photo by: Tribune Content Agency

Clarence Page

When Merriam-Webster chose “polarization” as the word of the year for 2024, the timing was dramatic for many of us who make our living through words.

Defining the word as “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes,” the dictionary company nailed it with their keen grasp of the obvious — painfully obvious — about the political state of our nation’s politics.

That observation was confirmed further by President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of his long-standing political loyalist Kash Patel to head the FBI.

With that announcement, my memory too raced back unhappily to the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover — except in dramatic ways, Patel looks worse.

As the agency’s longest serving director, Hoover authorized covert harassment campaigns against perceived enemies, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., among others in the civil rights movement. Hoover’s bureau sowed disinformation among black progressive groups, tapped King’s phone and attempted to extort him with allegations of adultery.

I was a young reporter in Chicago when the FBI identified the Black Panther Party as a radical threat and tried to subvert its activities through the illegal COINTELPRO counterintelligence program. That operation culminated in a predawn police raid on Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton’s West Side apartment that left him and fellow Panther Mark Clark dead in a hail of more than 100 gunshots.

A civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the survivors and their relatives was resolved in 1982 by a settlement of $1.85 million.

That tragic episode led to congressional investigations and a variety of reforms intended to assure the public that such an atrocity won’t happen again.

Kashyap “Kash” Patel’s approach is not much more subtle. In interviews and his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters,” Patel boldly seeks to weaponize the bureau as a partisan force to root out Trump’s perceived enemies.

Unlike Hoover, who scrupulously sought to reassure public faith in the institution, despite claims to the contrary from his many critics, Patel calls the FBI a branch of the “Deep State” in which he shows little faith.

Of course, the fear is not that Patel will defang an institution he finds so nefarious but rather that he will turn it on new targets.

His agenda calls for firing the top ranks of the bureau, prosecuting leakers and journalists, exposing “filth and corruption,” and hiring “people who won’t undermine the president’s agenda.”

Small wonder that Trump reportedly was prevented from installing Patel as deputy FBI director by Attorney General William P. Barr, who deemed Patel as unqualified and supposedly told White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that he would become deputy F.B.I. director “over my dead body.”

But this time, after Trump flooded the zone with controversial cabinet nominees, Senate Republicans apparently got used to Patel enough — or grew weary of testing Trump’s patience enough —  for him to win over more support, and his prospects remarkably improved.

Perhaps some senators are so intimidated by his radically polarizing views about gutting the agency and checking names off his enemies list that Patel may yet slide on through.

Or some senators may be too exhausted by fights over Trump’s other controversial picks, such as Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, who has been struggling against allegations of sexual misconduct and reports of excessive drinking.

Alas, old-school controversies about booze and women sound downright quaint after the chain of scandals in this year’s confirmation battles.

Beneath it all, I cannot help but long for the good old days when we could rely on more good faith efforts to choose nominees for good character and competence.

Unfortunately, the process still is plagued with such ugly arm-twisting as the pressure campaign ignited against Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, for instance. Her expressed opposition to Hegseth made her a target of MAGA accusations that she wanted to get the defense secretary job for herself.

Maybe the senators could skip the formalities and call the agency the Federal Bureau of Intimidation.

That appears to be where we’re headed. Perhaps Kash will be pleased.

— Clarence Page is a columnist with Tribune Content Agency.