As slogans go, Donald Trump's is pretty good. Four words that fit on a hat and with which it is hard to argue. What right-thinking American wouldn't want our country to be great again?
Of course, the devil, as always, is in the details. We can take issue with the word "again," which implies that America is in decline, but the more critical detail is the meaning of "great." Trump offers no definition, just as he offers no specific policies or programs to support his claim that America during a Trump presidency will be great. We are asked to take his word for it, on blind faith, as he punctuates so many of his statements with the phrase "believe me," the empty mantra and subliminal message of the ultimate con-man.
If the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined slogan is not worth chanting. So let's reflect on our nation's history and the events and characteristics that have made it great. With a sweepingly broad brush, wielded by a blogger who does not claim to be a historian, I propose the following list, broken out by century.
1. The 1600s and religious freedom. We have it drilled into us from our first years in school: the pilgrims settled in the New World to escape religious persecution. Their faith was of vital importance to them, and in America they sought a place where they could worship freely pursuant to their own Biblical interpretations and traditions. We celebrate the Massachusetts settlers every Thanksgiving, not so much because they brought Christianity to these shores, but more because they laid the foundation for the principle of religious liberty that a century-and-a-half later found a home in the first provision of our Bill of Rights. Religious freedom is the earliest marker of America's greatness.
2. The 1700s and the advancement of liberty. Another uniquely American holiday is Independence Day, marking the courageous decision of our founders to break from the bonds of a tyrannical government. By 1789, the new nation adopted a Constitution, and soon thereafter, a Bill of Rights, designed to ensure not only freedom of religion, but also freedom of speech, freedom of the press, due process of law, and other individual rights and liberties. The rights of man were deemed sacred, shielded from potential abuses of an overpowering state. Enshrining them in our most important document ensured America's path to greatness.
3. The 1800s and the abolition of slavery. America could not fairly be considered great as long as men owned slaves. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, and the addition of the Fourteenth Amendment and its Equal Protection Clause to the United States Constitution in 1868 marked necessary steps towards achieving equality among races, a process that, as President Obama recently proclaimed, has progressed significantly but is far from complete. Freedom for all persons, regardless of race, is another hallmark of America's greatness.
4. The 1900s, women's suffrage and the Civil Rights movement. The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, guaranteeing women the right to vote, and women's rights continued to progress in the decades that followed. By the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement gained traction, resulting in the Supreme Court's landmark school desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and passage of the Civil Rights Act ten years later. These were just a few of many 20th and early 21st Century developments that expanded individual rights and advanced the ideals of individual freedom and human dignity.
During all of these centuries, as American freedom has advanced, we have seen totalitarian regimes come and go - most recently oppressive regimes in Germany and the former Soviet Union. We are still witnessing state-sponsored oppression in many parts of the world, including the Middle East and Asia, and are embarrassed at times to find ourselves aligned with dictatorial governments in the name of national security. In some countries, women have no rights, speech is not free, and religious freedom is not tolerated. Too often we take our liberties for granted, but when we watch what happens to oppressed citizens of authoritative regimes, we can truly appreciate the freedoms that are embedded in the fabric of our own constitutional tradition. If we have been great, if we are still great, it is because our greatness was built firmly on ideals of human rights and decency that were a product of both our religious heritage and 18th Century Enlightenment values.
This is not what Trump means by greatness. To Trump, greatness is glory, not freedom. It is aggrandizement, building oneself up in power and wealth at the expense of the other. Making America great again means flexing our muscles, bullying our neighbors, and taking what we want when we want it, without regard to such principles as justice, fairness, individual liberty, freedom of religion, freedom of speech or the rule of law. It is an abandonment of civility and respect in exchange for that which feeds the lust for power. It is a reaching for preeminence through ridicule, insult, offense, and threats. Greatness for Trump, in short, is the opposite of the ideals espoused by our founding fathers, for which American revolutionaries and countless members of our armed forces have laid down their lives. Making America great again, as Trump envisions it, means making America in his image and forsaking the image of the Shining City Upon a Hill of which our forefathers dreamed.
We can see this when we contrast Trump's words and actions with the hallmarks of greatness listed above. He has called for a religious test for immigration. He bullies those who speak against him, and punishes members of the press when they criticize him. He publicly denigrates federal judges to advance his personal interests, has stoked the fires of racism among supporters, and has attacked women in the most offensive of ways. Our country is great because it is a nation of laws, not of men. Trump's goal is to make it a nation of a man, not of law.
The choice we make in this election depends almost entirely on the definition of greatness that we adopt. Defining greatness as the principled and orderly advancement of human rights and civic responsibilities takes us down one path. Defining it as imposing our will on friends and foes, both foreign and domestic, without regard to such principles, takes us down another. For me, America's greatness rests on principle, not unbridled power, and only a candidate who will defend historical American ideals, grounded in our founding documents, deserves to lead us. I believe the choice is clear, and it isn't the man in the red hat.
