The Wearing-Pajamas-to-the-Airport Theory of Societal Decline

Cast your mind back to the second presidential debate of 2020.

The chaotic first debate, in which Donald Trump and Joe Biden constantly interrupted each other (and the moderators), had been derided as a “train wreck” and a “disgrace.”

So for this second outing, a system was implemented that allowed a technician to mute the candidates’ microphones once their speaking time was up.

While this did create a more orderly debate, ironically, keeping the two men nominally on topic only highlighted how little substance either seemed to offer. Viewers could finally hear both candidates, and what they heard was…not inspiring.

The proceedings could only be described as juvenile, like a back-and-forth exchange between two middle-school-aged rivals. Trump issued sarcastic schoolyard-esque snipes. Biden responded in the tone of a hippie dropout: “Come on, man.”

The morning following the debate, there was a rare collapse in partisan lines, as conservatives and liberals united in voicing a collective feeling of disgust — a collective yuck. The overarching sentiment was: “These are the two candidates for the highest office in the land???” It was clear the country had traveled a long way from the ethos of dignified gravitas and the era of statesmen like Lincoln and FDR. People were genuinely concerned about the way modern politics seemed to be going.

Of course, just as soon as this moment of mutual reflection emerged, it devolved back into partisan sniping — arguments of, “Well, my guy might not be the best, but your guy is even worse!”

This occasion of looking into the societal mirror and sharing a shudder of revulsion at the reflection may have passed, but plenty of other such moments — where there’s been a collective worry about not only the state of politics specifically, but the state of our culture generally — have continued to come and go in the subsequent five years. Moments continue to arise in which there is a prevailing feeling that something about our society seems kind of sick.

These not only pop up on the mainstream news radar, but in people’s day-to-day interactions. Customer service workers labor with dead-eyed inefficiency — they don’t have what you need, get your order wrong, can’t answer your questions. Customers in turn react with an anger disproportionate to the incompetence encountered. Lots of systems seem to be breaking down, as evidenced by everything from pothole-laden streets to empty store shelves to gridlocked government.

Things just don’t feel like they’re working very well, from your local drugstore to the halls of Congress.

So what’s ailing us?

Well, it may have something to do with people wearing pajamas to the airport.