It’s Too Late to Find Common Ground
I miss the time when reasonable people with different political perspectives could sit down and discuss their differences and perhaps find common ground. I wrote a series of posts following Donald Trump’s election as President in 2016 about “finding common ground” between Republicans and Democrats. I focused on the core principles of the American Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. My hopes quickly dimmed with the aggressiveness and hostility of the Trump administration.
I soon discovered that MAGA Republicans are preoccupied with the protection of individual rights against the federal government, as expressed in the Bill of Rights. They deny or ignore the responsibilities of government spelled out in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution: to establish justice and promote the general welfare as well as secure the blessings of liberty for our posterity as well as ourselves. The God-given, equal rights of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence are treated as the rantings of a radical group of socialists rather than a self-evident truth expressed by the Founders of the nation.
Those who insist that the government should ensure liberty and justice for all, not just a privileged few, are labeled as radical liberals. Those who insist that the government should promote the general welfare, including the welfare of future generations, rather than tax cuts for the wealthy, are labeled as communists. There seems to be little understanding or interest in knowing what socialist or communist governments, or even republics or democracies, are about. The names and the negative or positive images they suggested are all that seem to matter.
I am not a socialist or communist. I believe in our current form of government, which is a democratic republic. It is a republic in that state governments, as well as the federal government, have responsibilities to protect the rights and promote the general welfare of the governed. It is a democracy in that the just power to govern is derived from the consent of the governed and all have an equal right to participate fully in the processes of government. I don’t believe the government should ensure that everyone has an equal or the same amount of everything. I just want everyone to have the same or better opportunities I have had.
I grew up poor, without electricity or running water, on a small family farm in the Ozarks of southwest Missouri. I went to a government-funded grade school and rode a bus to a government-funded high school. I didn’t graduate at the top of my class, but I was able to attend the University of Missouri. There was no tuition, only minimal student fees which covered quality medical care and other essential services.
I earned enough to pay for my college education by working and eating in the government-subsidized university cafeterias and living in subsidized university housing. After a few years in the Army Reserves and private industry, I returned to graduate school on a government-funded research assistantship, which paid my way through graduate school. My assistantship also taught me how to conduct research, write journal articles, and teach classes. After a 30-year career on the faculties of four different publicly-funded state universities, I was able to retire with U.S. government retirement benefits.
Conservatives may accuse me of living off the government, but I worked in private industry for a time and know what for-profit corporations pay for the kind of work I have done over the years. Many fellow graduate students who received the same government benefits chose to work in private industry. They have made far more money than I made and are far wealthier than I am today. That’s fine with me. I could have done the same thing but decided the private sector wasn’t where I wanted to spend my working years.
The only problem I have is when the people who received the same government benefits that I did claim to be “self-made men.” They refuse, or are at least reluctant, to share the returns on their governments’ investments in them with others who now need the help that they so willingly accepted when they needed it.
Poor kids today don’t have the same opportunities I had when I was growing up. The public elementary schools are underfunded and understaffed. Public high schools have been abandoned by parents who want their kids to “get ahead.” Public college tuition fees are unaffordable to poor kids unless they make excellent grades in high school—no matter how intelligent they may be. Those who borrow money for their education are saddled with large depts that force them to accept the highest-paying job they can find, regardless of their preferences. Kids of modest intelligence are being relegated to trade schools, if they are fortunate enough to be able to go anywhere.
Poor kids aren’t getting the support I had from home, and in many, if not most cases, it is not the fault of the parents. I knew and liked kids who were poorer than I was when I was growing up. Many were as smart or smarter but didn’t take advantage of the opportunities they had at the time. They weren’t dumb or lazy, or lacking in ambition, they simply had not been raised in an environment that gave them the capabilities or allowed them to even believe they could have any life better than the life they and their parents had known.
The situation today is even worse because we have privatized the essentials of life, meaning it takes a lot more money just to live. Today, many kids in school can’t concentrate on learning because they are sick or hungry. They don’t get enough to eat, and the foods they get are junk foods. They don’t have a decent place to live or a safe neighborhood to live in. Many kids don’t get health care when they need it because their parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid but they can’t afford health insurance. Many parents are unemployed or underemployed because they never had an opportunity to learn or work at anything other than low-paying, menial jobs without job security. Or, they may have been fired for getting pregnant or can’t afford childcare.
Others face discrimination because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender. But even in the absence of discrimination, people who are the products of generations of poverty and deprivation do not have the capability the rest of us have to take advantage of their opportunities—or pull themselves up by the bootstraps, as conservatives claim they must do. You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you can’t afford boots. I suspect many conservatives condemn “affirmative action” not because it provides opportunities to those currently less qualified, but because it removes their rationalization for discrimination.
Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any common ground left for discussion of this upcoming election between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans call Kamala Harris a radical left-wing liberal because she promises to secure racial and gender equity and they criticize Tim Walz for “squandering a $17 billion budget surplus” rather than cutting taxes in Minnesota. Democrats respond that Harris is defending the unalienable and equal rights of all and that Walz chose to promote the public welfare rather than private economic interests, as promised in the American Declaration of Independence the Constitution of the United States of America.
This is a time when the American voters are forced to choose. Do they want a democratic government that continues striving, often failing, to fulfill the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution? Or do they want a strong, autocratic leader who will relieve them of the responsibilities of self-government? Calling it socialism or communism versus fascism or monarchy, doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the choice.
We are living in a time of crisis, a time when the choices we make in the next few months will fundamentally change the future of the nation and humanity. God grant us the wisdom to choose wisely.
John Ikerd
Finding Common Ground—The Collection: https://www.johnikerd.com/.../finding-common-ground...