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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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