In my first novel, one of the characters reprised a quote from a real Vietnamese judge I once knew. That quote highlighted just one theme in the novel, specifically, “live what you believe or live not at all.” That phrase, taken out of the context of my novel, can be misleading. Two of the main characters, an avuncular supreme court judge and his devoted niece, were on adverse sides of the Vietnam war. And the novel’s protagonist, an American soldier, was initially ambivalent about America’s involvement in the internecine conflict between the North and South Vietnam. Nevertheless, he proved to be both friend and protector to this Vietnamese judge and his niece, even risking his life to support both. And, as their story was unraveled in the novel, the other two did as much for him. The point: each of these characters were living what they believed. Though neither of them changed nor abandoned their diverse beliefs, they yet became close friends. Each of them was admirable for his/her honesty and courage but could not and would never subscribe to the beliefs of the others. Technically, they were enemies. Nevertheless, their interrelationship revealed their shared humanity. And that is a lesson we Americans dearly must learn if we are to save our democracy. 

 

That lesson also reveals how honesty differs from dishonesty—as highlighted in my previous blog. Both the former American President and the current Russian President rose to power based on lies. And they attempted to either regain or hold onto power, respectfully, by eliciting support from their followers with more lies. They solicited the allegiance of patriots, that is, citizens who love their country and its unique heritage. But these solicitations were and are dishonest, based less on love of country than their unquenchable lust for power and personal invulnerability to any moral code or just law. In truth, they serve only their own interests. They consider themselves above any law or moral stricture in pursuit of personal fame, power, and wealth. Their one strength is the ability to transform their personal self-interests into a wistful belief shared by their compatriots: “to make America great again;” or to reverse a past injustice and reclaim Russia’s empire and the dignity of its people. They are not only perfidious, but nefarious in their disregard for the personal belief systems of their compatriots. They disregard the interests and welfare of others. Why else do they seek to impugn the “fake press” in America or imprison journalists in Russia while suppressing free speech? They want their fellow citizens to believe them rather than what common sense reveals as true and observable. They are agnostic about everything except their self-interests. Further, they use any difference they can exploit or fear they claim only they can quelch either to gain followers or to foment discord among their enemies. They will actively—even demonstrably—discredit any viewpoint not in support of their own. They prefer that you believe what they tell you to believe, or “live not at all.” And, in truly fascist fashion, they will assure the latter by any means available to them. Either accept their self-interest or the consequence of their revenge. They have no personal integrity and punish those who disagree with them. 

 

Surely, living what you believe is integral to personal integrity. Since we humans can differ not only in perspective but also in judgment, we can anticipate disagreement on many things, including support for our leaders and conflicting governmental policies. In America, there is a well-known acronym often applied to elected legislators: “we can disagree without being disagreeable.” Why so? Well, no democracy can survive without mutual respect between differing points of view—providing there is mutual adherence to overriding principles. We Americans can swim in a current of disagreements over many policy positions, like gun laws, abortion, affirmative action, and so on. We can even disagree on election results. But those disagreements can and must be resolved within the boundaries of laws and policies that align with our Constitution. And, of course, disagreements must be attuned to recognizable facts that common sense must accept. Only a fool ignores reality. Moreover, though we are many individuals, we are still one people. And our diversity can only subsist in peace and harmony if it is moderated by the adherence of Americans and their governing institutions to the rule of law and its adherence to our Constitution. That document defines not only our democracy but the moral basis for the America polis—as Aristotle characterized any group of citizens in city, state, or republic—and thereby for every American. For therein is defined what is required of each American “to form a more perfect union” and assure not only our security as a nation, but the peace, security, and the blessings of liberty for each of us and our posterity. In a previous blog, I asked the question, “can individual differences be (both) addressed with mutual respect and reconciled by overriding principles?” Unless answered in the affirmative, democracy cannot survive in America. And the declarative statement that “all men (sic) are created equal” must subsists not only at birth before race, class, or inheritance are determinative but must also outlast the vagaries of subsequent variances in title, wealth, or class. In other words, Jefferson’s declaration demands that we engage each other with mutual respect while maintaining our personal integrity as a birthright we all share as human beings. Our Constitution not only defined the structure of our government but the moral fabric of our nation—if only we endeavor to incorporate its values into our lives and thereby realize its promise.  

 

How often have we heard our current President say, “there is nothing we Americans cannot do if we stay united and do it together.” Well, he is only rephrasing the words in our Constitution: “We the people in order to form a more perfect union . . .” But that union is impossible unless each of us demonstrates mutual respect as integral to our personal integrity. 

 

All Americans know—or should know—that the founding principles of our nation rests on the declaration that “all men (sic) are created equal” with unalienable rights which were further specified in the Preamble and first ten amendments of our Constitution. When Jefferson justified our revolution, he wrote that the British monarch “refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” At that point in history the colonies determined that the public good required a Confederation of thirteen self-governed states. But our declaration of independence would require much more: first, a war of revolution to cast off our colonial bondage, and then the institution of a new national government, namely, the United States of America. No longer would Americans inhabit a conglomeration of independent colonies or even a loose confederation of states, but a new national entity under a single central government. No longer would colonies or individual American settlers deal independently with Russian/French/Dutch/English fur traders or Russian/Spanish/Mexican settlers but would now confront other competing nations as one nation, coequal and united in their freedom. As our first President warned us, our “union should be considered the main prop of your liberty” (as quoted in “Presidential Farewell Addresses”). Without that prop, our liberty could be and would be at risk. 

 

The corollary to Washington’s warning is that any country divided against itself cannot long exist. Both logic and history attest to this truism. He not only understood this truism but embodied it. His strength of character alone evoked confidence in his leadership. But he also understood that the introduction of democracy into human history was an unprecedented risk. Nevertheless, he led America’s revolt to declare its independence from the British Monarchy and claim its freedom to form a democratic republic. By unanimous consent, he was chosen to chair the Constitutional Convention that defined America’s new democratic republic. And he served two terms as our first President. As noted in his farewell address, he was keenly aware that democratically guaranteed free speech implies political disagreement that could devolve into a “fatal tendency . . . to organize factions . . .  to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.” Of course, neither Washington nor anyone of his time could have foreseen the America of the 21st century, nor the social evolutions of the intervening centuries. For his life and circumstances were rooted in quite a different era. 

 

Upon his father’s death, the eleven-year-old George Washinton had inherited ten slaves along with his portion of the family estate which he shared with his brothers. His widowed mother received no share of the estate because women had no legal right to own property. ¹ Even as Washington led our founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, there was unanimous agreement that women and Negros should be excluded from the franchise in our newly minted democracy. Application of the democratic ideals of the 18th century had not yet fully accepted that the Jeffersonian truth–“all men (sic) are created equal” — must include all of humanity, including women and slaves. His love for Sally Hemings and their children was protected by his office and reputation, but not by the norms of society. And Jefferson himself, whom Alexander Hamilton—his most avid antagonist—admitted was “above reproach,” veritably lived a life morally conflicted between his humanity and social reality. But Jefferson’s equivocal conscience only reflected the ethos of his time. 

