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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In June of last year, a certain writer who sometimes dabbles in fiction attempted to interview the Trump Whisperer (see “An Interview with the Trump Whisperer”). That interview had some difficulty focusing on the truth. Could a similar interview be conducted in another dimension of reality, specifically, a truth dimension? Some string theory physicists believe other dimensions exist. So, why not a truth dimension? Let’s test this hypothesis.

The following is an interview with the Speaker of the House, the President, and the Senate Majority Leader. (DISCLAIMER: the interviewer cannot be held accountable for the following statements of truth, nor for the intervention of the Trump Whisperer who often speaks for the President.)

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Interviewer – Let me say how thankful I am for your participation in this interview. There are two current subjects I would like to cover today. The first concerns the month-long shutdown of the government. How would you characterize it and how would each of you resolve its political stalemate?

President – The Democrats clearly refuse to support border security. They won’t even support my extensions of DACA or TPS for a three-year period in which we could come together to reform our immigration policies.

Whisperer – Liberals bleed for minorities and government services. By shutting down the government, I hold the sword of Damocles at their throats. Their weakness is that they care. I don’t. And I will win.

Speaker – Have you ever heard of a Pyrrhic Victory? The President wants to win while losing. The problem here is that he doesn’t consider others’ loss as his own.

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Interviewer – Madam Speaker, could you be more specific?

Speaker – I’m referring to the 800,000 civil servants who are furloughed or working without pay and the millions of Americans affected by the lack of food inspections, of tax returns, of healthcare services, of border security by land, sea, and air, of maintenance of our national monuments and parks, and so much more. King Pyrrhus of Epirus sacrificed his army to win a war. What the President is doing is similar. In addition, that so-called sword of Damocles he swings will cut off his own head.

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Interviewer – In truth, Madam Speaker, is that the basis of your own strategy? In other words, do you believe the President’s intransigence in holding hostage the government will ultimately cost him his job?

Speaker – In truth, yes.

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Interviewer – And what is the position of the Senate Majority Leader on the government shutdown?

Senate Majority Leader – I will not put any legislation on the floor of the Senate that will not be signed by the President.

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Interviewer – Yes, we know that you refused to send to the President a funding bill that had passed the Senate by an unanimous vote. You realize your action makes you complicit in this government shutdown. Don’t you consider your role in Congress to be independent of the President, to be a check on Presidential power, and to work with the House in funding the government?

Senate Majority Leader – The President decided he wanted to add 5.7 billion dollars to fund a border wall of some kind to be determined later or “as appropriate.” That is his prerogative. I told him that the Speaker would not remove her opposition to his wall and would not back down. She might even go so far as to allow the House to consider articles of impeachment against a President who effectively shuts down a democratic government by his personal fiat.

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Interviewer – In truth, Mr. Majority Leader, are you revealing here a strategy that would wait for the House to file articles of impeachment, thereby allowing the Republicans to divorce themselves from a Republican President that has gone rogue?

Senate Majority Leader – In truth, yes. As long as his base supports him, I cannot risk our Republican Senate seats in the next election. Only impeachment would move that base and untether my Party from his unpredictability and disregard for Republican ideals.

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Interviewer – It is reported that the Mueller investigation is nearing a conclusion. Do you believe it will give you, Mr. Majority Leader, the impeachment you secretly anticipate? What if that investigation continues for months? Would the President eventually back down? Do you really think the Speaker would risk her Party’s credibility and attempt to impeach a sitting President who has a staunchly supportive base? Remember what happened to the Republican Party and Newt Gingrich when they attempted to impeach a popular President? In truth, are you waiting for this President’s removal from office?

Senate Majority Leader – In truth, I have no other option than to wait for impeachment or resign myself to the destruction of the Republican Party and, consequently, control of the Senate.

Speaker – Don’t forget about the rule of law and our Constitution. We are a country that revolted against the whims of a monarch that held absolute power over us. The Declaration of Independence lists the grievances we had with this monarch. Compare those grievances with the acts of this President regarding the rights of asylum seekers, family separations, racial immigration policies, the well-being of our citizens in terms of clean air and water, and refusal to address problems in education, infrastructure, income inequality, and preparations for the impact of climate change.

