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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2021
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
No more arson
When we talk about maintaining democracy, per
haps that sounds pretty vague. But I think about it
simply: can we decide on power peacefully?
The answer for most of our history has been a
remarkable “Yes.” That's been a hallmark of U.S.
governance and a trait for the world to follow for
many years. Many countries haven't been able to
match us on this simple, but all-important standard.
But we’re in the middle of a deep so
cial disease. Our society is simply un
well. And the bedrock principle is loose
underneath the structure. American de
mocracy is perched on a Florida sinkhole
at the moment. Presidential elections feel
less like elections these days and more
like regularly scheduled social traumas.
And next year’s mid-term elections will
probably feel the same.
That’s because the back and forth on
national policy in our two-party system
has absolutely collapsed. Instead, the
battle has shifted into something unsus
tainable, a war over reality itself, which
increasingly turns into, “Are you with the good guys
or the bad guys?” This is rooted in emotions tied to
identity, not policy. Therefore, it is not leading us to
a shared well-being, but a shared demise.
We can hardly look at another person or hear
what they say and not begin a sorting process, plac
ing each other into binary, us/them categories. The
moment any of us do this without any inner pause,
then we readily jump into a pit and can’t see out. In
such a partisan either/or mindset we eliminate judg
ment based on a bigger picture — America itself—
and want a team win, as if it’s Saturday and we are
wearing colors.
In this rolling social war, bad tendencies on one
side are feeding off the bad tendencies on the oth
er. The excessive puritanical aspect on the left is a
self-sabotage politically. There is some unwritten,
linguistic moral code that is changing constantly,
and people with a middle-of-the-road mindset who
are alienated by the excesses of the right are cer
tainly not going to jump on board when they see a
gleeful online mob completely certain of itself as it
belittles another human who frequently has no abil
ity to provide context. Yes, there are certainly things
that need to be called out, but there also seems to
be an easy righteousness in eliminating another's
humanity based on any real or perceived misstep.
As the right moves more extreme, too many on the
left seem to counter with more rigidity on what's
acceptable socially and more ease in applying its
moral absolutism with or without context. This is
not liberal-mindedness. At times, the shut-em-down
attitude can be less a virtue than a declaration of in
group/out-group tribalism.
I don’t want to be a part of that.
I don’t want to be a part of what I’m seeing on
the right either. It absolutely horrifies me and on a
bigger scale.
That’s because I feel more and more that our
country, which fought to free itself of a king’s rule,
is going to undo the legacy of the Revolutionary
War and institute a king. There is absolutely nothing
about the Republican Party right now that makes me
think otherwise. Trumpism — whether with Trump
or someone else — is the move toward a king.
That’s the heart of it. Nothing is stopping this wave
within the party.
In an anxious time full of uncertainty, it makes
sense that people want it simple. Give me one guy,
someone to cheer for, someone to lead my good
tribe against the bad guys. Humans have done this
for thousands of years. Democracy has been an
experiment in the opposite of basic human social
behavior. It’s a break from that ancient mindset of
the most powerful club to the head makes right. In
stead, it’s an attempt to give power to a system of
governance rooted in the interests of the whole, not
the few, with non-violent determinations replacing
blood. That was the promise in the founding doc
uments.
But even before Trump, we’ve felt that “the few”
are controlling the many. And the frustrations have
led to an old want for blood. In one way, Trump
ism is one expression of a shared exasperation we
all have. Plenty of people are drawn to it because of
this deep and legitimate frustration and they want a
clear answer. And Trump's complete rejection of the
at election time
moral superiority professed by the competing side
is gratifying to many Republicans.
But a rejection of something that seems socially
pompous shouldn't give license to dynamiting the
basic bedrock of American governance or the for
giveness of all wrongdoing so long as the “good
team” does the bad things. The desire to counter
the excesses of “political correctness” shouldn't
excuse moral lapses and hatefulness.
But for many, it seems to. Anything
goes as long as it’s by the king or for
the king, this team, not that team. That
is not a principled stand. That’s a circus.
Our society has grown a lot coarser
over the past five years. Trumpism is
an attitude of “screw civility,” because
Trump is the man with a club in hand
doing exactly that. This attitude is not
a strength but a vims. It spreads like a
contagion. It isn’t healthy.
The only conclusion I can draw from
the ongoing embrace of overtly false
and manipulative narratives is that
peace is not wanted. War is the goal — a second
revolutionary war of sorts, where a king is institut
ed by force. This was Jan. 6 in a nutshell. It seems
destined to be repeated.
