By John Lindstrom
Publisher
Posted: December 30, 2019 11:02 AM

This reporter learned early how rough politics can be.

In the 1960 presidential election this 8-year-old political sophisticate was backing Democratic candidate U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy because, well, he was from Massachusetts and so was my Dad. It never occurred to me that Dad was backing Republican Vice President Richard Nixon because Dad was from Massachusetts. Only much later did I find out both Dad and Mom were backing Mr. Nixon.

On Election Day, at Royal Oak's Upton Elementary, after lunch, a Nixon rally was taking place among the pupils on what we called the battleground (it was a playground in theory). Kids were holding signs, many handmade, some provided by their parents via the Republican Party. They were shouting for Nixon and as I was feeling prospects were grim, I tried to go back to my third-grade classroom.

The class toady grabbed me by the collar and shouted, "Hey, he's backing Kennedy!" Instantly, I was surrounded by kids looking at me as an escapee from the freak show and saying, "Are you nuts?" and "Don't you know Kennedy is a Commie?" I stammered I could support whoever I wanted, when a fifth grader stuffed his fist in my face.

"You better say you're for Nixon or you're gonna get it," he snarled, to general approval.

At that, a safety patrol boy pushed through the gang. "Break it up," he said. "What's going on?"

The fifth grader, still with his fist in my face, said, "This kid is for Kennedy!"

Sagely, the safety patroller said, "He can back whoever he wants, even if he is stupid."

I wish I could say when the results were known the next morning I was magnanimous, conciliatory, generous in praise to my vanquished rivals. I wish I could say that. I will say that fifth grader never bothered me again, and the class toady went off to annoy others.

That was my introduction to the game. Henry Steele Commager, in his book "The Empire of Reason," said politics was entertainment to the young American nation as it lacked its own literature. And politics still is entertainment.

By 8, I was already fascinated by the power of storytelling and within a few years a growing interest in politics and history suggested political journalism was the right job choice for me. A high school career counselor later tried to convince me I was truly destined to be a shoe salesman, but I wanted to pursue journalism (though at one point my plan was to follow Hemingway and go from writing breaking news to living as a world famous novelist in Paris. I must figure out what happened to that).

Except for a very brief stint in corporate life, journalism has been my career. During all that time as a reporter, I covered government and politics, along with, at times, cops, business, schools. A high school buddy of mine, now one of the wealthiest people I know, asked once why I stayed in journalism when the pay compared to, say, finance, his field, was "so lousy." You never have a boring day when you're telling the world what's going on, I said.

Watching the world as it passes teaches you things. You learn quickly as a political reporter, as does anyone else involved in politics, that politics involves both elections and policy. Because we live in one of the few nations where we know with absolute assurance when each election will occur our notion of politics is centered far more, probably too much, on elections.

It's understandable. Elections square off the players on the actual field. All the practice and coaching comes down to what a candidate does or does not do to win. And once one contest is decided the focus turns to the next bout. Talking to a Republican leader the day after the 2014 election I said he should be happy with the results.

He said Republicans had to remember they were just some 710 days from the next election and had to start getting ready for the upcoming election now.

As an afterthought to elections, policy has become increasingly a tool of election strategy and tactics instead of a means to resolve problems. As such, policy is increasingly driven by ideology rather than pragmatism. It's true of all sides now, and yes, journalism has played a role in creating that reality as has technological innovations, social media, a partisan-based media subset and buckets of money aimed at winning elections.

It's why major problems can't seemed to get solved. Or even seriously addressed. Nationally, we must like mass shootings because we don't take any steps to stop them. Ideology stops us even when there are ways to craft policy that doesn't offend the Second Amendment and could help minimize the chances of random slaughter.

And in this state, an ideological insistence against raising taxes in any way has blocked dealing seriously with roads. We appear to like crappy roads. We don't seem to be adult enough to say revenues have to be raised to fix them and then find the most effective manner to do so.

Is there an answer? Well, one might be to recognize we ain't so smart. The other guy – whomever the other guy may be, female, male, trans, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, gay, straight, pick your religion, pick your race, pick your nationality – might be right. At least listen to them, and if they are wrong show them how they are wrong instead of just calling them stupid. We all are wrong and stupid sometimes.

Journalism, well-practiced journalism, does let folks get their say. Well-practiced journalism uses facts – provable, definable items, facts in context – and does not let assertions stand unchallenged if facts prove them untrue. Journalists struggle today against a technological universe that allows nonsense and lies to spread faster than reporters can report the facts.

Paul Johnson, the conservative historian, once wrote that people mattered more than ideas. Ideas do matter, they have influence, they help lead to positive change, but we also need to abandon or at least alter them if they lead to harmful results. People do matter more than ideas. My business, journalism, has played a big role in showing what ideas work and which don't, as well as helping convince people to change their minds when appropriate.

At least journalism has played that role. It is more and more clear that for politics and government to work as it should, journalism must act as the public's monitors. For most of my career I was interested in why people wanted to know things, which is what drove them to support journalism. After all, newspapers, magazines, news outlets like Gongwer News Service, TV and radio news only exist because there is an audience to pay for them.

The question is changed now. Now I want to know why people don't seem to want to know things. Why do they distrust and dismiss facts? Why do they adhere to beliefs even when they are shown they are incorrect? Why are they so uncomfortable at facing any challenge? Why do they seem comfortable ignoring events surrounding them and the effects those events could have on them?

So many, too many, local newspapers have shut down – and enough electronic outlets have been taken over by individuals and corporate structures more interested in preserving their point of view, enough major newspaper corporations have been taken over by cannibalistic companies intend on stripping their assets to boost their rewards – that the negative effects can already be seen.

A world without journalism is less safe, more corrupt, more expensive and less free. People don't like reporters, hell, every reporter knows that. People will like a world without reporters even less.

Which goes back to the idea that we ain't so smart as we think we are. The fifth grader with his fist in my face wasn't so smart. I wasn't so smart in being hooty after Kennedy won. Any politician who thinks he or she has all the answers isn't so smart. Anybody who follows that politician blindly really isn't that smart. We all need to accept we need to listen more, read more, think more, learn more and be less certain of our innate stable genius.

I trust we will. I don't know that, can't know it, but I trust we will. I'll be watching with all of you to see how it turns out. Good luck to us all.