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Interviewer – Mr. President, you don’t seem to have much support in Congress, even though it appears you have cowed the Senate Majority Leader. In fact, your only real support comes from those in your base who believe in you. In truth, what are you going to do?

President – As long as I’m President, I will preserve the national security of our country. The situation at our southern border is horrible. No President before me has attempted to stop the crime, drugs, and human trafficking that pours through. It’s a disgrace. The Democrats want open borders. I don’t. If I have to maintain the shutdown for months or even years, I will. I may even declare it a national emergency and order government resources including the military to building my wall . . . fence . . . barrier . . . or whatever. As long as I’m President, I will always protect our country. If we don’t secure our borders, we don’t have a country!

Whisperer – As long as these positions hold with my base, I will win. That is all that matters. I don’t believe in truth, just truthful hyperbole. Whatever I say is what I want people to believe because I want them to believe in me. My hyperbole reflects my most sincere conviction that I must be right, otherwise I’m a loser. And I’m never going to be a loser. Winning is what I’m about. That’s why I can speak with conviction and why people believe in me. I’m a winner! A great deal maker! And the greatest President in the history of our country!

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Interviewer – Alright . . . maybe I should change the subject. Recently, the press has published two stories that may be an existential threat to this Presidency. In one report, Mr. President, it appears that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into the possibility that you were working for the interests of a foreign government. In another press release it was asserted that during the campaign you told your private attorney to lie to Congress about your attempts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. During the 2016 campaign you repeatedly denied having any business interests in Moscow and specifically any proposed deals to build a Trump tower in Moscow. Can you comment upon the truth of these stories?

President – The most shameful thing ever written about me! I’m not a spy for the Russians. Mueller admitted that story is a lie. It’s just fake news! And Mr. Cohen’s testimony has nothing to do with me. Besides, he’s a convicted liar. Whatever he did, he did on his own. I was only aware of the possibility of a deal with Russia. But nothing happened. And Cohen’s lies are his own. He’s a proven liar!

Whisperer – I have to misstate things to redirect public attention. Mueller’s statement that the press report was “inaccurate” must be called out as a “lie.” And Cohen’s testimony, whether in the past or in the future, has to be characterized as a “lie” told by a proven liar. Notice how often I use the word “lie” and look for any chance to call out the press as “fake news.” When the public hears it often enough, they accept that it must be true. Brilliant, no?

Speaker – May I comment? The public has a right to know the truth. We must maintain the integrity of the Mueller investigation and interpret his outcome on the evidence uncovered. Calling the press “fake news” and refuting sworn testimony before it’s even presented are statements that fail to recognize Constitutional guarantees of a free press and due process before the law. It may be true that part or all of this recent press report is “inaccurate,” and it is true that Mr. Cohen has admitted to lying to Congress, but we cannot draw the conclusion that all press reports are fake or that everything Mr. Cohen says is a lie.

Whisperer – Madame Speaker, you are so naïve! Only losers parse words. I’m a fighter. Your base is not as strong as mine. You sound “politically correct.” But I’m President. I won in a landslide. I even overcame the Democrats’ massive voter fraud. Maybe I’m not politically correct, but I’m a winner. You lose!

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Interviewer – OK, you’ve both made your points. What is the Senate Majority Leader’s position on this topic? Do you, sir, have anything to say about this reported counterintelligence investigation or Mr. Cohen’s past or future testimony before Congress? (Pause) Mr. Majority Leader, in truth, what is your position on these matters?

Senate Majority Leader – In truth, these are not legislative matters. I’m busy preparing legislation that will put the President’s proposals on border security before the Senate. I want to broker a compromise that will open the government and address the President’s priorities.

Speaker – Please, Mitch, you can’t possibly . . .. Really? The President is going to grant a 3-year extension to DACA, after he cancelled the program? Likewise, he’s going to do the same for the Temporary Protected status of thousands of victims of catastrophic conditions or natural disasters in Honduras, San Salvador, Haiti, and Nepal. Again, he’s going to extend the life of a program he has terminated. You realize that DACA and TPS together affect nearly a million Americans in addition to their families.  These people have lived here their whole lives, raised families, gone to college, or, in some cases, served in our military. Even this shutdown is the result of his stipulation that he would veto a government funding bill that he had previously supported. Put bluntly, he wants to fix what he has broken. The President’s proposals are not so subtlety covering up his disastrous decisions while at the same time pretending to justify his equally disastrous decision to shutdown the government. Mitch, if you give him what he wants, he will shutdown the government whenever he feels the urge to overrule the Congress. That is what is meant by a Constitutional crisis! We in Congress have a duty to check a rogue President!

