Thomas Jefferson is known to have said, “Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.” A few generations later, Abraham Lincoln said, “You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than with a bucket of gall.” Or, consider our grandmothers who said to us, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
This aphorism may affirm the wisdom of the ages, but it is denied by the aggressiveness of our country’s divisiveness, the power abuses of its administration, and the wars and rumors of war that resist nonviolent negotiations and agreements. The evidence is clear. A surge of gall is threatening our society and the methods and actions coming from the White House.
Oh, one may protest, President Trump and his colleagues are talented in verbally encouraging and praising anyone who continues to agree with them: “A terrific person,” “a wonderful man,” “Couldn’t agree with you more,” “an American patriot,” “a great job done by amazing people,” “a good and brilliant man” …. These words of flattery obscure the controlling objectives of the president and put people at ease. However, the same pleasant words serve as a subterfuge for a threat that disagreeing with the president will lead to one’s downfall.
The administration’s choice to govern with threats, unimpeded power, and revenge was exposed to the government workforce with the revocation of an executive order in Jan. 22, 2021, Protecting the Federal Workforce. This order from the Biden administration “is hereby revoked, and any rules, regulations, guidance, or other agency policies effectuated under Executive Order 14003 shall not be enforced.” This order cleared the way for a President Trump executive order to convert federal nonpartisan career jobs into political favors for loyalists. “Under the order, agency leadership would be instructed to identify which jobs to place into a new category, and in the process, make them easier to be fired arbitrarily.” Also, “they are required to faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability, consistent with their constitutional oath and the vesting of executive authority solely in the President. Failure to do so is grounds for dismissal.” This means that whatever an employee’s belief about the best way to implement administration policies, the person must always accede to the president’s understanding or be fired.
Therefore, the Trump administration rejects the use of positive reinforcement (honey) and replaces it with negative actions such as retribution.
President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was firing Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook made her the latest target in what critics call a campaign of retribution. A few of the others include: Chris Christie, an ABC News contributor, who has become one of the president’s fiercest critics; former national security advisor John Bolton; New York Attorney General Letitia James; U.S. Senator Adam Schiff; Jack Smith, former special counsel who led the classified documents and Jan. 6 investigations into Trump; and Miles Taylor, former chief of staff of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. There are thousands more who have been threatened with firing, fired, accused of crimes, had their Secret Service protection taken away or had security clearance revoked. Retribution seems to be the primary motivation.
This is not the way of a democracy. The threats from the White House administration have real consequences. But their implementation is dependent upon the assent of a gullible fearful citizenry.
It takes gall to implement retribution. However, citizens do not have to swallow the misinformation, threats and the misfiring of talented government workers and administrators. Instead, citizens must risk supporting those who have the courage to stand up to those real threats against their wellbeing. Citizens must support the value of good education, the contributions of science and research and the recognition of effective work skills.
Also, David Brooks, New York Times columnist, has written that it is of primary importance to work on social reform that includes college-educated people connecting with people whose jobs don’t require college degrees. We “can do something pretty simple: join more cross-class organizations and engage in more cross-class pastimes.” Breaking from the primacy of individualism and joining with others will ultimately expose the weakness of the White House administration’s governing through division, abusive power, confused ethics and retribution. Then, perhaps Trump and his followers may hear our forbearers and grandmothers affirm, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds
Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com