By Mike McGann, Editor, the Times @mikemcgannpa
When my kids — twins — were toddlers, it was kind of challenging, as is the case with most two year olds. They were easily convinced of things that were not true and acted out. Thankfully, this was a brief period that they grew out of quickly, especially as we were pretty firm when they did act out and it never got them what they wanted.
I remember a phrase from that time: “You can’t negotiate with terrorists or toddlers.”
I am reminded of that period in life — both kids are juniors in college and have grown up to be sensible, compassionate adults — by the behaviors of many adults in public these days.
Whether it was the literally insane conduct of a woman at the Downingtown Area School District Board of Education meeting that became viral — and wrongfully used as an example of how rich and spoiled people in Chester County are — or the whack jobs that showed up at the County Commissioners meeting not long along spouting some sort of bogus science about masking and CO — and then presenting some sort of likely fake lawsuit against the county health department for recommending mask wearing. Recommending, not requiring.
They scream, they lecture you with science “facts” dredged up from someone on the Internet and act exactly the way I recall toddlers acting. I just wish we could put them to bed when they act out — instead they seem to have taken over an entire political party.
Whether it is fake claims about Critical Race Theory (they don’t want anything taught that might reveal that white folks did some crappy things — and still do at times — to people of color and other minorities) or publicly supporting Russia and Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, facts don’t much matter to these people.
They’re mad and they’re going to have their temper tantrum in public — no matter how much it might hurt others.
With a fading but still dangerous pandemic and decided risk of a wider war in Europe, we don’t have time or bandwidth to deal with these spoiled overgrown children. These are serious times and we should no longer waste time on non-serious people.
Yes. these folks have the First Amendment right to make a public ass of themselves, but we have the right to ignore and even shun them for being so self-absorbed and ignorant.
In fact, we have every right to treat these folks like the dead groundhog under the porch, offensive, disgusting and something we have to endure until the stink goes away.
The last two years have been hard and we’re all angry and frustrated. Most of us have done what we can, tried to keep a sense of humor about things and hang in there — and we’re finally reaching the point where life is starting go back to normal.
What we don’t have to do: put up with a small minority of tyrant toddlers.
While we can’t send them to bed, we can ignore them, cut them out of our lives and move on.
It’s time.
***
Barring a shocking federal intervention, we have new Congressional and legislative maps.
No, they’re not perfect. But they are reasonably fair — they have a slight Republican lean in a commonwealth with 600K more registered Democrats.
And still, some in the GOP continue to whine, sue and stomp their feet because the new maps don’t give them a ridiculous gerrymandered advantage. It’s like they know they can’t win a fair fight.
But the truth is this: fairer maps mean accountability, which is sorely lacking right now, particularly in our state legislature.
Instead of being locked in no matter what, a lot of legislators will have to actually get stuff done or face losing their seats. Both parties will have to have real plans to address Pennsylvania’s issues or face being voted out of power.
That’s how it is supposed to work — but the last two legislative maps made it almost impossible for Republicans to lose control of the state legislature, even in years when Democrats cruised at the polls.
That won’t be the case with these new maps. We may well see control flip back and forth every couple of years, or see splits in control between the house and the senate.
This is healthy. It will force action and compromise.
So, no, the new maps are not perfect, but they are good enough to help make government in Pennsylvania functional again.
