2001-2021: From Crisis to Unity to Hope to Cruelty

September 11, 2001 was a pristine day across North America. Cool, crisp, and above all, crystal clear. The kind of blue sky no color palette can replicate. Conditions pilots yearn for.

I awoke just before dawn in the “Holidome” Holiday Inn in Salina, Kansas, in one of those 1970s-style hotels where each room faces a cavernous atrium for easy access to everything from shuffleboard to an indoor pool that permeates every molecule of air in the hotel with the stench of chlorine. I had landed the night before at the Salina Municipal Airport in a Bell Helicopter 206L with my co-pilot, Dennis Lang, after attending a family funeral in South Dakota. We were en route back to Dallas, Texas when the world, or at least America’s view of the world and its role in it, changed in the span of a little more than an hour. What I didn’t know at the time was that this date would also come to mark the beginning of the end of the American empire. America’s “unipolar moment” of unmatched power (as international relations scholars have called it) would subsequently be squandered in fits of accelerating hubris, deceit, and within two decades, cruelty.

After a barely edible breakfast served by a surly waitress in the atrium of the inn, Dennis and I took a shuttle to the airport arriving just as American flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. The flight from Boston to Los Angeles cleaved the tower leaving a near-perfect image of the fuselage and its wingspan. Weeks later I learned that of the three people I knew who lost their lives that day, two were on that plane and the other was killed as a result of it turning the floors above its impact into an unsurvivable inferno. Years later I wept, standing before their names carved into the smooth black granite of the 9/11 memorial. Like every non-terrorist who perished that day, they were among the innocents; young men with families and full lives ahead of them. All I suffered was a scarred soul; twenty years later the pain lingers. We managed to receive a clearance for takeoff just as United Airlines flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. I pulled all the power that helicopter had and headed into those pristine skies with only one thought in mind: get home.

To stay informed in the cockpit, we listened to Peter Jennings on ABC radio as we calculated our course, airspeed, and fuel levels in a long shot attempt to make it to Dallas in one hop. Jennings, who had given up smoking some years before, relapsed under the stress of 9/11 and started smoking again. He died of lung cancer four years later. Shortly after we cleared Salina to the south, the feared but expected order came from Kansas City Center Control: “all aircraft land immediately nearest airport.” As clear as that instruction was, we considered it as any helicopter pilot might, with equal parts of indignation and arrogance. Surely, we thought, that order is only meant for airplanes. We decided to keep going; low, fast, and outside of controlled airspace to see how close we could get to Dallas. As we came abeam Wichita, Kansas, Dennis said, “Uh oh, take a look to the east at ten o’clock.” Two stealth bombers were departing McConnell Air Force Base accompanied by four fighter jets. As they swept into the sky, they looked like two giant stingrays stalked by small dark pilot fish. It was time to talk to the tower in Wichita.

Given its geographic position in the center of the United States, and distance from any other airport of significant size, Wichita was being slammed by requests to land by aircraft from all over the world that were flying across the continent to faraway destinations. The woman in the tower who responded to my call was impressively calm and efficient during what had to be the busiest day in her career and in the history of the airport. She ordered, “November one-alpha-hotel, turn left heading zero-niner-zero and make approach to taxiway following Super-80 on final and in front of the Airbus turning final.” Following a rather acrobatic landing, necessary to avoid the wake turbulence produced by larger aircraft, I scrambled to get a rental car and hotel room while Dennis secured the helicopter. The last planes that landed that morning in Wichita were parked at the ends of the runway. Every square foot of pavement—including tarmacs and taxiways—was covered with aircraft.

Dennis and I checked into the Red Roof Inn adjacent to the airport along with other stunned travelers and flight crews who all had the same two questions on their minds: what in the hell just happened and, most especially, when can we get back out of here? Despite all the uncertainty and fear that were descending like a cloud bank on an otherwise beautiful day, the hotel remained eerily quiet save the drone of CNN emanating from every TV day and night. But, that first night of our unintended sequestration, the paper-thin walls proved no match for the sounds that still haunt my memory: the mournful sobs of flight attendants who realized how brutally those who served their final flights that morning had died—throats slashed with boxcutters by terrorists looking forward to the seventy-two virgins they had been promised in their twisted jihadist version of heaven. It took a couple of days, but Dennis—a cunning gnome of the skies—finagled the first clearance to depart Wichita after the events of September 11th. I am not sure what he said to air traffic control, but I hope most of it was true. We made it as far as Ardmore, Oklahoma, when we were ordered to land again. There was no way air traffic control was going to allow us to penetrate the airspace of Dallas-Fort Worth. To get home, we rented the only vehicle we could find, a van with two seats in front and none in back. It smelled like its prior usage had been for human trafficking, but it got us home.

For those of you who remember the days that followed, the most pervasive emotion was fear. The fear of where will they strike next? As I came to understand after interviewing several Bush administration officials years later, that fear nearly paralyzed the administration; they were determined to circumvent any further attacks on America and Americans throughout the world. To their credit, they largely succeeded.  I remember thinking twice about attending a high school football game at Aubrey High School in North Texas for fear a bomb would be detonated by al-Qaeda below the grandstands. (That’s what a few days locked down in Wichita will do to your mind.) That was the first time self-isolation seemed like the best strategy; something we all have learned to practice during the pandemic.

Fear became a powerful unifier, which seems somewhat quaint today as we have subsequently seen fear used as a powerful divider. But, united we stood. Never before or since have so many American flags been purchased and flown from virtually anywhere one could find to hoist the stars and stripes. Not the modified American flags people display today that represent their political tribe, just the red-white-and blue Old Glory. Recruiting centers for our military were swamped with new applicants who wanted to exact their own measure of revenge on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. With the exception of a few ignorant bigots who attacked mosques in America, most simply rallied around the flag; but, eventually, fear-driven patriotism waned and anger kicked in. Then, hubris. We were, after all, the world’s lone superpower and the Bush-Cheney administration wanted to display that power in the most devastating manner possible. Consideration of the national interest and the attendant discipline to pursue well-defined objectives—the hallmark of George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy—were thrown out the window in favor of reckless revenge promoted mostly by men who had never seen a battlefield in uniform.

Lest we forget, Operation Desert Storm conducted by Bush 41 that removed Saddam Hussein from Kuwait was executed after Hussein had ignored sanctions of the United Nations, and after an international coalition had been formed and the operation had been authorized by Congress. Combat lasted just six weeks and American casualties numbered 148. Saddam Hussein retreated to his palace in Baghdad and Kuwait was freed. Compare that to the thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent over the last twenty years in Iraq and Afghanistan only to finally leave—just days ago—with little to nothing to claim as our winnings. Biden is getting the blame and the Bush-Cheney folks are mostly mute. But these days, the truth is buried under a mountain of deceits. We have become extraordinarily skilled at collective self-deception. Perhaps because the truth is just too embarrassing and painful to bear.

