The Sadim Touch

Remember the Midas Touch? According to Greek mythology, anything King Midas touched turned to gold. According to the story, this highly acclaimed gift indulged his lust for riches until he accidentally turned his daughter to gold. Then it became a reason for grief.

Now that you remember the Midas Touch, let me introduce you to the Sadim Touch. The Sadim Touch is the opposite of the Midas Touch. It turns things into the opposite of gold, whatever that opposite might be. 

Many of our politicians, bureaucrats, and news media seem particularly gifted with the Sadim Touch. (This might be a little like the person who shed dark on every question that came his way, but we will save that story for another day.) Consider, for example, their fear-mongering and political polarization during the coronavirus pandemic. The latest chapter in this unfinished story is the polarization over immunizations. People I know who refuse Covid-19 immunizations come from all points of the political spectrum, and few if any of them are anti-vaxxers in any conventional sense. Regardless, some of my dyed-in-the-wool liberal friends claim that it is mainly those backwards Republicans who refuse immunization, and some of my dyed-in-the-wool conservative friends claim it is mainly those snooty Democrats who refuse immunization. As far as I can tell, none of these caricatures originated with my friends; they arose among the chattering class in politics and the news media. Sad, that their approach to leadership so often amounts to a Sadim Touch, and that it rubs off on so many of the rest of us.