Of course, the devil, as always, is in the details. We can take issue with the word "again," which implies that America is in decline, but the more critical detail is the meaning of "great." Trump offers no definition, just as he offers no specific policies or programs to support his claim that America during a Trump presidency will be great. We are asked to take his word for it, on blind faith, as he punctuates so many of his statements with the phrase "believe me," the empty mantra and subliminal message of the ultimate con-man.
If the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined slogan is not worth chanting. So let's reflect on our nation's history and the events and characteristics that have made it great. With a sweepingly broad brush, wielded by a blogger who does not claim to be a historian, I propose the following list, broken out by century.
1. The 1600s and religious freedom. We have it drilled into us from our first years in school: the pilgrims settled in the New World to escape religious persecution. Their faith was of vital importance to them, and in America they sought a place where they could worship freely pursuant to their own Biblical interpretations and traditions. We celebrate the Massachusetts settlers every Thanksgiving, not so much because they brought Christianity to these shores, but more because they laid the foundation for the principle of religious liberty that a century-and-a-half later found a home in the first provision of our Bill of Rights. Religious freedom is the earliest marker of America's greatness.
2. The 1700s and the advancement of liberty. Another uniquely American holiday is Independence Day, marking the courageous decision of our founders to break from the bonds of a tyrannical government. By 1789, the new nation adopted a Constitution, and soon thereafter, a Bill of Rights, designed to ensure not only freedom of religion, but also freedom of speech, freedom of the press, due process of law, and other individual rights and liberties. The rights of man were deemed sacred, shielded from potential abuses of an overpowering state. Enshrining them in our most important document ensured America's path to greatness.
3. The 1800s and the abolition of slavery. America could not fairly be considered great as long as men owned slaves. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, and the addition of the Fourteenth Amendment and its Equal Protection Clause to the United States Constitution in 1868 marked necessary steps towards achieving equality among races, a process that, as President Obama recently proclaimed, has progressed significantly but is far from complete. Freedom for all persons, regardless of race, is another hallmark of America's greatness.
4. The 1900s, women's suffrage and the Civil Rights movement. The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, guaranteeing women the right to vote, and women's rights continued to progress in the decades that followed. By the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement gained traction, resulting in the Supreme Court's landmark school desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and passage of the Civil Rights Act ten years later. These were just a few of many 20th and early 21st Century developments that expanded individual rights and advanced the ideals of individual freedom and human dignity.
During all of these centuries, as American freedom has advanced, we have seen totalitarian regimes come and go - most recently oppressive regimes in Germany and the former Soviet Union. We are still witnessing state-sponsored oppression in many parts of the world, including the Middle East and Asia, and are embarrassed at times to find ourselves aligned with dictatorial governments in the name of national security. In some countries, women have no rights, speech is not free, and religious freedom is not tolerated. Too often we take our liberties for granted, but when we watch what happens to oppressed citizens of authoritative regimes, we can truly appreciate the freedoms that are embedded in the fabric of our own constitutional tradition. If we have been great, if we are still great, it is because our greatness was built firmly on ideals of human rights and decency that were a product of both our religious heritage and 18th Century Enlightenment values.
This is not what Trump means by greatness. To Trump, greatness is glory, not freedom. It is aggrandizement, building oneself up in power and wealth at the expense of the other. Making America great again means flexing our muscles, bullying our neighbors, and taking what we want when we want it, without regard to such principles as justice, fairness, individual liberty, freedom of religion, freedom of speech or the rule of law. It is an abandonment of civility and respect in exchange for that which feeds the lust for power. It is a reaching for preeminence through ridicule, insult, offense, and threats. Greatness for Trump, in short, is the opposite of the ideals espoused by our founding fathers, for which American revolutionaries and countless members of our armed forces have laid down their lives. Making America great again, as Trump envisions it, means making America in his image and forsaking the image of the Shining City Upon a Hill of which our forefathers dreamed.
We can see this when we contrast Trump's words and actions with the hallmarks of greatness listed above. He has called for a religious test for immigration. He bullies those who speak against him, and punishes members of the press when they criticize him. He publicly denigrates federal judges to advance his personal interests, has stoked the fires of racism among supporters, and has attacked women in the most offensive of ways. Our country is great because it is a nation of laws, not of men. Trump's goal is to make it a nation of a man, not of law.
The choice we make in this election depends almost entirely on the definition of greatness that we adopt. Defining greatness as the principled and orderly advancement of human rights and civic responsibilities takes us down one path. Defining it as imposing our will on friends and foes, both foreign and domestic, without regard to such principles, takes us down another. For me, America's greatness rests on principle, not unbridled power, and only a candidate who will defend historical American ideals, grounded in our founding documents, deserves to lead us. I believe the choice is clear, and it isn't the man in the red hat.
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