As the Bush 43 administration drew to a close in 2008, and the economy was being crushed by many ill-considered deregulations in our financial markets, a tall, skinny, lanky young man from Illinois—who cast himself as the next Lincoln from the same state—raised his hand to become the 44th president of the United States. Barack Hussein Obama, born of a white mother and black father, had the cojones to believe that Americans would put a black man with a funny name in the White House while a white woman named Hillary—of the Clinton Democratic Party dynasty—claimed it was her turn. What on earth could he have been thinking, or smoking? However, one of the things a person of Obama’s rather challenging profile learn is that to succeed in life, you must lead with fists clenched knowing you are going to get knocked down—over and over—but that if you keep getting back up, eventually those with more advantaged backgrounds will move out of the way as they succumb to a weakness of resolve born from their many entitlements.

To be clear, Obama didn’t exactly come from nowhere. He had killed it with his address four years prior at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Delegates and political kingmakers were awestruck at the state senator from Illinois. In his speech, he began by connecting with audiences in the arena and at home by presenting himself as evidence that in America anything is possible—that he would not be speaking as the convention’s keynote speaker if America was not a place where dreams could come true. In so doing, he gave us access to our own dreams and possibilities and, moreover, he personified hope. He called this “the true genius of America—a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.” After years of fear and anger following 9/11, hope was ascendent once again, purveyed by a curious and unlikely messenger.

In March 2008, in one of his best speeches among many great speeches, Obama addressed the proverbial elephant in American politics and culture: the color of his skin. It was prompted by criticism of his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Chicago who had given many fiery sermons on race relations in America that later caused John McCain’s running mate from Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin, to accuse Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” Obama confronted “black anger” and “white resentment” so effectively that it reminded me of when John F. Kennedy confronted criticism of his Catholicism in an address in Houston to protestant ministers in 1960. Once again, Obama’s hope-based rhetoric and intentional linkage of himself to Abraham Lincoln turned a political sinkhole for his campaign into a springboard.

In his remarks titled, “A More Perfect Union,” he reminded us that our Constitution—while failing to directly correct the stain of “this nation’s original sin of slavery” at the time of its adoption—allowed room for “Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part … to narrow the gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.” This was classic Obama, weaving both realism and idealism together to bring a calm clarity to his message while never slipping into the blame and shame game so prevalent—then and today— among those who intend to advance a progressive agenda. He never allowed his anger to subvert his higher aim: hope. His hope endured, but the change he promised to accompany it—the prospect of being a transformative president—would run into a juggernaut of thinly veiled racism that could not stomach a black man in the White House led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky who made clear he would do everything in his power to assure Obama was “a one-term president.”

At the time of Obama’s election, I was living in Texas where, with the exception a couple of years spent in Washington D.C., I had resided since 1982. In my years there prior to his election, I had rarely witnessed overt racism. I expected it having been warned of southern dispositions prior to moving there from Seattle, but besides the institutional racism that was endemic throughout the United States, I rarely saw anything approaching racial conflict between whites and blacks. That changed once Obama became president. The “N” word, which was never used by anyone in my presence prior to his election, started to creep into otherwise normal conversations, used by folks I had known for years.

As Obama neared the end of his first term, racist bumper stickers started to appear on several cars in the Dallas area and stars and bars flags (aka Confederate flags) were hung in the rear windows of many pickup trucks and semi tractors. In the carpool line at my daughter’s private Episcopal school, a mother in a Cadillac Escalade had a bumper sticker with a black stick figure sodomizing a white stick figure with the phrase “Are we really going to take it this way for four more years?” printed below the illustration. Another popular bumper sticker signaled the melding of evangelicalism with racism in its citation of Psalms 109:8, “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership” as a signal to Christians to rid the country of the scourge of Obama. By the newly antagonized white Christian nationalists this became known as “the Obama prayer.” Change did come, but it wasn’t the kind of change Obama had in mind. It was a shift from hope to cruelty, ushered in most aggressively by a self-proclaimed tycoon from New York City: Donald J. Trump.

Trump had learned his racism at the knee of his father and at the counsel of his father’s attorney, Roy Cohn (former aid to the infamous Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin). As real estate developers in New York, their racism was economically based. They equated people of color—any color—to be bad for business. But “the Donald,” as he liked to be called, saw a new path for his racism: to promote himself as a political great white hope. His angle: call to question the authenticity of Obama’s citizenship—so called birtherism. Trump’s incessant attempts to disqualify Obama’s presidency in this manner also gave rise to his favorite technique to discredit others and project deceits throughout his own presidency. The “Well, you know, many people are saying … ” this or that in an attempt to affect uncertainty and cast aspersions. It is a cheap middle-school grade rhetorical trick, but also proved to be very effective as he conveyed 30,573 false or misleading claims during his presidency—roughly 80% of everything that left his (public) mouth from 2017-2021.

The Cruelty is the Point, a recent book by Adam Serwer, chronicles the legacy of the Donald J. Trump presidency as it illustrates through this lens of cruelty the innumerable inhumane acts by Trump and his acolytes like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSantis, Matt Gaetz, Greg Abbott, Josh Hawley, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, and so forth. Immigration, healthcare, climate change, education, abortion, human and civil rights—regardless of the issue, the Trump modality always includes some form of cruelty. As Serwer argues, cruelty not only satisfies the male adolescent desire to dominate others, it is a powerful binding agent between like-minded people. As a community, Trump supporters rejoice “in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.” A man whose claims—from his education to his wealth—that are routinely recognized as fraud once the facts are known, finds comfort and validation in his capacity to hurt others. This is the Trump legacy, but it does not have to be ours.

As Americans, our day of reckoning is upon us. It is not coming; it is here.

Osama bin Laden presented us with a crisis on 9/11. Every crisis is a test. How we respond to the crisis is the real test. In the face of the 9/11 attacks we—at first—united due to our collective fear. But then, fear gave way to anger and ultimately hubris. An unchecked power, as the United States was in the early 2000s, is a danger to everyone, but most especially to itself. Empires are seldom defeated by a greater power; they almost always defeat themselves. We were offered a reprieve by the presidency of Barack Obama—a chance to return to the high road of virtue and integrity. To revisit the ideals of our founders who saw America as a beacon of hope formed in spite of our sins and transgressions; the greatest of which was slavery. But we allowed the racism that made that sin possible to be reborn and worse: we allowed its basis in cruelty to metastasize throughout our culture.

