Like many Americans, I enjoy team sports. My interest was spawned when I was very young. In middle school, I played football, baseball, and basketball. Those three team sports earned me the coveted letterman sweater which I wore every day to school, regardless of the weather. It hung in my bedroom closet for years, well past the time I had outgrown it. It was a symbol of the love I had for team sports—a love I share with many Americans. In fact, being part of a team is attractive to nearly everybody. But one must be careful in choosing a team. Let me illustrate why care is required.

Teams pull together to win games. We Americans root for teams and love to be part of a winning team. Maybe that love explains how some of us become lifelong Republicans or Democrats. There is security in the support we receive from—presumably—likeminded people. And, if all Party members pull together, we win. Remember our current President tapped into this psyche when he promised all who joined him that they would win: “there’ll be so much winning you won’t believe it.”

Long before Trump, the Republican Party was dedicated to winning. Even though there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in America, the Party had a plan to win the seats of power. First, deny a Democratic President any victories and excoriate his “liberal” initiatives, even those that represent former Republican policies. Second, win as many State legislatures as possible before the ten-year census, so that Republicans could redraw districts to their advantage. (In all fairness, the Democrats had also practiced gerrymandering for four decades after World War II.) And, finally, use their hard-won legislative advantage to suppress voter turnout of traditionally Democratic voter groups. This strategy allowed them to win control of the House in 2010 while losing the popular vote. Once Republicans took control of the Senate as well, they focused on a legislative agenda that would defeat any Democratic opposition. Their plan worked because they were disciplined, hung together, and won as a team.

But their time in control of Congress suffered the lowest approval rating since such ratings were calculated. Where did the Republican plan go wrong? Given their non-compromising naysaying, they became the “Party of no.” Even though they ran successful propaganda campaigns against Obamacare and other Democratic initiatives, they were unable or unwilling to develop better solutions for healthcare or to support previously Republican proposals on balanced budgets, infrastructure spending, or trade agreements. Their opposition to a Democratic President became an opposition to governing. Winning control of Congress and blocking the nomination of a swing vote on the Supreme Court were victories over the Democrats. But those victories did not immediately translate into constructive legislation. While Republicans were busy winning elections, they were losing credibility with the electorate. And they left their right flank open for Trump. In 2015, Donald Trump started a populist revolution against the elites in Washington. But it was initially a revolution against the Republican Party. When he promised to “drain the swamp,” he meant all of the Washington establishment, which included the governing Republican Party. The lesson here is that politics is not football, which is to say winning can be losing. The 2016 election was a victory for Trump, but a loss for Republicanism.

Donald Trump is the chameleon who once was the color of blue, then turned red, and is only now showing his true color. There was a time when he seemed to support some Democratic positions. He was for a woman’s right to choose and against the Iraq war. But sometime in the last decade, he became a Republican. We can only guess why he made this switch. Perhaps he was motivated by his animus toward Barack Obama or by a growing ambition to stage a Presidential campaign. For whatever reason, he knew the Republican Party had lost the patronage of its supporters. They had become a team with neither a leader nor a positive agenda. All he had to do was cloak himself in the mantle of Ronald Reagan. If he became captain of the team—a team only concerned with winning—then, he could call the plays. Traditional Republican policies could be touted, but they would be played for different purposes—to unite the team, win elections, and cement control of political power. No agenda or policy was an end in itself. Repeal and replace Obamacare, for example, was just a ploy. There was never a viable replacement plan. Victory was never measured in health outcomes or the number of insured Americans but in elections won. Even the financial argument against Obamacare was a bust. The legislation that created the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, not only paid for itself, but extended the solvency of Medicare. Trump opportunistically picked up the banner against his predecessor’s healthcare law without a second thought to the effects of its repeal. He never tried to get into the weeds, for his gambit was his brand as the successful billionaire businessman with a Reaganesque flair for policies.

Playing Reagan, however, is not the same as being Reagan. Our 40th President has been the keystone of Republicanism for nearly four decades. When you consider his positions on free trade, immigration, NATO, and Russia’s strategic interests, the current Republican President would seem to be an anomalous Republican. Reagan was not only a free trader, but he would have cringed at the very concept of “zero-tolerance,” tariff wars, or obsequious rapport with a Russian kleptomaniac. (I apologize to my Russian readers, but Putin’s vast wealth far exceeds his government income.) But on other issues, Trump does tow the party line, conforming at least in theory to Reagan’s positions by mirroring his policies on lowering taxes, on restricting the government bureaucracy, on proposing the elimination of the Department of Education, on opposing universal healthcare proposals, on fighting the proliferation of drugs, on advocating tougher penalties on crimes including capital punishment, on denying abortion as a woman’s right, and on dismissing any environmental concerns, which in Reagan’s day was just for acid rain. On these Reaganite initiatives, Trump’s only “successes” would be in hamstringing the Environmental Protection Agency, in eliminating or watering-down both EPA and financial regulations, and in lowering taxes.

Many would add to his Reaganesque successes his ongoing fight to repeal Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But reducing subsidies, hampering the risk pool, limiting support for ACA registration, repealing the mandate, and eliminating funding for key HHS support services have not reduced subscriptions. Instead, it has resulted in significant increases in healthcare insurance costs for everyone. And the President’s tax plan risks the nation’s fiscal stability and misses one of the key lessons-learned of the Reagan years. After Reagan initiated a large reduction in the top tax rate in his first year from 70% to 28%, he was forced to raise taxes on eleven occasions to fund the arms race and pay down a growing national debt that mushroomed from 1.1 trillion to over 2.7 trillion. His greatest regret on leaving the Presidency was the effect his tax policy had on the national debt. Except for Bush 41, Trump seems to follow in the footsteps of a long line of Republican Presidents who talk of fiscal conservatism but produce huge national debts for future Administrations to remedy or suffer.

The current version of Republicanism shows none of the Reagan sympathies for immigrants. It fails to learn from the one major failure of the Reagan Presidency, that is, the impact of his tax policy on the national debt. Moreover, the current Republican President has only paid lip service to the other Reaganite policies mentioned above. The point of this iteration is to illustrate the nature of the Republican Party’s fall from grace and the basis for its subjugation to Trump. Many grassroot Republicans revolted against the failures of the “Party of no” and voted for a change agent who seemed to embody the mantle of Reagan. But that red chameleon turned purple—which is, incidentally, the color of royalty. The Republican Party is now the Party of Trump. But Trump is not quarterbacking the team to run up the score for the benefit of the fans or even for the reelection of his Republican teammates. No, Trump wants to secure his position in the political hall of fame and, further, to enhance his power and self-proclaimed stature as a “stable genius” and the “greatest President in history.” His game is not politics, but despotism. In that game, only he can be the winner.

Republicans are afraid of Trump supporters because they may hold the key to the Republican primaries and their possible reelection. But they need to break with their quarterback, for he is not playing in their behalf. He does not follow the norms and rules of American politics or government. Instead, he uses campaign-style rallies and propagandized tweets to rally his supporters. For his aim is not to govern well, but to maintain a cult-like following. If permitted, he would disenfranchise Democratic voters with his proposed voter fraud commission. What he really wants is power to deconstruct our government’s institutions and reorient them to serve his personal whims and interests. If he holds onto his position, he will continue to disengage America from its leadership in international affairs. And, if he ever does “make a deal” on the world stage, it will not be in the service of America’s national interests but in the aggrandizement of his prestige, power, and/or personal wealth. His Republican teammates will simply become complicit in the devolution of America unless they overthrow his leadership and save the Republican Party from infamy.

