"But I don’t think so. People want a democracy, and they want it to work. Discussions of political power, how it is distributed and used are necessary if there is going to be a legitimate moment of renewal for American governance. There is still time before the next presidential election to start dialogues between those who agree.”
Wanting a democracy is not enough. Just like those on the right who blithely toss around ‘socialist’, ‘communist;, and ‘Marxist’ as boogiemen against the ‘libs’, often without any concrete and historical knowledge of any of them, ‘democracy’ is probably as easily misunderstood.
we were designed to be the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted. I’m not at all sure that even the most ardent proponent of democracy (or Republicanism for the purists) really understands how complex a system it is, or how inherently risky it is. And for all his own internal contradictions, Jefferson was right about one thing - "That mankind are disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed”.
The Constitution of 1789 was an extraordinary departure from any governmental form that had preceded it, but the Framers were all too well aware that changing times and circumstances would require alterations to it. And they existed in a world so unlike ours that they could hardly have conceived of what those changing circumstances would be. (Anyone seekmg proof of that need only take a good look at the controversies surrounding the Second Amendment).
Whatever we end up doing following a potential Democratic takeover of House and/or Senate, and I certainly hope that some level of accountability will be levied against those who have so violated our trust, such as it is, we will have accomplished nothing unless we start to educate both ourselves and our children in a far more comprehensive way about the nature of Novus Ordo Seclorum than we have been dong for quite a long time - indeed perhaps than we ever have.
Democracy wasn’t all that hard to understand for Jefferson’s yeoman farmer on his patch of arable land and in company with his relatively few and largely homogeneous neighbors, almost wholly cut off from a world that was even then becoming more interconnected than it had ever been. It is a damn sight harder to comprehend now in a far larger and far more diverse country, let alone in a world so interconnected that an event in far off Iran can impact the entire world.
Trump has been a remarkable gift to a nation that had grown far too complacent about the solidity of its governmental system. 'American exceptionalism’ is, as MLK noted, a promissory note, and not, as so many on the right claim it to be - a state already achieved. He has shown us just how fragile our system is.
What we will do with that understanding remains to be seen, but if it is to be at all successful, it must include a far more comprehensive comprehension of who we were designed to be than I think enough of us have. .
How do you build a coalition between voters who chose their leaders by charisma or with those that chose leaders by the their logical thought and expression of ideas? Trumpism has been dismantling the past 50 years of the improvements made in governing.
This was a long slog, but a rewarding one for those of us who share some of your insights as well as concerns. I hope you find the time to chunk it down into bites more manageable for us proles. Just off the top of my inexpert head, I've said from the beginning, with your notion of 'accountability' in mind, that one of the biggest problem we were going to have with Trump is the lack of a mechanism of law ENFORCEMENT with sufficient teeth, claws and independence to imprison, fine or otherwise restrain and punish his lawbreaking actions. Stuff like that.
To talk of the post Trump era is a bad case of hyperopia. It assumes that what is happening is driven by Trumpism, but the coup against the Constitution has been festering for 40 years and now is Project 2025 in its latest incarnation. Trump is just the face of it, the most visible part on the surface of a cancer within that began with the notorious Powell memo. Trump's worst vandalism would not be possible without the path cleared by the Roberts court. The Roberts court would not be possible without the wholesale corruption of Congress. The coup has been chipping away at the checks and balances that we depend on since the days of Reagan, unfortunately without general understanding. Trump is not an isolated event but the moment when the corruption of our system reached critical mass.
Trump without Project 2025 would be like Hitler without he Nazi Party. WW2 did not end with Hitler's death, and our troubles will not end with Trump's exit. In too much of the country, voters express dismay at Trump's policies but fail to connect their choices for Congress as the fuel for his bulldozer. It pains me that Democrats are not explaining to voters that the only way to stop Trump's destructive actions before 2029 is by voting out his enablers. This is not the time to debate policy. If your house is on fire, it's not the time to be discussing reconstruction plans. Policy plans are irrelevant until you first break up the power monopolies that stand in the way. The financial elites who colonized Congress will find another Trump if we don't recognize that the danger of concentrations of power that the founders saw in government are just as dangerous in the economy, even more so as we witness the power of money to capture and control government.
Good article. I have my own simple statement of this mess: I want accountability and I want to see a plan to build makes things work for all. Geez, the words of Robert Burn's just popped into my head: "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Yep. And loopholes in plans need to be recognized.