I say this because declaring that elections are
rigged — but only if you lose — before elections
are even held—that’s not the voicing of an elector
al concern. No, that's a strategy. The goal is to soak
any unfavorable result in uncertainty. This strategy
is also contagious. We just saw a candidate in the
California recall profess fraud before the election
was held. We will see it moving forward with in
creasing regularity. Trump opened the door to this
bad-faith tactic like no other in American history. It
absolutely won’t end there. And don’t be surprised
to see it cross the spectrum politically if it is ef
fective.
But please recognize that this strategy is lighter
fluid poured all over the straw hut as we sleep. It is
arson to a democracy and will lead to untold death
and destruction. That is not hyperbole. That’s his
tory. When established rules of national order fall,
chaos follows. Is this what we want? Does antip
athy for other people validate wide-scale social
arson? No. it doesn’t on the left. It doesn’t on the
right. Neither is OK.
We have witnessed a long slide toward a king's
rule well before Trump. The executive branch has
grown too powerful as Congress has withered into
complete dysfunction. But the Revolutionary War
wasn't fought to re-institute a king at a later date,
was it? If you are cheering for exactly that, then I
don’t know what to say. Perhaps I’d say that kings
change, too. And tribal kingdoms are warring so
cieties as “my king” turns to “your king,” and vice
versa, not through elections, but through war.
Democracy in a flawed form is better than a
tribal kingdom. That’s why the realm of evidence,
not speculation, not conspiracy, must prevail. We
absolutely must get better. We have to get over this
deep sickness. Election integrity matters, but ac
cepting results is part of that, too.
To sabotage the integrity of the electoral system
by questioning results without evidence is a chess
game concluded by tantrum, with the pieces all
swatted on the floor. If we want bullets not bal
lots determining our way forward, then throwing
all the pieces in the air and screaming is the new
protocol.
We go to vote. They are counted. We move on.
It’s been that way for over two centuries. If we are
no longer that nation, then buckle up for a really
rough century.
The desire for something to be true isn’t evi
dence of its truth. And if you have concerns about
any election, then take it to the court of law. If we
give up on that, we give up on the rule of law. If we
give up on the rule of law, then well, what’s left?
We all know the crystal-clear answer. That’s why
we can't duck the question.
No more arson at election time. Keep the struc
ture. Find a way to fix it.
Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison Coun
ty Journal, a sister newspaper of the Barrow
News-Journal. He can be reached at zach@main-
streemews.com.
Letter to the Editor
BCES says to focus on smoke alarms
Dear Editor:
October is National Fire Prevention Month.
This year’s Fire Prevention campaign, spon
sored by the National Fire Protection Association,
is “Team the Sounds of Fire Safety.” This focus
encourages fire services to educate their commu
nities about the different sounds smoke and carbon
monoxide (CO) alarms make and actions to take if
an alarm sounds.
Barrow County Emergency Services is always
focused on the education and safety of our com
munity; one way to provide that is to ensure every
Barrow County citizen has the necessary equip
ment to safely protect their home in fire emergen
cies.
Another way to “learn the sounds of fire safe
ty” is to verily your smoke and carbon monoxide
alarms are in proper working order. Alarms are a
key part of a home fire escape plan. Smoke alarms
usually make a 3-beep sound; carbon monoxide
alarms usually make 4-beep sounds. Working
smoke and carbon monoxide alarms give an
early warning so you can get outside quickly.
Alarms should be installed in and outside every
sleeping area of the home. They also need to be
installed on each level, including the basement.
Testing all alarms once a month, and replac
ing them when they are 10 years old, is a great
practice to make sure you have functioning
alarms to ensure the safest environment for you
and your family.
The BCES Fire Marshall's office has smoke
alarms available for senior citizens and the fi
nancially challenged.
The request form can be found here:
https://barrowgaseamlessdocs.com/178y2oktigaep7.
Rachel Gyldholm
Public information officer
Barrow County Emergency Services
Where did all the workers go?
Where are all the workers?
That’s the question employ
ers and policymakers are asking
around the nation as jobs go un
filled across a broad swath of in
dustries.
It’s an easy problem to see visu
ally around the area — numerous
“help wanted” signs are planted
everywhere, from rural
backroads peppered with
pleas for poultry plant
workers, to restaurants
and motels begging for
workers at Banks Cross
ing to numerous employ
ment signs around Jack-
son County and the rest
of our area, especially in
areas near large distribu
tion centers.
