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There’s a county road near my hometown that had asphalt sink in on one portion. Anybody who drove over it felt their teeth tap dance in their mouths, it was so uneven. And people complained to the county about it: please fix this.
Everybody who drove on that road knew it was a problem, knew it was going to get worse if the county did nothing, so they called and emailed and did what people do. Then one day a sign popped up right before the dip.
It read something like “Caution: Bumpy Road Ahead.” It pointed a big fat finger at the asphalt and said, “IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW, THERE’S A PROBLEM HERE!” I remember laughing the first time I saw it.
The county, which was there to address problems like this, couldn’t be bothered to do its job, I thought. Instead, they pointed out the problem as if expecting it to just go away if they pointed it out. “If people know it’s there, that’s good enough,” they seemed to think.
That sign stood there for quite awhile. They eventually got around to fixing the road and ended up resurfacing about 40-50 feet of it, if I remember right.
That was a fairly low stakes situation, but I’ve thought about it often. The people who were hired to keep things smooth just pointed out the rocky parts as if it was enough.
That’s what I’m thinking about this week as I watch the lack of accountability for the president. There’s a lot of finger pointing, but pointing out the problem doesn’t fix the breaks. It just gives those breaks more time to widen.