The Government that Governs Least?

 

Henry David Thoreau taught us that the government that governs least governs best. Many of us grew up in cultures that insisted that any government that treaded beyond the red line of least was to be questioned, to be distrusted, and to be eradicated. The notion was and still is the balm of real conservatism in America.

 

The religion of small government shows its ideal in the Vermont Town Meeting, held early each March. That is where and when they approve the Town and School budget and taxes to support them, where locals can spout off on nearly any subject and get a respectful hearing. I attended one Town Meeting where there was near-unanimous agreement that the town should begin a kindergarten. Who could oppose that? Later in the meeting, the school budget and tax were approved. Neither included money for the kindergarten. People want things that they are not willing to pay for, sometimes.

 

John F Kennedy preached a form of politics that claimed that government could be a force for good, that it had the power to transform lives. That was, for the time, quite a radical idea, not to be trusted or supported. President Regan told us that government wasn’t the answer, but the problem. We believed that too, many still do.

 

Thoreau was right for his time. I wonder if his ideas are right for today’s America. It is a dividing issue for many. Good old-fashioned conservatism wrote the rubric of low taxes, little government, and self-reliance. The idea that we are all born equal, but on our own after that implies a level playing field and equal opportunity. That is our ideal, shouted loud and often, but not always our reality. We aren’t the agricultural nation of two or three centuries ago. We live, at least half of us, within fifty miles of the oceans, cramped into tall buildings or houses with small lots. Most of us can’t stand on our front porch and see forever, determined to move if we see the smoke rising from a distant chimney.

 

President Biden went before a covid-safe Congress to deliver a summary of his first 100 days and to lay out a far-reaching set of objectives for the next ten years. The first twitch for many was to call it over-reaching, too much, and too expensive. For many who yearn for the shores of Walden Pond, it was an infringement of states’ rights, government’s role in society, even socialistic to some, and by any measure, very expensive. But is it all bad?

 

To say the country changed in the last 50 years is an overwhelming understatement. Not all of us have conquered the maelstrom. Too many in retirement don’t see the need to catch up or want to catch up. It is that cohort of voters, however, who vote in high percentages, less and less each year but still influential. America is going the way of the kids in college, those getting ready for college, or those who were just graduated. They are setting the agenda for the next fifty years. Sometimes it has a ready-fire-aim feel to it. The young people, those under 40 years represent 51% of the population. Sixteen percent of all voters are under 30 years. We are at an inflection point in our history; we can almost see the curve of change as it happens.

 

Both political parties, when they controlled Congress and/or the White House, could not even agree on a plan to fix the roads and bridges. During those years of inaction, the definition of infrastructure changed. It is no longer simply highways and byways. Thirty-five percent of the students in this country do not have effective broadband. In 1936, Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act, which funneled money to electric cooperatives to help defray the cost of bringing electricity to the rural areas of the country. I remember going to farms with my father, an electrician, who made a living for many years wiring farmhouses and barns in the mountain towns. The last town to get electricity in my rural home state was 1963. The point is simple: the electric grid is part of our infrastructure, but so is broadband. In the US, 94% of the population has access to broadband, but 15 million people in rural areas lack reliable service. The TVA is infrastructure. The interstate highway system is infrastructure. Clean water is infrastructure. Think of Flint Michigan or of the two million people in the US who lack clean drinking water. Dirty water, failing bridges, pot-holed throughways, no broadband, failed electric power sources; is this the way we want the world to see America?

 

The pandemic opened the sores of our insecurity. Millions of people lined up for hours to get bags of free groceries because they did not have a job, through no fault of their own and they have to feed their family. Is this the US we want the world to see? Our healthcare system showed its vulnerability in emergencies. It needs fixing. The gap between white and minority wages, wealth, schools, and discrimination became evident during the pandemic. It needs to be narrowed or eliminated.

 

Without knowing it, many Americans have supported the dogma of subsidiarity: decisions and actions at the local level whenever possible, not by some centralized government, Locals will take care of their people unless they can’t. Locals should build infrastructure unless they can’t. Locals should ensure clean water unless they can’t. When we cannot do what needs to be done, we look for the next higher level of competence, maybe a county poverty agency, or a state police agency, or the county road commission, or …. While we hold fast to the belief in local relief, we recognize that some things need to be done nationally. Many of us remember trying to travel long distances across the country on two-lane highways before the interstate system was designed and built. That effort was called socialism by the way. The days of the small electrical systems left us a long time ago. Electric grids span the continent and electricity is bought and sold in the marketplace, just like so many other commodities.

