A Missed Opportunity That Will Go Down in the Annals of History--The Failure to Impeach Donald Trump

 

I wrote the letter below last week to one of the senators (unnamed) who failed to move to find Donald Trump guilty for his multiple actions to overturn the U.S. government, actions which far beyond any previous actions of a president represented a total denial of the rule of law and abrogation of our Constitution. 

 

Dear Senator,

 

I am deeply worried about the future of our country.  I find myself looking back on a posting I made just over three years ago on the Senate impeachment trial.  I do so with no small sense of irony but, more, a great deal of sadness.  We missed the opportunity--the Republican members in the Senate missed the opportunity, to label Trump’s action for what it was, impeaching him and removing the threat that he, or any other president doing what he did, represents to our nation.

 

It appears that our future will hinge on the verdict of the American public in the upcoming election.  It shouldn’t have come to this.  Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses under any common sense, ethical perspective.

 

It is no small irony to recall Senator McConnell explicitly underscoring three years ago the availability of criminal procedures against President Trump as a private citizen.  Yet now, there are conservative judges on SCOTUS who are saying that, unless the charges had been validated by impeachment or criminal indictment, the case can’t be tried.  Talk about kabuki.

 

You miss certain opportunities in life.  This will go down in history as a big one.

 

 I pray for the future of our nation.

 

Warm personal regards,

John

 

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How History Will Look Back—The Senate Impeachment Trial

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

 

The trial ended about as one would have anticipated in that there was less than a two-thirds majority of the Senators who voted to convict.  The vote was 57-43 in favor of conviction, with seven brave Republicans crossing the line to join all of the Democrats.  A few reflections:

 

1.     The Senate—more precisely 43 Senate Republicans—abandoned their responsibility to play the role that only the Senate could, in upholding the Constitution of the United States and making it clear that no one, not even a President, could violate his Oath of Office by seeking to overthrow the established principles of our Constitutional government, in this case, honoring elections and securing a peaceful transition of power.

 

Yes, the Republican leader, Sen. McConnell, explicitly underscored the availability of criminal procedures against President Trump as a private citizen, but no criminal or civil action can, even if successful, take the place of what only the conviction of impeachment would have, in explicitly upholding the Constitution of the United States.  That is what was at stake here.  

 

2.     The fact that this was the strongest bipartisan support of impeachment of any president in the nation’s history stands as a stark fact that will not be forgotten.

 

The names of the seven Republicans who stood up will be forever recognized and I believe celebrated by almost all.

 

3.     The incontrovertible evidence that Trump was singularly responsible for spreading the lies, the mythical conspiracy theories, and the vitriolic rhetoric without which this crowd would not have attacked the Capitol, was denied by almost none.  The linkage of this to the deaths of five people and the injury of over 100 people, many seriously, will not be forgotten.  The conclusion of the final commentary by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, even if it followed his “not guilty” verdict, based on a controversial and flawed view of the Constitutional right of the Senate to convict Trump now that he is out of office, will serve as a ringing affirmation of the case which the House prosecutors so ably presented.

 

The defense which Trump’s legal team tried to mount was feeble and not taken seriously by just about anyone, Republicans included.

 

4.     Grassroots support for Trump will not go away.  Nor will he.  He will continue to fan his base with his victim mentality, both for him and for them.  It is hard to say how many of the 74 million people who voted for him in 2020 would do so again.  We will get polls on this.  My guess is the number might drop by up to 20-25% in the intermediate future as the criminal and civil charges against him play out. 

 

The Republican Party faces a huge challenge, with no clear outcome in sight.  What will the Republican Party stand for?  It can’t be for what Trump stands for.  In fact, he doesn’t really stand for anything outside of himself and his spread of victim mentality and his appeal to the baser instincts of division and hate.  Pursuing that as a party would in the end be a fool’s errand, not only bad for the party, but for the country--for the country really does need a viable two-party system.

