Millions around the world saw something this week that exposed an incredibly small probability of failure with DISASTROUS consequences within a system they previously thought they understood completely and never worried about. They watched a heavily padded and protected, physically fit top-tier professional athlete take a relatively mundane hit to the sternum during a game, get up from the field then drop like a stone near death.
Most people thought they understand how the human cardiovascular system works. The heart will continue pumping as long as it isn't punctured with a bullet or weapon or a major arterial failure doesn't block blood flow or the brain isn't damaged. As a result of this scary NFL incident, peole have learned there is a magic 40 millisecond window of time in EVERY heartbeat cycle during which a severe blow can disrupt the chemical pacemaker cycle and render the heart unable to pump, risking brain damage in seconds and death in minutes. Seems like a major design flaw, right? Well, it's human physiology. THere's not much that can be done to solve the problem other than avoiding blows to the chest. Very few appreciated that prior to this week. (In fact, it happens about 30-40 times yearly in America, primarily with children playing sports whose ribs are not yet adult-strength to fend off more force from incoming hits of helmuts, pucks, soccer balls, etc.)
This NFL event was a lesson in "freak conditions" that can produce unexpected disaster in a biological context. It is an odd coincidence that this lesson in cardiovascular danger occurs at the same time events are demonstrating similar patterns in our political system. The same dynamic played out on January 6, 2021. The certification of electoral college votes was a process few thought about at all and fewer only thought of as a mere formality re-enacted as a bit of eighteenth century nostalgia. That process had enough ambiguity in interpretations of how the process should be executed to tempt criminals into thinking they could inject enough chaos and doubt into the process in order to reject results from a legitimate election.
Extending the oddity, the SAME set of actors involved with that criminal attempt at rejecting an election have now identified ANOTHER magic moment in routine democratic processes -- election of a Speaker of the House -- to again inject chaos and delay in order to paralyze government. The actors involved have essentiallly turned parliamentary math into a weapon to use not only against the minority party but the majority of their own majority party. After three days and eleven votes, the majority party's presumptive candidate for speaker has been unable to win a majority due to twenty consistent hold-outs from his own party. Frankly, the short-term humiliation couldn't find a more suitable target than Kevin McCarthy whose only consistent motivation for any act is the pursuit of power.
The unique problem is that while Kevin McCarthy's sole goal is the acquisition of power, the sole goal of these holdouts is chaos and paralysis. None have been able to identify a legislative outcome to swap in exchange for coming on board to support their party's nominee. They won't even accept the next most logical leader in their caucus because he is a member of the first nominee's leadership team. The consequences of this paralysis are important. House members have not been sworn in so members associated with intelligence functions cannot receive security briefings. The House must originate all spending bills so any emergency need for disaster relief, etc. would be in jeopardy pending a Speaker selection. And under rules sought by this faction, the risk of immediate paralysis would essentially become continuous for the entire term by alloiwng a SINGLE MEMBER to trigger a no-confidence vote.
It shouldn't be any surprise that a party has sunk to these depths to have members willing to hold the entire government hostage to irrational demands. The party involved is the same party boasting a newly elected Representitive, George Santos, who lied on nearly every aspect of his resume and personal history, with the possible exception of his first name and last name. Even that is in doubt after a video was shared of one of the eleven votes for speaker in which he failed to respond to his name being called in the roll call TWICE before finally chiming in with his vote.
It should bother the American public greatly that current events are identifying so many flaws in our democratic blueprints that seem to pose a risk for such massive failures. It should bother the American public far more that there are sects within America that seem so bent on seeking these flaws out and leveraging them as weapons of political, economic and social destruction against their perceived enemies which, at this point, appears to be everyone. Unlike the magic moment of danger in the human cardiovascular system, these magic moments of danger in politics are not immutable. All of them stem from human decisions and flawed assumptions and CAN be reduced or eliminated with better processes and law enforcement. Do we have the intelligence and courage to identify and correct them? It's two years to the day and counting since an armed insurrection promoted by a President was staged with no major player indicted much less convicted and imprisoned so the prognosis is not looking good.
WTH