 

The nation is no longer a conglomeration of small towns and large farms separate and distinct. We became, almost without realizing it, an intertwined network that requires national answers to national issues. We have the same number of acres or square miles, but vastly different needs than the previous century. Doing things as a nation does not register as socialism to me. It doesn’t take away our democracy. The interstate highway system didn’t divide us, it united us. The electrification of the country didn’t divide us; it made life better for millions of people. I am not sure that fixing our school buildings belongs in an infrastructure bill rather than in an education bill, but it is hard to argue that we don’t need a broadened definition of infrastructure. We need national solutions to national problems.

 

Americans by nature believe that we are the greatest nation on earth, especially because of our democratic form of government. For years, we could brag about how our standard of living was so much higher than the rest of the world. Mostly that was true. But, when you consider that 43% of Americans have never left the country, or that 11% of Americans have never left the state in which they were born, it is hard for them to conceive of the idea that other countries are catching up. They haven’t experienced trains that run at 300 mph or brand new 4-8 lane expressways with more miles than our total interstate highway system. It is hard to imagine countries with wide-spread broadband so prevalent that one hardly needs cash anymore because transactions are by phone or tap cards. We can’t catch up with the world by simple local effort. The country needs big improvements, big ideas to help it maintain a leadership role in the world. We need to go big! We need to go at it as a nation united. Over 80% of the population agrees. The only ones fighting the idea are some members of Congress. America won’t be great again, or better if we don’t rebuild ourselves. Henry David might not like it, but it’s time for a change. A bit of big government can’t be all bad at this juncture in our journey to a more perfect union.

 

Summer, Winter, Presidenting

 

 

Where I grew up, Summer and Winter are verbs. Grammarians call it denominalization. One summers up north and winters in Florida or other places warm. Let’s make president a verb. We could talk about how one presidents, how one could president better. We could critique when one isn’t presidenting well. Instead of saying that he or she governs well, we could say he or she presidents well, saving governing for governors. It seems more precise than “presidential.”

 

Coastal educated liberal elites, who have become a genre unto themselves, criticized President Trump for not being presidential enough. He seemed to enjoy his way of presidenting. Every morning, afternoon, and evening he would tweet out to the world whatever was bothering him at the moment. He did it to wild acclaim from his base of supporters who thought he presidented just fine; no need to change strategy. Twitter calmed the waters a bit when they expelled President Trump. That won’t last long, will it? President 45 tells us that he plans to set up his own platform for communicating several times a day to his millions of fans.

 

 

This January’s inauguration brought a different style of presidenting. We are still getting used to it, some of us. Biden presidents differently from Trump. His tweets, when there are any, seem more strategic, educational, and well-structured. Facebook videos are well scripted and pointed toward policy and programs. Senator Cronyn of Texas wondered aloud on cable news if Biden was even in charge at the White House because presidenting well set an expectation for numerous daily tweets, name-calling, and call-ins to Fox News. Maybe Biden has a better communications staff.

 

There is evidence that 70,000,000 people may not agree with this, but I would like to take a stab at how one presidents well, regardless of party, platform, or policy. In politics, ego is a big deal; your beliefs about making America better or greater tend to be deep-seated. Emotions bubble to the surface and politicians get worked up when things don’t go their way or if people disagree with them. Having stipulated that, what makes good presidenting?

 

Government is not a business; the idea of running a government like a business is not very helpful. Leadership, however, cuts across all organizational formats, from education, government, business, and non-profits, to PTAs. Good presidenting requires good leadership instincts and it requires institutional leadership skills. Those skills are very different from managerial skills, which tend to be operational.

 

Presidenting begins with a deep-seated core value that “all men are created equal,” and therefore all people must be treated equally and with equal respect; we strive to be better day by day. We are an exceptional country, endowed with all of the natural resources needed to care for its people, to provide for their peace, their tranquility, and their safety. Its institutions matter too. Presidenting builds up people’s trust in these institutions and makes them more effective. Leadership brings people in, it doesn’t shut them out. Effective presidents communicate vision and programs consistently and often. Good presidenting requires good leadership that builds up people, not tear them down.

 

We are a nation divided, more divided now than ten years ago. We saw that division in the insurrection at our temple of democracy on January 6. Doug Sosnik of the Brunswick Group points out that 94% of the Senators are from states that their party’s presidential candidate won. The highly respected political strategist points out that legislators are expected to vote the party line, irrespective of the issue. That’s bad legislating. Politicians can’t even agree on what bipartisanship means. It makes one pine for the days when the politicos called each other names all day, traded pork-barrel programs for votes, and then spent the evening playing poker and drinking whisky with each other. 

