ESAU & US
A few days ago, I got to thinking about a biblical story. The story of Esau and Jacob; how Esau gave up his birthright for a pot of stew. The segue to the American citizenry was instantaneous: How Americans betray the Founders' ideals for cheaper eggs, the illusions of “security,” and the transient discomfort of inflation which was largely sparked by the urgent need to address a global pandemic (and that is a consequence of that pandemic) — mild in view of historical inflationary periods. Yes, we Americans like all of our cures, but the cures must come with no side-effects, the critical surgery must leave no scars, else we wail and seek for a target for our adolescent and irrational rage — Biden or Fauci or Powell — whomever. Gracelessly, we offer no gratitude, only petulant scorn and derision. It is, therefore, no wonder that we have the elected officials we have.
The disease is in the character of Americans ourselves.
We have been following the wrong star home.
We have cultivated corrupt characters, are drunk on rights
but wary of calls to duty.
We can blame Trump and MAGA extremism, Harris’s and the Democrats’ fecklessness. But with that we only abjure symptoms, not the disease. The disease is in the character of Americans ourselves. For many years now we have been following the wrong star home — the star of indulgence, convenience, distraction, ease, and speed. We want our democracy served up to us on a platter, forgetting that it is we who are the governors. We have become sniveling children, overly sensitive and self-righteous, always looking for and taking offense. Now, because we have cultivated corrupt characters, drunk on rights but wary of calls to duty, the country is coming apart at the seams. The barbarians are not only at the gates, most are inside. As Pogo made clear, the enemy is us.
A lazy, self-indulgent, whiney, distracted, overly-indulged, and uninformed citizenry — a citizenry that can be convinced by a mere assertion that the premier aid organization of the world (USAID) is a "criminal enterprise," that the Department of Defense should ignore climate change (because it is a “hoax”) in its military readiness planning, and that the best way to cut inefficiencies in government agencies is to destroy the agencies — cannot hold together a stunningly wealthy pluralist democracy.
It does not have what it takes — the moral mettle — to do so.
So in the fight against our devolution, I am not at all certain that we will save the best of what we have, and the best is (was) no less than gorgeous. The saddest part of that is that while many will deserve to inherit the whirlwind they have sown by their own lack of citizen fitness and moral imagination, the rest who have striven to stay informed, to show up at the polls, to serve our communities, to try to make room for difference, and to embrace the stranger — we will be taken down, too. And yet, we, too, are not without some blame. For we have failed. We have failed — to borrow from James Baldwin — to do adequate work to "create the consciousness of the others." And so we have failed to assure that we “achieve our country.”
God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water, the fire THIS time.