Taking Back the Wheel

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. ~Mark Twain

I've been watching us lately. The collective us which we call the electorate. I've been focused on how people talk to and about each other and how they talk about the candidates they support and don't support (despise, really, because I've seen very little middle ground.)

We are a nation of angry complainers. The majority of us, anyway. We are divided and it's his fault...we are weak and it's her fault...we are lazy and it's their fault...we blame and complain and point fingers and puff up our own perspectives as absolute, infallible truth while all contrary viewpoints are flawed in some tragic and potentially threatening way.

I am of the opinion that the United States -- in theory -- is way too strong to be destroyed by one person...even the one person we call President. A President certainly has influence (to state the obvious) and that person can affect the national agenda and, to some extent, the collective attitude of the citizenry. The very architecture of our government, however, is the ultimate protection we have against any attempt at tyranny by a single person . The gridlock we complain about in Washington is actually a manifestation (albeit a frustrating one) of the principles of checks and balances.

Examples? The President proposes a budget but Congress has to approve it. Congress can pass a law, but the President can veto it, which Congress can override with enough votes. The President can authorize some military actions but only Congress can declare war. And everything they do is subject to the legal interpretations of the Supreme Court...the members of which are nominated by the President and approved by the Senate.

Nobody holds all the good cards in this game because our founding fathers in their collective wisdom knew that nobody holds all the answers.

There has always been conflict in these processes whether the same party controls the Executive and Legislative branches or not and there absolutely SHOULD be some conflict. Otherwise it's just a mob of people acting in lockstep without deliberating the complexities of the issues with which we've entrusted them to grapple. I don't want that.

But gridlock -- the seemingly constant and intentional gridlock -- that we've seen in the last decade has us feeling stuck and we are looking for a way out of this quicksand that isn't quite smothering us, but also won't release us. The last time we saw free movement of any kind was in the months after September 11, 2001 when we were united (mostly) and clear about at least some of the things that many leaders believed we needed to do -- rage, fear, and hate are powerful unifying forces and we had all of those things (understandably) in spades.

I'm not sure they make good guiding forces though. From a political perspective, some of the decisions that were made during that time have had negative long-term effects through two very different administrations (a couple of never-ending wars...the employment of enhanced interrogation methods...the approval of warrant-less wiretapping). From a psychological perspective, some of us never let go of these emotions and they have continued to fester. We refocused them on our friends and neighbors and any "other" we could find. If you are not with us, you are against us. We have allowed this mantra to steer our cars until they all arrived in the same place.

Donald Trump's feet.

Donald Trump LOVES our rage, hate, and fear. Oh...and he loves our willful ignorance. He even said he "love(s) the poorly educated." You know why? Because when you don't know things (whether or not it is willful) you can be convinced to think with your emotions instead of with your brains.  Facts that you don't know are easy to ignore and then you are free to make decisions based on instinct and perception -- especially when the facts are inconvenient. Ignorance also makes it possible to ignore when the worst events in our history are repeating themselves. Unless...someone takes notice and tries to shine a light on it.


Photo credit: @shaunking 

These festering emotions have made us weak both individually and collectively and they are so easy to use against us. We are quick to spew our blame and complaints about what the evils of the world are and who is to blame...we are sick of the establishment...people who worship, vote, speak, do anything differently from us...the "other" party...another race...you know, the immoral people. I wish I could just make them go away. 

Enter Donald Trump.

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.” – Oscar Wilde

In the last week, I've read several analyses addressing the WHYs behind Trump's popularity. They go back months and they are all different. The Washington Post, The Telegraph, The Atlantic, NPR, The Independent, The Guardian, The Hill  all suggest different explanations. The specifics range from his position on trade which appeals to the working class, to his bucking of the establishment which addresses our irritation with gridlock, to his willingness to say what others are afraid to say which frees us to say them regardless of their veracity, to a host of other explanations that I believe can be chalked up to one foundational reason...people want easy answers packaged in a pretty box even if they are incorrect. Trump is FULL of them and he knows that the majority of voters are far more concerned with the packaging -- the marketing of his ideas -- than the substance of what is inside the box. 

Build a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants. Side step Congress if they won't do what he wants. Fire the bureaucrats. Blame the Muslims for whatever is wrong with your life...or women or blacks or whoever. Blanket bomb ISIS. I'll shut them down for you. I'm on your side. He seems to have a simple answer for everything and he doesn't seem to think that rule of law will keep him from bringing every single one of his plans to fruition.

And that's why I think he is very bad for this country. It's one thing to be anti-establishment...I mean there is definitely an argument to be made for the idea that someone from outside the system might be able to look at things differently and suggest courses of action that our more entrenched leaders haven't considered...but Donald Trump is not anti-establishment, he is anti-rule-of-law that wants to become the establishment and the sole proprietor, at that. Remember, the only executive experience that this man has allowed him to be the lone decider with no one checking his power. Dictatorships -- even benevolent ones -- may work fine in corporate America, but that's not how democratic governance works.

We are a nation of laws...laws that protect the minority from both the tyranny of the majority and the authoritarian control of any single person. Our laws protect our rights to assemble and protest, to express dissenting views, and they prohibit the measuring of human worth based on color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, educational background, primary language, hairstyle, ankle width, or bank account. Our laws recognize that the most important issues we face don't have easy answers and we are compelled to deliberate passionately and intelligently with people who are different so that we make decisions that are best for as many Americans as possible. Not so that we can point to anyone who disagrees and call them unAmerican.

Trump's campaign has operated in complete opposition to our laws and I can only assume that this is how he will attempt to run the Executive branch if he is elected. He is willing to do or say anything that will attract him as many followers as possible. He sees how much his rally attendees enjoy terrorizing protesters and he encourages it. He hears how much people fear Muslims or blacks or Mexicans and he empowers it. He sees our rage against the "other" and he co-opts it for his own purposes...to embolden the very worst in our collective psyches to meet his needs.

Here's the thing, the ugliness that he is encouraging, empowering, and emboldening is here now and it's lose-lose for the rest of us.

If he wins, I'm not sure the rest of us have the will or the knowledge to stop him from turning us into a variation on Nazi Germany -- I mean, our Congress seems to be perfectly content to do nothing and we keep electing them because it's "those other folks" that are the problem. Do they even know what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors that are grounds for impeachment? The last time Congress impeached a President it was for a sex scandal. There have arguably been other executive and legal actions taken by both our current President and his predecessor that I find far more dangerous (NSA spying by Obama made possible by warrant-less wiretapping by Bush...just to name a few) to our nation but have gone unchecked and thus remain in a Presidential toolbox that could -- in less than a year -- be turned over to someone that doesn't think federal or international law will apply to him much less the rules of human decency, civility, or decorum. 

Well, when the President does it, that means it's not illegal. ~Richard Nixon

But even if Trump doesn't win (the Republican nomination or the Presidency), the legacy of hate that he has cultivated will remain. That is the saddest part of all. And I honestly don't know how to turn that around. What will we do with our anger? Whom will we target? Will we lament violent individual actions but "understand their frustration" when they blow up a federal building with a daycare center? Will we call them mentally ill when their anger drives them to blow away 9 people in a church? Will we finally dig down to the roots of this Kudzu-like parasite and douse it with love, compassion, connection, and humility? Will those of us who choose not to be steered by our negative emotions figure out a way to sit down at a table and break bread or find common ground? Or will the pictures above -- one from 60 years ago and one from last week -- be just two of many in our national scrapbook that will continue to reflect our nation's willingness to let anger, fear, and hate drive the car?