Unmooring of America – We need a new Dock

In between daily life, family, professional and personal obligations, and Facebook comment wars, I continue to think and listen about the current state of American civic life.  I will fully admit an addiction, an addiction to a concern for the health of the republic that the Constitution of the United States has enshrined; and to which I have made a very solemn pledge.  It is not without evidence that I clearly feel that Donald J Trump, the current President of the USA, presents a current and present danger to the health of the republic.  I will continue, however, to also contend that he is a mere symptom of a much larger and deeper problem (see my earlier blog posts:  https://backusec.blogspot.com/2015/09/civic-engagement-american-democratic.html).  That problem is a sickness that exists within America generally, and is not being cured by Mr. Trump nor by much else these days.  To really understand what’s happening, however, I have been constantly attuned to hearing from those that I disagree with greatly.  I wrote before the election in 2016 a blog post about the Trump phenomenon, that there were several undercurrents at play that Trump et al were able to grapple onto, all too effectively (my earlier post:  https://backusec.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-trump-phenom-abridged.html).  To that end, I have been struck by a few articles of late that have particularly struck me in regards to what is happening in “Trump Country”:

1. Attorney General William Barr – speech at the Notre Dame Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame:  https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics
2. A post masquerading around as a message from the former Mayor of Livermore, CA (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mayor-livermore-california-explains-trumps-popularity-julian-mccall), but actually an opinion piece by Evan Sayet on Townhall.com:  https://townhall.com/columnists/evansayet/2017/07/13/he-fights-n2354580 (found by virtue of a Snopes check)
3. Opinion Columnist Michael J. Stern and his piece “What swimming in my underwear taught me about Donald Trump and getting away with it”:  https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/01/impeachment-historic-vital-statement-tragic-trump-presidency-column/4311521002/
4. An opinion piece from Jason Williams of the Cincinnati Enquirer “I went back home to Ohio's Trump country. In Appalachia, honest people have hope again”:  https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/columnists/politics-extra/2019/10/15/democratic-debate-struggle-going-home-ohios-trump-country/3828368002/

There is a lot here to digest, if you are actually reading between the lines.  What we need to do though, before we can really look at these articles, is realize that they are right.  And by this I mean that Trump supporters need to be seen as being correct.  Not factually mind you, I am not contending the entire factuality of what is presented in any of the above,[i] excepting in the factuality of the feelings and the attitudes expressed.  Because I have to admit, in many ways, the more that I listen, the more I go back to what I have always thought is at the core of all of this:  we are a ship adrift, a raft out in the raging sea that is without a safe harbor to moor onto.  In another way of putting it, they are spot on in regards to the problem, but we differ considerably in regards to the prescription.  Let’s start with, however, the problem.

Barr, in his speech at Notre Dame, makes this statement as the underlying thesis of what is to follow:  “The imperative of protecting religious freedom was not just a nod in the direction of piety.  It reflects the Framers’ belief that religion was indispensable to sustaining our free system of government.”[ii]  He uses Madison as his chief source, but then goes on to say that, “[the founders] never thought the main danger to the republic came from external foes.  The central question was whether, over the long haul, we could handle freedom.  The question was whether the citizens in such a free society could maintain the moral discipline and virtue necessary for the survival of free institutions.”[iii]  He then continues to contrast tyranny (in the form of coercive government) and licentiousness (in the form of “the unbridled pursuit of personal appetites at the expense of the common good.”[iv]) citing Edmund Burke along the way.[v]  He asserts then that, “free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people” using Adams as his support, who stated that “[o]ur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”[vi]

Barr’s underlying point, as he goes on, is centered very much on this assertion that freedom can only be truly ascertained if there is a moral and religious underpinning to it.  He often asserts this is only/exclusively Christian[vii] and “include[s] the guidance of natural law” which he connects back to a narrow understanding of that large philosophy making it subservient to “Judeo-Christian moral standards [which] are the ultimate utilitarian rules for human conduct.”[viii][ix]  This insistence is misguided, for sure, as Lockean philosophy was truly at the core (not the other way around).  His point remains, however, that there needs to be some form of underlying ethic if free societies are to survive.  He then, not so artfully, goes on to lay out his case against his key adversary in this discussion, secularists (sometimes also referred to as progressives) and their agenda, concluding with his promise to be at the forefront of his version of “religious liberty”.  I will dispense, at this point, with a further detailed analysis of his critiques and criticisms.[x]  Instead, I will return to the kernel of truth that he is disabusing:  that there is a fundamental unmooring of society from what our American popular understanding and mythology has painted about our moral and ethical core.  What he is right about is, that there is a fundamental change happening in America today,[xi] and it is unnerving in the first order.  While I think his answer in response is fundamentally wrong (e.g. we need to revert to a kind of quasi-democratic theocratic Christendom), I think he is fundamentally right that the secularists[xii] have not put forward a compelling answer or one that is really within the longer American political philosophic tradition and the core of the social compact that it has represented.

