It is astonishing! At times deeply disappointing. But inevitably, it reflects how we think and act.
It, in the overarching sense, is the quality of elected leadership in Washington. And, It is paired with the commercial drumbeat to borrow and drink more and if you are watching games, bet on them—making money justifies any means. And It is underwritten by the decline in the importance and value of truth in a world where everything seems up for grabs.
It, is the highjacking of the family by social media and celebrities. It, is the rush to secure our iPhones from being breached while acting like guns are toys. Or, is this just me thinking that it is too bad today is not more like yesterday?
I was struck recently by the criminalization of irresponsible parents who have just begun ten-year prison sentences. This was the penalty phase of the James and Jennifer Crumbley cases. The Associated Press reported: “Michigan school shooter’s parents sentenced to ten years in prison for not stopping a ‘runaway train’. Was the runaway train the Crumbley’s son or the gun culture carried along by incessant stimulation and frequent glamorization? But I stray.
A companion subject is America’s constitutional foundation. Its weakness was highlighted in a report several weeks ago in The Economist magazine. The headline: “America’s Trust In Its Institutions Has Collapsed.” The article noted: “Twenty years ago Americans had the highest confidence in their national government of people in any G7 country. Today they have the lowest. Americans are tied with Italians in having the lowest trust in their judicial system, and come in last in faith of honest elections…..” The polling was done by the Gallup organization.
There will be a few who read this column who will want to get into the demographic details. But, I am going to stay on the top line: plunging confidence in our most important institutions.
The judicial system is layered and my guess is that local trial courts are not the problem. Abortion policy is certainly part of the distrust. When Roe v Wade was overturned the importance of legal precedent took a hit. And the reversal came after decades of well-funded hardcore political contention. While constitutional scholars will analyze the words and phrases that resulted in the reversal, I suspect most people simply saw this as a political act—the ultimate court of the United States subordinated to politics.
Elections? Election laws are definitive and administered by laws that not only emphasize but assure bi-partisan oversight. Donald Trump didn’t like the outcome of the 2020 election and to maintain his self-importance engaged in an hyper-emotional assault. I hear over and over that a given person likes his policies. What about his policy to undermine the lynchpin of democracy? Is there a more important policy?
America’s values, embedded in her constitution, have almost always been stabilizers. Perhaps the best way to think about this is nautical. I sailed across the most treacherous stretch of water in the world—the Drake Passage just off Cape Horn in the Southern Sea. My sailing adventure was challenged by 40 feet waves and came with seat belts on the beds. The ship was designed and built to withstand extreme pressures, and the crew was deeply experienced. I was on the way to Antarctica.
I believe in the design of America and until recently the challenge has been to ride out inept Presidents (history serves up a few). Our democratic and judicial institutions have been the envy of the world and a tried and true basis for our national confidence. But, even the best design can be corrupted by self-important people whose biases exceed knowledge and common sense. I cannot imagine going across the Drake Passage with a fool at the wheel.
It is tempting to go from metaphor to more disturbing particulars and they can be recounted on both sides of the partisan aisles. But let me take a turn. Governments by the people are just as strong as the people. We depend on those who vote just as a ship is in need of ballast. Little ballast, little stability.
Can a society enthralled by social media and its many manic and self-absorbed practitioners be stable? Can a political culture subordinated by money escape the inevitable protectionism that results? Can a culture that disavows truth select a meritorious governing class?
Reflecting on truth, we should all be bothered when the new head, Katherine Maher, of our public radio network NPR, says: “Perhaps, for our most trickery disagreements, seeking the truth, and seeking to convince others of the truth, might not be the right place to start.” In fact, seeking truth is an animating principle in our Constitution. In centralized governments truth arrives by edict from the ruler.
America has thrived on optimism. Immigrants, and keep in mind that virtually all of us are either immigrants or descendants of ones, arrived here with an optimistic attitude. They arrived to make a new life and while some were foolish few were fools.
So today, more often than not, that is where I look with some optimism. Keep in mind, those who become citizens have to pass a test about America which many Americans could not pass—an essential reason why immigration should be an orderly process.
First and second generation leadership is beginning to emerge; bring it on. We need to be pushed and that is one role newly minted citizens have performed—take a look at history. And today take a look at the relatively new citizens that help create and sustain our country’s technology leadership.
Yes, we need better control of our borders, but maybe more importantly we need more Americans who take our challenges seriously and who are willing to become leaders more interested in America’s future than themselves.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
Joyce Stambaugh says
Thank you for sharing your thoughtful insight into the current political situation in the USA.
Richard Skinner says
I could not agree more with Mr. Sikes’ decision to look to new and young Americans as antidotes to the cynicism, narcissism and loss of faith in institutions and the present and future of the country. My generation bequeathed precious little to my children and grandchildren: a fouled environment, creaking infrastructure, rampant greed, the tragic costs of foolish wars, guns as the leading instrument of child death and suicide as the leading cause of death among young men, and a general sense of public malaise. My cohort and I ought to step aside and welcome new generations to lead us, themselves and their families.
