“In America the people appoint both those who make the laws and those who execute them; the people form the jury which punishes breaches of the law. The institutions are democratic not only in principle but also in all their developments; thus, the people directly nominate their representatives . . . So direction really comes from the people, and though the form of government is representative, it is clear that the opinions, prejudices, interests, and even passions of the people can find no lasting obstacles preventing them from being manifest in the daily conduct of society. . . the majority rules in the name of the people . . . (and) is chiefly composed of peaceful citizens who by taste or interest sincerely desire the well-being of the country. They are surrounded by the constant agitation of parties seeking to draw them in and to enlist their support.”¹

A great historian wrote these words during the Administration of Andrew Jackson, perhaps our first truly “popularist” President. They capture the essence of a society not born of history, but of philosophy, as Margaret Thatcher once stated. Unlike the “old world” with its tribal, religious, territorial, and hegemonic turmoil, this “new world” chose to govern itself in a democratic system designed to represent the will of the people and subject to a Constitution based upon fundamental rights and the rule of law. And those rights were based upon a state of nature (“all men are created equal”) and enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. The Constitutional Convention subsequently designed a system that would defeat any recidivism into old world despotism or the chaos of special interest agitators or illiberal opportunists. In accordance with the Preamble to its Constitution, America’s majority of so-called “peaceful citizens” would rule to “insure (sic) domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

This ideal America is not only revolutionary in concept, but also aspirational. Rarely has a new idea so captured a people that it would change the course of history. Our historian certainly is impressed, as he draws an almost idyllic portrait of this new world. Its founding principles evoke the natural state into which every human is born and the universal human need to create a system of government that would preserve those principles. Jefferson’s Declaration states the case for the former; and the Constitution outlines the latter. But our historian’s two-volume account of early nineteenth century America casts shadows which dim our view of this democratic idyll. This new world was created in the much too real world.

Perhaps predisposed by the Romantic Period, Tocqueville may have described America as seen through rose colored glasses. And the tinge on those glasses was distinctly Old World. Because he could foresee “the whole future of the English race in the New World spread before me,”² he could also look past any concerns about slavery in the South and the Hispanic population in the Southwest. In the same vein he could even disregard the displacement of the Indian nations and give no mention to the disenfranchisement of women. His assessment reminds us of the historical nearsightedness that can infect any contextual perspective. He perceived America through the eyes of a nineteenth century European: Indians were discounted as uncivilized savages; and women, unless born into royalty, were considered unfit for governance. The Constitution’s phrase “we the People,” therefore, must not include them. And his bias for the “future of the English race in the New World” also predisposes his non-acceptance of Black and Brown peoples into this new world of self-governance.

Nevertheless, he was an insightful historian who could predict two significant obstacles to his vision of an Anglo-America, both of which would threaten the future dominance of “the English race in the New World. . . In truth,” he states, “there are only two rival races sharing the New World today: the Spaniards and the English.”³ He foresaw the need to push the Mexicans out of Texas, to conquer/subjugate them throughout the Southwest, and to assimilate all remaining Spanish speaking peoples. It is revelatory that Tocqueville excludes African slaves and the native Indian population as obstacles to his grand vision. Instead, he thought the second significant obstacle would be the rise of a diametrically opposed system of totalitarianism in Russia. He explained that while America places ultimate power in its people, Russia gives absolute power to one man. In Tocqueville’s words, “One has freedom as the principle means of action; the other has servitude.”⁴ In this instance, he portended Roosevelt’s placating of the Russian bear after World War II, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war, and the ongoing adversarial relations between the two countries.

But Russia was not posed as an immediate threat to this new Anglo-America. Slavery, on the other hand, was. Tocqueville, rather surprisingly, rationalized its institution into a permanent state of stasis. Did he assume the slaves’ lot could never change and therefore not present an obstacle to his grand vision of an Anglo-America? While he demurred the Southerners’ attempt to justify the principle of Negro slavery, Tocqueville also believed they had no viable alternative. He believed they could neither assimilate freed slaves nor protect themselves from violent retribution if they abolished slavery. The South, then, was in a bind. The North, if it pressed for abolition, would occasion “the most horrible of civil wars, and perhaps in the extermination of one or other of the two races.”⁵ Why, you might ask, could this foresighted historian not anticipate the possibility of assimilation. Well, he explains, “I do not think that the white and black races will ever be brought anywhere to live on a footing of equality.”⁶ His explanation infers that the institution of slavery would never be abolished. And, of course, the Constitution, at the time, assured he would be right to think so.

So, we now know what dangers the Black and Brown races posed for Tocqueville’s Anglo-America. Why did he so casually exclude the Indian nations for whom he devoted an entire chapter? Though he describes a history already well documented, his Western European perspective focuses on the barbarous nature of the Indian tribes. They are, in his telling, proud savages, unable as a group to assimilate to civil society. Describing the dispossession of their land and resources in legalistic terms, he seems ignorant of the human suffering attendant upon their displacement and makes no mention of the genocidal effect of the many Indian wars. Ironically, he wrote during the term of Andrew Jackson, the premier Indian slayer of his time. Jackson had organized and led his Tennessee Volunteers to eradicate the Indian nations from the lands granted frontier settlers. Tocqueville could just as easily dismiss the Indians as he did the Black and Brown peoples. For, in his determination, they simply had no place in his Anglo-America.

This blog was not intended to be a book report. But, as an early historical account of our nation’s beginnings, “Democracy in America” clearly illustrates how our founding principles had not yet been fully realized. America may have been born of a rational humanistic philosophy, but its people were matriculated in the womb of European social and political history. Tocqueville captures both the ideals that founded our nation and, inadvertently, an honest assessment of its limitations. If you place his account within the background of manifest destiny, you can visualize something other than the land of the free. What you see, instead, is the seeds of white nationalism. What could so easily be dismissed in the early nineteenth century, continues to haunt us today, specifically, the assumption of white privilege. And that assumption still defines American racism.

America’s roots are grounded in both its founding documents and its two and a half million English colonists. Its present incarnation now includes 330 billion heterogeneous inhabitants, descended or immigrated from nearly every nation in the world. And its influence is global with an economic and military footprint greater than any nation in human history. Although we still are an English-speaking nation, we are far removed from that small coterie of Anglo colonists. For most of us, our shared heritage was/is adopted, not primarily prescribed by ancestral origins. The wisdom of this heritage, though, is its ability to transform diversity into a unified democratic nation. But that transformation cannot happen unless the unifying principles of our democracy are understood and accepted by most Americans. And at the core of those principles is acceptance of all humans as equals regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity. Innately, we all share the same genetic code. As social mammals, we share similar needs for family and social relations. As homo sapiens, we share a need to understand and develop ourselves and our place in the world. At birth, we share the same human nature and therefore deserve an equal opportunity to live our lives and pursue our individual paths to whatever goals might make us happy. Equality, then, is at the root of those “unalienable rights.” We inherit this equality at birth. It is the foundation for a democratic society and nation. It engendered the birth of our nation. Its full realization is our destiny. How, you might wonder, are we progressing with this destiny-mission?

Our founders designed a government that assured the peoples’ voice would be heard through elected representatives guided by law and metered by three equal branches of government. They did not, however, prescribe political parties. The latter did not come into existence until our third President. By the time our population had more than quadrupled, the two dominant political parties were deeply divided over slavery as an economic system, a democratic anomaly, a political firestorm, and a humanitarian crisis. The Civil War that ensued challenged the concept of democracy where a diverse population could govern itself as one nation (E pluribus Unum). Today, when our contemporary population is more than a hundredfold greater than it was in 1776, we are once again torn apart into fractional political debates over the state of our economy, our democracy, and basic human values.

Once again, racism runs beneath the surface of many debates, whether it is criminal justice reform, police profiling, real estate red lining, de facto segregation in our schools, inhumane treatment of Hispanic immigrants, or the delivery of social services to the less fortunate that still disproportionately include people of color. Complicating America’s ability to address what may be termed its original sin is the breakdown of our system of self-government. Consider the contemporary relevance of Tocqueville’s statements about America in the early nineteenth century:

• “. . . the people directly nominate their representatives . . .” Tocqueville is right if you include the way the electoral college was initially formulated. As with members of Congress, the electors were selected by voters in each state. If no Presidential candidate received a majority of electors’ votes, then the elected members of the House of Representatives “shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes the man . . . best qualified . . . (assuring) the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” Obviously, Hamilton, when he wrote Number 67 in the Federalist Papers, did not foresee a time when these electors would no longer be nominated by voters in each state. Instead, they would be nominated by the dominate political party in each state legislature.
• “. . . direction really comes from the people . . .” Most often, however, direction now comes from Party leadership. And the positions taken by leadership reflect the will of large campaign donors more than that of voters. There are too many examples of this practice to enumerate here. Let’s just name two: more than 90% of those citizens polled want reasonable gun control policies in place; and, in the last Federal election, a vast majority voted for affordable healthcare. But Republican Party leadership has steered the ship of state away from any form of gun policy reform and away from any furtherance of affordable healthcare. In fact, it has relentlessly attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act without any reform or revision that might extend coverage or reduce costs.
• “. . . the majority rules in the name of the people . . .” Really? Two of our last three Presidents won a term as President without winning the popular vote. Also, except for the last general election, we have had a series of Congressional elections where the winning Party did not gain a majority of the votes. But this issue cuts deeper than gerrymandering and voter suppression laws. For Congress is more beholden to special interest groups than to the majority interests of the electorate. Those interests are too often tabled in lieu special interests. As a result, the congressional agenda is governed by political leadership, rather than by the public welfare. (In February of 2016, I wrote a blog, “A Clash of Minorities,” disclaiming the reality of majority rule.)
• “. . . the majority . . . is chiefly composed of peaceful citizens who by taste or interest sincerely desire the well-being of the country . . .” In fact, I believe peaceful well-meaning people do comprise the majority of Americans. But they obviously do not all vote.
• “They (the majority) are surrounded by the constant agitation of parties seeking to draw them in and to enlist their support . . .” When cable news, social media, and state sponsored propaganda is considered, the state of agitation created by self-interested parties, demagogues, hate groups, and foreign adversaries threatens to overwhelm the will of the people. The latter threat from foreign intervention in America’s electoral process currently goes undeterred as a result of one Party’s obstinance. That Party’s leader, the President, seems to believe he will benefit from such interference, as he did in 2016. The Senate Majority Leader refuses to consider bills that aim to contain this threat of foreign intervention. Once again, political leadership refuses to consider the will of the people or even the security of our democracy over its potential political benefit.