Today, the world looks upon America as a pathetic shell of its former greatness. They do so with a mix of scorn and fear as they look at the option of a world dominated by China. No, not Russia, China. An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal recently characterized the state of our union as the “Golden Age of Stupidity.” I observe what I have written about elsewhere—what I have called “a pride of ignorance”—spreading from its origins in the South like the delta variant from coast to coast and from border to border. Frankly, it frightens me beyond words. I keep thinking—hoping—that a bright political star will rise again, or a technological innovation will vanquish the threat of climate change, or some other providential stroke of luck will save us.  However, such good fortune rarely visits unworthy people.

If you read these posts regularly, you know that I try to nudge, cajole, and even beg people to summon their better selves. Unfortunately, nearly everywhere I look today, I see cruelty, stupidity, greed, sloth, and systemic failures. These are not the behaviors of a superpower. They are evidence of an empire slipping into a slow-burn descent into irrelevance. Most Americans are in denial, or turning an apathetic blind eye or, like the proverbial frog in the pot of soon-to-be boiling water, think how lovely it is that the water is warming. Too few of us are behaving like we deserve to call ourselves Americans in the manner of those who founded, developed, and were responsible stewards of American power. Our fate may simply be to stand by and watch the pot boil; to let the providence of Nature decide who survives.

By |2021-09-18T14:55:34+00:00September 5th, 2021|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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Killing America

On Saturday, January 11, 1964, LBJ was in the Oval Office, The Kingsmen sang Louie Louie to the top of the R&B charts, and Brigitte Bardot was a transatlantic bombshell. It was also the day that Luther Terry, the Surgeon General of the United States, declared that cigarettes had dangerous effects including lung cancer and heart disease. A product that had been advertised as assuring good health had finally been realized for what it was: an American killer. Decades later, we look back on those days of the Marlboro Man and wonder how could those Americans have been so stupid?

Late last week, a pivotal moment in American history also occurred. It was the day that our current Surgeon General of the United States, Vivek Murthy, declared that misinformation and lies being spread across social media about Covid-19 vaccines was a public health hazard. Our president, Joe Biden, was more blunt. He told reporters that Facebook was “killing people.” Of course, Facebook feigned outrage and FOX News mocked the president as an alarmist that was trying to take control of our lives. Coordinated by American tobacco manufacturers, a similar campaign of deceit followed Luther Terry’s declaration about tobacco in the 1960s—one of the best funded campaigns of deceit in American history—and millions more died.

One day, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, I expect we will look back at social media and the largely deleterious effects it has had on our lives and view it as we now view cigarettes: how could we have been so stupid? Facebook has done to us what Phillip Morris, et al, did to us sixty years ago: they got us hooked, then lied to us to keep us hooked. Are Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg less dangerous than the tobacco titans of yesteryear? Is Rupert Murdock’s FOX News really serving the public interest when they fill the heads of their viewers with lies that could cost them their lives?

There is a much larger problem, however, than the simple deceits promulgated by Facebook and FOX News regarding Covid-19 vaccines. Throughout our history, Americans have been bound together by the stories we embrace about what it means to be an American. These stories were the social glue that enabled unity, regardless of our particular political persuasions, ethnicities, religious affiliations, race, gender, sexual preferences, or national origin, we could all subscribe. In the last twenty years, due to a fundamental degradation of American values, and the culture of deceit fomented, nurtured, and sustained by politicians and social media companies, we have lost those stories. They have become dead letters.

The first story is called the American Dream. It holds that anyone can become anything they want in America. That their destiny is in their own hands. That it does not matter from whence they came, or whom their daddy is, or what god they pray to (if any), or what color their skin is, or even whom they choose to love; they can become whomever they want to in America. This story is fundamental to our heritage. Like all stories, it does not stand up under the lens of empiricism. It is easy to discredit its validity as many, including the authors of the 1619 Project, have done. Yet, it has prevailed since John Winthrop landed the first settlers from Europe in modern-day Massachusetts in the early seventeenth century. It endured, less so because of its certainty than because of its allure.  We wanted to believe it. Why? Because it was aspirational.

The second story is only about seventy years old—a relative baby. It is the story of America as a superpower—as a font of exceptionalism. To be clear, it has its roots that also date back to John Winthrop when he claimed to his parishioner/colonists that “we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” (That’s right, the 1980 Reagan borrowed it from the 1630 Winthrop.) But it was far from credible until after World War II when, as the United States benefited greatly as being the last intact nation-state in the civilized world and the only one that had the industrial capacity to rebuild the world, gained tremendous wealth and stature in the free world. The United States became one of two superpowers, then the only superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We became exemplars of freedom and democracy and the world’s champion of those who sought the same. Again, does the story hold up under the microscope of empiricism? No. But, also again, it endured due to its aspirational nature.

If you ask an American under forty years of age today if either of these stories ring true to them—if they believe in them (as my generation does)—they will likely look at you with either pity, or scorn, or a weird mix of both. For they have largely, or mostly, lived their lives during the Age of Deceit where lies and shame and guilt have been shoved in their faces to the point that there is no longer any American story. All too often today, they are being taught that they are not individuals who can become anything they want to be; rather, they are simply members of tribal groups with grievances that excuse them from any sense of patriotism whatsoever. They should be allegiant to their group—however narrowly defined—and must subscribe to groupthink. And, moreover, that their principal right is to blame-and-shame anyone who stands between them and their desires.

This blame-and-shame trap is an ugly one and it is present on all sides of the political spectrum. The religious right expresses it as condemnation; the liberal left as cancellation. It is toxic and it will defeat one of the greatest empires in the history of the world. The key thing to acknowledge and correct (if it is not too late) is that blame-and-shame never succeeds in building a stronger more resilient culture or nation. It may feel good in the moment, but it festers and rots and destroys. Blame-and-shame movements have occurred throughout American history, but none succeeded (absent bloody conflict) to make America great. Abolition, Prohibition, and Pro-life are examples of blame-and-shame movements. Today, Occupy Wall Street, Me Too, Black Lives Matter, and Defund the Police are blame-and-shame movements.  All were, or are, destined to fail in reaching their objectives. Why? They are not aspirational.

In contrast, go back and study the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Granted, many of its successes are currently being undone by the Trumplicans, but it succeeded in many important ways. Why? Because it was aspirational. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., never, and I mean never, sought to blame-and-shame anyone. Rather, he gave everyone—regardless of race—a reason to belong to the movement. To become better human beings; to become something greater than they were under the old Jim Crow laws. He practically defined the word aspirational. In some of his last, and perhaps most famous words, he implored us: “I have seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So, I am happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.”