 

And that ethos also gave voice to Horace Greeley’s prophetic zeitgeist for nineteenth century America, that is, “Go West, Young Man.” And our early pioneers did just that, introducing a broad continent to new settlements, the American “can-do” culture, and eventually a railroad system that opened the doors to a century of conquest and industrialization. America was reborn not only as the land of opportunity, but the launching base for robber barons and the excesses of capitalism. 

 

The evolution of America gradually began to address the societal inequities that hindered realization of its founding ideals. From the middle of the nineteenth century forward, the American conscience gradually awakened to those inequities as it struggled to confront racism, misogyny, and the excesses of capitalism (reference “Democracy and the Just Society”). That on-going evolution, spurred by the Civil War, proceeded with the Women’s Suffrage movement, and the many legal adjustments designed to prevent the unfair and preferential practices of an unmanaged, even out-of-control, economy (reference “American Exceptionalism Revisited”). But that evolution still has not yet met its goals for it is a continuum, an ongoing struggle. 

 

The question for our time is whether we will continue the forward evolution of our democracy and economy, or backslide into racism, misogyny, and a radically unfair distribution of wealth and power. Picture the image of a white male plantation owner overseeing black slaves with wife and daughter dependents who could never inherit his property outright. Jefferson, for example, became a wealthy plantation owner when he inherited his father-in-law’s property after marrying his daughter, for she had no right of ownership, just a trousseau of clothes and linens. His black slaves, of course, were the engines of a wealth they created but could never possess. Although America has evolved since then, how far have we progressed with black suppression and inherent poverty, with women’s treatment in the workplace and in the management of their own bodies during pregnancy, or with a fair distribution of wealth and income when 76% of America’s wealth resides in just 10% of its population.²   

 

In many ways America’s democracy has lit the spark for its evolution into the richest and most productive economy in the world. It has attracted immigrants from all over the world with its promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But that “promise” is an ideal, not a reality for every American. Blacks and immigrants, especially the non-Caucasians, often do not have the same career paths available to other Americans. And women often still are not treated as equals to their male counterparts in the workplace, in management, or in politics. Even their bodily autonomy is now under attack by radical extremists—some of whom sit on the Supreme Court. Although the twentieth century seemed to continue America’s democratic evolution with the Civil and Voting Rights Acts and the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, neither women nor Blacks are faring that well in the 21st century.  

 

At this moment in our history, we Americans are reengaged with Washington’s fear of that “fatal tendency” of self-serving factions to steer America away from “wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.” His fear has now materialized in right wing extremists, aggrieved by any perceived loss of license to do what they please. They would rather act without adherence to our laws, even to the extreme of violence and insurrection. Moreover, they are encouraged by those who also assume they are above the law because their office and/or wealth gives them license to control markets and politics whereby they can amass more wealth and political power. What has empowered these extremists is exactly what gave rise to Washington’s warning about political parties deteriorating into “factions” that would compete for power rather than for the common good and mutual interests. Now, in the 21st century, America faces a resurgence of self-serving factions that have coalesced into a mutated Republican Party intent on subverting free elections to gain absolute power over both the executive and legislative branches of our government, and now, as chronicled here, to include the judicial branch as well. How has America devolved from its founding ideals into these divisive political fault lines between democracy and autocracy? 

 

How united can America be when a twice impeached President is exonerated by elected Senators of the Republican Party or when Republican Representatives propose a bill to reverse those duly processed impeachments? Can the rule of law and justice prevail when both an insurrectionist and formerly disgraced President is indicted for multiple felonies while being loudly defended by the Republican Party? What measure of domestic tranquility can be maintained when a domestic riot and insurrection against America’s capital is defended and boldly excused by the Republican Party? How can America support a common defense when the Republican Party votes against funding military veterans’ welfare? How is the general welfare secured when Republicans refuse to outlaw the sale of military style weapons like the AR-15, now the leading cause of children’s deaths. Likewise, how is the general welfare served by Republican proposals that limit the blessings of liberty to the privileged by reducing funds –  

 (1) for SNAP and Medicare,  

(2) for clean energy and clean energy tax credits in the face of the ever-growing threat of climate catastrophes resulting from global warming,  

(3) and for IRS vetting of the often-lengthy income tax submissions of the wealthy to assure every business entity and person pays their fair share.  

Moreover, how can America secure the blessing of liberty for our posterity without Republican support for adequately funding public education to assure both a well-rounded education and civic grounding in the ideals, values, and governmental structure necessary to preserve and enhance a democratic republic? As a decades-long supporter of the Republican Party, I have rolled these questions in my mind since the advent of the so-called tea-party revolution within the Republican Party.  

 

The answers to these questions are grounded in at least three causes. The first is the Republican backlash to the popular presidency of Barack Obama. In successive Presidential campaigns, he ran against two Republicans that any Republican voter would have gladly supported—including myself. But Obama campaigned without divisive rhetoric and swore to support the general welfare, not special interest groups, like those that supported and copiously funded Republicans. He declared there were not “red states and blue states . . . but the United States of America.” But Republicans, instead of competing with Democrats on how best to support the general welfare, redoubled their support for policies like the “trickle-down” economy that appeased their special interest groups, the gun culture that resulted in the mass shootings of innocents, and policies like gerrymandering and voter suppression that compromised fair elections in their favor. They chose the crooked path routinely taken by special interests or politically radical minorities rather than the higher road Obama had so successfully blazed for American patriots. The second cause is those single-issue voters who mostly align with special interest groups. If a gun owner, a believer in the “culture of life,” an investor in real-estate or the stock market, or a multi-millionaire or billionaire, then allegiance to the Republican Party platform is comfortable, logical, and anticipated. For these voters, there was no other recourse. The third cause is the Republican strategy to overcome its minority status in the polls and the voting booth. The keywords here are gerrymandering, voter suppression, and obstructionism. The first two keywords provide enough votes to enact the latter. The Republicans have repeatedly ridden gerrymandering and voter suppression legislation into control of many States’ legislatures and vice versa into securing future gerrymandered majorities. Likewise, gerrymandered State elections secured Republican control of the United States House of Representatives during the Obama Administration. Concurrently, the Republican Senate Leader could and did obstruct or block many of Obama’s legislative submissions. And gerrymandering garnered enough electoral votes to install Trump in the White House even though he lost the popular vote by more than 3 million votes. Subsequently, even with gerrymandering, Trump lost reelection as an incumbent by over 7 million votes. But the power of well-funded campaigns by special interest groups and single-issue voters, coupled with the voting distortions of gerrymandering persist to defeat the will of the electorate and continue to make possible the election of Republicans unaligned with the general welfare of most Americans. And that democratic unalignment represents the “fatal tendency” that our first President warned would “make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction.”    

