Reading this, I remember that I’m an American - an inheritor of the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human society and government ever attempted - a nation born with, among other ideas, the then revolutionary notion that when Church and State were one, which had been far more the norm than not for over 4 millennia, it was actually not a good thing. I am of a nation to which millions fled to avoid that concept, only to find the idea not forgotten but only held at bay by a single phrase in one paragraph in an utterly revolutionary document.
A true understanding of that document ought to be the single most liberating force in history. Instead it has been discarded by the current leader of my country for much the same reason that motivates those who have so repressed the country from which this agonized letter comes. We ought to read this letter then as a warning as well as a plea.
As I read your first paragraph I felt uplifted by the sentiments that you expressed as a summation of the uniqueness of our history and heritage.
I was then so disappointed and letdown that you could not refrain from that cheap swipe at our president at this time when I hoped that we could perhaps all come together and agree that the prospect of this evil Iranian regime successfully getting a nuclear weapon was something that none of us would countenance despite our differences on multiple other issues. Instead, TDS again rears its ugly head. The tendency toward authoritarian and actions consistent with an imperial president under Trump pale in comparison with those of the Biden administration . I abhor equally the tendency of both administrations to bypass the role of Congress and ignore the courts and the self righteous rationalizations both Biden and Trump have employed when it suits their purposes.
Every problem in American presidential history pales before Trumpism. and those continuing attempts at comparison with Biden indicate at best an utter misunderstanding of both men and of who Trump is and what he wants to do.
Almost every American president since John Adams has stretched the power of the Presidency in support of some aspect or another of his plans, most often in support of some other group of Americans, or, in Lincoln’s case, to save the Union. Some, like Nixon, have done so in order to save his presidential neck after acting illegally and unConstitutionally. But none have so blatantly, brazenly, and utterly abandoned the Constitution as Trump has. Anyone not seeing that is either ahistorical, willfully blind, utterly ignorant of the man and his character, or complicit with his plans to become America’s first dictator.
I’m sorry if you feel I’ve overstated the case, but as one who has taught our history for over 40 years, I have become completely unsympathetic to any defense of this man who has proven himself to fully disdain and disavow the entirety of our electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law - three of the central pillars of our Republic.
We are not a country, Michelle, we are 340 million individuals inside a set geographical limits working to define a country. In one sense, of course, that definition already exists - the US Constitution.
But it was an imperfect design, which is entirely understandable given that it was the first time anyone had tried to create anything like it in one fell swoop. But at its core was an idea, Novus Ordo Seclorum - that challenged us to see if ‘We the People’ could together find just enough of the courage, the honesty, the compassion, the tolerance, the understanding, the humility, the humor, the wisdom, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the bottom up with as much equity and justice as is humanly possible.
Were there always those among us who only wanted to make it work for them, strictly on their terms. Sure. There were, there are, and there always will be.
No American president introduced either slavery or Jim Crow. That was on some of us. Some presidents did go along with both, which were certainly at odds with our stated purpose, but that was their job, to execute the laws we made through our representative.
The very worst day in American history happened along a creek in Maryland on a September day in 1862, and it was emblematic of our problem. We did it to ourselves. It has always seemed to me that the anniversary of Antietam should rank right up there with July 4th - the two standing together as the opposite poles of our national lives. The one to celebrate what we ought to be and the other to remind us of what can happen when we really get it wrong.
Some of us seem fixated on the idea that we’ve already achieved ‘American Exceptionalism’. Others seem fixated on the mistakes we've made along the way. Both fixations are at best counterproductive and at worst destructive.
We need to hold those two poles before us as we continue the search, but never to fall into the trap of focusing too much attention on the one or on the other, but rather on the search itself.
Democracy is fragile. When it is destroyed, as was the case in Iran in l953, it is extremely difficult to reestablish. The Brits and the Americans installed the Shah. As a dictator he used oppression, including murder, rape and terror to retain his more than 25 year reign. When he was overthrown, a new dictatorship began with a similar approach of oppression. Now there is a wish to overthrow the current dictatorship in Iran with the dictatorship of the son of the Shah. Not much would change except the group who would be oppressed.