 

The last four months of presidenting were easier for most people. I’ve noticed a calming among friends who still talk politics. There isn’t a rush to the TV set or the computer to get the latest bombast from the White House or a representative’s office. Policies are presented with accompanying background information and strategy. It seems less off-the-cuff than the previous administration, whether you agree with the policy or not.

 

Presidenting is most effective when the people understand the plan, the strategy, the data, the goal, and especially the vision. Presidenting is easier on the heart when it is respectful of those who differ on policy when a difference isn’t tagged an enemy. Both political parties are in for a slog over the next three years, but good presidenting requires good manners, civility, respect for all people, and a continuing effort to soothe the soul of the nation. A friend once wrote, “Trust is as important as competence and more important than affinity.” I agree.

 

Presidenting isn’t an easy job, but the job description is very clear: “…form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

 

Good presidenting is always about “We the people.” It is never about me the president.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Age has its Rewards!

 

You know the kid. He tells you that he is not three years old anymore; he tells you with pride that he is three and a half. It is likely that we did the same thing back when. At some point, we became irritated when the folks behind the bar asked to see our ID, especially if we were not of age, like college age. Later we bragged about being carded at the local watering hole or fancy restaurant – “I’m 32 and they made me show my ID. Can you imagine that?” Pride has many faces.

 

When I reached 55 years of age, AARP sent me my first invitation to join their efforts to ply for “seniors.” The invitations came almost weekly for some years. They really wanted me to buy their insurance. Now they send the invitations to people as early as 50 years. Can you believe it? They were calling a 55-year-old a “senior.” No way man! I still had a bounce. Seniors were people over 65 years old, weren’t they? You knew about them but they weren’t in your pod. Despite the continuous denial,  the discounts were too enticing. Why not take the senior-discount? Ten percent is ten percent.

 

Being a little older, just a little mind you, paid off last month. We got our first covid shot, and then the second. Age has its rewards! So now, we can be friendly closer because many other friends have had their two shots too. However, what of those who don’t have the shots yet?

 

President Trump initiated Operation Warp Speed, which urged pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines to squelch the covid-19 pandemic. That effort, in spite of fits and starts, resulted in new vaccines produced with relatively new science in record time, not years, but months. Scientists produced not one, but three vaccines to help the world eradicate the scourge. More are on the way. Pundits tell us that the new process for inventing vaccines may go down as the most important scientific effort of the last 100 years. We need to vaccinate 80% of the people in the US and billions across the world. Imagine how that would change the world.

 

Yet … I don’t get it, but nearly 50% of Trump supporters say they will refuse to take the vaccine when it is available to them. Are they crazy? Are they listening to the unhinged talk-radio folks again? One interviewee said she would not trust a vaccine designed by Biden. Come on lady, the vaccine was designed on Trump’s watch, tested on Trump’s watch, and initial plans for distribution developed on Trump’s watch. It isn’t Biden’s vaccine anyway is it? He didn’t make it. His administration didn’t test it or approve it. They are simply trying to get into people’s arms.

 

Age gives perspective. We remember what it was like before the measles vaccine. Public Health taped big red or orange “Quarantine” signs to the front door of the house. We remember life before the Salk vaccine for polio: friends, and relatives in iron lungs, legs crippled forever, lungs damaged forever. If the US doesn’t vaccinate enough people, it will not achieve herd immunity and the virus will be with us for years. Much like WWII, Uncle Sam needs you. He needs you to get vaccinated. He needs you to get it for your neighbor’s sake, for the nation’s sake.

 

Age has its downsides, but hanging out for a while convinces us that a deadly virus couldn’t care less about our political bent, our religious beliefs, our age, our race, our ethnicity, or sexual or gender preference. It attacks all who come in its path. In addition, it can kill you. Beach life during spring break is sure to be a super-spreader. Ballparks opening too soon will kill people needlessly. Age forces you to ask why people and their leaders blatantly disregard basic public health strategies. Ah, what the hell, only 534,000  people have died from the virus. That is only 15% above the normal annual death rate. Can’t be all bad! Off we go, no mask, no social distancing, and no vaccines.