The American people are the referees in this game. They know a foul has been committed. While reporters and political sages point to the quarterback, what are ordinary people saying? Do they say, “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Trump? Or do they say, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be” Trump? The first question implies there is no evidence of or intent to commit a foul. The second question implies there is no evidence to exonerate him of the foul. In the first instant, the referees review the video replay. The video evidence indicts the quarterback as guilty. In the second instant, common sense indicts the quarterback as the only one who could have committed the foul precisely because he was the quarterback, not an innocent bystander. If you left your dog in the kitchen to answer the phone in the next room, upon your return who do you think ate the steak on the kitchen counter?

Trump has fouled a lot of things in his brief time in the Presidency. But Team Republican has made his foulness possible. Trump cannot change who he is. The question remains, however, whether Republicans will continue to be complicit. Will they support America first or their Party leader? Where is their loyalty???

Many of us Americans live busy lives, caught up in the helter-skelter of accelerated change and an unceasing information blitz. Maybe we hear in passing about the collateral damage caused by drones. Or we read about another American corporation’s exploitation of a third world nation’s natural resources. Perhaps we shake our heads disapprovingly and admit America is not perfect. What happens in foreign lands seems so remote and less relevant to our daily lives. But we cannot ignore what is happening in our name and in our country. We have an Administration that is terrorizing asylum seekers. And that crime is happening at our doorstep.

Men in uniform are taking children from the grasp of their parents and incarcerating them in temporary internment camps. Please stop and visualize that moment of separation. The parents are told they have only two choices: either agree to deportation with their children or deportation without them. In either case, our Government succeeds in forcing them to forego their request for asylum. Meanwhile, their children are lost in our bureaucratic maze as they are relocated to all four corners of the continental United States. How do we feel about children being used as leverage against their parents and as deterrents for future refugees? How can we accept the now evident fact that the Administration had no plan to reunite them with their parents? But, if there was no plan, then there was either no intent to return these children or a total disregard for their welfare.

The Administration has blatantly violated the 5th and 14th Amendments of our Constitution. Asylum seekers are being held without due process. Their children are seized and held in some unknown location. And they are not even able to comfort their children by phone. Our government, by order of our duly elected President, is criminalizing our Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In addition, America is now guilty of a form of terrorism by violating our international obligations to respect the rights of asylum seekers. These rights include the right of a state to grant asylum, the right of an individual to seek asylum, and the right of an individual to be granted asylum. Are we Americans prepared to don the cloak of an international pariah? I think not!

As a famous historian once said, “Americans are better than their leaders.”* We must challenge our government to undo the misery and pain it is inflicting on these innocents. It must obey the court order to reunite these children with their parents. And it must cease its attempts to make the situation worse. Examples of the latter include forcing parents to forego their asylum request to win return of their children, continuing deportations without hearings on asylum cases, forcing under age children to appear before an administrative judge without legal representation, and adjudicating misdemeanor border crossings in mass, sometimes as many as 40 defendants at a time. Are we a country that disregards human rights? Are we a country that subjugates law to the whim of a dictatorial Administration? And are we a country of “kangaroo courts?”

This Administration’s inability to return these children to their parents is totally unacceptable. It now admits to having about a hundred children under 5 years old and maybe as many as 3 thousand older children in a hundred or so locations throughout America. Now we hear there may be as many as a thousand additional children surreptitiously taken under a pilot program in advance of the zero-tolerance policy’s enactment. These estimates not only expose ineptitude, but crass indifference. A small country like Thailand can pull together its resources in a matter of days to rescue children trapped in mountain caves, but America cannot return children already in their custody at government operated locations. Does anybody believe this level of obtuseness? Or worse, is it deceit?

Private citizens and local elected officials are volunteering their assistance. Lawyers from across the nation are offering their services pro bono. But our government not only does not welcome outside assistance but at times has shown itself uncooperative. There must be enumerable suggestions on how to overcome the bureaucratic maze in which these parents and children are trapped. I am no expert, but even I can suggest one. Why not photograph all the children held in custody, put those photos with captions provided by the children on a secured web site, and give parents access to that site for the purpose of identifying their children? Whatever information the children can provide—like their name or the name(s) of their parent(s), their age, or where they came from—could be used to corroborate any claim by a parent. The search algorithms could be arranged by name, age range, and country of origin. If insufficient web access devices are readily available, it would not be difficult to provide rented or donated devices. Parents would easily recognize their own children. In the suspicious, though remote, circumstance of multiple claims for the same child, then normal investigative procedures should be used to resolve the case, perhaps even time-consuming genetic testing. Instead of being hamstrung by the necessity to resolve individual cases without any reference points, the process of reuniting families would then be using the only references that matter, that is, the children and their parents.

Maybe someone amongst my 10,000 subscribers can improve on my suggestion. Yesterday the Administration told the court that it could only identify 59 of the 100 toddlers it was ordered to reunite with their parents. These children are lost in our bureaucracy and may not be able to provide much identifying information about themselves or their parents. But their mothers could still identify them in a photo. If after 2 weeks the Administration could only identify 59 of the 100 children under the age of six years, how long will it take to identify the thousands still held hostage? There has to be a better way forward.

Can we live with what has been done in our name? If I know my American readers, you will agree with me that we must right this wrong. For my readers from other countries, I must ask your forbearance. We are not unlike you. We do care for children and respect families. But, like people from many lands, we do not always agree with our leaders—even though they are our elected leaders. Democracy can run afoul of itself but, thankfully, allows for course correction. It just requires a responsible electorate . . . and the next election.

*Footnote: I am quoting Alexis de Tocqueville from memory. Though I do not have a page reference, you can find many interesting insights from this 19th century historian in his book, “Democracy in America.”

Several years ago, a lawyer friend of mine explained the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United. The concept that campaign donations were expressions of free speech challenged my belief in common sense and semantics. But he painstakingly explained the Court’s rationale. The Justices cited the First Amendment and a body of precedents that were well established in contract law. My friend patiently explained that the Judicial Branch interprets the law but does not make the law. In other words, my problem with equating money with speech should be directed at Congress, rather than the Supreme Court Justices. So, I redirected my angst towards Congress and the obvious requirement for campaign finance reform. Corporations may be treated like people in contractual agreements and in their monetary expression of support for candidates, but their campaign donations can still be limited or even eliminated by Congress. For example, Congress could establish tomorrow that all Federal elections will be financed by public funds.

Yesterday, the Justices approved the latest iteration of the President’s travel ban against Muslims in deference to the President’s Constitutional authority to conduct foreign affairs. The President is after all the Commander-and-Chief. And Congress has always acknowledged the powers of the President to determine what best serves our national security. Therefore, the Justices ignored the political context and adhered strictly to established precedence. Previously, the lower courts had considered the President’s words to establish his intent in prohibiting immigration from Muslim nations. After a series of court injunctions, the Administration adjusted its “Muslim ban” to limit immigration from nations that it assessed not equal to the vetting standards of the United States. Also, the Administration softened its more inclusive “travel ban” by touting a Visa waver program for the seven nations subject to its restrictions. The Justices chose to ignore the obvious intent behind this third iteration of the Administration’s angst with Muslims. Instead, they accepted the analysis presented by the Government that there was a national security interest involved. At the same time, they stated their expectation that Visa wavers would be used as promised.

