Is America’s democracy fated to end because of intrinsic unworkability—as its enemies assume, or of the inevitable ambition of political factions—as warned by its first President, or of the indifference of its citizens? By its definition, democracy should provide us Americans the ability to demand a legislature responsive to our needs, to hold a rogue President accountable, and to demand that a wayward Supreme Court interpret the law in terms of the fundamental rights sanctioned by our Constitution. ¹ But some might challenge whether our democracy is still viable or even whether Americans care enough to maintain/restore its viability. They might question whether America can or should be ruled by the free consent of the governed, whereby the general welfare might be served. Further, it can be questioned whether public consent is even relevant if not informed of its valid options or, worse, if duped by malevolent factions to serve special interests rather than the general welfare. Does consent of the governed still imply both the choice to vote one’s conscience, the wisdom to vote for the general welfare, and the responsibility to accept the will of the majority? If so, then democracy cannot fail unless its supporters fail it. They can choose not to vote. They can choose to vote against their own interests—perhaps due to ignorance or misinformation. They can choose their perceived self-interests over the general welfare. And they can refuse to accept the will of the majority. In other words, democracy’s fate is in the hands of its citizen-supporters, the voting public. They can maintain a vibrant democracy or surrender its fate to self-interested factions or parties all too willing to usurp power and overthrow democratic rule in favor of some form of aristocratic, autocratic, or fascist regime.

Oddly, we are now witnessing the very threats to democracy that our most influential founding fathers feared. George Washington, for example, defined the threat that political factions presented “by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” ² He was warning Americans against returning to a tyrannical regime not unlike the monarchy against which they had just fought a revolution. Paradoxically, has not the current Republican Party already caved to “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” who have conned voters with promises to relieve their grievances in exchange for elected office? Have they not been led by a former President who had used campaign funds for personal and dubious purposes and granted pardons to sycophants who broke the law in support of his lust for power and money? And has not this rogue President and his coterie of enablers encouraged and abetted an insurrection against our Capitol to overturn a national election and assure his continuation in office? I believe we have just witnessed the very subversion of democracy (“the power of the people”) that Washington feared. But is it already too late to salvage our democracy, and is its fate already determined?

After the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin, perhaps our most influential founding father, was asked what form of government was agreed upon. He responded, “a Republic if you can keep it.” Like the other signatories of our Constitution, he understood the fragility of a democracy and its dependence on a free and informed electorate (reference “A More Perfect Union, or Not?”). But are our elections free in states where redistricting subverts the electoral count and where voter suppression laws limit citizens’ access to voting? And how informed is an electorate bombarded with lies and conspiracies posing as truth? Often, these untruths are touted by craven politicians who campaign for office by willfully deceiving their supporters. It is now commonplace to blame this demeaning of politics on the press and/or social media for this subversion of democracy. But who is more responsible for democracy? Certainly, politicians, the press, and social media all have a role to play. But, ultimately, every citizen in a democracy is responsible for his/her vote. We decide who to trust in office and what information source(s) are reliable and trustworthy. President Truman’s statement that the “buck stops here” can also refer to every American citizen of voting age. For, ultimately, we alone are responsible for the fate of our democracy.

At this moment in America’s history, we should be concerned. How so? Well, Americans appear divided and stalemated in so-called “culture wars,” as reflected in replacement and critical race theories that harken back to the same animus that resulted in our Civil War.  Unfortunately, the embattled side under attack in this new “war” appears to be democracy itself. The Supreme Court decides cases based on narrow legal justifications and antiquated history without reference to contemporary precedent, relevant science, or the general welfare and in defiance of most Americans (reference, “The Supreme Court: a Bulwark of Liberty”). And the congressional stalemate effected by one Party can stop the favored policies of the majority and its duly elected President. Rather than debate and critique his policies to better serve the public interest, the current minority Party would rather invalidate the will of the electorate. By way of gerrymandering in the House and the filibuster in the Senate (reference “Majority Pejoraty”), both the Senate AND the people’s House can now be controlled by a minority of the electorate. As a result, even if an American votes with the majority, his/her vote may no longer determine the desired outcome. The irony here is that the systemic protections of the minority that were built into our government—i.e., two senators for each State regardless of population size and the Supreme Court’s check on the other branches of government—have been turned unfairly against the majority. As a result, the general welfare may slowly become an anachronism, and democracy itself could slip surreptitiously into the ashbin of history.

If you doubt this potential outcome, then you are either unaware of this pivotal point in our nation’s experiment with democracy or perhaps you are aligned with the minority who seek succor in a recalcitrant past rather than a dynamic future we can make better. This new governing minority believes that climate change is a hoax, that abortion is a crime under most, if not all, circumstances, that citizens should be licensed to carry weapons openly and be allowed to own weapons of war. This minority seems to concede, perhaps unwittingly, that America’s wealth distribution can/should mirror Putin’s Russia, that racial or sexual differences should differentiate some of us from normal human beings, and that a Supreme Court precedent established a half century ago as a fundamental right under the Constitution can and should be eliminated. I do not believe these outcomes are desired by most of us Americans, but they can be and are already becoming determinative of our fate—along with the fate of our democracy and, in the case of global warning, of the human inhabitancy of our planet.

Nevertheless, there are some Americans who would disagree with this analysis. They may be supporters of the January 6 insurrection that attempted to stop the certification of our Federal election. Not since April 12, 1861, when Jefferson Davis gave the order to fire on Fort Sumpter, has an armed insurrection been waged against our government. And our Capitol has only once been attacked and occupied. And that assault was conducted by the British during the War of 1812. Currently, the J/6 Commission is unraveling the role our former President and his allies played in promoting the 2021 attack and plotting to overthrow a national election. As important as this Commission is, it still begs the question how we Americans could have elected a President who would so criminalize his administration and attempt to orchestrate the overthrow of our Democracy. What precedent led to this fateful outcome?

Although that former President never gained a majority of the vote, he did serve one term as our President. His incumbency—or wanton “continuation” in office, as he enjoined—was defeated by more than double the differential from his initial campaign in 2016. But he would not concede, claiming he could not lose unless the election was rigged. And, as with any candidate for office, he was allowed to challenge vote counts in the courts and request recounts wherever margins were close. But he lost 61 court challenges³ where his legal team failed to produce any evidence of fraud. At his campaign’s request, multiple recounts were provided in several states, namely in the so-called “swing” states. But no fraud was uncovered, though in many recounts, a few more votes were found for his opponent. Subsequently, his team of lawyers were roundly criticized by judges for initializing court proceedings without any evidence of misconduct or fraud. In fact, some states punished these lawyers with disbarment for their unethical behavior. Further, as the J/6 Commission has revealed, his enablers organized phony electors to replace those selected by voting majorities. He personally pressured Secretary of States and the Department of Justice to “find” more votes for him or declare unwarranted fraud investigations into vote counts, respectively. And, as a last resort, he ordered a violent insurrection to assure the States’ vote count would not be certified by his Vice President as he had demanded. These actions belie any interest in or commitment to fair elections—the very essence of democracy. The only fraud here was his accusation of fraud. In truth, the fraud he claimed was his own.