 

Age has its rewards, but sometimes the things you see happening around you make it seem more like a penalty. After a year of sheltering in place, you can feel like you lost a year, missed friends for too long, missed visiting other places for too long a stretch. However, it also reminds you that all things end, and we will remember 2020-2021 as “those years.”

 

By the way, I'm not 81, I'm 81 and eleven and a half months. 

 

 

Two Good Shots!

 

If one shot is good, two must be better. Got it last week!

 

Most of the folks on our street have their second shot; not much millennialism on Dearne Way. Our Saturday morning coffee klatch might be unmasked in a couple of weeks. We meet in the driveway so that everyone can sit six feet apart. It’s been a long year.

 

Getting the first shot gives you a good feeling, the beginning of the end, maybe. Things don’t seem to be as bad as they once did. The second shot comes with a dash of euphoria, a small one mind you, but it’s there. With two shots, you can go to the grocery store without fear. With two shots, you can go to the local barista and sit around while you talk and drink. With two shots you can forget to be careful, not a good thing.

 

Some people may wonder about all the fuss. I’ve read articles about people who haven’t been following the CDC guidelines too much anyway. We see TV news reports of beach parties and crowded bars and wonder why.

 

Some state governors, many actually, lifted most covid-19 restrictions last week, even while their states experienced the highest covid related death rates per capita. Texas, Florida, Mississippi, and other high-death states are wide open for business and people are burning their masks. Free at last?

 

There is some good news at the national level, because we now have three very good vaccines and are jabbing over two million people a day and getting better at it. Over 50% of folks, over 65 are vaccinated and nearly 17% of the total population is vaccinated. We are making good progress.

 

The CDC issued new guidance for people who had their second shot and then waited two weeks before mixing with others. Folks with their second shot can now meet in homes with others who have had their shots, and with a family who isn’t fully vaccinated. Grandparents can now visit their grandkids. We might have some neighbors over for dinner one night.

 

While we are making progress in the fight against the virus, too many people are still contracting it, getting sick, or dying from it. So, outside the home, we should still wear a mask and social distance. I don’t like it! I don’t want to wear a mask all the time, but I’m convinced it is worth the trouble.

 

I suspect that many of us on the left coast are prospects for easy convincing by government leaders, so we hunkered down for the last year. Our news media convinces us that we are a bit more righteous than heartland fellow compatriots are. Republican governors in the mid-West garnered little positive publicity out here. They opened too soon, they made the mask a political statement, and they flaunted social distancing to get a drink and the beaches were major draws. We opened too soon too and paid the price, but we don’t talk about it much.

 

How people of several states approached the pandemic says a lot about the state of the country. We can stipulate that Americans are equally divided on almost any issue, except that we all agree that we are divided on almost any issue. Part of the divide is cultural, some of it is old vs. new thoughts about our creed and our soul. Some of the divide is caused by confusion strewn at the top levels of government and an apparent lack of appreciation for the civic duty of the individual toward the rest of the people and the country. “This is America. I don’t have to wear a mask if I don’t want to.” Yes, you do!

 

This is America. We wear a mask to prevent hurting other people and getting hurt ourselves. We wear a mask to help keep the ICU units open for those who need them. We stand apart so that we reduce the likelihood of spreading the virus. We take care of each other and we support each other.

 

David Brooks raised an interesting question in a recent column, “Maybe the problem is people have grown less passionate about a shared American identity.”[i] Are we less interested in who we are than what we are? Is it more important to support a political party’s take on public health measures than the CDC’s or the NIH’s? Is it more important to follow a political leader than the science of how viruses spread and mutate? Are we experiencing a collision of ideas about what makes America great or better? The pandemic will be over in a year or so. Will our political temperatures be lowered a bit in a year or so?

 

It is possible, maybe even probable, that when 80%+ of the people are vaccinated, when the kids are back in school and when folks are back at work in whatever shape that takes, perhaps the euphoria will spread and we will start to come together again, to be one country rather than two or three. Maybe when fear is dampened we will try to unite rather than divide.

 

In the meantime, I think it would be nice to have dinner in a restaurant again. What is the next higher level after euphoria?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[i] David Brooks  - How to Love America – New York Times – March 4, 2021

From Here We Go Where?

 

Try to find a better place but soon it's all the same
What once you thought was a paradise is not just what it seemed
The more I look around, I find, the more I have to fear[i]

 I’m unwilling to live in fear. That is a hard resolution to keep. The last four years mystified me, but the last couple of months were incongruous. I never was afraid of losing our democracy. Sedition was one of those things in The Constitution that you didn’t spend a lot of time studying. Who could have imagined an armed and planned assault on our Capitol by other citizens? Then, we watched it happen. That was nearly two months ago and I’m still writhing.