My American stories are dead letters. It breaks my patriotic heart, but I accept that there must be new stories for a new America. But please people, I beg of you, drop the blame-and-shame game. Choose aspiration over shame. Summon the spirit of King, and F.D.R., and Lincoln. They may be long gone, but they understood what young leaders today do not: if you want to succeed unity is critical, and there can be no unity without giving people hope through aspiration.

By |2021-08-02T15:36:47+00:00July 19th, 2021|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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It is Us

It is not the presidents, governors, nor mayors.

It is not the ministers, rabbis, nor imams.

Not the attorneys, judges, nor the police.

It is not the corporate chieftains nor bankers

who will decide our destiny.

It is the rest of us. It is you. It is me. It is us.

 

We are black, brown and white,

yet we all claim the red, white, and blue.

We know how to be thoughtful and caring;

we can sing in harmony in church on Sundays.

But our better angels yield to dark demons

as brotherly love turns to hate on Mondays.

 

We have come to believe our privileges are rights

while entitlement courses through our veins.

We feel we are worthy simply because we exist;

not because we did the work and earned our broth;

not because we take responsibility for the greater good;

for we are drunk on selfies and greed and sloth.

 

Covid-19 revealed many cracks in our armor

as our exceptionalism died in the darkness of deceit.

Our willpower, once flexed, has become flaccid

diminished by our pettiness and our timidity.

New rivals snarl and rise like circling sharks

as we hemorrhage our virtue and our dignity.

 

Is this who we are?

Is this us?

Is this the America we want to be?

 

Who we are is up to us; it is in our hands.

Our heritage commands us to preserve the Dream.

As our politicians work hard to serve themselves,

it is up to us to save our fragile democracy.

We know the difference between right and wrong,

if only we could subdue duplicitous hypocrisy.

 

Today, we must confront ourselves

lest Independence Day loses all of its meaning.

It is not the Putins or Xis or Khameneis

who we must defeat to preserve our power.

It is the Garcias and Jacksons and Johnsons

who we must unite in this solemn hour.

 

“We the People” saved the world from tyranny,

now the world is begging us to save ourselves.

We know how to harness the brilliance of diversity.

Big minds from many places with dreams to match.

We can re-light that shining city on the hill

that beckons the world with sincere dispatch.

 

We must stop shaking fists and start shaking hands.

We must stop pushing down and start lifting up.

We must assure that the gates to that shining city

are open to anyone with the strength to climb its stairs.

We must summon the will of our ancestors

who never flinched—never faltered—when facing despair.

 

Climb aboard the American train to freedom;

the ride is not free and the work is daunting.

But it is our turn to put America back on track;

it is our duty to preserve Abe’s “best hope of earth.”

When we hold our children and look into their eyes,

will they look back and say we proved our worth?

 

We are a conundrum—we Americans—

bewildering to both friends and enemies.

 

We are the dream and we are the nightmare.

We are the righteous and we are the wrong.

We are the rich and we are the poor.

We are the strong and we are the weak.

We are the joyous and we are the forlorn.

We are the curse, but we are also the hope.

 

We are Americans.

Beware, here we come.

It is you. It is me. It is us.

By |2021-07-19T13:32:27+00:00June 27th, 2021|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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From Fear to Flow

Crises always offer the opportunity for creative destruction, although emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic hardly feels creative, at least not yet. The science says go for it; that is, if you are fully vaccinated. Yet, as slow as we were to adopt responsible habits of self-protection—like mask wearing—I feel no sense of urgency to drop my security blanket of triple-layered nose to chin prophylaxis by UnderArmour. Taking it off feels like I am walking around with my fly unzipped. I am embracing my vaccinated freedoms with all the enthusiasm of a bear emerging from hibernation: ambling about in a slumber-induced stupor trying to decide if I am hungry or hungover; wary of leaving my den behind. (I captured the bear picture above a few days ago from just outside my front door.)

In the last big crisis that we faced—the Great Depression and World War II—Americans raced forth to get college degrees, have babies, and rebuild the world. Back then, science didn’t tell us to go for it, ABC’s The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet did. Bigger families, bigger cars, and bigger houses put the United States on the path to superpower status. We looked up at the moon and said, “Okay, we can do that.” And, drunk on red, white, and blue ambition, we did it, as the world looked on in awe. Awe is not the way the world, or even we Americans, view the United States today. Youthful national exuberance has given way to crotchety timidity; our swagger squandered in a cauldron of personal fears and social and political fragility. There is no staff of victory upon which to hoist our patriotism. We have the people, but there is no “We the people.”

Our new president has an enormous challenge, and while he is meeting it with what appears to be a proper mix of assertiveness and deliberation, the opposition remains poised—and unfortunately capable—of returning us to the Age of Deceit in 2022. The battle over what it means to be an American is clearly not yet decided. But that doesn’t mean we can’t forge a new and better life. It just means we must remain vigilant about what lurks in the blindspots where those reside who are determined to impose their twisted conception of a 1950s-styled retrotopia—where the only winners are Ozzie and Harriet Nelson’s boys—are coiled with fangs drawn to toll the death knell of America’s liberal democracy.

We must get past our fears and get into the flow of creativity to assure a healthy transition to a new American identity and personal equanimity. The first step is recognizing the lessons of the pandemic—the things we did (even if we didn’t want to) that proved beneficial. We slowed down. We consumed less. We paid attention to family, friends, and neighbors. We realized that many of the things we thought were necessary—like flying across the country for a business meeting—weren’t necessary at all. Many of us came to realize just how much of our lives were being wasted staring at social media screens and Netflix trailers; that a walk in the woods filled our hearts better than Facebook friends. We learned to sacrifice, and while many sacrifices proved depressing, others have earned their permanence in our new lives.

I come from the generation that was taught that any effort less than 110% simply didn’t cut it. One of my lessons from the pandemic is that 80% is better. Maybe even less. Proceeding at the pace and intensity of 110% crowds out inputs and options that improve outcomes and reduce failures. Slowing down and opening up is a much more effective strategy. Further, it makes space for empathy and humility. Listening is more valuable than speaking. Hesitation is not necessarily a weakness. Like the fermata that brings aesthetic structure to music, pausing to think twice, or even three times, can yield spectacular benefits. It can turn noise into melody. Finally, it is a much healthier and more sustainable way to live.

What are your lessons? As we move from fear to flow, what can we retain of our sacrifices that still make sense as we emerge from our pandemic dens? Returning to normal should not mean going back to pre-pandemic behaviors and policies. A new identity and life must leave room to retain what we have learned. They may have been hard lessons, but lessons nonetheless. A new America and a new you are what creative destruction is all about. Summon the courage to honor your lessons. Seize the opportunity for a hard reboot. A better normal—a better life—can be ours.

