Stop assuming the worst

Good intent is real, belief in government is not (always) naïve

Half a century ago I was with family for a holiday, my dad drinking black coffee at sunrise reading The New York Times as was his custom. He was shaking his head, muttering — not his custom.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Look at this,” he said, slapping the Times on the dining room table:

The President of the United States Richard Nixon’s federal tax returns had been released. He hadn’t paid a penny.

“What a fool I’ve been,” said my father. “All these years I’ve never fudged or dodged. I always thought taxes were my responsibility as a citizen. But all I was doing was taking food off my family’s table, taking clothes off your back. How naïve, what a sucker.”

This was a turning point in my father’s idea of our nation. A Navy veteran, hardworking hardcore Democrat, this personal affront more than the Kennedy assassination or even the Vietnam War shattered belief in what he called the American assumption; all who benefited from society had a reciprocal obligation — which definitely included paying taxes.

To have the President “job the system” was a last straw.

The depths of cynicism we have plummeted to today, lacking belief in anyone engaged in public life, would have made my father even more upset, though he (like so many) had been dragged in that direction.

His downward pull came from disingenuous Nixon, Watergate, generals who lied about the Vietnam War. Others apply gravitational betrayal to an entitled class that espoused “left-leaning” politics but put personal wealth and privilege ahead of “the working class” (as opposed to who, the non-working class?).

With re-inauguration upon us, Donald Trump’s embodiment of cynicism and disdain would have been a bitter pill for David Lazar Rolbein to swallow, but he would have had no choice but gulp it down.

Nixon avoided taxes. Trump has never even produced his tax returns and who cares? Of course he won’t, of course he has something to hide. So what? Everyone does, right?

We have abandoned the idea of good faith and intent. The assumption now is that anyone willing to enter public service is by definition corrupt or corruptible, manipulator or pawn.

Many years after my father’s epiphany, I walked the halls of the Massachusetts State House as chief of staff, then senior adviser, to Cape and Islands State Senator Dan Wolf. I recall the first days of those six years, moving office to office, meeting to meeting, session to session, as vividly as seeing my father at that dining room table.

Dan and I soon realized something:

Two kinds of people coursed through that building, easy to distinguish. There were those who had come in search of personal gain, call it career, influence, power. And there were those who had come in search of public service, call it idealism, civic contribution, even justice.

There were more of the former than the latter, but both worked the halls, both had successes.

I also experienced (remembered actually) that in town halls, the relative volumes of those personality buckets shift profoundly, for the better. Avaricious gain for a volunteer selectboard member, conservation commissioner, library trustee, town clerk, DPW worker? Really?

Of course there are ego satisfactions, altruism never is the sole prime mover. But closer to home, belief in public service far outweighs desire for personal gain.

Bitter attacks, distrust, conspiracy theories (reinforced at the national level) tear down people, and democracy. To assume everyone is jaundiced and ulterior is wrong.

The first step in recovery is recognizing those whose intentions are good: Respect, support and protect them, whether in town halls, the county complex, the State House, or Congress.

Is this naïve, stupid? I don’t think so.

Then again, I pay taxes.

Next week, a local elected official decides it’s time to respect, support, and protect.

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