American's are Rotten

No really, we all suck.

A while back my buddy and I were chatting about the awful state of things in the nation. In the past, we’ve had many discussions about how bad this or that thing is for American foreign, domestic, or economic policy. But this conversation was much more just about the American spirit. We fairly readily reached a conclusion that left both of us in despair and without much more to say. I’ve been wanting to address that idea here but I couldn’t really decide how to approach it. It’s a simple thought, really. But I don’t like it. And you likely won’t either. At least, I hope you won’t. Because it applies to you and I as well. If it weren’t true to a deeper degree than we have heretofore been willing to recognize, I wouldn’t be writing this. Now that you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m going to tell you about what I saw more recently that helped me realize how to approach this subject.

When I saw the photo of President Trump and Maria Machado when she gifted him her Nobel medal, I immediately experienced so many negative feelings that I couldn’t perceive which was strongest. Embarrassment, revulsion, disgust, anger, sadness. There’s no hope of understanding this post if you don’t attempt to perceive what the image reflects about the American spirit. My first impression when I saw the picture was that Trump looks like a 3 year old who got an extra toy in his Happy Meal. It’s a new thing he possesses and so he thinks it makes him special. And just like the extra toy has no intrinsic value because it was an accident, Trump’s possession of the medal is meaningless because he did not earn it. What I think about Machado’s decision to do this is an entirely different topic that doesn’t really fit the theme of this blog. Trump’s acceptance, and childlike giddiness at doing so however, is right down my alley.

To me, this photograph represents the epitome of everything that is wrong with American culture, to the religiously inclined, the American soul. Every nation, every culture has its weak spots. Truly great and enduring cultures are able to recognize those weak spots and work to correct them. Unfortunately for us Americans, ours has been a dominant social and political issue since the founding of our nation. This makes it difficult for us to recognize the profound impact it has had on all of us. Even those of us who find it abhorrent.

Slavery. Racially based slavery. That’s it. It was a poison that was a part of the nation’s culture, economy, and politics since before it was even a sovereign nation. In the first century of our creation and nationhood, there were many important attempts to address the matter. But they all failed. It’s not uncommon for people to point to the failure to punish the Confederacy as the root of our modern problems. There is a strong argument in this position because it is arguable that doing so would have cured the rot. Nonetheless, I find the argument lacking because it ignores nearly a century of independence that not only failed to address, but actively passed on to future generations, the task of dealing with the core issue. By the time the Civil War ended and the Confederacy was defeated, the Union’s victory didn’t do anything to address the cause of the disease. Slavery was ended, sure, but the ideas about humanity that allowed that form of slavery to exist were deeply embedded in the nation’s culture and ideologies. Even Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, thought it best that newly freed slaves be returned to Africa.

What allowing slavery, and specifically slavery in the form that it took in the United States,

to exist for so long did was embed in the American public spirit the concept that a certain group of people could be classified as ‘others’ simply because of a trait beyond their control or choosing that set them apart from those in power or in the majority. Attached to this was the implicit understanding that these ‘others’ could be used to do the work the majority did not wish to do themselves, or as scapegoats when leaders did not want to be accountable for the problems they had created. Despite the grand language of our founding documents to the contrary, the fact that this reality existed for as long as it did has made the concept impossible to eradicate.

Attempts to eradicate slavery ran up against many walls over the years. Many tried at the Constitutional Convention. But, instead of ending slavery, the Constitution implicitly recognizes it as a valid socio-economic structure and gave slave holders extra political weight in the national government. This, despite the fact that many of the most prominent national leaders at the time wished to end the institution. What matters in the long run is not that James Madison knew slavery was a poison that could destroy the nation, but that he, the main author of the Constitution, ultimately found issues of national defense and economic security more important than the humanity of an entire group of people. And he was hardly alone in that view.

It’s common to defend this choice of the founding generation by pointing out that they could not have foreseen the things that would come even before their lifetime was over. I’ve made this argument myself at times. And it’s true, the clause allowing Congress to abolish the slave trade in the future might have had the desired effect but not for Eli Whitney and his cotton gin. We will never know and it is pointless to argue about what might have been. What is undeniable however is that this clause allowed the drafters and ratifiers of the Constitution to clear their own consciences while setting aside the problem for a future generation.

