Two things that seem unrelated — the senseless and brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine and the problems that hit the medical examiner’s office in Baltimore — prompt me to revisit a subject I have raised before: The need to call Americans to public service. We don’t do it nearly enough.
What’s more, the pandemic showed that too many Americans neither appreciate nor work for the common good in a way that, however exaggerated, once seemed innate to the national character. We need to talk about it more.
Among the observations one could make about the horrors inflicted on Ukraine by Russia and the criminal who serves as its president is an obvious one: People in the U.S. and allied countries need to elect good leaders.
This horrible and horribly complex crisis, with talk of the possible use of chemical and nuclear weapons, points up the vital importance of competence in government, particularly when it comes to foreign relations. It should be clear to everyone who lives in a democracy: You can’t just wish for better leaders, you have to vote for them. And good people need to be encouraged to step up and serve their communities, states and country.
I can state what I mean by “good” in 2022: Educated, informed, decent, ethical men and women who think critically and objectively, free of extreme partisanship and self-interest, and always with respect for the Constitution and with high regard for the greater good, saving the planet and keeping peace.
As I said, this seems obvious — the need to have competent leadership at all levels of government — but it’s obviously not obvious to millions of Americans who have voted know-nothings, do-nothings, lightweights, bigots and divisive loudmouths into office.
The pinnacle of that dereliction of voter duty was the election of Donald Trump as president. That’s history now, and hopefully we won’t have to live through that again. But, in light of Ukraine, it’s important (and frightening) to reflect on where we would have been had Trump won a second term. We’d have in the White House the first president in the 73-year history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to speak about withdrawing from it. We would have a president who expressed admiration for Putin, then suggested that he would threaten to attack Russia with nuclear weapons because of its invasion of Ukraine.
Trump was an exclamation point at the end of a sentence written over 40 years. He and the plutocrats he chose to run his administration arrived in Washington nearly four decades after another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, started harping on government as a problem. Republicans constantly engaged in anti-government rhetoric, denigrating federal employees as bureaucrats, criticizing and cutting regulatory agencies, crowing about the vaunted private sector as an answer to the nation’s needs and opposing anything that might be called progressive. All of that took a huge toll on what people came to expect from government and, I believe, the desire to work in it.
But, when you hit a crisis point, who do you want running things — savvy men or women who believe government service is a noble mission or ignoramuses who seek office for publicity and power?
It should be clear by now that good government is needed for many things, from education to national defense to the environment and public health.
And yet, the angry turn against public health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic is Exhibit No. 1 that too many Americans have lost their appreciation of those in public service as well as the common good. People who protested shutdowns, mask mandates and vaccines were almost alien to me; the outrage and defiance was foreign to an ideal that seemed ingrained in all Americans, if not always realized — that we come together, in war or peace, in any crisis, to work toward what’s best for all.
I don’t think that’s gone completely, but the concept needs to be recharged.
We also need to reaffirm the nobility of public service and better reward those who get into it.
I refer not only to the men and women in our military or first responders; any of those we automatically regard as heroes. I’m talking about a whole array of jobs that need to be filled by good people — teachers and tutors, judges and public defenders, solid waste workers and highway crews, parole and probation agents, social workers and guidance counselors, public health officers and workers, bank regulators and tax agents, animal welfare officers and health inspectors.
There are tough and necessary jobs that must be done; the people who do them need to be inspired, supported and praised.
Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner suffered in recent years from staff shortages and, as a result, autopsy delays left dozens of families waiting to bury loved ones, criminal cases at risk and the office’s accreditation in jeopardy. The chief of the office resigned last month, just as federal teams were coming in to help clear the backlog of cases.
The episode served as a reminder of the importance of the office, the need to keep it staffed and above all, to provide it with sufficient support. If we don’t do that — call people to serve in government and support them — in good times and bad, things fall apart. It’s past time to push the reset button on public service and again call Americans to work for the common good.
