The Betrayal of America

Image from ZeroHedge

This article will be for the United States of America. Awhile back I started to write a blog on how the Republican Party was betraying the American citizenry but decided not to publish it. I thought to myself, “This is far too partisan. Surely, I am overreacting. The republicans are not so ideologically spent that they would betray the United States of America founding values?” The Founding Fathers institutional ideals is the core tenet of Republican Party—or so I thought. This point of view, which I now know was naïve, is less than a decade old. I started to write my original blog in 2011—I now see my initial instincts were correct.

The Republican party has betrayed the United States of America for partisan gain and for the corrupt intent to control the levers of power at all levels—and at any cost. The monied interest in conservative politics overwhelm the people and silences the peoples’ voices (if not in the literal sense, then it is certainly true in the figurative). In the past decade, the Republican party has sullied itself with sycophants and narcissists whose bottom line is to escape accountability. This betrayal, unfortunately, is not one-sided, the politics of the extreme left has bullied the Republican base in to thinking that there is no room for compromise and that tribalism rules the daily warfare of politics. The punditry of the right garnish victory in terms of hollowing out the current institutions, such as justice, state, and legislative, while the pundits on the left obfuscate in political correctness and purity tests.

This hollowing out disenfranchises not only the American ethos, but also the American pragmatism for comprise. The anger and the angst overwhelming the either side of the electorate are founded in incrementalism, in which, the republican party has used against the democratic party so that it could be seen as “reasonable” and as  a way to convince its base to vote against their political interest and prosperity. As such, reasonableness is the death nell of logic and rationality for the political parties and eventual compromise, and this in turn, deconstructs into a form of “emotional rationalism.”

 Emotional rationalism—a form of reasonableness which seems logical but actually exploits the baser emotions i.e. “what about the children?” and more of late “what about such and suchism?”-- as way to reflect a false equivalency, thus feeding the beast of tribalism. In a very real sense, this decade of tribalism reveals that the two-party system no longer belongs to the people (and maybe never did), but is currently doused in perversion of corporatism, incrementalism, and narcissistic egos of self-aggrandizing old men, such as Senator Mitch McConnell and the current occupant of the presidential office. Senator McConnell proclaims that bills passed by the United States House are too far afield to pass and he will not put up any of them for debate. 

Debate, of course, is the crux of democracy so that compromise becomes possible; and yet, the "Grim Reaper" (a  name Senator McConnell has co-opted for himself) denies the "greatest deliberative body" to do the people's bidding. Here are some of the examples of the Senator’s unwillingness to debate and his betrayal of America and his full force obstruction and tribalism,  in a Newsweek article(1),  in a Senatorial Democratic press release(2), and in a Washington Post article by Amber Phillips(3) .

The American Ethos notion of “hard work,” which may have been founded in the protestant ethic and revered in the 20^th century attitude, has been betrayed; in that, it has been destroyed by the last forty plus years of separation of the haves and have nots. There is line by Kirk Franklin song, OK, “Where is the American Dream if only one percent knows what it means to be really okay … tell me is that okay?” Followed by the line “Life is taking everything that I have just to survive…” This line is a deep reflection of what the current American angst—and though rooted in a gospel song—it properly conveys the frustration of those that feel they no longer have a voice in American politics. American tribalism has created a dysfunction that leaves no choice but to shout out, for some, “revolution;” but, the question must be asked, “Revolution for whom?” because the betrayal is baked deep within American political system.

A political system that has the monied interest careening in either fear of the multiple possible dysfunctions or in the possible potential of what might be.  The two-party system has spent exorbitant amounts of money in order to sway the public electorate to vote for their ideological mantras, in which, human nature, being what it is, compels itself into a frenzied self-fulfilling prophecy of angst, terror, and grievance that can only be resolved through partisan bickering.

Bickering that leaves the middle, the average citizen, in a task, a quandary, if you will, of sorting through the reality of what is, what is propaganda, and what is spin. Nonetheless, the betrayal of America is so interwoven within the dynamics of the political body that polarization, and in effect paralyzing stagnation, of necessary projects impact everyday life such as healthcare, food, housing, and infrastructure.

The previous items have proven to be especially prescient in the current environs of hysteria and uncertainty of what’s next, but this current foment of the COVID-19 is another indication of the destabilization within the electorate. Another factor within this destabilization, in the era of tribalism, is fractionalization within the political parties—a purity test—that sets aside the ability to compromise.

For instance, those on the Republican side of the aisle feel that any compromise with Democratic party members leaves their monied interest sullied and defiled and vice-a-versa for the Democratic party as well. Monied interest in the political parties has corrupted, ruined, and tainted the political electorate resulting in the separation of the working class from its due representation. The purity element of the parties deconstructs cultural mores of America and emboldens the incompetent among the public with the ability to usurp the norms of authority and populism writ large. However, it is not only the incompetent that are hearten but the entitled monied privileged that works undermines the system for their own benefit.

Usurping the norms, purity tests, polarization, revolution, incompetence, authority, and populism are factors in the betrayal of American; but ultimately the broken political system careens, flopping like a fish out of water desperately trying to breathe. Factions within the parties contribute to polarization and tribalism that is subverting American life. The working class suffers and often overlooked by the political elites and corrupted politicians(see also Senator Diane Feinstein). The American politician betrays America, the American people, and the founding cultural values of American life.

The American people are angry and those that are vocal appeal to the dark side of human nature—absolutism—compels the rancor and ugliness that rules tribalism. Flyover country sways the political electorate and is often tribal in its own independence; and can be manipulated with rumors, innuendo, or the sleight hand of nuance.

In the end, however, the infidelity to America is on full display with corrupt politicians and partisan rhetoric, from all aspects of media both foreign and domestic, and the tribalism and dysfunction of the political  electorate. It may be time for the disenfranchised, the working person, to Rise Up and put foot to the behind of those who have betrayed the values of the America Ethos.