When Bleep Happens

I can’t use the word I want, as this will likely be on the radio.

Anyway, when bleep does happen, the first thing we do is search for the reason, and then the blame game starts. How did Trump happen? It was the Russians. No, it was the media giving him too much free publicity. No, it was Hillary, who couldn’t connect with her “deplorables.” Or, how about the Democratic leadership, trying to tube Bernie? As for me, I blame the Electoral College. It was all of those things, maybe more.

Systemic failures usually have many causes – big things and little things that somehow sync up and expose a flaw that wasn’t thought of. With all the backup systems built into nuclear power plants, there are still Three Mile Islands, Chernobyls, and Fukushimas. The levee system designed to protect New Orleans failed in Katrina. The same media that saved our bacon in Watergate couldn’t keep us from getting into a questionable war in Iraq. The system of government our Founding Fathers created, with all its checks and balances, didn’t protect the country from Andrew Jackson, Warren G. Harding, or Donald J. Trump.

No system designed by humans is foolproof. There will always be something that gets by or around it. In some cases, there will be warnings, sometimes loud ones, that go unheeded. But in a way, we can be grateful for failures, because they expose the flaws in the equipment or institutions we depend on. We can address these flaws and build better defenses. The President’s shameful news conference performance in Helsinki hopefully will serve to wake up those of us who have been asleep, in time for November.

We have learned that we do in fact need a wall -- not the kind Mr. Trump talks about, but a cyber-wall to protect us from Russian and possibly other future intruders. Suppose the money budgeted for the next umpteen-zillion-dollar bomber were spent instead on hardening technology?

The ship of state may have a massive hole in it right now, and it has to limp into port for repairs. But I am optimistic that the ship will not sink. Our free press is far from perfect, but this time around, the much-maligned mainstream media have protected us from real catastrophe. Robert Mueller and his team, along with the intelligence community, are telling us exactly what’s been going on, and at least some justice will be done. This particular national nightmare will eventually be over.