Has our constitutional framework become unworkable in the face of these political party dynamics?

Now, I recognize the founders feared mob rule or the overthrow of our government by an opportunistic despot or a foreign power. The majorities enumerated in the Constitution are counterbalancing: Congressional majorities in proportioned Districts, Senatorial majorities in each State, and Electoral College majorities in Presidential elections. And, of course, our founders established checks and balances in the three equal branches of our government. Only the Executive Branch was given exclusive powers to assure the preservation of the Union from foreign or domestic adversaries. With so many balancing and protective mechanisms, how could America avoid chaos and still hold a steady course toward its perennial self-realization—that is, Lincoln’s “rebirth,” Reagan’s “shining city on a hill,” Obama’s becoming “who we can be”? Our lifeline, our beacon of light, or our hope is and always has been the full realization that we are born in an equal state of nature that preordains our natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This realization is the fulcrum that levers America through the chaos of history. But nowhere in our founding documents will you find references to political parties. In fact, our initial Presidents warned against the establishment of political parties. James Madison, in Federalist Paper Number 39, defined a fundamental prerequisite for a republican form of government:

“It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.”

In this quote, Madison is not addressing political parties per se. But the gist and tone of his statement argues against a “favored class,” such as “a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions.” He did not assume that future elected representatives would organize into political parties that would govern not “from the great body of the society . . . (but) from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it.” Given these quotes, how do you think Madison would assess the influence of large campaign donors over the political agenda in Congress? Would he consider the current operation of political parties consistent with a democratic republic?

As I reflect on the relevance of Tocqueville’s America to contemporary America, two questions come to mind. First, have we ever been or even now fully able to embrace the ideals expressed in our founding documents? And, second, does are current government preserve and enhance a self-governing society composed of diverse peoples and races? Of course, America has changed in the last 243 years. We are no longer a nation of farmers/landowners and frontier settlers who need to defend their land with muskets. We exist in a globally interdependent world where trade, technology, and the earth’s natural resources are the field for international competition. We no longer face an existential threat from a foreign monarchy or an Indian revolt to reclaim their lands. Instead, we live under threat of nuclear war, extremists’ violence, and the growing intensity of natural disasters. The answers to the questions posed here encompass more than racial prejudice and the political Parties’ subversion of democracy. At their core, these questions ask who we are as a society and how we choose to govern ourselves.

I believe there is a convergence in political and individual action that could provide America with a fresh start toward a representative democracy. First, let’s restore classical liberalism, currently reincarnated as conservatism, to the Republican Party. It anchors our government in its founding principles. Secondly, we need the Democratic Party to assure its programs of economic and civil liberties align with those founding principles. Here is where the two Parties should converge as guided by the Articles of the Constitution and clearly specified in its Preamble. Therein is plenty of common ground for compromise. As private citizens we need to exercise a staged revolt at the ballot box, beginning with campaign reform and demands for those government programs that preserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone living in America. Remember Jefferson wrote his Declaration before American citizenship was defined. But the principles he defined therein have guided America to award full citizenship to former slaves, to women, and to immigrants in the course of the last two centuries. In addition, those demands must include clean air and water, the safe use of land and natural resources, equal protection under the law, fair and equal access to healthcare, the provision of a liberal education for our children, and, in general, all government actions that preserve Americans’ “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

But even more is demanded of us as members of a free society. The issue of white nationalism and racism, for example, can only be addressed effectively at the individual level. As a famous legislature once said, “you can’t legislate morality.” Although true, this dictum does not preclude the persuasion of enlightened leaders, both in government and in communities. Civil rights and voting rights laws set guardrails that protect minorities from injustice. But they cannot change the hearts and minds of individuals. That change must occur in each of us before it can become part of the social fabric that makes us one America. Each of us as individuals must question and openly confront personal biases and racial prejudice. It is not that difficult to engage and connect with others. Although de facto segregation does exist, there are still many opportunities in our diverse society for people to come together. Personally, I was raised with the Christian belief in loving “thy neighbor as thyself.” But that aspiration did not become real for me until I attended high school and college and subsequently served in the military with schoolmates and comrades of every race and ethnicity. While citizenship makes us real or potential neighbors in America, our unique backgrounds can define those personal biases that divide us. But our diverse backgrounds also offer an enormous opportunity to broaden individual perceptions about each other and the America we create. We can define our shared future together.

Seriously, if we Americans truly believe in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, then America can recover its idealism, realize its potential, and fulfill its promise.

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1. Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America,” Volume 1, p. 159.
2. Ibid. p. 374.
3. Ibid. p. 375.
4. Ibid. p. 379
5. Ibid. p. 331
6. Ibid. p. 327

Who can self-identify as a “stable genius?” Einstein never did. Da Vinci? Jesus Christ? Perhaps, if we identify “genius” with IQ, we can call certain gifted people geniuses. I have known individuals with extremely high IQ’s. Two of them committed suicide in their twenties. In fact, they were brothers; and one of them was a friend. Unfortunately, immaturity overshadowed his intellectual gifts. Those native abilities gained him no wisdom or ability to navigate in society.

We use the word “genius” in different ways. Sometimes it refers to ability, as was the case with my friend. At other times, it acknowledges achievement. In the first case, we are bearing witness to an extraordinary ability to memorize, to calculate, or to learn. My friend could pass an entire semester in college without opening a textbook and still ace the finals with just one night of cramming. But he achieved nothing in a life that ended too abruptly. I could not have predicted his suicide, but its premise overshadowed many of our arguments. While he bragged about his prowess, I accused him of wasting his talents—for he gained nothing from his studies. At the time, I knew less about wisdom than I do now, but could readily see that nothing he learned seemed to mean anything to him personally. In fact, he believed “he knew it all.” But, in truth, the only knowledge worth having is the extent of one’s personal ignorance. And that ignorance or knowing what we do not know, is the beginning of wisdom.

President Trump has called himself “a stable genius.” His wealth, for example, does evidence certain abilities: he has schemed to build a fortune on what he coins “opm,” that is, “other people’s money.” He has scammed banks and debtors out of millions of dollars in bankruptcy courts. He keeps hidden his tax returns to suppress comparison with his various financial statements and his justification for dodging eight years of Federal taxes. He has used the legal system to sue adversaries and to outlast plaintiffs unable to support extended court battles. Also, he has succeeded in using his reality show stardom and tabloid celebrity status to create a unique brand that is captured in the pseudonym “the Donald.” Like my long-departed friend, he can be “full of himself” over his abilities. But what he might term achievements are empty of any value. For the acquisition of money, fame, and power are of no more value than maxing a college exam—unless contributory to personal character and the welfare of others.

I suppose our President would say that my college friend was an “unstable” genius because of his suicide. The President, by contrast, calls himself “a stable genius,” perhaps to convince Americans that his rage, ever-changeable moods, and irrational whims are not the erratic behavior of an emotionally disturbed or neurologically handicapped person. Granted, he may be right. Nevertheless, such behavior does not exemplify emotional maturity.

But, for many Americans, neither our President’s ability/achievements, nor his stability should be questioned. His claim of “stable genius” is either accepted as fact or as a flippant expression designed to annoy his detractors. Often, when his statements are ridiculed, he retorts that he was joking. In other words, what “fake news” maligned as offensive, absurd, or untrue is not to be taken seriously. The joke is on his accusers. Donald Trump, then, is more authentic than his predecessors, for he is who he is and not the pretend politician who mirrors the norms of predecessors. But how do we assess his authenticity when he squints into the teleprompter to deliver a “normal” Presidential address? He seems stiff and uncomfortable in such instances. Likewise, he appears uneasy and even inappropriate in comforting victims of natural disaster. His words and body language make no connection with their suffering, making him appear remote and unfeeling. By contrast, he is very animated and spontaneous when railing against the press, the Democrats, or any and all critics of his policies or actions. Maybe his supposed “stability” is really nothing more than the consistency of this behavior. In the same vein, his “genius” is simply the ability to reframe norm-breaking behavior into an expression of his authenticity. And that reframing is his brand. His “genius” achievement is the success of that brand. It should not be surprising that “winning” is everything to Donald Trump. It is both the consistent motivation behind most of his actions and the justification for his claim to genius status. It conflates “stable genius” with “winning” and his self-branding as “the Donald.”

A major characteristic of the Trump brand is rule breaking. Crippling the EPA, CFPB, HUD, USDA and violating laws governing asylum, equal protection, campaign finance, obstruction of justice and ignoring Constitutional provisions relating to emoluments and to Article 1 provisions are all par for the course. None of these actions were previewed to voters in 2016. Nor were Americans provided any insight into what he would do with the Department of the Interior, the Department of Education, or the State Department. Would they have agreed to releasing natural parks to oil drilling, to eliminating the Clean Power Act along with numerous clean air and water regulations, to reducing funding for education to support special needs, school lunches, or teachers’ salary, and to eliminating foreign aid to many countries while reducing State Department staffing and leaving many ambassador positions vacant? All this rule breaking is framed as “the Donald” winning his war against the deep state, that is, his mythical windmill. But his real enemy appears to be American institutions.

Nevertheless, the President is an unabashed advocate for his brand of winning. His biggest self-proclaimed “win” is the economy. He inherited an economy from the Obama Administration that had reduced unemployment by 43% (from 7.6% to 3.7%) while his “greatest unemployment rate in history” further reduced that rate by .14% (from 3.7% to 3.3%). * The impetus for this success, he claims, is the passage of his signature tax cut legislation. That legislation heralded in a significant jump in the stock market with its reduction in the corporate tax rate and protection of the carry-interest provision. That immediate jump has since levelled off as corporations initially invested in stock buybacks rather than longer term investments in growth. Meanwhile, the Federal deficit spending is growing to the 1 trillion-dollar level. In other words, President Trump inherited an economy that had recovered from its greatest recession in history and a 1 trillion-dollar deficit. But his current budget restores that pre-recession deficit level. His only “achievement” here is once again his branding. The fiscal reality is a time bomb that could bring down the global economy in its wake.