Months before the election, Trump convinced his followers that the only way he could lose the election was if the process was rigged. He repeated over and over that early voting and vote by mail would be fraudulent. He claimed irregular vote counting and called election officials biased. The fix was in!

Too many people believed him and convinced themselves that he could not lose. He called his base of supporters to Washington to protest the election, and they came. He urged them to march on the Capitol, and they did. He told them that the Vice President could nullify the election, and they believed him.

When Pence announced that the constitution didn’t allow him to change the election, they called him a traitor. They raised a gallows in front of the Capitol. Their insurrection rose to the level of sedition, in the name of democracy. Hundreds of people were injured, many died, still, others committed suicide. Culprits are still being identified and rounded up for prosecution.

The House of Representatives impeached the President a second time. The Senate acquitted him a second time. Then some senators who had just voted to acquit talked about how guilty the President was, how he had encouraged the armed insurrection, how he continued to relish the actions of his followers. They knew he was guilty; they voted “not guilty.”

State Party leaders censured Republican Representatives who voted to impeach and Senators who voted “guilty.” Pennsylvania Senator Toomey voted to convict Trump, which he described as “doing the right thing.” It resulted in quick censure from county party leaders. One, Dave Ball, went so far as to state on television, “We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing … We sent him there to represent us.” The implication was that the party sent the Senator to Washington to represent the party, not the people.

James Madison noted, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.[ii] There can be no illusions that there was goodness in the storming of the Capitol in an effort to overturn an election. It was a planned abuse of liberty in a free country. What is unfathomable is that so many consider it “no big deal.” The divide is wide, the divide deep. The rot drains oxygen from the soul of the nation. Our freedom to vote and for our vote to matter is under attack.

We never know when something will be the last.[iii] We never know when our last vote will be our last one; ask the people of Germany, Italy, and Spain if they thought their last vote was their last one. Is last November the last time we voted in a free and open election? Will it be the next one, or the one after that?

This year legislators in 43 states introduced 253 bills to reduce voting access.[iv] One state has a bill that allows the legislature to pick the Presidential Electors irrespective of the vote of the people.[v] Others plan increased Gerrymandering to control voter results. Still others have bills to reduce voting hours, early voting, voting locations, and drop boxes for ballot return. Many are considering eliminating votes by mail except for serious health conditions. All of the voter suppression bills were introduced, supposedly, to help ensure that citizens believe that a valid election took place. Too many people ignore these efforts to abuse liberty.

Will state legislatures gerrymander the voting districts so that elections aren’t the free expressions of voter will? We don’t know. Will state legislatures squelch easy voter registration, eliminate vote by mail, the convenience of voting in a neighborhood precinct? Voting, the most sacred act of a free people is on the brink of destruction by people who fear the loss of power. “The evil men do lives after them; the good is interred with their bones.”[vi] 

We now know that the insurrection and storming of the Capital was not a simple case of protesters with an unexpected surge of adrenalin. There was collusion among Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Neo-Nazi cells, and other groups dedicated to the overthrow of the democratic process. It was a planned insurrection, it was an armed insurrection, and it swept others in its path. It was sedition.

How do we protect the vote? In nearly half the states voter suppression is an active movement, especially if the legislature holds veto-proof power. The only way to ensure that voters can vote freely is to insist that the process be open to all. Let’s start with the notion that all men are created equal. In our country, that means that anyone over the age of 18 should be able to vote, with very few exceptions. What does free and open voting look like?

Registering to vote should be easy. When a 16-year-old person applies for a driver’s license they should automatically be registered to vote after their 18^th birthday. If a person hasn’t registered to vote but wants to vote, they should be allowed to register on Election Day.

Securing a ballot should be easy. Every state should send every registered voter a ballot one month before Election Day.

Voting should be easy. Voters should be able to return their ballots to a nearby dropbox, to the election office, or to the polls when they are open. Those who wish to vote in person should have that opportunity. Many states have had vote-by-mail for many years, so we know the process works.

Voting districts should be rational. Each district should be fairly divided between party affiliation, races, age groups, etc. Some states already have bipartisan panels of unelected officials who draw the district boundaries. This reduces the likelihood of obscene Gerrymandering.

