No matter how fitting it might seem, my guess is that not one candidate for the office of President of the USA will announce their candidacy on April Fools’ Day.

According to newscasters, we are going to have so many announcements in the following April days that we will be on candidate overload by mid-April. It’s really not clear which, if any, candidates are April Fools. Then again, it could be us.

I think it would be pretty funny if at least one candidate announced on April Fools’ Day in recognition of the suicidal dive into the waters of “anything goes” meaning, any people, including corporations, can say anything or spend any amount in an effort to shred your credibility and character under the protection of the First Amendment.

Wouldn’t it be funny if Hillary Clinton announced on April 1, “Ha ha, April Fools’ – I’m not running – you can’t do it to me anymore?” Alas, I don’t think anyone would get the joke. It would definitely spoil a lot of plans, especially for those who had planned to send their kid to college on the money made slamming HC.

It just seems to me that we have lost our senses of humor or traded them in on righteous indignation so righteous that we have or allowed others to drop any pretense of rational thought, decorum and fair play (the last being out of fashion for quite some time if ever in fashion).

Even more depressing in this race to the bottom of humanness is that we don’t just do it about each other, we do it to ideas.

Snowing scientific process

The best April Fool’s joke occurred this winter when the new party in charge put self-described climate change or global warning deniers in charge of the committees on space, science and environment.

Isn’t that a lark — probably not if you are the head of any of these agencies that are charged with space, scientific or environmental discovery.

Doubling down on the joke and confirming the worst fears of those department heads, the chairman of the committee that deals with environmental issues rose to speak in the distinguished halls of Congress and used the snowball he was holding to discredit global warning.

Apparently his piece of the flat earth does not include California which is in the midst of drought that is very likely to adversely affect agriculture in the state.

On the positive side, he may consider an alternative when he realized that our country is bigger than the East Coast.

In all likelihood he will arrange to send snowballs to California and Hurricane Ridge.

Someone say, “April Fools” … please!

Blame the Constitution

No doubt that it is far easier to attack and criticize than dialogue and negotiate. What’s not so funny is that many people in leadership think it is the only way. Loud important voices insist that negotiation is weak and war is strong.

Could it have been an April Fools’ joke played on the President when the Speaker of the House invited the Prime Minister of Israel to speak about being tough to the Congress without telling the President?

I guess not, but the Speaker was seen to be smirking when he cited his rights under the Constitution. It was strangely funny to hear the President and the Prime Minister both claim that the bonds between the USA and Israel are unbreakable until I begin to believe both had their teeth clenched and probably their fists.

I’m just waiting for the punch line and I hope it’s not our involvement in another Middle East war. That wouldn’t be very funny.

Close to home

People like me don’t fit well in chronically angry and adversarial environments but I am realistic. Besides having relatives, I’ve worked with people all my life and couldn’t help but run into situations.

The funniest and most honest one was the union official who distributed leaflets in my neighborhood calling me a “burrocrat.” The least funny and most cowardly was the man who left an anonymous message on my voice mail in which the caller questioned my right to exist during a contentious community debate over physicians at the newly expanded OMC Cancer Center. I was the administrative lead on the development of the center.

How absurd to think that, although contentious, this situation called for such venom. Yet we hear about death threats or, if you are a woman, rape threats over Twitter for something as simple as criticizing a beloved sports team.

Someone say, “April Fools ”… the Constitution didn’t really mean this.

Follow the money

I don’t know exactly when it became acceptable in civil discourse to be uncivilized and, in some cases, uncivilized and stupid, but what I do know is it is not good for us and we should at least stop paying for it.

The vast amounts of money that go into those campaigns to maliciously discredit require an entourage of planners and processors to develop the message, target the audience and direct the flow of dollars.

Free negative speech in any election campaign is expensive and has become an industry of thousands. The objective is to gain influence greater than the other guy and power greater than fact and science.

The whole operation is done under the guise of free speech and candidate immunity.

True to form, it brings out the worst in everyone, the doers and the done-in and their children.

Joke’s on us if we allow unrestricted campaign donations and I’m not kidding.

Bertha D. Cooper is retired from a 40-plus year career as a health care administrator focusing on the delivery system as a whole. She still does occasional consulting. She is a featured columnist at the Sequim Gazette. Reach her at columnists@sequimgazette.com.