Making Democracy Work

Last year, I posted a piece about how I defined “democracy” and “democrat” in response to the current oppositional political environment in the U.S. Today, on the eve of Super Tuesday and a month away from our Pennsylvania primary, I am revisiting the topic in an attempt to make better sense of our political culture in 2020.  

Today’s political environment is so oppositional that it is difficult to truly understand what either party stands for. Increasingly, Democrats and Republicans are defined not by their ideals but by who they stand against. In the process, we seem to have forgotten what we stand for. I have been a Democrat all my life, since my grandma took me to see Jack Kennedy give a stump speech in 1960. Let me take a moment to freshly articulate what politics means to me.  

            At the most fundamental level, my personal political philosophy is based in a view of why we have governments at all. I believe that, in a democracy, government is not a separate ruling elite or an impersonal bureaucracy. It is how we, individual citizens of local, state, and national communities, come together to help each other, to protect each other and our communities, and to improve the lives of all citizens. We elect fellow citizens—neighbors from within the community—to act on our behalf to ensure safety, to ensure that our freedoms are protected, and to encourage continuous improvement of the community itself.  

In short, “government” is not imposed upon on us. It is how we establish and sustain the idea of community in a democracy in order to establish and maintain a quality of life for ourselves and our neighbors. Sometimes the impact is a direct result of governmental action; other times, it is more indirect. The interstate highway system is an example of direct governmental action to benefit the community. National safety standards for vehicles that use those highways is an example of a more indirect action.

            I believe that, in the final analysis, the above description is not just for Democrats. It applies to all citizens across the political spectrum. There is a continuum of feeling on that issue among both Republicans and Democrats which, unfortunately, is often expressed only at the extremes. Some conservatives may believe that the ultimate key to success is to limit the impact of government—putting less emphasis on community, leaving individual citizens to make their own decisions and celebrate or suffer the consequences. Some liberals may believe that the key is to ensure that all solutions apply to all citizens. Others may want to focus on ensuring that corporations are able to succeed, on the assumption that their success will transfer to citizens who interact with a corporation as an investor, an employee, or a customer. There will always be different ways to see a problem and to imagine a solution. The question for all citizens is simple:  to what extent—and in what ways—do we want to help our community by helping our neighbors be safe, secure, and happy—or, as the Declaration of Independence put it, to what extent do we want to ensure “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—the three “inalienable rights” of all citizens? Ultimately, responses to these criteria should be the basis of a party’s platform or governing strategic plan.

            Personally, as a Democrat, I see government as the voice of the citizenry and hope that citizens will use it to ensure equality and to serve as the vehicle by which we help each other. I believe that this is absolutely critical in a time when the context in which we think about “community” is changing due to the rapid evolution of technology and globalization.  Some priorities: 

            First, we should use government to ensure a physical and regulatory infrastructure that is equally available to all citizens, giving them equal access to resources. A good example is our national highway system, but infrastructure also includes proper control of rivers and other waterways, safe drinking water, access to electricity and other forms of energy, and so forth. Ultimately, the goal is an infrastructure that ensures that all citizens have equal access to a healthy environment and the ability to make a living.

Second, our government should also ensure that all citizens have equal access to health, education, and other services that help ensure a standard quality of life for all citizens and that helps ensure the ability of all citizens to realize their potential as members of the community.  

Third, our government should protect citizens from threats.  This can be threats from other nations, natural threats like climate change, or threats to our economy and health from uncontrolled actions by individuals and organizations. The goal of government in this context is to protect our ability as citizens to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. One factor that must be considered is that America’s place in international conflicts has changed greatly since the end of World War II. We now live in a highly integrated, global, information-based economy in which many industries—and countries—are increasingly reliant on each other for materials in an international supply chain and as a marketplace. This does not mean that we don’t have enemies or that our partner nations don’t have enemies. However, it does mean that, increasingly, we cannot limit the impact of our actions on us alone.  We need to consider global impacts—on our political allies, on our industry partners, and, yes, even on our competitors when we act internationally.  

