An opinion written during the fall of 2019
The great challenge for the people of the United States as we move deeper into this century is to extend the privileges of democratic engagement, economic opportunity, and the capacity to shape cultural assimilation and definition within an increasingly complex and diverse citizenry.
For more than 240 years America has been continually faced with an epic mission presented to us by the nation’s Founders. It was simply to create a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Doing just this, however, has been anything but easy. Demonstrating democracy with its inherent need for political participation and engagement within a pluralistic society, one which is comprised of traditional and shifting ideals and principles, has been and continues to be an existential exercise of both profound significance and enormous difficulty. Despite all of the practice and history we as a people have with perfecting democracy there is much progress yet to be made.
It can be disheartening to realize there is no fully successful period we can look back to over the past two and a half centuries to claim American democracy had reached superiority. At no time has there been a commonly shared fortune of power apportioning, wealth allocation, or a broad set of mutually recognized voices determining who we are as a nation. Power and wealth tend to concentrate among those making up preferential groups. Historically, governments were organized around the ideals of aristocracy or some other form of autocracy, in which it was widely accepted that all-powerful authorities held reign. America was supposed to be different. Our revolution stated control was to be self-assigned equally. All would have a say in how the pursuit of happiness was to be achieved. To date, we have fallen short in honoring and realizing this value.
As socially divergent as America was from European aristocracies at the time of its founding the country simultaneously carried the burden of class and race segregation adopted from Europe. While we were giving expression to Enlightenment principles at a scale never before done in the history of the world, we were also furthering many of the features of group domination over those people deemed to be weaker. This was consistent with despotic rule. Our country’s story is replete with examples of dominion, most often by white male and monied interests, lording over ethnicities, races, and genders not fitting into this Euro-centric mold.
Each generation has included and elevated those individuals with passions for universal fairness, inclusion, and equality. Though up against great and at times insurmountable odds these circumspect and forward-leaning patriots have led movements and missions that over time have integrated deep-seated and liberating levels of egalitarian practice and recognition among the people. Prime examples include ending slavery, child labor, and civil rights discrimination, while instituting women’s right to vote, labor unions, and gay marriage. Now, as we burrow into the 21st century we are acclimated as a people to readily voice fairness concerns when any group is disenfranchised, including even those who once represented cultural, racial, and economic leadership.
This time is no different. Discrimination and racism are still with us. The needs of large swaths of Americans are underserved and underrepresented. Cultural and economic ascendancy for a finite few can easily be recognized. In short, the rewards of prosperity and inclusion are not widely enough distributed. Inequality continues to reign, justice is denied, dreams are unrealized, and lives are unfulfilled.
However, while we remain stuck in social disparity America’s challenge at this point in its history does present a unique arrangement of conditions. The current conflict is centered on two major problems, one primarily economic and the other cultural. Economically, we are living with the consequences of decades of neoliberal, free market fundamentalism in the corporate sector that has boosted Gross Domestic Product and for the most part Wall Street, but has not lifted the living standards of all citizens. Secondly, we are now in the midst of a long-term demographic realignment that is presenting as an increase in the numbers of formerly minority populations of African Americans, Latinx, and Asians with a corresponding decline in the percentage of the overall population occupied by Euro-based Caucasians.
Both of these significant phenomena, which are occurring simultaneously, require not only weighty political interventions, but an all-hands-on-deck grappling of what it means to be an American. To repeat, the Founders laid down a dare for themselves and for future generations—are we going to fashion a representative government that allows everyone to participate in national gain or are we going to continue the long unjust and inequitable governing traditions of our past? This choice is unmistakable and unavoidable. What follows are thoughts concerning the achievement of successful results on both fronts, in particular regarding democratic engagement, economic opportunity, and cultural inclusion.
••••
The basic economic outcomes being sought by most people adding up to a decent life are not complicated. Nor should they be elusive. They include employment with fair pay; safety and security for oneself and one’s family; an ability to be educated and to educate one’s children; having a long-term home; good healthcare; and means to live a dignified retirement. Relative equality in these critical and much desired areas should not be too much to ask from the citizens and leaders of a rich country. When there is widespread cultural adherence to the values of social justice and universal opportunity these outcomes should result. However, given 11.8% (2018) or 38+ million Americans live below the poverty rate (family of four living below an income of $25,465) and with many others living close to this edge we are faced with a reality that too many citizens are not realizing basic humanitarian living outcomes in this country.
There doesn’t appear to be prevalent agreement that the conditions stated above are a problem. For example, a common refrain heard from supporters of President Trump is that too many losers, troublemakers, outsiders, criminals, perverts, etc. are quick to take handouts from hard working average Americans who are having all they can do to make ends meet. The idea of giving healthcare to illegal immigrants yearning to be American, for example, is particularly upsetting. In general, poor minorities are seen by many as somehow deviant. Since they were not raised with all of the same values and behaviors, never mind the looks, of the white dominant class they are not worthy of assistance or care. It’s worth noting 76.5% of the U.S. population is white and that proportion is in decline. Moving beyond systemic racism must precede debates about what is fair and what we should expect from one another as Americans.
Acceptance and inclusion of all people able to call themselves American must occur before the fruits of economic well-being are to be shared in a reasonably equitable manner. Cultures historically seem to have a default mode of self-imposed segregation and preservation rather than an inclination toward tolerance of differences and assimilation. As the late Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist, wrote during the 1990s, sustaining the characteristics of civilizations will continue to shape the nature of global politics more powerfully than ideologies or even nation states. Culture, or the traits that define shared behavior and thoughts, form the underpinning of the organizational development of like citizens known as civilization. The visceral power of culture and by extension civilization cannot be understated when determining the interactions of people around the world.
America claims to be exceptional. Our unique founding with its philosophical foundation based in republican ideals rather than centered in a single ethnicity or conventional heritage makes our experiment extraordinary. Despite the culturally English and monarchical background of the founders they nevertheless were inspired to institute a representative democracy, a form of government never before brought to such a large scale. Fundamentally, this was an expression of the nation being of the people and not the sole possession of any family or divine ruler. By declaring itself as a representative democracy the young nation announced to the world that this place was different, better, and welcoming. This concept was and still is revolutionary.
Given our history of not entirely living up to a pervasive representation of all members of our diverse society and also given the present moment of our political polarization, it is of great importance that all Americans unite culturally, societal, and enthusiastically to reassert our collective pledge to honor universal inclusion of all Americans, no matter one’s race, ethnicity, background, or religion, and to dismantle any remaining barriers or future designs intended to discourage full democratic participation. As the American writer-activist James Baldwin put in in the 1960s, “We are trying to forge a new identity for which we need each other…”. We are indeed.
Principal impediments to this ideal are expressed by antiquated beliefs of racial purity, a long-standing expectation that minorities should aspire to conditions set by the dominant class, and a profound inability to comprehend the perceptions and prospects of those born and raised in other communities and circumstances. These handicaps lead to disjointed interactions among the citizenry with the result being some people are disenfranchised while others belong. And it is difficult for the in-crowd to see this disassociation. Psychiatrist Karl Menninger once wrote, “It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.” Hard, yes. Impossible, no.
The United States of America has achieved iconic greatness as evidenced by countless countrymen and countrywomen bearing and fostering lives of delectation, purpose, and abundance. America’s challenge, therefore is that there should be no rest, no complacency, and no satisfaction until collective purpose as exemplified by general opportunity, means, and fellowship are afforded to each and every American. It is what we owe one another as allied compatriots.