Write your state representative or state senator and tell them to ensure that freedom to vote must be preserved for all people. Talk to your friends about the un-American activity that some legislatures are using to reduce voter turnout, to control vote results. Support campaigns against legislators who vote to increase voter suppression; vote for their opponents.

Voting in America is controlled at the local level, for the most part. County election officials and state election officials administer the laws enacted by the state legislatures. It is at the local levels that voter suppression is taking place, under the national radar, and that is where it must be preserved.

 

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[i] Where Do We Go From Here – Chicago – 1969 Recording

[ii] James Madison – The Federalist, No. 63, 1787

[iii] Timothy Snyder – On Tyranny – Tim Duggan Books, 2017

[iv] Brennan Center for Justice, New York University – January 26, 2021

[v] The Constitution allows state legislatures to determine how Electors are chosen. It does not assume that that would happen after an election.

[vi] William Shakespeare – Julius Caesar – Act 3 Sc 2

With Age Comes ... !

 

A disadvantage of getting on years (One can’t say they are old, can they?) is that people start treating you as if you were old, while you try to convince them that you have the mindset of a twenty-year-old, but with more wisdom to share. (Those who lack experience begin rolling their eyes about now) Forget that the muscles do not work as well and ten-minute chores now take forty minutes. While age is not the be-all, it does mean you have seen almost everything at least once, there are few surprises, and maybe just maybe understand more than those who are age-challenged. Those long-held truths blew up on January 6, 2021.

 

The Age of Enlightenment brought us clever ideas like “We the people ...” or “governments by consent of the people,” and “All men are created equal.” Jefferson and Madison wrote it down so we would not forget it, and with the hope that we, two and a half centuries later, would still live by these truths. Hamilton and Jay, then Madison, argued their better points in the Federalist Papers. Two-hundred-forty-five years after the Declaration of Independence, however, we are on the brink of another civil disturbance. Advocates of white supremacy and conspiracy theory believers lead this new revolution. While these groups certainly stood out at the march on the Capital, most of the insurgents were regular folks, janitors, police officers, IT specialists, professional managers, and CEOs.

 

All seemed upset about something, afraid of something, joined at the hip with swelling numbers of hate groups lurking in the dark web or on conspiracy platforms that spew hate. Some lay the blame at the feet of the unvetted information age of social media and its ability to push junk data across the world in nanoseconds. [i] A recent poll asked respondents to answer true-or-false to the following statement: “A group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring is trying to control our politics and media.” Fifty-three percent of the respondents said that that was true.[ii] Disinformation is so rampant across the country that a candidate who denies the 9/11 plane attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, who says that the killing of children in Sandy Hook was a staged event, who calls for the murder of Constitutional Officers, can get herself elected to Congress. The people who elected her must have believed the lies ignored the lies or supported her beliefs. There is a disconnect between self-preservation, hate, and a clear understanding of the notions from which this nation grew its uniqueness.

 

A once and former president, lacking any appreciation for the ideals of a self-governing, democracy, and its institutions, easily convinced seventy plus million people to follow him. He convinced them to vote to re-elect him and to fight for him in a battle to negate the election. He high-jacked large religious groups, conservative groups, and other normally moderate groups in his quest for power. He convinced them that evil people stole the election from him, which he claimed to have won by a large margin. He called them to DC, then urged them and convinced them to march to the Capitol, to overthrow the government by force. The last time our Temple of Democracy was breached was during the War of 1812. Those of us who have seen it all sat in shock watching a President call citizens to arms. We sat in shock watching a band of terrorists desecrate our symbol of freedom, and the world watched in shocked disbelief. Any moral authority we might have had as the standard for democracy melted before our eyes and their eyes. The terrorist demeaned the nation and it will take generations to repair. Only five members of his party voted to impeach him for his seditious behavior. How does this happen?

There have been others before him who did not get it right, who did not understand or decided to create a new normal. What we see around us today is not the makings of one person’s four-year term. We know because we understand that it takes about twenty years for a new idea to become a new norm. It is not quite the same as saying that whatever we are against today will be the usual a generation hence, but you get the point. The current state of affairs can be traced back a number of years if one looks.

 

Hate is not unusual anymore; it is a commodity that shows up at every opportunity to destroy our way of life, our values, and our institutions. Our American value that all people are created equal isn’t the value of the Proud Boys; these men roam the countryside and the cities preaching the sermon of white supremacy and male dominance; are they afraid that black and brown women will challenge their manhood? Canada declared them a terrorist organization. Anti-immigrant groups protest against our democracy, regular folks with extremist ideas mingle with the organized haters and soon you have homegrown terrorists that want to bring down our system of government.[iii] Homeland Security issued a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin last month; it warned police departments about these terrorist groups. How does this happen?