How did we Americans fall under the spell of this criminally duplicitous and despicably stereotypical anti-hero? We did in fact elect him to the highest office in the land. Well, William Shirer explained how Hitler came to power. Tim Snyder, Fiona Hill, and many journalists have recorded how Putin gained absolute power in Russia. There is a familiar roadmap these tyrants follow to gaining absolute power. More recently, Victor Oban, like Donald Trump, has been blazing this well-worn path to dictatorial rule and the demise of a democracy. As one of the guest speakers at a CPAC meeting he heralded Trump’s credentials as the leader of the Republican Party. And, at the same meeting, Trump repeated his claim that he won his second term despite the “fake” press and the “rigged” vote. If he had continued in office, he likely would have succeeded in his quest to redirect the institutions of government from serving the public to satisfying his whims and self-interests. And, if anybody besides Mary Trump had bothered to notice, Trump’s interests have never varied throughout the course of his life—specifically fame, power, and money. When has he ever had any interests in the welfare of the renters in his housing projects, of the gamblers in his casinos, and of the workers who built his hotel empire, or shown any responsible concern about his indebtedness to lawful contracts or to the IRS?  Those concerns, he learned, could be forestalled, discharged in bankruptcies, or even forgotten by the delay tactics of his lawyers—who he hired but, characteristically,  often failed to pay. Frankly, Trump could have continued his grifting and double-dealing indefinitely without the Presidency. Why then did he campaign for the Presidency; and why does he cling so desperately to the office he lost in a fair election?

There are at least two reasons for Trump’s insistence on holding onto office like a crab clinging to a rock in constant fear of being swept away by an undercurrent. First, the Presidency is the best grift he has ever had. Protected by the office, he can raise campaign money for his private use without reproach from the law. In the same vein, he can funnel business to his hotels or golf resorts—as he often did—whether housing Secret Service details or foreign dignitaries. Second, his return to the business world would likely become another financial disaster, as his six bankruptcies have foreshadowed, and current legal investigations promise. For Trump, the presidency is a lifeline and a shield behind which he can hide his criminal pursuits. But, for America, it can and would be a death knell that could seal our democracy’s fate. How then could so many Americans fall under Trump’s spell?

The answer to this question starts with the “MAGA” hat. It functioned as a rallying sign of and for Trumpism. His followers identified with his grievances, followed his direction, and wore the hat. As evolutionary psychologists, like Robert Wright, attest, blind credulity prevails in at least some situations—rather like the Stockholm syndrome or an occult following. He explains that there is a “conformist bias in human nature that people . . . accept an elaborate belief system that outside observers find highly dubious.” ⁴ On the day of his inauguration, President Trump outlined his belief system. He began and ended his speech with grand patriotic fervor. But from his first mention of “American carnage” and throughout, he took pains to vilify American governance, in effect, to separate himself from the continuity of the American system. He had a different agenda in mind. Characterizing his Presidency as a “winning” enterprise, he implicitly forecasted his war against the institutions of our government and his self-perceived ability (“only I can”). And his wins, he asserted, would be wins for his MAGA followers. He ended his speech with a rallying cry, promising that he would “make America great again.” But his only specific promises—regarding rebuilding infrastructure and increasing middle class wealth—proved never to be priorities in his subsequent Administration. Instead, these promises—like his war on “American carnage”—were indeed “highly dubious” and no more than shameless pleas for support from his MAGA supporters. In other words, his Presidency would be, as it proved, solely about him, not about America or its citizens. And yet many Americans chose to support—even admire—him as a unique politician, rather than a highly ostentatious occult leader.

During his first campaign for the Presidency, Donald Trump was not just an anomaly, that is, a non- politician running for the highest office in America. He was captivating. After years on national TV as the star of his own show, he had mastered the role of showman. His suit and tie, his makeup, even his coiffure, were carefully designed to the image he chose to present. He was an attractive iconoclast who presented himself as the “common man’s” hero, the leader who would crush political hypocrisy and the unresponsive “deep state” in the service of all aggrieved Americans. Of course, he was not the image he presented. Instead, he was, as his niece, a professional psychologist diagnosed, a narcissistic sociopath. The only interest he would serve in office is the same he served his whole life, that is, his self, even at the expense of all who might oppose him. As a veteran grifter, he had amassed a fortune by cheating the IRS, the Las Vegas casino establishment, donors to his Trump Foundation, and erstwhile students at his Trump University. His self-avowed motto as a financial tycoon was “winning” with other people’s money—or “OPM,” as he coined his business wizardry. And, as President, “OPM” continued to roll into his coffers at Trump establishments and via the Republican Campaign Finance Committee and political rallies. In addition, he was and is vindictive towards those who oppose him, chauvinistic towards women, and given to out-of-control rages when he does not get what he wants. Considering his many personal deficits, what explains his occult-like popularity? And how did we Americans come to entrust our democracy into the hands of this flawed human being?

For some, voting for Trump may have been their protest of dishonest politicians who promise what they never attempt or even intend to deliver. For others, Trump personified a semi-mythic persona who had no restraints, offended who he pleased, and acted in his own interest without regard for the opprobrium of society or the constraints of law—a kind of anti-hero. The J/6 insurrectionists are just one example of his influence. Unwittingly, they became his Nazis brown shirts. Often, animosity towards his antagonists would result in death threats from his supporters whom he proudly called “my people.” Within his Administration, he quickly fired prospective or active antagonists and replaced them with sycophants. These actions follow the pattern of “cleansing” dissidents as exemplified by nearly all dictators. But they also spell death to any democracy for they tend toward sabotage of the institutions of government. As helpless victims, we Americans became witness to the subversion of our public service institutions to his interests or whims, thereby negating the very purpose for which they were founded.

If Americans feel helpless today, who do we blame? It would be self-serving merely to blame Trump, unless we recognize who voted him into office. At the very beginning of his Presidency, his initial acts in office revealed his biases against American institutions and his shameless incompetency (reference “Competency and the American Presidency,” dated 2-9-2017). He never hid from public exposure. His animosities, his lies, his self-aggrandizement were all part of his shtick. Perhaps we were all mesmerized by his monopoly of press and airtime. But the Trump show had a throughline that spelled the end of America’s experiment with democracy. Perhaps we could not have imagined an insurrection, a rogue Presidency, his corrupt—even criminal—appointees/partisans in government, and the subordination of one of our two major political parties to his will.  ⁵ But, I believe, most of us Americans now know better.

There is now afoot a new subversive initiative to extend Trumpism to all levels of government, from State administrations to the Federal government. Its initial purpose seems dedicated to controlling public elections by campaigning for his supporters, especially for those who could control voting or certifying vote counts. Instead of “stop the vote count,” Trump now wants to control the vote count. He has prepared the public by first accusing others of his own intended behavior. Formerly, he protested rigged elections, while planning that very reality. When Democrats decry this second attempt to rig an election, he will claim his innocence by couching his democratic coup attempt as election “reform.” Building on minority attempts to control Congress, Trump will then steal votes that would assure for his Party—and therefore for him as its leader–the absolute control of the Federal government. If Hitler had not been successful after the Reichstag was destroyed, he probably would have taken control of the public voting apparatus, as Trump is now attempting. The dictator toolbox is always the same: first the brown shirts and demagoguery, then the takeover of government by whatever means—to include gutting judicial oppositiion, and finally control of public information. (Note for America’s news editors: the “fake press” continues to be part of Trump’s subversive agenda, at least until he can make it his own.)

