Fixing America

The neighborhood in which I grew up could best be described as a white ethnic goulash. There were first and second generation Jews and Catholics from Eastern Europe, Italy and Ireland, and some protestants from Scotland, a few from France, and even fewer from England and Scandinavia. The neighborhood, in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn, New York, was defined by the boundaries of James Madison High School. If you lived within those boundaries you were part of the neighborhood. If you didn’t, you weren’t.

A few notable Madison alumni include “Judge Judy” Sheindlin, singer and songwriter Carol King, Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, and U.S. Senator and, perhaps by publication of this missive, former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. There are many more on the school’s Wall of Distinction, but the tone of the community can best be described, at least in political terms, as liberal.

I’ve been voting in presidential elections since 1968 and have never missed a chance to cast a ballot. Every cycle, voters are implored to participate in “the most important election in our lifetime.” For the first time, the upcoming 2016 election sounds like it might actually be true. Our once proud nation is on the ropes.

The ascendancy of billionaire political neophyte Donald Trump and, to a slightly lesser extent, democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, has highlighted an enormous frustration, perhaps even anger, on the part of American citizens directed at the body politic. This condition has been exacerbated by a media establishment monolithic only in being bent on keeping the population in a constant state of fear and anxiety. A significant number of people are extremely pissed off and I dare say, many are not even sure why.

Hillary Clinton presents as a moderate but unpopular keeper of the status quo at a time when a significant percentage of voters seem to be demanding major structural political change. Trump and Clinton are both polarizing figures with extremely high negatives, even within their own parties.

It can be debated as to why there is so much unrest among the American people. The election of Barack Obama unleashed an eight-year policy of obstructiveness on the part of his political opposition. Little to nothing got done in Washington, to the consternation, frustration and even anger of some, and to the delight of others. There are several explanations for this unprecedented political hostility but if we’re honest with one another, I believe at least part of it has to do with the color of President Obama’s skin.

The recession of 2007 left a swath of American workers no longer able to earn enough to keep up, never mind get ahead, and even though the stock markets have rebounded, wages continue to lag and opportunity is no longer as real and visible as it was before. Our infrastructure is in desperate need of repair and upgrading. Our education system is shortchanging our young people, to the detriment of both their, and the rest of our futures. And our elderly are often caught between the relatively comfortable social and economic realities of the past and the frightening uncertainties of the future.

I bring all of this up because, where 2008 brought us the arguably unfulfilled promise of “hope and change, 2016 seems to present the opportunity for even more obstruction if Hillary Clinton is elected, or the frightening unknowns associated with Donald Trump.

I grew up in a place and time when America was the unquestioned economic and military leader. While our armed forces are still the most powerful in the world, our economy, physical and social infrastructure, healthcare, education and cultural institutions simply no longer are the envy of the world.

I continually wrestle with whether we are, in fact, one nation under God, fifty states with separate, competing interests, or 315 million selfish people only concerned with our own wants and needs. I’d like it if we were one nation but the longer I’m around, the more convinced I become we’re mostly a bunch of self-interested brats.

The enduring argument between so-called liberals and conservatives is about the size and scope of the government. I use the term ‘so-called’ because there are separate extreme factions within each of these philosophies. Both have subsets focused on social, financial, and security issues, as well as issues concerning America’s place in the world. Conservatives typically find themselves aligned with the Republican Party while liberals, for the most part, identify more with the Democrat Party. Personally, I’m not sure either party gives a damn about anything other than winning, and therefore no longer presents a broad, cohesive platform on which to establish a set of core beliefs with which voters can connect.

The moderates in our political conversation constitute the block of American voters on whom the candidates focus their messaging. Many moderates, or independents if you prefer, shun the parties, register without affiliation, avoid the echo chamber media, actually do research and tend to vote for the individual who speaks for their aspirations. If there were enough of these voters, some of the nonsensical infighting we’ve seen in the congress and in state legislatures might dissipate and then we might do better in terms of meeting the needs of the American people.

I’d like to see consideration of some baseline principles of governing by our elected representatives that focus on addressing the general welfare of the people, while each individual pursues his or her version of happiness.

Government on all levels has at their disposal the human, financial and natural resources of our great nation. We all tacitly contribute, through various taxing mechanisms, to those resource bases. Why can’t WE take it as our collective national responsibility to ensure that ALL Americans have access to a safe place to live, enough nutritious food to eat, clean air to breathe and water to drink, at least basic health care, and an education that could prepare people for the competitive global economy in which we all must exist? It may be a gross oversimplification, but if everyone had their basic human needs met, perhaps ignorance, crime, and poverty would be reduced, if not erased from our society.

We’ve all heard the scarcest among us bemoan “OUR tax dollars” being invested in the welfare of others. We seldom hear similar protestations about “OUR tax dollars” being invested in foreign civil wars, in propping up totalitarian dictators, in providing cushions for already wealthy American corporations, etc. We elect representatives to allocate “OUR tax dollars” in the way they believe to be in OUR interest, not in the interest of particular others, unless of course, those interests converge with OURS. I believe if WE took care of our basic health, nutrition, infrastructure, security and education as a society, then with what we call ambition, creativity, opportunity and good old fashioned hard work, we can pursue our individual levels of whatever constitutes happiness: bigger homes for our families, faster cars, fancier clothes, better schools for our children, better food for our tables, more comprehensive health coverage, a golden retirement, etc.

I know it’s simplistic and I damn sure don’t have all the details worked out, or, perhaps, don’t know even all the questions that need to be asked, but there is, I believe, a reasonableness to this line of thinking that’s worthy of consideration by greater minds than mine.

We can … indeed, we must do better, but in order to do better we have to be better, each and all of us. If we all worked to have good thoughts, speak good words and do good deeds, I believe we can advance without sacrificing the principles and values that once allowed us to rise to the status of world leader. We can take care of those on the margins — children, the elderly, the poor, the different — effectively and efficiently within the reasonable construct of our capitalistic economic system. We can educate our young for their place in a globally competitive future while honoring those who came before us with a dignified and comfortable old age. And, we can address complex issues involving race, gender, equality, immigration, and national security by doing so with respect, a spirit of cooperation and good, old-fashioned compromise.

Maybe we need to review what the framers had in mind when they drafted the preamble to the U.S. Constitution: “… in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity … ”

It doesn’t matter where you live, where you grew up, who your ancestors are, what your race, religion or national origin happens to be. It doesn’t matter what political affiliation or philosophy you follow. It only matters that you care enough to get involved, determine what you can do without letting what you can’t do get in the way, begin, not with what’s wrong but with ideas and actions you can take to build upon what’s right, and before you know it you’ll be living once again in that city on a hill envisioned by those first settlers who stepped ashore in Massachusetts and Virginia four centuries ago.

To me, this stuff doesn’t seem all that complicated, but there’s a difference between simple and easy. We need to turn our anger and frustration into passion and resolve. We need to put petty partisan politics away and become what we all are, descendants of the great men and women who built the foundations of American democratic society and defended our way of life from those who would erase it for despotic or theocratic motives. Do those things and there is nothing on God’s green earth we can’t accomplish.