Traditionally, the Supreme Court has always deferred to the Presidency in foreign affairs and to the Congress in its Constitutional powers to declare war, ratify foreign treaties, and limit the exercise of Presidential actions (like imposing tariffs). Congress, of course, could limit the reach of the President’s powers in foreign affairs. Clearly, it has chosen not to do so. It never bothered to authorize drone strikes within the borders of sovereign nations, the practice of international surveillance of foreign leaders whether allies or adversaries, or the use of missile strikes and troop deployments against rogue nations. These precedents belie the fact that the Constitution reserves for Congress the authority to declare war and to legislate the limits of Government intrusion into personal privacy both here and abroad. So, here again, the Justices followed precedence established in practice and traced to a non-specific Constitutional authority granted the President in the exercise of foreign affairs.

Today, the Supreme Court ruled against the assessment of labor union dues on non-union civil servants in city, county, and state governments. There has been a long-standing disagreement on the fairness of charging non-union members for that portion of union dues associated with the collective benefits won on behalf of all employees. But the Constitution would seem to vindicate the employee who feels the union does not speak for him/her on the grounds of the free speech guaranteed in the First Amendment. I believe this decision will be conclusive and unchallenged, that is, become settled law. But Congress could have ameliorated this dispute decades ago by adhering to the Constitution and relieving companies from the obligation to provide collective bargaining benefits to non-union members. Of course, such legislation would have disrupted labor/management relations. But it would have forced a more honest cost/benefit analysis of union participation. Bargaining then would have to include the interests of all civil servants in labor/management negotiations.

You may conclude that blaming Congress in these matters is patently unfair. Also, you might feel that the issues are just too unwieldly and potentially explosive for our legislators. But if I asked you why you feel legislators cannot deal with these issues, you might be forced to reconsider. The answer to that question could be manifold: the absence of political will; fear of voter blowback; obeisance to Party positions; pressure from powerful lobbyists; loss of large single-issue campaign donors; bad press; and an inability to explain complex issues to constituents. You might even acknowledge all these suppositions as legitimate political considerations. And you would be right. But consider what is missing in these political considerations—specifically, any attempt to address the problem. We could have, instead, campaign reform that eliminates the growing threat of a kleptocracy. We could also improve the “meritocracy” of our immigration system without enforcing ethnic, racial, or religious discrimination. (Yes, I’m excusing the Administration’s national security justification as just a ruse to appease the Court.) And we could actually improve labor-management relations by honoring the vote of all employees in determining the outcome of labor/management negotiations.

Nobody would consider playing football on a hockey rink. But Congress consistently legislates in the arena of its own political context rather than on the field of the people’s public forum. Of course, the political concerns surrounding re-election and Party politics have an undeniable influence on politicians. But these concerns should not be the governing influence in determining what benefits the American people. Occasionally, we identify legislators’ public interest with bi-partisan behavior. I would agree that bi-partisan behavior usually implies compromise. And compromise is required for Congress to serve the full spectrum of over 330 million Americans. But too often what is compromised is one dead fish for another—my moldy mackerel for your calcified cod. President Clinton’s compromise with Speaker Gingrich, for example, won Republican support for parts of the President’s legislative agenda in exchange for cutting back a welfare program. (ADFC, an ongoing welfare program for families with children, became TANF, a temporary welfare program with a 5-year limit.) Although Clinton presided over an internet fueled economic expansion, his legislative agenda eliminated support for many poor families with children and paved the way for a decade of multiple recessions in 2001 and 2008 as a result of his signing the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act in 1999. In this instance, compromise was a lose-lose proposition. An example of a win-win compromise would be a bill that funded rebuilding America’s infrastructure. The initial investment would be justified both by the jobs created and by the resources needed to promote productivity and future economic expansion. Both labor and management would benefit. And both Republican and Democratic constituents would benefit as well.

Consider the wrangling in Congress over healthcare reform, DACA, immigration reform, budgets, and so on. What are the results of these political contests? We hear many distortions, accusations, and one-sided policy proposals. What we do not hear are legislative proposals that solve problems or benefit Americans. Instead, Congress reduces healthcare subsidies and the availability of some preventive healthcare practices. It shaves three years off Medicare’s financial longevity. It fails to legislate a path to citizenship for DACA dreamers or even their security from the threat of deportation. Meanwhile, Congress does nothing to check the Administration’s zero tolerance policy that results in mass deportations, many of which violate American due process and international asylum laws. The inhuman practice of removing children from their parents and placing them in internment camps is a key ingredient in this immigration policy as its primary deterrent. Some members of Congress are investigating and empathizing but seem unable to do anything constructive to undo these crimes. And Congress acts as a rubber stamp for the Administration’s fiscal policy that creates annual trillion-dollar deficits over the next ten years. You might ask why Congress should be blamed for this rogue Presidency. A cynic would reply that Congress is captive to its political leadership and that its Republican majority is afraid of losing the President’s support in the mid-term elections. And that analysis would be correct. It is also mired in a swamp of cynicism!

America’s judicial system seems to be the only branch of government that is working. But it is handicapped by a distracted and very partisan Congress more concerned about holding onto political power than legislating solutions for America’s problems. Congress has become complicit in Trump’s radical attempt to undo the checks and balances built into our form of government. While it stands idyll, children are suffering in internment camps and our DACA neighbors face deportation to foreign countries. Meanwhile, the fate of these children and our American raised neighbors will depend on the courts because Congress refuses to legislate.

As I write this blog, there is nothing prohibiting Congress to pass laws that protect children from being separated from their parents and that formalize humane and just processing of immigrants at our southern border. It could also legalize DACA and provide a path to citizenship for its dreamers. Because of its inaction and political cynicism, it shames all Americans by making us complicit in the suffering of immigrants desperate to escape violence and of dreamers fearful of losing the only life they have ever known. The failure of our legislators to represent a better America handicaps progress, overwhelms our courts, abets a rogue administration, and shakes Americans’ belief in their government. They risk making cynics of us all, thereby creating a self-reinforcing circle of cynicism.

Just consider this: cynics could never have created America, its system of government, or its democratic institutions. But optimists did. We must become their contemporary counterparts who will run for office and/or vote in November.

A woman was attacked and beaten by her husband, repeatedly. When he threatened her little boy, she mustered what resources she had and left her home, her relatives, and her country. She carried that boy on her back or in her arms for over a thousand miles. She protected him as best she could from downpours and blistering heat. Months later, when she finally arrived at the U.S. border, she sighed a breath of relief. She told the uniformed guard at the border entry station that she came for asylum. The guard took her statement—and her son. After instructing her to board a bus, he had held back her son.

There are so many stories like hers that I no longer can remember how many days or weeks elapsed before this woman’s toddler was returned to her. But the joy on her face was undeniable as she clung to her son. Most of us can remember a like experience when our mother picked us up after a fall or, as a grownup, when our mother wrapped us in a bear hug after a lengthy time between holiday visits. Mothers are like that. But this woman was one of the lucky mothers. Her child seemed mostly normal—suffering only nightmares when he woke up screaming for his mother.