No President succeeds with every decision or policy. But most never attempt to act alone. Lincoln even included political opponents in his Administration—as did Obama. For these Presidents could easily disregard the opposition of former adversaries because they valued their advice. Franklin Roosevelt so valued the input of Francis Perkins that he kept her in strategic positions throughout his four Administrations despite her gender. (I believe he was the first President to put a woman in charge of a department with many male direct subordinates.) Reagan famously sought the advice of Tip O’Neal, the Democratic Speaker of the House. Each of these Presidents admitted to serious failings during their terms, but each had historic successes. Their genius was in eliciting the contribution of others to rise above their personal limitations. The compassion they showed both in smiles and tears endeared them to a grateful nation. But neither called themselves stable geniuses. They were smart enough to know why.

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* These rates are quoted from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics for January 2009, January 2017, and August 2019, respectively.

In my last blog, I stated “Americans already have the system of government it needs.” Though the checks and balances built into our government can both preserve it and provide the tools for change, they do not necessarily spur the “becoming” I advocated. For the underlying values expressed in our nation’s founding reach beyond the structure of government or the term of any President. Their antecedents from the Age of Enlightenment were just historical steppingstones to an unforeseeable future beyond the revolutions they inspired. And that future was placed in the American voting booth and in the will of its people. “We the people of the United States” established our government “in order to form a more perfect Union” and transform a revolution into an evolution. That evolution implies a constant state of becoming. As President Lincoln reminded us at Gettysburg “this nation . . . shall have a new birth of freedom . . . (a) government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Or, as President Obama stated more succinctly, “we are the change we seek.”

When President Elect Trump claimed “only I can” make America great again, he offered to take the burden off the shoulders of Americans. Millions of voters rose to support him, mistaking his opportunism for leadership. But by bequeathing to him the power to act on their behalf, they unwittingly empowered him to act in his own behalf. He identified with their grievances about an unresponsive government and “politically correct” double-speaking politicians. But instead of policy solutions, he offered slogans. Nevertheless, he seemed authentic, even entertaining. They saw in his brutish, pugilistic manner the promise of a fighter, a champion for their cause. But he has proven not to be anybody’s champion or even “a man of the people.” His Administration has only benefited the wealthy and the corporate bottom line. He measures his success by the stock market and the full employment of a two-job economy (i.e., wage earners working multiple jobs). Without a doubt, under his Administration the nation has continued to grow in wealth. But, at the same time, it has fallen precipitously in both public and private debt. The growth in wealth belongs mainly to the one percent with which he identifies; the debt issues unfortunately remain with the rest of us, including his supporters. Those issues portend an economic time bomb. And they are the result of the President’s myopic focus on the affluent rather than the general welfare of all. But the fault here lies mainly with us, the voting public. We Americans put our trust in a man rather than find the change we seek within ourselves. Why?

The simple answer is we have lost faith either in our form of government, in the values upon which it is founded, in ourselves as informed responsible citizens of a democratic republic, or in all the above. We could have taken back control of our government, perhaps along the lines I advocated in August 2015 (reference, “American Revolution 2016”). But, instead, we abdicated our government to a man who prefers despotism to democracy. He discredits a free press, rejects Congressional oversight (which he terms, “Presidential harassment”), attempts to commandeer the Department of Justice to “protect” his interests (by “draining the swamp” of all opposition and fighting his enemies in an alleged “deep state”), and denigrates the Judicial Branch of Government for checking his lawlessness (or, as he states, “they don’t like me”). If he could, he would eliminate or control not just the “fourth estate,” but every branch of government.

Within his Administration, he considers his word to be law (“everyone obeys me”) and fires anyone he suspects does or might disagree with him. As a result, he finds it necessary to suppress any discordant competency or integrity within his Administration by nominating sycophants, job-beholden “acting” officials, and the ethically compromised. Amid the chaos he creates around himself, “only . . . (he) can” stand at its center as the sole decision maker. There he decides whatever serves his public image and his insatiable need for self-aggrandizement. Clearly, this President does not serve the general welfare. He shows no understanding of what it means to be a public servant or of what is required to uphold the public trust in government. If we Americans are responsible for putting this man in office, then how do we right the ship of state? Removing him from office might not solve our problem. In other words, my simple answer is simply too simplistic. There is a more deep-rooted and insidious source that explains the 2016 election.

In my blogs, you may have noticed more than a few references to the Enlightenment, that 17th-18th century revolutionary worldview that affected art, philosophy and politics. That period is also identified as the Age of Reason, incorporating such luminaries as Bacon, Newton, and Kant. You may have suspected that I write from a philosophical bias carried over from my undergraduate days. In truth, I believe the rebirth of reason was an important break in world history, but not the only breakthrough needed. Europe needed a rebirth of reason to break with the tyranny that spurred religious, ethnic, and monarchical wars. The American revolution was part of that rebirth. But what I now observe in American politics is an excessive dependence on reasoning at the expense of actual intelligence. Let me explain.

Socrates used logic—sometimes imperfectly—to refute the sophists by illustrating the faulty consequences of their arguments. While reasoning is a legitimate tool for understanding, it can be used, as Socrates did, merely to refute an opponent. Whereas his intent was to expose misconceptions or untruths, American lawyers and politicians often use the same tool simply to win a case or a political dispute without regard for the truth. The latter, as it happens, can prove elusive. There are reasoned arguments that seem to support opposing positions: democracy versus socialism, real citizen versus usurped citizenship (otherwise identified as naturalized citizenship or “not like us” citizens), climate change versus weather, or equality versus opportunity. The reasoned differences in these arguments can easily lose the significance of how we experience reality. For example, democracies include social welfare programs; citizenship does not differentiate by class, gender, race, or ethnic origin (but discrimination does); climate change is experienced as weather; equality assumes equal opportunity. In America, we have heard many reasoned arguments that socialism is the enemy of democracy, that some people “not like us” should not be treated as citizens, and that climate change is nothing more than normal weather fluctuations. These arguments may be reasoned, but they defy our intellect and our experience of reality.

When I differentiate “intellect” from “reason,” you might be wondering about my intent. I can explain by way of an interview with the chief of the Pueblo Indians as recounted by Carl Jung. ** That interview revealed the chief’s appraisal of the white man. He “thought that the whites were crazy since they maintained that they thought with their heads, whereas it was well-known that only crazy people did that.” He explained further “that he naturally thought with his heart.” Jung immediately added, “that is how the ancient Greeks also thought.” In fact, Socrates would agree. He would initially question the logic of putting children in cages to deter immigration, whether the Administration’s immigration policies were a logical way to deter immigrants seeking refuge or asylum. The likely consequences of such action, he would point out, indicate otherwise. They would discredit America as a champion of human rights, as a nation governed by rule of law, as a people without feelings for the tired, the poor, or the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Besides these consequential inconsistencies, these policies have proved ineffective: the immigration surge continues while the processing backlog becomes increasingly insurmountable. As a result, many now die just beyond our border fences in Mexican internment camps rather than in American internment camps. Reality bites.

The reasoning behind the Administration’s zero tolerance policy is a tight syllogism: restrictive border admittance of immigrants maintains America’s identity; Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy is restrictive border admittance of immigrants; therefore, Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy maintains America’s identity. Or in Trump’s words, “we have no country” unless we turn back migrants at our southern border. Many a logician can counter Trump’s premise which ignores America’s identity as a pluralist society. But therein is America’s problem. We keep running down that rabbit hole of reasoned debate. Talking heads on cable news and political tribes in Congress and bars continue the debate ad nauseum. And all this reasoned debating misses the obvious reality. Both Socrates and the Pueblo Indian chief would question our intelligence in a different way: we are not thinking from the heart. In modern terms, we are thinking with our left brain without any input from the right brain. But reason is not the same as intellect or a more integral understanding of the world upon which depends our cultural traditions born of metaphor, myth, and symbolism. It can too easily exclude feelings, the emotional element that embellishes thought with felt experience, brings passion and relevance to human lives, facilitates connection with others, and stirs compassion for all who share this common humanity. Compassion (from the Latin cum, “with,” and pati, “to suffer or bear”) is a feeling we share with others and learn initially from family life. Without it, no person can pretend to understand, love, or—God forbid—govern others. Can human intelligence exist without compassion? I think not! But we can engage in “reasoned” debate ad infinitum.

Reasoning breaks things down into abstractions we can analyze and then reconstruct into a static, though understandable, coherence. But we experience the world as a dynamic phantasmagoric landscape forever slipping away with the arrow of time. What remains is stamped in memory as an experience colored and charged with feelings. It is from this storehouse of memories and feelings that we evolve. And it is from our love and compassion that we raise families, unite into communities, develop culture, and, ultimately, evolve civilizations. America, consequently, reflects who we Americans are at a particular moment in our history. And, in this moment, we are being challenged to define who we are as a people. What we agree is real or factual and what we value will determine who we will be. And what we value is colored brightly by our feelings. The allegedly rational policies of this Administration often defy reason. But, more importantly, they are totally devoid of human feeling or compassion. For this reason, I find neither logic nor humanity in this Administration.

The President does stir up emotions in his supporters. At his rallies, they cheer him as their champion or, in his words, “the greatest President in history . . . nobody has achieved what I have achieved.” His crowd response reminds me of a story I heard or read many years ago. It begins with a Jewish man who dared to slip into one of Hitler’s rallies, perhaps out of curiosity. Before long, he found himself caught up in the emotions of the crowd, forgot his initial foreboding, and began saluting the Fuhrer. Hitler, despite his megalomania, was a very effective demagogue. When he once said, “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few,” he was explaining how a demagogue stirs the masses to gain power and controls his lieutenants with reason. Of course, his reasoning was filled with lies and racism. He accused his political opposition to be unpatriotic and said Jews should be feared and banished as non-Aryan. Unbelievably, his demagoguery, lies, and racial animosity gained him absolute power over the German people – even though he never achieved more than 37% support of the German electorate. When our President says, “don’t believe what you see or hear . . . it’s all fake news,” he not only attributes to himself the sole ability to distinguish fact from fiction but also the ex-cathedra ability of an absolute ruler whose word is law. We have seen this playbook before. The male “warrior king” has dominated Western mythologies for centuries.

