We come to the 7th – and last – broken guardrail protecting democracy. The very sense that we ARE united, one nation, indivisible.
When my parents’ generation came home from WWII, they returned with memories of standing shoulder to shoulder with marines, sailors, soldiers of many faiths. They were primed to become a generation that was more tolerant than any that had come before. And they did.
Their generation, lead first by President Dwight Eisenhower, passed Civil Rights legislation that would have been unimaginable in the 1930s. The great interstate construction made transportation easier, migrating from this place to that more common.
As the people came together as never before, on a diversity of levels, becoming more & more “Americans.” Protestants & Jews, Catholics & Swedenborgians came to have more respect for the other’s religion. 1960 – Pope John & the First Ecumenical Council. 1964 & 1965 – landmark civil rights legislation. Barrier after barrier fell.
Politicians worked across the aisle. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have been a thwarted dream if Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen hadn’t worked with Democratic President Lyndon Johnson to drag enough of their parties’ members into passing it.
It’s not just that partisan identities have hardened; a strong core within the GOP vilifies working for the good of the country if it strays from rigidly advocating pure conservative ideology. Today, Sen. Dirksen would have been primaried out of office.
Up & down the political spectrum, from the US Capitol to state legislatures, even the Supreme Court, decisions are almost exclusively made on partisan lines.
Why won’t Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allow even meetings on President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland? Although Judge Garland is not a staunch liberal, he would change the balance on SCOTUS from firmly on the right toward the left. His qualifications, experience, record for looking at constitutional issues rather than acting from partisan ideology – they don’t matter. It’s political ideology, not judicial experience & judgment, that determines who sits on the highest court in our nation.
And that is as a passionate GOP base wants it.
Watch Fox News. Listen to conservative radio talk shows. Democrats are regularly painted as unpatriotic, as unchristian, as haters of their nation set on destroying the American way of living. Conservatives expect their elected representatives & appointed officials to save them from the godless other, whether it is the Muslims or the commies or the Democratic Party.
I wish this was exaggeration. It is not. People warm to Donald Trump because he is a divider, tarring others with his own brush of hatred & intolerance & fierce determination to act as he sees fit. These are the issues that unite the GOP base. It’s not matters of policy, because Donald Trump hasn’t outlined any. Determination to build a big, beautiful wall along our southern border appeals to emotions but eludes reason.
Where it was once common for people to live in neighborhoods with different political views, today more & more people seek to live with like-minded neighbors.
God help us. Literally, if Democrats win the White House. To the GOP base, once again denied the prize it believes God intends it to have, will be enraged. Who knows what could come next.
What does it say that the GOP considers Donald Trump preferable to Hillary Clinton, a former Goldwater Republican , the darling of Wall Street, an
unrepentant hawk?
Reason has nothing to do with it, as spelled out by the National Review, a magazine that devoted an ENTIRE issue to trashing Trump. In an editorial, it’s explained:
If the election were a perfect tie, and the vote fell to me and me alone, I’d probably vote for none other than Donald Trump because (endorsing a view presented to him by a National Review supporter) we know Hillary will be terrible, while we can only suspect Trump will be. Trump will probably do some things conservatives will like—Supreme Court appointments, etc.—while we know for a fact Hillary will not.
That is criminal. “Trump will probably do some things conservatives will like – Supreme Court appointments, etc. – while we know for a fact Hillary will not.”
Donald Trump will do whatever Donald Trump wants. No one knows what he will do. Other than be disastrous, which everyone knows is a given. Mitch McConnell thinks he can rein in Trump the same as he’s squashed so much that Barack Obama has pushed. If he seriously thinks that, the Majority Leader is lost in LaLa Land. NO ONE controls Donald Trump, including Donald Trump.
The fatal flaw of the GOP, the quirk that got them to the mess they – and the nation – are in today is their trait of blaming everything but themselves. We saw it after McCain’s loss in 2008, after Romney’s in 2012. Even now, they pin the blame for the rise of Donald Trump anywhere but on themselves. Bobby Jindal is a true Republican when he charges, “President Obama created Donald Trump.”
So, what did bend buckle break all those longstanding guardrails protecting democracy, including our citizenry’s descent into rabid partisanship & naked nativism?
Actually, as I see it, Gov. Jindal was right, at least in part. Responsibility has to be laid at the feet of Barack Obama. If he had not run for president, if he had not won – not just once, but twice – good, decent Americans would not have found themselves consumed with frustration, fear & fury. Hate.
As I see it, we are in this truly frightening place because the election of someone who symbolizes something I don’t even understand but is very real for a shocking number of my fellow citizens caused them to rip open every wound that has been festering since the mid-1860s, maybe before.
Within eight years, every hot button issue that seared my life – and quite a few from years long before I was born – scorched our nation. Social Security & Medicare, voting rights, income inequality, women’s rights, gender equality, reproductive rights, state rights, even the Confederacy – all raised their heads since January 2009.
Here is the fault I find with the response to David Frum’s article – at least, with the response to it. A lot of folks think it blames Trump for the destroyed guardrails. Frum never says that. After reading his piece in The Atlantic, I picture Donald Trump as a yuuuge semi, sleep-deprived & careening down a crowded highway; he stays safe, but because the guardrails are broken, car after car gets pushed to the shoulder, then over the unprotected edge.
Seven guardrails of democracy, all bent, buckled, broken.
On November 7, 2012, the re-elected President of the United States said the following. It was still true four years ago. Is it today? Will it be in a year? Without those seven guardrails, all bent buckled & busted, who knows?
I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're willing to try.
I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.
And together with your help and God's grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.
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