How should we Americans react to this assault on our democracy? Surely, we need to re-form—that is, reestablish—our democratic system and do so responsibly. In this case, reform must harken back to our founding principles. If all of us are created equal and have the same unalienable rights, as Jefferson demanded, we must reform our government to assure those rights include the general welfare of all citizens, inclusive of race, gender, or national origin. And “we the people” must re-spond –that is, answer back—by demanding those rights for all if we are to realize a more perfect union of our democratic states. ⁶ “Responsibility” literally means to become answerable and, specific to this context, “morally, legally, and mentally” accountable for our vote. Of course, in a free society, there are so many determinative influences on our judgment. There really are fake news outlets, the hearsay created in social media, and self-interested purveyors of goods and promises that devalue our free choices. Nevertheless, we can be consciously aware of our American ideals and make them the grounding premises for our actions, including our votes. Is it so difficult, for example, to vote for responsible gun ownership when we have experienced over 400 mass shootings in the first eight months of this year? How hard is it not to vote for a politician who incessantly lies or runs afoul of the law? The rule of law is paramount in any democracy. And how useless—even ridiculous—is it to support far-out theories of visitations from deceased patriarchs, Jewish lightning strikes, or Italian satellites decoding election counting machines? Voting in a democracy does demand a sound mind, as well as moral judgment and respect for the law. We must be capable of as much or be utterly undeserving of our democracy.

We really have no other choice but to restore our government to its primary purpose, which is to serve our general welfare and evolve into a more perfect union. For only we have the power to determine the America our children will inherit and the fate of its democracy.

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¹ The “general welfare” harkens back to Jefferson’s “unalienable rights,” which include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is the principal upon which the Supreme Court can define fundamental rights not otherwise specified in the Constitution. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide the Supreme Court the authority to do so.

² George Washington, “Farewell Address.” Also referenced in my blog, “Presidential Farewell Addresses.”

³ The incumbent Presidential candidate did win one court case. That case allowed the mail-in ballots to be counted after the in-person ballots in one swing state. Since he asked his voters to vote in-person, he expected to be ahead in the early vote count. His election strategy had anticipated he would lose the overall vote, so he planned to announce his victory before the mail-in votes could be counted—which he did on the evening of the National Election. This strategy was just one part of his overall fraud strategy.

⁴ Robert Wright, “The Evolution of God,” pp. 464-465.

⁵ On 12-1-2016, the month before Trump assumed office, I wrote a blog that outlined a few concerns Americans should have about what I euphemistically—perhaps more ironically—called the post-modern world (reference “How to Survive in a Post-Modern World”). On 7-1-2018, about a year and a half into the Trump Presidency I addressed his impact on the Republican Party in another blog (reference “The Manchurian Party”). These blogs now seem like bookends to the Trump presidency.

⁶ In my blog “A More Perfect Union, or Not?” I described George Washington’s first principle of our democratic state as the indissoluble bond between love of liberty and the preservation of our union.

In May of 1787, a Constitutional Convention convened at the behest of the Continental Congress. Its avowed purpose was to reform the articles of Confederation. During the hot, muggy, fly-infested Spring and Summer that followed, our founding fathers convened at the same location where the Declaration of Independence was signed. But they came with mixed purposes. Not only where the individual states at odds with each other on trade, currency, and many municipal practices, but they also differed on what powers, if any, they would concede to a central government. After much wrangling and heated debates, they eventually came together on a singular purpose, as stated in the Constitution’s Preamble, to form “a more perfect union” that assured for “ourselves and our posterity” justice, domestic tranquility, a common defense, the general welfare, and the “blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” They did not propose reforms for a confederation, but instead became the midwives for the birth of a nation.

Naturally, they could not know how that nation would develop or become more perfectly united. For intent is not destiny unless realized in action. And the realization of our forefathers’ intent would inevitably fall upon their descendants—which today includes us. For we are the recipients of an American history that began in Philadelphia and was subsequently celebrated there on July 4th, 1788, after our Constitution was ratified by two-thirds of the states. What have we since wrought that our forefathers might have anticipated? And did they have any forebodings?

As he emerged from Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin, a key leader often asked to settle debates during the Convention, was asked what form of government would be proposed. He replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.” John Adams, who was serving as our Ambassador to England during the Convention, later described this newly minted Constitution as an “experiment in democracy.” But, as a key organizer of the revolution, he favored a strong central government to confront the European colonial powers. James Madison, one of the key architects of the Constitution, had spent studious hours researching the structure and longevity of past attempts to form or idealize a democracy. For no such effort in self-government had long survived in the entire course of human history. Each of these men recognized the fragility of this newly formed democratic republic. Though neither of them could foresee the future, they shared a common hope and trust that their descendants would maintain and mold this democratic republic. In effect, they placed its evolution in our hands.

George Washington, the General that led the American Revolution, would become the first President of the United States of America, not the deputy figurehead of confederated states. Instead, he was the duly elected leader who would represent the interests and welfare of all citizens of a singularly constituted democratic republic. After two terms in office, he admonished Americans in his farewell address that this “union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.” But like John Adams, his Vice President, he too had reservations about the future of this newly minted government. In his farewell address, he warned Americans of a new and more strident enemy in factions of “designing men (who) may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views . . . (and) are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” He warned that obstructionists would put the “will of the party” ahead of the “power of the people” to elect a representative government. In other words, Washington outlined for future generations what might subvert our union and potentially lead to despotism. (Reference “Presidential Farewell Addresses.”) His warning, some might say, revealed a preference for the Federalists who foresaw our national union depended upon a strong federal government.

But Thomas Jefferson, who was Ambassador to France during the Constitutional Convention, formed a slightly different—perhaps more nuanced—opinion of the newly minted Constitution. He had two concerns that he addressed in a letter to his friend James Madison. First, he feared a popular President could become a monarch if no term limit was imposed—likely a concern shared by Washington who declined to seek a third term. Secondly, he noted the absence of those avowed liberties secured by the British Parliament’s Bill of Rights. ¹ Later, he joined with Madison to promote the initial ten amendments to the Constitution that included those rights, to include the Tenth Amendment. That Amendment reserved to the states or to the people “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States.” ² Jefferson’s concerns, most would agree, revealed his aversion for excessive Presidential power and for a central government that might diminish States’ rights. To quote from his private letters to constituencies during his subsequent Presidential campaign, “our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such distance . . . will invite . . . corruption, plunder, and waste . . . The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations.” ³

But, despite their differences, these American patriarchs recognized not only the fragility of maintaining a democracy but also the mutual comity required to assure national unity. Our Constitution’s creators, for example, had labored through five difficult months of argument and compromise before reaching agreement. Notwithstanding their differences, they became equally committed to this new union of states and showed this commitment in the mutual respect they showed each other. Even the firebrand Hamilton, who later became highly critical of Jefferson’s politics, claiming it was “tinctured with fanaticism” and that Jefferson was “not very mindful of the truth and that he is a contemptible hypocrite,” also said that Jefferson was incapable of being corrupted. So, even where friendship amongst political opponents might be problematic at times, respect could still be attained. ⁵

Edmond Randolph, who, along with two others, refused to sign the Constitution created that hot and muggy summer in Philadelphia. He opposed a strong central government and a powerful chief executive. But later, as a member of the Virginia Ratification Convention, he persuaded five other delegates to vote with him to ratify the Constitution and officially launch the United States of America. It may be—as Wikipedia opines—that he both feared disunion and became resigned to ratification as merely a union of sovereign states. Perhaps his vote was simply pragmatic and did not imply his unequivocal acceptance of the Constitution he had initially disavowed. Whatever the case, he did later become a principal office holder in the newly formed government, serving initially as its first Attorney General and then as its second Secretary of State. His public service is an example of a patriot whose politics is secondary to his citizenship. Even when personal differences seem unreconcilable, he did not consider the dissolution of our union a remedial undertaking, but a fatal one.