 

There are leaders whose character, instinct and temperament could play a leadership role.  Who will emerge is anybody’s guess at this point.  Romney will certainly be a senior statesman of the best sort.  Whether he has the will or the means to rally the party around him is very much in doubt.  Many if not most will see him as too liberal.

 

On one thing I do feel sure now.  History will look back on the Trump presidency as a dangerous aberration that carried with it great risk for the country.

 

While having carried far more danger because he occupied the presidency and because of his broad appeal, I believe he will fit into the same type of bucket as Joe McCarthy, Fr. Coughlin and Huey Long.

 

How he is viewed, however, will depend in no small measure on how the Republican Party evolves from here; whether it can find a new purpose and set of principles which continue to rally many of the people who support President Trump, but brings together others who in the past would have been part of the Republican Party.  Who will lead this? I believe someone who is probably still relatively young who will come to see this as their mission in life.  Let's hope this happens sooner rather than later.

 

 

We Have to Walk Away from Mortal Threat to Our Democracy---Looking Back Eight Years

 I rarely repost a blog. I make an exception here because of  the mortal threat to our Democracy which Donald Trump represents. 

"WE HAVE TO WALK AWAY FROM THIS ROAD SHOW"

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

“We Have to Walk Away From This Road Show”

 

These are among the words with which Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson concludes her book, “Mother Country.”  It was published in 1989.  She was writing about a somewhat different challenge then.  She described it as a “decline in national self-esteem.”  But in a way, it wasn’t different.  In a way, we are facing much the same challenge today.  I describe it as a “decline in confidence in our institutions.”  

 

Because of this, we are witnessing a campaign by a candidate for the presidency of the United States by Donald Trump unlike any other we have witnessed in my lifetime.  A campaign that relishes in sweeping, categorical defamation of other people, such as Muslims and immigrants.  A campaign that takes delight in pushing the boundaries of outrageous pronouncements, whether that be in vilifying an entire group of people or accusing a former president of the United States of “lying.”  We are perversely taken by Trump’s authenticity, his fearlessness and his complete and utter rejection of political correctness.

 

Trump is feeding off a space filled with the potent mixture of boredom, frustration, hopelessness and anger and the all-too-present human attraction to witness, and indeed even revel, in the bizarre.  His impact is fueled by a media frenzy producing unending coverage and the inability of even the most seasoned, tough-minded interviewer to overcome his steamrolling, self-guided verbosity.

 

Without articulating any policy much beyond “building a big wall, which we’ll have Mexico pay for” and “making America great again” in ways weakly defined, he emphatically says, “Trust me.  I’m great at making deals.”  

 

He has the insidious talent of demeaning, indeed trashing, “others,” while making those he is addressing feel special, valued, even “loved.”  He gets away with this in no small measure because he is so obviously delivering what he says with gay abandon.  He is really enjoying himself.  

 

All of what I’ve written here has been easy to write.  But what is not easy and has never been easy in times of challenge of the kind we face today is to find and support the leader who can bring us together, who can offer a vision for the future and plans to support it that realistically offer an improved life for all and to find a role for our country in the world which advances as far as possible the peace we need while avoiding nuclear disaster and the threat of terrorism.

 

Returning to Ms. Robinson, she closes her book with words I resonate to:  “My greatest hope is that we will at last find the courage to make ourselves rational and morally autonomous adults, secure enough in the faith that life is good and to be preserved, and to recognize the greatest forms of evil and name them and confront them.”  

 

Paraphrasing her conclusion, we have to walk away from this road show which Donald Trump’s campaign represents.  We need to “consult with our souls, and find the courage in ourselves, to see and perceive and hear and understand.”

The Challege of Balancing Liberal Ideals and Pragmatic Means

 

 Hal Brands, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, has written a thought provoking essay, titled The Age of Amorality:  Can America Save the Liberal Order through Illiberal Means?  He leads off the essay with a cogent question from Reinhold Neibuhr, written in 1946, “how much evil we must do in order to do good?”  This, I think, is a very succinct statement of the human situation.  Brand makes the point that the preservation of the liberal order and the liberal values for which the United States stands will sometimes involve “illiberal means.”  We end up supporting countries, for example,  that are far from perfect to achieve the balance of power we need.