With these broad purposes in mind, here are a few items that I think should be the basis for a platform and governing strategy in the political debate as we move toward the 2020 President election:

A Marshall Plan for Appalachia and Middle America The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has called for the equivalent of a Marshall Plan to help communities and working people in the Appalachian region and industrial middle America find new economic, community, and personal opportunities.  They call for a sustained effort, funded over multiple years in several dimensions to achieve results.  Just as the Marshall Plan revitalized Europe after World War II, the proposed plan would be a sustained commitment to revitalization of our industrial core communities.

Climate Change This may be the most critical issue facing our society today.  We need governmental action to reduce emissions and minimize the damage that has already been done and to provide citizens with alternative sources of energy (solar and wind, as examples) that will do no further harm to the environment. We can only do this at the national level. In this case, social interest must override commercial/industry interests. We must demand that our representatives take this issue seriously and build an international coalition to minimize climate change and find ways to overcome its inevitable impact.  

An Infrastructure for the Information Age While a national transportation system—first trains, then the Interstate highway system—were hallmarks of the Industrial Revolution, we are now seeing the need for an online information system that makes the Internet truly accessible to all communities. Today, more people are working remotely, linking in from their homes rather than commuting to offices. At the same time, the supply chain in almost every industry has become international, requiring easy communication with distant colleagues. And, traditional retail stores are giving way to e-tailing. Unless communities have easy access to the web, they cannot thrive. It even affects the ability of local schools to access knowledge for their students. Universal access to the Internet is as important today as roads, trains, and Rural Free Delivery were to the last revolution.

Universal K-14 Education As the Information Society matures, the need for new services that enable citizens to be successful is becoming clear.  One of these is universal access to K-14 education—providing public funding for the first two years of a college education. This reflects a simple truth: the Information Society has made work more complex and requires greater entry-level skills. New York has already taken steps to provide free tuition in its public institutions for resident high school graduates—essentially funding a K-14 education for all.  We need to ensure this in every state.

Access to Health Care Of equal importance is the need to ensure that all citizens have effective access to health care, combined with governmental control over the price of medicines. As lifespans increase in the new environment, all citizens deserve equal access to health services. This is a complex issue, but one that must be addressed. My own sense is that a “public option” is the most practical approach, giving people the right to have private or public health insurance, but ensuring that all citizens will have access to health services.  

Immigration The current concern about immigration is not just limited to the border between Mexico and the U.S. It is a global concern, driven by the huge disparities in governance, rights, and economics in a new global society where everyone can easily see the alternatives. It is driving political discourse in developed countries around the world as they try to limit the economic and social impact of refugees. This will only increase as the global economy continues to evolve and, perhaps most important, as global climate change forces dislocation in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries. Clearly, fences and family separations, etc., are not a true solution. While we need to maintain control of international entry points, that is not the sole issue. For a long-term solution, we need to help our neighbors to the south respond to the political and economic problems that are driving their citizens away from their homes. The factors that contribute to the issue also suggest that we need to take a long view and work with other developed countries to address the core problems that are forcing families to leave their homelands in search of a better life.  

Competition It has become clear that, in this new environment, our ability to function as an independent nation is being challenged by long-time opponents like Russia and China that can use technology and the internationalized economy to interfere with our democratic processes.  This is not, in the final analysis, a simple question of cultural or political or even military competition. The real challenge is how we maintain our political independence and values in an increasingly “connected” cultural and political environment. This is how we can be strong as a nation in this new environment: we remain proud of our personal identities as members of a national culture, but we increasingly must also see ourselves as public members of a broader community that knows no national boundaries. We are Americans, but also citizens of the world.