Another mother-detainee saw her child ripped from his father’s arms and disappeared for 85 days. With the help of a lawyer, she finally was reunited with her son, though she hardly recognized him. He was filthy and covered with lice. At first, he seemed not to recognize her. He was bawling and screaming for his mother. She said she felt like a woman at an orphanage, looking to adopt her own son. Eventually, she was able to quiet and comfort her little guy. She cleaned him, dressed him, spoke gently and reassuringly to him. But he acted like he was still living in terror. He refused to leave her side, even for a moment. If she let loose of his hand, he would immediately start crying. His determent was now a permanent verdict—at least for the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond. Psychologists tell us that his trauma is more likely a life sentence.

The Trump Administration’s border policy is an attack against the sacred bonds of family, to include mothers and the most vulnerable amongst us, children. If 70,000 years of homo sapiens existence has taught us anything at all, it is that familial bonds are at the very heart of our common nature. That bond enables us to cooperate with and relate to other humans with understanding and compassion. We are all born of woman and reared in families. Raising and protecting family is the impetus that drove hunter gatherers, tool makers, and caretakers to form those larger bonds that gave us communities, nations, and empires. Without human families, we would no longer be human, but just another animal species, merely seeking to survive and extend the gene pool. We would never have considered sacrificing for other members of our species or organizing into a rules-based society to further its general welfare. As any sociologist would explain, families are the basic units of human society.

Separating children from families is inhuman. It pivots our species away from thousands of years of evolution. It denigrates what we have held as most sacred.

To make something sacred is to make it holy, as reflected in the word “sacrifice” (from the Latin, sacer, “holy,” and facere, “to make”). A woman carrying a small child over a thousand miles to secure her child’s safety sacrifices her body. Mohammed sacrificed to protect families and the Islamic community. Jesus sacrificed his humanity to protect his followers. And Siddhartha Gautama believed in and exemplified compassion for others. Like Jesus and Mohammed, he believed all humans were born with the potential to be good or evil. He taught that our “true nature” was pure, wise and perfect. I cannot think of a better definition of humanistic aspiration, though these mothers exemplify the reality. Could they make a more eloquent expression of the sacredness of humanity? Can we?

The events of the last few weeks have driven me into a writer’s block. How has America so twisted itself into this distorted funhouse mirror image? We are now gazing into a self-image reflective of 20th century horrors like Stalin’s Russia or Hitler’s Germany. Certainly, Karl Marx was a humanist who never anticipated that a communist society would become a soulless totalitarian state. And Nietzsche, likewise, was a humanist who could never have imagined Hitler and the extermination of six million Jews. Perhaps the seeds of America’s fall can be seen in its very beginning. Imbued with the spirit of the Enlightenment and the writings of social philosophers like Rousseau and Locke, Jefferson wrote that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” But Jefferson was a slave holder. And the founders of our democratic republic were mostly aristocrats. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, was the Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates of his time. His Franklin Institute persisted for a hundred years on the bounty created by his will. (It still exists today, though on its own merits.)

If we really want to understand our heritage we must recognize that it is an ideal to be realized. After a hot Philadelphia summer in 1787, Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention and confronted the question that was on every patriot’s mind. “What form of government did you create for us?” He responded, “a Republic, if you can keep it.” The preamble of the very Constitution he signed states its purpose as aspirational, “in order to form a more perfect union.” In truth, America began with slavery and lived through the Civil War, reconstruction, Jim Crow, Women’s Suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, and myriad migration “crises” from the Chinese rail worker camps, the potato famine in Ireland, Eastern European displacements, and so on. The greatness of America is in its ideals and the willingness of its citizens to make those ideals its reality. In the past, we have been challenged by our prejudices, our crassness, and our tribalism. But we were able to respond to enlightened leadership and discover our better natures. What does seem different today is not just the absence of a Washington or Lincoln, but a government that represents our interests and our founding ideals. How could Jeffersonian humanism run so afoul as to produce immigrant internment camps, tender age shelters, and refugee tent cities? Maybe the answer is related to what happened to humanism in the 20th century.

I stated above that Nietzsche was a humanist. He is famously remembered for saying, “God is dead.” In place of that sacred personage, he elevated the super human whose will to gain power is expressed in intelligence, self-mastery, and creativity. Only this super human, he thought, would survive evolutionary selection. Although his evolutionary humanism spoke eloquently of human potential, Hitler falsified its import to justify his persecution of those he deemed inferior to the Aryan race. But Nietzsche was not advocating power over others, but power over oneself to attain personal superiority. His super human was a sacred ideal that required total commitment, in other words, a personal sacrifice. It raised the bar of “sacredness” and demanded more of the individual human to attain it. But would he hold the less accomplished among us as sacred? I suspect not. Hitler, of course, exploited that gap in Nietzsche’s thinking to establish only the Aryan race as superior. He would have agreed with Trump in considering brown people as an “infestation” that should be punished (zero tolerance) and separated from the superior race by imprisonment in internment camps, even “tender age shelters.” Trump’s initial solution for Latino immigrants at our southern border—to deport the parents and institutionalize their offspring—is a step less harsh than Auschwitz, but in the same vein. He demonstrates no respect for them as human beings.

Karl Marx was a contemporary of Nietzsche, though 26 years older. He believed that human history was created by the activity of human labor, not by ideas or religious ideals. Famously, he said of religion, “it is the opium of the people,” or simply an illusion to assuage depression and suffering. His economic theories glorified the role of labor and, differing from Adam Smith, he believed capitalism would self-destruct under the weight of class suppression of the proletariat. Once the proletariat rose up to seize the means of production, a new classless, egalitarian society would emerge. This society would represent another type of humanism, one represented by the collective. As a social philosophy, communism became quite popular by the beginning of the 20th century. But its actual application required an authoritative system to assure its uniform enforcement. In effect, this requirement was an open invitation for any authoritarian ruler or dictator who might clothe himself in the mantle of the state.

Trump identifies with a collective—his base—that mirrors his propensities, while ignoring the diversity within America as a whole. It is not the means of production he wants to overthrow, but the wheels of power. When he says he wants to “drain the swamp,” he means whoever stands between him and his authority. Europeans recognize this Trump predilection as the bullying tendency of a nationalist leader. He openly admires strong leaders who wield absolute power over a nation. Putin, one of his idols, maintains his power by a system of thought control or propaganda and persecution. Trump likewise attempts to control public perception with his tweets and outrageous attacks on all who oppose him. As Russia replaced Marx’s idealism with the anvil of state totalitarianism, Trump seems committed to rule America’s “teaming masses” by suppressing the free press, controlling the justice department, and transforming the Executive Branch into the single source of state power.

Recently, elected officials—mayors, House Representatives, and Senators—have been refused admittance to immigrant internment camps. They told press reporters that the “government” refused their request for admittance. But they are our government! Trump heads the Executive Branch and is Commander-and-Chief of the military. But he is not the government, as much as he might pretend to be. Most Americans, I believe, would not be willing to concede that much authority to this President.