What can we learn from these founding fathers that still applies to this democratic republic we call the United States of America? First, our founding principles must overlay our individual politics, otherwise we cannot be a unified country. Secondly, when our unity is weakened by dissent, love of country must supersede our differences. Therefore, when factions or political differences threaten our union, we must act within the scope of the Constitution that unites us as a nation. Our forefathers demonstrated how their political differences could be maintained, but still serve the American republic and its Constitution. Washington exhorted us to do so. Adams, Hamilton, and Jefferson demonstrated how to do so. And Randolph exemplified how even dissenters can serve a republic of free citizens. They each did so by honoring the Constitution and the will of a free electorate who ratified it by their vote. As our first President admonished, if we love our liberty, then we must preserve our union. He effectively gave us the first principle of our American democracy.

How viable is this first principle of our democracy today? If history is our judge, then we have often been guilty of some level of non-compliance. For example, if voting is indeed emblematic of our liberty, then excluding people from the vote diminishes our union and thereby our democratic republic. Nevertheless, our history has encompassed the enumeration of non-citizen slaves as three-fifths non-voting humans, the repression of women’s suffrage, the internment of citizens and curtailment of their access to voting during a time of war, and the persistent effort to suppress minority voting. But history has also shown that Americans can learn from these unprincipled apostasies from democracy. We have amended our Constitution to free the slaves and grant women suffrage. Our laws have been changed to enhance our freedoms via affirmative action and civil and voting rights, and to broaden due process for asylum seekers and for citizen law offenders in our courts. In fact, nearly every generation of Americans have been challenged to make Washington’s first principle a reality for their time. When individual liberties were curtailed, we redefined and enhanced them to broaden and thereby strengthen our union. So, what is the challenge for our time?

Perhaps our challenge is the same as it has always been. Why did America fight a civil war? Why did we grant women the right to vote? Why did we terminate the Japanese internment camps? Why did we pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts? Perhaps we did so for the same reasons Abraham Lincoln expounded at Gettysburg (reference “Of . . . By . . . For”). A nation conceived in liberty and equality for all will be tested and forced to renew its devotion to its democratic government and to “a new birth of freedom.” The forebodings of our founding fathers were fair warnings of what we might expect. We cannot and will not retain our liberty if we lose our allegiance to the United States of America. Remember Washington’s first principle and Lincoln’s exhortation that those buried at Gettysburg “shall not have died in vain.”

During the Civil War, where 750,000 died out of a population of about 31 million, nearly every family knew someone who fought and/or died in that horrendous cataclysm of our democracy. The grievances and resentments on either side were felt deeply. Though diminished with time, they are still felt today. The societal/cultural remnants of that war persist today in suppression of the Black vote and the whitewash of history—specifically, that portion of American history from the first Negro slaves kidnapped in 1619 and extended to the Black Americans who now comprise every segment of our society. The current Republican Party has long since absorbed the Southern Democrats, some of whom still harbor the spirit of the Confederacy in their hearts and in their policies. The Grand Ole Party now wants to limit the Black vote and delete Blacks from American history. This attempt at historical recidivism is divisive and illiberal. It also negates 236 years of America’s progress towards building a more perfect union.

In addition, the evolution of American capitalism (as outlined in “American Exceptionalism Revisited”) now challenges that “pursuit of happiness” promised in Jefferson’s Declaration. During the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, it became apparent that our happiness had a financial component that only the Federal government could guarantee. America was no longer a nation of farmers and landowners that Jefferson envisioned. Instead of the Homestead Act of 1862, 20th Century Americans needed the Social Safety Act of 1935. Much to the chagrin of modern-day Republicans, Roosevelt seemed to actuate Woodrow Wilson’s attack on classical liberalism. Given Jefferson’s inability to foresee the Industrial Revolution, however, it’s problematic to assume that Jefferson would disagree with Roosevelt. But the continued growth of Federal institutions since 1935 has accentuated the divide between the two national Parties. President Johnson’s extension of the social safety net, along with the more recent introduction of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) have riled Jefferson’s heirs as examples of the Federal Government’s overreach and of an institutionalized administration that infringes on states’ rights. The current Republican Party attempted to abolish the ACA and exclude over 20 million Americans from basic healthcare. But how do we promote the general welfare if only the wealthy can afford healthcare? When the poor are shown to die more frequently of curable ailments, reducing their access to healthcare does not make America more united, only less just and less equal.

Roosevelt’s Administration pulled America out of a deep Depression and the conflagration of a world war. Johnson extended this post war recovery by using Roosevelt’s highly progressive tax system to support wage earners, the social safety net, healthcare, and public education. The resulting post war “boom” greatly increased America’s national income per capita. Europe followed America’s lead, though it now supersedes America in the administrative state’s provision of healthcare, social security, and education. How did America fall behind? As Thomas Piketty explains, “growth in national income per capita in the United States was twice as low between 1990 and 2020 (after fiscal progressivity was halved under Reagan in the 1980s) as it had been in the preceding decades.” ⁶ Remember President Reagan’s retort: “government is the problem.” Perhaps it is more so if it serves what Piketty terms “hyper-capitalism” instead of the general welfare.

The recent Trump exercise in hyper-capitalism was his tax cut for the wealthy. As the only piece of major legislation in his Administration, it does not bode well for our future—that is, unless reversed. This is the real context in which Biden’s “Build Back Better” program needs to be understood: it raises taxes for those who earn more than $400,000/year to fund working America’s basic needs to include, healthcare, education, preservation of our shared environment, and enhanced opportunity for America’s working class. It is fiscally neutral and could spawn a growth in per capita national income akin to Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Notwithstanding Biden’s agenda, some of what Jefferson feared has indeed already come to pass in terms of “Public servants at such distance . . . will invite . . . corruption, plunder, and waste.” Ironically, it has been the most recent heirs of Jefferson’s Republican Party who have contributed to the veracity of his prognosis. The Trump Administration, for example, welcomed influence peddlers from a hostile regime. Witness Russian meddling in our Presidential campaigns (“Russia, if you are listening . . .”). One such effort—a one million dollar foreign campaign contribution—is still in the courts. Sadly, much of the Trump Presidency was predictable. Just weeks after he assumed the Presidency, I wrote “Competency and the American Presidency,” in which I outlined both the threat Donald Trump posed to our democratic republic and the rationale behind Putin’s support (also referenced therein by “Why Putin favors Trump”). Much to my amazement, my words were uncannily predictive.