The next major dodge was the Missouri Compromise (1820). As it had been in drafting a new form of government, unity and avoiding internal conflict in order to preserve economic strength and security was more important than the humanitarian ideals of the Declaration of Independence or Constitution. So slavery was preserved once more. As the nation continued to expand westward, another similar compromise was required in 1850. Balance and political conciliation were once again more important than recognizing the humanity of African slaves. Just a decade later the issue came to a head and the nation finally had its Civil War. There was no more room for compromise.

The Civil War was always about slavery. Anyone who says differently is lying to you, or at least to themselves. The great irony that helps prove my larger point is that even during the war, many people refused to openly acknowledge this most basic of facts. No, the war is about state’s rights, or the failure of the federal government to enforce the law. These platitudes were never anything more than vain attempts at self-delusion. When the war was won by the Union, and slavery was abolished, that should have been the end of it. At least that is what the ‘punish the Confederacy’ crowd would like to believe. They argue that had the Confederacy been properly punished, it would have eradicated the cancer and the racist element in the U.S. would have died away.

I believe this is an argument based in wishful thinking. It is an attempt to blame current problems on generations of the past in order to believe that we can fix the future by acting differently now. Unfortunately, it is just a mirror of what generations before did in passing on the problem to the future. No generation will ever fix anything without addressing its own problems and failures in its own time and context. Passing solutions to the future, or blaming them on the past, will only result in deflection of responsibility and accountability.

Slavery is, I believe, the original sin of the American republic. And not just of the system of government, but of the soul of American culture. And the latter is far more important. The structure of the system of government is a beautiful thing. In fact, much of my writing and analysis is an attempt to describe how we can use its tools to make us better. What I am realizing now is that the structure can only work properly if those who have to use it are in tune with its spirit. Today, I must sadly conclude that the American people are not. We are rotten.

I have already outlined some of the key events surrounding the long road to the Civil War that reflect this rotten spiritual core. But there are many, many more examples. Just a decade after the war ended, there was yet another grand compromise that prioritized unity and reconciliation over the humanity of freed slaves. A generation later there was the Chinese exclusion act. After that businesses could simply hang a sign saying ‘No Irish need Apply’ to reflect and enforce their cultural bias. And let us not ever forget the centuries of pushing aside the Indigenous Peoples who had lived on the land for millennia.

Something that all of these historical phenomena have in common is the true tumor in the American spirit but it’s not racism. I wrote that racially based slavery is the nation’s original sin but that doesn’t mean it is the core problem. It’s simply the first and most enduring symptom fertilized by the true rot. That true rot is a sense of entitlement. Americans are whiney, spoiled brats. We see something we perceive will make us stronger or more affluent and we use this as a justification to take it from those who already possess it. We are also lazy hypocrites. Americans brag about their work ethic and then expect others to do the hard work - whether they be slaves imported from Africa or low paid laborers from Mexico. Then, when things get tough, we blame the very workers who have made the previous standard of living possible because we are also uneducated pricks with an ingrained habit of blaming ‘others’.

It is so pervasive that it is difficult to find a point in our nation’s history where there is not a key example. The bad guys change, and sometimes get recycled, but it is never ‘us’. It’s the blacks ungrateful for their freedom, the Catholics more loyal to the pope than country, the potheads who are unpatriotic because they opposed the war in [COUNTRY], the elite who don’t pay taxes, the poor who live off the system without working, the politicians who use office to enrich themselves, connected who don’t have to pay for their crimes… and so on. There is always some minority to blame our problems on. The disaffected and those who advocate for them can always find some group to blame their problems on. But rarely, if ever, do the mass of American citizens look in the mirror and blame themselves for being a part of the problem.

To that point, I now cast myself as part of the problem. The recent murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis has sparked another wave of protests across the country. Among the related calls to action I have seen several organizers suggest that what the nation truly needs to get the administration’s attention and bring it to heel is a general strike. Not just the UAW or AFL/CIO affiliated unions, but everybody. It’s a good argument in that it would likely have a significant impact because all the leaders care about is social and economic stability. They’d throw some bread or a $0.50 increase in the minimum wage at the strikers to calm things down and the strikers would be able to claim victory. Everyone wins. Except no one wins. The problem with the idea is that it simply won’t happen. Americans will not participate in a general strike on the scale necessary to make it work. Part of the reason is fear. People will be afraid they would lose their jobs. And they are probably correct. Be honest with yourself, are you going to risk what so many Iranians are risking right now? I certainly can’t afford to just stop going to work. But a sense of entitlement is also a big reason people won’t strike. They’ll see organizers trying to get it together and talking optimistically about how much it’s going to force change, and then when the time comes, they’ll just continue to work because they’ll expect others to do it for them. Because American’s are entitled cowards. Someone else will do the hard work. Someone else will fight the fight for me.

