CALL TO ACTION
I ask for, not at once no government,
but at once a better government.
Let every man make known what kind
of government would command his respect,
and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”
– Henry David Thoreau –
This is a super stressful time for many Americans…. but I choose to look at it this way: Donald Trump has done this country a favor. One could say we owe him a debt of gratitude because – love him or hate him – he has exposed every single weakness within our government and brought to the surface the deep fault lines that have threatened to destabilize this nation for decades.
But make no mistake, how we respond to the weaknesses and fault lines he has uncovered is 100% up to US. It’s like if we walked on the beach after a big storm and discovered tons of trash had washed up onto the sand. The storm itself is not our fault of course, but what happens next absolutely is. We can either clean the trash off the beach OR we can just leave it there to wash back into the ocean – where, multiplying under the cover of darkness, it accumulates and grows and becomes an even bigger mess.
Pre-Trump, it was like this slow drip, drip, drip. We could feel in our hearts that things were off but had a hard time identifying exactly what those things were. Most of us assumed a day of reckoning was coming eventually, and it most certainly was. Donald Trump – who is both a symptom and a consequence of our severely broken politics – just accelerated the process.
Before, so many potential policy outcomes were purely theoretical. Across America, we settled in at dinner tables with our families or sat across from co-workers at lunch and argued (with little evidence other than our, obviously brilliant, gut feelings) about the size our federal government should be and the role it should play, or if trade wars really do pay off, or if 36 trillion dollars in federal debt was really that big of a deal, or if significant tax cuts for rich people and Wall Street really do, in fact, “trickle down” and stoke the entire economy.
We debated the condition of our checks and balances and whether the executive branch had gained too much power. We discussed what would happen if we failed to see the warning signs of an international pandemic and, if a pandemic did indeed reach our shores, the role our institutions and basic science should play.
We innocently asked ourselves – in the naïve manner of people who are certain something like this could never happen to them – what it must be like to live in a country where the president called the press “the enemy of the people” and democratically-held elections “rigged” and “stolen,” or one where the president likened the United States intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany while, ironically, actual Nazi wannabes stormed the national Capitol.
We probably would have asked ourselves, if we could have even imagined it, what exactly would happen if our president called for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” Or blatantly sold out our intelligence agencies in front of the entire world by siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, then shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador right in the middle of the Oval Office. Or if our president purposefully and illegally took boxes and boxes of highly classified documents and put them in his bathroom after he was voted out of office.
… or if our commander-in-chief attacked Gold Star families and called our faithful military generals “dopes and babies,” “suckers,” and “losers.” Or if he visited, alongside Retired Marine General John Kelly, the grave of 1st Lt. Robert Kelly – General Kelly’s son who was killed in Afghanistan – and said to the eternally grieving father, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
We waxed poetic about America’s role in the world. What, for example, would happen if the President of the United States suddenly seemed to love everything authoritarian, heaping praise on autocrats from Egypt, the Philippines, Turkey and Kazakhstan – and had full-on bromances with Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Kim Jong-un. Or to what extent our outrage should be if a Washington Post contributing columnist was murdered in cold blood by the Saudis in their Consulate in Turkey.
We questioned – but only hypothetically because we thought it too unthinkable to even contemplate – what would happen if we suddenly abandoned the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), our loyal allies who served beside us in our fight against the Islamic State, or if we abruptly retreated from the entire world, including our most trusted allies.
Or what it would be like if America undermined NATO, or if we withdrew from major international agreements like the Iranian nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Paris Climate Accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and organizations within the United Nations system including its Human Rights Council, its Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, and its Relief and Works Agency.
Pre-Trump, we viewed topics like these as theoretical because, for the most part, we had never witnessed their real-life implications. But now, we have first-hand knowledge of the value and/or consequences of these scenarios because we have actually lived – and are once again living – through them. And we have the battle scars to prove it.
We now know.
Meanwhile, COVID also exposed things. Like huge, major things. The entire episode can be summed up in the warning Buffett gave us years ago (Warren, not Jimmy): “It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.”