With how many grifters and lobbyists did this disgraced twice impeached former President Trump surround himself in the White House? How many criminals and indicted associates did he pardon as he left office? ⁷ How many Cabinet positions were granted to supporters with either a known bias against his/her assigned institution or with no relevant expertise? More to the point, the Trump Administration has reversed this democracy from its initial intent to form a more perfect union into a conspiracy-laden, hotbed of insurrectionists intent on suppressing minorities, reversing women’s control of their own bodies and careers, systemizing voter suppression, and rigging elections to assure all power is concentrated in the office of the Presidency—which Trump endeavored to occupy in perpetuity. How can America achieve a more perfect union if its only claim to democracy—a free and fair election—is usurped by what Jefferson would term a monarchized Presidency.

In a mere four-plus years, Donald Trump has redirected America’s trajectory towards “a more perfect union” to a craven self-serving politics and to a violent uprising against the seat of democracy. But Trump is not the prime cause of America’s fall from its Constitutional mandate. He, like any parasite, thrives on its hosts, which in this instance are Americans with a varied assortment of grievances.

Remember when politics could harbor disagreement, but without enmity. Remember when politicians told constituents the truth or, at least, what they believed to be true. Remember when love of country eclipsed policy differences, valued service to country over holding onto office, and rated citizenship over wealth or privilege. That love is called patriotism. Today, those memories appear dimmed within the body politic, thereby facilitating a divisive “take-no-prisoners” brand of politics. The corrupting effect of this perverse realpolitik is magnified by the press where its every lie/conspiracy/half-truth is rehashed in a continuous loop until it becomes normalized. How can this form of politics serve the public good and bring citizens together in support of its diversive perversity? Its appeal is based solely on addressing alleged grievances. And its justifying arguments are often repeated by the press as false equivalences, instead of the monstrous lies that could destroy a democratic republic. And perhaps worse is its assertion that equates an insurrection against the Federal government with our founding revolution against a monarch. This perverse politics falsely elicits Thomas Jefferson’s support of state’s rights and limited Federal power as its philosophical underpinnings.

But the essence of Jefferson’s concern about a nation’s affairs being “directed by a single government” can be found in his Declaration of Independence wherein he declared “the causes which impel them (the colonies) to the separation.” Most of us never read past the philosophical arguments for his Declaration. But, if you do, you will find a list of grievances. ⁷ When Jefferson enumerated the King of Great Britain’s “injuries and usurpations” against the colonies he summarized them in terms of the King’s refusal to “Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” These were “the causes which impel” a revolution. And, further, Jefferson provided us with the philosophical underpinnings of a democratic republic formed by the “consent of the governed . . . to effect their safety and happiness.”

When the current representatives of the Republican Party argue in favor of state’s rights, they list their grievances against “big government” and Federal intrusion into the affairs of States. But ask yourself first whether they are arguing for the public good. For example, is a political Party’s usurpation of power by redistricting for the public good? Is suppression of the vote to quash a feared majority consensus for the public good? Is it for the public good to prohibit a woman’s control of her own pregnancy? Is it for the public good that Donald Trump must continue to abuse the powers of the Presidency? ⁸ Was it then for the public good that he incited an insurrection against a dutifully executed national election? Whose grievances were the insurrectionists relieving, theirs or Trump’s?

America is once again at one of those pivotal points in its history. It no longer exemplifies an archetype for a democratic republic dedicated to liberty and justice for all. Instead, it has become a divisive state torn between factions endlessly competing for power and influence with little or no regard for the general welfare of its citizens. Its disarray and departure from its founding principles, including Washington’s first principle, is an invitation for foreign antagonists to fan the flames of discontent, disunity, and disloyalty amongst our body politic. And it is also another moment in world history when a dominant power recedes and is replaced by its competitor(s). Do not doubt that Putin and Xi Jinping will seize this moment.

Is it too late for America to overcome its season of discontent? Can it once again raise the beacon of democracy to a hopeful world? Well, I would not spend the time it takes to write these tomes if I did not believe so. My children and yours depend on us to regain the torch of freedom. America can once again be reborn at the ballot boxes, in our schools, and in our communities. Our history tells us “Yes, we can.” As “students of the virtues that history reveals, we become the makers of a renewal that no one can foresee.” ⁹

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¹ Saul K. Padover, editor, “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson,” (Paris, December 20, 1787, a letter to James Madison concerning the Federal Constitution,), pp. 312-313.
² Those prohibited powers are enumerated in Article 1, Section 10, of the Constitution.
³ Merrill D. Peterson, “Thomas Jefferson and the Nation,” pp. 627.
⁴ Ibid., p. 632.
⁵ Ibid., pp. 646-647.
⁶ Thomas Piketty, “Time for Socialism,” p. 17. Please note that Piketty’s “socialism” is not communism, but “a new form of socialism, participative and decentralized, federal and democratic, ecological, multiracial, and feminist.” (p. 2) I think Piketty is characterizing what developed as a nascent movement in Europe, likely inspired by America’s social safety net, but less hindered by revisionist politics.
⁷ “Grievance” is a word especially useful to a demagogue. It is derived from the Latin, gravis, meaning “heavy”, “weighty”, or “burdensome.” It implies a heavy burden one must carry, like Caesar’s foot soldiers weighted down with heavy armor, swords, and helmets. But we all have some form of grievance that burdens us. Senator Cicero, President Jefferson, and nearly every other politician has used grievances to connect with constituents. This “grievance tactic” is not based strictly on reason, but on the felt burden of whatever circumstances may trouble a listener—like a pandemic, job loss, insecure circumstances, lack of political redress, and so on. When politicians can relate to a people’s grievances—e.g. “I feel your pain,” they can win their support. Or, in Trump’s shtick, “my enemies are yours too so join my fight.” But his fight is against the people’s republic that would limit his power. (As Judge Jackson wrote in her ruling against Trump, “he is the President, not a King.”) His followers are more enticed by his fight than his personal grievance which is infantile. And that fight is basically against any authority, law, or code of decency that hinders willful behavior. Remember demagogues have no definition of liberty other than a license to do whatever they want. Their followers then exercise the same license and act just as irresponsibly. It should be no surprise that Trump’s rhetoric should lead to violence, death threats, and even an insurrection against the people’s republic.
⁸ A simple internet search reveals 143 pardons that Trump continued to author until his last day in office. They include his campaign manager, a foreign policy advisor, his National Security Adviser, his chief campaign strategist, the RNC National Finance chair, the husband of a Trump ally and Fox News host, and many other miscreants mainly involved in various financial scams, not dissimilar to Trump’s scams (ref. Trump University and the Trump Foundation) or to other alleged financial frauds for which he is either already under investigation in New York or soon will be (like his misuse of campaign funds to pay off his defense lawyers).
⁹ Timothy Snyder, “The Road to Unfreedom,” p. 281.
˟˟ For a bit more philosophical/psychological treatment of one of the themes in this blog, you might want to read (“Only I Can“) which I wrote in July 2019.

Why do so many of our politicians express their belief in American exceptionalism? How many of us Americans agree with them? How do these believers define this exceptionalism? And what definition of American exceptionalism can or should withstand our scrutiny?

