5th of July

Today is the day America observes Independence Day to make sure we all have a day off to celebrate. The question is: “what is there to celebrate this year?” It should be unbridled, unrestrained. We have nearly beaten the virus; we are opening up our ballparks; we are gathering at our parades, fireworks displays, and backyard barbecues; and yet, it doesn’t feel all that celebratory. We have not come out of the pandemic unscathed. Not only have we lost more than 600,000 of our fellow countrymen, we appear to have also lost every sense of unity. We have managed to color every human action in political, partisan, terms: Wearing a mask, flying a flag, getting vaccinated (or not). The schism has occurred along different fault lines, mostly in search of the better argument on who the flag and the nation belong to and how the nation should be governed.

The schism is brought to the surface, in broad daylight, when the former President in a public appearance proclaims that his “successor is destroying our country, and it all started with a fake election”. Until Trump, it was unthinkable that a former President would personally criticize his successor in such terms, much less malign the security and reliability of the American electoral process. With the terrible tragedy in Surfside, Florida, we have just been painfully reminded that when cracks develop in a structure the collapse can come at any time. Did not our most celebrated President warn us that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”?

The schism has crept into our personal lives, by pitching neighbor against neighbor, co-worker against co-worker, friend against former friend, and even family member against family member. And what is the dispute all about? It is about the kind of republic we want to live in. We may have thought that the battle had been decided when on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence with the words: “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.” But we now realize that even then, we never really meant what we proudly professed; that we only accepted that all white men (not women) were created equal and endowed with the lofty unalienable rights. The “Big Lie”, that so much dominates our discourse and dispute today, was with us from the inception of the Republic. And it has remained with us ever since.

America is taking its eyes off the ball. At a time that our principles and our economic and political world leadership are being tested like never before, we stoop down in internal squabbles and partisan strife. Our politicians refuse to build a consensus on anything, and we accuse each other of selling out the peoples’ interest for control of the government. Adam Kinzinger, one of the few remaining principled GOP House Representatives, puts it frighteningly accurate in his July 2 interview with David Marchese of the New York Times Magazine: “And since we are in this political environment, I would say internal division is actually the thing that I fear the most right now. I jokingly say — but I’m not really joking — if China nuked California, a lot of Republicans would be like, “Good, we can win.” And if they nuked Texas, there might be a lot on the left saying, “Good, we can win.” I say that facetiously, but that’s how it feels at moments, and that’s a big concern.”

When will we turn back from our wayward ways, and will it be timely enough to avoid defeat and humiliation? On this 5^th of July I find it hard to be optimistic about the prospects for a miraculous recovery. The elections of 2022 and 2024 are already looming large, the sharks are smelling blood in the water, and winning, gaining control of Congress and the White House, is all that matters. Dealing with suffocating inequality, with rampant acceleration of global warming, and with the Chinese threat, can wait (will have to wait, because ‘the other party’ cannot be trusted to come up with the right solutions, so they need to be defeated first.)

This is the American version of a classical Greek tragedy. At a time of unprecedented national prosperity, economic and technological strength, America is facing existential threats, but seemingly unconcerned with a national mobilization against these threats. If there ever was a good time to mobilize all of our strengths and unite in an effort to fend off the triple threat we are facing, it is now. But, unfortunately we appear to be otherwise engaged.

What is needed in the worst way is a national strategy that spells out the threats America is facing and crafts a plan to counteract, overcome and defeat these threats. America needs a strategy that transcends administrations, because taking the edge off the scope and depth of inequality; managing the human contributions to climate change and protecting people and property from the effects of global warming; and winning, peacefully, a contest with China for world leadership, is a long-term project that can only be completed with allocation of full resources of time, funding, and – crucially important – political unity. America will not finish this century in the lead if it cannot muster all these resources. We know what the enemy is, and it is not ‘the other party’. Inequality, climate change, and China are, without doubt, the challenges to meet. There should be no dispute between Republicans and Democrats about that. They may differ of opinion on how to counter these threats, but reconciling differences is what the democratic political process is all about. Will America once more prove to be equal to the task? That is not a given and it will depend on our willingness and ability to set our petty differences and partisan interests aside, recommit us to the best of the democratic process, and put the interest of the People and the nation above all other considerations.