"But I don’t think so. People want a democracy, and they want it to work. Discussions of political power, how it is distributed and used are necessary if there is going to be a legitimate moment of renewal for American governance. There is still time before the next presidential election to start dialogues between those who agree.”
Wanting a democracy is not enough. Just like those on the right who blithely toss around ‘socialist’, ‘communist;, and ‘Marxist’ as boogiemen against the ‘libs’, often without any concrete and historical knowledge of any of them, ‘democracy’ is probably as easily misunderstood.
we were designed to be the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted. I’m not at all sure that even the most ardent proponent of democracy (or Republicanism for the purists) really understands how complex a system it is, or how inherently risky it is. And for all his own internal contradictions, Jefferson was right about one thing - "That mankind are disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed”.
The Constitution of 1789 was an extraordinary departure from any governmental form that had preceded it, but the Framers were all too well aware that changing times and circumstances would require alterations to it. And they existed in a world so unlike ours that they could hardly have conceived of what those changing circumstances would be. (Anyone seekmg proof of that need only take a good look at the controversies surrounding the Second Amendment).
Whatever we end up doing following a potential Democratic takeover of House and/or Senate, and I certainly hope that some level of accountability will be levied against those who have so violated our trust, such as it is, we will have accomplished nothing unless we start to educate both ourselves and our children in a far more comprehensive way about the nature of Novus Ordo Seclorum than we have been dong for quite a long time - indeed perhaps than we ever have.
Democracy wasn’t all that hard to understand for Jefferson’s yeoman farmer on his patch of arable land and in company with his relatively few and largely homogeneous neighbors, almost wholly cut off from a world that was even then becoming more interconnected than it had ever been. It is a damn sight harder to comprehend now in a far larger and far more diverse country, let alone in a world so interconnected that an event in far off Iran can impact the entire world.
Trump has been a remarkable gift to a nation that had grown far too complacent about the solidity of its governmental system. 'American exceptionalism’ is, as MLK noted, a promissory note, and not, as so many on the right claim it to be - a state already achieved. He has shown us just how fragile our system is.
What we will do with that understanding remains to be seen, but if it is to be at all successful, it must include a far more comprehensive comprehension of who we were designed to be than I think enough of us have. .
How do you build a coalition between voters who chose their leaders by charisma or with those that chose leaders by the their logical thought and expression of ideas? Trumpism has been dismantling the past 50 years of the improvements made in governing.
This was a long slog, but a rewarding one for those of us who share some of your insights as well as concerns. I hope you find the time to chunk it down into bites more manageable for us proles. Just off the top of my inexpert head, I've said from the beginning, with your notion of 'accountability' in mind, that one of the biggest problem we were going to have with Trump is the lack of a mechanism of law ENFORCEMENT with sufficient teeth, claws and independence to imprison, fine or otherwise restrain and punish his lawbreaking actions. Stuff like that.
To talk of the post Trump era is a bad case of hyperopia. It assumes that what is happening is driven by Trumpism, but the coup against the Constitution has been festering for 40 years and now is Project 2025 in its latest incarnation. Trump is just the face of it, the most visible part on the surface of a cancer within that began with the notorious Powell memo. Trump's worst vandalism would not be possible without the path cleared by the Roberts court. The Roberts court would not be possible without the wholesale corruption of Congress. The coup has been chipping away at the checks and balances that we depend on since the days of Reagan, unfortunately without general understanding. Trump is not an isolated event but the moment when the corruption of our system reached critical mass.
Trump without Project 2025 would be like Hitler without he Nazi Party. WW2 did not end with Hitler's death, and our troubles will not end with Trump's exit. In too much of the country, voters express dismay at Trump's policies but fail to connect their choices for Congress as the fuel for his bulldozer. It pains me that Democrats are not explaining to voters that the only way to stop Trump's destructive actions before 2029 is by voting out his enablers. This is not the time to debate policy. If your house is on fire, it's not the time to be discussing reconstruction plans. Policy plans are irrelevant until you first break up the power monopolies that stand in the way. The financial elites who colonized Congress will find another Trump if we don't recognize that the danger of concentrations of power that the founders saw in government are just as dangerous in the economy, even more so as we witness the power of money to capture and control government.
Thank you for the wonderful article, hopefully Trump and MAGA will be gone. Big changes coming soon.
Good article. I have my own simple statement of this mess: I want accountability and I want to see a plan to build makes things work for all. Geez, the words of Robert Burn's just popped into my head: "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Yep. And loopholes in plans need to be recognized.