Many Americans would define American exceptionalism in terms of ideals expressed in our founding documents. Jefferson’s Declaration both proclaimed the principles and then listed the grievances that motivated the revolt against the British Monarchy. Subsequently, the Preamble to our Constitution defined the goals/pursuits that would make us one country. Further, the Constitution defined the structure, role, and constraints of our government. As many have said, America is based upon an idea, born of the Enlightenment, and expressed in these documents. Other countries followed similar paths. For instance, whereas our Declaration touted life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the French, by comparison, instituted their democracy on the clarion call of liberte, egalite, fraternite. Though both Americans and the French would agree that citizenship includes living free and equal under a Constitutional system of laws and democratic institutions, they differ on the nature of the society so established. Specifically, fraternite implies a community akin to a brotherhood, whereas the “pursuit of happiness” has an individualist connotation. In blunt terms, the French fraternite admits a strong social bond where the American pursuit of happiness guarantees the opportunity for personal or individual attainment but, sadly, only for a specific class of Americans. It was assumed that opportunity applied only to the white European settlers of this New World. Unlike the French, America was already a pluralist society, however unwilling its founding fathers were to admit that fact. Obviously, Jefferson never had the Negro slaves in mind when he insisted on adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution’s first ten Amendments. Remember, he was a slave holder.

There is an irony in Jefferson’s declaration that “all men are created equal” and in his insistence that individual rights be added to the Constitution as its initial amendments. By basing “unalienable rights” on the fact of human birth, he laid the legal foundation for law on nature instead of any dictate of the state. But he was also engaged in the most natural human relation with Sally Fleming, who was legally one of his slaves, even though her birthright should have guaranteed her “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Despite this personal contradiction, his words created the basis for classical liberalism, the inspiration for the very Conservativism that became the philosophical grounding for our Republican Party, that is, before Trumpian authoritarianism replaced it. But neither he nor the participants in the 1787 Constitutional Convention foresaw a future in which men and women born into slavery would become free American citizens.

What our founding fathers did envision, instead, was a country inhabited by white landowners and homesteaders tasked with building an economy and conquering a continent. The “pursuit of happiness” materialized in a very industrious economy that initially included cotton plantations, foreign trade, railroads, and the individual consignments that eventually metamorphized into commercial and investment banking. From its inception, then, America was characterized by the personal attainments of its white European settlers. It presumed to reward their individual pursuits, abet their personal wealth, and support an evolving economic structure.

In this light, our founding ideals seem more aspirational than descriptive of our nascent nation. “In order to form a more perfect Union” implies that the ideals expressed in the Constitution’s Preamble were merely goals “we the people” must/should realize. The reality our forefathers faced was a welcoming land of opportunity for individual American pioneers. That uniquely American characteristic of conquest and discovery was indeed exceptional and revealed itself in actual accomplishments. But the “more perfect union” defined in our Constitution was a democratic state never realized, but only promised. The promise, not the reality, was and is exceptional. The former inspires, but the latter reveals Americans’ shortcomings. Let’s review the nature of this quintessential American experience.

Americans did build a nation that has proven exceptional in many areas. From its outset, this newly crafted nation was a beehive of activity. Brook Farm, for example, bred a new American intelligentsia. While Horace Greeley and other editors founded American journalism, New England became the birthplace of art, literature, journalism, and the flowering of American culture. It also taught and trained the teachers that crisscrossed the continent, opening small town schoolhouses and educating young Americans. The first half of the 19th century was, literally, an American renaissance. Meanwhile, Greeley’s editorial advice for his readers was “Go West.” And American settlers did so and in mass. Together with the American Cavalry, they conquered the Indian Nations and built new communities, subsequently adding new territories and States to the Union. They also brought with them the spirit of a newly formed democracy, which so impressed the foreign historian, Alexis de Tocqueville. He recognized a “new Anglo-American civilization . . . (as) the product of two perfectly distinct elements which elsewhere have often been at war with one another . . . forming a marvelous combination . . . the spirit of religion (sic) and the spirit of freedom (sic).” ¹

Alongside these hard-won attainments, America was building a new economy. In the Southern States, Americans built a lucrative cotton trade on the backs of slave labor. In the Northeastern States, one erstwhile banker, Alexander Brown, started a railway to connect his cotton suppliers with his Atlantic export operation. He well represented Tocqueville’s combination of Christian values with business foresight, integrity, and inventiveness. Eventually, his somewhat modest undertaking spawned a railroad industry that crisscrossed the country, connecting the western territories to the New England economy. Meanwhile, New England bankers made their fortunes on proffering consignments for exporting cotton overseas. Tocqueville’s “Anglo-American civilization” was prospering with all the religious fervor and unbounded freedom that so eluded the history of the Old World. From another perspective, it could be concluded that slavery worked better than feudalism (which conclusion I cannot and do not attribute to Tocqueville).

But an economy built on exports and depended upon consignment promises and risky Atlantic crossings gave birth to speculative investments. America’s financial pursuits resulted in an economy that grew in spurts, with speculative driven expansions followed by periodic downturns. The American economy crashed nearly every twenty years throughout the nineteenth century—perhaps the worst crash was spurred by President Andrew Jackson in 1837. On the last day of his second term, he executed his final assault on the central bank by signing his Specie Circular Act that required all government lands be paid-for only in gold and silver coins.

Later, during the Civil War, President Lincoln realized there was not enough specie to pay for the war. So, he passed the Legal Tender Act in 1862 which created “greenbacks” backed by the government instead of gold or other species. He literally saved the American economy amid a war over the issue of Negro equality under the American Constitution. He was the first President to address both the issue of equality and the economic stability of the American enterprise. Both issues address the nature of our national character and the pursuit of happiness.

After the Civil War, unfettered by war and accelerated by unregulated investment and the efficiencies of assembly-line production, the American economy beget its industrial revolution. The so-called “robber barons” rose to prominence both in wealth and power. But their control over American industry was rebuffed by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act under President Grover Cleveland and the relentless assault of President Theodore Roosevelt. They inadvertently created the issue of unequal distribution of wealth as a threat to the integrity of an American first principle. Specifically, they famously and brazenly were more able to pursue their happiness than other Americans. Their inordinate wealth and control over American industry spawned the actions of a succession of Presidents—from Cleveland to many of his successors—to protect America’s economic expansion via intermittent legal interventions.

Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the century after America’s founding experienced an incredible expansion of territory, culture, and the nation’s economy. The American pursuit of happiness evolved a country that could not have been foreseen by its founders. The New World breached a continent, defined a unique culture, and unleashed an economy that burned through multiple recessions towards sporadic expansions, but with an ever-growing wealth disparity and an inability—or unwillingness—to resolve inequality in a pluralist population.

