democracy – The Other Shoe

“America is back”. The opening line of a commercial, I had to wonder, “Really? Where was it?”

As far as I can tell, America hasn’t taken a trip anywhere, though it has meandered a bit. These last years, the country’s been pulled in every direction. Like Gumby, it’s been stretched to its limits. With just months left before the elections, I wouldn’t blame the country if it tried to hide until the worst is over. But then, what is the worst? To be sure, we’ve certainly seen a whole lot of bad behavior but I suspect there’s a lot more backstage. If America was a kid, it would have been grounded for days. But when there are millions of them, who’ve been busy setting little fires everywhere, the only place to go – is the voting booth.

To anyone who thinks otherwise, America belongs to EVERYONE. Sorry to break it to all the self-anointed ‘true Americans’ but you are far from the only people with dibs on this land. The original inhabitants found out the hard way that even real authenticity couldn’t save them. When the new guys (English refugees otherwise known as Pilgrims) pulled up, those early indigenous people helped the newbies survive the first brutal seasons. What they got for their trouble was a tee shirt and a ticket to never neverlands of the new landlords’ choosing. Never say we don’t know how to make reservations!

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.

Mark Twain

For 248 years, America’s been stepping away, and coming back. We’ve been to war, to the moon and to the polls. We’ve raised the flag, our voices, our fists, and a plethora of guns. We’ve seen the best and worst of times. We fled a monarchy, started a republic and today, we’re doing a dangerous dance between them both. The resurgent rise in both populism and nationalism could easily pull the fire alarm. All I can hope is that we remember how that all worked across the pond out 50 years ago.
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America seems to have lost its way. At the very least, it forgot its way to the fuse box. Once a beacon for democracy, the last years of batshit crazy political insanity has cause a giant power outage. Suddenly, keeping the lights on in that iconic city on the hill is in serious question.

The last years have dimmed a lot of America’s radiance. Do we shine in our ability to keep our people safe? Nope. In healthcare, we place 170^th in infant mortality, spend twice than most developed nations in medical care yet have fewer doctors and fewer hospital beds per capita. We place 125^th among nations in literacy, and have the 81^st highest murder rate, including the most guns anywhere! We’re number one in debt, in GNP, defense spending, and the economy — but only if you count the illustrious 1%.

“In my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.” Ronald Reagan’s vision of America.

Maybe we were once less than shiny but at least we were uber idealistic. We loved the IDEA that we were better than we are, special, entitled. President Reagan stated that ‘the Shining City Upon a Hill’ was a utopia, divinely bestowed by God on the worthy. The term has been used by presidents and politicians ever since to illustrate their vision of America. We’ve been led to believe that we are on a special mission from God to spread democracy throughout the world, which might be a good plan – if we could practice and hold on to it ourselves.

Though Ronald Reagan didn’t invent the lofty phrase, he did make good use of it. The poetic vision of a radiant city actually originated in a 17^th century Puritan sermon by early Boston governor, John Winthrop. His concept was not to taunt Europe with America’s greatness’ but as a na-na-na-nana refute to Catholics about Protestantism. Who knew? To them, it was less a place than an idea regarding Christianity, which morphed through the decades into ethnic exclusion, enslavement and social superiority.

“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people will be upon us.” John Winthrop, Governor of Boston

Protectors of early democracy were also complicit their carelessness of it. Early settlers were no strangers to slavery, religious intolerance or their own conspiracies. (Do the Salem Witch Trials ring a bell?) Even as we told ourselves we believed the best in each other, we decimated the original American peoples, elbowing them to the side as we made this place our own. And of course we needed help building it, so we shipped in cargos of humans from another continent, excusing our travesty through generations as right and just. Many still do.

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