 

Brand posits several principles with which I generally agree: 

 

1.      Morality is a compass, not a straitjacket.  In the name of moral integrity, political sustainability and strategic self-interest, America’s statecraft should point toward a world consistent with its values.  But the United States cannot paralyze itself by trying to fully embody those values in every tactical decision. Above all,  it must practice as well as possible the values it advocates. Lived example speaks far louder than words and pronouncements. A "sinning preacher" carries no weight.

2.      The United States should remember that taking the broad view is as vital as taking the long view.  Support for democracy and human rights is not an all-or-nothing proposition. In this context, I believe the case for cooperation versus the alternative of cutting relationships  with India is correct despite its not exhibiting appropriate tolerance of Muslims under the increasingly Hindu-nationalistic Modi government. 

3.      We need to recognize that "marginal improvements" matter.  We won’t convince leaders in the UAE or Turkey or China  to commit political suicide by abandoning their domestic models lock stock and barrel more or less overnight but our leverage reinforced by our example at home can help mitigate illiberal actions by, for example, seeking the release of political prisoners or by making elections a bit fairer.

4.      We need to be patient and recognize we can’t achieve major change all at once.   Often, we must allow history to take its course.  That is what we did in confronting the Soviet Union; that is what we should do today in confronting the issues of China.  Co-existence with China is essential, not just to avoid catastrophe, but to take advantage of the benefit that synergistic relationships with China can provide.

 

I am of course describing a balancing act requiring acute judgment. It evolves to a company level as well.  Take Procter & Gamble as an example. In Saudi Arabia, where P&G had an important business founded in the 1950s, women were not permitted to work in the same room as men as late as the 1980. So what did P&G do? How could we abide by the law and still respect and take advantage of women who wanted to work? We had women in one office and men in another and had them communicate and collaborate by phone. It was far from ideal but it was manageable. We stayed in Saudi Arabia, continuing to foster gender equality. We believed and hoped that in time the law would change. Today, that law has changed and men and women share common work spaces.  

 Similarly, Procter & Gamble has faced a very difficult decision whether to continue to operate a core business in Russia.  To date, we have decided we should, despite Russia's having a regime whose values and actions we absolutely disagree with.  But weighing the options, we have decided that provided our employees remain safe, closing all of our operations--resulting in the significant loss of assets, harm to thousands of employees and deprivation of quality brands to consumers-- would result in more harm than whatever good it might produce. This decision will probably remain under continuing review. 

There is a challenge here. A difficult one. There are "slippery slopes" in balancing the trade off of values and pragmatic actions required to stay alive.  Staying with P&G as an example, if we found the only way we could stay in business would be to pay bribes to the government, I do not believe we could stay in business. If we were obliged to discriminate against some employees in a way that denied their safety, I do not believe we could stay in business. If for some reason, we were not able to make products that were safe for consumers to use, we could not stay in business. There are red lines which cannot be crossed. Defining them demands judgement of the highest integrity and continuing review to be sure that to the best of our ability we are doing the right thing. 

What the Partition of India and Pakistan of Almost 80 Years Ago May Teach About Healing the Wounds of Israel and Pakistan

  

I finished reading the bloodcurdling, mesmerizing, The Great Partition:  The Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan.   I find  many dimensions of this agonizing story which suggest lessons for today, especially for the chasm and carnage coming in the  relationship between Israel and Palestine. 

 

In retrospect, I accept the argument of Khan, that the partition of India and Pakistan and what, 25 years later, would become Bangladesh was not foreordained.  In the beginning, Pakistan “wasn’t even seen as a defined geographical unit, but as a way of expressing freedom for the Muslim population of India.”

 

The incompetence and irresponsibility with which Britain ditched India,  taking no responsibility for the transition, were monstrous.  They just “walked away from the problem,” leaving unformed governments and seething tensions to find their way to what became violence and extreme nationalism growing from differences in religious belief.

