Despite the deeply fractured and wildly inflamed state of the current political climate, there’s actually a rather simple solution to it all.
That elusive magical elixir? Accountability.
It’s a simple concept, really: If politicians were to actually be held to account for their many (many, many) shortcomings, it would actually restore institutional trust in the American duopoly. And you can’t rebuild anything, let alone a divided country, without that baseline trust.
Alas, a cynical reader might point out that there’s a better chance that pigs will start flying than that we’ll ever see a politician take ownership of a mistake.
And this writer would ruefully agree.
Just look at this latest debacle from the mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott.
The 41-year-old Democrat has come under immense fire lately after allegations surfaced that he drives an obscenely expensive taxpayer-funded government vehicle.
Records obtained by local Fox affiliate WBFF-TV revealed that Scott, despite his relatively humble position as mayor, drives a 2025 Jeep Grand Wagoneer.
A Wagoneer, by the way, that costs a cool $163,495, which, as WBFF puts it, makes it “the priciest government-issued vehicle assigned to any current mayor, governor, county executive, or county commissioner/county council in the state.”
And it’s not especially close.
Compared to other government vehicles, this SUV cost taxpayers nearly twice as much as the next-most-expensive executive option. It’s more than triple the price paid for cars used by other county leaders.
While this raises a host of questions on its own — particularly regarding cost control and spending oversight — Scott made things exponentially worse for himself when he decided that the person most to blame for his inexplicably expensive SUV was … “the man.”