 

What particularly stands out in the undemocratic arsenal of this Republican minority is its appointments to the Supreme Court. President Trump promised and succeeded in nominating three Supreme Court Justices (aka, “the three assassins”) he believed would overturn Roe v. Wade, all of whom violated the trust of the American people by promising to uphold its precedent and then ruling against it in Dobbs v. Jackson (reference “The Supreme Court: A Bulwark of Liberty”). This decision not only overturned 50 years of women’s bodily autonomy but revised over a hundred years of women’s progress since the 19th Amendment. And this decision questions whether the Justices have also violated the spirit of the 14th Amendment’s due process clause which, if applicable to State courts, should equally apply to the Federal Supreme Court. Not even Oliver Wendell Holmes, the most widely quoted Supreme Court Justice, would agree with this decision since it overturns the will of most Americans. ³ It cannot be representative of “conservatism” for its subject matter was not specifically addressed by our founding fathers. And its basic assumption about a woman’s freedom to decide the course of her own pregnancy substantively violates the underlying principles of equality and unalienable rights expressed in Jefferson’s Declaration that also informed both our Constitution and the basis for all our democratic values.

 

Justice Alito’s written opinion is the virtual imposition of a religious belief upon all Americans in violation of the 1st Amendment’s intent that allows “no law respecting the establishment of religion.” But the Justices of the Supreme Court have just done so and in violation of our general welfare. Their decision also ignores the contemporary scientific determination of a fetus viability or of when a pregnancy reaches term. And since many States are now outlawing abortion except when a woman’s life is at stake or death is eminent, women are already dying during these last-minute abortions. These State decisions disavow women’s bodily autonomy and risk their lives, as evidenced recently by the reported rise in maternal deaths. And the Supreme Court majority that voted for this injustice has revealed itself as betraying their oath of office by lying about their adherence to precedent (“stare decisis”) during their Congressional hearings and acting in defiance of science and against the general welfare of all Americans.  

 

Why would the Justices now overturn half a century of precedent and allow the States to re-establish brutal 19th century laws that inflicted penalties on women and the doctors who provided them abortions? The answer: this Court’s decision is a concession to a single-issue voting block of anti-abortionists. Or, in Washinton’s words, it is an act of “the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.”  

 

Likewise, the Supreme Court has now overturned another decades-long precedent by making affirmative action a violation of the 14th Amendment. The irony in this decision is that it was not ruled in favor of the plaintiff’s “equal protection”—as specified in that Amendment, since she was never deprived of “life, liberty or property.” In fact, she was never even asked to create a wedding website and therefore should have no “standing” for her complaint. This case was based upon a hypothetical complaint designed to overturn a long-standing precedent that a specific minority within the Republican Party has long contended. That “faction” within the Party has loudly protested whether centuries of suppression should be set aside to provide qualified Black students equal access to higher education and whether a mixed-race classroom better reflects the composition of a multi-racial society. That “faction,” instead, reflects the same attitude that once sponsored “no admittance” for Blacks to public restrooms and water fountains, and attempted to ostracize or even criminalize mixed-race couples. What part of “all men (sic) are created equal” do certain members of our current Supreme Court not understand? 

 

Has America’s introduction of a democratic republic reached an impasse in the 21st century? After a bloody revolution fought in the 18th century and later defended in the early 19th century when America’s capital was razed and burnt to the ground, and then after painfully re-united under one flag during the Civil War of the mid 19th century when some 750,000 died to uphold the union of some 12 million Americans, is America now willing to roll back its hard won democracy? After so much blood, sweat and tears spent in the birth and preservation of our democratic republic, are we now prepared to give up on America? After overcoming Jim Crow, winning women’s suffrage with the 19th Amendment, implementing the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, and enacting Roe v. Wade, Affirmative Action, and marriage equality laws, are we now inclined to roll back our progress towards extending democratic freedoms and universal equality? Has the birth of our democratic republic and its more than two centuries of evolution reached its pinnacle and must now decline?  

 

When Ronald Reagan declared our government was the problem, he was not arguing to abolish it, but to reform it by protecting and extending our liberties. During subsequent Presidencies of both political parties, laws, regulations, and government policies were enacted with the same intention—until Donald J. Trump won the Presidency. Rather than announce his plans to enhance our democracy, he looked over the crowd at his inauguration and declared that “this American carnage” would end under his administration and promised to make “America great again.” Since America’s revolution, it has evolved to extend its guarantees of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to the formerly oppressed and welcome to America’s shores “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Donald Trump, however, had a different notion of America. Rather than the land of liberty and justice for all and Reagon’s inviting beacon of light, Donald Trump promised to stomp upon the carnage of America’s past and remake it into what Americans would soon discover was his definition of greatness, that is, his walled-in empire under his sole dominion. His was not the image of America drawn by our Constitution but a projection of his desire for autocratic rule. 

 

Trump sought alliances with dictatorships, while weakening the Western alliances established after World War II to protect the sovereignty of nations and to further cooperation in trade and national policies. His support for President Putin then was predictably mutual, and well-earned since Russia played a key role in Trump’s election with its extensive internet intervention. During his Presidency he often evoked his self-perceived bonding with dictators like Putin, even confiding with his staff that, if reelected, he would remove America from NATO. Unsurprisingly, he would later declare Putin “brilliant” for calling his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine a mere “military exercise to remove neo-Nazis.” (For Trump, “branding” was always more effective than honesty or reality.) He also became embarrassingly sentimental about the “love” he felt between him and another cruel dictator, Kim Jung Un. Early in his presidency, he moved to destroy bipartisanship between the political parties—a move consistent with the unquestioned power he assumed in office. And he endeavored to weaken the institutions of our government—which he ridiculed as a nefarious “deep state”—and fired many Inspecter Generals whose tasks to assure adherence to law and best practices were left unadministered. Instead, he installed unqualified sycophants in key positions to serve his interests rather than that of our government. He misused the power of his office to pardon political supporters and his National Security Advisor for their convicted felonies.  

 

Donald Trump attempted to reconstrue government “of, by, and for” the people into his own tool for self-aggrandizement and personal lawlessness. He reversed two centuries of extending “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to all members of our society into policies that would assuage the grievances of his single-issue supporters who happen to include antiabortionists, misogynists, and white supremacists. They sought his favor, funded his campaigns, and responded to his call to assemble, to protests, and even to join an insurrection. He would reconstrue the purpose of the people’s government into an instrument that serves his lust for power and self-aggrandizement. He weaponized the Supreme Court by installing justices who would roll back precedents of the past half century, not to satisfy personal beliefs but to gain the support of his aggrieved and single-issue supporters. What makes these appointments even more objectionable is the fact that all three of his appointees— “the three assassins”—lied before Congress and the nation about their support of Roe v. Wade as established precedent. Their abhorrence for established precedent was further established by their recent decision abolishing affirmative action. Since these appointees now have lifetime seats on the highest court in the land, America faces what may become the most severe attack on its democracy since the Civil War. 

 

But Trump’s policies and appointments reflect much more than his self-interests and self-aggrandizement. He has irresponsibly evoked a retrograde evolution—which happens to be the definition of a devolution. In fact, the Webster’s Dictionary goes further by defining exactly what Trump’s Supreme Court appointees effected, that is, “the surrender of powers to local authorities by a central government.” In Justice Kavanaugh’s words, “what’s wrong with giving this authority to the States?” As a result, American women are now being subject to the same 19th century laws Justice Alito referenced to justify his rebuttal of the “egregious error” decided in Roe v. Wade, that is, laws that punished women and the doctors who assisted them in abortions. But how should 19th century jurisprudence become the barometer for the 21st century? Was it not that long ago in American history when witches were burned at the stake along with adulterers? Perhaps Judge Alito should go back even further in history when false judgement was revealed in trial by ordeal. He would then learn—or relearn—the fruits of enlightenment. But his voice would have gone unnoticed but for Trump’s judicial appointments of the “three assassins” to the bench. 