Of course, alongside economic development, a new social order and culture evolved after the Revolution and somehow withstood the gruesome experience of the Civil War. While most Americans are probably not aware of Brook Farm and the American renaissance, they do know about European settlers, western expansion, the sub-culture of slavery that extended for nearly a quarter of a millennium before the 13th Amendment was ratified, and the inventiveness and industriousness of our ancestors who built a juggernaut of an economy. These were our forefathers’ major pursuits from the 17th through the 19th centuries. America’s founding ideals of liberty and equality were never extended to the conquered Indian nations, however, nor fully realized by the freed slaves. But the resources of a continent and the inventive industriousness of American settlers, bankers, plantations, and businesses unleashed an economic juggernaut that overcame myriad recessions. Although America did not fully realize its democratic ideals of a pluralist society of equals, it built an industrial revolution that promised unfettered wealth for many. The promise of wealth at hand overshadowed any concern over an unrealized ideal that promised universal equality under the law. “We the people” was segregated by race, income, and opportunity in a harshly stratified social structure. The divide between the rich and poor mirrored the stratification of classes between white and non-white. It was a capitalist picture in which the individual pursuit of happiness was framed.

The 20th century opened with a dynamic Theodore Roosevelt at the helm and with many captains of industry at the forefront of a new American era of wealth and power. So befuddled was the historian Henry Adams by the growth and complexity of the American economy that he claimed, “the new American—the child of incalculable coal-power, chemical power, electrical power, and radiating energy, as well as of new forces yet undetermined—must be a sort of God compared with any former creation of nature.” ² With this hyperbole, he may have been the first to attribute exceptionalism to a new generation of Americans. But take note, his accreditation of an almost divine exceptionalism is delineated by an economic progress spurred by American inventiveness, scientific prowess, and the harnessing of the forces of nature. At the heart of American exceptionalism, then, is capitalism as the engine that spurs human ingenuity, science, and a mastery of nature and that ignites an ever-expanding economy.

The new century began by interweaving American finance and politics with its entry onto the world stage. To quote Zachary Karabell, “as dollar diplomacy evolved and expanded from Taft to Wilson, as it became simply ‘American diplomacy’ . . . a handful of firms became the de facto deputies of the U.S. government, and the government became the de facto agents of these financial interests.” ³ But as America’s wealth grew, so did the depth of its economic pitfalls and the creativity of its recoveries. The Panic of 1907 aroused American bankers to mobilize and call for a central authority to become the banker of last resort and the backstop in a financial panic. President Wilson, who initially favored a government-controlled central bank, compromised with the banking community to create a hybrid. In 1913, the Federal Reserve Act established that hybrid, more controlled by private banks but governed by Presidential appointees. After World War I, America emerged as Europe’s main creditor, replacing the Bank of England in that role. Not only was America’s GDP the largest in the world, but it had also become Europe’s banker, providing liquidity to its war-torn nations. But American hegemony still had major hurdles. The Excess Profits Tax Act of 1917 curtailed excessive wartime profiteering, eliminating shared profit ventures established by American bankers. Cross-Atlantic partnerships dissolved. And the British pound remained preeminent in international commerce. Not only was America not ready to assume the world leadership role pursued by President Wilson’s League of Nations’ initiative, but it also pulled back from the temptation to capitalize on its economic power.

Then came the Great Depression and the withering of bank liquidity. As the banking system collapsed, so did individual savings. While the economy self-destructed, unemployment and soup lines grew. Shortly after taking office, Franklin Roosevelt turned to Congress for legislation that would address the banking crisis. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 changed the nature of banking and investing by divorcing investment banking from commercial banking. Speculation would still have its risks for the investor, but it could no longer bring down a nation’s economy—or so it was believed at the time. And that belief may have affected President Clinton’s relaxation of some parts of Glass-Steagall. Partly as a result, his successor witnessed the near collapse of the financial sector in the 2008 Great Recession over the debacle of sub-prime mortgage derivatives. Once again, a new Administration had to rescue the nation from its speculative tendencies. While President Obama, like Roosevelt before him, attempted to bail out Americans from financial disaster with a Federal stimulus, Congress moved to pass the Dodd-Frank Act. It prohibited banks from making speculative investments by regulating high-risk financial products, required bank stress test to assure adequate liquidity, and provided tougher oversight of the financial, insurance, and credit industries. (Former President Trump weakened some of this oversight by suppressing the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that held banks accountable for unfair loan practices.)

Why itemize this brief revue of America’s financial journey? After World War II and the Bretton Woods establishment of a new world order, America became a financial behemoth and the leader amongst nations. Nevertheless, it continued to have its economic pitfalls: recessions, oil crises, runaway inflation, and a reincarnation of “robber barons” in the form of millionaires and billionaires who have accumulated 69% of the nation’s wealth. ⁴ Now, at the outset of the 21st century, Jefferson’s idealistic “pursuit of happiness’ finds Americans bitterly divided along economic, political, racial, and social lines. The political divide alone threatens the very foundation of our democracy. Is this what are forefathers envisioned? In a previous blog (ref. “Of . . . By . . . and For”), I described America’s drift away from democracy. In this blog, I will attempt to explain why we are failing its promise.

While there is little doubt that material well-being is a baseline for the pursuit of happiness, it cannot be its wherewithal. Wealth creation is important for individual and family security. But, by itself, it does not guarantee happiness. Home ownership, for example, is a primary source of wealth for most Americans and reflects our heritage from the Homesteader’s Act to Jefferson’s vision of a nation of landowners. And yet we have a housing shortage, which is aggravated by a lack of affordable housing in well-populated job markets. America is the richest nation in the world with an accumulated wealth of about 129.46 trillion dollars. Whereas the top 10% of our population has garnered 90.32 trillion, the bottom 50% owns only 2.82 trillion. ⁴ These bottom dwellers represent approximately 165 million Americans living in poverty or near poverty conditions. This “near poverty” class mostly represents those living paycheck to paycheck. If wealth creation is part of our pursuit of happiness, then it can also be a detriment to that pursuit. How then can wealth define American exceptionalism? It more aptly describes America’s failure to provide for those “unalienable rights.”

It is said that the business of America is business. Capitalism reigns here. But does it insure personal happiness? Even a cursory history of the American economy reveals the dangers of unbridled capitalism. While it can create wealth, it can divide a nation between the “haves” and “have-nots.” Time and again, our Presidents and Congress have had to sponsor and pass regulations to reign in speculation and anti-competitive practices. We are a “can-do” people who invent and reach for high goals, but do we weigh the costs of personal success against the well-being of our fellow Americans? Some among us have followed the dictum of “OPM,” that is, conning and grifting their way to a fortune on the backs of other peoples’ money. In the vernacular of former President Trump, those “other people” are losers. So how then is winning at all costs a virtue? Why does a writer like Anne Rand measure a nation’s success by the wealth and associated power gained by the so-called “captains of industry?”

It would be tempting to say that America is pioneering Adam Smith’s vision of a self-regulating market. If so, then America is failing. Smith gave us a baseline for understanding how free markets should work. But free markets can easily be distorted by monopolistic tendencies, by lack of liquidity, by irresponsible speculation, or by grifting with other peoples’ money. There is a chapter in Zachary Karabell’s outstanding book entitled “when is enough enough?” Therein he concludes, “in what healthy system does never becoming too big to fail get judged negatively?” ⁵ He was arguing against the relentless pursuit of profit and the imperative to grow a business without consideration of other imperatives.