This turns me then to another article, number two on this list; an opinion which bespeaks a “war” and how President Donald Trump is his “fighter”.  This article was first introduced to me by a fellow combat veteran from my first tour in Iraq, via a LinkedIn post, misattributed to “Marshall Kamena is a registered Democrat and was elected mayor of Livermore, CA.”[xiii][xiv]  In posting this article, said same literal battle buddy, opened with this comment about the article:  “… please read this, it best explains my support of Trump, I know he definitely has some character flaws, and I really despise some of his word choices., but reminder, he is not a politician, and I hope this in some way bridges a gap, and even for a future Democrat president who is at least, less of a politician, and we get back to the fact that government is 'for the people'...”[xv]  This prefacing is important, especially as one reads the actual article written by an opinion columnist for Townhall.com.[xvi]

The opinion piece puts into stark terms support for Trump and Trumpism.  Because of the failures of “dignity”, “statesmanship”, and “collegiality” on the part of past conservative Presidents and Presidential candidates, the brashness of Trump, his lack of decorum, and his entirely flawed character, are all justifiable.  The reason this is necessary:  “This is because, while we [Right-thinking people] were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight ...”[xvii]  Going on to say even more sharply that, “[t]he Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s.”[xviii]  Sayet indicates that, “through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war.  While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.”[xix]  This, to Sayet in this piece, has resulted in abject failure.

Thus, “[w]ith Donald Trump, this all has come to an end.  Donald Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War.”  What Sayet offers is that Trump is playing by “Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals” that he claims is “a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.”[xx]  I’ll just state that I have never read this book, nor have I the inclination to do so.  That said the latter part of this statement about the dedication has been born out to be patently false:  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/saul-alinsky-dedicated-rules-for-radicals-to-lucifer/.  Throughout Sayet’s following diatribe against “CNN (et al.),”[xxi] the point is that Trump is finally fighting dirty, in the way, this author purports, the left has been doing for decades.[xxii]  And this is seen as a very good thing.  It’s a classic “ends justify the means” type argument, even pulling in US Grant and George Patton as historical examples.[xxiii]

What this builds on, is that, on top of the unmooring or unhinging of our values system that Barr points to, the complaint is this unmooring been done in a “underhanded” or “violent” way.  Further, this action by the left, especially the “fake news media”,[xxi] is fundamentally un-American in that it stands against an “open and honest debate”.  Now, while this claim is fairly laughable in terms of Sayet’s piece (which is full of more falsehoods than truths), there is a kernel to this truth in that the indignation, the highbrow “Really!?!” attitudes, and the “my way or the highway” approach to public discourse is a serious problem.  Now is it only on the left?  Hardly, and frankly its origins have more to do with conservative talk radio.  That, however, still leaves the problem we have that we’ve lost perspective and we are not only unmoored in our moral and ethical social construct, but also how we contend with the issues streaming from that unmooring.

And this gets me to the third opinion article, this time focused on Trump himself, even more than the preceding.  In “What swimming in my underwear taught me about Donald Trump and getting away with it”, Michael J. Stern uses his personal experience swimming at a public pool as a device to talk about how we’ve become desensitized to all of the above.  He states that “… it’s more than that.  Legitimate allegations against the president are met with staged indignation and counterattacks that are, according to first lady Melania Trump, 10 times worse than the allegation to which they respond.”[xxiv]  Going on, he details how this cycle has been perpetuated by Mr. Trump and his associates, but how “…, Trump has perfected the art of the lie in a way that aims his supporters’ outrage at the witnesses and evidence that establish his misdeeds rather than their author.”[xxv]  Stern goes on to talk about how this effected the ongoing impeachment inquiry finally concluding that “[t]he insidiousness of Trump’s forward inching by desensitizing us to a train off the rails must be stopped.”[xxvi]  To that, Stern offers his thought that the impeachment would perhaps be the remedy.

But here is the thing, Stern is right that it’s a train-wreck and we are off the tracks, but Trump is merely the engine that is currently tied to a long train that is all of us who’ve been hitched to him.  While impeaching Trump and potentially removing him from office, solves the immediate irritant problem, it doesn’t solve the problem that we are enthralled with the disaster that we are making our republic into.  And thus, Stern’s point that impeachment is a wake-up call, which might be valid in a society that is shocked by such a wreck, is really on faulty grounds.  We are unmoored, adrift without an anchorage nearby.  We are without a way to see past the entertainment to understand the truth that ought to be commonly understood.  And we are so used to the over-hyped and overly brash we just say “ho hum” and walk along our merry way.  While I think impeachment and removal are fully appropriate, it won’t solve the problem.