 

Trump’s irresponsibility, however, goes much further than subverting the law via judicial appointees. He assumed the role of an autocrat when his Republican Party made him unimpeachable and continue to support the insurrection he instigated. He not only failed to abide by the norms and duties of office but stands indicted and/or investigated for many violations of the law and his oath to the Constitution. As his current and prospective indictments are processed through our investigative and judicial system, Americans are left with the damage he has already evoked in his wake. Unbelievably, he leads the polls in the Republican primary and continues to be the most serious threat to American democracy since the Civil War. Even if Donald J. Trump’s rough ride through American history ends in a prison sentence, what impact will he have had on the mindset of his followers? How would their Trumpism affect our democracy going forward? Can their grievances be addressed civilly? Can a fair compromise ever be reached by agreement on the general welfare? Will politicians act in service of their constituents instead of their ambitions for fame a/o the power of office? Can rule by the people succeed without a just society self-governed by shared moral principles? And can individual differences be addressed with mutual respect and reconciled by overriding principles? 

 

There is a reason no democracy has lasted as long as America’s. “We the people of the United States” have made it lasts thus far. Our challenge is and has always been “to form a more perfect Union.” My fellow Americans, just read the preamble to our Constitution and measure yourselves and our representatives to its prescriptions. Together, we can “establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Otherwise, we risk not only the loss of our union, but the very freedom we so cherish. 

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1 Douglas Southall Freeman, “Washington” (an abridgment of the seven volume “George Washington”), p. 8. Although women had no legal right to own real estate, they could inherit the personal property of a diseased spouse and dower rights to manage real estate in care of their children, including the male children who alone held legal ownership of such property. (Women could manage, but not own? Hmm, some things remain hard to change.) 

2 This wealth distribution was reported by the Federal Reserve for the first quarter of 2023. In the first quarter of 2021, the Federal Reserve reported that the top 10% of the population garnished 69% of America’s wealth. The wealthy are indeed becoming wealthier. But that does not mean the rest of the country is not becoming wealthier. The economy has grown and benefited everybody, just more so for the wealthy. The very wealthy, like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, have more wealth than most sovereign nations. 

3 Oliver Wendell Holmes addressed why jurisprudence should recognize how liberty must reflect a dominant opinion. He said, “my agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with the right of a majority to embody their opinions in law. . .. I think the word liberty in the 14th amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion.” 

There are two attributes that President Jackson and President Lincoln shared, though personally different in so many ways. First, both were representative of the fledging democratic Republican Party of the 19th century rather than devout Federalists like many of the early founding fathers. Secondly, each of them flourished amidst factious political turmoil, ambitious office seekers, and the threat of those “unprincipled men” that President Washington warned could “subvert the power of the people and . . . usurp . . . the reins of government.” While Lincoln often used humor and explicitly pointed rhetoric to cut through the maze of dissent and argument, Jackson was blunt and threatening. And each of these men painstakingly sorted through the crush of office seekers at the outset of their Administrations to select public servants who best mirrored their interpretation of America’s founding ideals and eliminate those who did not. Jackson, for example, supported his distinctive interpretation of the spoils system (“to the victor belong the spoils”) as a fundamental expression of democracy. During his inauguration speech he said, “the task of reform . . . inscribes itself on the list of executive duties–’reform’ being a brief way of saying, ‘Turn the rascals out.’”¹ Lincoln, for his part, began a multi-state tour on the 4th of March, 1861—the very day he assumed the office of the Presidency—to urge Governors and elected officials to join his new Administration in maintaining the Union. His message reflected both his campaign rhetoric and his electoral mandate: “I think you would do well to express, without passion, threat, or appearance of boasting, but nevertheless, with firmness, the purpose of yourself, and your state to maintain the Union at all hazards. Also, if you can, procure the Legislature to pass resolutions to that effect.” ² Both men, one a “populist,” the other a “Constitutional unionist,” formed Executive Administrations dedicated to the mission for which voters elected them rather than serve their own self-interests or those of office seekers, of a powerful banking system, or of separatist slaveholders. They both served the principals outlined in our founding documents and opposed those Washington termed as “unprincipled men” who would “subvert the power of the people” to serve other interests, including their own rapacious self-interests. 

 

As Arthur Schlesinger stated so appropriately in referencing Jackson’s definition of reform, “The spoils system, whatever its faults, at least destroyed peacefully the monopoly of offices by a class which could not govern, and (instead) brought to power a fresh and alert group which had the energy to meet the needs of the day.” ³ Those words could not be more relevant to America’s recent Presidential election that exposed the demise of conservative Republicanism and replaced office holders convicted of crimes and the twice impeached former President Donald Trump as clearly unfit to govern. The “spoils” the previous Executive Administration sought were not the dignity of public office and service to the American public, but rather the power of office to enhance their wealth, careers, and influence—even to the extent of criminal activity. This more common definition of “spoils” is the mantra of the rapacious public servant who exploits public service for personal gain and/or for the benefit of a specific campaign donor class, of a single-interest faction, or of unhindered and unaccountable minority Party rule. Rather than the general welfare of all citizens in a democratic republic, they seize power for their own benefit and that of their wealthy campaign donors and single-issue supporters. The latter include antiabortionists and gun enthusiasts but are bolstered by the disaffected whose generic grievances can be easily redirected against government itself—an odd contradiction in a democracy where people rule and elect those sworn to serve their interests.  

 

Former President, Donald Trump, and many of his appointees embodied the definition of rapacious public servants. 4 The word “rapacious” is derived from the Latin rapere, “to seize.” According to the Webster Dictionary, the common usage of “rapacious” implies excessive grasping, covetous, even unscrupulous plundering. Trump’s endless grifting more than meets this definition and usage. While President, he welcomed foreign dignitaries to rent whole floors at his hotels and to spend exorbitantly for special events and services. He horded gifts received from foreign dignitaries as his own, rather than gifted to the office of the Presidency as the Constitution’s emolument clause (Article II, Section 1) prescribes. He charged the Federal Government exorbitant fees to house his Secret Service agents at his resort—even when they were not onsite. Moreover, he raised hundreds of millions of dollars from his supporters. But was there ever accountability for how these dollars were spent? For example, his inauguration party spent over 100 million, but could only account for 26 million. His Party raised over 250 million to overturn his failed reelection, but never accounted for how this money would be, could be, or ever was spent. The Republican Party has admitted to paying for Trump’s lawyers. But it has never reported to donors how much money was spent on Trump’s multiple legal cases, including both criminal and civil, embodying felonies, misdemeanors, and liabilities. Nor has the domestic or foreign sources for millions of dollars of so-called “dark” money campaign contributions ever been disclosed. Recently, it has been reported that there exists both tape and written evidence that Trump with his lawyer/stooge Rudy Giuliani conspired to sell individual pardons for two million dollars each. Since he granted 143 pardons, how many of these pardons were so illicitly bought? 5  

 

Trump’s enablers and appointees to public service also participated in his or their own grift. Both Steve Bannon, his chief Presidential advisor, and Paul Manafort, his Campaign Manager, for example, were convicted of fraud crimes in which they made millions. But both were pardoned by Trump, who also pardoned Michael Flynn his National Security Advisor (NSA), also a convicted felon. In addition, Flynn, while NSA, was also under the employ of a foreign power and had previously received reimbursement from the Kremlin to attend a presentation while seated next to President Putin—a rare privilege granted to heads of state or Putin’s chosen guests. Trump’s Attorney General travelled to Italy, England, and Australia to participate in his Special Prosecutor’s bogus investigation into alleged FBI and DOJ mishandling of its investigation into and subsequent prosecution of Russia’s interference in the 2016 Presidential campaign. When does an Attorney General (AG) leave the country to “supervise” his appointed and independently functioning Special Prosecutor rather than manage the Department of Justice? What can justify these trips and the AG’s travel expenses?  