 

The primary leaders--Jinnah, Nehru and Ghandi did not foresee anything like the horror that flowed from the partition: the loss of over a million of lives, the uprooting and transfer of tens of millions of people from the north to south (Hindus) and from the south to the north (muslims).   Ghandi's policy of non-violence had already been punctured by violence and antagonism and fear between members of  the Congress party and the Muslim League even before the Partition. Pakistan was being seen and presented not only as a question of territory but as a "total and sweeping threat which risked the whole of Mother India". 

 

People who had lived together, worked together, in relative peace became enemies.  People who had "lived cheek to jowl for so long fell upon each other in 1947 and its aftermath with a ferocity that has few parallels in history", writes one historian.  It reminds me of what happened in the Balkans in the 1990s. 

I read this history with a constant eye on its possible relevance to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its resolution.   What can be learned to inform how to resolve that conflict?  What are the barriers that are going to have to be overcome?  Several shout out at me:

 

1.     It’s vital that the rights of citizenship (equal and premised on dignity for all) be clearly defined for both the majority populations and the minority populations including where Jews and Muslims live together. 

The boundaries of the two states, while nominally already established, need to be confirmed and firmly written into an enforceable covenant.

Travel between the nations needs to be transparent and not bogged down in discrimination or undue bureaucracy. 

 

The Indian-Pakistan history underscores the particular challenge posed by enclaves of the kind that I understand exist on the borders of Bangladesh and that exist now for Hindus in the Western Bank and Muslims in Jerusalem.  (I’m assuming from this experience that it would be impractical and wrong to try to transfer these populations that have already established their homes.) 

 

 Vital that relationships be established between Israel and Palestine that optimize trade, cultural transfers and transportation. Establishing linkages like this between India and Pakistan have taken decades and from what I read are just beginning. Hopefully, we can learn from this experience. 

This will take a great deal of time to build the trust on which such relationships must be based. The fissures are great and will be greater than ever following the humanitarian disaster that has impacted the people of both nations. But I believe the journey needs to begin with the endpoint in mind. And there are several inspiring examples of cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis led by organizations supported by Mehra and David Rimer that give firm credence to the possibility of progress. 

3. But what about the present situation, now and tomorrow? Reading the history of the Partition makes one deeply aware of the lasting deep personal  impact--physical and psychological--of the millions of displaced people. There are as many as 1.5 million people in Gaza who have had to flee their homes;  perhaps half of these have been destroyed. (And tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced too though there homes have not been similarly destroyed). How will these families be helped to move back, how will they be treated medically, how will homes and schools and hospitals be rebuilt? Who will pay for this? What can we learn from post WW II in the decimated cities of Europe? What we do know is that it took years. 

4.     Accomplishing this and more will obviously depend above all on strong leadership in Israel and Palestine committed to the goal of peaceful coexistence and mutual collaboration to make the most of the relationship between Palestine and Israel.  

that leadership  painfully does not now exist. 

It will require the acceptance of a new narrative---namely that peace and a stable, fruitful life for the people of this region will ONLY be possible if Palestine and Israel accept the NEED to live together with mutual respect. 

 All of this I believe will need to be supported in its purpose and financially be an organized consortium (Commission) of leaders from leading Arab countries, the West, the U.S., China, etc. This has to be approached much as the recovery of Europe was after WWII. It is a matter all of the world has a stake in. 

I ask myself  Is there anything to be learned  on HOW to organize to do this from the history of fusing Northern Ireland and Ireland, or the Switzerland or perhaps the creation of Tanzania? Or anything else?

In conclusion, I wonder if lessons growing from the pain and loss of human capacity suffered by the people of India and Pakistan resulting from the Partition can  be leveraged to improve the prospects of defining and implementing a positive, peaceful future for the long suffering peoples of Israel and Palestine.

