“What’s past is prologue.”[i] Maybe,
but I’m losing faith in Antonio’s theory that what got us here justifies our
next steps. In normal times people vote. Then they sit at home to watch how well
their thinking meshes with their neighbors’. One person declares victory. The
loser calls the winner with congratulations. They pledge to unite both sides,
and the world moves on. How long ago was that? It may not portend our
experience next month.
Shaking things up a bit is always a good thing,
especially if it makes us question our certainties; The last gasp of breath in an argument lost is, because-its-always-been-done-this-way. It’s been a long
time since we have had this much disruption in the governing process and the
upending of the institutions that hold us together. The daily barrage of
missiles lobbed at our way of life has created havoc, loss of national dignity,
and our position as a leader of the free world. Worst of all, our trust in each
other, our trust in our institutions, our trust that the common good will
prevail is lost. We watch two-hundred-fifty years of trying to be more perfect evaporate
before us. We watch as the global stabilization efforts of the last 75 years
are shredded by the very power that created them.
At the end of World War II, the surviving nations
cobbled together a series of agreements intended to help save all of us from annihilation. The nations of the world decided that the
safety of all demanded a community of all. For the most part, the new approach
helped. The UN provides a forum and a mechanism for the nations of the world to
cooperate, to discuss their differences, and to help quell uprisings by
illegitimate dictators. NATO was created to provide for the basic defense of
Western Europe, the US, and Canada against an invasion by Russia or other
communist countries; Article five said that an attack against one member was an
attack against all members. All the members came to the defense of the US after
9-11. Free trade agreements regulated, to the extent possible among competing marketplaces,
global trade etiquette, and arms treaties prevented more use of atomic weapons.
It worked as best it could. Hundreds of nations met in Paris and agreed to
exert efforts to slow climate change. The US, frankly, was the instigator of
these international agreements, pacts, and treaties. Until we weren’t.
An “America First” approach has upended the dynamics
of almost every aspect of our relations with other nations and efforts directed
at the common good. There was strong support for this new approach from a small
but very vocal minority. Many felt that
the two coasts and urban areas had ignored them long enough, especially those
who adhered to strongly held orthodox religious beliefs or who lost their jobs
to other nations. Globalism became the enemy rather than the equalizing friend.
When a parent can’t look forward to their kids affording college or living
better than the previous generation, the plight for a different type of leader
and a different set of priorities and values can manifest itself quickly and
strongly. The willingness to risk upheaval seems worth it.
The COVID-19 shutdown added another illustration of the
fragility of our economic system. Small business owners could not survive for
more than a month or two. Manufacturing companies learned that they didn’t need
low-skilled workers when robots could do the work cheaper. Today’s
manufacturing plants now need computer programmers to keep the robots working,
but they don’t need many assemblers. President Trump ran on a platform that
thumbed its nose at the world on so many fronts that except for our armed forces
and our market size we are nearly invisible on the world stage. New world trade
agreements don’t include us. International assistance to the poor and the
hungry don’t include us. People in other countries wonder if we are a broken
nation.
A few examples illustrate the current extreme
disregard for our institutional heritage. On too many occasions White House managers
instructed the CDC to change its recommendations to meat processing plants, public
transit agencies, state school chiefs, and governors to conform more closely to
their public relations. The CDC has never been a pawn of the ruling party, but
rather known worldwide for its high level of scientific research, practical advice, and in-depth solutions to public health issues. And yet, the President ignored
their advice, mocked those who did. Even after contracting the virus himself,
he refused to follow practical medical advice. The interference by politicians has
caused uncertainty for local leaders and created a lack of trust in the crown jewels of government agencies. Two-hundred-fifteen
thousand people have died because the government engendered confusion about how
to stay safe in the pandemic, and promoted a lack of trust in the CDC.
The military was never an adjunct of the party in
power, to be used for internal control. And yet, the Chief of Staff of the
armed forces walked beside the President to a photo op. The administration told
the press that it trusted the word of the Russian President over the US intelligence
community when it came to questions of interfering in our elections. He even
revealed classified information and methods to the Russian Foreign Minister and
Ambassador when they visited the Oval Office. Unheard of!
The administration publically denigrated the Federal
Reserve and its Governors because it didn’t lower interest rates quickly enough.
While not always agreeing with the Fed’s actions, all presidents have respected
its intended independence from political influence.
The White House Chief of Staff, or anyone else in
the administration, never rose up in public anger when they learned that the
Kremlin and Iran were paying huge bounties for the death of American troops.
And then there was the impeachment. And then there is the lying. Most of these
things don’t bother devoted followers. Many would say, “Gee you think that’s bad, you ought to see what the other party did
when it was in office.”
Back in the mid-1990s, a friend of mine mentioned
that his brother was visiting from Bagdad. I asked what impressed him most
about the US, on this his first visit. He told me his brother was intrigued by
how much we followed the rules. We stopped for red lights; we let people use
the crosswalks before we drive on, we stay on our side of the road. The little
things make a nation, a culture, a set of norms, and a level of trust. We trust
that others will follow the norms of behavior which makes us safer. We trust
our public healthcare workers because they follow the science and not the
politics. We know our political leaders are politicians, but we still want to
trust them to try to make us the best that we can be. When
our leaders lie to us, we no longer trust them. When trust evaporates, brute
power steps in. We witness the rise of armed private militias bent on causing
civil unrest and we lose trust in our government to govern. We see
administration leaders questioning the validity of the election process and
deliberately refusing to guarantee a peaceful transition of power, and we lose
trust.
A recent PEW survey asked, “has the US controlled
the outbreak (COVID-19) as well as it could have been done?”[ii] Those
Republicans who got 90% or more of their news from Fox News or talk Radio said
yes and 9% said no. Three percent of Democrats who get their news primarily from
MSNBC/CNN/NPR/NYT said yes and 97% said no. The graph of these survey results
is a picture of the distrust that half of us have for the other half of
America.
David Brooks wrote about this collapsing level of
trust that is devastating America.[iii]
In his seminal essay, he posits that what created today’s situation will not go
away if Trump is defeated. “Social trust is a
measure of the moral quality of a society—of whether the people and
institutions in it are trustworthy, whether they keep their promises and work
for the common good. When people in a church lose faith or trust in God, the
church collapses. When people in a society lose faith or trust in their
institutions and in each other, the nation collapses.”
The
question before us is how much we are willing to destroy people’s trust in our
institutions, from the Constitution downward, until the nation collapses. Moderates
in either party were once the bulwark of the political
system. Today they are treated as pariahs; either not conservative enough or
not progressive enough. The rule of thumb that candidates run to their bases in
primaries and to the middle during the general election was repealed a couple
of decades ago. The result is a Congress wallowing more in party ideology than
in the true needs of the nation, in mutual hate rather than peaceful bantering
with the loyal opposition, of government agencies afraid to carry out their
missions, and top-level officials with their eyes on the elections two years
from the day they were elected for the current term.
The
breach of trust grew slowly over the years until it reached its zenith with our
current president who is an expert at creating chaos, demeaning people and
institutions, dividing opposing coalitions, and maintaining a strong base of support
by like-minded people, all at the same time. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us, “Darkness
cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate,
only love can do that.” We could use a little love right now.
Do
we want the present to be our great-grandchildren’s prologue? Do we want their
story to be of a backsliding democracy?