 

The spoils sought by rapacious public servants, like Trump and his enabling cohorts, mirror the plundering of totalitarian regimes like Putin and his oligarchs not so long ago. In 1991, many Muscovites faced down tanks that threatened to overturn their fledgling democracy. They resisted a return to the totalitarian rule of the Communist Party. (My graduate school college professor was among those who stood in the way of those tanks.) But the subterfuge of designing men, such as Putin, subsequently took advantage of this unrest and political divisiveness to usurp the reins of power from the fledging Russian democracy. Nearly a decade after that 1991 conflict, the Kremlin sponsored Unity Party successfully overturned Russia’s short-lived democracy and installed Vladimir Putin as President. He had been well positioned to assume the Presidency. As head of the KGB (now the FSB) and then Prime Minister, his appointment to the Vice Presidency was uncontroversial, both arbitrary and yet seamlessly predictable. Thereby placed next-in-line for the Presidency, he immediately assumed the office upon his predecessor’s forced retirement. Three months after this bloodless bureaucratic coup, he won a contested election under suspicious circumstances (reference the ninth paragraph in “Is War in Europe Inevitable?”). To divert public focus from his rigged election, he misdirected attention to alleged Chechnya atrocities, veritably enacted by his FSB operatives. It cannot be determined whether he ordered the FSB to stage these pretexts for escalating the conflict with Chechnya, but, as Karen Dawisha states in her book, “it is not plausible that Putin, as prime minister and former chief of the FSB, would not have been aware of these actions, particularly since he was their main beneficiary.” 6 Twenty-two years later, he still holds the office of President as the most rapacious “public servant” ever, for he has amassed 20 palaces, a 6-million-dollar yacht, and secret bank accounts around the world where many billions secure his future should he ever be deposed. The gang of thieves he had assembled from his Ozero dacha cooperative, from his KGB operatives in Dresden, and from his supplicants in St. Petersburg’s government are now his billionaire oligarchs, many of whom receive millions annually to run key sectors of the Russian economy. 7  

 

Given Putin’s success in amassing wealth, power, and well-rewarded sycophants as his own rapacious public servants, is it any surprise that Trump would and does admire Putin. They both amass wealth and procure government power by boasting only they can make their country great again and by securing sycophant stooges to protect and extend the power they gain by their deceit. Both men assumed office without winning a popular vote. Both attempted to hold onto office by illegal means—either by a conspiracy and insurrection initiated by Trump or by a rigged election ordered by Putin. And both men used the power of office to fill their own coffers to the tune of hundreds of millions grifted by Trump and untold billions stolen by Putin. Although neither of these men replicated Hitler’s rise to power by reducing their nation’s parliament to ashes, both instigated violence to hold onto office as demonstrated by the January 6 insurrection against the US Capital and the alleged Chechnya atrocities that Putin used to insure his rise to power. Whereas Trump excited violence, “you must fight like hell, or you will not have a country anymore,” Putin was more graphic in his call and response, “V sortire zamochim”– “we will wipe them out in the outhouse and that will be the end of it.” 8 Neither insurrection or coup was beyond the pale for such men. Both Trump and Putin were and are rapacious by nature, meaning they will seize whatever power, wealth, or fame they desire without regard for any legal or moral code. They have no concern for the lives and suffering of those who become victims of their unconscionable actions. 

 

But the oddest thing about Donald Trump is not his brutishness, lawlessness, or “in-your-face” infantile narcissism. No, the oddest part of his Trumpism is its ability to attract supporters. Among these are some traditional Republicans who merely want to ride the Trump wave. But many more seem to believe his “deep state” myth or admire his reckless abandonment of norms and laws. It is saddening to witness how some Americans mistake insolence for outspokenness, recklessness for courage, narcissism for self-righteousness, and blatant stupidity for a childlike honesty. Except for this last characteristic, they may be mistaking Trump for Clint Eastwood’s performance in one of his early “spaghetti westerns.” If so, they can be entertained, while still missing the satire of an underlying intent (a clue: Eastwood’s character did not depict a real hero we should admire, but an American archetypical conceit that can entertain as self-deprecating humor). Trump is not a hero to be emulated, but more like a cartoonish superhero who believes he can break all the rules and never lose regardless of the odds. Remember when he promised Americans that he would make us tired of winning for he was the supreme winner who would make us all winners. The problem with that promise was its implicit message that we should identify with his promised victories, rather than our own general welfare—that is, identify with his fiction, rather than our own reality. His appointment of sycophants to govern the institutions of our government was not in service of our interest—that is our general welfare—but of his own selfish pursuits. His appointments to the DOJ and the IRS, for example, protected his malfeasance and grifting both in business and in office. He used the legal protections of the Presidency to secure his invulnerability from the normal strictures of law and decency. As a result, his Presidency never intimated public service, but rather a rapacious grasp of fame, power, and wealth without any personal accountability or regard for the general welfare of the American people or our democratic institutions. Donald Trump is a virus on the body politic that has weaponized one of our two political parties against the core values of our democracy.  

 

While President Jackson fought what he termed the excessive influence of a central bank and its reckless issue of paper money not backed by hard money such as gold or silver, Trump obtained loans from banks not backed by the actual worth of his properties. Jackson abhorred wealth not guaranteed by hard money or property earned by the fruits of labor. As evidence of this conviction, on his last day in office, he signed the Specie Circular Act requiring all government lands be paid in gold and silver (as referenced in “American Exceptionalism Revisited”). If it were possible for Jackson to confront Trump today, he would have caned him as he promised his Treasury Secretary for failure to sign his proposed legislation. (The threatened Secretary escaped through a window as Jackson stormed through the Treasury Department, his cane in hand.) And President Lincoln who led Americans in a Civil War so that America could “have a new birth of freedom,” would have abhorred Trump’s divisiveness and willingness to incite an insurrection against the seat of America’s government. How out of place would Trump appear at Gettysburg, where Lincoln exhorted his audience “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work . . . that this nation . . . shall have a new birth of freedom . . . and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Both Jackson and Lincoln led America in wars of liberation against England in the war of 1812 and the Confederacy in the Civil War, respectively. Both fought to maintain our independence, the integrity of our union, and, as a judge and lawyer, respectively, the fairness of our Constitutionally based legal system. Like every President before and after them, these two Presidents took an oath to our Constitution. And that oath defined their words and actions. Simply put, they were true public servants. History defines them as patriots—a word that could never be attributed to Donald Trump. Hence the absurd irony that Trump won the domination as the Presidential candidate of a Republican Party that Lincoln made famous and then mounted a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the President’s oval office. 

