Frank's Musings

The Senate refusal to suspend a filibuster and adopt the voting rights acts on 21 January 2022 demonstrated the emptiness of politicians’ profession that free elections are the sine-qua-non of our democracy.  Certainly, it is worth bargaining with self-interested, primary-subjected Republicans and sacrificing a few components of the BBB bill in order to assure the future of the country’s equitable distribution of electoral control.

COVID is no more than a convenient wedge to use in that competition. The Founders of our republic believed that it had moral objectives, like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Something has led Republicans to cast those goals aside, and to make their control of government their foremost desire. They don’t acknowledge that our democratic government only exists as the means by which our Founders originally decided to organize our society. Its structure and principles were instituted in order to make it operate as the tool of the people themselves.

One faction of the people who seek control of our government, however, are driven not by achieving the common good but by maximizing their control of as much human activity as possible.

This is nothing new; it has always been the main conflict in human history. Put another way, it is the opposition between philosophies of human life—Is life a game that ends with death or do living beings have an ultimate purpose? How is winning the game of life measured—by the level of personal achievement or by society’s long-term betterment of everyone's welfare.

Those like Senator Sanders who call for a “reset” in policy-advocacy should recognize that the change needed is, rather, further resort to “future preference.” It’s the ability to postpone immediate gratification that shepherded enough recalcitrant supporters to pass the mid-20th Century civil rights legislation. With that larger concept of a successful democracy’s operating pace, determined progressives can achieve their goals piecemeal, if they do not lose patience.  

The widespread model of the Internet Boom was to come up with an appealing idea and hope that persistent enthusiasm will convince an angel investor to finance the development of an online service that will gain enough momentum to make its creators rich. This was the story of Mideast Online.

The rioters have been taught that the only things that really matter are what makes the biggest show. The Jan 6 Insurrection was a political tantrum. It was encouraged by a prominent, wealthy and envied spoiled brat.

Donald Trump is angry that the election results denied his resumption of the presidency. His acolytes surreptitiously agreed to humor his childish refusal to accept his destiny by soliciting a riotous and, thankfully, unsuccessful disruption of Congress’s certification of Electoral votes.

That was not as historically significant a thing as a challenge to Democracy. Rather, it was a mistaken case of neglect of the vigilance that is constantly needed in order to preserve any liberal democracy.

Famously, Benjamin Franklyn warned that the republic itself would not last without its citizens’ diligence. American Society cannot afford to allow itself to fall prey to collective solipsism. Fortunately, four years of the Trump Administration was enough to teach America that lesson. Hopefully, the memory of that lesson will last a long time. 

If Donald J. Trump wasn’t a classic tyrant, was he only a lucky would-be one? Did he really think he could get away with just energizing a violent following to do the work for him of suppressing opposition?

How was that different from other authoritarians, like Hitler, Mussolini, Peron, De Gaulle, Putin, Orhan, Duda, Pinochet, etc.? Is the US democratic system vulnerable to the same corruption of its system and values?

Did Trump’s election evidence his mesmerizing attraction or was he a convenient (and opportunist) avatar for virulent reactionary impatience with the democratic consequences of the country’s increased diversity and education?  In cases of tyrannical rule, the end of authoritarianism can usually be brought about by peaceful and persistent domestic resistance.  That makes Biden and his hoped-for successors combatants in a struggle to retain the democratic heritage of America. 

This is something that must be made clear to a majority of voters as long as we are able to retain an equitable electoral system.  It is therefore important to strengthen voters’ rights; but it is also necessary to publicize what is at stake.  The publicity campaign must be done in a way that appeals to the obsequious and committed group of willing demagogue-acolytes, the large politically apathetic bunch that was Trump’s base. 

It has been estimated by a professor at the University of Chicago that there are twenty million disaffected voters in the U.S, who support the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.  Those are people who want things “both ways.”  They have gained materially in the American free democratic system, but jealously refuse to share that success with the multitudes of others who have managed to immigrate here or who have risen above centuries of racial discrimination to compete for equal rewards in a capitalist economy.  The ese incumbents ignore the inevitability that the benefits of a free society will not last if its advantages are not shared with all who agree to join on those terms.  These fruits of freedom carry an unavoidable obligation to offer them freely to anyone who accepts the two sides of the equation.  If this trade-off was nothing but a birth-right, the hard work that is the basis of the American character would be a fool’s errand.  A self-fulfilling result of holding that attitude would, of course, be fewer newcomers to the country as well as lasting existence of a racial underclass; but that result would also diminish the future well-being of everyone.

The Trump Presidency constituted a warning of how near is the possible collapse of even a centuries-old democratic system of government.  That system is fragile because it still is not a corollary of human nature.    All man’s instincts drive hm to provide for himself before others.  A would-be tyrant plays to that side of individuals’ character; if he succeeds, it could spell the end of their freedom and welfare.  Constant vigilance is needed to protect that heritage.