The Wizard of Oz redux?
behind that curtain
It’s a dreary day in Annapolis following a marvelous Parade of Lights last night along Spa Creek. My night time photography is not stellar but you’ll get the sense.
I thought for some reason about The Wizard of Oz this week, as it reminded me of what I find most troubling about our current political context. The movie has many allegories to interesting facets of our lives today, even though I believe Frank Baum wrote the story well over a century ago. But the power was in the denouement.
In case you haven’t thought about those ruby red slippers and everything in the movie for many decades (!), Dorothy is a lost, frightened girl trying to find her and her dog Toto’s way home to Kansas. She follows a path, a yellow brick road, to find a purportedly great wizard in the city of Oz who has the power to grant her wish to return home. I haven’t seen the movie recently (a.k.a. probably not for fifty-five years) but did see it often enough as a child—admittedly trying to hide from the scary witch of the West—that I think I have the details down.
Along her way, she encounters three guys who each have incredible strengths but each feels he too needs someone to grant them wishes to receive a brain, a heart, and courage. Dorothy, it turns out, has chutzpah herself but assumes she is incapable to doing the Kansas thing without some ever so grandiose wizard who has been projecting an illusion of his grandeur for all to see—assuring, as a result, that all fear him.
The denouement I mentioned is when Toto (why do pets always steal the show?) innocently pulls back the curtain during her audience with the Great Man to reveal he is a rather insignificant blowhard orchestrating a myth. Confronted, he tries to punish the dog which raises Dorothy’s protective ire. In the end, she and the other characters realise they have the power this unmasked mere mortal does not. He is simply an embittered, weakling trying to persuade others of an alternate truth.
It’s a grossly imperfect comparison between Baum’s story and the movie we are living through but there are definitely comparisons. Many people are hoping grandiosity will solve their problems as if they were helpless. Many in our movie certainly are angry and frightened. There most obviously is a man portraying himself as the great one yet evidence is he operates behind a curtain to exaggerate his power.
Why are we stuck before the denouement of our movie? The man behind the curtain has few accomplishments to buttress his image. In a four year term, the only major accomplishment was a tax cut fueling the deficit dramatically. (I will note I have given up on anyone seriously constraining spending so he is not solely to blame but the tax cut for the wealthiest absolutely contributes demonstrably to the skyrocketing federal debt.) The man behind the curtain did get judges in place but not uniquely so; the current administration focuses briskly to seating judges on to the bench.
An long-promised alternative health care plan never appeared. Infrastructure promises never materialised until the current administration. Instead, the bulk of the conversation over the prior under the man behind the curtain stoked fears and personalised grudges—precisely what is promised strongly for another term if granted by the voters. The intimidation, as occurred in Oz, is a vehicle to diverting attention from a lack of a known objective other than emphasising personal perception over actual results. Vendettas do not equate to policy answers.
Anyone seeking to improve a situation, as politicians allegedly do, knows that clearly defined, measurable goals are what lead to desired outcomes rather than vague but harsh articulations of threats. Americans today, whether at home or abroad, see everything as a 25 foot high danger without recognising that catastrophising is one of the most debilitating things a person—or a society—can do because such broad fears dissipate resources while immobilising—rather than galvanising— far too often.
Dorothy got back to Kansas, awakening from her terrible nightmare, after she subconsciously recognised her power. Will we do that? What would it take to motivate us to look behind the curtain? We are not even doing that, despite evidence every election requires that.
I welcome your thoughts. Am I wrong about how we are viewing threats? Am I underestimating the policy substance that the man behind the curtain has? What would it take for our society to pull that curtain back at this point? I genuinely look forward to hearing others’ thoughts as I am not interested in partisanship as much as policies to unite us to collaborate on priorities for our nation. Right now we don’t share those priorities broadly. Many of us are not looking at fixing things but retaining the power of the Great Oz at all costs.
Thank you for taking time to read Actions Create Consequences. You are the reason I write daily and I know your analyses are valuable for us all. Thank you to all who support this column.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Who is our Toto in America? What will it take for Toto to pull back the curtain to reveal that the modern day Wizard of Oz is nothing like the magic he is trying to project?