July 2024 – Susan Feathers

History in the Making

Just when you think the sky is falling…

Biden stepped away from running for a second term, nominates Kamala Harris. Harris gains unprecedented support from youth, from communities of color, from Republican lawmakers worried the MAGA extremists could destroy the democracy each generation has striven to keep. Netanyahu visits and delivers an unapologetic address about the war in GAZA promising not to stop or turn back. Harris comes forward strongly in defense of Gazans in the line of fire while asserting support for Israel as long as it abides by human rights principles. She wants to see a two state solution.

Women from all sectors of the nation are galvanizing behind Harris as the clearest defender of women’s rights in her time in politics (Women for Harris). We have a wave of democratic actions happening and consequent outpouring of funds in record time. Men have galvanized to support her as evidenced by White Dudes for Kamala! Many institutions and nonprofits and civic leaders have voiced their support for the current Vice President.

The nation has awakended and perhaps the clouds, spewing misinformation and nasty digs from the throats of Rump and Rants, will soon part to let in some truth. I’ve been shocked and pleasantly surprised and again recall the edict: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Well, our eyes are open wide.

Biden has set in motion efforts that will address the extreme rulings and unethical acts of justices on the current polarized Supreme Court. His bill would set standards for justices to hold them accountable for their actions like the rest of us; overturn the presidential immunity ruling just passed that grants immunity to a president for almost any action made while in office and to some extent afterward. Biden calls for shortening the term of justices from life to 18 years. The recommendation dovetails with Constitutional scholars and historians who recently discussed how to reform the Supreme Court to avoid what has become jerrymandering of the Court.

Watch the discussion among scholars invited by the National Constitution Center to review the 2024 Supreme Court.

Anti-Defamation League and the National Constitution Center

Listen to two constitutional scholars discuss President Biden’s new proposal for Supreme Court reforms on We the People Podcast at the National Consitution Center.

Civic Virtues and the Founders

I highly recommend readers take time to listen to this session of We the People podcast from the National Constitution Center and how the founders read from Cicero’s The Tusculan Disputations in their quest for personal virtue – which none achieved but strived toward, followed by historians and writers reflecting on civic virtue in maintaining a democracy.

Think for yourself and the ability to reason – these must be resurrected.

Panelists include Jeffrey Rosen, Director of the National Constitution Center, and University of Chicago Professor Eric Slauter, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will; and Melody Barnes, executive director of UVA’s Karsh Institute of Democracy.

The Founders and the Pursuit of Happiness, and the Virtuous Life

Cicero’s The Tusculan Disputations

Getty Images Link

Who was Cicero? Link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Warp and Woof of Democracy

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I’ve tasked myself with reading more about our history and our changemakers. In Our Ancient Faith by Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln is preparing for a debate with Frederick Douglas and jots down this idea above.

Democracy at its root is relational.

If an indiviudal would not be a slave, he must not deny the same to others. Consent of the governed is the fundamental principal on which our government carries forth the will of the people.

In these very turbulent times, most recently demonstrated in a violent asassination attempt on the life of former President Trump, the nation has paused to consider how this could happen and what caused the youmg man to engage in such an act. We also reexamine how separated we have become, how violent rhetoric has caused people to distrust each other exemplified in the last seven years of political divide, vitrieolic language and extreme othering.

Lulu Garcia-Navarre revisits Robert Putnam’s study of the state of our Republic in the New York Times (July 14, 2024). In light of a new 2oth year edition of his book Bowling Alone, updated to include social media, they discuss why there has been little progress, even worsening separation among us, deepening the loneliness epidemic and consequent fear of each other.

Putnam discusses Alexis de Tocqueville‘s famous studies of American democracy published in 1835 and 1840. He observed that we were joiners – members of dozens of clubs and group affiliations. We were intensely relational including both close relationships and more social relations from hunting to sewing clubs, societies and guilds.

Garcia-Navarre and Putnam exmine how these kinds of relationships over the life of a citizen facilitate democracy. This brings me full circle to consider how Abraham Lincoln described democracy as relational. If I would not be a slave, I would not be a master.

Would more frequent nonpolitical relating to each other prevent the growth of misunderstanding and mistrust among us?

I encourage you to listen or read the article.

Related to this is how our founders understood morality. Founders thought about how each person manages oneself: restraint, kindness, courtesy, honesty, etc. It had nothing to do with the imposition of values on free citizens. To founders it was about improving oneself and continually self correcting by personal inventory over a lifetime of striving to be the best person possible. Self management.

Perhaps this is honed in an array of relationships throughout our lifetimes and that is why we see a weakened American democracy for which our relational lives is its essence. See the National Constitution Center’s discussion of how our founders thought about morality as self control and self management. Character.

Our rights and duties to engage in Civil Dialogue is at the heart of democracy.

What do you think? Leave a comment so that we can discuss this matter.

IT IS BIDEN: LEADERSHIP & WISDOM

Biden at the 75th Anniversary of the founding of NATO, our great alliance of democraces across the Atlantic, delivers a powerful message. I am solidly behind President Biden as the leader who has the greatest vision of America’s role at home and in the world. Let him lead: elect him to a second term to finish his vision of a free world and more just America, ready and able to help stem climate impacts and secure America’s and the world’s futures.

Biden’s Record: A Great President

Heather Cox Richardson’s July 9 Substack Letter reviews Biden Administration’s accomplishments from the viewpoint of a historian as opposed to “horse race” media reporting.

The most consequential investment in renewable energy and justice for Energy Transistion required to secure American families and the world community during climate change. It is underway and already transforming communities across America while employing Americans in great jobs at unprecented rates. States, red and blue, are benefitting economically.