 

But it must not be Trump’s legacy that defines our nation’s fate. Both America and its allies are now caught in the whirlpool of world power conflicts with Russia and China. Unlike past clashes of monarchies, empires, and totalitarian states, humanity is now on the brink of a cataclysm much greater than a singular genocide or another world war. Instead, the Western allies are on the cusp of a nuclear Armageddon. Both Putin and Xi Jinping have vowed to re-incorporate what they considered their lost provinces of Ukraine and Taiwan. They both used financial interdiction and subversive conspiracies, but only threatened invasion—until now. For Putin has since unilaterally attacked and invaded Ukraine, thereby violating its territorial sovereignty and negating Russia’s commitment to the United Nations’ charter. Further, he has commissioned a level of atrocity not seen since Hitler, specifically, genocide, rape, abduction of children and the merciless bombing of non-combatants such as women, children, hospital doctors and nurses, and the infrastructure that supports them all. While Xi Jinping provides limited support for Putin, he continues to voice support for a nation’s territorial sovereignty. But what will be his position if Putin succeeds in demolishing Ukraine’s identity in a land grab of its mineral/coal deposits and fertile soil. If Ukraine falls, will China be enticed to invade and acquire Taiwan?  

 

What future will our human posterity face then—perhaps, a face-off of nuclear-powered adversaries? Will it then suffer global warming under the threat of a nuclear cloud? The answers to these questions reside in a future not yet determined by nations, their leaders, and, within the purview of democracies, the determination of voters. We already know the positions taken by the respective leaders of nations like China, Russia, and the Western allies. But the American voters have a muted voice that yet must be heard. If President Biden does not receive the massive support that President Roosevelt had during World War II, then his ability to lead the Western allies will be diminished. His decades in public service have shown him to be a dedicated public servant, in contrast to the false allegations of corruption made by Trump and his cohorts over the past three years. Instead, they use the tools of autocrats to diminish their opponents and create the illusion of self-righteousness and the false promise of glory, fame, or conquest. But their real mission is their own self-aggrandizement exhibited by a rapacious grasp of power, fame, and wealth. 

 

How is it that autocrats like Hitler, Putin, or “wannabees” like Trump can attract cult-like followers? Is it their ability to identify with collective grievances and scapegoat selected groups, organizations, or nations for all perceived problems? Or is it their promise of greatness in the subjugation of those so scapegoated? Their inflation of self-worth at the expense of others is at the root of racism, elitism, and all forms of subjugation. Such men (yes, they are always men) have a limitless need to fill a personal vacuum in self-identity—that is, their lack of authenticity. They fill that vacuum by the rapacious acquisition of power, fame, and wealth—the trilogy of conceit designed to attract the superficial admiration and support of followers. They create a tribal cult feted on their personality and bonded by shared grievances. Such cults are based upon a belief system that cannot be justified by reason, but by other mechanisms. When we witness autocrats suppressing a fact-based press or supplanting its coverage with self-aggrandizing propaganda, they are monopolizing what is read. When they flood the airwaves with their words and actions, they are simulating that persuasive space occupied by ad men and sales pitches. Former President Donald Trump, for example, makes the internet and broadcast news media his personal megaphone. The real danger here is magnified when they begin to control that private space between our ears. You will know that heinous objective when you see them extending their reach into our children’s classrooms, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has done. When you witness civics classes removed from curriculums, books of literary or historical merit removed from school libraries, and political indoctrination being introduced in their stead, then you will know our country is on the path to a totalitarian state. Moreover, the surest sign that our democracy is in peril is witnessed by the advent of such rapacious public servants. These miscreants will have switched places with the patriotic citizens of a democracy and assumed all the power of governance for themselves and in service of their interests, exclusively. They may identify with a democratic political Party, but only with the intent of transforming it into a cult. 

 

Cults are not political or religious entities, though they may assume those identities. Their primary goal is not the introduction of cultural/religious values into society but control over the minds and actions of their supplicants. Their sole purpose is to control behavior in support of objectives that cannot be justified by reason. Rapacious public servants reflect an oxymoron wherein public service becomes self-interest. A political party under the control of such rapacious individuals must support candidates for office who adhere cultlike to party positions that prescribe behavior that supports its monopoly over governance. Its only rationale is self-interest, not the public good. Its sole objective is power, not service.  

 

In my lifetime I have been a member of both political parties but am now “unaffiliated.” Finally, I have come to appreciate the warning of our first President about the risks of political parties becoming dangerous factions that can “usurp the reins of power” to serve their self-interests instead of the general welfare of all Americans. Today, one of our two political Parties harbors the very threat that Washington foresaw four centuries ago. It is time to vote the Republican Party nihilists out of office. And, as this blog has argued since 2015, it is past time to reform our political campaigns and parties to eliminate corruptive influences and, specifically, the influence of corporate a/o special interests’ money. 9 Unless we initiate effective reforms, we will continue to suffer these self-serving rapacious public servants in our democratic Republic. 

__________________________________________ 

1 Marquis James, “Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President,” p. 186.  

2 Carl Sandburg, “Abaham Lincoln: “The Prairie and The War Years, Vol. 1, p. 200. 

3 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “The Age of Jackson,” p. 47. 

4 On 2/9/2017, shortly after Donald Trump assumed office, I wrote a blog that was eerily predictive of the Trump Presidency, namely “Competency and the American Presidency.” Therein I addressed the qualifications and prejudices of the Cabinet and senior positions in the Trump administration. (But if the role of America’s “Cassendra” had unwittingly fallen to me, then I hope to be like Aeneas who escaped the fall of Troy to lay the foundation for the Roman Empire. Though, in my humbler circumstance, I only want to assist in rebuilding the American democratic Republic.) 

5 A list of these pardons can be found in a footnote to “A More Perfect Union, or Not?” 

6 Karen Dawisha, “Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?” p. 223. 

7 Ibid., “Table 6, Who Owns Russia? Direct Control and Ownership of the Economy by Putin’s Cronies, 2014,” p. 338. 

8 ibid., p. 209. Putin spoke these words to the Russian people shortly after he issued his decree to renew combat in Chechnya. The day before, on September 23rd, 1999, President Yeltsin had officially signed such a decree. But the Governors preempted his broadcast, supported Putin’s decree, and demanded Yeltsin to relinquish the Presidency to Putin. At that point in history, the die had been set for Putin’s eventual coup.  

9 On the cusp of the 2016 Presidential Election that ushered Donald Trump into the Presidency, I wrote a blog entitled “American Revolution 2016,” in which I proposed the following pledge: 

“I pledge to vote for candidates who promise to support voting rights legislation consisting of universal voter registration, Federal fair election guidelines, and populist regulations governing Federal campaign funding and candidate debates.” 

It was too late in the cycle of that election to advance the regulations proposed therein. But, if that were not the case, I doubt the anomaly of the Trump Presidency would ever have occurred.  