As human culture drifted away from its god-centered axis after the scientific revolution, it experimented with differing human-centered world views. Collective humanism and evolutionary humanism rose and fell with communism and nationalist socialism. Marx was discredited with the advancement of capitalism. Nietzsche is largely forgotten. Hitler was defeated. And the Soviet Union collapsed. In their place, the human individual, personal freedom, equal opportunity and personal well-being became more dominant as sacred ideals. They comprise individual humanism. From “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to liberte, egalite, fraternite, the ideas of the Enlightenment have dominated western civilization. Certainly, they were held as sacred by the end of the 18th century when America declared its independence from a monarchy and have become more so with the advancement of the Western Democracies. America has suffered wars and treasure to promote this form of humanism in the world. Today we call the result of its sacrifice the Pax Americana. The question before us today is whether that world order can survive Donald Trump.

Trump has strived to undermine this international expression of humanism. He will not adhere to treaties, the world court, or to any rules-based system designed for the resolution of trade disputes, the establishment of economic order, and the peaceful resolution of border disputes. Included in his agnostic position on world order is his withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council. That withdrawal coincides with his current zero tolerance immigration policy. He has put America in clear violation of human rights alongside such pariahs as North Korea and Syria. Separating children from parents is not only inhuman but recognized as such by most people and the community of nations. It reveals a man with no moral center and makes one wonder how he won the vote of some 62 million Americans.

The writer’s block I mentioned at the outset of this blog was not the result of a loss of words, but of a tsunami of thought lines. (I spared you my usual rant about money in politics.) Since passion is one of my motivators, it became maddeningly difficult to focus between anger and sorrow. I watched as a commentator unraveled on TV while attempting to read a breaking news report about tender age shelters. I saw children being escorted after midnight to shelters in far flung corners of America. Our own government was clandestinely hiding its actions. Elected officials were being turned away at the entrance of government internment camps. These are not the type of events we accept in a free and open society. And then there were those distraught mothers and crying children. As I cried along, my mind was blown with the realization that nobody knows how to right this wrong. One man’s decision has ruined the lives of thousands. And that man was elected by us.

A year and a half ago I wrote a blog entitled “Optimism for a Trump Presidency.” In it, I tried to make the case for that optimism. Today, that case has been trashed. Our hope for America rests with women who abhor the treatment of women under this President, with young people who protest the absence of common sense gun laws, with the one remaining branch of government willing to uphold our system of laws, and with the next elections. There are 62 million Americans who have put their faith in a man who shows no respect for humanity.

Is nothing sacred anymore?

It is my honor, as a humble writer of fiction, to interview the power behind the Presidency. He stands before me, an imposing figure, hooded and draped in a black flowing robe. Most are afraid to acknowledge his presence and even fewer dare to address him. He is known as the Trump Whisperer. And he has agreed to this interview which follows:

Sir, I’m not sure how to address you. Do you have a name?

I am who President Trump is. He is my physical representation, what I want the world to see. You know, the one who can make America great again!
____________

Yeah, I’ve heard that line before. Then you and the President are the same? How does that work?

You’ve never heard of an alter ego? I write the tweets. When I’m silent, you see the pantomime of a President sitting in the oval office or reading from a teleprompter. That’s one image, but I’m the reality. I’m showtime!
___________

Are you saying that prepared speeches and staged events are just image stagecraft and have less real content than the tweets and off-the-cuff remarks which are the main event, the show?

Your question reveals your naivete. The show, as you call it, is always top billing . . . the greatest show on earth. The media companies would go broke without me. Who wants policy initiatives or detailed analysis of legislation. Americans want to hear that their President is “for the working man,” “against illegal aliens taking their jobs,” and “focused on protecting the American people from foreign threats and trade rip-offs.” My presidency is probably the greatest of all time. It IS the greatest. We’ve accomplished more in our first year than any Presidency in history: tax cuts, court appointees—including the Supreme Court, record highs in the stock market, record high employment, and the return of American power throughout the world. America was dying. I’ve saved it. Only I could’ve done that!
___________

But policy initiatives that contradict your taglines undermine their message. I can illustrate this contradiction for you. For example, tax reform that increases economic inequality and increases the national debt by 5 percent per year is a reality that will have a negative effect on low and middle-income Americans. Also, undocumented workers contribute to the economy and pay taxes while foreign trade tends to keep inflation under check by providing low costs goods. Besides, America has been at full employment since before your Presidency. We are still riding the wave of recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression and World War II. That recovery lasted for the better part of two decades. Your recent tariffs and tax policy threaten the current recovery. While the nation’s budget devotes 600 billion dollars to national defense, there is practically nothing in the budget for job re-training or for stimulating any wage increases. Your policies hinder or even decrease support for public education, business competition, reduction of college tuition costs, protection of our natural resources, fair housing practices, healthcare reform, and the liberal international order that has helped secure the peace for the last 70 years.

Americans don’t care about your liberal “order.” They know what counts. And they support what I’m doing. The stock market is up; we have the highest employment in history; an overseas outfit is relocating to Topeka like so many other companies; employers have increased their Christmas bonuses; and many great things are happening. You liberals don’t understand what makes America great. But I do!
__________

Okay, I’ll take the bait. What does make America great?

Wealth! We need money—lots of money—circulating throughout the economy. That’s why we encourage investment and business growth. It’s just that simple. The people who’ll contribute to my re-election know this. My voters know this. The men I’ve put in my cabinet know this. Everybody knows this—including you. And my Republican colleagues know this too. They have no choice but to support me. Democrats can complain. But they have no voice in this Administration unless they play by my rules. Most Americans with 401Ks also know we’re on the right track. They’ve done well, unbelievably well. And that’s thanks to me! Only I can do what I do.
__________

Most Americans don’t have 401Ks. As the President of all Americans shouldn’t you be focused on the general welfare? After World War II, the government gave tax incentives to promote education from K-12 to the G.I. bill, affordable housing, and job growth for millions of returning soldiers and depressed households who sacrificed to maintain the war effort. The top tax rate then was 90%. But the wealthy class still prospered. The country experienced one of the greatest economic expansions in its history. Does it not make more sense to promote the general welfare? Is not the benefit of the many also the benefit of the few?

No! Look, I’ve made billions. Probably I’m the only one who can make America great again. I’ve created jobs for thousands of people. My buildings provide services for many more. What do you know? You write fiction books, right? Did you make any money with those books?
__________

You’ve got me there. Is it alright if we change the subject? Two days from now you will be meeting with Kim Jong Un to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. What does denuclearization mean to you? And does it mean the same thing to North Korea’s Supreme Leader?

Are you a journalist? Is that supposed to be some kind of tricky question? Everybody knows what denuclearization means: no nukes and no missiles, especially ICBMs that can reach us. President Un knows that we can annihilate North Korea.
__________

No, I’m not a journalist, just a poor novelist. But I must point out that the North Korean Supreme Leader—or, as your counterpart, President Kim—has never shown any interest in denuclearization as we may define the term. In fact, he has continued the development of the nuclear program started by his grandfather and continued by his father. Why would he give up his nukes now?

He has no choice. No previous President—and especially Obama—had the guts to back up our words with actions. I brought Kim down a notch with sanctions. And I reminded him that I have a bigger nuclear button—a much bigger nuclear button-than his.
__________

You do know that previous administrations also sanctioned North Korea. Clinton, Bush, and Obama did so. Also, Clinton and Bush brought North Korea to the negotiating table and even signed agreements, which the North Koreans quickly violated. They agreed in bad faith: took billions of dollars from the West and continued development of their nuclear capabilities. Unlike the Iran deal, there never was a verifiable program to assure their compliance. How will you obtain a realistic verification agreement that will assure compliance?

