By Edwin Cooney
The United States of America has always been a rather contentious land in which to live. From Tuesday, July 2nd, 1776, the very day that the Continental Congress passed the Declaration of Independence, we bonded out of necessity rather than “brotherly love.” The Commonwealths of Massachusetts and Virginia didn’t like each other as much as John Adams liked George Washington, and many of the colonies broke their promises to support the Continental Army with their money throughout the Revolutionary War.
Once independence was achieved, there were territorial, jurisdictional and commercial quarrels. It took George Washington’s courage to put his personal reputation on the line to compel the colonies to meet in Philadelphia in July 1787 so that they might bond against the threat of individual colonial alliances with “bad old Europe” with its tradition of royalty and religious chaos. Then there were quarrels over the expansion of American territory and slavery. Next came the Civil War and after that we began dividing ourselves between the supporters of labor versus management, federal obligations versus states’ rights and most dramatically between ideological left and right. These divisions existed largely in the background until Thursday, July 2nd, 1964.
On that day, a Southerner by the name of Lyndon Baines Johnson signed a bill which compelled white Americans to open their businesses and, even worse, their neighborhoods and schools, to black Americans. LBJ compounded the problem the following year when he urged passage of the Voting Rights Act and later the Fair Housing Act and on and on it went. January 20th, 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of the end of LBJ’s “Great Society.” The very possibility that a progressive administration could one day return causes some of the richest and most powerful among us to noticeably cringe.
As the new Trump administration completes its ninth month, everyone appears to be at war with everyone else. The Republican far right appears to be ready to oust the moderate right from office. The president is mad at the GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and turmoil is ever present in the House making Speaker Paul Ryan’s job as much diplomatic as legislative. Even within the administration there are divisions which may well affect stability at home as well as abroad. Even worse, the president thrives on controversy.
Only a fortnight ago, President Trump was urging American businessmen in the form of football owners to fire employees, thus depriving them of making a living, because these football employees, most of whom are black, were kneeling rather than standing during the playing of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Thus football fans found themselves divided between loyalty to their favorite football franchise and “…the land where their fathers died and the land of the pilgrims’ pride.” I heard longtime Green Bay Packers’ fans (they call themselves cheeseheads!) curse their team in favor of their president. Never again, they declared, would they be Packer fans because, apparently, kneeling during the National Anthem is not merely unpatriotic, it is downright immoral. As for the protestors, their delusion lies in the assumption that by making people angry, they’ll accomplish a “kinder, gentler America.” Both sides are unwisely and, I believe, unjustly defacing the American landscape of pure recreational enjoyment. Even more potentially devastating, as LBJ might put it, “they’re pissing in their own patch,” the source of their own financial and social salvation.
The root of the problem is simple. Historically, we have beaten ourselves over the head with our individual senses of morality. The fact of the matter is that few people, regardless of political, social, or spiritual standing, respond positively to the suggestion that what they’re doing, or especially who they are, constitutes immorality. Both slave owners and Native American fighters — especially Andrew Jackson who was both — failed to recognize their personal immorality even though New England preachers insisted upon it. Woodrow Wilson made the League of Nations more of a moral issue than a practical one which was primarily why he lost his battle with Massachusetts Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. LBJ won his civil rights issues in Congress because he was more practical than moral and knew how to handle Congress from his days in both houses of that august body.
Up until the 1980s and 90s, politicians were almost as collegial as they were political. Today, with the advent of rich righteous Conservatism added to “Ivory Towered Liberalism,” John and Susie Q citizen are inevitable victims of holier than thou versions of right and wrong interpretations of morality. Here’s a very brief list of what is a matter of morality and what is not:
(1.) Patriotism has nothing to do with morality.
(2.) Humanism has absolutely everything to do with morality.
(3.) Neither the flag nor the national anthem have anything to do with morality.
(4.) God ought not to be on our money - there’s little if anything about money that’s moral.
(5.) Insistence on morality as a governing factor invariably cheapens the very value of morality - especially on the part of flawed leaders.
(6.) Call me immoral and rather than inspiring me, you simply make me mad.
(7.) Anger, as legitimate and occasionally positively inspiring as it is, stirs accusation more than it does rectification.
(8.) Anger or, if you prefer, outrage has increasingly become an American habit.
(9.) Indulgence in political, idealogical, and moral outrage is much more fun than restraint!
(10.) Political indignation is the root of 21st Century American discontent, the modification of which ought to be a top national priority.
FDR was right. “Fear of fear itself” remains Enemy Number One in America. It’s far easier to be angry than it is to be constructive. Anger paralyzes more than it frees the spirit. Anger makes opponents immoral thus putting them beyond reach.
How do I know you ask? The answer is simple.
I’m as guilty of it as anyone else. Just a few years ago, I learned that many seemingly contradictory truisms are equally true. Hence, all I’ve written above, true and compelling as it is, brings much less gratification than the pleasure of righteous outrage.
Here are two final truths:
It’s both naughty and nasty to assert that President Trump is a self-serving, egotistical jerk.
Second, it’s true — and this second truth truly sets me free!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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