Controlling the Use of Guns The first month of 2019 saw more than 1,000 gun deaths in the United States.  The Hill reported that nearly 40,000 people were killed by guns in the U.S. in 2017.  Mass gun killings seem to be on the rise. Here in State College, 2019 began with four people (including the shooter) being killed in one incident. Pennsylvania legislators have discussed allowing deer hunters to use semi-automatic weapons. Gun control is one of the most divisive issues in the U.S., pitting gun manufacturers and gun advocacy groups against the general citizenry.  It is time to solve this problem. We test drivers before licensing them, and we require that all motor vehicles be inspected and registered.  We need a similar universal system to control access and mis-use of guns.  

These are important issues with immediate implications. They are also examples of why we need citizen-focused government in these changing times to understand how issues affect different citizens and communities differently, so that our elected representatives can make better decisions on our behalf. Finding consensus is not easy in these days, but it is essential to democracy. It is worth our time to talk things through and find the best path forward.

Thoughts?       

John Steinbeck and America

Today is the 108^th birthday of John Steinbeck, one of my favorite authors.  He gave us The Grapes of Wrath, one of the great American novels that became one of the great American films.  He also gave us eighteen other novels, including Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flat, and Cannery Row.

            Lately, I have been reading his nonfiction, especially America and Americans, his last book, where he delves into the American “character”—what makes us all Americans, regardless of where our families came from—and the foundations of America’s sense of community.  In the chapter “Government of the People,” he writes about the unique qualities of American politics and has this to say about the role of the President:

The power of the President is great if he can use it; but it is a moral power, a power activated by persuasion and discussion, by the manipulation of the alignments of many small but aggressive groups, each one weak in itself but protected in combination against usurpation of its rights by the executive; and even if the national government should swing into line behind Presidential exercise of power, there remain the rights, prejudices, and customs of states, counties, and townships, management of private production, labor unions, churches, professional organizations of doctors, lawyers, the guilds and leagues and organizations.  All these can give a President trouble; and if, reacting even to the suspicion of overuse or misuse of power, they stand together, a President finds himself hamstrung, straitjacketed, and helpless.”

He also has this comment on folksinger Woody Guthrie:

Harsh-voiced and nasal his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings.  But there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression.  I think we call this the American Spirit.

Steinbeck, John. America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction. Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson, eds. Penguin Books, 2003.

Going Global: Lessons from Stephen Ambrose and Walter Isaacson

In 2002, historian Stephen Ambrose published To America, a collection of essays on American history and the spirit of American life. In one chapter, “The Legacy of World War II,” he describes how World War II opened the door to an exciting new future.  

Two world wars had made the first half of the twentieth century “the worst century in the whole history of mankind” (p.118). The victors’ actions after World War I had been to punish the Germans with a severity that opened the door to Hitler. However, after World War II, Dwight Eisenhower took a dramatically different approach. He encouraged open communication with both Germany and Japan, including a free press and public education, an approach that he continued into the 1950s and the U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Eisenhower argued, “We cannot subscribe to one law for the weak, another law for the strong; one law for those opposed to us, another for those allied with us. There can be only one law—or there shall be no peace” (p. 122). 

The Marshall Plan provided the resources that the postwar communities—both the victorious and the defeated--needed to move ahead and create a new future. The second half of the twentieth century thus became a period that saw new global alliances, economic growth, and the flowering of the Information Age as technological innovation brought about a mostly peaceful transformation in which old enemies became productive partners in technological, social, and economic innovation.

            Ambrose notes that, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower addressed the spirit that led to America’s postwar success:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love” (p. 124).

            This week, a month into the second decade of the twenty-first century, that vision is being challenged. This week saw the United Kingdom formally leave the European Union, creating new stresses among countries whose partnership had helped to ensure peace in Europe over the past 50 years. This week also set the stage for the culmination of an impeachment trial that put party politics ahead of respect for the Constitution, weakening the power, not to mention the spirit, of the document on which American self-government has been based for the past 250 years. In recent months, the United States has walked away from an international agreement on climate change. It has walked away from a treaty that we and our allies created with Iran. It has played politics with the goal of a workable two-state solution in the Middle East. Two decades into the twenty-first century, we find ourselves on edge as a society, not knowing which way events will take us.  It is especially worrisome in a Presidential election year. 

