As we celebrate the birthday of the United States of America, I can't help but think of the gulf that seems to grow wider and deeper every day between the country I learned about in middle school and the nation we have become.
Where to begin? Anywhere, I guess...
The only comp we have to Trump's comments about the media is Nixon? That's the list?
Okay, probably not. All history is revisionist history. No President has a great relationship with the press. That's the point really. The press is the Fourth Estate, an invaluable check on all three branches of the federal government.
With malice toward none, with charity for all… A Republican said that. You probably recognize it. It's from Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural speech and one of the most famous quotes uttered in the history of this country. It seems totally out of place in the socioeconomic tundra our nation has become, doesn't it?
Are we great again, yet?
Does being great mean taking health insurance away from 20 million of our fellow citizens? I suppose part of the problem is that we don't see the old and the poor as our fellow citizens. We tend to have a myopically narrow definition of who is "us" these days. Old, poor, LGBTQ, women, people of color, non-Christians, college professors - the media, of course - and the unarmed aren't the "us" of Donald Trump.
Maybe you don't find health care for profit immoral. If you can't afford a health savings account, you don't deserve health insurance. Maybe you think the free market and competition can deliver the best healthcare to Americans, despite the fact that it never has and despite the fact that this is not how insurance works. Insurance companies won't compete on price to cover a 50-year old man with a family history of cancer. Insurance is inherently and from its very origins a shared risk pool.
If you own a car you probably have to pay for car insurance. It's an individual mandate. You don't have a choice. This actually helps to keep premiums low but make no mistake; good drivers pay for bad - or unlucky - drivers. When it comes to health insurance, though, we seem to have a big problem with the basic concept of insurance. Young, healthy people shouldn't be forced to help pay for the needs of the old or infirm (even though we're all going to get old). Auto insurance works exactly the same way and yet we accept it. Could it be that we love our cars more than we love our fellow citizens?
Maybe you simply don't think healthcare is a right or any business of the federal government. It seems a popular opinion of some on the right that the only reason the federal government exists is the Department of Defense. I think the founders disagree…
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
That's the Preamble to the Constitution (emphasis added); our country's mission statement. But you knew that. Unlike some sections of the Constitution itself (like, oh, I don't know… slavery?), it's stood up pretty well to the test of time. I suppose you could argue I'm being overly generous in my interpretation of what's meant by "general Welfare" but it is one of the words the founders chose to emphasize; Order, Union, Justice, Tranquility, Welfare, Blessings of Liberty, and Posterity. Important words. Good words. I only wish Paul Ryan embraced the words of the founders with the same devotion he has for the fiction of Ayn Rand.
Unlike current Attorney General Jeff Sessions, our founders thought the federal government should care about Justice with a capital J. Sessions also doesn't care about meetings with Russian officials (so why bother remembering them?) or equal rights for the LGBTQ community or any laws he doesn't personally agree with and I suppose that would be cool (dissent - free speech and the right to assemble - is part of the American birthright) if he wasn't Attorney General. You fear activist judges? I fear an activist attorney general. Sessions does care about the Ten Commandments (for) and marijuana (against), though. So, smoke 'em if you got 'em while you still can. Hey, who needs pot when we have easy access to prescription opioids? Well, if your healthcare plan covers that, of course. If not, just use your tax-advantaged health savings account to pay for your OxyContin.
By my count, President Trump has broken at least 4 of the 10 Commandments (adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, coveting) and maybe two others (I'd say he has made money his God and has likely taken the Lord's Name in vain) but hey; who's counting? Certainly not Trump's evangelical supporters.
If America is the great democracy that we claim it is, why aren't we doing everything we can to make it possible for every citizen to vote? Or maybe you think that if you can't afford a car and the driver's license that comes with it, you don't deserve to vote. Despite the overwhelming evidence of Russia's attempts to corrupt our democratic process, President Trump has failed to act (well, other than his attempts to obstruct investigations into Russia's effort to hack the election). Instead of getting as tough with Putin as he's been with Mika (come on, Putin has definitely had some work done), our President has claimed it was probably just a fat kid living in his parents' basement that tried to hack the election. Despite the lack of evidence of endemic voter fraud, Trump created a commission to root out said voter fraud in a vain and laughable attempt to prove he won the popular vote. I can see one or two votes cast by Spongebob Squarepants or Minnie Mouse but three million? And all he needs to do to prove the legitimacy of his Presidency (and get a leg up on increase voter suppression measure to ensure his reelection in 2020) is to collect voting records from the states; records that include our social security numbers, addresses and voting history.
Trump has asked of the states that have refused to comply with his creature, Kris Kobach's unprecedented and likely unconstitutional request, "What do they have to hide?"
Perhaps those states should claim their voter registration records are under audit and they'll be released just as soon as the audit is complete.
If Trump was asking for gun registration information, you can only imagine the outrage at the invasion of our privacy, at what is clearly government overreach on the part of the federal government. Of course, that would interfere with our ability to settle things with guns, which is our constitutional right.
Sort of.
We continue to make a fetish of the Second Amendment despite the fact it was written more than 200 years ago. A lot has changed since then. There was no Twitter back then, for one thing (though I have to think men grabbed women by the pussy a lot more). I've made the constructionist argument that the Second Amendment guarantees me the right to own a single-shot, muzzle-loaded musket as long as I'm a member of a state-sponsored militia.
The deaths of children and church-goers haven't been enough for us to do anything about this ballistic example of American Exceptionalism. Clearly we're exceptional when it comes to gun violence. We resist any initiative to treat gun ownership with the same level of diligence and legitimacy Kris Kobach would apply to voter registration, or to improve the safety of guns with biometrics or RFID technology. When the next school, church, hospital or movie theater gets shot up by some nut with a personal armory of assault rifles remember; let's not politicize the loss of life and grief of the loved ones. Instead, let's just do nothing until the next school, church, hospital or movie theater gets shot up.
If you hadn't guessed by now, I'm not one of the "us." I'm non-Christian; an atheist. I wouldn't mind if the United States actually was Christian, though; not if I understand what that actually means. I grew up in the Lutheran Church and I have the utmost respect for people who actually live a Christian life because it's not easy. It's not easy to turn the other cheek, to love your enemies as yourself, to forgive, to judge not. If you think you can describe Donald J. Trump as "Christian," like Inigo Montoya, I don't think you know what that word means.
Consider Matthew 24:40…
"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Donald J. Trump is not the President of the old, the poor, the LGBTQ community, of women, of people of color, non-Christians, college professors and the unarmed; he is not the President of "the least of these my brethren." Trump is a Christian in name only but that shouldn't be a surprise. America itself is Christian in name only. We belong to mega-churches whose ministers have private jets and tell us that God wants us to be wealthy, despite the rather daunting logistics laid out in the Bible when it comes to the rich and their TripAdvisor search for Heaven.
I'd like to feel good about America on this 4th of July. I'd like to think the grand experiment in government of the people, by the people, for the people will have it's grant renewed. Perhaps the burgers and dogs and Sam Summer Ale will help but it's hard as I write this not to imagine a future without a free press, without a truly representative government, without national parks, breathable air, and drinkable water; a vast wasteland of crumbling infrastructure and poisoned farmland run by men with guns who greedily take from the least of these our brethren and call it good and right because winning is the only justification they need.
It seems there are dark clouds gathering in every direction of the compass and yet there is still a sliver of light, of hope. With all the bad news, there is still some good news and that good news is that this will only happen if we let it.
We the people.
It's a good day to remind ourselves of that.
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