Waking up several mornings ago, I finally realized what it is: A Constitutional nation would never have elected the continual travesty that is Donald Trump.
Somewhere between the end of World War II and now, we lost the authenticity of character that defines a democratic people.
Despite all the criticism of the president*, we are failing to adequately describe the calamity of the “extinction level event” his illegitimate ascension to power is to America, the world, and civilization.
The left during the McCarthy hearings recognized, and opposed:
End justifies the means rationalization
Groupthink
Guilt by association
Conformism.
Today, the rejection of groupthink is a sin against solidarity. We now understand liberalism so poorly that the democratic press speaks of AOC and the Squad(1) as the most liberal segment of the House when they are clearly antiliberals whose deepest affinity is to Marx, not the Constitution (which The Newspaper of Record, in the “1619 Project,”(2) described as hypocritical).
Today, collectives are thought of as liberal, although they are based on “moral ties antecedent to choice.” But when de Tocqueville surveyed the young American democracy, he marveled at our penchant for forming “voluntary associations.”
Nations which admired us when Obama was President (which, it was thought, would be “transformational,” — McConnell made sure that didn’t happen, and we let him) they now pity us.
We have fallen so far that the “news” gives no inkling, for all its 24-hour coverage, that the left is not liberal. Today the news has no opinion, although it has constant insinuation. Once, as Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” said half a decade ago, Edward R. Murrow had an opinion, and that ended McCarthyism; Cronkite had an opinion, and that ended Vietnam.
Today forty percent of us will follow Trump come hell or high water, will follow him if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue at high noon, will follow him into the grave.
That’s not a metaphor.
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(1) “What makes "The Squad" such a tantalizing and obvious political target for President Trump is that all four are on the wrong side of every major 2020 issue. From their calls to “abolish ICE” and the Department of Homeland Security, a position that even the ultra-progressive Center for American Progress suggests is bonkers, to their support of the Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all, impeachment for Trump and outright disdain for Israel, they are the 2020 gift that keeps on giving for the Trump White House.” - https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/456033-trumps-greatest-allies-for-a-2020-win-aoc-and-the-squad
(2) Andrew Sullivan: “The original ideals were false, and then the country was founded on “both an ideal and a lie.””
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ White Supremacy argument, and more recently, the NYT in its 1619 Project, have argued that America was born in sin.
Andrew Sullivan noted that the Times wrote, “Our democracy’s ideals were false when they were written.”
Coates wrote, “White supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it.”
In asserting these claims, they reject The Great Emancipator’s defense of the Founding.
Lincoln used textual analysis to demonstrate that the Founders were confronted by "the necessities arising from [slavery's] existence." He goes on to show that they carefully crafted the Constitution, therefore, to accommodate slavery (for the time being) without legitimizing it:
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In other places Lincoln pointed out that the Constitution could not have been ratified if it had an anti-slavery provision;(1) and he documented that by his own research those Founders who held office in the new country preponderantly took anti-slavery positions in the course of their official duties. “They expected and desired that the system would come to an end.”
To the best of my knowledge, neither Coates nor the Times addressed Lincoln’s powerful rebuttals of their assertions, leaving the voting public with a very incomplete impression of what the Founders achieved.
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(1) “I think that was the condition in which we found ourselves when we established this Government. We had slavery among us, we could not get our Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more …” — Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Coates wrote, “White supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it.”
In asserting these claims, they reject The Great Emancipator’s defense of the Founding.
Lincoln used textual analysis to demonstrate that the Founders were confronted by "the necessities arising from [slavery's] existence." He goes on to show that they carefully crafted the Constitution, therefore, to accommodate slavery (for the time being) without legitimizing it:
It is easy to demonstrate that "our fathers, who framed this Government under which we live," looked on slavery as wrong, and so framed it and everything about it as to square with the idea that it was wrong, so far as the necessities arising from its existence permitted. ... If additional proof is wanted it can be found in the phraseology of the Constitution. When men are framing a supreme law and chart of government, to secure blessings and prosperity to untold generations yet to come, they use language as short and direct and plain as can be found, to express their meaning In all matters but this of slavery the framers of the Constitution used the very clearest, shortest, and most direct language. But the Constitution alludes to slavery three times without mentioning it once The language used becomes ambiguous, roundabout, and mystical. They speak of the "immigration of persons," and mean the importation of slaves, but do not say so. In establishing a basis of representation they say "all other persons," when they mean to say slaves--why did they not use the shortest phrase? In providing for the return of fugitives they say "persons held to service or labor." If they had said slaves it would have been plainer, and less liable to misconstruction. Why didn't they do it? We cannot doubt that it was done on purpose. Only one reason is possible, and that is supplied us by one of the framers of the Constitution — and it is not possible for man to conceive of any other — they expected and desired that the system would come to an end, and meant that when it did, the Constitution should not show that there ever had been a slave in this good free country of ours.” (Emphasis added)
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In other places Lincoln pointed out that the Constitution could not have been ratified if it had an anti-slavery provision;(1) and he documented that by his own research those Founders who held office in the new country preponderantly took anti-slavery positions in the course of their official duties. “They expected and desired that the system would come to an end.”
To the best of my knowledge, neither Coates nor the Times addressed Lincoln’s powerful rebuttals of their assertions, leaving the voting public with a very incomplete impression of what the Founders achieved.
/*****/
(1) “I think that was the condition in which we found ourselves when we established this Government. We had slavery among us, we could not get our Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more …” — Lincoln-Douglas Debates
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