I recently happened on a post I wrote in the run-up to the 2000 election, addressing a question that had been posed to me during a speaking event. The question was “What does it mean to be an American, and how will the answer to that question matter in the 2020 election?
I argued that being American requires understanding, supporting and protecting what I have frequently referred to as “The American Idea”– the essential elements of our country’s version of liberal democracy: majority rule and the libertarian brake on that majority rule, aka the Bill of Rights. American identity isn’t based upon race or religion or country of origin–it is based upon support of the American Idea.
I also argued that, in order to protect the legitimacy of U.S. government, we needed to address the escalating assaults on majority rule– gerrymandering (the practice whereby legislators choose their voters, rather than the other way around); the growth of vote suppression tactics (everything from voter ID laws to the spread of disinformation); the disproportionate influence of rural voters thanks to the operation of the Electoral College; the growing (mis)use of the filibuster, which now requires a Senate supermajority to pass anything; and the enormous influence of money in politics, especially in the wake of Citizens United.
Those assaults on democratic legitimacy were troubling enough in 2020. They clearly enabled the further assault on American democracy that we are experiencing under a mentally-ill would-be autocrat and his MAGA cult in 2025.
Trump hasn’t limited his efforts to the assault on majority rule. He has also taken Musk’s chainsaw to the individual liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, refusing to recognize–let alone honor– fundamental rights to due process, free speech and (above all) civic equality.
Individual liberty in the United States is protected by the constraints on majority rule required by the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment. Those provisions–those protections–mirror the libertarian principle that animated the nation’s Founders: the right of all people to live as they see fit, so long as they do not thereby harm the person or property of others, and so long as they are willing to grant an equal liberty to others. That “live and let live” principle doesn’t just require limitations on government overreach; it requires that we combat official sanctions of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia…all of the “isms” that deprive some citizens of equal civic status and that operate to deny them their individual liberties.
It’s one thing to understand Trump himself: he’s obviously damaged– needy, massively ignorant, intellectually limited, declining into dementia. The harder question is, what explains the MAGA cult? What leads millions of presumably sane Americans to cheer on Trump’s defiantly anti-American efforts?
Part of the answer is civic ignorance; understanding and protecting both majority rule and individual rights requires an informed citizenry–something we don’t have, as mountains of data clearly show. When people don’t know how their government is supposed to work, they are less likely to recognize assaults on its governing philosophy. But civic illiteracy doesn’t explain MAGA, although it undoubtedly feeds it.
Racism, White Christian Nationalism and other associated bigotries are at the root of MAGA and Trumpism. America has never been able to overcome the periodic emergence of primal hatreds that motivated the Confederacy and the KKK, despite the fact that those hatreds are contrary to everything that defines Americanism.
Back in that 2020 talk, I said I was convinced that our civic challenge was about America’s structural and systemic distortions—that (assuming a Biden victory) our first order of business should be to confront the misuses of power that make fair and productive political debate about substantive issues impossible–that these failures of American governance needed to be addressed before any of the policymakers we might elect would be able to discuss, let alone pass, rational, evidence-based policies.
The need to address those systemic distortions has become more imperative, as we watch Trump take advantage of them to turn America into a very different country. As I said in 2020, you can’t drive a car if it’s lost its wheels, and you can’t govern if your institutions have lost their legitimacy.
Unless the systems are fair, unless we can rely on obedience to the rule of law by those in office, no minority of any sort–political, religious, racial, economic–is safe.
Assuming we emerge from this lawless and destructive administration more or less intact, we have our work cut out for us.
I was born here, so I am an American. Period.
When I was young, I bought into the “American Ideal,” but through education and research, my infatuation with that ideal faded entirely. Once we see the Founders as oligarchs, setting up an oligarchy rule, all we did was swap a monarchy for an oligarchy, meaning we haven’t accomplished our freedom or independence yet.
Further, while we were once part of the British Empire, we are now part of the American Empire. Obama’s “American Exceptionalism” was propaganda, nothing more.