A record of high jobs creation, low unemployment and business growth. Support of workers’ rights, wages and benefits, and support of unions. Inflation is low and steady.

Legislation to reduce college debt, improve health care, support families and children through reduction of poverty; calling out companies that drain wealth from families through high interest rates and inflated costs of products and services. Reduction of the high cost of pharmaceuticals, and allowances for Medicare to negotiate the cost of life-saving drugs for all Americans.

Standing for the rights of LGBTQ and Transgender individuals to the protections of the Constitution as citizens with equal rights to the bounties of citizenship and the community of a freedom-loving people.

Maintaining the separation of church and state as a fundamental tenet of the U.S. Constitution since its founding.

Unwavering support for women’s reproductive rights and healthcare. This is one of the most important protections of women’s rights now struck down by a partisan Supreme Court. Biden promises to sign reproductive rights into law when reelected for a second term. This is about health and freedom of choice.

Assertive foreign policy with NATO and in new alliances in the Global South and among Pacific allies to protect democracy across the world. Unflinching commitment to support Ukraine in its justified defense against unprovoked aggression by Russia. Biden will continue to support Ukraine to victory with a strong NATO commitment. NATO has grown stronger, adding new countries in Europe during Biden’s term of office. Support for Israel while negotiating for justice for Palestinians in Gaza. We are safer with Biden’s leadership. He has the long vision younger Americans do not possess at this critical time in history. This is the time to support wisdom and experience.

Call me an optimist, but to me Americans “get” all this and will come through to victory against the second internal threat to our democracy in recent history with Trump and the MAGA Republicans. This is not supposition. We experienced four years of Trump in the White House and its termination with an insurrection in the Capitol and assault against the rule of law by convicted criminals. The latter is only the latest odd ball and dangerous internal grab for power and suppression of liberty among our people seen from time to time in America’s history. Recall: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Now we are the watchmen and we must not fail Liberty.

America is about the steady and determined growth toward plurality and diversity as promised in our founding documents and principles. We are about the steady march to freedom and liberty for all. We have stumbled in the past and sometimes lost that vision, but in this time, in this place in history the future of life on Earth is at stake. Its too high a danger to fail now.

On the Precipice

I consider Citizen’s United the Trojan Horse that released democracy’s enemies into the Body Politic. ~ Citizen for Freedom

July 3, 2024

As a young child I loved this week which contains both the 4th of July celebration and my birthday. It was a time of great celebration of our country’s role protecting freedom at home and abroad. 1950. I was five years old and IKE was Predident. American and Europe were free from the Nazi menace and rebuilding Europe and its allies, forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a guardrail for democratic nations, pledging to come to each other’s aid when enemies of freedom attacked unprovoked.

Is that world I knew as a child and grew up in – the family, the nation, and a free world – passing?

This present day America which has grown rich and powerful, is in a world of hurt. Gnawing at its foundational principles and structure is a cancer fed by disinformation and superwealth of individuals and corporations empowered by the Citizen’s United ruling – the agent of its dissolution. Corporations do what they do not by consent of their employees but by the inclinations of its leadership: superrich CEO’s and Board members. Whose freedom of speech did Citizen’s United protect?

This abberation of the law is what gnaws at the heartwood of American Democracy. It empowers wealth to choose for us. We can see clearly today that it matters who we put on the Supreme Court. The justices who made the ruling on July 1, 2024 extending Presidential Immunity from the law, struck deep into our essential freedoms, making it not only easier but likely that Presidential power will be abused. It circumscribes citizen’s freedoms making it easier for men to become despots and citizens no more than serfs.

The current Supreme Court has made one ruling after another in which we witness the slow but sure weakening of the Body Politic: 1) Circumscribing the Voter’s Rights laws; 2) Eliminating guardrails on discrimination; 3) Striking down Women’s Rights; 4) weakening the administrative state which has long stabilized the democracy from one adminstrtion to the next; and 5) re-balancing the Balance of Power in our democractic structure and function by giving unlimited power to the Presidency though immunity from the law.

They struck at our basic tenet: no one is above the law in America.

While in theory, a President with character and true loyalty to the basic laws and tenets of a free people would not abuse this power, the fact is that we are now left with the elimination of the legislature’s role as a check on Presidential power (i.e. the people’s consent). Or, the burden of proof just got harder.

Freedom-loving Americns must rise to this singular moment in the country’s history. While we are not perfect by any means, we are still a democracy where voters determine its future.

No matter one’s opinions on political philosophy, you cannot deny that Joe Biden is a man of character and his Cabinet has worked tirelessly to help average Americans. The Blue Ticket has always been for the average citizen but this year the Blue Ticket is about preserving the Republic.

We are at the precipice of freedom.

A Free People is the final refuge of Liberty. Today I call upon everyone I know to stand against the Supreme Court’s decision, to flood the election precincts on November 5 and vote the Blue Ticket to turn the tide away from authoritarianism and flowing back toward freedom of individuals to govern by consent only.

See it for what it truly is: the Vote of Our Lives.

Do We Have a King?

A Coup on American Democratic Institutions

From the National Constitution Center

Dispatch Podcast July 1, 2024

National Constitution Center We the People Podcast

Heather Cox Richardson

A major blow to our democracy has been delivered to the American people who are even more disempowered than before. Let no one diminish the fact that everything is weighing on the American people now to make sure a man with poor character and a history of criminal acts and record of insurrection against the USA, never gets into the Presidency again.

Everything rests on this. And now that all the checks and balances are gone EXCEPT the people, we must act and assure a future for our children.