Unperson

You arrive for your 12:30 section.  As the outgoing class filters out and your section filters in, you make small talk with your colleague Margaret.

“Did you hear about Darrell?” she asks.

“No, what about him?”

“He’s gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“He’s left.  All of a sudden.  They’ve got a replacement covering his classes.  Have you talked to him?”

Darrell is a casual friend.  “No, we teach on different days,” you say.  Your curiosity turns to unease.

“I’d hoped you knew something.”

“Nope.  It’s news to me.”

“That’s not good,” said Margaret.  “I hope Darrell’s okay.”

“That makes two of us.”

After class, you try to email Darrell only to find he’s no longer in the college email directory.  You don’t have his personal email address or phone number.

A quick glance at the spring and summer class schedules does nothing to assuage your anxiety.  Darrell’s unlisted, an unfamiliar name substituted for his usual sections.

You catch up with Margaret later in the week.

“Any news about Darrell?” she inquires.

“Sorry, no.”

“Let me know if you find out anything.”

Finding out anything is futile.  You obliquely query a classified employee you know in the dean’s office.  She confirms Darrell has left his job.  You suggest that it might have been a family emergency, a sudden illness perhaps.  She smiles nervously and says no.  You don’t press the matter further.  This is not good.

Your confusion mounts.  You don’t see eye to eye with Darrell on some issues, but he’s an all right guy.  He has a good reputation among the students as far as you know.  It occurs to you momentarily, and only momentarily, that Darrell had committed an impropriety with a student.  That doesn’t line up with what you know about him and you reject the idea.

An equally ominous thought comes to mind.  You ask yourself whether it was something he said in class, a student-customer who took exception to an opinion and raised enough of a ruckus to earn Darrell a one-way ticket out of academia.

Days pass.  You make one last attempt to get to the bottom of the Darrell mystery.  You weave it into a chat with a former student who also works in the front office.  She smiles warily.

“He just left all of a sudden.  I’m not sure why.”

“Just thought I’d ask. Thanks.”

Here one day, gone the next….

© 2019 The Unassuming Scholar

This Is a Test

"Good afternoon, everyone.  In a moment, I'll pass out your exam.  You will have the entire class period to complete it.  But, first, does everyone have a Scantron and a No. 2 pencil?"

A forest of hands goes up, belonging to maybe a quarter of the class.

"Is that a yes or a no?"

One of the raised hands speaks.  "No, Mr. Scholar.  We don't have Scantrons."

"Braden, did you hear me mention last class that you needed to bring one for today's exam?"

"I wasn't here last class."

"That's unfortunate.  Did you read the announcement I posted on Whiteboard?"

"I guess."

"So you knew what to bring, correct?"

"I guess. Is it okay if I run to the bookstore and buy one?"

"It's more than okay if you want to take the exam."

"I'll be back."

"I'll be here."  

Braden and the rest of the Scantron-less students file out in a flurry of door-slams.  The prepared students settle into the exam.

Soon, a gaggle of latecomers arrive with the obligatory series of door-slams.  With a rustle of falling bookbags and tearing zippers they settle into their seats.  After a few moments one of them has an epiphany.

"Mr. Scholar, I don't have a Scantron."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Kaden.  Ask one of your neighbors if they have an extra."  

Kaden is fortunate.  Another of his group is not.  "Mr. Scholar..."

"Yes, I know, you don't have a Scantron.  Yes, you can go to the bookstore to buy one."

"Will you still be here when I get back?"

"Yes, indeed, Jaden.  I will be here the entire class period.  If you can make it back within that time, I will be here."

Jaden is relieved to know this and celebrates his good fortune by slamming the door behind him as he leaves.  This is immediately followed by yet another riot of door-slams as Braden & Co. successfully return from their quest for testing supplies.  They take their places with a rustle of falling bookbags and tearing zippers.

The door opens once more, this time with a flourish.  It's Skyler, still another of today's students oblivious to the demands of the clock.

"Hola, Mr. Scholar!"

"Hello, Skyler.  Do you have your Scantron and pencil?"

Skyler gives you a deer-in-the-headlights expression.  He hurriedly turns and exits.  The classroom door slams behind his back.  Without a flourish.  

One exam down.  Two to go.  The semester's end is so, so far away...

© 2019 The Unassuming Scholar

Fracture

For the past year I’ve shrugged off the idea of Donald Trump’s impeachment.

