By Edwin Cooney
Twenty-first century America is a complex society of many traditions, moods, and expectations. No people are more generous and selfish, materialistic and spiritual, conservative and creative, fair-minded yet temperamental.
Born primarily as an agrarian society that rejected dominance by both royalty and royalty's church, 18th Century America was determined to prosper while it made a living. As valuable as the prerogatives of a free press and a fair judiciary were, the rights of privacy and prosperity were the most vital aspects of the world's first Democratic Republic despite the fact that capitalism as a method of prosperity isn't referred to anywhere in the Constitution that the young nation established..
Only slowly but inevitably have "we, the people" come to realize that both equity and prosperity are dependent on national unity even as we employed Native American genocide and chattel slavery toward Blacks.
During the era that linked George Washington and John Quincy Adams, America was establishing its state and federal institutions and their functions.
Between Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan, the voter franchise was expanded beyond the landed gentry. Under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, the national agenda was that of re-establishing the union between the states and the federal government through Civil War and Reconstruction and political reform.
From Ulysses S. Grant through William McKinley, America transitioned from an agrarian to an industrial society. Thus, there occurred conflicts between management and newly established labor unions.
The presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt through Woodrow Wilson featured the growing expectations of voters as constituents and consumers. Voter prerogatives included the three progressive demands — initiative, referendum and recall — which helped control state and regional governments.
Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover focused on widening our national prosperity through business and commercial investment, and the prevention of future wars through the use of disarmament and international isolationism.
Franklin Roosevelt through Lyndon Johnson generally emphasized the civil rights of workers, consumers, minorities, and increasingly expanding labor unions along with the establishment of defense mechanisms and programs for maintaining international peace and protection against international Communism.
Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, both President Bushes and Trump maximized the prerogatives of businesses and banks, and the redressing of traditional conservative grievances going back to the days of FDR's New Deal.
Only Presidents Clinton, Obama and, now, Joseph Biden have had a progressive agenda.
Today, there are two apparent agendas and they both have to do with the fate of former President Donald J. Trump. Behind Mr. Trump's fate there lies two more dangerous possibilities. These possibilities are best enunciated as questions!
First, are we headed toward an oligarchy — a society ruled exclusively by the rich and powerful? Second, are the rights and traditions of white, Anglo-Saxon America about to be swept aside by a growing left-wing human secularism?
I'm convinced that while there are sufficiently scary book-selling and voter-gathering assertions in these national bogeyman fears, America isn't ready for anything approaching a revolution.
Back in the 1970s, anti-Vietnam War protestors were very revolutionary while school was in session, but they disappeared during summer vacations. Those protestors came to be called “sunshine patriots.”
While it's likely that we'll continue to suffer from isolated pockets of criminal violence, we, the "citizens of the land of the free and home of the brave,” will demand continuation of the one phenomenon we insist on even more than our civil rights.
That phenomenon is our right to be comfortable. Revolutions are neither comfortable nor cheap.
Hence, Mr. Churchill's inquiry: where do we go from here?
Answer: we remain exactly where we are— millions may love Mr. Trump, but let him spend his money rather than ours on his fate.
As for oligarchy, humanity went through that a long time ago. It was called medievalism. As for socialism, only the mildest form of socialism in the style of Canada and continental Europe is ever likely here.
Finally, since the government must prove its case within a reasonable doubt, Donald Trump is likely to remain free as well as a former president. Mr. Trump will not be elected to a second term.
Since poverty and starvation affect only the fringes of our society, America will remain both comfortable and free!
Relax America: you're in better shape than you realize!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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