IS AMERICA LURCHING TOWARD BECOMING A FAILED STATE?

“I do not expect the Constitution to last for more than 20 years.”—George Washington, Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention, 1787, and later First President of the United States of America.

“It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”—Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the United States of America.

“There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, and the United States States of America.”—Otto von Bismark, Chancellor of Germany, 1871-1890.

Listen to some current politicians, and they’d have you believe that the United States is perfect.  We can do no wrong, we’ve been chosen by God, and we can’t possibly fail, because the Constitution was handed down directly from heaven, like Moses and the Ten Commandments.

Sorry, but it didn’t work that way.  The Constitution was developed by men (that’s right, no women—that may have been its biggest mistake right off the bat) who were flawed, combative, and often petty and vindictive.  It wasn’t zapped down from on high.  According to Washington, if it got us twenty years down the road, we’d be lucky.

Of course, it’s gotten us a lot farther.  On balance, it’s held us together through wars, depressions, and catastrophes.  And for many, that means that the United States is therefore destined to last forever.

In reality, nothing lasts forever.  And to say we’re currently in a precarious and threatening time would be an understatement.

On January 6, 2021, a mob of thousands, egged on by a defeated President, stormed the American Capitol, threatening to hang the Vice President and do harm to sitting members of Congress.  It didn’t work.  Officers laid their lives on the line, and eventually the mob dispersed, but only after they’d vandalized and defecated on the Capitol itself.

Any rational observer understands the whole thing could have been much worse.  The occupation could have easily grown into an armed conflict that could have split the nation apart. 

Yet some still maintain that the rebellion’s failure was proof that “the system worked.”  Well, maybe.  Or maybe we just got lucky.  Damned lucky.

In science and industry, when a disaster is barely averted, we have a term for it.  It’s called “a Near Miss.”  Two planes nearly collide.  The wrong surgery almost happens.  The wrong drug is nearly dispensed.

It’s not a time to celebrate and say, “See, the system worked!”  Instead, it’s a time for some clear-headed analysis of what went wrong, and how to insure it never happens again.

If we think that the January 6^th insurrection was no big deal, and that the Constitution will always magically protect us from disaster, we’re wrong.  Next time we may not be as lucky.  The Providence Bismark described may run out.

And the Constitution alone won’t save us.

Let’s start with some basics.  The Constitution established a legislative branch that consists of two bodies, a House of Representatives and a Senate.  Both must agree on a piece of legislation before it can move on for the President’s signature and become law.

Even then, just five life-time appointees to the Supreme Court can still declare virtually any law unconstitutional, based on whatever convoluted reasoning they can concoct.  History has revealed this to be the case for both previous left-leaning Courts as well as our current far-right batch.

The legislative body with the most power, though, is clearly the Senate.  Made up of two Senators from each state, regardless of how large or small the state happens to be, it gives remarkable power to individual Senators to block legislation, and stall progress.

I won’t go into detail, but there are numerous historians that maintain that the configuration of the Senate was a compromise (remember those flawed, combative men I mentioned earlier? Yes, sometimes even they compromised) to appease southern slave-holding states.  In any case, we still see its impact on our Nation today.

Currently, one Senator is holding up 300 promotions of military personnel.  In a time when threats are growing throughout the world, ex-football coach Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is blocking critical appointments within our armed forces.  Was this really what our founding fathers had in mind when they created the Senate?

And the House doesn’t seem to be doing much better.  The Republican majority can’t seem to maintain a consistent Speaker, and the one currently in office (at least as of today) is an adherent to an extremist philosophy known as “Christian Nationalism,” which maintains that Christianity alone should shape our laws.  It’s tenets regarding women, gays, immigrants, and non-Christians (along with any Christian who isn’t “their kind of Christian”) are frightening.

Speaker Mike Johnson also aligns himself with the election-deniers who promoted the January 6^th insurrection, and to this day denies the reality of democratic elections.  I wonder what Jefferson would think of someone of Johnson’s persuasion?

Keep in mind, Johnson is second in line to the presidency.  Anything happens to the current President and VP?  Then an election-denying far-right fundamentalist is in charge.

The current two-party system, where a candidate is nominated, usually by a mere fraction of eventual voters, and is then shooed into office simply because of their party affiliation, hasn’t helped.  Extreme candidates tend to turn out primary voters.  General election voters usually follow party lines.

This has led to a deeply divided nation, and a deeply divided government that is bordering on incompetence.  Former Speaker John Boehner has called members of his own party “political terrorists.”  It probably doesn’t matter.  Over the last few years, political moderates from both parties have been leaving Congress in droves, either because they were “primaried” out, or because they just couldn’t take their colleagues’ crap any longer. They’ve been replaced by voices far more extreme.

Forget about changing the Constitution any time soon.  An Amendment requires passage by a two-thirds majority of both Houses, as well as ratification by at least 30 states.  In today’s environment, an amendment that said apple pie tasted good couldn’t run that sort of gauntlet and pass.

There are a few glimpses of hope, however.  In the 2022 election, a smattering of extreme candidates on both sides who had primaried out more moderate Congressional members were defeated.  And in Colorado, the radical gun-worshiper and Pee Wee Herman wannabe, Lauren Boebert, was nearly defeated by a more moderate political unknown.  This time she may not be so lucky.

The best we can hope for is that an epidemic of common sense will hit the country sometime soon.  Under Speaker Johnson, Congress seems clueless as to how to pass a budget, thus raising the possibility of our nation defaulting on its obligations.  The criminal invasion of Ukraine is entering its second winter, and the Israeli-Hamas War is creating shocking casualties in Gaza and the West Bank, which Russia, China, and Iran are keen to exploit.

If there ever was a time for American leadership, it is now.  Yet we can’t even get our act together around passing a budget.

Washington harbored no illusions about the future of the Constitution, or the country. He knew both could easily fail—whether in 20 years or 235 years.  If he could see us now, what would he be thinking?

And don’t forget Bismark.  When he made his sarcastic remark about America, Germany was at the peak of its power.  Yet just a few years later, the German Republic would collapse under the weight of war and infighting.  In its place, a demoralized and angry nation put into power a man who promised to Make Germany Great Again.

You know the rest of the story.  For God’s sake, let’s not repeat it.

Editor’s Note:  The comment regarding Lauren Boebert was not intended to be an insult to the distinguished deceased actor and comic Paul Reubens, AKA Pee Wee Herman.  Rather, it was simply to note similarities in the theatre-going behaviors of Boebert in comparison to those of Mr. Herman.