Pogo

The swamp dweller with a timeless message.

Pogo was a character in a comic strip written by Walt Kelly from 1948 to 1971. Using his curious little “swamp dweller” Kelly was able to convey both social and political messages couched in satyric humor. One of his more poignant messages is found in this 1971, two panel cartoon celebrating Earth Day. But the message covers far more than environmental awareness.

“…we have met the enemy and he is us.”

For the last few days I have been writing about politics in general and one particular candidate specifically in Northern Kentucky. Those pieces have been posted on various Facebook pages. Why Facebook? Because Facebook is still a reasonable vehicle for reaching specific and targeted audiences. While the reach of those pages has been beset with shadow banning following the 2020 election, the fraud that took place and led to social media manipulation of the narrative is now being widely revealed, and so those pages still provide a way to engage the politically active and astute reader. But they also attract the enemy that is “us”.

In one article I wrote about the state of politics in Boone County, KY. Boone County is one of three Northern Kentucky Counties that taken together have great influence over the politics and elections of the state and because of that they also have a great impact over our National Politics. Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, our governors, and U.S. Representatives all rely on these three counties for their political support much as Chicago influences Illinois and National elections; these three Northern Kentucky counties influence Kentucky and National elections as well.

One of the pieces that I wrote took our U.S. Representative to task for being famous for only saying “NO” and not finding a way to sometimes say “YES”. Sometimes saying “Yes” when your own policy is to say “No” is called the art of the compromise an art and skill in which he is severely lacking. He also has a history of not supporting his party’s President, Donald Trump — an unfortunate circumstance in an area that overwhelmingly voted to send Mr. Trump to the White House and that still has strong support for him today.

In that same piece I wrote about a newcomer to Boone County politics; a gentleman who is seeking a seat on the county’s Fiscal Court (commission). Unfortunately, this gentleman is also the newly elected Chairman of the Boone County Republican Party, a position from which he refuses to resign as he runs for office against another Republican candidate.

And I also wrote about two candidates one of whom is seeking to become a state senator in a newly formed senatorial district and another who is seeking to unseat the U.S. Representative who is the main subject of that article.

The thrust of the article, “The State of Politics in Boone County”, was to point out two things — 1) the role of surrogates and 2) the arrogance of ignoring a conflict of interest. The surrogates in question NEVER launched a thoughtful response explaining why the Congressman should be returned for a sixth term and one opined that the candidate with the obvious conflict of interest was the choice of “everybody” — another way of saying “All the cool kids are voting for him.”

Instead of offering constructive policy explanations these surrogates chose to personally attack the challenger to the incumbent Congressman and me. One went so far as to mock my surname — children’s tactics of the first order. One of the surrogates even held up the alleged illegal campaign activity of another candidate for state senate but failed to mention that the charge had been investigated some years ago following a mistake by a campaign volunteer who innocently removed campaign signs thinking that the action had been requested by the property owner on whose property the signs had been placed. The incident was investigated by the sheriff and dismissed without any charges being filed. The surrogate knew this but none the less, used it to besmirch the character of his one time friend who is now running in opposition to a candidate of his choice.

The conflict of interest appears to be intentional and considered of no consequence in an election to fill a seat currently held by a fellow Republican on the County Fiscal Court (commission). The challenger is the current Chairman of the County Republican Party. The conflict of interest is clear — and ignored not just by the candidate but by his surrogates and others of stature within the party. The people, of course, are kept largely uninformed of this candidate and his disregard for “unseemly” political behavior. The question we need to ask ourselves is: Why are the cool kids advocating that we vote for man with a known conflict interest?

Its really very simple. If their guy wins they are close to a seat of power and have become politically “relevant”. Acquiring moral high ground is not a consideration.

Lessons Learned

If nothing else we learned from the 2020 presidential election that there is widespread fraud and cheating in our elections and that there are forces at play in those elections with substantial wealth and power necessary to effect the outcome of an election. But most of all we learned of the thousands of minor players who are relied upon to do the “dirty work” and who received their training at the county level where they were given free reign on social media to say anything that crossed their minds in order to drive people away from their candidates opponent. And since those surrogates are sometimes unknown to the public the candidate they support can exert “plausible deniability” when false or scurrilous accusations are made by them. More importantly they are our neighbors and acquaintances.

We vet our candidates as best as we can. We may even vet their top tier of campaign staff but we never vet their foot soldiers — those men and women who in their eagerness to be close to power, are willing to do and say anything to please their candidate. These are people who graduate to the state level and then the federal. They are the dirty tricksters, name callers, and mud slingers. To these people, facts are irrelevant. Sadly, they are “us”.

It is appropriate to refer to Pogo, the swamp dwelling creature who looking around his environment and seeing how disgustingly polluted it was knew immediately who was responsible: “…we have met the enemy and he is us.”

Union, KY

27 April 2020