We discovered that our Strategic National Stockpile – our national repository of things like antibiotics, vaccines, and other critical medical supplies – had been neglected for years. We learned that our economy was not nearly as fortified as we would like to believe and that our federal government was tragically unprepared for a global health crisis. We had front row seats, yet again, to the uninspired, mind-blowingly expensive “solutions” of the U.S. Congress.
Some of the things mentioned above are subjective and, therefore, leave room for opinion. Things, for example, like the size our federal government should be and the role it should play, or whether we should or shouldn’t withdraw from the entire world. However, many of the things mentioned are objective. Meaning, we have the data necessary to accurately assess things like tax cuts and Donald Trump’s Trade War 1.0. We have provable outcomes and can clearly track the relationship between cause and effect. After all, numbers don’t lie.
We now know.
A time will eventually come when Americans will demand better governance, and true transformation will begin. We say that time is now. Even though at times it feels like things have completely unraveled in our country, to us it’s a huge relief we are finally in this exact place – because now we can finally start turning this thing around.
Our current state of play reminds us of the little old lady who was watching her soap opera one afternoon. Just at the juiciest part, the drama was interrupted by a breaking news story: A car was going the wrong way down the interstate and driving into oncoming traffic! Knowing her husband frequently used that highway she called him to warn him of the danger. “Honey, be careful! There’s a car going the wrong way down the interstate!” He replied, “Sweetheart, there’s not just one car going the wrong way. There’s a hundred!”
We have got to turn this thing around before we irreparably crash and burn.
Challenging authority is our right, our responsibility, our legacy. If our country is not going in the direction we want, we will simply step in and fix this madness ourselves. The most beautiful thing about living in America is that we have the freedom and power to create a better future for ourselves without waiting for some piece of elusive legislation to pass. We don’t need anyone’s permission to define our destiny. Is this not the greatest country on the planet?!?
The exciting news is that once we take matters into our own hands, our future will be brighter than ever! The American spirit is unmatched, and we can achieve anything we put our minds to. It’s a good thing too, because the time has come to tackle the most important effort we will ever take as fellow citizens: Saving our country.
We better get busy because, we hate to break it to you, there’s no one else to do it. No one is sequestered in a secret room somewhere trying to figure this mess out. At times we seem to have this crazy notion that somebody – anybody – is working on groundbreaking solutions for us, but they are not. It’s us, our fellow Americans. That’s it!
It’s time to honestly question our commitment to the future of this nation. Will our legacy be something we are proud of, or will we be known as the former superpower that recklessly relinquished our prominence because we lacked the will to protect it? Deep down, do we really want to make the necessary changes or are we satisfied with accepting our political circus as a kind of perverse entertainment? We certainly have that privilege as a free nation but, if that is our position, we better brace ourselves for the consequences.
Our superpower as Americans is that we have the freedom and power to change the things we don’t like. That we take that right for granted is a colossal understatement. It feels like we anticipate someone more qualified or smarter or less busy than ourselves to do something about all of this. Everyone is certainly eager to express their disapproval and complain about the problems, but often the person criticizing chooses to blame someone else or suggest someone else take action.
It’s true that identifying the challenges is part of the process, but to stop there is like hitting faulty brakes at the edge of a cliff. Imagine the difference if we reject finger pointing and the blame game, and go a step further: look inward, feel a compulsion to act, and introduce potential solutions into the political conversation.
What makes a great leader? Given our current crop, it’s sometimes easy to forget the genuine characteristics. In late 1776, General George Washington and his army were seriously screwed. The American Revolution had taken a dreadful toll on what was, from the beginning, a ragtag army.
When Washington first took control earlier that year, it wasn’t even an army at all. As Washington described it, he had more like the “raw materials” for an army with no name, no uniforms, no flag, no discipline, no military experience and 10,000 pounds of gunpowder. Made up of crude and tattered shelters, the filthy encampments were ravaged by dysentery, typhus and typhoid fever. The conditions were about as nasty as nasty can get.