Which brings me to the last article, one that I posted to Facebook some time ago.  Jason Williams is a reporter with the Cincinnati Enquirer who made a point to return to southeastern Ohio, in the Appalachia region, where he grew up as a way to do the classic diner interview report.  What he discovered really isn’t that surprising to me.  He states that, “[t]his poverty-stricken area, nestled amid the picturesque Appalachian foothills about 150 miles east of Cincinnati, continues to stand firm behind Trump.  And rural Ohio very well could play a part in reelecting him, barring impeachment.”[xxvii]  As he opens his discussion of his assignment, he relays his reluctance to do so as, “[t]hese folks already get made fun of enough for being from Appalachia.  They're good, respectful people who are focused on taking care of their families.  They want to be left alone.  They don't care about stupid Twitter wars, and I don't want to be responsible for thrusting them into the vicious rhetorical crossfire between leftist activists and Trump sycophants.”[xxviii]  Williams talks about the reluctance of people to talk to him, and their responses.  One such story was this:

“‘I don't want to talk about it because you can't have an opinion unless it's their opinion,’ an African-American Trump supporter said about the left. ‘Either you believe the way they believe, or you're a racist or a homophobe.  The reason I'm working is because of what Trump's done.  I just want to put my hard hat on and go to work every day.’

The man, who added he's a registered Democrat, talked to Enquirer photographer Albert Cesare and me for nearly an hour on his front porch on a hot evening.  He said a lady at his church had given him grief for supporting ‘racist’ Trump, but the man said he has seen no hard evidence that's true.

The man then abruptly said he wanted no part of the story, stepped inside his house and closed the front door, leaving us sitting on the porch dumbfounded.

I didn't blame him one bit.”[xxix]

Williams then goes on to break down numerous stereotypes and attitudes held about the typical “Trump voter” concluding with “… perhaps it's an indication that there's not this widespread obsession with Trump — and never has been — in the areas where he dominated at the polls.  It might be hard for some to grasp this, but don't believe everything you read in the alt-reality world of social media.”[xxx]  What it is, relays Williams, is all about the economy.  “Gallia County is one of the poorest counties in the state,” he writes, “[b]ut the residents have optimism like I haven't seen in a long time.  Gallia County's unemployment rate is 5.6%, the lowest it has been since 1979.  Most of the storefronts in Gallipolis again have businesses.”  Hope, he asserts, is back, even if you look at the facts that it’s not as rosy as it seems:  “Things are better, yes, but it doesn't mean happy days are here again. Gallia County's workforce is a staggering 20% smaller than it was in the early 1970s, and the unemployment rate is still higher than the U.S. (3.5%) and Ohio (4.2%).”[xxxi]  Point being, that its bread and butter issues that resonate.  He concludes with a lament, regarding his experiences in nearby Youngstown, PA:  “I covered Trump's … rally in July 2017, when he implored people not to sell their homes and promised to bring back steel mills.  The crowd erupted into a deafening cheer.  It was an unrealistic promise that factories are coming back, and it has bothered me ever since.  But, I'm glad people have hope again.”[xxxii]

You see this is the last thing that is problematic, how we think about the economy.  What Williams highlights here is that people, for many good reasons, focus more on their near-term bottom line, than the long-term health of the republic, economy, or anything else.  Americans, probably more than anywhere, are pocketbook voters.  But there is something deeper here, when you bring everything into focus:  culture and how you feel tied to short term economics is the ultimate trump card.  The ethical and moral social and political unmooring, the loss of the ability to even speak to each other effectively, and the desensitization of the populace to this situation, bring you to see this as a protectionist defense mechanism akin to hibernation.  So as you read this together, I know I was struck by the truth that people are acting the way they are for a number of really good reasons.  They often may not have a choice, and more often than not find comfort in keeping their head in the sand, even as some horrific and seriously detrimental things are happening and will hurt them even worse in the future.

As I have written before, we as Americans take so much for granted.  We’ve taken our relative wealth position as a given.  We’ve taken our system of jurisprudence and legal protections for granted.  We’ve assumed we are entitled to an “American Dream”.  We’ve assumed that we have solved the ills of the past from racism to sexism to a host of other things.  We’ve assumed the strength of the republic can withstand exceptional damage from both within and without.  We had all bought into a national ethos about what America stands for in the world and at home.  In so many ways we have deluded ourselves, to the point that we are having a hard time seeing past the fact that none of that was entirely true, but nor was it entirely false.  As our society continues its slow distance from our most recent apogee, the myth has become strained, and now the reality is straining as a result.