A few millennia ago, when the Goddess myth dominated human culture and communities, human feelings had a preeminent role in determining human relations with nature and with each other. Perhaps it is time for the industrial and technology era, both progenies of the Age of Reason, to reengage with the Goddess. She has a role to play in capitalism that would reorient the profit driven mantra to embrace the needs of fellow humans and the natural environment. She would restore the balance between the female and male archetypes in the human psyche to reintegrate care for others in leadership roles and restore dialogue in place of competing discourse or combative harangues. As Carl Jung reminded us, neither of these archetypes can be suppressed without damage to the human psyche. Further, contemporary societies exist within interdependent systems of local and state governments, of assorted technologies, and of diverse social structures. And these systems cannot survive without feedback loops responsive to human needs and ambitions. There is a human dimension to society that is ignored only at our peril.

Do the needs and ambitions of everyone in America align with the ideals and values expressed in our founding documents? Does our belief in equality and human rights stir compassion in our hearts? If so, then we are still one nation (E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many One). If, however, we no longer believe the inscription on The Great Seal of America (Novus Ordo Seclorum, a New Order of the Ages), then we have lost faith in America’s ability to realize its experiment in self-government. And that loss would be the harbinger of its end.

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** This quote is taken from Allan Combs book, “The Radiance of Being,” p.134.

Confronting the humanitarian crisis at our southern border, the President stated that his policies will likely discourage further migration, in which case, he concluded, “all problems solved.” While implicitly acknowledging the “toughness” of his policies, he paradoxically claimed that these migrants from the Central American northern triangle are treated well in his border facilities and internment camps. The problem with overcrowding, he asserts, is the result of Democrats in Congress. Initially, he blamed Congressional Democrats for insufficient funding. After a 4.9 billion aid bill passed both houses of Congress, he continued to blame Democrats for not changing asylum laws.

Concurrent with the President’s remarks, the Inspector General released two recent reports that reveal actual conditions within border holding cells. They expose the severe nature of overcrowding, to include limited toilet and shower facilities, restricted access to fresh water, no hot food, and extended stays of weeks beyond the 72 hours demanded by court order. Since these conditions have been extended to children who either crossed the border unattended or were separated from their parents or relatives, we should not be surprised to find toddlers in dirty diapers, children riddled with lice, sleeping on concrete floors, cold, under fed, sickly, and severely traumatized. Seven of these children have died within the last few months.

This border crisis has an historical context. In 1848, America extended its southern border by war and began recolonizing the land once held by our southern neighbors. Many original inhabitants remained, and their progeny became American citizens. Place names of towns, cities, streets, and parks are still recorded in Spanish. Today, the communities so named include many descendants of the original inhabitants and many more relatives living across the border. When economic or other disasters occur in the south, they spur migration to the safe-haven where other Hispanics—often relatives—live securely. There is, as a result, a long history of sudden surges in migrants crossing our southern border. Previous Administrations have struggled to adjust but have succeeded with much less border guards than currently employed. The current Administration, however, has exacerbated the problem with its zero-tolerance policy which has included various tactics like canceling aid to the northern triangle countries in Central America, separating children from their parents and/or from any adult care whatsoever, increasing the backlog of asylum seekers by metering initial interviews, and interning asylum seekers in lieu of due process rather than releasing them to identified contacts/care-facilities pending a future court date. With respect to legal remedies, the Administration has made no explicit statement—though its actions imply a repeal of our asylum laws. The problem with a repeal is the fact that America has internationalized our asylum laws so that every western style democracy enforces them. To state the case bluntly, after abandoning past practices and ignoring the law, our President seems content with the humanitarian crisis he has created to deter future migrants.

As Americans, we must ask whether imprisonment, family persecution, and child abuse are the appropriate means for addressing this increased influx of immigrants. In another time, we would have attributed such means to a rogue country defiant of international asylum laws and basic human rights. How did we arrive at this point in our history?

There is an answer to this question. But, first, we need to understand the underlying problem: the American government seems to no longer honor those quintessential values all Americans once shared. To quote Jefferson, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Although Jefferson outlined the ideals that justified our Declaration of Independence, they did not define the American culture of 1776. Noble aspirations must be lived before they can become real. The “all men” in his thesis did not assure equality for slaves or women. And today, apparently, it does not include the refugees and asylum seekers on our southern border. Further, their suffering is only one symptom of America’s decline. Our government is no longer becoming its promise, that is, the realization of its ideals.

So how did we arrive at this point in our history? The answer to this question was first theorized in Oswald Spengler’s book, “The Decline of the West.” He wrote his opus during the “war to end all wars” and published it shortly after World War I. In it, he outlined the fall of many civilizations, focusing upon the fall of the Roman empire and, by analogy, its implication for Western civilization. His review of history identified a single thesis: culture leads to civilization, thereby progressing from a state of “becoming” to having “become.” I find our problem rooted in this state change.

The roots of our civilization spring from the Enlightenment which awakened a revolutionary vision of personal freedom expressed in art, philosophy, science, morality, and democratic values. Western culture evolved from that vision and gave birth to democratic systems of government. What was becoming a new culture, often termed “Western Liberalism,” then became a new civilization. Revolutions in the New World and Europe began in America and France and over succeeding generations spread globally, developing into a new international globalism. A people’s revolution became a new civilization that promised to become a world enterprise uniting all people with its promise of individual freedom and unalienable rights for all human beings. An intrinsic part of this new freedom was a break with all previous economic models. Western Liberalism included laisse faire economics, which we now simply term “capitalism.” As Spengler so carefully documented, civilizations fail when the forms of society are overruled by money: its esthetics and moral values are replaced by a new pragmaticism based upon wealth and income. The end is near, Spengler feared, when the monied elite take control of government. And he identified a repeatable portent of that downward spiral. To quote Spengler, “again and again there appears this type of strong-minded, completely non-metaphysical man, and in the hands of this type lies the intellectual and material destiny of each and every ‘late’ period.” *

If civilizations persist and eventually die, as Spengler concludes, as a result of the “the preeminence of money,” then how does Western Liberalism and, more specifically, the United States of America, survive with its revolutionary values and ideals intact? We cannot divest ourselves from capitalism, which is the economic engine that promises the highest standard of living in human history and the possibility of eliminating world poverty. But America will not continue to be a beacon of liberty if wealthy oligarchs influence elections, if a President defies the oversight of the people’s House, if that same President flaunts the rule of law, even to the extent of defying America’s highest court, and if his core objective is the elimination or subjugation of a free press and control of the Department of Justice. He is the very embodiment of Spengler’s “strong-minded, completely non-metaphysical man,” whose only interest seems to be the pursuit of power and money.

So, finally, how did we arrive at this point in our history? I think the answer is implied in Spengler’s analysis. We appear to have stopped “becoming.” Several times in our past, Americans have breached existential and civil threats to our liberal system of government. The Civil War may be the most dramatic example since it ended slavery and paved the way for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, reaffirming that “all men are created equal.” Likewise, the Woman’s Suffrage Movement resulted in the 19th Amendment, redefining “all men” as inclusive of women at the voting booth. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the ‘60s were also part of our “becoming,” in that they extended freedoms to racial minorities. The current Equality Act passed by the House is also an attempt to extend freedom to the LGBTQ community, though its apparent conflict with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act will need to be resolved by Congress or in the Courts. My point: America is still becoming worthy of our ideals, at least until we stop doing so.

Those children dying and suffering in border detention centers or separated from their parents or relatives and imprisoned in internment camps are the victims of a dying liberal state where “pragmatic” border control policies replace the human values of a free democracy. The man responsible is not the heir of George Washington or any other President in our history, for he does not subscribe to our Constitution, to his oath to “take care the Laws be faithfully executed” (Article II, US Constitution), or to the Jeffersonian declaration of self-evident truths. He is, instead, an omen, foreboding an illiberal democracy and the death of Western Liberalism.

The cure is the same as it has always been in our history: a rebirth of democracy. No system, including a system of government, can survive without constant renewal or self-creation. (The technical word is autopoiesis.) American history offers a road map, presaging what is required to evolve the ideals and values that have founded this nation. If we still believe “all men are created equal . . . endowed . . . with unalienable rights,” then we must end Trump’s war against black and brown people and Muslims and Sikhs and ethnic minorities and women “who are not his type” and “losers” who oppose his “non-metaphysical” or simply heartless/inhumane idiocies.

Remember when President Obama used to say “that’s not who we are” when referring to any subversion of life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. He may have been addressing a specific instance of gun violence, racial injustice, torture, or war crime. But, later in his term, he modified this statement to say, “that’s not who we can be.” He was making the point of this blog: we can be better if we are still becoming the land of the free with liberty and justice for all—else we are not.

“All problems solved” is an end state every dictator seeks for it embodies absolute power wherein, as President Trump claims, “nobody disobeys my orders.” Living, vibrant societies can both remain dedicated to their core values and develop flexible systems to address current and unforeseen problems. America already has the system of government it needs. It just lacks the political leadership it requires to evolve and adapt to a changing world without losing the vital engine of its raison d’être. The current migration surge is only slight portent of future climate migrations from the southern hemisphere. It also is not the most urgent problem facing America. Perhaps the most urgent problem is with the MAGA slogan and its progenitor. In a fast-paced world of ever-changing capital markets and new technology, putting the engine of state into reverse is simply to bring it to a screeching halt. Most Americans, I believe, want to write the next chapter of American history. And that history must begin with the removal of its one impediment.

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*(page 32, Oswald Spengler, “The Decline of the West.”)