            In a 1998 essay called “Our Century . . . and the Next One,” Walter Isaacson celebrated the achievements of the twentieth century and looked ahead to the twenty-first century. He noted that, while the digital revolution was one of the defining breakthroughs of the last century, our new century would be affected most by another scientific innovation: biotechnology.  However, he also observed that the challenges will be more moral and ethical than specifically scientific (p. 203).  In the political arena, what Isaacson called “democratic capitalism”—which overcame both fascism and communism in the twentieth century—will face three new challenges as the global economy and culture mature in the twenty-first: tribalism, as national and ethnic groups resist the old ideal of integration in favor of protecting their identities in an increasingly global society; fundamentalism, as people reject the impersonal and materialistic values of global capitalism; and radical environmentalism if the struggle for economic growth continues to threaten the environmental health of the planet (ibid.). In the United States, some observers project that the white population will become a minority by mid-century. The movement toward a “minority majority” nation may exacerbate the other tensions of living in a global community in a time of radical technological, economic, and cultural change.  

            This week’s news about Brexit and impeachment are troubling on many fronts. Let us hope that we find ways to protect the foundations of our society as we try to respond to the technological, scientific, and social innovation that are driving a new global economy and culture.

"Our Town"

This week, I had a chance to see Our Town, a 1940 film based on the play by Thornton Wilder.  It is a masterpiece.  Set in a small New Hampshire village, it follows the lives of several residents from 1901 through 1916, showing the intimate interconnectedness that defined our idea of community in those pre-technology days.  The fact that it is an old movie only adds to the feeling that we are genuinely travelling back in time.  

            The film has a unique narrative style.  One of the characters—called the Stage Manager in the original play—serves as our guide, speaking directly to the audience and, occasionally, even giving instructions to the crew.  He tells us a little about the town, introduces the characters and their situations, and notes the passage of time between scenes. 

            Beyond the structure, though, is the story, which follows several families and individuals in the town over the years.  The focus is on a young couple—played by William Holden and Martha Scott in her first film role. We meet them as high school sweethearts and follow them through the years as they court, marry, start a family, and face crises, the passing of the older generation, and other trials of life. 

            Wilder wrote that he used the methods of archaeology to write the play.  “An archaeologist’s eyes,” he wrote, “combine the view of the telescope with the view of the microscope.  He reconstructs the very distant with the help of the very small” (Wilder, Collected Plays and Writings on Theater, p. 657).  The central theme of the play, he noted, was: “What is the relation between the countless ‘unimportant’ details of our daily life, on the one hand, and the great perspectives of time, social history, and current religious ideas, on the other?  What is trivial and what is significant about any one person’s making a breakfast, engaging in a domestic quarrel, in a ‘love scene,’ in dying?” (ibid.)

            Today, almost 80 years after the film was released and more than a century after the action takes place, Wilder’s archaeological perspective rings even more true.  It is a peek into the world of a century ago, a sensitive imagining of life—both the wonders and tragedies—at its most personal.  

            Watch Our Town on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sCzytzemfI

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Wilder, Thornton.  Collected plays and writings on theater.  New York: Library of America, 2007.

A Lesson from Mary Oliver

I am reading Upstream, a collection of essays by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver, who died earlier this year.  She talks about some of her favorite poets, including Walt Whitman and Edgar Allen Poe, but her main focus is on nature and our relation to it.  Just after Oliver’s death in January, Stephanie Burt wrote in The New Yorker (January 24, 2019) of Oliver’s long life in and around Cape Cod:

“That environment gave rise to poem after poem and book after book (nearly thirty, all told) of secular psalms, inquiries into nature, and reasons to go on living. “What is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” 

            Oliver put it this way: “The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves—we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together.  We are each other’s destiny.”

            Mary Oliver is gone, but her message must continue to be heard.