We need to become moored to something again, and hopefully it will be lasting and effective as much as the mid-20^th century consensus served us well.  Being adrift as we are, is creating massive problems.  What I get from all of this is that people want to get back to basics; as my fellow vet said to, “get back to the fact that government is 'for the people'”.  I agree.  The challenge is what does a government “for the people” mean in today’s context?  I think the error is thinking that we ever had a full answer.  Further, it is even more inappropriate to revert to a singular answer of the past.  I am not sure I have a formulaic response as to what the new dock we need to arrive at as a society is.  What will our next ethos be?  What are the ways we will create the needed dialogue around it?  How will we enforce and enable its flourishing?  What are the ways to make it matter in small town America and in the cities simultaneously?  These and many more questions need to be answered.  This is why I get the issues here.  Until we really make this assessment and have a real conversation about where we are, morally, ethically, socially, and culturally, it’s all too easy to focus only on the economic choices.  The problem is we have to get past being stuck in a downward spiraling whirlpool so we can do that.  Impeaching and removing Trump is not going to do that, even as it is necessary to start there.  I am still thinking and praying on what is the real answer, and perhaps I will have a better answer than my earlier post about civic engagement in America and this one that I penned some time ago:  https://backusec.blogspot.com/2018/07/never-trumper-and-american-political.html.  Give me some time and I will try to have a way forward, for all of us.

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[i] Noting some articles have absolute falsehoods contained therein but others are first-hand accounts that are utterly factual.

[ii] Barr, William P., Speech at the Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, found at https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics, accessed on 30 January 2019

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Note his exclusive use of limited government philosophes, denying the larger corpus of the founding generation including Jay, Hamilton, Washington, etc.

[vi] Barr, William P., Speech at the Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, found at https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics, accessed on 30 January 2019

[vii] It was not, it was deist with the undertones of Western civilization that were certainly underwritten by Judeo-Christian thinking, but also Greek philosophy, Roman jurisprudence, and Germanic clan-law/common law.

[viii] Barr, William P., Speech at the Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, found at https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics, accessed on 30 January 2019

[ix] Rather, because of the understanding and need for religious plurality, the Founders relied nearly exclusively on Lockean philosophy and a natural law basis, with Judeo-Christian and other philosophical ideas as supportive.

[x] Noting that they are often smears and also tied clearly to an assertion that religious liberty, in his definition, is that conservative Christianity should be able to trump other beliefs in the public square, and therefore other ways of belief must be subservient to the wiles of that narrow understanding of Christian thought.

[xi] For more, see this former blog post:  https://backusec.blogspot.com/2013/11/religion-and-freedom.html

[xii] To use his term and the term the Pope often uses.

[xiii] McCall, Julian, “The mayor of Livermore California explains Trump’s popularity and success. This is perhaps the best explanation for Trump's popularity”, at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mayor-livermore-california-explains-trumps-popularity-julian-mccall/, accessed on 30 December 2019.

[xiv] Misattribution information can be found here:  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/he-fights-trump/

[xv] Rosonke, Todd, Facebook Post, Public, at https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ftodd.rosonke%2Fposts%2F10157956559569074, posted on 22 December 2019

[xvi] As stated on their website, “Townhall.com is the #1 conservative website. Townhall.com pulls together political commentary and analysis from over 100 leading columnists and opinion leaders, research from 100 partner organizations, conservative talk-radio and a community of millions of grassroots conservatives.”

[xvii] Sayet, Evan, “He Fights”, Townhall.com, at https://townhall.com/columnists/evansayet/2017/07/13/he-fights-n2354580, accessed on 30 January 2019

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Meaning the mainstream media

[xxii] It is noted that in the vast majority of his diatribe he treads back on numerous unfounded and/or debunked conspiracy theories, including about Benghazi

[xxiii] Neglecting of course the fact that US Grant and Patton were Generals, subordinate to the President, which in both cases were all the things Trump is not (whether Lincoln, FDR or Truman) and further the example of McArthur who was dismissed because he went too far.

[xxiv] Stern, Michael J., “What swimming in my underwear taught me about Donald Trump and getting away with it”, USA Today, 1 Dec 2019, at https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/01/impeachment-historic-vital-statement-tragic-trump-presidency-column/4311521002/, accessed on 30 December 2019

[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] Ibid.

[xxvii] Williams, Jason, “I went back home to Ohio's Trump country. In Appalachia, honest people have hope again”, Cincinnati Enquirer, at https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/columnists/politics-extra/2019/10/15/democratic-debate-struggle-going-home-ohios-trump-country/3828368002/ or https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/10/15/democratic-debate-supporters-ohio-donald-trump-country-column/3984999002/, 15 October 2019.

[xxviii] Ibid.

[xxix] Ibid.

[xxx] Ibid.

[xxxi] Ibid.

[xxxii] Ibid.