So, anyone remember that thing that happened a month ago with former President Donald Trump? When his ear looked like Van Gogh's? Funny how that's all growing sort of fuzzy already. The story, not the ear. Thanks to our ever-curious media, it's now fading like Joe Biden's memories of today's breakfast. But could that ugly event be part of a bigger problem? Could it be that there's a shift in modern life where norms of behavior and competence have been disrupted by the very questioning of the norms and standards themselves? 

You can see and feel it in stores, customer service, doctor's offices, or just down the street. In drug stores you now have to call someone to get deodorant. You get asked for tips on a screen after you served yourself. The illegal who punched a cop is free to commit another crime. Protesters destroy public and private property and all charges are dropped. Teachers take down world maps and put up Pride flags. And speech is oppressive, but menacing on subways isn't. It's like we replaced our country's foundation with quicksand. The idea that meritocracy is oppressive has finally fulfilled its dream. We're now all equally incompetent. You can credit DEI, to be sure, the proponents sure love to praise it until the results pour in. 

Meanwhile, we forego experience and training as we deem older generations as oppressive and irrelevant. Add to that the ubiquity of smartphones, and you have a workforce too distracted to care. Hell, even I check Facebook when Judge Jeanine starts rambling about how we don't execute enough teens. Which brings me back to the Secret Service. It turns out that the Trump mess was no bug in the system. It is the system. A new report from RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree quotes sources within the service who claim that the agency has suffered more lapses than Kat's car insurance. 

SECRET SERVICE FAILURE AT TRUMP RALLY EXPOSES CULTURE ROT, STAFFING WOES

First, two Secret Service agents were recently photographed dead asleep while on duty at Mar-a-Lago, and instead of nudging them awake, the photos were circulated to others on the detail. The sleepers were never disciplined, but everybody got a good laugh. In 2019, two Chinese nationals simply strolled onto the grounds of Trump's Florida home, perhaps thinking it was Disney's Magic Kingdom. Worse, the Secret Service can't even protect itself. Two months ago, a man in shorts and a T-shirt walked through an open door in the Miami field office and spent the night. First, he took a shower, then downloaded porn on a computer. It's weird. I usually do those two things in reverse. You too? 

Next morning, he asked employees where he could get a cup of coffee, and they got him coffee. Hell, I don't get treated that well at Starbucks and I own Starbucks. He was only caught when he entered a defensive tactics class, and someone finally asked who the hell he was, which is like Brian Kilmeade at a Brian Kilmeade book signing. Now, look, no agency is perfect, but when some clown can wander into a classified facility, watch porn, wash up, spend the night, have breakfast, and then attend a tactical training session, is it any wonder a whack job can ride up on a bike and shoot Trump? Best Buy has better security, but there's more. 

SECRET SERVICE EQUITY DIRECTOR SAYS DEI AGENDA IS A ‘MISSION IMPERATIVE,’ THE ‘ULTIMATE GOAL’

In April last year, a drunk neighbor burst into the home of national security adviser Jake Sullivan. He probably took off, though, when he saw Sullivan. The guy looks like he escaped an autopsy. Now Sullivan gets Secret Service detail, yet somehow, a drunk still got past this crack squad of security pros and confronted Sullivan in his home in the dead of night. Who was on post that night? Paul Blart? Two intruders recently breached security at the Obama's house in Hawaii. There weren't any guard dogs except on the menu. And when Barack was president an intruder jumped the White House fence and got inside. 

So forget the conspiracy theories unless it's a conspiracy of decline, and it's everywhere. True nepotism and DEI hires have real world consequences, but the old-fashioned notion of meritocracy seems like a long way away. As we wake up to deteriorating cities, schools that indoctrinate but don't educate, and law enforcement more handcuffed than the criminals. 

It's not just the Secret Service. It's society. We didn't just break a few eggs to make an omelet. We broke the pan that makes the damn omelet. The errors by the Secret Service seem the result of a distracted, untethered generation divorced from direction or discipline. This is not who America was. Not the America that won two world wars or even the Cold War. Today we couldn't win the war on gingivitis.