Peter Jensen: Life is complicated — our politics should be, too | STAFF COMMENTARY

In my four decades as a journalist, I have attended what could only be described (at least in this family-friendly forum) as a manure-load of public meetings. I have stayed up to the wee hours listening not just to debates over the big issues of human rights or military conflict or the future of the republic, but about whether so-and-so street merits a speed bump. I’ve listened to elected officials get into extended arguments over trash collection schedules. And don’t get me started on school starting times. That can bring out the worst in politicians and voters alike. What may sound trivial to you can often have a profound impact on others — or at least it will be perceived to have one.

You know what all these matters have in common? They can get complicated. Indeed, almost anything worthwhile has all kinds of subtle intricacy. You think raising kids is just about providing shelter, food and clothes? Ask any parent. Same with education or public safety or transportation. You want a cleaner Chesapeake Bay? You’d better start by understanding the profound impact small decisions can have, from how we deal with runoff from storms to whether we properly treat sewage before it’s released back into the environment. Bus schedules, police patrols, class sizes, the list goes on and on and on.

Yet here’s the terrifying thing. As complicated as the world may be, you wouldn’t know it from our current political discourse. Elected officials and their minions (or benefactors) have dumbed it all down to something approaching a toddler’s choice of whether to employ a pacifier or not. Taxes are good or bad. Regulations are good or bad. The economy is good or bad. Choices are conservative or liberal (or maybe far-right or far-left).

There was a time when I thought this was just a rhetorical flourish, that followers of any particular politician knew this was simple overstatement and would concede that issues rarely are yes, no, right, wrong. But that hope has faded, particularly in the Donald Trump era when it’s become increasingly clear that not only do a lot of people long for such simplicity, they don’t even require it to be especially consistent. The right embraces Vladimir Putin or other authoritarian figures, the left keeps falling into the “do as I say, not as I do” trap. Neither loses supporters over inconsistency. People want to belong to a tribe and find it in the two major national parties. Would it really matter if the exact policies they espouse change over time as long as they aren’t the other guy’s?

Trust me, I see the journalist’s role in this, too. Some in media ownership believe such a simplified view of the world — government is all good or all bad — can be profitable, at least to the extent that viewers, listeners or readers long for the comfort of their own information bubble. We can complain that this outlet or that is liberal or conservative. But here’s the worst possibility: What if it’s incurious? What if interviews are conducted not to discover new facts but simply to reinforce preconceptions or reassure tribal membership? You can find such behavior every day on cable television. It performs quite well in ratings.

One of the great benefits of all those years in night meetings has been an opportunity to dig into issues that, frankly, might not have interested me personally. Hey, I knew the ins and outs of property tax assessments long before I actually owned a piece of property. But the effect has been to make me cautious. When I hear there’s a push to raise taxes on millionaires, I’m immediately suspicious about unintended consequences. When the talk is about deregulation to encourage economic expansion, I worry about what’s to become of water and air quality.

It has been my experience that nobody has a lock on wisdom. Democrats and Republicans alike see matters through the prism of their experience — and their understanding of the political process and what may gain advantage for their side. The only real check on rampant stupidity (or, to be fair, gross over-simplification) is for the electorate to be educated. I wish I were confident that we were. Or that they even know enough to be frightened by how much they don’t know. Those night meetings — whether in small towns, county seats, Annapolis or Capitol Hill — weren’t especially well attended.

Peter Jensen is an editorial writer at The Sun; he can be reached at pejensen@baltsun.com.