William Keppen says
Many who take time to read the article will never arrive at the last sentence, the most important thought, perhaps because many have become thoughtless people, lead around with others with anterior agendas. Think about that and the rest of the article.
Deirdre LaMotte says
Reactionaries like the members of the GOP claim they want “freedom”. They want to be free to impose their religious views on others. They want to be free to dictate what reproductive health care women can get. They want to be free to dictate what books others can read. They want to be free to discriminate against others based on their own bigotry. They want to be free to pay little or no taxes for the common good. They want to be free to exploit others by stealing wages and providing unsafe working conditions. They want to be free to pollute our water and air. They want to be free to take away longstanding rights of women and minorities and the poor. They want to be free to take voting rights away from minorities and the poor. They want to be free to do away with public education and dictate what public schools can teach. And so on. Freedom for them to impose dictates on the rest of us.
These are people who support a man who is in court now for election law violations; paying $$$ to suppress stories
that would hurt him after the “I can grab the ****** of any women” quote he was recorded saying.
Trump also faces 37 felonies in connection with his removal of documents from the White House when he left office. The charges include willful retention of national-security information, obstruction of justice, withholding of documents, and false statements. Trump took boxes of documents to properties, where they were stored haphazardly, but the indictment centers on his refusal to give them back to the government despite repeated requests.
In Georgia, a huge racketeering case against Trump and 18 others, alleging a conspiracy that spread across weeks and states with the aim of stealing the 2020 election.
Finally, Trump was indicted in Washington on felony charges for working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 . The SCOTUS,
bought by the GOP, is slow walking this one, which has left any sane individual gobsmacked.
Any yet the election is tied? People like Bill Barr and all GOP members he viciously attacked: their wives, their
fathers, will still support this sick person because power is their aphrodisiac:little men who need power to feel worth
no matter that they have been neutered and their loved ones disgustingly insulted.
We are in trouble.
Mickey Terrone says
The is certainly no argument that its important for younger people to take more leadership roles in every branch of our federal and state governments. Yet no one should wonder why younger people have a growing distrust of government. There has been an all-out attack on our institutions. The Department of Justice has been heavily criticized with the FBI, CIA and our national intelligence community receiving a horrendous ripping. The House of Representatives has been irresponsibly useless. The state and federal courts have been seriously demeaned.
Some state governments overtly seek to disenfranchise minority voters, strip women’s rights that they have enjoyed for half a century and SCOTUS has overturned Ros vs Wade. Sensible gun control remains hostage to the NRA and state legislatures. Social Security’s long term funding remains questionable and although the DOW hit 38,800 today, consumer confidence is uneasy because inflation persists and interest rates remain relatively high. The entire issue of democracy also appears to be on shaky ground these days.
Why? Do Americans truly doubt our institutions? My sense is that our institution are under attack, but primarily by the Trump Republican Party. Let’s look closely at where the attacks are coming from. Trump and Republican extremists are supporting authoritarian thugs in EUrope and Asia. Trump constantly claims his idea is to take apart the Department of Justice, the FBI and trash our intelligence community. Hewill undermine NATO, a staple of America’s national defense since WWII. Republicans will end Obamacare leaving millions without inexpensive health care.
Delegitimizing democracy in favor of handing authoritarian power to a demagogue desperate to avoid convictions on many criminal charges seems to be fine with millions of Americans who seem to doubt our institutions. This certainly proves the decline in the importance and value of truth by mmany deluded Americans. When a prsidential candidate who organized an attempt to overthrow the 2020 election by encouraging a mob to assault the US Capitol refers to the perpetrators already convicted by courts as “political hostages”, and millions of his supporters choose to look the other way because their fuhrer says so, we have a problem.
The rreal problems aren’t our institutions, per se. The problem is that the Republican Party under Trump has acknowledged their best hope to gain power is to undermine the very basis of what has made America so great. That it has a large group of deluded, fearful poor whites afraid of being “bypassed” by minorities, regardless of the policies that make the rich far richer and would take away their health insurance, social security and constitutional protections, makes little sense. Congressional leaders compromised on a tough border control policy yet Trump killed it because he didn’t want Biden to receive a share of credit. That is a classic reflection of my thesis – that Trump Republicans are interested in power – not progress.
It makes little sense that any American would willingly abandon our democratic republican principles and hand complete authority to a 77-year old unprincipled sociopath. Yet the far right’s ongoing diminution of American traditions, values and constitutional rights has created this doubt that seems to grip our national psyche.
Conversely, we have an 81-year old staunch traditional Democrat working to maintain our growing economy despite inflationary factors and immense corporate greed while rebuilding our infrastructure, insulating our high tech industry through domestic development and ensuring women’s reproductive rights, among other things. He has created limits to certain prescription costs, raised the minimum wage, supported women’s rights and has been an outspoken champion of the principles of our traditional American democratic republic.
You asked “Can a culture that disavows truth select a meritorious governing class?” I say no. I say that there are enough Democrats and Republicans who will demand truth and honesty and will reject the politics of authoritarianism, lying, bigotry, racism, and all the vile anti-democratic rhetoric of Trumpism to keep him out of the White House, even after another attempted coup which we know is coming after the 2024 election.