America At 250

 Benjamin Franklin said that our nation is 'a republic if you can keep it.' Historian Chalmers Johnson said that a nation cannot continue to be both a republic and an empire. In saying that, he was focussing on the Roman Empire, Great Britain, and the United States. According to Johnson, Rome chose empire while Great Britain chose a republic when the choices had to be made. Johnson said what he said because the demands of each form sabotages the other. And finally we have President Trump. