Who will preside over the 250th birthday of America on July 4, 2026? And will we still be living in the world’s leading democracy on that day? My overwhelming concern today is that too many Americans no longer care about democracy as long as the candidate of their choice comes out on top.
Like
millions of Americans, I watched the pageantry of the 4th of July
celebrations on the Mall and the steps of the Capitol this week and, for an
evening, felt good about America. The flags, the music, the fireworks, and,
most of all, the crowd occupying the iconic spaces of Capitol Hill Parks gave
the impression that America cares, that it honors its past and is eager to carry
its heritage forward. On moments like that, you want to believe that what
unfolds before your eyes is representative of the national mood and that democracy
is alive and well, but the next day it does not exactly look that way. If
anything tangible should come from these moments of euphoria, it would be that we
make Election Day a national holiday and, by doing so, make it abundantly clear
that there is no higher cause to celebrate than the solemn act of voting for who
to represent us in government. There is never going to be a better time to make
this happen than in 2026 when we celebrate 250 years of national existence.
But first we have to get there. Momentous events await us on our way to the quarter-millennial celebration. I wish it wasn’t so, but more likely than not we will be trying a former President who is also a current Presidential Candidate in criminal court and then we will have to see if the nation is ready to put that same person back into the White House. We will have to see if, despite the extreme polarization in our politics, we can find a jury of 12 people who are all willing to toss their political preference aside and pass impartial judgment on a former President some of them will have voted for and may want to vote for again in 2024. And it looks like a near certainty that, whichever way these momentous matters will be decided, half the population will feel cheated by the outcome.
How much better off would we have been if, to prepare for and honor the 250th anniversary of our republic, we had committed to critically evaluating our public governance model, decide what works and did not quite work as intended, all with an eye on perfecting our republican democratic model. We could even have decided to hold a new constitutional convention to revisit the foundational principles of a multi-state democratic republic in today’s day and age and submit to popular vote a revised Constitution that is, better than the current version, equipped to address the exigencies and realities of the world we live in today and in the foreseeable future. The harsh reality is that we are so consumed by the political acrimony of the moment that nobody’s eyes are on an opportunity to make our 250th anniversary meaningful in our constant strive to perfect our union.
An update of
the Constitution alone would not redress all the flaws that stand in the way of
a functioning republican democracy. We need to ask ourselves how it is that
Congress, the legislative branch of government, is incapable or unwilling to
address the most pressing societal needs of a fiscally responsible management
of the nation’s finances, protection against the proliferation of guns, an
orderly management of immigration needs, and universal access to affordable,
state of the art, healthcare, and education. We can rightfully complain about the
Supreme Court doing away with affirmative action in higher education and blocking
the executive branch from providing relief from a stifling student debt burden,
but we need to realize that the Supreme Court only gets to rule on these
matters because Congress has not made any attempt to resolve them in the
legislative process. With a “do nothing” Congress it is inevitable that both
the executive branch and the judicial branch of government step in to fill the
void.
Patience
pays off. With little fanfare and somewhat under the radar the sponsors of the
right wing of the conservative movement have, over many years, filled the ranks
of State Legislatures and the Judiciary with candidates of their choosing. Their
patience paid off big time when, against all odds and against the popular vote,
Trump got placed in the White House and three vacancies opened up at the
Supreme Court during his time in office. In quick order, the Supreme Court was
stacked with three adherents of the Heritage Foundation with the effect that many
Supreme Court rulings have pushed the law of the land far to the right of what
a functional Congress would have been able to legislate. An ineffectual
Congress handcuffs a President and shifts power to the Supreme Court that has
the authority to further limit the executive power of the President but is,
itself, unaccountable to the public.
We have only
three years to go before we reach the 250th birthday of our
republic. We should not be satisfied with the status quo. We would honor our
past by dedicating ourselves to improving our public governance, our democracy,
for the future. Improvement will have to start with Congress. It will help a
great deal if the House of Representatives would be expanded to reflect
population growth by State since 1927 when House membership was set at 435. If,
at the same time gerrymandering can be outlawed and money influences can be
severely limited, we could make some real progress towards a better functioning
democracy. We simply must find a way to make Congress do the job it has been
assigned by the Constitution: legislate us out of trouble by addressing, one by
one, the significant challenges confronting our political, economic, and social
lives.
Let’s make
sure that on July 4, 2026 we have real reason to celebrate!