Some decades ago, when network TV was still in its infancy, an “adult” western was introduced to a public familiar with the likes of Bill Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Rancher. Children mainly watched these earlier renditions of the wild, wild West. But this new western, Gunsmoke, was very different. Its hero, Matt Dillon, was at least as brutal as the outlaws he brought down. While “Hoppy” was a gentlemanly cowboy, who took off his hat in the presence of a lady and drank a nonalcoholic sarsaparilla, Dillon treated women as chattel and downed shots with manly fervor. Both the Lone Rancher and “Hoppy” had sidekicks they trusted and respected. Dillon, however, was a tough guy who operated alone. His predecessors in the western genre rarely drew blood. But Dillon was ruthless and dispassionate: his success was based upon whom he killed or beat into bloody submission. Winning at any costs was what drove him. He made no apologies. His embodiment of this gunslinger archetype drew a wide audience. And Gunsmoke was one of the most successful TV series of all time. It spoke to an essentially American hero myth: the lone sheriff who would rid the town of bad guys, win every fight, and be the law, both unassailable and uncontested.

The spirit of Gunsmoke is still relevant to our politics where it can function as myth. To understand how, perhaps we should parse the show’s name into its metaphorical components, that is, “gun” and “smoke.” The former represents any weapon that can be used to defend against assailants or attack real or potential enemies. For example, if under investigation for criminal activity, the best political defense is to discredit the investigator—as a member of an opposing party, as an aggrieved person suffering from an alleged slight and seeking revenge, or as an otherwise conflicted person. If, instead, confronting a potential opponent, the best attack may be preemptive and unexpected, perhaps an ad hominem belittling of character, motive, or more perversely, personal traits such as speech, appearance and/or negative associations. Though Matt Dillion may be an archetypal hero, he is just a fictional character. But contemporary politicians can at times attempt to live this myth.

How, you may wonder, does a “gunslinging” politician win the votes of his/her constituents? Well, remember the “smoke.” In the television series, that smoke comes from the barrel of the gun after it has been fired. In our time, it comes from many after-the-fact sources, such as the cable news blowback, the befuddling wordsmith justification, or the misappropriated label or tagline. Our political landscape is filled with the smoke of “fake news,” “collusion delusion,” “complete exoneration,” “rigged polls,” “witch hunt,” “stable genius,” “fire and fury,” “lyin’ . . . crazy . . . sleepy . . . terrible people.” While the press and comedians are happy to expose the gunslinger behind all this smoke, some of us still suffer from smoke-caused blurred vision. The myth of the brutish gunslinger who always wins persists. Perhaps you would like to withdraw from this cloud of misperception. Maybe it is time to clear away the smoke and admit a simple truth: no American should want Matt Dillon as President, especially if a “Hoppy” candidate is available.

What has “gun” and “smoke” brought to Americans anyway? Let’s take a selective look:

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Bullet: Repeal the ACA (Obamacare).
Smoke: Reform healthcare with Trumpcare.
Reality: Some 20+ million Americans would lose healthcare; and Trumpcare is neither available for people with pre-existing conditions nor comparable in coverage (e.g., it is only offered in one to three month extensions and does not provide full coverage, eliminating amongst other care options preventive care, treatment for addiction, and women-specific health care).
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Bullet: Shutdown the Government to obtain funding for a border wall.
Smoke: Make America great by stopping the “invasion” of murders, rapists, and drug dealers.
Reality: The immigrants arriving on our southern border are mainly refugees and/or asylum seekers. They include many families escaping life-threatening conditions who risk border crossings regardless of impediments—many freely seeking out border patrol agents in order to request asylum.
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Bullet: Close the southern border by ordering the military to stop all immigration there.
Smoke: MAGA by stopping the invasion of murders, rapists, and drug dealers.
Reality: Using the military for this purpose is against the law. There is no military threat on the southern border.
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Bullet: Threats of wielding “fire and fury” against North Korea, or “end(ing) Iran.”
Smoke: These countries pose a current existential threat to America.
Reality: These countries could potentially pose a threat in the future – in the case of North Korea, sooner, rather than later. But eliminating the Iranian nuclear agreement pushes that nation in a more hostile direction. Likewise, pretending that failed summit meetings with North Korea have been beneficial does not encourage cooperation with Kim Jong Un. Instead, it encourages the North Korean leader to participate in the President’s one act play while continuing a buildup in his nuclear stockpile.
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Bullet: Use tariffs against Canada, Mexico, China, and Europe to bring economic gains to America.
Smoke: Previous trade agreements have been detrimental to the American economy, whereas tariffs create wealth and jobs for Americans. Besides, the President believes bilateral trade agreements outperform multi-country agreements – most especially because he believes himself to be a “great dealmaker” one-on-one.
Reality: First, replacing NAFTA with USMCA involves three countries and, therefore, is not bilateral. Likewise, renegotiating trade with the countries of Europe is only possible with the European Union, which is composed of many countries. Secondly, USMCA is identical to NAFTA, except for the inclusion of some measures that had already been negotiated by the previous Administration as part of the Transpacific Partnership – from which President Trump withdrew America. Third, tariffs effectively are taxes that the American people will pay as a result of the increased costs of foreign goods. Finally, there is no evidence that supports the President’s claim to be a “great dealmaker.” Stiffing suppliers and workers out of payment for goods and labor is not deal making. Nor is duping banks and insurance companies by misrepresenting assets to obtain loans or insurance reimbursement limits. Con men are not considered dealmakers, especially not by the FBI or the IRS. And, finally, how has the global trading system hurt America? That system was largely set up by America which nominates the director of the World Trade Organization and has won most of the cases brought before it. A large percentage of international corporations are American, securing for America the largest slice of the global market. NAFTA, in fact, is the most successful trading block of neighboring countries in the world, benefiting its signees almost equally in goods and jobs.
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There are simply too many bullets from this President’s gun to enumerate here. In fact, his rapid-fire ability overwhelms timely and/or perceptive accounting. He fires his seemly semi-automatic gun daily by tweets and impromptu incoherent press interviews. The smoke created appears too dense for the public to penetrate. It is a cloud of lies, distractions, misdirection, and criminality. To focus on one tweet or statement is to lose the bigger picture in a smoky haze. What remains is a simplistic imprint of reality characterized by a few words, like “no collusion, no obstruction, deep state, fake news, hateful people,” and so on. Matt Dillon did not have a semi-automatic or the need to hide evidence of broken or dead bodies. But our President has twitter and sycophants who attempt to clean up after him.

Matt Dillon, of course, was a fictional character. The success of Gunsmoke, however, was based on more than his character and story. Dillon became the hero of a wild, wild west myth. As such, he is a part of the American psyche, which explains why Gunsmoke was a long running TV series. Until Americans wrestle with this myth and determine its relevance to our time, many of us will continue to support, admire, and vote for a man who embodies it. Is President Trump himself the law—the lone hero who can “drain the swamp” and protect the wellbeing of average Americans? Or does he bring the swamp with him by decreasing funding for social programs, nominating ethically challenged public officials, creating a bankrupt national ledger, and prefiguring America as an international pariah? He may well represent an even more dreadful portent—that of a dead albatross hanging from the bow of America’s ship of state.

If so, punishment may well await each one of us. To quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.” Unfortunately for Americans, there will be no heavenly intervention to remove our albatross or abate our punishment. We must remove the dead albatross ourselves.

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are words that every American has heard. What do they mean? And why are they more relevant now?

“Pursuit of happiness” might be the easiest to understand. We are born with the instinct to please our senses and to satisfy our wants or desires. Perhaps that instinct explains why so many of us identify happiness with standard of living. It is no accident then that politicians assume our happiness relates to the gross national product, the job index, and other relevant economic stats. As a result, they tend to interpret polls through the prism of economic well-being as the most important indicator of the electorate’s satisfaction or “happiness.”

Western culture, however, seems to have evolved with a different sense of happiness. “True happiness,” states Aristotle in his treatise on Politics, “flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue, and not from the possession of external goods.” Aristotle viewed happiness as a consequence of subjective attributes each individual must endeavor to attain. His emphasis is more on the pursuit of happiness, rather than the definition of happiness, which is more difficult to define. Some people are more disposed to be happy than others. I have seen such people in the most destitute of circumstances. Others feel happy when they attain certain personal goals, which, according to the philosopher, should place rational and moral attributes above worldly attainments. Happiness, then, is relative or reflective of personality and character which differ widely in any human population and in many diverse circumstances. Its pursuit, however, can be encouraged or hampered by society or the state. So, some onus for this pursuit of happiness falls to government and to its administrators.

For this reason, we find in the Federalist (Number 68) the belief that the office of the Presidency should be “filled by characters preeminent for ability and virtue” for “the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.” The Declaration of Independence lists the colonies’ grievances, wherein Thomas Jefferson found King George’s administration woefully inadequate in securing those unalienable rights. He writes “that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men . . . laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely (italics are mine) to affect their safety and happiness.” In place of a dictatorial monarch, our revolutionary forefathers created a democratic republic they believed “most likely” to elect representatives dedicated to preserving those unalienable rights. Americans, as a result, are justified in their expectation that their elected representatives should work to secure all avenues of individual progress in their pursuit of personal happiness, to include every conceivable job, profession, cultural advancement, or educational opportunity that exist in society.

We may be responsible for our personal happiness, but our government has a responsibility to secure our pursuit of happiness—to assure its protection, advancement, and inviolability. For this reason, we elect persons of high moral character who understand the nature of human happiness and are committed to securing its pursuit.

Perhaps, “pursuit of happiness” is not so easy to understand after all. Certainly, the reference to “life” as an unalienable right must be self-evident. Jefferson equates the concept “that all (italics are mine) men are created equal” with the corollary “that they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights.” But neither Aristotle’s life nor Jefferson’s reflected this dictum. Both accepted slaves as inferior human beings. America’s Constitution not only excluded African slaves from citizenship, but excluded women from the right to vote, effectively treating them as second-class citizens. After reconstruction and during the Jim Crow era, African Americans were lynched in numbers that defy any sense that their right to live was either unalienable or self-evident. Although women before 1921 were not lynched, they were treated with great indignity during the suffrage movement—ridiculed, shoved around during peaceful protests, arrested for exercising their constitutional right to protest and petition their government, and forced fed in prison during hunger strikes. One might consider these lapses in America’s respect for life merely a part of our evolution. But how do we explain the fact that 25% of all prisoners in the world are currently held in American jails—most of them persons of color? And how is it possible that more Americans die from guns shots every year than have died in decades of recent wars. And why do our children fear school shootings? Is it conceivable that a government founded on the principle that every human has an inviolable right to life is unable to protect the lives of even its children?

