For all the furrowed brows and gnashing of teeth we experience in our youth, trying to make ourselves independent, unique people with a genuine, well-considered moral code and a consistent structure of beliefs and actions, the truth is that we mostly learn the important things from the people around us when we’re young. I often like to joke about listening to what my father told me, and not knowing what that was – I wasn’t listening, right? But the real truth is that those lessons sink in anyway – whether or not we can attribute them to a pithy quote or a particular lesson taught by example, most of us get the message.

This morning, I find myself hearing my mother’s voice. See, I grew up with two brothers, and all our friends around us. Our house was the center of neighborhood activity, more often than not, and I’m sure that was by design. We could be supervised if we and our friends were close, and who knows what sort of supervision we’d have at our friends’ houses. And invariably, when more than a few kids are spending more than a little time together, mischief or conflict will become part of the equation. Most parents ignore this for a time. Low-level stuff that doesn’t really affect anything is generally overlooked in the interest of not being one of those helicopter parents that seem to dominate everything these days. This was the 1980s, when it was possible to ride a bicycle without a helmet, and maybe to play in the woods behind our neighborhood. Hell, we even had a BB gun.

But I’m digressing. My mom’s voice. Eventually, the low rumble of kids being kids would grow into something intolerable for the adults, either the disturbance would become inconvenient, or things would start to sound dangerous. Lord knows we spent enough time in the emergency room – we didn’t need kids hurting each other.

Kids being kids, everything is always about blame. Who started it, who made it worse, whose fault is the commotion? On a certain level, that makes sense. As children, we have trouble seeing past the first-person-singular. Ultimately, all that really matters is who takes the punishment, especially if it might be you. It’s at that point our story really begins, with my mother’s voice echoing down the hallway or across the backyard, “Hey, that’s ENOUGH!”

The explanations start.

He did it!

He started it!

He made me do it!

I WANT MY POPSICLE!

And my mom’s response was always the same. “I don’t care who started it. I’m here to finish it. Cut that shit out, right now, or everybody’s getting it. That’s not how you get what you want. You’re acting like babies.” That’s when the bullshit stopped. Mom had the power to end it all, and she didn’t play the blame game. Cut that shit out, or everybody’s gonna have a really bad day.

It doesn’t matter who started it.

Cut that shit out, right now. I don’t care who started it. Fighting is wrong. Do you really want to hurt your brother? That’s not how you get what you want. Sometimes you don’t get everything you want.

Blame is such a waste of time. It really doesn’t matter who caused something, when you have the power to do right. Blaming someone else doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility to do right, and it doesn’t make you look better to push the responsibility to someone else. It’s what children do. Adults take responsibility and look past blame for solutions within their power to achieve.

Fair or not, much of America blames the President for everything from their economic condition to the weather for their weekend cookout. Many of these things, the President can’t really change. But some of them he can change with the stroke of a pen. Some others began with the stroke of his pen. Most times, he likes to blame his own actions on someone else, especially Democrats. But I’ve noticed that while he acts like a child, he talks like a very particular type of adult:

“It’s their own fault, they made me do it.”

“This isn’t going to end until I get what I want.”

“I’m going to punish everybody until you feel guilty enough to give in.”

“You can make this stop any time you want, you know.”

I’ve heard this sort of speech before.

I’ve heard it said that the President is the National Father. Is that how your father spoke to you? Or your mother? It’s not okay.

This has also recently been true of the Governor of Kentucky. Taking away dental and vision insurance from half a million people because you didn’t get your way in a court case is an exceptional kind of immaturity.

Wrong is one thing, but there’s a special place in hell for people who do willful evil.

We’re at a weird place in our history when our President is alternately a petulant child and an abusive parent.

One day, we’ll look back on the days when America was the greatest influence for right and good on this earth. When we tried, sometimes failed, but we tried, to lead by example, by doing what we thought was right, and insisting that others try to do the same. When we condemned other nations for human rights violations instead of praising their brutal dictators, and when we gave preferential treatment to countries that treat all human beings with dignity and respect. When the best of us gave a monumental effort to live up to this nation’s greatest ideals. When we understood that as long as the promissory note of our Declaration of Independence remained unpaid, our nation was morally bankrupt.

Are those days over?

You can make this stop anytime you want, you know.