We had it too easy for too long. We were protected by superior weapons and technology (and built up resistance to diseases), oceans, and mostly empty space. We never had to overcome our internal differences because there was always some ‘other’ to blame. Even when we did fight ourselves, we pretended it wasn’t about what it was really about. And today, when it sometimes looks like we might be on the brink of fighting ourselves again, the rhetoric from all camps is about making it about someone else’s problems. No one is looking inward at their own failures. There are enough boogeymen out there for everyone to have enough to deflect from their own actions or inactions. Well this isn’t my fault because I didn’t vote for them. Well it’s not my fault because I didn’t vote at all.

And that’s how we get a President who smiles like petulant toddler when mommy gives him a treat just to shut him up or get him to put his clothes away. He’s just eating up his shiny new thing he didn’t earn. It’s pathetic. Just like our mythology that we conquered the continent through hard work and perseverance. Bullshit. We raped and slaughtered countless Indians and built an economy on the backs of slaves. But we defended Europe against tyranny in both World Wars! Sure, because we were never directly threatened by the fighting. We sent our boys to protect our economic prosperity. All the while continuing to repress our own ‘others’ on the home front. It wasn’t until a century after the 14^th Amendment that we passed some laws to give it teeth. Less than a century after that and we are systematically gutting those. We talk about the American Dream and the City Upon a Hill as if they were ever real things. Wake up. They were always lies we told ourselves to pretend we weren’t part of the problem. And I’m not exempting myself. I write this blog to make myself feel better. It helps me vent my frustrations and anger so that I don’t take it out on my liver (Ha!). I’m not going to join the general strike anymore than the rest of you are. I might give up an afternoon, on a weekend, to join a protest. But I’m not going to skip work for days (maybe weeks) at a time to make the government hurt. I can’t afford to risk it. Because I too, am an entitled wimp and I’m not willing to put my job on the line for the greater good. And this is why I say Americans suck. We are shitty people because we’ll talk a big game but most of us aren’t ever willing to back it up with the kind of action needed to back it up.

Donald Trump and his cronies are following the wannabe despot’s playbook almost verbatim. It’s exactly what the Nazi’s did, exactly what Mussolini did, exactly what Stalin did, Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, Maduro, among countless others. It’s exactly what Orwell warned us would happen. Because the Nazi’s and WWII have such a unique place in the American mind, it is not without irony that Hitler’s is the model Trump is most closely following. And just like Hitler, Trump was legally voted into power. Just like Hitler, he is ignoring laws that do not suit him, flouting international laws and norms, and stoking/fabricating emergencies to justify expanding his powers. But Trump’s is not the despotism we should really fear. The despotism we should truly fear is belief in own ability fight through the current emergency until things aren’t that bad anymore. Because that’s what we’ve always done. It is what we have become accustomed to doing. The reason we must fear this is because when things aren’t that bad anymore, we brush aside the real issues so we can get on with life. And we’ll blame someone else, some new or recycled ‘other’, for all that has transpired. But remember, as I have already noted about being elected in free and fair elections, Trump did one more thing Hitler had done as well, he told us all exactly who he was before coming to power. (If you haven’t read Mein Kampf, you really should). And that is why I say the American people are rotten. We’ve spent our entire existence extolling the virtues of democracy and freedom while ignoring the repression within our own borders. We’ve built our modern identity upon defeating some of the worst tyrants humanity has ever known. And then, when our own would be despot tells us exactly who he is, what he wants to do, and how he wants to do it, tens of millions of us vote for him in three separate elections fully aware of, or willfully blind to, exactly who he his. And those of us who know better, and did not vote for him, and do not support him, yell on podcasts or write blogs to soothe our own consciences hoping the tough times will pass and we can get on with our lives. Because that is our custom.