America’s problem with its founding ideals is perhaps not so much with hypocrisy as it is with human nature. None of us are born into wisdom, but into a society with preset norms and values. Aristotle and Jefferson accepted the norms of their society: slaves were identified with their inferior position in society, not with their innate potential as human beings. When Abigail Adams told her husband “not to forget the ladies” at the outset of the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787, she was addressing an age-old misogynist glass wall few men could see through. Of course, the Civil War and the Women’s Suffrage Movement won a new awareness. But the ability to recognize the unalienable right to life is still an evolutionary concept. In place of lynching, we have a criminal justice system that disproportionately punishes people of color. * Though women can vote, they are either excluded from positions of power, not equally compensated for the same job and performance as men, not provided the preventive and prenatal care demanded of their gender, or all the above. And the LGBTQ community, until only recently, were long closeted from nearly all societal functions as if it never existed. Its members hid in fear of being ridiculed, ostracized, beaten, or even killed. The right to life may be an unalienable right, but the fulness of its realization is still qualified according to race and/or gender.

Further, the fact that our children face the terror of school shootings is a unique devaluation of the right to life. Without any historical precedent, somehow contemporary America has put the lives of its children at risk. The safety of our children has been devalued in favor of unqualified or unregulated gun ownership and the availability of military style weapons deliberately engineered to kill people. It is inconceivable that any human society would so devalue the lives of their offspring. In the preamble to our Constitution, its purpose is explicitly stated to “insure (sic) domestic tranquility . . . (and) promote the general welfare.” One can easily see how these objectives align with our unalienable rights to life and the pursuit of happiness. But they are discredited by the absence of humane gun laws in America—much to our universal shame.

Another cloud on America’s regard for the right to life is its treatment of immigrants on its borders. I have written more specifically about this topic in an earlier blog (reference “Is Nothing Sacred?”). In the current context, it should be noted that the unalienable right to life cannot be a selective statement, else it is meaningless. In other words, America must recognize this right cannot only belong to Americans. Let’s just take one example from the recent surge in asylum seekers from Central America. Since 2008, Guatemala has suffered from Tropical Storm Arthur, Hurricane Dolly, Tropical Storm Agatha, Tropical Storm Hermine, a volcano, a regional earthquake, and Tropical Storm 12E (sequentially). These disasters have resulted in millions who were left “food insecure,” in need of immediate humanitarian assistance, without income due to the collapse of their agricultural sector, and without support from a government that has lost much of its national budget. As stated in David Wallace-Wells’ book, “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming,” Guatemala now has the fifth-highest homicide rate in the world and is, according to UNICEF, the second most dangerous country in the world for children. During the Obama Administration, America responded with foreign aid grants to Guatemala and increased border agents and judges to process asylum seekers. During the current Administration, America has cancelled its aid and adopted a “zero tolerance” policy that separates children from their parents as a deterrence to parents seeking safe refuge from the life-threatening conditions in their home country. Thousands of these children are presently sequestered in internment camps and five of them have died since the Fall of 2018—the first to have died in the custody of our border immigration system. How can we reconcile these deaths and this Administration’s immigration policies with America’s founding principle of an unalienable right to life?

At least every American must accept his/her unalienable right to liberty. It is the very hallmark of any revolution. And America was born of revolution. But do we agree on a definition of “liberty”? Legally and morally, it cannot be the freedom to do whatever we want to do. Free choice is a unique human attribute, but it cannot coexist unrestrained within a society where every human being has equal rights. Those rights cannot be guaranteed unless individual members of society mutually respect each other’s rights. Hence, we have laws and norms of conduct. In other words, liberty is a two-way street, both active and reciprocal, both a right and a responsibility shared by all. As individuals in a democratic society, we are not only free to assure our personal security and to pursue our happiness but also to do the same for all members of our free society. How else can Americans “form a more perfect union?”

Implied in this context is the difference between free choice and free will. There are many influences on free choice, to include our wants and desires as well as our parental and societal determinants and all past choices and/or experiences. Some would even argue we are so determined by our personal history and environment that we are not free at all. But free will, though related to free choice, is qualitatively different. It has a rational basis that is not so easily determined. It is born by superseding principles and seeks a well-defined result. The principles we form in life are developed over a lifetime of trial and error and become intrinsic to our character. The same development can be said of the ends we seek, though most of us define our goals rather hazily until we have lived long enough to clarify our principles. The ends we seek do not justify the means unless governed by principles; for those principles must align with and justify the ends and vice versa. That symmetry between principle and ends is intrinsic to every human being and to society. For the individual it is a lifelong pursuit and one fraught with hazards. Principles can be bandied about like political taglines or demagogic propaganda. They can be adopted like a suit that is acceptable in society, rather than developed by reflection and reason. Truly intrinsic principles are born in the soul by the exercise of human compassion and unrelenting discrimination. As a wise man once told me, “live what you believe, else you live not at all.” But the task of defining personal beliefs requires an unremitting effort to define the principles that will guide one’s life. **

One of the benefits of living in a constitutional democracy is that the common principles governing our society are already well defined. We are simply tasked to understand them, accept them as the foundation for our laws and societal norms, and support them in our personal lives and in the lives of all others who make up our society.

A principled person is said to value ideals over self-aggrandizement or selfish pursuits. The same can be said of a nation founded on principles. If, in addition, a person or a nation defines its goals based on those principles, then we attribute integrity to both. America’s founding documents clearly define both the ideals of our nation and the means to pursue them with integrity. Hence, it is often said, America is an idea that exists only if understood and supported by its citizens.

Therefore, the American Constitution puts a special burden on our government and its administrators. It demands adherence to its founding principles; else it stumbles or—worse—fails. The founders realized that human beings would often choose ends that served individual needs and wants rather than goals defined by the principles expressed in the preamble of the American Constitution or in the Declaration of Independence. For this reason, they built into our government a system of checks and balances, with the ultimate check in the hands of the electorate. A President, for example, is governed by laws and the oversight of an elected Congress. The Congress is subject to the veto of the President. And both the Presidency and the Congress are held accountable to the Constitution and established law by the Judicial Branch. When Congress ignores the general welfare while falling prey to tribalism and to its need for campaign funding from pretend oligarchs, a President may veto legislation and attempt to govern by executive order, or the courts may issue injunctions or cease and desist orders. When a rogue President abuses or extends his power without regard to the law or the role of Congress, then once again the courts may rule against his actions or, in rare cases, the Congress may choose to impeach and remove that President from office. And the Judicial Branch is itself governed by the Constitution and the laws duly established by Congress and authorized by the President. When more than one branch of this tripartite government fails to function according to its established parameters and principles, then the ultimate check falls to the electorate. Its vote not only determines which candidates are elected to public service but also what policies they were elected to enact or support.

My dear readers, we Americans now face an existential threat to our democracy. Our President has been checked by a myriad of courts across the country but persists in ignoring adherence to the Constitution. At this writing, he faces almost countless investigations at the federal, state, and congressional level. He may call this “presidential harassment” by an opposing Party, but the special counsel’s report only quotes his own administrative appointees in its damning expose՛ of inappropriate and criminally obstructive behavior. Meanwhile, Congress is gridlocked by politics governed more by self-interests than Constitutional principles. Those interests are circumscribed by reelection and control of legislative power. Our Senate Majority Leader tables almost all legislation passed by the people’s representatives in the House while he attempts to pack the courts with justices that he believes will serve so-called conservative principles. My argument here is not with Republicanism, but with his absurd definition of conservatism. It is not simply that Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, and both Bushes were Republicans who did not fit his mold. Rather, if the current crop of Republicans were truly conservative, then they would adhere to the Constitution as the only shelter in a catastrophic storm. With their failure to do so, they put this democracy in peril, leaving its fate solely in the hands of us, the American electorate. (Reference, “No, We Cannot.”)

The American system is revolutionary at its heart. As such, the continuum that stretches from liberal to conservatism is on only one plane; and that plane is a liberal construct of a government that is “of, by, for the people.” The ultimate check on a rogue President and a dysfunctional or gridlocked Congress is an informed electorate that exercises its free will with a clear intent to restore democracy in America. The next national election is in the Fall of 2020. But the unravelling of our democratic principles and institutions has progressed at an ever-increasing rate since the last national election. We can partially credit Russian interference in that election—a circumstance that would rile the anger of former President Reagan perhaps more than any other recent President. But most of this unravelling has been at the hands of a populist and nationalistic President who cannot be exonerated from obstruction of justice and who has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator of a felony. His co-conspirator is already serving a 3-year sentence in Federal prison. Key officials in his 2016 campaign have also been convicted of crimes, including his campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, and the man he unadvisedly appointed as his National Security Advisor. Most of his cabinet appointees have proved either incompetent, unethical, or seriously adverse to the mission of their agencies. He has fired every White House official who disagrees with him, leaving only sycophants in his Administration. The American President is in fact the main threat to our founding principles and to the success of our government. His Administration clearly fails the Federalist’s “true test of good government,” as referenced above. And now we have the Special Counsel’s report . . .