The Iran deal was the worst deal in history. Iran cheated. They got billions. We got nothing.
__________

The verification regime imposed on Iran was the strictest ever imposed on any signatory of the Non-Proliferation Pact. And it was verified by the Atomic Energy Commission of the United Nations. Its compliance was concurred by all signatories, including the intelligence institutions of the United States.

That Iran deal—the worst deal ever made by a U.S. President—never addressed Iran’s behavior in the Middle East. Look at what they’ve done in Syria and the threat they present to Israel, our closest ally.
__________

Does your position then intend to stop North Korea from selling their nuclear technology to other rogue regimes and attacking countries, including America, with their cyber espionage as they have done in the past?

Yes, of course . . . all that stuff has to stop. Remember, I’m giving them a path to rejoin the world community and to rebuild their nation. Imagine a Starbucks in Pyongyang, even a McDonalds.
__________

Boeing just lost a potential contract with Iran due to your action in canceling the Iran deal. Before that deal, America had very little trade with Iran. Because America holds the world currency, we were able to freeze their credit. Iran’s capital held in world banks was not only frozen but used to pay off accumulated interest. The Iran deal allowed them to reclaim their money but at a significant lost. It also allowed them to resume trade with Europe, their main trading partner, and to gain the promise of trade with America. Given North Korea’s isolation from world markets, how would we convince our Western allies to create trade markets that they never had with North Korea? Or do you propose that the U.S. alone could equal or supplant China as a major trade partner?

China is their main trading partner today. But the U.S. market is much bigger. We have more to offer. And North Korea is one of the richest countries in untapped reserves of minerals and other resources. If they agree to denuclearization, their future will be great, really beautiful. Just look at South Korea. What we’ve done with the South, we can do with the North. I offer Kim a future. But he can choose annihilation instead . . . that’s his choice.
__________

After America dropped out of the Iran deal, do you expect the world will believe or support any North Korean deal you negotiate? Perhaps more relevant, why should North Korea believe you would keep any promise, unless they just want to string along negotiations for whatever gain they can obtain? And, given China’s trade relations with North Korea, do you expect them to support any deal the U.S. can obtain without China’s support in the negotiations? And, finally, would you expect Russia to assist with the negotiations or altruistically to support any deal the U.S. can obtain? Remember China and Russia are nuclear powers who share a border with North Korea. And both countries have supported North Korea: China provides a life line of energy and vital resources; and Russia supplied the missile technology that enabled North Korea to develop ICBM’s, well ahead of our intelligence community’s estimates of 3-5 years. They succeeded just last year.

Xi Jinping and Putin have been supportive of what I’m doing. And European leaders want a denuclearized North Korea. They will follow my lead. Look, Kim Jong-un has no choice. He has no choice. We can make North Korea a wasteland. He has no choice.
__________

So far in this discussion, you have made no mention of South Korea or Japan. South Korea is particularly vulnerable. Even if the North agrees to some level of denuclearization, Seoul faces decimation from hundreds of howitzers aimed at its heart. And the rest of South Korea would suffer millions of casualties from a conventional war. Likewise, Japan is in range of thousands of short range missiles which have already been tested in fly-overs of Japan’s cities. Would any nuclear agreement with North Korea address this conventional military threat to our allies?

This summit is on, for now. Let’s see what happens.
__________

Since the Korean War, the North has never relented on its mission to conquer the South and reunite all of Korea under its rule, would America sign a Peace Treaty without assurances that North Korea would not and, most importantly, could not invade the South?

There would not be a Peace Treaty without those assurances.
__________

But how would we assure that North Korea abides by such an agreement? Would we continue military support of the South? Considering the likelihood that North Korea would never sign an agreement that allowed an American military presence on the peninsula, would we not be forced to demand a de-escalation of North Korea’s military threat to the South? Mutual de-escalation of both conventional and nuclear weaponry would be required. And how would we verify both their denuclearization and military de-escalation? Would we seek third party support—from the U.N., South Korea, China, or even Russia?

We’ll see what happens.
__________

Finally, Mr. President, you have said that you have prepared for these negotiations all your life and that you will know in the first minutes of your face-to-face meeting with Kim Jong-Un whether he is serious about a deal. If in that initial moment, your gut told you he was not serious, would you quit the summit?

Of course. I’ve already done so once.
__________

Then what recourse would there be for any attempt to denuclearize Korea?

Let’s see what happens first.
__________

With those closing words, the Trump Whisperer vanished, like Hamlet’s ghost. I felt it was “most like” what Horatio saw and described, “It harrows me with fear and wonder.” It did, however, have “that flair and warlike form” which promised a death-dealing tragedy would most likely follow its appearance. What was it really?

Well, it could be living proof that Julian Jaynes’ theory of the bicameral mind can still appear as an evolutionary aberration or throwback to the late second millennium B.C. Humans, according to Jaynes, were then not capable of conscious discernment as we know it now. The collateral transmission of representative thought to conscious speech had not yet evolved in the human brain. So, humans then heard voices, like the Trump Whisperer, that dictated words and actions without any judgment or intermediary reflection in the frontal lobe. If true, then the President cannot be held accountable for what his Whisperer says and does.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of us. Sad!

Juvenal, a Roman poet, coined the phrase panem et circenses (bread and circuses). But circenses did not have clowns in the first century A.D. Instead, the Roman Colosseum staged executions, animal attacks on slaves, and bloody gladiator contests, all of which passed as entertainment at the time. The phrase took on a distinct political connotation when Roman Senators, like Cicero, used it stealthily to pass controversial legislation. Rome’s citizens barely noticed what the Senate was doing, as long as food and entertainment were freely available. American legislators also know the strategic value of this Roman sleight-of-hand trick. Panem et circenses, in contemporary parlance, translates to tax cuts and a playbill of litigious debates, outlandish name-calling, conspiracy yarns, and/or scandal investigations. How, you might ask, has this Latin phrase become relevant today?

Although the government’s recent tax legislation mainly benefited the wealthy, it did provide some tax relief for the less prosperous. For example, some Trump voters averaging $72,000 per year in income might see as much as a $70 to $100 increase in their monthly pay checks (depending on their overall tax status). Low income earners, however, will experience little or no tax relief. By design, the biggest tax savings will be in 2018, an election year. And, except for the wealthy, the tax savings decrease year over year until they are phased out after ten years. At that point, everybody’s taxes will increase, except for corporate America and the super wealthy whose tax rate remains the same in perpetuity. If income and wealth inequality were concerns before 2018, they will become irremediable by 2028.

This inappropriately called “tax reform” is like throwing loaves of bread to the crowd gathering before the Roman Senate. It may feed the masses’ present appetite but starve their future. While the previous Administration cut the trillion-dollar deficits of its predecessor by two-thirds, the current Administration has reintroduced trillion-dollar deficits with its first budget for fiscal year 2018 and for all succeeding years into the foreseeable future. These deficits are self-made, not the result of war or recession. The result has been Increased Federal Reserve borrowing and, eventually, higher interest rates for auto loans, mortgages, and business investments. The economy’s recovery from the Great Recession will stall, along with the Stock Market which will become more volatile and at risk for a major setback. These deficits also will advance the case for cuts in retirement programs, healthcare, and any Federal support for infrastructure. This type of “tax reform” does promote wealth in corporate America and amongst the already well-heeled, but at the expense of American fiscal solvency, the overall economy, and the future welfare of most Americans. Should we feel placated by this tax relief—or just duped?

