What Makes America Great? Freedom, Shared Power & Honest Elections
Lorraine Lyon: You want freedom with no responsibility? Son, there is only one person on earth who gets that deal.
Roy Tillman: The president?
Lorraine Lyon: A baby. You're fighting for your right to be a baby.
Fargo, Season 5, Episode 5: The Tiger
I've wrestled with the foundations of what makes America great. Why are we becoming the tyrannical opposite of the freedom foundation we were founded upon?
Everyone says this or that issue is the biggest threat to America but I'm seeking the ACTUAL threat that undergirds all others.
I've narrowed it down to three things: tyranny (toxic autonomy where we do anything we want without consequence), consolidation of power, and deceptive presidential elections. When these vices are embraced, America is facing severe consequences.
My primary aim is to establish a vision, so let's flip these threats into core values: freedom based on responsibility, structural power distribution, and honest presidential elections. When these values are embraced, we embody The United States of America.
These vision and anti-vision elements are filters for us to see our presidential candidates and political parties. It's an easy way for us to see if a would-be political leader is more like Al Capone or Mister Rogers.
The Core Threat: From Rule of Law to Lawlessness
“The nationalists and the populists hate the very idea of a ‘rules-based order’, because it limits their ability to act any way they wish.” - Gwynne Dyer, Hypocrisy and the ‘Rules-Based Order’
Many Republicans are worried about Democrats doing things they're scared of happening, like the Supreme Court packing as one of many examples. These types of ideas are changing the rule of law using our rules for changing the rules. Adding more Supreme Court justices requires congressional legislation.
I’m most worried about — in our country and globally — those operating (or trying to operate) outside the rule of law, outright rejecting the system, and doing whatever the power player(s) wants.
When the South seceded from the United States, they didn’t pass a bill in Congress to leave. They didn’t overturn the Electoral College. They just left. Civil war ensued.
In many ways, the societal rule of law is voluntary. Outright rejection of authority and the rule of law, particularly when it's based on lies and wrongdoing — a core facet of fascism — is what scares me most.
Many Americans are operating under an assumption, for the respect of the rule of law and constitutional limitations. We've voted from this assumption. Trump and other Republican leaders are now providing a lawless alternative to the expected rule of law options.
Suppose a lawless leader does not respect our rule of law, and there is no healthy pressure (or there is pressure towards lawlessness). In that case, corrupt leaders can leverage power, terror, and violence to defy and operate outside the constitution and law. The goal of the lawless is to flip the paradigm from the rule of law to lawlessness (tyranny).
The morally healthy way to address hypocrisy is not lawlessness for all, but accountability for everyone, including ourselves!
Which Political Party Is Worse?
Many Republican partisans are against lawlessness when it’s the other party, but NOT when it’s in their party because what they want is to shed accountability, not foster it.
Democrats have their own sets of issues, but the way I see it, Republicans have stage 5 cancer and are the more severe threat. It's because Republicans have embraced lawlessness at the leadership level and operate in the land of authoritarian politics (cult-like loyalty instead of merit-based).
For Republicans, the lawlessness is embraced and embodied by Donald Trump, the leader of the party, and the party has tragically been reshaped in his image. This lawlessness is also embraced by Republican leaders in positions of authority and influence as they go along with the lies and enable Trump.
‘“Bob Menendez doing crimes just makes me like him better” is something no flavor of Democrat has ever said.” - Matthew Yglesias
Democrats have their extremism wings and actors, but they’ve not manifested at the top or in areas that are dangerous to the structural continuance of the country — usually falling in the cultural Issue bucket and across the educational spectrum. It doesn't mean Democrats are not vulnerable to a demagogue, just that they haven't let that wolf in yet.
So now that we understand the core threat, let's explore the three facets of the American Vision.
1. American Freedom (Based on Responsibility) Versus Tyranny (Selfish Freedom)
"The damned [in hell] get everything they want by just imagining it..." - Joseph Pearce, Going to Hell and Purgatory With C.S. Lewis
America was born in response to tyranny — toxic freedom without responsibility. Tyranny is doing whatever someone wants without accountability or consequence (complete autonomy). Entitlement is expecting this autonomy, as if the benefits and advantages are owed for one reason or another, perhaps out of resentment or contempt. This autonomy leads to the domination of others.
In the movie Lion King, Scar kills his brother Mufasa, and Simba, Mufasa’s son, runs away. Scar takes over the kingdom and exploits all the benefits of Mufasa’s prior leadership but does so in an unsustainable way. The Pride Land was bountiful but under Scar’s tyrannical leadership, he and his cohorts got the benefits without the responsibility. Eventually, because it was not sustainable, Scar’s exploitation is revealed for what it is and the avoided consequences pervade everywhere. It isn’t until Simba embraced responsibility, at the prodding of his friend Nala, that the tyranny of Scar was overthrown and flourishing was restored.