 

"Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes"--Personal Reflections

 Yale Professor Steven B. Smith’s book, Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes, was heavy going in the beginning. There was for me an over- abundance of references to ancient philosophers and political thinkers.  However, page by page, chapter by chapter, I became more and more impressed.  In the end, I am filled with admiration for this book as Smith convincingly defines the essence of "Patriotism", which embraces the best values in America without claiming perfection or denying the worth of Cosmopolitanism, which can become too utopian and unrealistic.

 

I was also reminded how the feeling of patriotism which Professor Smith describes can attach not only to our nation but also to an institution or company where one spends much of their life and career, like Yale and Procter & Gamble.

 

Smith, not entirely correctly in my opinion, argues that America was the first, and perhaps still is the only nation founded on a creed.  We are a creedal people, he asserts.  We keep referring back to our Founding Fathers, to our Constitution and to our Bill of Rights to a degree the citizens of no other country do—even if we argue intensely as to what is the right interpretation of the Constitution.  (I write “not entirely correctly” because while the frequency of our referring to our Constitution is probably unique, the leadership and the citizens of other nations say, and to varying degrees believe, they are pursuing a “creed-“ based vision.)

 Professor Smith writes correctly that Patriotism requires “not only an understanding and appreciation of a set of abstract ideas, but also their embodiment in a particular history and tradition.”  “The ethos of a society embodies those traits of character that are normative for the community,” he writes.  They embrace the “kinds of persons and personality traits (who) are deemed desirable (andf) or kinds of actions and policies that are worthy of respect.”

 

Of course, there isn’t universal agreement on what are the policies and actions which are "worthy of respect" in our nation’s history.  However, I believe there will be broad agreement, for example, that Abraham Lincoln’s principles and his determined and courageous leadership were what the nation needed at the time he was President; that Martin Luther King pursued a correct and admirable commitment to non-violent protest in order to advance the rights of minorities; that men and women sacrificing their lives in World War II to preserve the democracy of this country—these were irreplaceable, admirable deeds.

 

There would also be broad agreement on things that have been carried out by our Nation that are not admirable:  lynching, Jim Crow, the appropriation of Native American lands in violation of treaties and the internment of the Japanese in WW II.

 

My observation: the only way to preserve and build on our creed, our Purpose—and the only way to make the ethos of the place real, is by:  1) Results—demonstrating the ability to take actions needed to progress to achieving our Purpose; 2) Transparency—describing the bases for our actions explicitly in terms of the values they embody and 3) Sharing learning and history—by telling memorable stories of how the Purpose has been fulfilled in ways we admire or in ways that fail to measure up to fulfilling our Purpose.  That’s how we can continue to learn, thereby sustaining the Purpose and continuing to improve in achieving it.

 

Every institution, whether it be our Nation, a company like P&G, a university like Yale or a cultural center like the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, needs to be clear on its Creed or its Purpose.  It needs to understand the ethos it has and which it seeks to build and what are the actions and values and the storytelling that will make that not just a bunch of abstract thoughts but descriptive of an entity to which one wants to commit his or her very best effort and a good part of their lives.  This is what produces Loyalty and Patriotism.

 

In other words, loyalty and a spirit of Patriotism have to be earned by what the institution is setting out to do, by how well and consistently it is doing it, by living its values in practice, and by how successful it is in continuing to do better tomorrow than it is today, despite inevitable setbacks.

 

Professor Smith provides an excellent service by defining the nature of the “Patriotism” we should seek.  What he does not address—nor do I believe it was his intent—is to what degree our Nation today is earning the loyalty and the Patriotism he so well describes or, even more to the point, what can be done to strengthen it.

 

The foundation of Patriotism have been dangerously weakened.  Citizens’ trust in the government has plummeted.  Pew reports that the percentage of Americans saying they “trust the federal government’s decisions most of the time” plummeted from 73 percent in 1958 to just 19 percent in 2019.  Trust in other major institutions, including religion and schools (onl the military has been immune), has also declined precipitously.