Nevertheless, General Washington took command with “the look and bearing of a man accustomed to respect and to being obeyed. He was not austere. There was no hint of arrogance. ‘Amiable’ and ‘modest’ were words frequently used to describe him, and there was a softness in his eyes that people remembered.” As Nathanael Greene – a major general of the Continental Army – explains it, when Washington arrived “joy was visible on every countenance, and it seemed as if the spirit of conquest breathed through the whole army.”
But things went downhill, fast. Just months into his command, the Continental Army had suffered several agonizing losses and men were deserting by the hundreds. Those who stayed were sick, starving, exhausted and dispirited. Many of Washington’s troops and two of his closest confidants – Joseph Reed, his most trusted friend, and General Charles Lee, his second-in-command – had lost faith in him entirely. The effort of the rebels was all but lost. Then came the defining moment that proved we were destined to be a nation: The Battle of Trenton and Washington’s night crossing of the Delaware.
On December 26, 1776, with his options running out and with just 2,400 men, General George Washington commanded his depleted troops across the Delaware River north of Trenton, New Jersey in severely treacherous conditions.
Once across, he led the Continental Army against Hessian soldiers and captured almost their entire force. This essential American victory reignited the spirit of the rebels in the colonies and proved that victory was possible.
Many factors contributed to America’s independence, but none were more profound than Washington’s conviction, perseverance and leadership. Through times of immense despair and loneliness – “The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in.” – Washington never lost faith. He also never forgot what was at stake: “The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.”
True leaders inspire others to fight harder, reach higher, dream wider and feel deeper. Leaders bravely and without hesitation confront the concerns and challenges of those they lead and take them where they sometimes don’t want to go, but to where they need to be. True leaders don’t watch polls or recklessly play only to their base. True leaders don’t live and die by November elections and campaign contributions. True leaders don’t surrender to party pressure or punt to political advisors and lobbyists. True leaders don’t bully people and see themselves as idols to be worshipped.
In 1787, delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island said, “no thanks!”) met for four sweltering months to write a document they entitled The Constitution of the United States of America.
The debate at the Convention was extensive and often heated given the vast differences in the philosophies and motivations of the men who were there, coupled with the significance of the issues being decided (proportional representation, how to elect the president, and the fate of slavery, just to name a few). In the end, regardless of how contentious the debate, 55 men listened, compromised and periodically changed their minds, and they eventually created one of the most powerful documents in world history.
Its first seven words say it all: We the People of the United States. The Constitution is a grant of power by the people to elected officers and representatives that work for the people. The theme throughout our founding document, and the point that is made the most explicit, is that the ultimate power resides with the people. Any confusion on this point is absurd because it is undeniable.
But, as we know, with great power comes great responsibility. The brilliant architects of the U.S. Constitution gave every one of us a huge responsibility when they established America as a republic, and they made it clear that our duty extends far beyond stepping up to a ballot box every two or four years.
To refresh your memory, a democracy is defined as a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and is exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation, usually involving periodically free elections. These are obviously hallmarks of our governmental structure, but our system goes further. A republic is a government having a chief of state, where supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote. In a republic, the will of the people is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them.
See how much control we are given in this setup?!? Power is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them. Them being the body of citizens entitled who vote. That’s us!! It’s fascinating how easily we forget our tremendous responsibility in this.
As Benjamin Franklin left the Convention, a woman asked him, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” He responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” ‘Ol Benjy was so wise. Democratic republics aren’t sustained by placing power in the hands of the people alone. Whether ours succeeds or fails will be determined by our commitment to active and informed participation.
How do you think George Washington and Ben Franklin would feel about out politics today? Or, let us put it this way: Does anyone really believe our founding fathers didn’t anticipate a President Donald Trump? Or a gridlocked, dysfunctional Congress?
Of course they did! They anticipated 20 President Trumps! In his farewell address to the nation, President George Washington praised our system’s ability to represent individual differences. But even then, he identified political parties as a specific threat to our union: “One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations.” He further warned that parties “serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party.” Washington went on to say that, if these factions are tolerated, “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”
They knew.