The Runaway Train
Been wondering lately about all the haters, negativists, half-baked opinionators, talking heads of whom I have become wretchedly weary in these days of almost post pandemic and post Trumpian cauchemars.
Been thinking about the early days of the Republic when there were no restrictions on immigration. Actually, immigration was uncontrolled until 1921. Whoever wanted to come could. They faced sweatshops, unrestricted child labor, and unremitting social Darwinism. These immigrants, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Greek, German, and others all were white, and mostly able to read and write, enjoyed stable family structures upon which to build a semblance of a free life. Let them come again, but they stood on the shoulders of those who came before.
They, and the backs of slaves built this country. “Manifest destiny” was a euphemism for stealing land from native Americans and Mexicans. Although whites faced discrimination, they did not inherit the bones of Jim Crow as is manifested still by those who oppose the teaching of “critical race theory,” falsely claiming that it is teaching blacks to be racists, to hate whites. This is simply a bold-faced lie as wretched as the lie that that the capitol insurrection was “just a small riot,” as averred by such “patriots” as Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, all of whom supported the big lie and charge Democrat racism based upon a rejection of historical fact.
African American immigrants arrived in slave ships, were sold into bondage, their families separated by slavers, who sold children, mothers, sons and fathers to different masters. This stain on our history is comparable to the most unspeakable of human crimes. This grotesque history belies the premise that “all men are created equal.”
Now we are engaged in a possible transmogrification of our republic to a frightfully totalitarian dystopia, having a large portion of the population actually believing the ravings of a demented madman, that the election of 2020 was stolen from him, undermining the essential character of our Republic—free and fair elections. GOP efforts abound in Republican legislatures to suppress the vote with restrictions aimed at minorities.
When President Biden met Mr. Putin this week in Geneva, Putin shamelessly argued the false equivalence that the insurrection at our capitol, killing 5, trying to send even lickspittle Mike Pence to be hanged, wounding others and threatening senators with death if they did not overturn the will of the people by returning Trump to the White House.
Illustratively, Putin’s imprisonment of a political opponent he had poisoned unsuccessfully, successfully murdering other opponents, we see “How Democracies Die,” as the noted political historian Timothy Snyder of Yale has written. The big lie is happening here, just as in Putin’s Russia.
It is not only the rule of law that protects us, but also the respect for the norms of democracy that bind us together. Think about Weimar Germany and the rise of Hitler, who was democratically elected but incrementally turned the nation of Beethoven, Schiller, and Wagner to a nation of hate and murderous rage against helpless men, women and children.
Leadership matters, as Philip Roth documented in his monumental work, “The Plot Against America,” wherein a Nazi sympathizing Charles Lindbergh becomes President of the United States defeating Franklin Roosevelt, resulting in totalitarian overtones of fascism, sending Jewish children to workcamps.
The question that must be asked of all thinking people of whatever caste or persuasion, whatever socio-economic status, is what they would do to prevent an economic and political catastrophe or which policies would best serve our nation. Certainly, Mitch McConnell sees none, his Machiavellian breast to argue in the next election that Biden “did nothing.” Democrats must deliver, abolish the filibuster, before it is too late. Use the power now, because it is fleeting.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln famously said.
We fell into a bloody civil war. Brother against brother, father against son, families torn asunder, a war killing more than 700,000 on the bloody battlefields of Antietam, Manassas, Gettysburg and Chattanooga, among others.
And if we look back, this war took from 1787 until 1860 to develop. The original three fifths compromise, the Missouri compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska act. All attempts to place a band aid over gangrene. We face far greater challenges than how states would be admitted to the Union; we face a changing climate, international competition, rising authoritarianism, and we are anxious, depressed. Jim Crow is alive, still.
If, however, identity politics caused wars, it was the economic causes engendered by religion and prejudice that lit the fire. This tribal notion of “others” stealing our homes, our dignity and our fortunes certainly caused more war than religious disputes alone. These two shibboleths are inherent in the human psyche. Identity politics is the bête noir of society. Until we have overcome these demons there will be no peace. But the bad news is that cultures change very slowly; we are in a culture infused war both internally and worldwide.
One thing for sure, stilted propaganda TV is not helpful. And we are not even sure that education makes a difference. People may not agree on policy, but if they cannot agree that the sun shines during the day, we are on a runaway train without Denzel Washington to put on the brakes.