Reading this, I remember that I’m an American - an inheritor of the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human society and government ever attempted - a nation born with, among other ideas, the then revolutionary notion that when Church and State were one, which had been far more the norm than not for over 4 millennia, it was actually not a good thing. I am of a nation to which millions fled to avoid that concept, only to find the idea not forgotten but only held at bay by a single phrase in one paragraph in an utterly revolutionary document.
A true understanding of that document ought to be the single most liberating force in history. Instead it has been discarded by the current leader of my country for much the same reason that motivates those who have so repressed the country from which this agonized letter comes. We ought to read this letter then as a warning as well as a plea.
As I read your first paragraph I felt uplifted by the sentiments that you expressed as a summation of the uniqueness of our history and heritage.
I was then so disappointed and letdown that you could not refrain from that cheap swipe at our president at this time when I hoped that we could perhaps all come together and agree that the prospect of this evil Iranian regime successfully getting a nuclear weapon was something that none of us would countenance despite our differences on multiple other issues. Instead, TDS again rears its ugly head. The tendency toward authoritarian and actions consistent with an imperial president under Trump pale in comparison with those of the Biden administration . I abhor equally the tendency of both administrations to bypass the role of Congress and ignore the courts and the self righteous rationalizations both Biden and Trump have employed when it suits their purposes.
Every problem in American presidential history pales before Trumpism. and those continuing attempts at comparison with Biden indicate at best an utter misunderstanding of both men and of who Trump is and what he wants to do.
Almost every American president since John Adams has stretched the power of the Presidency in support of some aspect or another of his plans, most often in support of some other group of Americans, or, in Lincoln’s case, to save the Union. Some, like Nixon, have done so in order to save his presidential neck after acting illegally and unConstitutionally. But none have so blatantly, brazenly, and utterly abandoned the Constitution as Trump has. Anyone not seeing that is either ahistorical, willfully blind, utterly ignorant of the man and his character, or complicit with his plans to become America’s first dictator.
I’m sorry if you feel I’ve overstated the case, but as one who has taught our history for over 40 years, I have become completely unsympathetic to any defense of this man who has proven himself to fully disdain and disavow the entirety of our electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law - three of the central pillars of our Republic.
We are not a country, Michelle, we are 340 million individuals inside a set geographical limits working to define a country. In one sense, of course, that definition already exists - the US Constitution.
But it was an imperfect design, which is entirely understandable given that it was the first time anyone had tried to create anything like it in one fell swoop. But at its core was an idea, Novus Ordo Seclorum - that challenged us to see if ‘We the People’ could together find just enough of the courage, the honesty, the compassion, the tolerance, the understanding, the humility, the humor, the wisdom, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the bottom up with as much equity and justice as is humanly possible.
Were there always those among us who only wanted to make it work for them, strictly on their terms. Sure. There were, there are, and there always will be.
No American president introduced either slavery or Jim Crow. That was on some of us. Some presidents did go along with both, which were certainly at odds with our stated purpose, but that was their job, to execute the laws we made through our representative.
The very worst day in American history happened along a creek in Maryland on a September day in 1862, and it was emblematic of our problem. We did it to ourselves. It has always seemed to me that the anniversary of Antietam should rank right up there with July 4th - the two standing together as the opposite poles of our national lives. The one to celebrate what we ought to be and the other to remind us of what can happen when we really get it wrong.
Some of us seem fixated on the idea that we’ve already achieved ‘American Exceptionalism’. Others seem fixated on the mistakes we've made along the way. Both fixations are at best counterproductive and at worst destructive.
We need to hold those two poles before us as we continue the search, but never to fall into the trap of focusing too much attention on the one or on the other, but rather on the search itself.
Up to us, as it has always been.
Thank you for setting it straight. May the outcome be your mother's wishes!
It is a credit to Persuasion that they can produce these fine essays so quickly. My thanks to the team there.
Thank you, Guy, on behalf of the team!
Democracy is fragile. When it is destroyed, as was the case in Iran in l953, it is extremely difficult to reestablish. The Brits and the Americans installed the Shah. As a dictator he used oppression, including murder, rape and terror to retain his more than 25 year reign. When he was overthrown, a new dictatorship began with a similar approach of oppression. Now there is a wish to overthrow the current dictatorship in Iran with the dictatorship of the son of the Shah. Not much would change except the group who would be oppressed.