Recently, we heard the Special Counsel explain that his mission was not totally prosecutorial. With respect to the President, it could only be investigative. His team investigated foreign interventions in the 2016 elections and any coordination between those foreign entities and the Trump campaign. He concluded that Russia interfered “in sweeping and systematic fashion.” His office issued 37 indictments, mostly of foreign agents, and prosecuted seven Americans associated with the Trump campaign. Though he found a hundred and forty contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians—some of whom were official Russian agents or spies—he did not find “tacit or expressed agreement” with Trump operatives. Instead, he found both Donald Trump and his operatives more than welcoming to Russian interference, even to the extreme of his campaign chief sharing campaign strategy and research with a known Russian agent. But there were no tapes of mutual planning and strategizing—as there were in the Nixon era. Without that vital evidence, the Special Counsel was required to clear the President and his campaign of criminal conspiracy, however damning and inappropriate their interaction with foreign entities. But the evidence he uncovered for obstruction of justice does meet the level of criminal conduct. Since the Department of Justice has developed a long-standing policy (since the early 1970’s) that a sitting President cannot be indicted, he could neither indict nor, paradoxically, clear the President of obstruction of justice—the very same charge for which President Nixon faced impeachment and President Clinton was impeached. In fact, he found evidence for a dozen instances of such obstruction by the President, most of which would merit indictment and prosecution as over a thousand current and former Federal prosecutors have attested. This evidence and the ongoing threat of the current Administration must give us pause.

How can any American live happy and free in an America lost in the shadow of this Presidency—our Constitution and founding principles smothered in the constant drumbeat of malicious propaganda and evidence of abuse of power? Maybe we are too busy to read the Mueller Report. Maybe the actions of this administration are too subtle—like adding a citizenship question to the census or limiting the extent of government scientists’ forecast of climate change—or too frequent to interpret and understand. At other times, his actions are so bombastic and overbearing as to quell any outrage over his lack of compassion for the victims of natural disasters or over his exoneration of avowed racists. But their consequences will be with us for generations, as will climate change. This President vilifies his enemies while pursuing chameleon policies that mask as beneficial while perversely not so. Boasting about America’s ability to “end Iran” or waste North Korea in “fire and fury” does not enhance American security. Nor do tariff wars or racist immigration policies. Defunding education, healthcare, the national endowment of the arts, disaster relief, or student aid programs does not make Americans’ pursuit of happiness more attainable. And what can we make of the President’s constant attempt to bend the government to his will without regard for the restraints of law and ethical norms? I cannot speak for all my readers, but I find myself very much not happy, less free and much less secure.

The lyrics from another dark era come to mind: “the times they are a’changing.” Maybe we are at another inflection point in America’s history where are unalienable rights will be further clarified and extended. We can still hope. But we also must act to preserve those unalienable rights, else lose them.
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Footnotes:
* I recommend Bryan Stevenson’s book “Just Mercy: A Story about Justice and Redemption” about African Americans sentenced to death. His entire legal career has been focused on eliminating bias in the criminal justice system.
** This paragraph is informed by Aristotle’s Ethics. My interpretation is based upon this Latin translation: Voluntarium definitur secundum Aristotelem quod est a principio intrinseco cum cognitione finis. My humble and awkwardly literal translation: “Aristotle defines free will as that which is derived from an intrinsic principle with foreknowledge of its end goal or purpose.” Aristotle encompasses both the governing ideal and intended result in his definition. (Centuries of ethical precepts have expanded and elucidated this foundational statement on the exercise of free will. Even determinists recognize how ideals and final causality effect human morality. But they would still argue that they are formed by nature and environment rather than human rationality and free will.)

Do our present circumstances dictate our future now or merely draw a picture of a future “now”? This question is particularly relevant as Americans approach a national election in 2020. The Presidential candidates who have already announced provide a pot-pour-ri of visions and policies for America. But none of these perspectives or prospective policies can become America’s future unless they capture the support of the electorate. And, even then, political opposition or unforeseen events may suppress any candidate’s intent once in office.

While the future may be the subject of pundits’ predictions, it cannot be predestined. It evolves in its own manner from the present context. At this writing, Americans face diverse futures with respect to the provision of healthcare, the integrity of government, the problem of income/wealth inequality, the future of immigration policy, the conduct of foreign affairs, the mitigation of home-grown terrorism, and the disastrous consequences of global climate change. Some would deny any problem with America’s current direction. The present Administration has already set its course. But Americans have set new directions throughout America’s history, sometimes gestating change between elections or over much longer periods of time. We are currently preparing for a national election that could give birth to a different course. We can see glimpses of this new path forward already taking shape.

Americans incubate the embryo of political change for months and years before delivering them in the voting booth. That incubation period is born in the hearts and minds of every citizen. It is constantly changing and evolving until consensus is reached by a majority of citizens. Why else are the press and political campaigns addicted to pre-election polls? And why are so many interested parties—domestic and foreign—so intent on manipulating public opinion? Polls and trolls are the bane of modern democracies, for they attempt to either predict or control the future. In this manner, these attempts appease/foment some groups’ fears or satisfy another’s desires. But they should not substitute for the reasoned will of an electorate. The only question is whether reason and free will are the determining factors in an election. Reason builds on a base of fact and valid evidence. And free will depends upon reason and the courage to act. If well-informed voters vote their conscience, then America will prosper, regardless of which political party wins their vote. For a conscientious vote reflects what the body of the electorate finds necessary now—at this point in history—to satisfy its pursuit of happiness. Otherwise, democracy cannot survive. Each election is America’s rebirth into a new future. Will this next election bring forth a stillborn or a promising newborn?

For example, the health insurance industry for years denied coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies had prospered by excluding high-risk customers. As a result, market power and money dictated health outcomes, while the uninsured died or suffered bankruptcy in order to prolong a life. But the electorate began to consider whether healthcare should be a right for all Americans rather than a privilege for those who could afford it or who were fortunate to have employer-supported coverage. This newly reasoned approach to healthcare has gestated over several generations (reference, “The Republican Path to Healthcare”). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) not only eliminated restrictions based upon pre-existing conditions but supported the extension of basic healthcare to include preventive care and treatment for various societal health issues such as prenatal care, vaccinations, diabetes prevention, addictions, annual checkups, and so on. While insurance companies lost a key lever in their control over people’s health, they gained millions of new subscribers, many subsidized by the ACA. At the same time, the ACA extended Medicaid to millions in those states that accepted Federal help. And it also provided additional Medicare benefits while shoring up its future financial viability.

The ACA is an example of a slow-moving tide that took generations to cross a deep sea of public opinion. The electorate now measures healthcare in terms of health outcomes and the universality of its coverage. It has rejected the Republican mantra of “repeal and replace” in favor of a more reasoned approach to “reform and extend” (reference, “Why Repeal and Replace Obamacare”). In reality, “replace” meant a return to the previous insurance industry business model; whereas “reform and extend” implies a path to cheaper and more universal healthcare. Is it reasonable to assume that assuring individual healthcare is more important than increasing healthcare industry profits? This is still a question before prospective candidates for elected office. Will they respond with well-thought out proposals and with good will? Or will they continue the current Administration’s efforts to cripple the ACA: discourage enrollments, reduce subsidies, decrease the mandate penalty to zero dollars, crimp the risk pool, and authorize short term, high deductible policies to individuals with no pre-existing conditions. These efforts have driven up the costs of healthcare insurance for everybody and forced some carriers out of some insurance markets. The Republican Party has voted over 70 times to repeal the ACA without offering any comparable healthcare plan. Can we believe it will now offer any viable plan (reference, “Shim, Sham, or Shame”)? Undoubtedly, powerful monied interests will also attempt to define America’s healthcare system. But what will 2020 voters decide as the best option for the American healthcare system: a return to the pre-ACA health industry model, a new Medicare-like ACA public option, or something completely different, like a new single payor system, sometimes characterized as “Medicare for all”? Can you envision the future “now” for healthcare in America?

Meanwhile, the newly elected House of Representatives seems to be re-imagining the founding vision of American democracy by restoring the power of the vote. Its first official act was the passing of HR1 as a strong initial step towards reforming campaign financing and securing voting rights for all. As I suggested in August 2015, Americans have always expected their government to be a “protector of the American way of life” (reference, “American Revolution 2016“). But, in recent decades, we have begun to believe that “government is the problem,” that the “system is rigged” against the less privileged amongst us, and that our elected representatives use “politically correct” statements to conceal their self-serving intent. Many voters in 2016 agreed with this analysis, but not with my prescription for change. A large plurality—though not a majority—of Americans voted for a disruptor instead of a reformer as their chosen change-agent. A disruptor, as we have witnessed, chooses to work outside of a system rather than to reform it from within. But the American system was designed to be self-correcting. Since it is built around checks and balances and adherence to the rule of law, working outside of this system is the same as working against it. Dismantling institutional norms of ethics and standards, authorizing nepotism, ignoring legal—even Constitutional—restrictions, and substituting personal goals for the general welfare undermine American democracy rather than serve its evolution. More to the point, a disruptor invites corruption and violation of the integrity demanded of a democratic republic. When an American Administration operates outside the law and institutional controls, it allows sycophants, opportunists, and sleaze to infest government and thwart the will of the governed.

Perhaps Americans will now reconsider whether our system of checks and balances should not only endure but be strengthened. Removing the excessive influence of large public campaign donations is a first step to eliminating corruption in government. In addition to the House’s action, several state legislatures have attempted electoral college reform. In a creative application of the 12th Amendment, they will vote all their electoral college votes according to the national popular vote. * Will these campaign and electoral reforms appeal to the electorate as a reasonable way to advance and strengthen our form of government? Will America once again rise to reclaim Lincoln’s vision at Gettysburg, “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” Is a new future “now” on our horizon?

After World War II, America experienced a massive growth in the middle class. There were far less mega corporations then than now. And labor unions encompassed a major portion of the work force. Today, .01% of the population control 60% of the nation’s wealth and labor unions represent less than 12% of the work force. In 70% of the states, 40% of our fellow citizens cannot afford to buy a home. In addition, 40% of full-time workers earn less than 15$ per hour. Whether you accept those government statistics or not, many who read them also live them. If you are not one of those people, then drive through the poorer sections of one of our major cities or many parts of rural America. If you live in a “better” neighborhood, check out the gardeners, housekeepers, and repairmen. They do not live in your neighborhood. They live paycheck to paycheck. And they worry about the future of their children: will the best public schools be available; will college be affordable. My father was a mail carrier who put his son through college. My current mail carrier regrets that he cannot do the same for his daughter. Frankly, a time traveler from the mid-20th century would not recognize the America of the 21st century.