By |2021-05-11T14:13:30+00:00May 5th, 2021|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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Masks Are Killing America

I suspect you are like me in at least one regard: we are all tired as hell of the impact the pandemic has had on our lives, including the wearing of masks. Statistically, most of us have not endured the disease of Covid-19 or lost a loved one—at least not to death. Unless we are completely ignorant of the efficacy of masks, or have been fooled by 45, we know beyond any scientific doubt that masks reduce the transmission of the SARS CoV-2 virus. We comply to survive.

However, the cost of masks and the general isolation required to get to herd immunity may be much larger than any cost—save the loss of human lives and related Covid-disabilities—we have endured thus far. Unity, required for any democracy to thrive against the perils it faces, was in a fragile state before the pandemic. It now may be lost forever. And, masks and isolation will share the blame. These Covid-costs are only just beginning to be realized.  Masks—both virtual and actual—are slowly killing the promise of the American idea.

Our first virtual mask, simple partisanship, has always imperiled unity, but that has been a common mask throughout our political history.  Read Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton to get a taste of that reality. Then, beginning in the 1990s, our second virtual mask was affluence. New and extraordinary wealth created enough space in our society to make bad decisions while largely escaping any serious consequences. This ahistorical slack in the system created by affluence also allowed us to become arrogant, self-centered, and dismissive of the need for cooperation. Money became our mask. We were too smart and selfish to entertain the admonition of the late Rodney King: “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Then, in the 2000s, came the virtual mask of social media, which allowed us to retreat further into ourselves. We joyfully allowed ourselves to limit our interaction to those ideas, beliefs, and ‘friends’ with which, or with whom, we agreed. Critical thinking gave way to the creampuff comfort of being correct, regardless of how wrong we were. In particular, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube made billions off our lazy minds and weakened characters. (Blaming them rather than ourselves has become the latest of our responsibility-avoidance behaviors.)

Then, in 2016, came 45; I won’t belabor that cost to unity.

Today, we are at home alone, or alone together with those who share a roof.  When we venture out, we do it with actual masks and distance—lots and lots of masks and distance. Zoom, Webex, and Facetime have become our only means of faux face-to-face communication. And, they suck. Yes, we can see unmasked faces, but that is only one aspect of human communication. If we are to ever have a chance at unity again, it requires breathing the same air in the same place with each other where we can observe all the clues embedded in bodily communication and are forced to respond in real time to real issues, and maybe—just maybe—get a sense of who we are again. We must touch again, both figuratively and actually. We must shed our masks.

This last weekend, many 45ers met at CPAC’s annual conference to beat their chests of certitude and genuflect before a gold statue of 45, dressed like an entitled prep-school kid going to a patriotic cookout. (The scarlet red flipflops really set off his ensemble.) Others, however, understand the challenge of unity and are offering their work to begin the rebirth of empathy and understanding. And, no, they aren’t the ones who herald wokeness as a path to unity. To me, wokeness smells like another form of self-righteous certitude.

“How to Understand Your Enemy,” a podcast episode of The Good Fight, hosted by Yascha Mounk, included the research of John Hibbing, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska who has studied 45ers and pulls back the curtain on what motivates their support of 45, but more importantly how they see America and the world. Spoiler alert: no, they are all not deplorables.  In Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine, Bill Donahue, who lives in rural New Hampshire where 45 won easily, illustrates his attempt to engage with the other political side which, through perseverance and patience, actually forged a new understanding—a necessary precursor to unity—with at least one political foe.

In my own hometown of Ridgway, Colorado, one rancher has erected an enormous American flag in the middle of his pasture, the kind commonly found flying over automobile dealerships in Texas. It has agitated many because of its size and unnatural visual impact in an otherwise pristine pastoral valley wedged between snow-capped mountains. At the same time, it has galvanized others who feel 45 was robbed of a second term. The letters to the editor that followed its erection on both sides—agitated or galvanized—were as predictable as they were banal. But, perhaps we should view it as a conversation starter; where people actually listen to each other.  Perhaps the flag is even a cry for help—to be heard. Or, simply the display of a 45-bully. Either way, if we wish to be heard, we must be willing to listen.

People are scared; they are angry. We have reason to be both. However, we must realize that partisanship, affluence, social media, and 45, have turned us into enemies regardless of the facts at hand. The pandemic, marked by masks and isolation, may be the death knell of unity and our democracy. We have to get past this nonsense as soon as possible if the promise of America has any hope of being reborn. Today, America is on its own ventilator. Put a flag—however large or small—up to your ear to hear its feeble screams.

Please, people, we can do better. We must do better.

By |2021-04-11T18:25:52+00:00February 28th, 2021|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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The Truth Must Rise Again

Our urgent duty as Americans is to assure, from this point forward, that the truth, like the sun, rises each and every day.

Like many of my readers, I am in the last phase of my life.  And, like you, I do not know how long it will last. I have had great successes and great failures. I have laughed and I have cried.  My heart has been filled with joy and emptied by the pain of loss.  And like you, I have known—from a very young age—the difference between right and wrong; between truth and lies.

In moments of weakness, humans can lose their grip on reality; we can become susceptible to deceit—especially if in so doing it makes us feel strong again.  This is what Trump has done to millions of Americans; Americans who feel weakened by a world that is moving in directions that threaten their position in social, economic, and political order.  I have referred to this in other writings as the period of Great Dispossession.  Specifically, to white Christian nationalists who were easily captured by Trump’s rhetoric of reclaiming an American retrotopia perhaps best illustrated in the paintings of Norman Rockwell.

Pluralism—a fundamental tenet of Americanism—which was once a clarion call to the world to join us in the American experiment, was flipped from ideal to threat for those targeted by Trump.  Science and technology—that assured America’s place as a hegemonic superpower and literally extended our lives by decades—became a suspicious and dangerous regime deployed by highly educated elites.  Knowledge and reason, revered at our nation’s birth as a gift of the Age of Enlightenment, has been traded for beliefs corrupted by blind faith in purveyors of deceit—con men—operating at all levels of our society.  The Age of Deceit has reigned down upon us.

It was said by many, including president-elect Joe Biden, that the events of January 6th in our nation’s capital do not represent “who we are.”  I beg to differ.  Today, what has happened and may continue to happen, is exactly who we are.  It is ugly, embarrassing, and shameful, but we must each own our part—either through our active participation or our inactive complicity—if we are to have a chance of redemption and renewal.  We must own this truth.

