
Watching the news this morning and seeing the Republican effort to change the game I began to wonder if the field of candidates and the positions they have staked out for their respective campaigns has more to do with the quality of the debate than the networks and the moderators. Could it be that the Party and the Candidates are the ones ultimately responsible for the stupidity of the questions and the nonsense answers we have been seeing? Could this be a perfect example of Garbage In- Garbage Out? I think it is.
I don't know what the Party and the public should expect when they have elevated Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina to the top tier of their party. To be even more explicit, the questions asked at the debates can clearly be traced straight back the candidates themselves. Let's take Trump for example. He began his campaign by referring to Mexicans as criminals and rapists; he insulted Lindsey Graham personally and displayed his phone number publicly as a form of schoolyard bullying; he made fun of Rick Perry's eye glasses; made derogatory remarks about Scott Walker's and Carly Fiorina's facial appearance; made comments about rand Paul's hair in the most ironic moment ever; and called Jeb Bush a low-energy loser. He openly brags about his wealth, lies about his campaign donations, and flaunts his four corporate bankruptcies as being smart business moves (with no regard to the creditors he left hanging with his debt). The Christian right loves him because he now carries around a Bible even though he has led the most un-Christian of lives and is now on this third trophy-wife. He "loves" women but talks about them like they his possessions to be taken out, polished up and "cherished" every so often. His policy positions are pure silliness. He says he will export 11 million people and when asked how? says, "humanely". He said he will build a "tremendous wall" with a "beautiful door"- but never says how, how much it will cost, or how it will be operated, AND says he will get Mexico to pay for it. That is so stupid it doesn't even require a response, but he gets to say it everyday on TV or in these debates. Every economist from every political stripe has called his $10 trillion tax cut utter non-sense. He will not address race, violence or education in any cogent way. And his economic growth plan is just to let him make the deals because he so wonderful at doing it. In all, there is not one serious thing to talk to this man about- This constitutes Garbage In.
Dr. Carson and Carly Fiorina and more soft-spoken or even more articulate than "the Donald", but no less crazy with their ideas for America. Carson became famous (politically) by going to a National Prayer Breakfast a few years ago and calling the Affordable Care Act " the worst thing since slavery", which clearly means be doesn't understand the ACA or slavery. He has no economic plan but promised big tax cuts that cannot stand the test of simple mathematics according to a wide range of economists. He is a scientist (physician) but denies scientific data on the climate; has said he would only preserve the Dept. Of Education to monitor and control "liberal" talk on college campuses; he is a doctor but cannot make any coherent policy statements on health care; and the list goes on and on. Ms. Forina has only one claim to fame, and that is her corporate executive career that ended in flames when she was fired for horrible missteps that nearly put Hewlitt-Packard out of business. Since then not one corporation on the planet has even approached her to acquire her "talents". Yet she will go to the debates and tell us that everything that happened in her career was actually great for H-P- and that is the kind of leadership the nation and the world needs, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Carson, Fiorina, and Trump all have exactly no experience with government, except how to degrade it or defeat it. So, of course they see themselves as experts on government. Would you hire a carpenter to build your house if they showed up and said "I can build you the best house ever even though I've never done anything like this before"? All see themselves as the savior of system they do not understand and could not operate effectively in. Trump even admits all of his government experience is tied up in buying (read: bribing) politicians to help his business. None of them have devoted a single moment on foreign policy other than to espouse international bullying, without giving the slightest nod to diplomacy. These folks have become the elite of the Republican field. The rest of the very large field of Republicans are a hodge-podge of old political hacks who can't seem to muster much more than 5% from the party voters. Not one of the others has come out with a unified plan for anything. The entire race is about being against Obama and Clinton and for Jesus, with no "program" to do anything other than give tax breaks to rich guys, continue to expand the world's (already) largest military, and get us into more unwinnable wars in the middle-east. Add it all together and you have truck load of Garbage In.
Given the total volume of Garbage in, how can we expect to get anything but Garbage out when this bunch shows up on the national stage. The moderators of these events could certainly do better, but it would sure be easier for them if the candidates gave them something better to work with. If the candidates only talk non-sense on the campaign trail, that is all they will asked about. The candidates owe them and us reasonable solutions to serious problems. This Republican cycle is a clown show in much the same way as it was in 2012. That fact that Trump, Carson and Fiorina are appealing as the "outsiders" tells us only one thing: people are so frustrated and so whipped up by an irresponsible right wing media establishment in talk-radio and Fox News they don't know the difference between those who shout foolishness and those who can actually lead.
This situation reminds me of a scene from the movie, The American President written by Aaron Sorkin. In the scene a close advisor to the President is admonishing the President to stand up to his political opposition who have spread lies and falsehoods. He tells the President that the American people are thirsty for leadership. He says they need it so badly that they would crawl across the dessert and chase a mirage- and when they find no water, they will drink the sand because they were so thirsty. The President becomes somber, stares down his young advisor and says, "They don't drink the sand because they are thirsty, Louis- they drink the sand because they don't know the difference".
I had honestly hoped that this time around the Republicans would have tried to provide the People with a reasonable choice, embodied in serious candidates, making a thoughtful case to the American people. The emergence of these Garbage In candidates shows me that won't happen. This is a function of a Republican party with policies that can no longer create a national appeal, but it is also a function of an electorate that simply hasn't demanded it. If so many people can accept the nonsense of Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, and Fox News, Republicans will remain out of the national driver's seat. And, that is not good for the country. I don't support today's Republican policies, but a reasonable Republican Party could play an important role in national leadership. The thoughtful exchange of ideas can actually bring people together and will always create a much better result. But as things stand now, there it's only Garbage In- Garbage Out from the Republicans, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
Thanks for looking in.