The Lesson of Benedict Arnold

I just finished reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution.  It is one of a series that Philbrick has written about the settlement of America by Europeans and the early years of the American Revolution.  The book goes into detail about military operations in Pennsylvania, New York, and the surrounding areas during the Revolution, what was happening in key communities, and the inter-personal relationships that shaped America’s fight for independence.  Philbrick’s insights into the personalities, skills, ambitions, and human strengths and weaknesses of our early military leaders and their impact on the Revolution are intriguing, but they took on new meaning reading about them as the Trump impeachment movement took shape over the past few weeks.

            Arnold has become the paragon of the ultimate traitor over the years.  However, he first achieved notoriety as a military leader under George Washington and as the hero of several major battles against the British.  But he was also a prideful man whose mistakes and personal animosities cost him leadership roles and the recognition that he felt was due him.  Congress passed over him for promotion and, at one point, he was court martialed for his actions.  At the same time, he entered into several shady business dealings in an attempt to recover the financial position that he held prior to the Revolution and to support his new wife, who came from a Loyalist family.  

            Ultimately, he turned traitor.  By the time Washington appointed him as commander of West Point—a strategically important site for the defense of New York and the mid-Atlantic states—Arnold had decided to sell information to the British.  When he was found out, he fled, eventually joining the British army to fight against his former compatriots.  After the war, he remained in Britain, except for a brief, unpopular, stay in Canada, and died in 1801.

            As Philbrick paints Arnold’s portrait, the traitor was driven not by ideals or feelings of patriotism to England, but by personal animosities, hurt ego, and, most immediately, the desire to make money.  Philbrick describes Washington’s reaction to learning of Arnold’s betrayal this way:

Being a republic, the country they were struggling to create was ruled not by a king or an emperor but by the mutual consent of the governed.  Arnold had betrayed not just Washington but every American citizen he had pledged to protect.  Since republics rely on the inherent virtue of the people, they are exceedingly fragile.  All it takes is one well-placed person to destroy everything.  Washington, his face betraying the sadness, anger, and shock of this most recent revelation turned to Lafayette and asked, “Whom can we trust now?”

            I finished Valiant Ambition on the day Congress decided to open impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump for encouraging a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.  The evidence was plain that Trump had asked the President of Ukraine for a “favor”—to investigate the son of his main rival in the upcoming election.  In the process, we learned that Trump had also told the Russians that he had no problem with their interference in the 2016 election.  

            As our country steels itself for the upcoming impeachment investigation, let us not forget the lesson of Benedict Arnold.

A Nation of Immigrants: A Lesson from Nathaniel Philbrick

I am reading Valiant Ambition, the third book in Nathaniel Philbrick’s history of the American Revolution, subtitled, “George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution.”  It gave me a reminder of why the lessons of history are so important in guiding our actions and attitudes in the present. 

In Valiant Ambition, Philbrick writes about the battle of Brandywine, in southeastern Pennsylvania.  “After the Battle of Brandywine,” he writes, “a British officer listed the nationality of the rebel prisoners,” adding:

If this list is any indication, most of the soldiers in Washington’s army had been born not in America but in England, Ireland, and Germany, with only 82 of the 315 prisoners (approximately 25 percent) listed as native born.  This meant that while the vast majority of the country’s citizens stayed at home, the War for Independence was being waged, in large part, by newly arrived immigrants.  Those native-born Americans who by mid-1777 were serving in the army tended to be either African-Americans, Native Americans, or what one historian has called “free white men on the move” . . . (p. 187).

He adds further that these soldiers “did not have the education and social standing of the zealous patriots who had served during the early years of the Revolution, but they would become the battle-hardened backbone of the Continental army” (ibid.).

            Today, almost 250 years later, it is good to be reminded that we have always been a nation of immigrants—immigrants who feel deeply the value of our liberty and are willing to fight to achieve and to sustain it.  

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Philbrick, Nathaniel.  Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution. New York: Penguin Books, 2016.