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Interviewer – Alright . . . ok, I think we now know what it’s like to be in the truth dimension. The truth carries no less passion there than in the political arena. I see the Trump’s Whisperer has removed his black hood and has a likely rebuttal.

Whisperer – She’s a left-wing extremist. The Democrats want open borders. If they have their way, we’ll have murderers and rapists in our neighborhoods! They refuse to negotiate an end to the shutdown even when I give them what they have always wanted. They are obstructionists. Even their radical left supporters will tire of the Speaker’s empty promises for free education, healthcare, and hand-outs. She would bankrupt the government just to foil my efforts to make America great again. It’s so sad.

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Interviewer – Please, Madam Speaker, I see you want to respond. But this back-and-forth volley can go on forever while no meaningful solutions will ever be considered. Obviously, it is difficult to stay in the truth dimension. This interview has just fallen on its own sword.

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 In conclusion: this journey into a truth dimension makes a poor writer of fiction wonder whether truth is stranger than fiction. Perhaps we are all mesmerized and living in an alternate reality. As a representative political figure of antiquity questioned, “what is truth?”

(SECOND DISCLAIMER: If my readers are wondering how America fell into this alternate reality, they can review one opinion on this fall from grace and truth in “The Manchurian Party.”)

America has proven it can do a lot of things. It threw off the yoke of despotism to become a representative democracy. It suffered and overcame the existential threat of a civil war to realize more fully the promise of freedom and equality for all its citizens. When that promise still proved unfulfilled, the American government legislated amendments to its Constitution guaranteeing due process under the law for everyone and voting rights for all regardless of race or gender. In its roots then, America never donned the cloak of perfection, as a fully realized ideal, but instead saw itself, according to our second President, as an “experiment” in democracy. More than a century later, when Churchill became frustrated with American foreign policy, he correctly caught the zeitgeist of the young nation when he said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” In my own words, I would say we are a nation that proceeds by trial and – sometimes tragically – by error.

At times, trying “everything else” has been painful. Subsequent to the World Wars of the 20th century, our young nation emerged as a world leader and established itself as a military power. But, after assuming military preeminence, we stumbled into many conflicts that may befuddle historians. Does the average American know why we fought the Korean War or the Vietnam War? Or what we gained from those wars? We still do not have a peace treaty with North Korea. And all we gained from the Vietnam fiasco was several hundred thousand dead or wounded soldiers and a “victorious” body count of over a million Vietnamese. In recent times America has been militarily involved in various campaigns such as Iran (1980, 1987-88), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq/Il Qaeda/ISIS (1991-2011, 2014-2016), Somalia (1992-93, 2007-present), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan/Il Qaeda/ISIS (1998, 2001-present), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-present), Pakistan/Il Qaeda/ISIS (2004-present), Syria/ISIS (2014-present) and many other post World War II military interventions within our own hemisphere. America’s “can-do” attitude sometimes preempts a “must-do” justification.

Fortunately, America can “do the right thing” as well. American ideals have driven diplomatic efforts to establish an international order that promotes commerce, resolves trade issues, establishes banking practices, resolves border disputes, and in general defines relationships among nations. Amongst the benefits of this international order are an absence of world wars, a global interdependent economy, and the meteoric rise of new developing nations. These successes have established America as a leader in world diplomacy and shown the world what America can do when it is aligned with its own ideals.