The realities on the ground preclude the President’s removal.  The Republican majority in the Senate, slight as it may be, ensures this.  Even if the Democrats somehow gain control in next year’s election and Trump wins a second term, their margin would be just as slight and would make the 2/3 supermajority needed to convict just as unlikely to attain.  Either way, if the case against him is compelling enough there’s a slim chance the Senate might punt and censure Trump as it did with Bill Clinton.

Despite this, House Democrats and the chattering classes in Washington sympathetic to them are proclaiming Trump’s political demise.  Reaction to the latest investigation has been predictable.  Rudy Giuliani is making the rounds of the news network gabfests proclaiming his client’s innocence.  (Giuliani, like so many formerly respectable political figures who hitched their chariots to Trump’s star, has seen his reputation dragged through the roadside mud and yet he perseveres.) 

Other administration officials and their fellow travelers are doing likewise.  It’s not the talking heads who should be worrying us, however.  We need only look to either side of us.

Normally it’s hard to take Trump’s tweet storms seriously.  The impeachment threat inspired the predictable fury, in 280-character bursts.  These have gotten ominous of late, the latest—a retweet, actually—predicting a second civil war should the Dems make good on their promise to impeach.  Much like his claim that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it, it’s tempting to chalk this up to hyperbole. 

The media are taking it seriously, if I’m to believe my newsfeed.  CBS cites a response from militia group Oath Keepers threatening a “HOT civil war.”  CNN frets that the President’s words have incited violence in the past and might do so again.  Newsweek charges the tweets as grounds for impeachment, as if the allegations concerning Ukraine weren’t enough.  A New York Times op-ed claims that the civil war rhetoric is becoming mainstream.  The New Yorker ties Trump’s pandering to Southerners sympathetic to the memory of The Lost Cause to the rise of such rhetoric but also notes that present political divisions have little to do with Trump’s troubles and are rooted in a dynamic as old as the country.

Words are one thing.  But it’s another aspect of the controversy which gives pause.  What if the President is impeached and removed?  What if he fails to win reelection in 2020? 

No American institution today is more trusted by the public than its military.  As an item in The Daily Beast asks, where will the military stand should Trump face a serious threat to his presidency?  Its author is a civilian intelligence analyst recently employed by U.S. Central Command.  (CENTCOM has geographic responsibility for the Middle East and Central Asia.)  She observed growing pro-Trump sentiment among her uniformed colleagues.  Fox News played nonstop on workplace TVs while Drudge and Breitbart were popular browsing fare.  Any other sources of information were scornfully branded “fake news.”

The author notes that a few years ago, one could reliably count on career servicemembers to be mostly Reagan conservatives.  Now we have military professionals who repeat tired canards about the Clintons, that the FBI and CIA cannot be trusted, and openly say they and their colleagues hated Obama.  Even Trump’s wilder assertions are repeated at face value.

Personal opinions are one thing, and even individual members of our traditionally non-political armed forces have a right to them.  These become problematic, however, when they reflect a prevailing social climate.  This leads us back to the article’s central question.

Fears of military coups have surfaced periodically over our history.  Abraham Lincoln’s order authorizing his commanders to suspend habeas corpus during the Civil War led to accusations of presidential overreach.  (Congress subsequently endorsed his action through legislation.)  In the depths of the Great Depression, retired Marine general Smedley Butler was approached by businessmen in an alleged conspiracy to remove Franklin Roosevelt.   

A more intriguing incident occurred during Watergate.  Richard Nixon, facing certain impeachment, conviction, and removal from office, is said to have been in a poor mental state at the end.  As Commander-in-Chief he had the full might of the U.S. military at his disposal, including its nuclear arsenal.  Fearing Nixon might lash out as his presidency imploded, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger instructed the chain of command to disregard any questionable orders from the White House.

This action was arguably improper, and came to light well after Nixon had gone away quietly to await his pardon.  Then again, consider the alternatives given the situation at the time.

A present-day presidential meltdown isn’t out of the question considering what we’ve seen for the past three years.  Although a literal civil war is improbable given the apathy of the typical American, the far right has grown in stature since Trump’s election.  Extremism has become more respectable.  Consider that the President’s civil war retweet originated with evangelical pastor and Fox News personality Robert Jeffress.  When evangelicals hear their religious leaders implicitly endorsing far right or alt-right views then American mainstream conservatism risks being hijacked by these ideas. 

The “civil war-like fracture” promised by the tweet may not be as dire as it implies, but a political fracture does indeed exist.  It’s now only a question of how complete the break will be.

© 2019 The Unassuming Scholar