The problem with capitalism is not capitalism per se, but greed and the disregard for social needs and justice. Why do Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than citizens of every other advanced economy? Why does Congress refuse to allocate funds to the IRS so that it could evaluate the lengthy tax returns of large companies and billionaires? How can a wealthy President who earns 450,000 dollars per annum pay only 750 dollars for each year he served in office? A disabled person on SSDI who takes on a part time job to pay her rent, pays more taxes than the President of the United States. There are solutions already offered for these injustices. But the current Republican Party has blocked proposed remedies. Why? The “Grand Ole Party” needs the financial backing of rich donors to finance campaigns. Is this the fault of capitalism? Or is it the result of America never realizing the promise inherent in our revolution against authoritarian rule, specifically, that we are all “created equal” and entitled to the same rights and opportunities.

Perhaps we Americans need to redefine the “pursuit of happiness” in terms outlined in the Preamble of our Constitution where our union as a people must be governed by law and committed to defend each other against all enemies within or without and as a nation must be defined in terms of justice, domestic tranquility, the general welfare, and the assurance of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. That union implies a community aligned with common values and steadfast in defending those values and each other. Not even Tocqueville could foresee the community America could become since his “Anglo-American civilization” never associated religious and political values with a pluralist society of mixed races, genders, and ethnic groups from every continent in the world. And yet pluralism is the only realistic denominator of present-day America, a possibility our founding fathers chose to overlook, but a reality we must now face.

Often the idea of America as a melting pot for diverse people serves as a simile for a new world order of diverse states. The United Nations is an iconic symbol for that new order, along with the post-war creations at Bretton Woods that included the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Unfortunately, the American ideal of globally interconnected democratic states cannot be achieved via financial hegemony. It remains true that the long-sought post World War II strategic balance amongst competing nations has been tilted in favor of the American dollar. International banking and corporations do rise and fall on a tide of greenbacks. As the 2008 Great Recession demonstrated, the world economy also rises and falls with the integrity of America’s financial institutions. Is free enterprise itself then a threat to democracy, or just its American embodiment? Free markets and fair international banking rules should guarantee a financial order that is both free and equitable. But the ideal here assumes wealth creation benefits all, from the banker and corporate magnates to every employee, customer, and auxiliary participant in the global marketplace. Clearly, that benefit has never been realized, most clearly not even in America. Trillions of dollars of oil, metals, and rare substances have been extracted from impoverished countries. The sole beneficiaries are rich capitalists and the few rich nations that support their enterprises. Perhaps it is time for a new world order, one that has learned from Bretton Woods’ shortfalls.

But America could truly be a world leader if it constrained capitalism to serve its whole population fairly, without disproportionately aggrandizing the rich. Fairness means fair wages, equal treatment before the law, taxes scaled proportionally to earnings, and support for communal benefits such as public education, medical health services, and regulations that generally serve the health and safety of all members of the community. Capitalism can serve the wealth creation of a community, but not when it monopolizes its profits exclusively for the exorbitantly rich. The value of wealth can only be measured by whatever benefit it brings inclusively to every individual, all communities, and the whole of society. Assessing that benefit in terms of its human value excludes excessive hording, cheating, grifting, and swindling.

Without doubt, America has many exceptional achievements as the oldest democracy in history, as a very rich nation with a world leading GDP, and as a leader amongst the community of nations. And we, the American people, are responsible for these achievements, just as Europeans are, for their incredible recovery after a world war. But many of us just accept the words “American exceptionalism” without question, thereby avoiding any responsibility to either define them or apply them to our lives. And our politicians peddle “American exceptionalism” because they want to be re-elected. They believe an unspecified American ideal can serve as a campaign bromide. Unfortunately, an idealism unlived and a vast wealth inequitably realized do not make America exceptional. Therein is a truth Americans must confront.

Although that truth is harder to accept, it is empowering when acted upon. First, we Americans must admit the fact that our democracy was flawed at its outset by a failure to address or even admit the pluralist nature of the population that inhabited this continent. Our forefathers not only committed the genocide of the indigenous peoples, but their subsequent generations deliberately failed to recognize the treaties negotiated with the Indian Nations. Further, our founding fathers drafted the Constitution without any recognition of the Negro slaves that had served the settlers for 167 years as beasts of burden. “All men are created equal” and “we the people” become just meaningless mirages—unless we convert those aspirations into reality. Until we see through this fog of self-deception, we will never overcome the stain of slavery, understand the intent of those ideals/aspirations that founded our nation, or align with those who march under the banner of “Black lives matter.” Secondly, we Americans must admit that the nation’s GDP and stock indices do not account for the nearly 50% of our population living near or below the poverty line. And that admission blows away the myth of economic exceptionalism. In its place, we find political charlatans who run up an 8 trillion-dollar debt to reward the wealthiest among us at the expense of every taxpayer in America (reference: the Trump tax cut for the wealthy and corporations). The same politicians now refuse to roll back their largesse for the wealthy to fund paid family leave or childcare or preschool for working class families. But they will gladly pay a trillion or more to bail out a recession-driven economy that speculators or financial wizards will inevitably create in their wake as they bet with other peoples’ money to enhance their own wealth.

Have you noticed that most analyses of the American economy and the composition of our population are broken down into numbers, most often percentages? If I can steal a quote from Martin Buber, these analyses fall victim to a “ghostly solicitude for faceless digits.” Certainly, I’m part of the digital age and have realized its benefits. But a democracy depends on its representatives and on communities of people. And people do not exist as numbers or percentages, but they do form communities and live in relationships with each other. Those relationships form us from childhood through the rest of our lives. Why would we choose to isolate ourselves from relating to humans with different color skins, ethnic backgrounds, or gender identities? The more encounters we have with people “not like us,” the more opportunities to relate to the basic mystery of our own humanity. Also, those encounters naturally dissolve the fear of others “not like us.” Such encounters develop a shared reality and the flowering of human compassion. In this manner, human communities can form, and a democracy can arise where people care for the needs of each other. Only a narcissist exists alone in his/her own make-believe world, devoid of compassion for others. Such a person exists only for his/herself and represents the extreme of selfishness.

We Americans must begin to remove the barriers that divide us—whether they are information sources, physical separation, the digital divide, or angry demagogues. We Americans can be better citizens in the kind of democracy that assures equality and opportunity for all. We just need to care for each other, which means to work and vote for the America our founders imagined. Only we can make that American dream a reality.

Let me conclude with two questions:
(1) Can democracy survive where capitalism is primarily and unrestrainedly benefiting the wealthy?
(2) Can democracy survive in a pluralist society where racial/ethnic groups are marginalized?

I pray for the day that all my readers will have unhindered opportunity to pursue their interest/occupation and be treated equal before the law, at the ballot box, and in the exercise of all the freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution to which we all pledge allegiance.

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¹ Alexis Torcqueville, “Democracy in America,” Volume 1, Easton Press, PP. 39-40.
² Henry Adams, “The Education of Henry Adams,” Easton Press, p. 462. (Henry Adams was the friend of Presidents and the great grandson and grandson of two Presidents, respectively.)
³ Zachary Karabell, “Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power,” Penguin Press, p.308
⁴ The actual figures provided by the Federal Reserve after the first quarter of 2021 indicate that the top 1% own 31% of the nation’s wealth. The overall wealth breakdown for the United States is 69% of the nation’s wealth is owned by the top 10%, leaving the remaining 31% for the vast majority working-age Americans.
⁵ Karabell, in loc cit., p. 409.