I particularly enjoy visiting the “your memories” function on Facebook (mostly for the pictures of grandchildren when they were younger and me when my hair was still black…). The other day, however, those memories included several comments referencing a post from 2017. I reread it, and concluded that it continues to be relevant–especially as we approach a pivotal election. So today, I’m taking the day off and reposting “Tribalism Versus Americanism.”
Think of it as a very late summer re-run.
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We Americans are a cantankerous and argumentative lot. We hold vastly different political philosophies and policy preferences, and we increasingly inhabit alternate realities. Partisans routinely attack elected officials—especially Presidents—who don’t share their preferences or otherwise meet their expectations.
Politics as usual. Unpleasant and often unfair, but—hysteria and hyperbole notwithstanding– usually not a threat to the future of the republic. Usually.
We are beginning to understand that Donald Trump does pose such a threat.
In the wake of Trump’s moral equivocations following Charlottesville, critics on both the left and right characterized his refusal to distinguish between the “fine people” among the Nazis and KKK and the “fine people” among the protestors as an assault on core American values. His subsequent, stunning decision to pardon rogue sheriff Joe Arpaio has been described, accurately, as an assault on the rule of law.
It’s worth considering what, exactly, is at stake.
Whatever our beliefs about “American exceptionalism,” the founding of this country was genuinely exceptional—defined as dramatically different from what had gone before—in one incredibly important respect: for the first time, citizenship was made dependent upon behavior rather than identity. In the Old World, countries had been created by conquest, or as expressions of ethnic or religious solidarity. As a result, the rights of individuals were dependent upon their identities, the status of their particular “tribes” in the relevant order. (Jews, for example, rarely enjoyed the same rights as Christians, even in countries that refrained from oppressing them.)
Your rights vis a vis your government depended upon who you were—your religion, your social class, your status as conqueror or conquered.
The new United States took a different approach to citizenship. Whatever the social realities, whatever the disabilities imposed by the laws of the various states, anyone (okay, any white male) born or naturalized here was equally a citizen. We look back now at the exclusion of blacks and women and our treatment of Native Americans as shameful departures from that approach, and they were, but we sometimes fail to appreciate how novel the approach itself was at that time in history.
All of our core American values—individual rights, civic equality, due process of law—flow from the principle that government must not facilitate tribalism, must not treat people differently based upon their ethnicity or religion or other marker of identity. Eventually (and for many people, reluctantly) we extended that principle to gender, skin color and sexual orientation.
Racism is a rejection of that civic equality. Signaling that government officials will not be punished for flagrantly violating that foundational principle so long as the disobedience advances the interests of the President, fatally undermines it.
Admittedly, America’s history is filled with disgraceful episodes in which we have failed to live up to the principles we profess. In many parts of the country, communities still grapple with bitter divisions based upon tribal affiliations—race, religion and increasingly, partisanship.
When our leaders have understood the foundations of American citizenship, when they have reminded us that what makes us Americans is allegiance to core American values—not the color of our skin, not the prayers we say, not who we love—we emerge stronger from these periods of unrest. When they speak to the “better angels of our nature,” most of those “better angels” respond.
When our leaders are morally bankrupt, all bets are off. We’re not all Americans any more, we’re just a collection of warring tribes, some favored by those in power, some not.
As the old saying goes: elections have consequences.
Thanks – still timely after 7 years
Just watched “From Russia With Lev” produced by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, and was again reminded just how off the rails the cult of trump has existed ever since he descended that escalator in 2015 to declare his intention to run for POTUS, and how not one day has passed for those 9 years that he wasn’t part of, or dominate, the news cycle. The truth of the matter is that he has pushed legal and moral boundaries constantly while stirring up the worst in many of us, rather than the best which Kamala promotes. There has been nothing like it in my lifetime, not Joe McCarthy, not Richard Nixon, nothing. He has debased himself, the office of POTUS, and the country, beyond belief. Biden/Harris have made enormous strides in reconstituting our beloved country, and Kamala and Tim will continue that work, and go even beyond it. God help us if we don’t elect them.
It’s pretty much unchanged, sadly. Hopefully we can begin to change this year. I’ll take the happy candidates over the whiners and now we can do it by voting blue.
What Gil wrote sums up the situation today.
Peggy, some things have changed. Donald Trump’s pathological mental state has deteriorated into true madness. His tyranny attitudes have become more obvious. He’s sicker now, more than ever and his acolytes and cult followers continue to lap it up.
Sure, Harris and Walz are doing their best to rekindle our national mentality, but as long as the orange monster exists, there will not be peace. We are indeed in the second greatest fight for our democracy, but this time the enemy is insane.
I long for the first day in years when the name Trump no longer assaults me first thing in the morning – I no longer begin my day with his face and why he is perfect, but everyone else is fatally flawed.
Back in 2017 we had no idea how rapidly our country would sink into the current hell we live in that declines on an almost daily basis.
The above posters have demonstrated that Americans are getting tired of Trump occupying the front page of our newspapers—all of them. What worries me is that one of his offspring will take up the charge as his father passes on to sit at the side of Lucifer. Don has a guardian angel, or we’d have witnessed his brain fragments on national TV. I believe that the guardian angel is Lucifer.
Sadly, Trump is very symbolic of the US. So was #GenocideJoe. We did witness Biden’s mind default back to dark gray matter, missing any electrical charge. Now, we get to watch Trump deteriorate much in the same way.
This symbolizes the US oligarchy seeking WW3 on three fronts while the press occupies the 3rd-grade political horse race. Either candidate’s domestic policies are moot if we launch into WW3 against Russia, China, and Iran. Neither Harris nor Trump are clear about their foreign policy because they are not the leaders in that realm.
There is no reason to take on the three superpowers besides pure egoic hegemony. We need our candidates for POTUS to make a bold statement that they will seek diplomacy in Ukraine, the Middle East (which means telling Israel to sit down and shut up, or they are on their own), and the South China Sea. Then, we will know we have real leadership in Washington!
Thanks. Definitely worth a second read. Here’s what adds more anxiety for me: Vance.Tfg is a 78 year old walking heart attack. If, heaven forbid, he is elected, he could die in office. Vance is an inexperienced, opportunistic, wackadoodle, and a perfect Federalist Society Puppet. He definitely knows a thing or two about Project 2025. Add this nightmarish possibility to what’s at stake.
In 2017 trump had Gorsuch installed on Supreme court, followed by Kavanaugh and Barret later during his term. It was difficult to see at the time how much the majority of the court would disregard rule of law, precedent and justice to promote and protect trump. Seeing the highest court politicized and practicing umwege law to arrive at their conclusions that practically exonerate trump from crimes he committed while he was President is devastating to the US rule of law.
When Congress impeached trump for his actions/inactions of 1/6 and the chief justice didn’t show up to preside over the trial, it was obvious that the corruption was running rampant through the highest levels of our government.