Thursday, July 21, 2022

DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED

There is no denying that, ever since I published my book NEITHER HERE NOR THERE in 2014, I have grown increasingly pessimistic about the political future of our beloved country. At a stage of my life, towards the end, that I should be mostly concerned with enjoying my retirement, my beautiful family, and the unshackling of any business obligation, I find myself obsessing with what I see developing as the undoing of the great American experiment in democracy.

I lived so long with the mantra “do the best with what is within your control and don’t waste any energy on things that are beyond your control”, but now I can’t help myself agonizing every waking moment about what I see as an inexorably disintegrating American dream, realizing full well that, if it is happening, it is completely beyond my control. It is well known that Benjamin Franklin on September 18, 1787 – the last day of the Constitutional Convention- in answer to the question ‘what have we wrought’ answered: ‘a republic if you can keep it’. For 235 years we have managed to keep a constitutional republic, but now I fear that we may not be able to safeguard it any longer.

The source of my pessimism is found in a message I recently received from an old friend of mine who represents the populist version of extreme right-wing ideology – the political undercurrent I fear most – in which he lamented: “Beginning about 1992 America began to feel guilty about our accomplishments, our exceptionalism, and our wealth. And from Inauguration Day 1992 (the start of the Clinton presidency) we have, inch by inch, foot by foot, meter by meter, disassembled the greatest God-fearing constitutional republic ever formed on earth. But today, 30 years and 6 months later we are absolutely doomed! I can’t fix it and I damn sure refuse to ruin my few remaining years on earth trying to understand why my country abandoned me and traded me for a very small community of left-wing kooks!!! I no longer believe in the USA. I did my part, so I am comfortable I did my best to help the USA!!! She’s truly of course, failing fast and sure to collapse.”

This is America in a nutshell today. We are both afraid that the great American experiment is doomed, but for diametrically opposed reasons. I am deeply concerned about the future of our democracy because in our two-party system one of the parties has chosen to put party over country and is making its case to the people by fearmongering, appealing to its most primitive nativist instincts, spinning the craziest conspiracy stories, and taking advantage of a carefully orchestrated take-over of State governorships, State legislatures, and the Supreme Court. At the same time, my old friend feels defeated by the threat of a take-over of the government of the nation by ‘left-wing kooks’. You would think that he would feel buoyed by the prospect of Republican control of the Congress after the November election, by the re-emergence of Donald Trump and his sympathizers, and by the support his ideologies are getting from a retrograde Supreme Court. But, instead, he believes no longer in the USA.

While I am concerned about the fact that voting rights are getting trampled in all bright-red States; that it has proven to be impossible in the current political constellation to strengthen our democracy by some simple improvements to our governance model by reducing the money influence in politics, eliminating gerrymandering, increasing the number of members of the House of Representatives, eliminating the ‘winner takes all’ rule in the assignment of members of the Electoral College, and making ‘ranked voting’ the rule in State elections; my old friend wants us to go back to the time that white male conservatives controlled all levers of power in the political domain.

While I am concerned about the cavernous inequality that has split American society; about peoples’ indulgence with the proliferation of guns in America and the resulting daily carnage they cause; about peoples’ tolerance for misinformation coming at us from social media and partisan news channels; about populist attempts to whitewash all sordid aspects of our checkered history; and about a clear resurfacing of racist, nativist, sentiment that gets openly spewed in political campaigns on the right; my old friends frets about our nation slipping into a socialist wasteland.

How can these diametrically opposed assessments of where we are heading and what the relevant threats to our nation are be reconciled? The only point we agree on is that the outlook is bleak, that we are on a path to doom of our own making. And I’m afraid my old friend and I are representative of the two camps the nation has split into and that is the reason for my increased pessimism. With the camps so diametrically opposed, and seemingly no viable constituency in the middle, how do we ever get out of this impasse and find a way to regain our democratic élan, bring our system of government up to speed with modern times, and thus save the republic that was created 235 years ago?

God forbid that we just throw in the towel and surrender to the antidemocratic groundswell that has swept what once was the Grand Old Party. It is now really up to the People. With the elections of 2022 and 2024 the voting public has the opportunity to right the ship, save the democracy -and the republic- by unequivocally denying the populist right-wing zealots access to elected office. What is needed is the mobilization of every citizen in defense of our constitutional democracy so that we can prosper under a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. And I mean all of the people, not just the ones who rule the roost.

Postscript. Tonight, in prime time, we will witness the final scheduled hearing of the January 6 Committee, which will be presided over by Republican Representative Liz Cheney (since chairman Benny Thompson is in Covid quarantine). The January 6  hearings have been the only serious push-back against the authoritarian take-over of the GOP by Trump and his sycophants. Faced with the near certainty that its work will be halted after the mid-term elections in November, the Committee is working overtime to get the record established on the insurrection attempted by the former President and condoned by most Republicans. Liz Cheney is a rare politician who is prepared to put her political future on the line in pursuit of defense of our democracy. As such, she is one of only a few bulwarks against a decisive slide into authoritarianism. Her warning is stern: “As a country, we’re at a moment where we really do have to step back from the abyss and it’s not totally clear to me that we’re going to. The forces that want to drag us over the edge are strong and fighting. But we have to.” I hope all of America will be watching tonight and be heeding her warning.

No comments:

Post a Comment