Since as early as 2010, in this blog, I have warned about an emerging move toward the impulse of fascism in America.  I have warned about the degradation of the American values, writing most extensively about it in my 2020 book, Saving America in the Age of Deceit.  In public meetings in my own hometown, shortly after Trump’s election, I labeled him a wannabe fascist and further warned that the great irony of his presidency would be that while America has faced many existential threats throughout its history that today, as appalling as it was, that threat resided in the Oval Office. Many looked at me as if I were crazy, others just hoped I would be proven wrong.  I was neither.

We must, once again, see our country through clear eyes and full hearts. One of the great lessons of my life has been to work carefully and deliberately to always see things as they are as opposed as to how I might like them to be.  To be always and ever curious.  To question the givens. To learn even when it hurts.  As we age, we have a choice: do we become hardened in our thinking—intellectually sclerotic—or open to new knowledge and emerging realities? The first path leads to isolation and anger; the second path to fulfillment and transcendence.  The first life passes holding a bucket of resentment; the second swaddled by grace in a state of peace.  Which will you be?

Another tenet of Americanism is the prospect of second chances.  Who we are today, as painfully illustrated in our nation’s capital this week, does not have to be who we become.  Those with open and curious minds are always becoming.  Those with empathy lift others up to see the view they see: the promise on the horizon of hope where we must—immediately—allow truth to rise again.

By |2021-01-19T14:29:34+00:00January 10th, 2021|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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A Time to Dream Again

Let’s finish the fight. Let’s reclaim our heritage and fix our future.  Let’s set our eyes on the next America.

As I watched the empty, fragile, flaccid, and Covid-infected man that is our 45th president attempt to bully his way past Joe Biden in the debate, then rescue his deluded self-conception as a modern-day Mussolini saluting Marine One (or the lawn?) from the south portico of the White House, I felt the week’s images captured perfectly and poignantly the state of our country.  In a word: pathetic.  An empire rotting from the center of its power—the White House.

How far we have fallen in just four years.  I have studied leadership, taught it, written about it, and advised and led a number of companies. More books have been written about Lincoln than any other president—for his character and leadership. The same will occur for Trump—for his cruelty and failures.  Trump’s presidency will, for many years to come, provide a vast array of abject lessons of failed leadership.  Just when you think he couldn’t screw things up any worse, he consistently surprises us—to the downside.  Clearly, the only thing that has sharpened his mind in the last several weeks is the prospect of jail time.  Unfortunately, this acuity has set him on a more aggressive course of destroying America.

Like many of you, I have been down all the rabbit holes to examine what happens with a contested election (which Bill Barr is pursuing aggressively as I write).  It is ugly, to say the least.  In the wildest paranoid nightmares of our founders, none of them imagined a president could be this horrific.  And while it is possible Trump and Barr will be able to prolong their defeat, I have confidence our collective outrage will produce the landslide we need to bury the Trump administration and its many enablers under an impenetrable pile of rubble.  On January 20, 2021, the next America will begin.

For decades upon decades, Americans have met crisis after crisis and have succeeded in lurching, chaotically forward, to a more perfect union.  We will never achieve perfection; that much is certain.  But the promise of a better future always resides in the striving.  Is it really worse today than when Washington and his too-few troops froze their asses off to cross the Delaware River to confront Hessian forces, who were sure to kill them and crush the revolution?  Or, when Lincoln—addled by depression—quickly pivoted to fund the construction of the transcontinental railroad to the west fearing the South and the Union were lost?  Or, when the country had more soup lines and Hoovervilles than McDonalds and McMansions, and Hitler’s reign of unspeakable horrors descended upon the world?

It always seems worse in the present—as if we are special in our suffering—but is it? The simple truth is this: chaos, corruption, and dishonesty—the touchstones of Donald Trump—were never sustainable.  Nightmares end. He is a monstrous stain on the presidency of the United States, but we are on the brink of expelling him and his sycophants forever.  (Stay well Joe and Kamala.)

We have choices and our time for choosing is approaching.  We will, as we have near the end of each American crisis, emerge with a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be an American?  As Trump trades in his extra-extra-long belly-concealing ties for prison stripes, so too will his toxic conception of “America First” loose its gold-flake luster like a diploma from Trump University.  As with everything he touches or conceives, the substance is little more than bad hair glued to an empty orb.  Bowling balls have more character and competence. At least they know where they are going.  So, what will our answer be?  What will our next identity be?

No longer superpower, at least not in the tradition defined in terms of the Cold War.  Nor do I believe it will be what Obama was pursuing: global stewardship.  “Global” is a bit ambitious given the state of our current union that still has immigrant children locked in cages, supremacists masquerading as law enforcement, and the worst response to Covid-19 anywhere in the world.  Still, we can aspire to something greater even as we clean up Trump’s tempest of terror.  It is time to lift our eyes and assert our will. I propose enlightenment and exceptionalism.

Enlightened exceptionalists (EEs) are more inclined toward reason than faith; toward knowledge rather than beliefs. They borrow the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress from the Age of Enlightenment that preceded the founding of the United States and proceed with a temperament of exceptionalism that holds integrity and virtue as paramount standards of behavior.

For EEs, the Age of Deceit that spanned from the War in Iraq through Trump must be put asunder.  As Americans, EEs believe it is our duty to lead the world through its most difficult challenges, starting with climate change that although a technological challenge, is an even greater economic and political challenge.  The world expects America to lead, and addressing climate change for the benefit of all the world is a fast-track back to American credibility.

For EEs, the American Probity Values of responsible individualism, exemplar exceptionalism, and perfectibility—leaving things better than we found them— must again be the defining standards of Americanism. EEs do not see races, religions, ethnicities or nationalities; they see humans who each are deserving of dignity and respect.  They understand that the lessons of failure pave the way toward success at home and abroad and that America’s greatest strength lies in the unification of a diverse peoples who each have the capacity to make meaningful contributions to the future of  humankind.

EEs believe that E Pluribus Unum—”Out of Many, One”—must once again supplant “In God We Trust” as America’s clarion call of the nation.  They believe in referent power—the kind granted through service rather than imposed through coercion. EEs seek to build bridges rather than walls, but also believe that while at times people must migrate to escape peril, the greatest successes are achieved when people thrive within their own homeland and particular cultures and, moreover, that the burden of climate, economic, and personal insecurities must be addressed within the ethos of reciprocation: wanting for others what we want for ourselves.