Meanwhile, the news media is fed a constant diet of conspiracies, policy chaos, fear-mongering, diatribe, and scandal. Late night comedians no longer need to create material for our entertainment. Their satire is pre-written in the daily news cycle by the misadventures of Congress and the White House. The Roman Colosseum glorified in physical violence but was no less contentious or chaotic than the mayhem in our current politics. The ring leader at center stage is a former reality show entertainer. He provides us with a constant display of loyalty tests in his hiring and firing antics, of ad hoc and ill-considered policies, of twitter fantasies, of legislative bricks, of short-sighted or illegal executive orders, and of preposterous “deep state” conspiracy theories. While it may bemuse the body politic, his real purpose is to distract us. As a result, we may fail to notice that his culpable malfeasance and manipulative propaganda are dragging America like an insidious undertow into the depths of chaos. Are we entertained by the show—or just stupefied?

But why are we being duped and stupefied? The answer becomes apparent when we change the “why” to “who”—specifically, who benefits?

In Timothy Snyder’s short treatise, “On Tyranny,” he states that “the Founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they, like the ancient philosophers, called tyranny.” Specifically, those philosophers warned us of the instability that grows out of inequality and the exploitation of a demagogue’s opportunism. But do we really need to read Aristotle or Plato to learn about tyranny. In recent times, we have witnessed the rise of oligarchies and dictatorships. The 20th century world wars alone should have taught us all we need to know about the evils of government supported inequality—whether ethnic, religious, or economic—and the dangers of morally challenged demagogues. These men (yes, they are all men) tell us who to scapegoat for troubled times—any group that differs from them in race, gender, ethnic origin, class, political ideals or religious affiliations. And, of course, they denigrate all who might oppose them, whether the press, opposing parties, or the courts. Their avowed purpose is to make us believe that only they can fix what ails us. In the words of our President, only he can stop the “losing” and make us and America “winners” again. And when he throws crumbs to the masses—like tax relief—be wary of the cupboard left bare. For it is not your benefit that he seeks, but his own. Personal power, fame, and enrichment are his only goals. Whatever “ism” or promise he rides to power is only a ruse, a con, and a lie. His only guiding principle is winning a zero-sum game where his opponents are vanquished. History tells us so. Nationalist socialism, communism, and fascism all rode a form of populism to dictatorships. Maybe it is time to heed the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.

Donald Trump should not be underestimated. He is neither the glorified change agent or cult hero his followers love, nor the devil incarnate or destroyer of representative democracy. He is, however, a clever operator and opportunist who earned his position of power by capitalizing on the failing state of constructive politics in America. His ability to win the Presidential election was not the result of business acumen or deal making ability, but of self-promotion—specifically, of a well-advertised brand. His use of “truthful hyperbole” or imaginative realities were never policy positions that spoke to fundamental change, but fabrications that appealed to and inflamed long held feelings within an aggrieved portion of the electorate. What grievance would justify voting for an opportunist demagogue with a morally bankrupt past? Well, the answer should not surprise any American: he took advantage of an existent morally bankrupt and opportunistic political system.

The irony in this answer is my own belief that most of our elected officials are not personally immoral. But they ARE opportunistic in their pursuit of re-election: fund raising requires their advocacy for the interests of the donor class and for the euphemist campaign stratagems of Party leadership over the interests and general welfare of the electorate. Maybe the ultimate euphemism in the last election was Trump’s “make America great again.” Behind that campaign slogan lurked his promises (1) to appease Evangelicals with a Supreme Court nominee who might sway the Court to repeal Rowe vs. Wade and (2) to secure the safety of Americans with a border wall and a Muslim travel ban. In truth, the demagogue-in-chief is not concerned with the cohesion of these promises with his four-word campaign slogan. The separation of church and state is enshrined in our Constitution. Just as no law can force an evangelical woman to get an abortion; no woman can be refused an abortion on religious grounds. Likewise, there is no statistically relevant evidence implying that immigrants or Muslims have endangered Americans. The over-turning of our Constitutional separation of church and state or the provisioning of a border wall and travel ban are no more likely to make America great than Don Quixote’s assault on a windmill made him a great conquistador.

A campaign slogan may sound good, but, as a euphemism, it is just an alluring fantasy. The fact that most, if not all, politicians subscribe to such alluring fantasies translates into a demeaning political discourse where fiction overrules fact, generalities substitute for practicalities, and emotionally-charged demagoguery wins over reasoned argument and honest persuasion. A successful campaign slogan is malleable and can be applied to any cause that might appeal to specific voter groups, like Evangelicals worried about the lives of the unborn or rural homogeneous white communities fearful of Mexican workers or Muslim terrorists. A successful campaign slogan is not subject to analysis for it is too amorphous to be critiqued in detail. Its purpose is not to inform but to persuade. Its content is not a specific or realistic policy, but any general issue to which voters may be emotionally attached. It operates as a generic reference to prejudices, fears, or all possible dreamscapes, like everybody’s vision of a great America. (Have you ever experienced a timeshare sales presentation?)

If it is unfair to call politicians personally immoral, the same cannot be said for the campaign system that overrules their decisions and conduct in office. That system must change. Simply voting for a disruptor will not suffice, especially a self-serving opportunist. Because of term limits, we will outlast his time in office. But America may not outlast its electoral system. Both political parties now fall under the sway of purchased propaganda, paid campaign operatives, expensive analytics, and the need to attract otherwise expensive media coverage with provocative, though enticingly quotable, remarks—however hyperbolic, irreverent, or unrealistic. And now foreign adversaries can sling mud in our campaign cesspool as well. We must establish public funding and regulation of our campaigns. Yes, I am still advocating for Federal election reform (reference “American Revolution 2016”).

How did Americans fall prey to panem et circenses? Why are we so easily manipulated by politicians and special interests—even foreign adversaries? Well, more than a few political pundits and armchair philosophers have tried to answer this question. Perhaps Americans are so invested in jobs, family, shopping, and entertainment that they have little time for politics. Though we may have busy lives, we must become an informed electorate else risk severing ties to our democratic roots and drifting aimlessly into troubled waters. Our individual future is tied to America’s future. Our investment in civic duties is really a matter of self-preservation. Maybe the humanist ideals at the heart of America no longer inspire us to take responsibility for our form of government.

Humanism has more than one face. In America, it has evolved to cross several divides. Equality, for instance, can imply equal opportunity rather than identical gifts and capabilities. Social collectives of religious, ethnic, or race can avoid conflict and overcome differences by respecting each other’s common rights. And even the physically or mentally disabled can contribute more to society than their genetic inheritance. Personal freedom and equality are not frozen ideals and can be every citizen’s inheritance. But the wisdom gained from the Enlightenment must continue to evolve, else we risk veering off-course. For example, both political Parties reflect aspects of the same founding principles. Conservatives are just on one end of the liberal scale, as liberals are on another end of the conservative scale. Both sides must adhere to our founding principles, or risk being radical and un-American. For example, any attempt to undermine our democratic institutions is radical. In the same vein, any attempt to suppress dialogue and debate in our legislature can become un-American to the extent that it limits representation. Any attempt to undermine free elections or deny the right to vote is radical. Any attempt to undermine the rule of law is radical. Any attempt to gain political power in collusion with a foreign adversary is radical and possibly treasonous.