Pantomime was an ancient form of human communication that found artistic expression in early Greek theatre where silent actors communicated mostly with actions while a background chorus provided the underlying theme. In our modern political pantomime, the players are candidates for public office who perform at podiums often with flaying arms and loud protestations, usually voicing their political Party’s chorus of taglines and “talking points.” This chorus is the Party’s platform message designed to win the hearts and minds of the electorate. The problem with this pantomime is that it can mask authenticity. Who is the person performing this pantomime? On closer examination, we may find an actor playing a scripted part, often not unlike a TV huckster. His/her message is a sales pitch scripted to persuade, not necessarily to win trust. As part of a campaign drama, a candidate’s pitch may well mimic a deftly crafted commercial and be no more relevant than a product sales pitch. While candidates echo their Party platforms in a recognizable chorus, prospective voters and journalists may be lured to support them or, at minimum, be entertained by their rote performances. But does this pantomime convey a truth as Greek theatre intended? It may, instead, hide a more self-serving purpose lurking behind a benign façade and rote chorus that should or could invalidate a candidate’s election.  

  

Presidential candidates, like Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, for example, played a starring role in their Party’s political pantomime. They both sang the choral theme of their respective Party during their campaign. Presidential candidate Nixon promised to end the Vietnam War. After winning his election, he did so by engineering a brutal escalation of aerial bombardments of Hanoi and enemy infiltrators in neutral border countries. But during his campaign, he had surreptitiously undermined his predecessor’s ability to end the war by secretly subverting the Paris peace talks. That subversive act alone more than justified his pseudonym, “Tricky Dick.” Subsequently, his illegal Watergate venture turned his own Party against him, preemptively disproving his “I am not a crook” testament of innocence. For Nixon sang his own tune, rather than harmonize with his Party. Likewise, President George H. W. Bush promised not to raise taxes during his campaign in line with his Party’s platform—remember “read my lips.” But he did and thereby lost his Party’s full-throated endorsement for re-election as a result. Both Nixon and Bush helped cede the subsequent Presidential elections to the Democratic Party. They both ran afoul of the Party line whether dishonest, like Nixon, or too honest, like Bush. One promised peace, the other prosperity—both worthy goals. Yet both were one-term Presidents. And both became discordant voices within their Party’s choir.  

 

For most of the post-Roosevelt era, the Republican Party sang the same tune, a Republican chorus of conservativism rooted in principles of individual rights, separation of powers, crime prevention, free trade, and a Jeffersonian balance between State and Federal governance. Certainly, these positions reflected American values and our nation’s founding principles, as documented in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Since both Democrat and Republican voters could identify with these values and democratic principles, they could also accept compromise on their differing policies wherever America’s fundamental principles were preserved. Compromise, in other words, benefited the general welfare of all citizens, irrespective of Parties. The competitive Parties could then harmonize and reflect the voices of all Americans. But today, that harmony no longer exists. The political pantomime within the Republican Party, for instance, no longer reflects an intelligible choral arrangement. For it no longer has a platform. Instead, it spouts nonspecific opposition to the democratic institutions of our government—the so-called “deep state,” and the manufactured grievances of the Trump “democracy terminator.” It decries “big” government,” to include the very institutions created to serve a democratic constituency. The Party’s chorus is now out of tune not only with democracy but with most Americans—and even with reality. Traditional “conservatism” is now defined by propagandized grievances that seek the undermining of democratic institutions in favor of single Party rule. How else does one explain the outcry of a rigged election or Donald Trump’s demand for his “continuation” in office? Besides this demand for absolute power, Republican-created discord runs afoul of positions most Americans support such as a band on the sale of military style weapons and universal background checks, the reestablishment of DOJ oversight of voter suppression laws or practices, general election reforms prohibiting gerrymandering, medically safe abortions of unviable fetuses, and return of government support for the comprehensive and universal education of our youth. Instead, the Republican chorus has propagandized political positions that attempt to whitewash history—like the January 6 insurrection, misconstrue facts—like the outcome of a fair and verified election, belie accepted precedent—like medically safe abortions of unviable fetuses, and lie about statements and events recorded and openly witnessed by the public. 

 

The current Republican Party no longer reflects a conservatism that reflects our core American values, but now sings a new tune captured by a constant refrain of grievance or “wokeness.” Neither refrain admits specific definition since the former presumes the existence of “the deep state,” as an imagined bogeyman, infecting all government institutions and voting systems, and the latter is an undefined derogatory label for anything Governor DeSantis dislikes. If “wokeness” eventually finds its way into the American dictionary, it could only be defined as the past participle derivative of “awake, “that is “awaken,” “woke,” or “woken.” But its definition would not then be as amorphous as its equivocal use by the ambivalent brain of its user. The Governor could use any cuss word in its place to convey his undiscerning distaste for anything he is incapable of understanding. Like his mentor, the Trump “democracy terminator,” he reframes Republican conservatism from a Jeffersonian perspective to a nihilist dictum of an all-encompassing grievance by means of a self-coined word that implies the opposite of DeSantis’ usage or intent. Seriously, does he really mean to say that Democrats are “woke,” meaning “awaken?” Or is he just lacking the language skills he should have learned from the books he wants to ban from Florida schools? Regardless, neither Trump nor DeSantis sings the same tune that Reagan’s Republican Party sang in chorus for decades. Their tune, instead, is a cacophony that blunts intelligence and belies common sense. It exemplifies a political Party out of tune with its own past, democratic values, and an easily recognizable reality. 

 

The Republican nominated Supreme Court Justices, as another example, have now reinterpreted the legally defined right of any woman to abort an unviable fetus —that is, before 22 weeks (about 5 months)— to protect her life or a newborn’s future because of her fetus’ inability to survive in her womb or her inability to support a baby for reasons of rape, incest, poverty, or foreseeable special needs she or the medical establishment may be unable to provide. Instead, the Court determined this right does not reside with the individual woman in consultation with her doctor. Rather, she must be governed by State legislators who will regulate when, where, or how an abortion is permitted without consideration of science, safe medical practice, or the health of either the mother or the viability of the fetus to live outside of the womb (reference “The Supreme Court: A Bulwark of Liberty”). The State laws generated in support of the Court’s opinion are a confusing cacophony that differ from State to State and too often put women’s health—even their lives—at risk when forced to carry an unviable fetus until they face the precipice of their eminent death. This Republican staffed Court denied the relevance of the precedent set 50 years ago by Roe v. Wade, that is, of a woman’s liberty as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment and believed by most Americans that women must have the right to decide on matters affecting their pregnancy and the viability of the fetus in their womb.¹ Instead, Justice Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, sites 19th century precedents written before women even had the right to vote. How is the general welfare of Americans served when the Supreme Court reverts to a dark age in American history as justification for overruling a 50-year precedent, thereby risking the lives of women, and ignoring the will of most Americans?  

