If a Duck Dips Snuff...

On Chinese Flags and Roadkill

Good Morning from Washington, D.C.!!!!

It's another crazy day in our nation's capital city. Or, as my "mil-bro" friends like to say, SNAFU… (Situation Normal, All F'd Up). 

"Situation Normal" here is when half the city's politicians call the other half traitors and walk around with sandwich boards declaring that the end times are upon us. That sums up the D.C. "steady-state" pretty well. The only thing that I can add is that today's prognosticators of doom are left-leaning. AND, they're mostly confused about why they have been exiled into the wilderness and away from the levers of power.

The answer to why they’re in exile is twofold. First, there is the normal adverse voter reaction to the status quo in American politics. It’s in our DNA. Americans hate the government. We hate government until we need it. Then, when in need, we hate it for not being there.

Despite the overwhelming advantage that the two political parties have in getting their incumbents re-elected, American distrust of government keeps rotating the parties in and out of power.

The second part of this is pretty simple: We don’t understand the ROI for our funding of the government.

The American people have asked for the “receipts” for four or five election cycles in a row. Taxpayers want to know, “What is my return on investment for the 20%(+) of my paycheck that you’re taking from me?” When they don’t get a good answer… they vote the bums out. 🫏🐘

I have been pounding on this over and over—> I’ve harped on it for so long that political types think I wear a tin-foil hat and sleep in a straight jacket. But that doesn’t make me wrong.

The political types pat me on my head (in my ignorance) and say that it is hard to explain the nuance of international diplomacy to the common folk. It is difficult to explain to the hoy polloi the purpose of “soft power.” It is throwing pearls before swine to explain grand strategy to the unwashed masses.¹

So, in good faith (and in my ignorance :-), I’m going to start the party by providing our left-leaning friends an example of how to communicate to voters better. Here is a Conan-inspired explanation of the Department of Defense:

The purpose of the Department of Defense is to persuade our enemies to leave us alone. If they do not leave us alone, we raze their cities, burn their fields, and take from their tables to fill our own. OR, as the youth of today would say:

Don’t try us, “F around and find out.”

To be fair, DoD is pretty “action-oriented,” so it’s easy to explain. Other parts of the government have missions that are harder to explain. BUT if you went to Yale, Princeton, or Harvard (you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an Ivy Leaguer in D.C.) and you haven’t mastered the English language sufficiently to explain complex concepts in understandable terms… You should go and get your money back or seek a higher level degree at a less prestigious university, where they actually speak “American” (in addition to English).

Take a lesson from Louisiana’s Senator, John Kennedy. Senator Kennedy speaks in easy-to-understand “American English” and uses examples that draw attention to his point. Something that looks “fishy” to Senator Kennedy might be described as having more red flags than a Chinese embassy.

Now, Senator Kennedy is as fake as a $3 bill, but he’s an incredible politician. He loves to poor-mouth, but he’s actually a multimillionaire and an Oxford grad. Oxford, can you imagine? Oxford is so blue-blooded that it makes Princeton look like P.U.🦨🦨

I went to a small Baptist university in North Carolina for my undergrad… that wouldn’t qualify me as a “caretaker” at Oxford. Caretaker, by the way, is the $5 Oxford word for janitor.

And yet, as "anti-elite" as my family is… we (especially my kids) absolutely love to hear Senator Kennedy talk (not his politics, everything else). In fact, when Senator Kennedy is hawked-down in the halls of power for a "quick take" by Manu Raju, my kids stop what they're doing to listen. The blather of any other politician would be "deader than roadkill" (another Kennedy-ism) in their ears… but they hear Senator Kennedy out.

I was once told by a rural politician (the authentic version of Senator Kennedy) who had been a power broker in county politics for fifty years that if the political class wants to stay in power, it has to recognize the minimum standard of living that voters will accept before they start to question power.

At the time, I believe that old politico told me, "… if you can keep a man in a job that will allow him to make the payments on his double-wide, F150, and cable TV, you can keep his vote. Otherwise, you'll have to explain to him why not."

The world has changed; a double-wide and F150 don't quite cut it in a world where everyone is trying to keep up with the Kardashians. But what hasn't changed is the old politico's warning… our left-leaning friends are carrying sandwich boards and wandering the wilderness because they couldn't explain in plain American English 1) why voters aren’t able to afford the minimum standard of living that they expect and 2) what the hell the government is doing with 22% of their paycheck.

So, here's a PSA (public service announcement) for all of those politicians trying to figure out why you're out on your ass… and not in office anymore. 

Understand what the voter expects for his tax money AND learn to communicate with the voter in plain American English how you're working to get that for them.

Write that down! And you can be sure it’s true. If I tell you a duck dips snuff, you needn't but look under his wing, and you'll find a can. 🦆

1. I know… I know. Pot-meet-kettle. I’ve had any number of complaints about how dense my essays on strategy are. I will do better. On the bright side, I don’t charge for my essays, they are FREE. That’s a 100% ROI right there baby!! 📈💰