Good evening everyone:

One of the exasperations of the last many years has been the rigidity, vitriol, intolerance, and outright meanness that has defined our political discourse. No news there. Continuing disbelief in the results of an election held 17 months ago. Supreme Court confirmation hearings defined by posturing rather than constructive inquiry. Legislative stalemates on issues the majority of Americans agree on. And on and on.

I’ve been looking for a more profound explanation of the differences than what Fox News or CNN can serve up. It has been no easy search. But two years ago, I found the answer, and shared it with you in a note. But that seems forever ago. So, I thought it was time to remind ourselves of what that answer is.

It’s easy to understand why the explanation was then, and continues to be now, so elusive. It doesn’t derive from trying to fathom why public officials in the State of Florida continue to shape-shift into the ultimate human black-holes of empathy. It’s not fully explicable by the “Squad” doing a slow boil over Joe Manchin’s inability to make peace with the Build Back Better bill. It’s not completely ascribable to one of the members of the Georgia congressional delegation opting to spend time at a white nationalist rally rather than sit on a House committee – any House committee. And it’s not satisfactorily explained by the veil of journalistic ethics being shredded by either the revocation of Chris Cuomo’s Prime Times how on CNN or the widespread reviling of Tucker Carlson’s degrading schtick during Fox’s 8:00 slot.

It’s none of that. Instead, it’s because nobody has taken the Muppet Grand Unifying Theory as seriously as it needs to be taken.

My enlightenment came from an article in Slate by Dahlia Lithwick, who correctly concludes that all of what divides us in this circumstance is explained by every one of us being either a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet.

I can’t begin to do justice to the eloquence and power of Muppet-type unifying theory, so let me quote from Ms. Lithwick – with just a bit of annotation:

Chaos Muppets are out-of-control, emotional, volatile. They tend toward the blue and fuzzy. They make their way through life in a swirling maelstrom of food crumbs, small flaming objects, and the letter C. Cookie Monster, Ernie, Grover, Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and—paradigmatically—Animal, are all Chaos Muppets. [Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders are Chaos Muppets. So, I dare say, is Lil Nas X]. . .

Order Muppets – and I’m thinking about Bert, Scooter, Sam the Eagle, Kermit the Frog, and the blue guy who is perennially harassed by Grover at restaurants (the Order Muppet Everyman) – tend to be neurotic, highly regimented, averse to surprises, and may sport monstrously large eyebrows. They sometimes resent the responsibility of the world weighing on their felt shoulders, but they secretly revel in the knowledge that they keep the show running. Your first-grade teacher was probably an Order Muppet. [So too President Biden, Senator Peters, and Gwyneth Paltrow].

It’s really difficult to know how we made sense of things before Ms. Lithwick’s analysis. So, when you get trucks blocking the Ambassador Bridge and hospitals in the name of freedom, you’ve got way too many Chaos Muppets in a small geography. And when the countries of NATO agree to unite in reducing dependence on Russian oil, you have a temporary victory for Order Muppets. Sometimes you need one. Sometimes you need the other. It’s incredibly important to get the ratios right.

Not sure we’re there quite yet. We need to keep working at that.

Rip

‍