And it’s not unusual
to see small area restau
rants and retail stores shorten their
hours due to not having enough
staff.
To an extent, this worker short
age is understandable in our area.
The huge growth in warehouses,
the SK Battery plant and a growth
in manufacturing industries has
created a lot of new jobs over the
past few years. It takes time to fill
all those new positions as people
leave old jobs, or relocate to take
a new job.
But this shortage isn’t just in
northeast Georgia; it’s all over the
state and across the nation.
So what’s happening?
• ••
A lot of economists, politicians
and pundits have attempted to an
swer that question.
The most common explanation
is that Covid is the root source of
the problem.
Some conservatives blame the
federal government’s Covid pay
outs and halting of foreclosures
and rental evictions for the prob
lem. If people are getting “free”
money and they don’t have pres
sure to pay mortgages or rent,
then why would they work?
Maybe there’s some truth to
that. For the low end of the job
market, the Covid unemployment
payments were about as much
as some people were making in
low-paying fast-food or hospital
ity jobs.
But most of those payments have
now ended and the foreclosure
and rental eviction protections are
also ending, and still the job par
ticipation rate hasn’t returned to
its normal level. While the “free”
stuff may have had some impact,
it’s not the only thing that has cre
ated this labor shortage.
• ••
There are other possible
Covid-related factors as well.
When schools closed last year,
some parents quit jobs to stay
home with their children. The un
certainty of this school year may
have led some of those parents to
wait and see before returning to
work.
In some urban areas, people
fled cities for more rural environ
ments if they were in a job they
could do from home. That may
now be turning around some as
businesses attempt to go back to
regular office schedules, but the
movement of people during the
pandemic did roil the job market,
especially in businesses that were
hard hit by the virus (travel, hos
pitality, health care, etc.)
• ••
Still, I get the feeling that there’s
more to this low job participation
rate than just Covid. It may have
been the trigger, but there’s some
thing else going on too.
For one, my generation of Baby
Boomers is retiring at a rapid rate.
According to the website SHRM,
3.2 million more Baby Boomers
retired in the third quarter of 2020
than they did in the same quarter
Write a Letter to the Editor:
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of 2019. Every day, 10,000 Boom
ers turn age 65, the age that many
start the retirement process.
Even with young adults tran
sitioning to the workforce from
school, that’s a lot of jobs to fill
and a lot of turnover taking place.
And it may get worse. Statistics
indicate that the U.S. birthrate
is rapidly declining. In
the future, there may be
fewer native-born Amer
icans to fill these jobs.
• ••
Another possible im
pact has been the tight
ening of the U.S. border
with Mexico. While that
is a hot political issue,
from an employment
standpoint, those immi
grants, legal or not, have
been an important part
of the U.S. labor force, especially
in low-skilled jobs.
One of the reasons there are so
many illegal immigrants coming
across the border is that the U.S.
doesn’t have a good, functioning
work visa system that would al
low legal immigration for work.
That system has been broken for
decades and there’s apparently lit
tle political will to fix it.
• ••
But even all of those factors
don’t fully explain what’s happen
ing in the labor market and labor
shortage. There appears to also be
some kind of cultural shift taking
place more broadly in society that
is also affecting the supply of la
bor.
It’s probably too early to have
hard data on that point, but it
seems as if there is a widespread
reappraisal of work taking place.
It appears as if some people have
decided to “pause” their working
life for personal reasons.
I’m not sure how long that will
last. While some two-income
households can downsize and
perhaps afford to become one-in
come households, single workers
don’t have that luxury. Eventual
ly, the bills do have to be paid.
• ••
Meanwhile, we expect to see
more turmoil in the job market.
Finding workers will continue to
be difficult for the foreseeable
future. That, in turn, will add to
the sputtering supply chain where
goods are not getting moved
around the nation very quickly.
Locally, there are plenty of jobs
for those wanting to work. No
amount of automation is going to
replace those people in the near
future, although this labor short
age could encourage some indus
tries to invest more heavily in au
tomation efforts.
We don’t yet know how all of
this will play out, but I get the
feeling that the cultural aspect of
this labor shortage may turn out to
be just as big, if not bigger, than
its economic impact.
The nation is changing, polit
ically and culturally. The inter
section of that could change the
country in ways we can’t yet pre
dict.
Mike Buffington is co-publish
er of Mainstreet Newspapers. He
can be reached at mike@main-
streetnews.com.
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder. Barrow County. Ga.
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Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Thompson Editor
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