Lastly, the Empire is in decline as nearly all such dominant empires experience. This has been coming for decades. Based on what I read about Trump’s intentions before getting elected, he was going to slowly shrink the American Empire by taking on the Deep State and reducing our foothold in the Americas. No more wars also meant focusing on global diplomacy and withdrawing troops from foreign military bases. I supported those ambitions, but like everything he said he would do, it was a lie/propaganda. He either doesn’t know who the Deep State is, or he’s an asset. Based on his green light for the Israeli genocide, I think we know who owns Trump.
p.s. I was on X last night, and AG Pam Bondi was bragging about taking down the MS-13 gang members in VA who attacked guards. However, the native MAGATs were showing their displeasure about her not releasing the Epstein files and Pam’s inability to convict the perps who raped teenage girls. They were calling for her to be fired!
p.s.s. I added that she has abundant videotaped evidence of the rapes so convicting these child molesters should be an easy conviction. 😉
If there is no penalty for misdeeds, why not do whatever you want? It’s clearly our own fault that Orange Jesus (OJ) is running rampant over the Constitution and the rule of law. We should have known that beating OJ wouldn’t put an end to him, especially not after January 6, 2021.
Thanks to inaction by the dems in the House and Senate, we have an administration so out of touch, ignorant, and greedy that the Sunday morning news shows are having a field day. They look good, but they’re sure to say something so outrageous that every network picks it up and re-airs it.
You reap what you sow.
The confirmation of the anxiety presented in today’s blog was made recently when Trump said he didn’t know if he could honor the Constitution. Too bad Kristen Welker didn’t read him the oath he took on inauguration day. Rim shot.
Yes, civic ignorance, bigotry, racism and so-called Christian nationalism (I would label them as our neo-NAZIs) coupled to me-ism and shattered dreams of prosperity created and fuels MAGA-ism. What do we do about it? The MAGA morons don’t want to listen to the sentient people trying to protect and defend the Constitution, aka the American idea. Does this presage the next civil war?
My health is probably good enough that I’ll see this current horror show played out to its rancid end. If I believed in God, I’d say, “God help our younger generations and their children growing up in this mess.”
Prepare for June 14th. “No King” Day. Hoping for massive demonstrations to counter the military parade Trump is planning for that same day.
The American Idea is captured in our Constitution, and progress is the endless pursuit of perfection in executing the ideas expressed in that document.
Now we have a President who not only detests the idea of equality under the law but believes the opposite, a caste system based on race, religion, and social status. He is taking the country in the opposite direction of progress by teaching not only a lack of empathy but also cruelty towards everyone who is assigned a lower rank in the caste system.
Leaders in his success in doing that, besides his entire Cabinet, and Mike Johnson, are the DEA agents who don’t mind at all ripping people out of their homes and shipping them to a life in the hell of a Salvadoran prison famous for it.
He’s coming for us next.
hhmmm…deranged emperor wanna-be. His birthday…also anniversary of US Army (people who take an oath to defend the Constitution) and a bunch of soldiers, tanks, and other military gear on the streets of our Capitol. Does this sound like a script for a bad movie?
Among the precepts of our Consitutional framework I always found at least implicit is that we worked together to build a community. A community of states, local communities, a community to the world…the bright and shining beacon upon the hill…immigrants worked to blend into the larger community, learning the language, the customs, while still brining their own flavorings to the melting pot
Much of what I think I see these days is a conceted effort to abandon the sense of community at the larger levels, and dwelliing upon small communities of similar national origin or political thought. I’m probably as guilty as the next person; I’ve grown tired of trying to engage with the MAGAts and MUSKrats.
First Lady Melania stoically held two Bibles directly in front of President Trump during swearing in ceremony. On the bottom was The Lincoln Bible. The one on top was a commemorative Bible arranged by Trump Enterprise that included the U.S. Constitution before the Book of Genesis. Melania continued her stoic stance eyes straight ahead holding the Bibles right in front of Trump. The President remained stoic in his stance both hands intentionally by his side while he repeated the Oath. While there is no official requirement for a President to place his hand on the Bible to be sworn in, his intentions were clear. A bully will not be held accountable to the rule of law
Trump thinks that he is the law, and virtually nothing he says publicly is anything but a lie. “End the war in Ukraine open day one”? a lie. “Dictator on day one?” Not a lie. Lack of compassion? That’s who he is.
Can’t resist defining what “being am American” means….
The Super Bowl is a startling example of being an American. It checks so many boxes important to Americans: competitive sports, violence, rich white ownership, rabid commercialism (the ads!), and the frenzied entertainment of the halftime show. Up to the final whistle, online betting lures in millions more fans. Add in the frisson of sex — wardrobe malfunctions! — and you have America!
Lester. You promised to emphasize positivity because you were sick of so.much negativity in these comments..Poor guy. You just can’t help.yourself, can you?
Sharon,
You caught me! I was hoping that luring others away from “there’s nothing we can do about MAGA” to thinking that, maybe, just maybe, we can do something about the underlying culture that supports it.