EEs believe that while capitalism has proven to be the greatest model of wealth creation ever conceived in history, its endgame that produces high concentrations of wealth have the potential to weaken democracies and liberal institutions allowing the rise of plutocracies and other authoritarian regimes that may, in the end, create widespread conflict placing fundamental human rights and welfare in great jeopardy.  Preserving the benefits of capitalism while affecting the security of democracies and human rights from concentrated wealth is second only to climate change on the EEs list of most pressing issues.

EEs have little interest in having a high profile or participating in social media; they prefer anonymity to celebrity. They are truth-seekers and problem solvers.  They have a plus-sum, win-win mentality.  Finally, EEs are committed to the long-game; short-term gains are always welcome as long as they provide the building blocks to long-term gains creating strategic victories that address a myriad of issues and objectives.  Big problems like climate change and the concentration of wealth are, by definition, big, because they subsume so many other smaller problems and issues.  This is an example of enlightened exceptionalism: embracing empiricism and reason to guide the application of resources toward their highest and best use for the benefit of the many—perhaps all of humankind.  EEs occupy the transcendent center of the American political spectrum; politically engaged but staunchly non-partisan.

Whatever your concept of the next America, this much is clear: your participation is your passport to a better tomorrow.  As Wallace Stegner argued, “culture is like a pyramid to which each of us brings a stone.” Go get your stone.  Our time is nigh.  It is time to dream again.

By |2020-11-02T14:16:20+00:00October 10th, 2020|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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Saving America in the Age of Deceit

On this 105th day of March (or so it seems), we are nearly as close to election day as we are from the start of the pandemic, back when the novel coronavirus was supposedly a problem contained in a wet market in China, until it wasn’t.  To say things are a bit manic in America today is regrettably an understatement.  And while none of us (save perhaps Bill Gates) foresaw the pandemic, the economic, social and political upheaval that also feeds the current state of mania has been building for years.  The cycles of American history nearly guaranteed this moment.

Those of you who have followed my blog for the last ten years know that I warned of the probable rise of wannabe fascists in my post on March 12, 2010 titled, “The Next Neo: Neo-fascism.”  As America slid further in the direction of favoring deceit over character, culminating in the Trump presidency, I decided, in the spring of 2017, to take several threads of research I had been working and melding it into a narrative to explain how we got into this mess and how we can get out of it.  The result is now available at Amazon in both e-book and paperback, Saving America in the Age of Deceit.

Of Saving America in the Age of Deceit, Roger Cohen, columnist of The New York Times wrote,

“At once an incisive history and a guide to national recovery, William Steding’s Saving America in the Age of Deceit is an important book. It traces the American moral collapse that produced Donald Trump with remarkable clarity. Perfectibility became entitlement, exceptionalism turned to hubris, and narcissism supplanted individualism. With a historian’s sweep and a stoic’s determination, Steding traces a path to recovery of the American spirit through restored leadership, responsibility and sense of community. Erudite and readable, this unusual work inspires hope, for individuals and the nation alike.”

What a mensch.

So, please, reach into that purse of excess cash Trump gave us all to stimulate the economy and help support aging writers like me—$8.95 for an e-book or $14.95 for paperback.  Or, just read the last ten-plus years of blogposts at ameritecture.com and you will see many of the threads.  Although every day I face a country and world that seem less recognizable than the previous day, I also have faith in the American spirit and in our humanity.  The day I don’t is when I will enter a psychedelic pharmacology research program as a willing lab rat; or, rather than go fishing, I will stay fishing.  Or, both!

By |2020-07-19T20:59:35+00:00June 13th, 2020|American Identity, General, Leadership|0 Comments
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Steel Thyself, it is Going to Get Much Uglier

For many, the impeachment inquiry is long overdue.  For others, it will be a call to arms.  What follows is an excerpt from my forthcoming book (2020) that evaluates American identity in historical perspective; assesses the current state of affairs and America’s (possible) next identity; and provides a path forward for individuals, communities, and leaders. Bottom line: it is going to get much uglier (but there is a way out).

From Chapter 4, “The Age of Deceit”

It is difficult to predict if liberating MAGAs from the sinister grasp of Trump and the Trumplicans is even possible.  When one observes the rage in their eyes, directed at all the wrong targets, changing their minds about Trump may be impossible.  Like trying to convince an addict they will feel better once they take the needle out of their arm, white racial resentment feels too damn good in the moment to be convinced that the rush, however transient, is supporting politicians and policies that are actually killing them.  For brainwashed MAGAs, such data—such intelligence—likely emanates from the deep state boogeyman they have been taught to fear by Trump and Fox News.  To them, the underlying fear of being displaced from their historical position in social, political, and economic order by persons of color, women, and those who praise a god (or no god) unlike their own, is terrifying and, apparently, worth dying for.

It is possible that other voices—maybe even a Democratic candidate for president—will be able to reach some MAGAs with arguments and policies that might provide them a better path to a better life before they die from Trumpism.  Two other developing conditions may prove more effective, however, in eroding MAGA support.  First, that some MAGAs will realize their leader—Trump—is a fraud; that his interests are not theirs and that they are serving his interests much more than he is serving theirs.  Deceit and trust are incompatible and followers must trust their leader or the cohort fails.  And, deceit—Trump’s fundamental modus operandi—will, at some point, destroy that trust.  Second, that the fear and anger Trump has stoked in MAGAs is unsustainable (as fear and anger always prove to be), especially when it becomes clear he is more interested in maintaining their fear and anger for his own benefit than he is in providing them relief.  These conditions may make many MAGAs open to a different candidate, or retreat from politics altogether.

That said, for a few, facing the reality of being deceived will induce unbearable cognitive dissonance.  I expect there will be a few MAGAs that are so blindly committed to Trump that they become his jihadis—domestic terrorists—willing to strap on a suicide vest to go out in a blaze of delusional demagogue-loving glory.  These are the core of Trump’s core and many, if not most, suffer from what psychologists recently defined as “identity fusion” where mitigating cognitive dissonance is set aside for the fusion of one’s own identity with that of a demagogue; in this case: Trump.[i]  They see no daylight between their identity and Trump’s.  An attack on him is an attack on them.  More troubling, they will do anything he asks.  Lonely suicides of despair by handgun—an epidemic in many Trump communities—may be replaced by extremely gruesome and violent homicidal acts that cost many innocents their lives.  Trump’s political demise may be slow in coming, but when it arrives it will likely come with the ferocity and power of an avalanche.  We should expect, based on Trump’s own detachment from any semblance of reality, that he will neither comply with the will of the people nor the rule of law, and will summon his base to act violently in his name.  Despots do not go quietly; they do not implode, they explode—more often than not in a magnificent fury of self-destruction producing significant collateral damage—in this case for America and the world to endure.