How did this face of America change in the space of two generations? How did we develop this bifurcated economy? Well, it changed almost unperceptively over time. Despite elections, most Americans have lost an effective voice in their government. High paid lobbyists too often dictate the Congressional agenda to suit the monied interests of corporations and/or the super-rich class. It was only a matter of time before the Presidency would fall into the same hands. The current President, for example, acts in support of his own wealthy class while falsely claiming a majority support that has never existed. Is it not obvious that we must address income and wealth inequality in America both to break the stranglehold of power and money and to restore faith in our democracy? When elected officials truly dedicate themselves to the general welfare, then they will begin to address the needs of our educational system, of infrastructure, of job training and opportunities, of climate change preparedness, of a safe and habitable human environment, and of healthcare reform. These needs exist for all Americans. Subverting national resources to serve the interests of billionaires and large corporations does not serve the general welfare, especially when the Administration vows to cut federal spending for a myriad of social programs that enhance the lives of all Americans. Recent tax policy, for instance, only serves those invested in capital. Most Americans do not own stock, a home or, at best, more than a minority interest in a house. They are saddled with rising rents or mortgage payments. The current President’s tax and government policies do not serve their interest. Not only are their voices not heard, but their rights as citizens are ignored. This Administration belies Lincoln’s concept of “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Which vision of the future will unfold in the next election: Lincoln’s or Trump’s?

In the course of 243 years, America has expanded its citizenship and/or voting rights to include all races, women, immigrants, and asylum seekers. But this expansion of citizenship and subsequent rights has not been without pitfalls. The Civil War and the Women’s Suffrage Movement stand out as painful leaps forward in our history. But America still battles with human rights issues from racial prejudice to religious intolerance, to misogyny, to white supremacy, to class privilege, and so on. At this writing, Americans are witnessing the worst civil rights violations since the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II. Our government is responsible for violating the rights of immigrants and their families on our southern border. We attempt to deny them abortion rights, asylum, due process, and the sacred right to hold and care for their own children. At least the Japanese internment camps kept families together. But we have separated children from their parents and held them in separate internment camps where many still await assignment to foster care. The potential for long term psychological damage to these children is high. But their treatment is just one more example of current human rights violations that include DACA children and TPS victims (see “Bon Mots or Deceits”). This non-white purge continues at this writing with the newly announced plan to deport 4,000 Liberians who were welcomed to America in 1991 as their homeland was torched by civil war. Every Republican and Democratic President since then has protected these refugees from deportation by renewing their special status termed the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). This purge is not only a denial of our shared human nature but a negation of America’s progress towards its vision that “all . . . (humans) are created equal.” How can we accept this recidivist vision of America or even consider it as our future?

Our fellow revolutionaries, the French, gave us the Statue of Liberty. Engraved in a plaque at its base, are the words of Emma Lazarus, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Instead of “a golden door,” do we now offer an impenetrable border, the gates of an internment camp, or summary deportation? Is this the picture of America’s future?

Will the future America lead the world via peaceful alliances and fair-trade policies that bind world powers into interdependent relationships? Or will America’s interference into the domestic affairs of other nations lead it into regime change, revolutions, foreign military interventions, and the creation of more ungovernable nests of future world terrorists? The forces that determine the actions of nations are not always logical or even moral. America’s foreign policy, on the other hand, must be rational, humane, and, at minimum, explainable. But it must also encompass historical relevance and diplomatic contexts. We must elect leaders who grasp the nuances of diplomacy in our international affairs. Real diplomacy involves negotiations with foreign dignitaries, not Presidential twitter proclamations behind bedroom doors. The “only I can” syndrome is the self-aggrandized fallacy of monarchs and despots. It should not exist in a representative democracy with well-informed democratic institutions. America cannot become the international bully that must have its way without consideration for the well-being of the international community. Nor can it ignore the prospect of a renewed nuclear proliferation with the advent of unstable or increasingly antagonistic nuclear powers. America can neither be an isolated power on the world stage, feared and resented by other nations, nor a quirky partner, untrusted by its allies. In the present context of human history, the global community is either on the cusps of coming together or breaking apart into new or historically engendered conflicts and violence. As a military and economic power, America cannot avoid playing a part on this stage. What role do Americans want their country to play in this global community? Can they still embrace Reagan’s vision of the “shining city upon a hill? **

Ronald Reagan, like several Presidents before him, was the victim of an assassination attempt. The irony here is the contrast between his “shining city” vision and the reality of senseless violence in America. After Al Qaeda’s attack in 2001, America armed itself against foreign terrorists. But we ignored the more serious problem of homegrown terrorists. Gun violence is rampant in our country and the most overlooked example of terrorism. Cities like Chicago are literally under siege. Congressional representatives from both Parties have been shot within the past decade. And some of our congressional representatives are now openly identified with white supremacists. Of course, not all gun violence is associated with hate groups. But those who espouse anger and hate can give impetus to those prone to violence. During the term of our first Black President, hate groups proliferated across America. And now, encouraged by the current President’s often demeaning rhetoric toward racial groups, there has been a continued increase in hate groups throughout America, increasing 30% in just the past year and now numbering 1,020. *** Our non-white, Muslim, and LGBT children are attacked verbally and sometimes physically. And all our children are threatened by gun violence, as witnessed by many school shootings over the past decades. It is especially difficult to rid the image of Sandy Hook from our collective memory—that is, the massacre of innocents just beginning to learn their three “r’s.” If we cannot get past hateful rhetoric and the well-financed gun lobby, we will never have respectful dialogue or reasonable gun control laws. Moreover, no rational arguments will prevail unless we elect politicians who share our outrage and commit to providing the necessary moral leadership. Should we and can we create a less discordant, more peaceful, and humane future for America?

The issues just enumerated here appear almost daily in print and cable news. But, in terms of global impact, they are dwarfed by the larger issue of climate change. From as far back as Rachel Carlson’s treatise on the environmental damage caused by pesticides (“The Silent Spring”) to the unnatural history described by Elizabeth Kolbert (“The Sixth Extinction”) and to the war between capitalism and the climate described by Naomi Klein (“This Changes Everything”), the present course towards destruction of a habitable environment and its potential harm to humanity has been clearly presaged. That destructive course, however, predates by billions of years our unavoidable extermination by the devolution of our solar system. Instead, we are on a chosen path to a premature end—paradoxically, our own species’ suicide. As we exterminate all life on our planet, we seem immune to the reality that humanity cannot survive without this planet’s eco-system. While this self-imposed expiration may seem a distant fate, we ignore the omens already at hand in catastrophic fires, floods, storms and the increasingly frequent announcements of floral and animal extinctions. Are they the canaries in the mine? Is this the future we predestine for our immediate offspring and their descendants? Our progeny will be challenged to survive an environment in which they were never genetically evolved to exist. Unlike the ice age, humanity will not emerge from caves into a more welcoming environment. Unless global warming is mitigated within the next generation, its effects will be irreversible. And that prospect explains the title of Naomi Klein’s book.

Will the science supporting climate change be recognized by all our elected officials; and will they come together to reverse the momentum towards global warming and begin to mitigate its deleterious effects? Will we elect representatives who admit our species responsibility for the sixth mass extinction and for advancing the end of the Holocene period in which our species and cultures have thrived for the past 10,000 years? Are the record numbers of climate refugees fleeing Central Africa a portent of a future exodus from the South and Central Americas during the lives of our children and grandchildren? Whatever vision Americans may have for the future, it cannot be that of an uninhabitable earth. That future “now” should be so foreboding as to force carbon reduction now.

In conclusion, will America continue its progress toward universal health care or retrench by limiting or reversing that trend? Is this the point in American history when Americans abandon the vision of our founding fathers and turn to government by dictate or, worse, by corrupting or self-serving influences rather than by informed consensus and by rule of law? Will the productivity engendered by capitalism and market competition increase the wealth and well-being of the many or just the few? Is it possible that a nation once proud of its ability to assimilate immigrants will not only close its borders but terrorize, punish, and deport them without due process? Can Americans live with the prospect of becoming a pariah amongst the nations of the world where diplomacy is a zero-sum game that America must always win? How can Americans continue to accept hateful and discordant public discourse while their cities become terrorized by gun violence and their leaders engage in vitriolic arguments and uncompromising disputes? Will Americans’ “general welfare” be served best by deregulating market forces that pollute our air, water, and land rather than preserving the natural resources that serve the health and well-being of all Americans? Further, will the national government wake up to science and begin to mitigate the effects of climate change and to prepare for a carbon free economy?

Too many questions? Of course. Welcome to your citizenship role in a democracy. We have more than a year to develop answers. Now is the time to weigh facts, consider arguments, and determine the best policies that address the issues and serve the general welfare. At the same time, we must choose representatives we can trust to support those policies in office. With respect to the Presidency, we must look for somebody with the courage to rise above partisanship and with the humility to wield power with restraint and compassion.

The Presidency is an almost impossible job where “the buck stops,” both figuratively and literally. It is more than one person can bear alone and requires a team of experts to offer counsel. The person we elect to be President must adhere to the Constitution, make decisions with a view to their long-term consequences and their overall effect on the general welfare of all. Whoever holds the office must be able to articulate a vision all Americans can support. The “bully pulpit” is not for demagogues who spout taglines and propaganda. It is that exclusive venue where a President can educate, persuade, and inspire. But a President is still just a reflection of America and of a moment in time. That person may have more impact on our future “now,” but will be elected by who we are now. His/her integrity may well mirror are own or lack thereof.

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* Currently the states taking this tack account for 189 electoral votes. If enough states join this quorum to add another 81 electoral college votes, they will control the 270 votes needed to elect a President. It will then become impossible for a Presidential nominee to win a national election without garnering the popular vote.
** l would encourage my subscribers to read this speech delivered on January 24, 1974. The occasion was the return of three war heroes from Vietnam, one of whom was John McCain.
*** This number is documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center and has been traditionally used by the FBI in monitoring these hate groups for potential violent behavior.