 

We don’t see these things happening when they happen before our eyes. We don’t realize that a TV channel dedicated to one philosophy of government peddles division and hate as we watch it. We don’t see the danger we support when we choose one channel or station over another because it produces programs with which we agree; liberal, conservative, reactionary, or radical. We don’t realize what is happening to us when we can’t distinguish between real news and news produced by foreign bot centers.

 

The pundits may rail against the “new” thoughts, but by next week, there is something else about which to rail. We have seen things happen and done nothing until it was too late. We have seen things happen that disgusted us but waited until we could not take it anymore before acting. We saw McCarthyism and said nothing for too long. We saw minorities fight in WWII and come home to segregation and we said nothing. We saw US citizens of Japanese descent sent to internment camps and said nothing. We saw women denied the vote and tried to keep it that way until it happened. We have seen too much and let it pass. Every now and then, however, events reach deep and require us to search for the soul.[iv] We live through one now, and can’t let it pass because it will change our experiment for the worse, it will turn us into the proverbial banana republic, it will nullify a quarter of a millennial of trying to make a more perfect union. We can’t let this happen.

 

I have lived through one-third of the 245 years of this experiment in self-governing, living out Descartes’ thesis; cogito ergo sum. The lifespan is at once hard to contemplate but provides perspective. Something is missing. How often can we say that our system of government is fragile, but it is fragile? It relies on its institutions to survive, the real ones, the implied ones, and the hoped-for ones. It relies on a sense that we strive to be one, knowing we aren’t, but we strive. We are called to be fair, knowing we aren’t always, but we strive. Our creed tells us that all men are created equal, but we don’t treat everyone equally, but we strive. Our motto, E Pluribus Unum, tells us to welcome everyone, but too many eschew immigrants, but striving makes us better. Something is missing! We’re not striving enough. Someone didn’t get the message.

 

Brookings’ Jon Valant thinks that we haven’t taught our kids or ourselves how to deal with technical literacy; how to use our technology gadgets. When QAnon can convince hundreds and thousands of people to believe its conspiracy theories, something is wrong. When the White House staff begins to believe these wild fantasies and act upon them, something is wrong. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, a day that will live in infamy, brought young people rushing from their homes to join the armed forces, rich, and poor, white-collar and blue-collar, black and white, they all joined to help defend the country. Would that happen today?

 

With a massive viral pandemic taking down hundreds of thousands of lives in one year, some parts of the country openly defy simple public health measures to help stem the spread. Mask wearing is a political statement, science is scoffed at, Congress is at loggerheads trying to provide minimum assistance to the jobless, the hungry, and the businessperson going under, all through no fault of their own. How does this happen?

 

Is it time for the leaders of the country to step up their efforts to bring some sense of unity to the nation? The question reads like an echo. Haven’t we said that after every major event that divides us? There is a difference, it seems to me, between free speech and anarchy, between protesting and insurrection, between disagreement and hate, between strong beliefs, and overthrowing what gives us the right to protest, to disagree, and to hold strong beliefs.

 

Seventy plus million people voted for Trump in the last election. Seventy plus and more millions of people voted for Biden. Those who voted for Trump did it because he was a Republican, or because they dislike Democrats or they liked Trump and disliked Biden. They did it because they thought Trump was more capable of running the country or liked his policies, or for whatever reason. Those who voted for Biden did it for opposite reasons. At the end of the ballot counting, however, the election should be over. Most of the seventy million Trump supporters have decided that the campaign is over. The votes were counted, and the results confirmed. Most decided to move on or to regroup for 2024.

 

Both sides, however, need to find a way to negate the influence and the operations of the homegrown terrorists in our midst. Both parties need to end the hate for each other in the halls of Congress. Both parties need to come to grips with the long-held notion that the nation is more important than the party, or of one member of the party. Can we return to voting for or against the substance of an idea rather than for or against whoever introduced the idea? We cannot have another storming of the Capitol. We cannot have a country ruled virtually or in reality by gangs of thugs. A bit of civility would be appreciated as well.

 

 

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[i] Jon Valant, Brown Center Chalkboard, Brookings Institute, February 1, 2021

[ii] Ibid, NPR/Ipsos poll, December 2020

[iii] The Year in Hate and Extremism 2020, Southern Poverty Law Center, February 1, 2021

[iv] Jon Meacham covers the search for the soul of the nation in his 2018 book The Soul of America, The

Battle for Our Better Angels. It is a must-read for those who care about the homeland’s democracy.