To take responsibility is not to say we’re always the ones at fault. In The Lion King, Simba was simply a survivor of what happened to him, it wasn’t until he took responsibility for what happened (after resisting) that change happened.
For America to transform, requires we take responsibility for the things done even if we’re not directly responsible.
When my group, in this case, the Republican party, abdicates responsibility and embraces tyranny. I’m compelled to step into the gap and intervene.
One great place for Trump and Republicans to start taking responsibility is January 6th and all that led up to it.
Another opportunity is taking responsibility for our enemies, the way the Good Samaritan did in Jesus' parable. Christian Republicans should be leading this mission of loving our enemies, but instead are tragically doing the opposite.
As a society, where do we focus? Where is this tyranny most detrimental to the continuance of our country?
We need to narrow this idea of tyranny and freedom down to the most important tangible applications. I've identified two vital areas.
The first is America's structural distribution of power and the second is honesty about how we elect the most powerful person in our country.
2. The Part of the Constitution That Matters Most: Structural Distribution of Power
“It would bother me a lot if the cult leader flushed the Constitution down the toilet in order to persecute his opponents” is now a minority position in the Republican Party." - Nick Cattogio, The Cynical Case for Vice President Vance What America Deserves.
Wow. We Republicans have become so corrupt.
What would stop a president from fully doing whatever they wants without consequence, including suspending the Constitution and punishing political enemies?
It's not the constitution that limits a president, it's the literal and structural distribution of power between the president, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the states (federalism).
“…what truly protects American freedom: the structural provisions of our Constitution, principally the separation of powers and federalism." ...no bill of rights, standing alone, is sufficient to ensure liberty:"
In his words and actions, Trump has demonstrated he will do what he wants, based on lies, over honoring and protecting the Constitution.
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution…” - Donald Trump, December 3, 2022
The January 6th storming of the capitol was based on a lie to intimidate the vice president and Congress to overturn the democratic election results so the loser would win. And it was also an attempt to override the state's power of choosing the president (using fake electors).
What stopped Trump from consolidating power in the 2020 election was not his lack of ambition but America's structural distribution of power and people in those positions of power adhering to the Constitution in the face of extreme pressure and threats.
The worst case scenario for America is consolidated power into a person who wants to punish his opposition and who can do no wrong in losing support and is now legally justified in doing so.
If Trump were to win, and I were in Trump’s shoes, I would do whatever it took to prevent criminal consequences and prison time. I'd embrace tyranny to get rid of the consequences of my actions. I'd leverage presidential power to get myself out of trouble. This mission would require the consolidation of power directly or indirectly.
3. Honest Presidential Elections
The third critical foundational value for America is honest presidential elections because the election matters in our democratic republic and because the president is the most powerful position.
Unfortunately, Trump and Republicans have embraced the big lie about the 2020 election.
The person we want in power is not someone who will lie about anything and anyone to gain power, but instead, someone who will tell the truth even when it’s to his detriment.
In many ways, everything hangs on what is true or not. If we don't believe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, we're going to act from that belief. This is why the truth is so important and consequential.
And that means we need to place our trust in those who will tell the truth about the most important and also most difficult things.
For those who can't tell the truth, it's also a sign of despair, which is a pathway to destruction.
"Trump has never accepted the result of an election he didn't like whether it was his own or anybody else's. You can go through the record. He just doesn't believe that he needs to play by the rules. He believes that if he loses, it's because its rigged.
When a president stands up and says the entire system is rigged, you shouldn't trust it, you should only trust me... are you really saying its a responsible thing to support that person? Especially when he's already shown that he is indifferent to a peaceful transfer of power." - Andrew Sullivan, What I Got Wrong About Trump, Unherd
Destruction: Smashing the Foundation Support Beams of America
"...we will have an election in which [Trump] will say, it's me or the rule of law." - Andrew Sullivan, What I Got Wrong About Trump, Unherd
Making these foundational values clear will help us steer away from our own participation in foundational destruction and encourage our pushback against those who are smashing core things.
Ultimately, I'm casting a vision for a way forward that transcends the two parties. It’s a declaration of vision that embraces taking responsibility and inviting accountability.
And, we can move towards the ideal, or away from it. We can start today.
So, do we want someone more like Mister Rogers or more like Al Capone to lead our country? For now, we Americans have the freedom to decide the answer to this question.
Responsible Freedom, Shared Power & Honest Presidential Elections
I want a president who values shared power and protects America’s structural separation of powers. I don’t want a president who will use unconstitutional means to consolidate power and stay in office when he’s lost.
I want a president who will be honest about presidential elections and tell the truth even when it means he’s lost. I don’t want a president who will lie and deceive people to stay in power or cause damage on his way out.
Growing up I was taught about freedom, responsibility, and honesty. I look forward to this future American era where these values reign supreme.
Additional Resources
Closing Note: This essay is a concise and focused version of my previously published and much more detailed version here.
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