October 6, 2020
Where goest America
Presidential election: a moral choice
By Scott Arthur
I view the November 3, Presidential election, as a watershed moment for Americans, as it will decide whether or not we retain our democratic ethos/institutions , or else slip into the clutches of authoritarianism in which a single family headed by a king/capo rules rather than the people.
Ben Franklin in 1787 warned us how fragile the democratic enterprise was in his reply to a query about the kind of government created by the delegates to Philadelphia: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Obama at the Democratic National Convention warned, “Don’t let them take away your democracy.”
What confronts us today, however, is the possibility of losing our democracy, unless we take this election seriously, and realize that what is at stake, as articulate by Joe Biden, is the `soul of the nation. `
More specifically, the underlying values that constitute the essence of the American pageant encompass equality, liberty, unity, and decency are in danger. These beliefs run through the veins of America, and are to be found in every key documents that define who we are: Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the Statute of liberty, Martin Luther Kings` I have a Dream Speech,` and John Lewis’ recent cry about the importance of the vote.
One value that often is overlooked is unity. What made 1776 possible was despite regional/cultural differences the country came together and coalesced under E Pluribus Unum, (Out of Many One), announcing a new world order, Novus Ordo Seclorum, in which equality and not hierarchy would prevail. Indeed, equality, the bases for the Oneness/Wholeness of humanity, was the shot heard around the world, ending the old order built on monarchy, hierarchy, and class.
At the time of the constitution for most Americans, equality as a principle remined aspirational as most were denied their citizenship: Natives, Blacks, Latinos women, immigrants, and the poor. Since then the country has undergone a series of deep cultural transformations in extending the breath of equality/oneness from the Civil War, through the 60`s civil rights movement, and culminating today with `Black Live Matter Movement` as symbolized by George Floyd and now Jacob Blake.
What has occurred politically and culturally over the last 45 months, however. is deeply troubling as America has fallen into the abyss of divisiveness in which the White House plays one group off against another, creating doubt in constitutional values and institutions by appealing to the nation’s darker impulse of inequality rather than its higher angel of equality.
The toxins of racism, sexism, and immigration are manipulated to divide the nation as a complacent Senate stands by, and allows the institutional safeguards of checks and balances, separation of power, to be shredded by unfettered executive action.
To offset these darker impulses it is imperative that the country recover its humanity and decency, and unite morally as it did in 1776 to defend freedom from the enemies of hated and inequity which are attempting to usurp the moral greatness of the American experience.
Democratic values are always tested by authoritarian forces, and this is one of those times `when,` as JFK witnessed, `that the torch` of democratic values` needs to be `passed to a new generations of Americans: ` xers, millennials and plurals, who potentially carry the seeds for a more perfect and compassionate future in which the dream of Martin Luther King and others can finally be realized by which` character `not gender, or sexual preference, or class prevails
Indeed, this crisis can be transformative, pointing to a new high, and can lead, as so eloquently put by President Lincoln, to a new birth of freedom in which government of the people , by the people, for the people, will not perish from the face of the earth.
Let us end with this Jeremiah from John Lewis:
Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.
Arthur Kane Scott is Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies at the Dominican University of California and Fellow of American Institute of International Studies
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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