 

The Republican chorus now gives lip-service to themes widely discordant to the ears of most Americans. It begs many questions. For example, does it want to turn back the 100-year progress of women’s rights by governing how, where, and when their bodies should receive medical care during pregnancy—even at the risk of a woman’s life? Does it now favor public access to weapons of war—even permit-less a/o open-carry laws that some Republican-controlled states have already passed—when gun violence in America far exceeds any other country and remains the leading cause of childhood deaths? Does it want to eliminate the teaching of America’s racial history by punishing teachers and banning books that remind us of what we have overcome and what progress we must continue? Florida’s Governor, for example, has demonstrated the height of stupidity by actualizing Ray Bradbury’s fictional “Fahrenheit 451” and replicating Hitler’s actual book burning regime. Instead of supporting teacher qualifications and a learning curriculum that includes both liberal arts and technical proficiency in math and science, Republicans prefer to defund public education in favor of private schools that would exclude most middle-income and all low-income families, even with the unspecified promise of education vouchers. Are they likely to fund adequately a voucher program when unwilling to invest more in public education? Since the 19th century, America has supported comprehensive education as a prerequisite for an informed electorate and a vibrant democracy. When the current Republican Party sings the benefits of these adverse positions, they are conning the American public to accept slogans like “support for the culture of life,” or “the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” or “teachers should be armed and schools hardened,” or “don’t say ‘gay’ in the classroom,” or “ban ‘wokeness’ in classroom teaching and books.” This Republican chorus is out-of-tune with reality and heralds the death knell of American democracy. It is not a culture of life that they support, but of the death of women, children, LGBTQ, and the comprehensive education of our electorate. That chorus, instead, intones a death Nell for both our democracy and our humanity. 

 

When you see Republican politicians parroting these slogans, ask yourself why would they broadcast their ignorance with not so cleverly shrouded slogans of misdirection? Perhaps, they are not as stupid as they appear, but merely mimicking the 24-hour bombardment of propaganda and salesmanship that too often displaces public life in America. We are not ancient Athenians where 500 or more of us can argue in a public forum about what laws and norms should define our society. Instead, we are millions of consumers of broadcast news and published articles, some of which are defiled by bias, political manipulation, or even foreign propaganda and incitement. For example, Fox, the largest broadcast news organization in America, was just sued for defamation by Dominion for lying about voting machines rigging the last Presidential election. Also, the Mueller Report painstakingly exposed the length and depth of Russia’s interference in the 2016 Presidential election—that is, the seating of the Trump “democracy terminator” in the American Presidency. More recently, it has been reported that China is also infiltrating and attempting to influence America’s relationship with China. Daily, Americans are bombarded with special interest-inspired misinformation and political misdirection. This perversion of America’s First Amendment may be the unavoidable price we pay for our freedom. But it offers no excuse for citizens in a democracy to imbibe so uncritically the words of liars, propagandists, insurrectionists, and foreign adversaries when they would shun the indiscriminate purchase of goods purveyed by a dishonest huckster. “Buyer beware” is the principle that equally applies in either case. 

 

The political pantomime performed by the current Republican Party is a caricature of our product advertising culture. Both entice unquestioning acceptance of sales pitches delivered ubiquitously on TV, billboards, flyers, and newspapers. But the political pitch is always reduced to a simplistic, easily remembered slogan, such as “fake news,” “rigged election,” “gaffe machine,” “lock her up,” “make America great again,” “the deep state,” and so on. The pitch is not designed to educate, but to persuade, entice, or even incite without any aforethought. Watch a crowd at a political rally. The audience may listen quietly while a candidate explains his/her “positions” on policy issues, but they rise and cheer when the candidate raises his/her fist or shouts out a campaign slogan or the Party’s rallying cry. The point of this charade or pantomime is to solicit “group think” or blind acceptance without any intervening critique or rational justification. If the listener already identifies with the Party, acceptance of its product may preclude any second thoughts of its value or relevance. And so, the political pantomime continues until we all become played and captive to a political metaverse disassociated from reality. Seriously, the antiabortionist “culture of life” promotes misogyny, and risks the health and potentially the lives of pregnant women. The “gun culture” of AR15 promoters has no relevance to hunters, farmers, or sport’s target shooting. Ask any combat soldier about its purpose and mass murder of children will not be the answer.  

 

Politics, unfortunately, cannot be so simplistic as represented by the political pantomime described here. To the degree that it is, America’s democracy is doomed. Party platforms sell policies the Party believes will win offices and control of government. Unfortunately, winning an argument and an office is the least important achievement of politics. When politics is reduced solely to gaining power, it no longer serves or is integral to the polis (the body of citizens in city, state, or republic), in which Aristotle placed development of our moral nature. America’s founding fathers were keenly aware of Aristotle’s prescription since it found expression in both John Locke’s “Two Treatises of Civil Government” and Rousseau’s “Social Contract,” two works with which they were familiar, most especially including James Madison who served a key role in defining the architecture of our government. Our founding documents reflect principles that define the moral backbone of America. Jefferson’s Declaration and the Constitution’s Preamble and first ten Amendments (which mirror Britain’s Bill of Rights) are moral guidelines for both American citizens and our elected officials. They should guide the political and legal framework for a just society (reference, “Democracy and the Just Society”). 

 

George Washington was not an advocate for political parties which he feared would result in factions fighting for power and self-interest. He understood both the nature of man and the ideals heralded in America’s founding documents. Since that nature and those documents are still with us today, we are and will always be battling the contention between our nature and our ideals. Each generation will face this challenge and must resolve this contention in the light of our democratic ideals. The political pantomime described here is politics played at its lowest level of crass self-interest. Both voters and candidates for office too often reduce the American democracy to just one or two objectives, like the election of a charismatic President or the promise of a strong economy. Well, how far has charisma taken Donald Trump? He has dedicated followers but has never gained majority support in either of his two campaigns or in any poll since 2015. And how has the Republican Party faired as the self-declared agent of strong economies? Well, since the death of Franklin Roosevelt until the Presidency of Barack Obama, not one Republican President has achieved the highest growth in gross domestic product, the highest growth in jobs, the biggest increase in personal disposable income after taxes, the highest growth in industrial production, the highest growth in hourly wages, the lowest misery index (inflation plus unemployment), the lowest inflation, and the largest reduction in the deficit.² Although both Parties subscribe to the statement, “It’s the economy, stupid,” only the Republicans have disingenuously claimed success in this regard without ever realizing any such success. Only Democratic Presidents did so. And that fact flies in the face of the laws of probability, unless . . . 

 

Well, as the Greek playwright Agathon once wrote, “It is probable that many things should happen contrary to probability.” ³ 

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1 Oliver Wendell Holmes addressed how jurisprudence should recognize how liberty must reflect a dominant opinion. He said, “my agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with the right of a majority to embody their opinions in law. . .. I think the word liberty in the 14th amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion.” 

2 The San Francisco Chronicle, Insight (insert), October 19, 2008. (No comparable analysis was found for the Obama or Trump Presidencies. But Obama managed the country out of a recession he inherited. And Trump’s Covid policies were disastrous for the economy. While Biden has had historic job growth as he led the country out of the Covid epidemic, his stimulus package has resulted in historic inflation. But his overall economic record is still being written as the results of his infrastructure and anti-inflation legislation are implemented.  

3 As quoted by Aristotle in his “Politics & Poetics,” Translated by Benjamin Jowett and S. H. Butcher, Easton Press, p. 314.