 

Respect for “truth” and the commitment to a common, shared cause which are so necessary to support Patriotism have been shattered by a lack of value-based leadership, particularly embodied by Donald Trump.  Now, following the first year of the Biden Administration, beset with the overhanging pall of COVID, the impact of climate change and the competitive threat of China and other geo-political challenges, we are shaken by concerns about the sheer competence of our government, i.e., is it being led by people able to get done what they have promised and are expected and need to do? Too often the answer is "no". 

I don’t have a confident answer to what can be done to “Reclaim Patriotism,” returning to the title of Professor Smith’s book—other than to say it depends on leadership  There’s nothing new about that.  We have always depended on strong leadership at times of crisis.  Leaders able and brave enough to face reality, frame a uniting vision, marshal a clear and compelling stratgegy and take actions which, even if imperfectly, lead to substantive progress toward that vision.

 

I also know that I (indeed all of us) have a personal responsibility to work to the best of our abilities to make the life and the lives of people we touch better because we are where we are.

Reflections from a Master Historian--C. Vann Woodward

 

I completed my reading of C. Vann Woodward’s marvelous book, Thinking Back:  The Perils of Writing History.  I’ve long been an admirer of Woodward.  He stands alongside David Potter, David Blight and David Brion Davis in my regard.  It’s an elegant book, a retrospective view of Woodward’s experiences as a historian.  He considers his own books and the critical dialogue they engendered and how the history of the South was viewed and written about during the early years of the century and how those views have changed over the decades.  He describes his university years at Emory and Chapel Hill, at Columbia and then, Yale.  He arrived on campus two years after I graduated.  How I would have loved to take courses from him.

 

There were many nuggets of wisdom in the book.  I’ll cite just a few:

 

Woodward tackles the controversy of history’s having a “purpose.”  He writes, “If the implied alternative be writing history without a purpose or an unacknowledged or unconscious purpose, then the indictment (that I write with a purpose) will have to stand.”  As one historian noted:  “Unless there is some emotional tie, some elective affinity linking the student to his subject, the results will be pedantic and perfunctory.”  And this, “The man who does not feel issues deeply cannot write great history about them.”

 I like what Carl Degler, one of my favorite historians, once wrote:  “All questions of continuity are relative.  All history is a combination of varying degrees of continuity and change.”  That has certainly been true of the history of Russia and China as I’ve experienced it over the last 30 years.  

 

 I identify closely with this from Woodward:  “If foresight had been enriched by hindsight (thinking of how he wrote history), I admit that I might have done it differently—and I am sure, more correctly.  But I am more disturbed to admit that if hindsight had preceded foresight, I might not have done it at all.  And that would have been to miss an experience, an adventure, that I perversely continue to cherish.”

 

I think about the Freedom Center.  If I had the foresight to see the financial challenges we have had, I’m sure we would not have built the building we did.  And, yet, looking back, it’s probably good that we did.

 

Or, if I had had the foresight to see what would happen in Russia, I probably would not have brought the degree of enthusiastic commitment to it which I did, persuaded as I was then that Russia was on the path to some form of democratization.  But seeing it the way I did, however incompletely and incorrectly it has turned out, underpinned our actions to become the clear-cut leader.  I am glad I had that perception.

 

In capturing a motivation that had animated my writing, I cite these words from Woodward:  “No matter how parochial its bounds, the historian is tempted to feel that his findings have meaning and value for a larger public than his fellow specialists and that he should share his arcane insights more widely.  It is a critical moment, a temptation best resisted, until wisdom ripens.”

 

Wise or not, these were my instincts as I’ve written the books which I have written.

 

It’s striking to read what characterized the attitude of Americans in the 1950s:  “Unified, confident, and powerful, Americans prided themselves on their military prowess, their economic productivity, their diplomatic triumphs, and their vindication of their high ideals.  In this mood, America presented herself to the world as a model for how democracy, power, opulence and virtue could be combined under one flag.”

 

We no longer carry such an unvarnished view of our exceptionalism or the inevitability of our winning.  The Vietnam War, Watergate, Afghanistan, Iraq, the polarization of the body politic, have put a dark cloud over any naïve view of life.  Yet, we cannot allow this to darken the appreciation and pursuit of those values which characterize us at our best.