The question my blogs often address is whether we remain aligned with those ideals. One of my college buddies recently questioned whether I was too partisan in my criticism of Donald Trump. But I do not believe in partisanship. Instead, I put my faith in our founding ideals and in their promise of further elucidation in changing times. Party loyalty should never trump the will of the people to realize those ideals. President John Adams, whom I quoted above, warned us about the divisiveness of political parties. And President George Washington identified a “fatal tendency . . . to organize factions . . . to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of the party.” Our founding fathers may not have been perfect or totally non-partisan; but they believed in reasoned debate and compromise—neither of which are prevalent in our political campaigns or legislature. Today, the political leaders of our major Parties tend to focus less on reason than on emotions, like fear and hate. The Parties rant and rave as if in tribal warfare rather than policy debates. They scapegoat opponents and sometimes those less able to defend themselves – like the undocumented, the immigrant or racial minorities – with conspiracy theories, unsupported evidence, made-up facts, and imagined threats to our jobs, our personal safety, and national security. Now, under Trump’s leadership, there is even an attempt to defend America against these scapegoated minions who allegedly threaten our way of life. He orders the military to secure our border from the impoverished and victimized, many of whom are merely seeking asylum. His Attorney General maximizes penalties for non-violent crimes, effectively putting minorities in the crosshairs of the law. He uses the internment of children as a detriment to asylum seekers. He says he speaks for his supporters and for a nationalist agenda that will “make America great again.” But how does “nationalism” and his agenda align with American ideals?

First, how does Trump define “nationalism?” Is it love of country? Well, that love is called patriotism. Anybody can love his/her country without being a nationalist. I think every one of our Presidents loved America without calling themselves “nationalist.” If what is meant is a belief in the special identity of America in world history and the loyalty owed to that identity, then nationalism can align with patriotism. But, in contemporary parlance, nationalism means something more specific. For example, Trump claims that he believes in “America first” and its need to follow its own interest without regard to international alliances, multilateral trade agreements, or any norms or laws that might restrict it from “winning.” In other words, for Trump “nationalism” means that America must be the preeminent power in the world and all others must succumb to it. Therefore, his supporters owe the nation—and Donald Trump—unwavering loyalty as a result. His “nationalism” is a system of belief that demands almost absolute adherence without regard to truth or reason. It is the very definition of radicalism. And it aligns more with the leaders of the Axis Powers of the 20th century than with our Constitution or Declaration of Independence.

Second, what is the Trump agenda? I have outlined it in previous blogs: it includes the appointments of unqualified sycophants who often oppose the very institutions they manage; and it often disregards the Constitution. For example, he opposes the Constitutional provisions of citizenship by birthright, of due process, of freedom of the press, and of the Senate’s authority to approve his nomination of a cabinet level official. He wants to deport the children of immigrants, not only the DACA dreamers, but even those born here. He denies due process to asylum seekers and to their children whom he places in internment camps. He calls the press “the enemy of the people,” even restricting media access to public information and denying reporters access to formal press briefings. He has appointed an Attorney General without seeking the Constitutional authority relegated to the Senate for approval of his nominee. Further, his Executive Orders have failed to pass enumerable Constitutional and legal challenges in the courts. California alone has won 29 of those cases with no defeats. He defies the emoluments clause of the Constitution. And he threatens to use military force to defend Americans against immigrant “invaders,” even though the use of the military for domestic law enforcement violates the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. No American President has ever run afoul of the law as much as Donald Trump. His actions defy the Constitution and the rule of law whenever they present obstacles to his authority and power. Again, his agenda resurrects 20th century history neither Americans nor global citizens would choose to repeat.

How does one justify the actions of a President who is at odds with the very structure of the American government? I believe there is no justification for his actions. But his Presidency is justified by his election. Then how do we explain this anomaly? Or why did we elect him? I believe the answer to that question lies in public opinion and belief, or more specifically, in the ability of propaganda to influence public opinion and belief. There is a quote in Yuval Noah Harari’s recent bestseller (“21 Lessons for the 21st Century”) that implanted itself in my mind: “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly—it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” When Hitler wrote those words in Mein Kampf, he presaged the likes of “fake news,” “enemy of the people,” “make America great again,” “America first,” “crooked Hillary,” “immigrant invaders,” and so on. Only a talented demagogue can dupe a nation and manufacture facts and evidence to support the con. Donald Trump has that talent and is making history. But when will his supporters realize the costs?

President Trump has attempted to address many real issues, such as North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, China’s unfair trade policies, NATO countries participation in their own defense, regulatory reform, and tax/deficit adjustments. History will decide the outcome of his policies, however intentioned or effective. But how will the Presidency be changed in the process? Or America’s Constitution and the rule of law survive? Is the price worth the admission to the greatest reality show of the 21st Century? Should we allow this performance to continue? My answer: NO, WE CANNOT!