Political Voyuerism and American Apartheid

Before you read this please know:

  1) I am still working on this

 2) links to citations are highlighted in the text and can be followed to sourcing material


I am a committed political spectator, and, I do love to watch otherwise hard working and intelligent people behave foolishly and sully their good names in pursuit of power, but even so, watching the first year and a half of the Trump administration has been difficult for me.  The absurdity of our political dance has reached new heights, and as an American, I find my national leaders to be a source of shame as often as they are a source of pride.

Now, this has many reasons of course.  Men and women who achieve at a high enough level to lead a nation of 325 million people simply do not have the luxury of stupidity.  So, when a political leader appears to be acting erratically, yes, there are isolated incidents of senility and mental illness, but usually there's a good reason.

National, and even state, municipal and county leaders are all accountable to an almost infinite number of stakeholders all seeking to influence the office holder.  What often looks to be a lasting judgement, is more often the effect of decades of work coming to fruition.  The largest conglomeration of these stakeholders in American politics today are the political parties, and the coming to fruition of their decades old plans is beginning to become a problem.

The really tough choice American's sometime in their future are going to have to face is, can large a large democratic nation exist for long with only two major parties.  India appears to be the closest comparions,


 but I ran out of time for research     [Mark In Edit]


That's not to say that political parties are by their very nature problematic to Democracy, is to say that would be to say a broken arm is problematic to the body.  The arm is not problematic, the fact that the arm is broken is.  Removing parties would be akin to removing the arm, and that's not a good solution at all. 

Partisanship is an inherently divided and subversive way of thinking, and in the past that's worked to our advantage.  That's why our founding fathers, with an eye towards British hegemony over American governance decided to engage in it.  It is a tool for seizing and maintaining power, and with a hostile super power eyeing our young nation with contempt and avarice, it was necessary for someone capable to do just that.

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, the ten dollar bill and the nickle respectively, were both preeminent architects of our democracy and partisan prototypes.  They sniped at each other and spread baseless rumors to confound the Internet's most devious provocateurs today.  They were also men of great political genius with competing visions for the evolution of their young nation.  They spread hatred and division throughout the land, and in the process laid the groundwork for our American civilization.

The parallel to our current state is both comforting and alarming.  Yes, this is the way things have always been done in our country.  But, yes, we do tend to end up in bloody and terrifying conflicts because of it.  Our civil war has direct parallels to the conflict between Jefferson's states rights ideology and Hamilton's vision of a strong central government.

Throughout American history, the country has been plagued by division after division and crisis after crisis, and has thus far survived them all.  That's not  a given though, and the country must continue to evolve if it is going to survive in the new multi polar political environment that has evolved after the fall of the soviet union.

The union has traditionally evolved by continually expanding suffrage and economic opportunity as it has grown and must continue to do so, lest it parish.  Citizens have the right to engage with their government, and even run for office should they choose, but the current state of affairs makes it nearly impossible for a person who is not born into the political cast or at least born to wealth and power to ascend to lasting political power and influence.  This has left our democracy in a polarized state, where large swaths of the population are underrepresented in politics and undeserved or oppressed by their government. 

 That is not to say that our nation's disenfranchised majority would be better off under another form of government or in another place. While no competent student of history will ever assert that democracy is a fair and just form of government, most who approach the subject objectively are forced to acknowledge that it is the most fair and just of multiple alternate tyrannies.

 As subjects of one form of evolutionary tyranny, it's easy for us citizens of the United States of America to take for granted that we live under the yoke of our masters the same as everyone else.  This is not the case.  Our yoke is much lighter, and Americans should be cognizant of this if they wish to truly understand the world the inhabit in context.

Despite a legal system that requires natural gifts, years of education, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to understand and effectively utilize, we live in the most free, most fair, and most just society in the world.  The question is, do we wish it to continue.  Should the past inequities damn our nation to purgatory?  Or can we, as we have done in the past confront our failings and stumble on towards their amelioration.

American Slavery and its aftermath is one of many examples of American folly followed by a long and stilted path towards redemption. There are many others.  The conquest of and disenfranchisement of Native Americans, South American imperialism and Japanese internment spring to mind easily.

And while American apartheid has never been called as such, due to our economic and military preeminence, it nevertheless did occur to our everlasting shame.  But to understand what happened, why it happened and to put it into context, a person has to look outside their own personal experience and place the events of our nation's past in the scope of a wider world.

When that is done, one can see a world where slavery, institutionalized cruelty, terror and apartheid are still rampant.  The United States may be an imperfect union, but because of our quasi-enshrined freedoms, citizens are allowed to confront the evils that plague our world far more effectively than it's been possible to do in other places and times. It's ok to be angry about past injustice, but to allow that anger to tear down the very system that allowed it to be addressed is foolish indeed.

This country still serves as a beacon of hope around the globe. And while, like any nation, it's past is checkered with the sins of its forefathers, it must never be mistaken for anything but the great hope of all free people. With that in mind the citizenry must be vigilant in its defense.  As long as freedom, or some facsimile thereof exists, tyrants will fear and seek to undermine it and to focus on reform or even revolution while discounting American security places that freedom at risk. Aggressors abound.  Currently Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are the biggest threats to American liberty.  But, assuming this nation survives, which is not a given, that can and will change over time.  The need to be vigilant will not.  Liberties which ought be the natural right of all human beings are under assault and we as Americans ought damned well stand up and fight for them when necessary.

Whether democrat or republican, black or white or even Trumpian or Clintonite, it is necessary for Americans to engage one another with mutual respect and civility.  Without that the nation will tear itself apart and we will watch the liberties this nation has bled to establish and defend slip away.  That is why the current state of affairs saddens me so much.  One simply can't try to address a problem in today's climate.  Someone then has to take offense and become combative so that winning involves subjugating alternate points of view rather than incorporating them.  I personally think it's time for a multi party democracy, so that opposing sides must build coalitions to govern and the grip of the partisan grandees over American political thought can be broken.  But that's just my opinion, I'd be happy to hear yours, just please, be civil about it.