Both American conservatives and liberals agree on how to form a more perfect union. It is written in our founding documents. No monarch, Pope, Mullah or foreign adversary can dictate the future of this republic. So why would we ever yield to one of the oldest ploys in representative government to bait and distract an electorate? Ours is still a “government of the people, by the people, for the people (that) shall not perish” unless we let it. Self-serving politicians can be voted out of office; demagogues can be silenced by a fact-checking free press; and an informed electorate cannot be bamboozled by lies or manipulative propaganda. If our President and a complicit Congress choose to distract us with tax cuts while they undermine our fiscal and general welfare, we can still vote them out of office. We can still define our future and the further development of our democracy.

Children ask “why,” even before they have command of language. Behind their curiosity is a very human attribute—the presumption of an underlying meaning or intent. There have always been creation stories that explained the nature of our world and why it exists. For millennia, religious leaders answered that question. For the last 500 years, scientists have joined the chorus. But neither gods nor the laws of nature can fully explain why we humans do what we do. For we create our own history, our own governments, and our own laws. We define “right” and “wrong.” We are responsible and, therefore, liable for our actions. But those actions often defy logic or offer questionable benefit. For example, why do we form governments unresponsive to our needs? Why do we allow senseless violence in our midst? And why do we sometimes seem less capable of providing our children with the institutions and communities that would secure their future and demonstrate our love and care? We raise them to have better prospects than our own. But do we secure their safety and the promise of those prospects? It should be no surprise then that our children might want a better future than their parents had sufficient lifespan or wisdom to determine? They will naturally resist a future they did not choose or create for themselves. They will want change.

Our children ask “why” because they want to understand how it all works and how they fit into the fabric of human life and into the world they will occupy. What are the standards of behavior? What goals are allowed? What can be explored? And how is everyone held accountable for his/her decisions and actions? If you analyze the basis for each of these questions, you will arrive at the same place: the precarious balance between free will and a moral consciousness. But the awakening of a moral conscience may very well challenge existing apathy towards long-held beliefs and norms. With fresh eyes, the young will readily recognize contradictions between values and actions. They will exercise their power of free will with a righteous fervor. Nearly every generation of Americans have done so. They protest. They will demand change.

One of the Florida high schoolers asked why the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” seem not to apply to the gun laws in America. He asked why our political leaders seem incapable of common sense gun laws designed to protect their constituents. This teenager was exercising his awakening moral consciousness and asking why these leaders could not or would not exercise their free will to support the moral basis for our free society. Why is Jefferson’s clarion call no longer heard? Perhaps, when civic service becomes subject to self-interest, when acquiring campaign funding becomes more important for reelection than demonstrating character and trustworthiness, when Party loyalty outweighs the good of the country, when well-healed donors determine the legislative agenda rather than the will of the electorate, when gun-lobbyists can dictate gun laws that favor gun sales over safety, then the moral consciousness of children will find fault and revolt. They may well expose not only the moral vacuity of our political leaders but the consequent corruption of our American system and betrayal of its founding principles. The fresh eyes of our children can see the contradiction. And they demand change.

Over two years ago, I wrote a blog entitled “American Revolution, 2016.” It proposed how we might turn back the effects of Citizens United by replacing “dark” money and large donor networks with public campaign funding. It also proposed a possible mechanism to focus campaigns on real issues rather than spin, scandal, and vacuous taglines. My purpose then was like the student protests over guns now. The right to own a gun is no less legal than the right to vote. But both rights must serve the general welfare as stipulated in our Constitution and exemplified in the Declaration of Independence’s definition of unalienable rights. Are these rights administered in a way that serves the general welfare? Our gun laws, for example, allow untrained and unqualified individuals to own guns, to purchase weapons of war that have no civilian application, and to store them unsafely and without inspection. By comparison, the legal structure of our electoral system permits gerrymandering, voter suppression, exaggerated influence of large campaign donors, subversive and divisive propaganda, and insufficient policing of existing campaign financing laws. Do you see how the failure to administer these rights properly are interrelated? A fast majority of voters may favor common sense gun laws that assure responsible ownership and safe use but find it impossible to vote their prescriptions for administering the Second Amendment.

Mass shootings in our schools have become commonplace. Do our children have to die before we recognize the corruption that has seeped into our political system? Our political will has been silenced at the voting booth. The majority vote no longer controls Congress or the White House. Special interests are attempting to control our government. The gun lobby is just one manifestation of a virulent cancer. To quote Benjamin Franklin, our founding fathers “created a Republic, if you can keep it.” We keep it by adhering to our moral compass, supporting our founding principles, and diligently rooting out corruption and subversive interests.

America requires each generation to rebalance the egalitarianism of its democracy with the self-driven interests of capitalism. Controlling the sale of guns in a manner that assures the safety of all our young school children could be the first step in a wider reform—a harbinger of a new era. In the sixties, a generation arose that repudiated an unjustified war, the rise of the military-industrial complex, racial discrimination, and blatant voting rights violations. Maybe we now are witnessing a new generation that begins by establishing equivalence in gender privilege and reasonable gun control laws but morphs into addressing the underlying corruption of power and money.

What this new generation is facing is much more than the gun lobby. That lobby is just one element in a recidivist political class. Remember the robber barons who usurped power at the height of the industrial revolution. Compare them to the billionaire campaign donors and the current White House family and cabinet secretaries. Remember the unregulated speculation in Wall Street before the Great Depression and the more recent Great Recession. Compare those periods with the current Administration’s desire to undo existing regulations designed to forestall another economic freefall. Remember when 16,000 Klu Klux Clan members marched through New York to a cheering crowd of onlookers. (Yes, it happened in the 1920s.) Compare that to the hundreds of torch-carrying Clan members who marched through Charleston—though to a much less receptive audience. Nevertheless, the President claimed that the opposing parties were equivalent, saying there were good people on both sides. Remember the divisiveness of McCarthyism and the citizen rebellion against a lying government’s Vietnam war policies. Compare the sixties to our current lack of trust in a bullying and lying President whose enumeration of lies, adolescent name-calling, and threats exceed his days in office. Remember when the South’s minority population used its economic and political clout to advance policies that ran counter to the promise of equality and freedom in the Declaration of Independence. Compare those positions to the current Republican Party support for an unequal distribution of wealth—as demonstrated in the recently passed tax plan—and its unravelling of government programs that support the health, economic opportunity, and education of Americans. That Party’s support for gun manufacturers, the National Rifle Association, and gun lobbyists is just the tip of an iceberg.

It is natural for the young to ask “why.” When the answers fail to persuade the moral conscience, it is equally natural for them to seek the truth and advocate for change. That advocacy is not just their right, but their responsibility. We cannot deny the young their future and, with respect to gun laws, their lives. They must demand change. But the change they now seek is just one link in a chain. As they pull on that chain, they will have to overcome the weight of many links sunk deep below the surface. They will need the wisdom of their elders who have pulled on that chain in the past. They will not be the first generation who have fought the weight of corruption and tried to reclaim our American ideals. If they succeed, their progeny will benefit. If they fail, they might be the last who have tried. Maybe you doubt these “if/then” propositions. You might question why we need change now. But if you consider the alternatives, then your question will be why not?