Surviving this age of deceit and transcending it toward the next phase of objectivism will require a force of will and character consistent with the strength of those who founded the United States in Crisis I, preserved the Union in Crisis II, and defeated fascism in Crisis III.  The seeds of deceit, planted first in Crisis IV by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, have blossomed into a field of noxious weeds that threaten to strangle American democracy and destabilize the entire international system (anarchical though it is and always has been).  The question is, can we summon our better selves to affect a rebirth—a deliverance from deceit?

Success begins with re-establishing traditional American values; setting aside narcissism for individualism based in personal responsibility; hubris for exemplar exceptionalism—leading by example; and entitlement for perfectibility—ceaselessly seeking to improve the world in which we live.  Returning to these values is our only hope of restoring our competence, our adaptability in times of both crisis and opportunity and, moreover, a new American identity that builds on the successes of prior generations.[ii]  As we will see in chapter 6, values such as these are fundamental to the structure of our decision-making capabilities; they provide the spine of the process through which we simplify complexities to set our course.

With the wrong values or no values (as is the case with Trump), our future is likely to follow a random path of chaos and destruction.[iii]  Cultural amnesia and the deterioration of liberal institutions affected by a toxic malaise of indifference—a rot from within the soul of America—could, slowly but surely, topple America’s idealized empire of freedom.  As cartoonist Walt Kelly suggested in his famous poster for the first Earth Day in 1970, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  Prior generations of Americans held fast to these higher values and did the hard work to assure our future; if we want to retain the American power they sacrificed so much for, and restore the American Dream for our children and grandchildren, we had better correct our current course, and soon.

i See, William B. Swann, Jr., Angel Gomez, D. Conor Seyle, J. Francesco Morales, and Carmen Huici, “Identity Fusion; The Interplay of Personal and Social Identities in Extreme Group Behavior,” Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, 2009, Vol. 96, No. 5, pp.995-1011.

ii See Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), p. 176.

iii See William Steding, “Trump’s Value-free Presidency,” December 6th, 2016, Ameritecture, https://ameritecture.com/trumps-value-free-presidency/.

By |2019-11-03T19:13:38+00:00October 4th, 2019|American Identity|0 Comments
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2018: Passage to Promise or Collapse?

In my most charitable description, 2017 was a wake-up call for America; a year marked by surprise, anger, sadness and regret. In 2018, each of us must consider the blessings of the past and the challenges of the future while embracing an honest assessment of the role we must play in setting a course that reflects the values and dignity of predecessor generations. 2018 like 1776, 1865, and 1945 is one of those seminal years in American history that will determine the fundamental welfare of our citizens for the next two to three generations until we, inevitably, face a crisis of identity again.  The answer to the question, “What does it mean to be an American?” seems an abstract or, at best, rhetorical question.  Yet, in practice, it is the question at the top of the pyramid formed by our values, and beneath which our norms, policies and behaviors flow.  It defines us in every way.  Trump’s answer, wrapped in the patriotic tones of “America First,” is a deceit of epic proportions that aims to destroy the American Dream and abdicates American leadership across the globe.  No self-respecting American can sit this one out.  It is time for all hands on deck.  Trump is a cancer that is eating the soul of our republic and is an existential threat to the future of our children and grandchildren.  He, and his willing bootlickers, must be banished to the ash heap of history so that we may right the ship, which is currently listing toward peril.

On behalf of my fellow Baby Boomers, I apologize for where we are today—for allowing this monster of avarice and deceit to seize the reins of American power and influence.  Although it is true that Millennial voter turnout may have prevented Trump, they did not create him.  He is an early member of the Baby Boomer generation, born to parents who endured and sacrificed much during the Great Depression and World War II but, unlike their parents, went on to a contrary life of radical self-involvement with an insatiable appetite for consumption and aggrandizement.  We Boomers presided over the greatest period of expansion in American wealth and power with the conscience of a sociopath.  Numerous studies in presidential history argue that any sitting president is simply a reflection of the soul of the electorate, and Trump is unexceptional in this regard.  Together with Millennials, Boomers can take America back; redemption can be achieved in 2018, but the clock—both temporal and electoral—is ticking.

The identity of promise—of Global Stewardship—is denominated in the values of our founders including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without regard to race, religion, creed, or national origin.  Those who embrace these values are caretakers of the American Dream that assures everyone access to opportunity balanced by responsibility within a framework of meritocracy.  This is the ethic of greatness; of a relentless subscription to humanity and humility undaunted by fear.  Stewardship means that the days of American power acquired through coercion are over.  In the future, it will be earned by the extent to which America enables others to achieve their dreams within the context of their unique and legitimate cultures. We must engage with the world in coopetition: competing to cooperate.  It is not our duty as Americans to judge and condemn, it is our duty to protect each other and to support each other as a matter of humanity, rather than as determined through the narrow lens of nationalism.  ‘Promise’ also embraces the fiber of hope—it is prospective—that America’s greatest days lie in the future, not the past.

The identity of collapse—of “America First”—is a narrow, isolationist, and demeaning nationalism that attempts to crush the American Dream and abdicate America’s role in the world.  Its proponents believe there are more threats than opportunities in the world.  That “those people” want what we have and we must fight to protect our borders, our classrooms, our government, our military, and our churches, from the insidious encroachment of intellectuals, socialists, non-Christians, and non-white and non-English speaking peoples. Exploitation trumps stewardship while ignorance is cause for prideful celebration.  Its leaders prey on those threatened by progress with empty promises of returning them to yesterday’s greatness.  For American firsters, there are no shades of gray, only black and white; in every contest, there is winner and there is a loser.  Moreover, the ‘Collapse’ identity plays host to the conceit of a swindler whose prospects are assured by the extent to which he can divide America and concentrate power in his own hands while stealing the wealth and liberties of hard-working Americans.

These are the stakes: the two very different identities in contention for the future of America for decades to come.  This is the year—2018—when, someday, you will be asked, what did you do to protect the American Dream?  What did you do to save America and the world?  In 2018, complacency is complicity.  Unlike prior generations, it is unlikely you will be asked to leave your family to go off to a foreign land with no assurance of your return.  But, you must set aside the whining and fear and stand up for your future.  Participate by contributing through work and financial resources. Focus on flipping Congress in 2018 away from the harlots of Trump’s tribe so that we might preempt their embezzlement of America’s future.  America’s nightmare will not end by counting on someone else to save you.  The time for surprise, anger, sadness, and regret are over.  It is time to win for all of us here today and born tomorrow.  Let’s roll.

By |2018-05-30T20:37:39+00:00December 30th, 2017|American Identity, General|0 Comments
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