 

Woodward rejected this notion that we had “unparalleled power and unprecedented wealth” which led to “unbridled self-righteousness and the illusion of national innocence.”

 

That risk no longer prevails.

 

Reinhold Niebuhr, my favorite philosopher, balances it right.  He understands that America’s ironic plight rests in the midst of seeming innocence.

 

In the 1960s and ‘70s, as a result of Vietnam and Watergate, Woodward writes, “It did seem as if history was at last about to catch up with Americans, and it was doubtful that they could much longer find refuge in their peculiar legends and myths.  A malaise seemed to sap national self-righteousness, self-confidence, and complacency.”

 

But as history was quickly to show, that did not last.  The 1980s witnessed another shift in the national mood under President Reagan that assured Americans that they were making a miraculous recovery.  Not only were all American wars righteous, but they all ended in victory.  Yet, that attitude turned again with Iraq and Afghanistan and Donald Trump.

 

As always, we see reversion and retreat.  We’re seeing it now in the pushback against what is described as identity politics and a waning in some quarters in the commitment to DE&I training.

 

We have to keep the few most important values in front of us and not retreat:  Everyone counts, love trumps hate, continuous improvement is possible, but not inevitable.  We’ll always have to contest pushback and recognize the force of continuity in embedded cultures.

"There's Nothing New Under the Sun"...But There Can Be and Must Be

"There's nothing new under the sun:. It's a familiar bromide. 

It captures enormous truth, of course. I am reminded of this again this week as I see how the  words of ex-President Trump, angrily and contemptuously denouncing immigrants as "venomous poison",  mirror almost word for word assertions by George Wallace and the leader of the Second Klu Klux Klan decades ago. This reminds me-there have always been leaders and there will always be leaders who are willing to fuel and live off the inveterate human tendency of people to see ourselves as victims...to elevate their view of their self worth by comparing themselves to a declared undeserving "other". 

Yet, with determined and principled leadership it does not have to be this way. In fact, we cannot allow it to be this way. To be sure, we do have to understand the source of people's grievances. We need to understand what corrective action can and should be taken to address them. But we need to stand up for the best in human nature..the recognition we are all on this journey of life together and should recognize each other, indeed recognize all people as deserving our respect for their dignity and right to freedom. 

People did eventually stand up to reject the hateful rhetoric and views of George Wallace and the Klan. But not before they had gained broad public support. Wallace received almost 10 million votes and won five southern states in the 1968 Presidential election. The Second Klan claimed membership by numerous mayors of cities and state governors. But ultimately, their divisive rhetoric and unsubstantiated accusations and claims brought them down.

Sadly, we have not yet had  unified Republican and other political voices (including from men and women who know better) rejecting the hateful rhetoric and views of Trump as they ultimately did those of Wallace and the Klan and Senator Joe McCarthy. The day will come when I feel certain historians, social commentators and the public at large will look back almost with a sense of wonder at how circumstances arose which allowed the emergence of a man of  such feckless character and mean spirit as Donald Trump to capture the heart and mind of the Republican party. I hope we will learn from this experience. 

Stepping back, I am affirmed how much of the best in civilization has "been new under the sun". A reading from Exodus in my church today referred to "slaves" as a normal expected segment in society. In fact. as late as the beginning of the 18th Century slavery was legal in every country throughout the Americas. Median span of life has nearly doubled over this same period. At the turn of the 20th century, women did not have the right to vote in most western nations, including the US. As late as the 1970's and even beyond LGBQT members in this country were ostracized and had to live under cover. 

Yes, progress is possible--though there will always be push back which if we fail to confront will result in retreat. And yes, I have also come to recognize there are irreducible human instincts, instincts I share:  of fear and the elevation and preservation of our egos; a coveting for power and control which demand that we seek, always., to embrace and live through our actions and treatment of others the "better angels of our nature". That will never happen on "automatic pilot". It will take constant effort and commitment. At least that is what I have found