What is Going on in Our Country?

 

I’m an older guy, a retired military officer and a person who thought he had seen everything in this crazy world. Yet here I am, as bewildered as the next person and wondering what is going on in my country.

                                                                    President-Elect Joe Biden

We just had an election in which the pollsters were apparently wrong again (except in MN, thank God!) Despite projections – and fervent hope by Democrats – the election was very close in a lot of races and went the opposite way in many others. The big surprise, at least to me, is not that Biden won the popular vote by a substantial margin (which sadly doesn’t matter with our goofy electoral system) but that Trump did so well. I am shocked, as are many others, I think, that millions of our fellow countrymen would vote for someone that a huge number (most?) of Americans see as deeply flawed and totally undeserving of re-election. In fact, I'm shocked that anyone is shocked that he lost! Of course, we are all subject to biases and driven by our favorite information sources so that certainly accounts for some of these opinions but holy mackerel, really? 74 million people voted for Trump even after 4 years' experience with this dude!? Plus, now the unprecedented attempts by the president - and by their silence and acquiescence, all Republicans - to essentially overthrow the election? (Sadly, not unexpected from this lot.) So, what’s really going on here? 

First, let me say this, 2020 was the first election since 2004 that I voted for a candidate from either major party (you know, against the previous worst president in history – and I failed.) I am as disillusioned as anyone in our two party system. More importantly, I have some friends – not many but some – who voted for Trump, probably both times. It has been a source of friction but, except for a couple of people, it hasn’t ended our friendship. They are all solid, smart, successful people who normally wouldn’t trust a person like Trump to walk their dog. To their credit, they claim they don’t actually like Trump, his behavior or preposterous nature but, well . . . just had to vote for him. Being generous, maybe they were voting against Biden. A lot of us don’t vote FOR anyone much anymore but AGAINST someone or something. This was really apparent in this election and is a sad comment no doubt. But still, Trump?!

What's going, I think, is fear. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of us are simply afraid. Instead of the optimism that America has been famous for, we, for the past many years, are now mostly driven by fear. Just to name a few, and not counting covid: fear for livelihoods; fear of foreigners; fear for the kids’ future; fear of different lifestyles; fear of not allowed those lifestyles; fear for religion; fear of religion; fear of bigotry; fear of government doing too much - or too little. In the simplest terms, it’s the human fear of change. For many, America is either changing too much or it isn’t changing fast enough. Oversimplified for sure but I think fairly accurate. This goes for people of all persuasions, liberal, conservative or whatever. Trump supporters, however, seem to exist in a separate galaxy of fear. What gives?

"Come on, kids, it's time for Leave it to Beaver!"

Make America Great Again! A brilliant slogan, sounds terrific but is totally meaningless - except as a code embraced by certain folks. Simple, let's just go back in time to someplace in American history when we were great. You know, when mom stayed home, dad went to the office and the kids walked to their beautiful, clean new schools (in my case, with Norwegians, Swedes and Germans.) Of course, people of color, non-Christians or gays were polite enough to stay out of plain sight. America was truly great then.

Unfair? Perhaps, but it does represent a pleasant kind of allegory for a huge cohort of people. Certainly it doesn’t mean that they are all necessarily racist or homophobic but it does have an appealing simplicity that Trump brilliantly tapped into and promised his acolytes, not just Republicans but disaffected Democrats as well. Then consider his rallies.

They had a huge attendance by adoring fans (almost, but not quite, exclusively older and white.) One has to assume that on any other day these are good neighbors and fellow workers; they would seem like normal Americans. How then to explain that these same people cheered even his most misogynistic, racist and/or ignorant rantings? (And who can forget his hilarious mocking of a handicapped reporter and Gold Star parents.) This self-generated cult of the individual would be frightening in Kyrgyzstan let alone in America – all that’s missing is the Kool Aide used at Jonestown. And this is the man that the Republican party has embraced for four years?                                                                              

                                                                   Raucous MAGA Rally!

                                                

                                              Other Raucous Rallies

Ironically, Trump is not now nor ever has been a Republican. Doesn’t matter though, the fact that he gave Republicans their deepest desires - lower taxes for rich people, gutting regulations and placing reactionary judges at all levels - makes him Republican enough. That he is a singly out for himself? Doesn’t matter. His assault on the First Amendment? Doesn’t matter. His authoritarian tendencies? Doesn’t matter. His treasonous actions stirring up the least informed of his followers about the election results? Doesn’t matter, he's delivered the goods.

So here we are. He lost the election as he should have yet he will leave behind anger and frustration and turmoil that will affect us for years.  I hope his promises of returning us to an America that never was or will be were worth it to the Republican party (a sin for which they should be sent to the political wilderness for a generation.)

                                                      Attack on Ft Sumter   Apr 12th 1861

So what is going on in our country? Fear? Madness? I guess I really haven't a clue. Still, it is clear that America is not just split on many issues but that we are nearly at the point that they can’t be resolved politically as implied with this last election. That is a very frightening thought. The last time we got here was in 1861  . . . and we know how that turned out.      

