When Michelle Bachmann appeared on the political scene in 2007, I wondered how a person that uninformed could be popularly elected to federal office. At the time, I thought that it doesn’t get much worse than this.
Shortly thereafter, Sarah Palin proved me wrong, and she had been enlisted to run for the second highest office in the land. A growing number of Americans were clearly losing their grip. Palin made Bachmann look like a Rhodes Scholar.
But don’t focus exclusively on the individuals: follow the arc.
The looming threat of a Sarah Palin on our horizon pales in comparison to that of a Donald Trump, and his popularity is disturbing and suggestive. What is causing the deep decay in the root of this fragile experiment we call a constitutional federal republic?
Living under our form of government places extra-ordinary responsibilities upon each individual citizen. Look, it’s so easy to look after one’s own interests, but the success of our form of government – and society – depends upon people looking after each other’s interests, especially those who often don’t have a voice: the homeless, the unemployed, the aged, the indigent, vulnerable children, the hungry, the refugee, those without adequate and affordable health care. This level of awareness of “other,” and caring, often accounts for the disdainful use of the pejorative adjective “bleeding heart,” which, presumably, refers to a person’s humanitarian instincts. But perhaps those instincts are disappearing. We are clearly becoming a corpulent and complacent nation, enjoying the fruits of our ancestors’ struggles and labors for social and economic justice, but neither practicing nor passing those traditions on. We can be proud of our heritage but we now share little in common with it. We have successfully passed the lessons of democratic governing on to 122 other countries, but we ourselves seemed to have lost the original inspiration and understanding behind it. We will have left a legacy. But we will have left.
Perhaps that is inevitable. Benjamin Franklin was prophetic when – at the close of Constitutional Convention in 1787 – he offered his opinion of the new document and structure of government:
“I agree to this Constitution with all its faults… because I think a general government necessary for us… and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for…years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”
Dictators can coerce but people must eventually compel themselves, and in this compulsion lies our highest freedom. Mathematician, inventor and philosopher Arthur Young once told me that he believed evolution requires a current against which to swim. “The river of time carries us along,” he wrote, “but it is only by our own effort that we evolve.” It seems, though, that a growing number of American citizens are surrendering their right of self-determination because the responsibilities required of us to successfully participate in democratic rule is proving to be too burdensome, and history has shown that there are always individuals and institutions that will gladly fill the vacuum in order to advance their own interests at the expense of ours.
I understand, and share, the feelings of resentment and disenfranchisement of millions of Trump supporters. Special interests have purchased our Congress and democratic process. What concerns me is the sheer stupidity in their choice of leadership, from Bachmann to Palin to Trump, and beyond. A basket of deplorables? Well, perhaps a basket of deplorable beliefs, yes. Irredeemable? Probably.
From King Lear, Act 4, Scene 2: “Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile. Filths savor but themselves.”
Jeffrey Reel
___________
Jeffrey Reel is a writer living in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.