"A Republic...If You Can Keep It"

Or, you must be **THIS** White to be considered a real American

Dear Republicans –

The 4th of July has just passed, and I’m sure many of you had cookouts, shot off fireworks, waved the flag, and called yourselves patriots. So after all the celebrating of American independence, let’s take a quick quiz about your so-called patriotism. Understand, I salute your right to believe in your party’s ideals. I am not here to vilify your worship of your tin-god Trump, nor to even say that you are stupid. I do question, though, whether or not you are actually pro-American, so I offer the following 5-question quiz to find out. Be honest with yourself when answering:

1.)    Do you stand against gay marriage, gays in the military, or other LBGTQ rights, including letting individuals decide for themselves their gender identity?

2.)    Do you equate “Black” or “Hispanic” with “criminal?” Do you equate “Muslim” with “terrorist?”

3.)    Do you think that there has been widespread fraud in American elections, and that stringent voter-ID laws and other such crackdowns will lessen that?

4.)    Do you identify as “pro-life,” but haven’t (or won’t) get a Covid-19 vaccination?

5.)    Do you believe in science? (This can include the 93% of climatologists who say that humans are responsible for climate change, and that it is an emergency, or the fact that 99.3% of new Covid infections were among ONLY the unimmunized. If you believe the Earth is flat (or hollow), or if you think vaccines carry tracking information, if you believe the 1969 moon landing was faked, or if you think Trump actually WON the 2020 election, select “no” as your answer to this question.

Score: If you answered “YES” to any of the first four questions, or “NO” to the fifth, you are anti-American. America has long been called a melting-pot, admired worldwide for its inclusiveness of all races and all types of people. We have free and fair democratic elections which have NEVER been seriously called into question. On question #4, if you won’t do the smallest thing to protect your own family or neighbors, you are NOT “pro-life.” You are actually “pro-death” over pride, or “personal rights” or whatever. DO NOT DARE call yourself “pro-life.”

On the response to question #5, you could ALMOST be excused if your only source of information is FOX News… but it’s not. FOX is a news channel in exactly the same way the Cartoon Network is a news channel.  FOX is a propaganda machine for the gullible. Seek out other info outlets for the truth. Meanwhile, you are NOT ACTUALLY excused. You CHOSE to watch this network because it pepped up your conspiracy theories and made you feel righteous. YOU WERE PLAYED. AND YOU LOVED IT.

So, dear Republican, how did you do on the quick quiz of “Are you anti-American?”  My (admittedly wild) guess is that, if you were actually honest with yourself, you failed. Anything other than 100% would be a failure.

It is high time for you to be above party, and start being for COUNTRY. Are you up to it, or will you keep sticking your head in the sand?

(The above is reproduced with minor edits, as it comes to me from one of my long-time readers. I offer it without comment…because my own will follow.)

Few things aggravate me more than Conservative White Americans dictating what “American” is- as if their definition is the final word. “American” is NOT White, Christian, heterosexual, and Conservative. America is SO much more than such a narrow definition, and “American” encompasses far more than a narrow slice of the demographic pie.

Not that one isn’t free to believe that “American” must be defined as “White, Christian, heterosexual, and Conservative.” That’s a legitimate viewpoint (and, I believe, a hopelessly wrong one)…but it’s only one way to see America. I choose to see a country that’s not only White, but Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow…and combinations of all of those and more. America’s faith is Christian…and Muslim, Jewish, and Zoroastrianism, etc., ad infinitum. It’s even atheist, as I can attest to myself.

America is also no longer a land limited to binary gender and sexual identities. Most of us may still identify as heterosexual and believe gender is a boy/girl dichotomy. But, truthfully, that’s more a matter of our own comfort than objective truth. Gender and sexuality were much simpler in the world where I grew up. Then, they were binary, either/or propositions. Now, as younger generations feel liberated to be their true selves, gender and sexuality identity are defined on a spectrum. My generation may not always understand what that means, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong or misguided. We don’t have to understand; all that’s required of us is to support others (without judgment) in their journey.

Marriage is no longer legally defined as “one man/one woman,” because committed, long-term relationships should never be limited to what society understands. If two people love one another enough to want to make the commitment that marriage represents, how does society NOT benefit? What is gained by denying the rights that heterosexual couples take as their due?

So much of what’s amiss with America today can be laid to fear:

• Fear of different political beliefs

• Fear of different religious beliefs

• Fear of new and different sexual and gender identities

• Fear of different ethnicities, cultures, and (non-White) skin colors

We fear what we cannot, or choose not to, understand. When we define “different” as “bad,” we “otherize” and “demonize” those who are little different than we are.

When you strip away the artifice and the labels, what you find is that people are people. No matter your skin color, heritage, religion, political beliefs, or sexuality, most people want the same basic things from life:

• Safety

• Security

• Freedom

• Hope

• Opportunity

• To see the Green Bay Packers go 0-16 every season

OK, maybe not the last one…but the others are universal. Whatever labels you happen to claim, they don’t impact what others want from life. Nor do they confer upon you special status and thus the right and ability to deprive others of the pursuit of their dreams and aspirations.

From its inception, America has represented to the rest of the world a beacon of hope, a place where anyone could be anything if they were willing to dream and work hard.

Almost 250 years on, America has also become a place of vast resentment and anger. It’s become a place where angry White Conservatives feel that the world OWES them material success, and they’ve come to hate and despise those who’ve worked and sacrificed to achieve their success. It’s become easier for them to resent and “otherize” those they believe to be responsible for their lot in life than to adapt and change in hopes of improving their circumstances.

Much of America has been consumed by hatred, mistrust, and the cynical rejection of knowledge, expertise, and expertise fueled by Far-Right media outlets. As a result, millions of Americans are quicker to believe conspiracy theorists on Facebook, Twitter, or Parler than doctors and scientists who traffic in actual provable empirical data.

Yes, we can blame much of America’s current state on four years of Donald Trump, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But the truth is that he was voted into office. More than 60 million voted for him in 2016…and more than 72 million in 2020. What caused so many to look at an inept liar, fabulist, and self-promoter and say to themselves, “HEY, THERE’S A LEADER!! THERE’S SOMEONE I BELIEVE WILL HAVE A FIRM HAND ON THE TILLER AS THEY GUIDE AMERICA INTO THE FUTURE!!”?

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787,  Franklin was queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation. In the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention,  a lady asked Dr. Franklin “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.”  Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.”

• James D. Best

On January 6th of this year, we saw that while American democracy may be made of stern stuff, it’s not impervious to tyranny. It should probably be left to history to evaluate just how close we came to losing our democracy on that day, but there are lessons we can take from that terrible day.

First and foremost is the reality that America and the ideals it stands for are far more fragile than we may have realized. With Republicans openly courting autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban, we’re seeing one of our two major parties seriously considering dismantling our democracy from within.

That may seem alarmist to some, but to ignore or downplay it risks allowing those who care only for political power to gain the upper hand. THAT’S when fear, ignorance, dezinformatziya, and the Big Lie become a means to an end, the end being power for power’s sake.

America is not and never has been a White Paradise. It’s been referred to as a “melting pot” for a good reason. While some may see our mixed ethnic, religious, and cultural heritage as proof of weakness, the truth is that it’s always been America’s strength.

And if there’s one thing we need to focus on given the challenges we’re facing, it’s our strength.