When Two Parties Aren't Enough

 

Like over 75 million other Americans – the greatest winning vote total in history - I am happy with the defeat of Donald Trump, who shockingly had second highest vote total. Yet somehow, I find it hard to be happy about the overall outcome. I’m not talking about politically disappointing, although that is probably true for pretty much everyone on both sides who voted. No, I‘m very dissatisfied with continued gridlock. More accurately, I am unhappy that most of us consider this a good outcome. It strikes me that when the only thing we agree on is that gridlock, for one reason or another, is a natural and positive goal – I won’t get anything but then neither will you! - it speaks to a uniquely American preference for wanting a government that doesn’t work.  

I know, I get it, the Founding Fathers in their wisdom created this interbranch tension to make sure no one branch could overpower the others; they obviously they wanted to limit what the government could do and it worked great in 1788 when there were 13 states and 3,000,000 white people (slaves didn’t count, of course, except for Electoral College.) It’s the 21^st century, we have 50 states and a very diverse population of over 330 million people. Like it or not, the "little government" train left the station a long time ago. So here we go, another four years of ignoring the many huge issues and problems facing our country. Is this the way the supposedly greatest democracy in the world should function? Do you really think that they intended this kind of governmental incompetence? If so, maybe they weren’t as smart as we made them out to be.

Or maybe it’s not that they weren’t wise, maybe it was something they didn’t anticipate. Perhaps it was the rise of dysfunctional political parties. 

You know, there were never supposed to be political parties. In fact, George Washington warned against them when he left office and people listened – for about two minutes. Parties are as inevitable as sunrise and the changing seasons; the system doesn’t work without them. Parties have come and gone – think Federalists, Whigs, Democratic Republicans - while others have changed over time in both name and philosophy yet somehow we still ended up with just two main parties. In this, like so many things, America is different from nearly every other democratic country in the world (most of which use a parliamentary form of government with several parties.) However, for the first couple hundred years the parties more or less agreed to cooperate in governing the country. Maybe not happily but at least relatively effectively. Somehow, somewhere along the way that agreement has disappeared.

Part of the problem is the politicians themselves. For example, we have a 74 yr old soon-to-be ex-president, a 77 yr old president - elect and countless septuagenarian and octogenarian legislators who are in office for 30-40 years and simply refuse to leave and let in new blood and ideas (too good a gig, I guess.) This is ridiculous - no other modern democracy allows itself to be run by the geriatric section of the hospital!

Also, most astute observers can see that neither party really seems to have a clue about what most Americans actually want. Oh, they get what we are fearful of and work hard to exploit it. Yet they only come up with “cures” for those things that the individual party philosophy is capable of identifying which, in the end, are simply the Republicans trying to takes us back to the 50’s and Leave it to Beaver and Democrats want to solve every possible human boo boo with the government. The parties used to somehow reach agreement and at least do something functional. Not anymore, their main accomplishment is to have turned us into a divided country of “blues” and “reds” at each other’s throats with no hope of compromise.

Further, neither party trusts the other even though they are essentially flip sides of the same monolithic – and corrupt – system which can be expressed by one word: money. Both parties take money, lots of money, from exactly the same big moneyed interests. (Is it a coincidence that Wall Street loves gridlock!?) So, no shock, the average person is essentially ignored. Add to this the bizarre nonsense of the Electoral College and it’s actually amazing we’ve made this long.

What to do? If it was easy it would have already been done but a few things to consider. For example, several of these issues could be resolved with a few tweaks of the Constitution: term/age limits, restricting money contributions and/or eliminating PACs e.g. corporations are NOT people! Also, standardize national elections and eliminating the Electoral College (before it literally causes a civil war.)

Alas, we know how the founding fathers felt about making changes to their baby. Add to that American’s odd belief that the Constitution was somehow brought down from Mt. Sinai right after Moses and you can see that this is not going to happen. (Ironically, none other than Thomas Jefferson thought the Constitution should be reviewed every 18 years for changes. What a concept!)

The truth is our two-party system doesn’t work for anyone but insiders. Furthermore, this country is now so large and diverse that there is no way for two calcified parties to meet our needs. That leaves only the great American love of competition to fix this mess. We need strong third, fourth or even fifth parties that can bring forward much more diverse sets of ideas along the lines of Parliamentary systems.   

America has always been a land of opportunity and optimism up until about the last forty years. We now seem to be a land of fear and anger. We all fear for many things: our livelihood, expensive education and healthcare, future for our kids, income inequality, racial inequality – fear that America will never be like the 1950’s again? Essentially, fear of change in a rapidly changing world. Yet what do we get from the parties?  Acrimony and disfunction. 

Sorry, that’s it, that’s all I have. If you have any better ideas now would be the time to share them – before America is not worth gridlocking.