By Mike Matejka
On the day this Forum is aired, I’ll be returning from Washington, D.C. Every trip anywhere is educational and I’m not a frequent visitor to our nation’s capitol, but do make the trip once or twice a year. It always gives me pause to reflect on our nation.
In this political season, the simplest rhetoric and language is often the most appealing. “Build a wall at the Mexican border.” “Break up the big banks.” “All Muslims are evil.” Yet every time I have the opportunity to visit the Capitol, I realize that simple answers rarely work. As that famous commentator from Baltimore H.L. Mencken said in 1917, “There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible and wrong.” Tucked away in our corner of central Illinois, it’s easy to forget how big, diverse and complicated this country is. A trip to Washington, D.C. helps one understand that complexity. Our climate ranges from frozen Alaska to tropical Hawaii. We have crowded cities and we have miles of western range line, where one can drive for hours without seeing human habitation. We have citizens who swore allegiance yesterday and those whose ancestors have been here for hundreds of year. We’ll hear political rhetoric and respond, “well, that’s just common sense,” but common sense in central Illinois can be very different from the common sense of urban Los Angeles or the common sense of rural Idaho. As we are in the presidential election season, my point is that simplistic rhetoric can sound so appealing, but it can also be misleading. What seems simple gets complicated when it’s all mixed together in the diverse American stew. Sit in a Congressional hearing room or chat with the citizen lobbyists roaming the hallways, and it is amazing that these United States do somehow remain united. Thus when a particular issue – whether it’s health care, education, defense or transportation – is negotiated, many diverse voices and regional needs get mixed together. It’s a wonder that any bill ever reaches the President’s desk for a signature. At one time this nation was considered an experiment in democracy. Hopefully, the experiment is still on-going and the laboratory is still open. There aren’t many places on earth that have the ethnic and geographic diversity this nation enjoys. It sometimes rubs our raw nerves, however, whenever I’m on the banks of the Potomac, amongst the marble monuments with homeless people sleeping in the corner, I have to commend We the People for our efforts to hold this all together, hopefully still struggling for equality and justice for all.
Mike Matejka is the Governmental Affairs director for the Great Plains Laborers District Council, covering 11,000 union Laborers in northern Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. He lives in Normal. He served on the Bloomington City Council for 18 years, is a past president of the McLean County Historical Society and Vice-President of the Illinois Labor History Society.
The opinions expressed within WJBC’s Forum are solely those of the Forum’s author, and are not necessarily those of WJBC or Cumulus Media, Inc.