The Unfinished Nation!

 

Senators orate bio-partisan words of welcome. A cleric gives an invocation calling on an Almighty to bring care, hope, and peace to the nation. Lady Gaga, a classically trained Pop singer renders the National Anthem in a fashion that sets the bar high for any who follow. A black-robed Latina Justice of the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, administers an oath to a Black-East Asian who becomes our first woman Vice President; the band plays Hail Columbia, the Vice President’s song. The Chief Justice asks Joe Biden to swear that he will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He does. He is proclaimed the 46^th President. The usual ruffles and flourishes precede Hail to the Chief, the President’s song. The usual speech calling for change and unity follows. The President vows to be the president of all the people. It is short, effective, inspiring, and appropriate. All that is left is for the usual poem to be read, and the Benediction. The crowd that includes three former presidents can then disperse and go about their day. But wait, something isn’t going as planned.

 Amanda Gorman, the National Youth Poet Laureate, a 22 year-old self-described skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother, stands at the dais and sets the nation ablaze with the powerful reading of her powerful verse. She forces us, those in the stands and the 40 million watching on TV, to examine our conscience. to dig deep into our souls, to right our wrongs, to work for justice, to turn our Creed into reality. “We are striving to forge our union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, character, and conditions of man… We close the divide between us … We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.” The nation is astir. Soul searching is visible in the crowds. President Johnson, in March1965, after Selma, told a Joint Session of Congress, “At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord, So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.” Congress went on to pass the Voting Rights Act.

 

So it was a few days before in Washington DC, when unruly mobs grew to a seditious insurrection and stormed our Temple of Democracy. These were people who disavow democratic principles, people who do not want a country committed to people of all colors and cultures; by those who celebrate the Holocaust, by those who buy into Q’s conspiracy theories, by those who do not want to believe that all men are created equal.

 This young poet, already a woman of accomplishment, reminded us that our national dream was almost lost. It was a young woman with high ideals who turned an inauguration from simply the usual pomp into a call for deep and lasting national soul searching; once again.

Fifty-six years earlier, at the other end of the National Mall, the Reverend Martin Luther King told us he had had a dream, “that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” We are still toiling to make this Union more perfect. We were reminded!

Jon Meacham,[i] a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the presidency, suggests that the creed will only become reality when individuals in the arena choose to side with the angels. Lincoln called them our “better angels.” We saw in the last couple of weeks what could happen when we ignore our better angels; when those trusted to guard us ignore their angels. We were reminded of how fragile our democracy is, how it could be brought down after only four years of an onslaught, how easily the crowd can be encouraged to overthrow all that we hold dear, our democracy, how easy it is to be taught to hate, to be suspicious, to wish upon a falling star. Joe Biden is the President, but Gorman made the day. 

President Biden has his hands full for the next few years. He has to demonstrate that his administration can end the pandemic that haunts us and kills thousands each day. He must get the country back to work and the kids back in school. He must provide economic aid to the millions unemployed through no fault of their own, standing in long lines for free food to feed their families. He must revive the manufacturing sector of the economy; he must convince the world that we are a nation that keeps its word, its alliances, its treaties, and that we are a people that can be judged by the content of its character[ii]. He has a hard row to hoe.

 

Biden calls for unity. The ultra-conservative cable news accuses him, on the first day in office, of installing far-left programs that cause disunity. His party’s progressive wing in Congress sees him as too moderate, a middle-of-the-roader. Yet unity is what our people need, some effort to meet in the middle, to do right for today, to work toward the never achievable perfect union, but try to make it better today than yesterday. Perhaps good, effective, and efficient government, conducted by experienced and competent people can bring changes to still the conspiratorial hoards. We will always have a diversity of views; that makes us a great nation. Diversity of ideas, however, is to be argued on the floors of Congress, not in the streets and not through armed insurrection.

 

We wish Biden well, for the sake of the country. We hope the calling of Amanda Gorman sustains itself to help us take stock of ourselves and strive to excite the soul of the nation to meet the expectations of its creed.

 

 

 

 

 

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[i] Jon Meacham – The Soul of America – Random House, New York, 2018

[ii] Martin Luther King – I Have A Dream speech – Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, 1965

[1] The Hill We Climb – Amanda Gorman – January 20, 2021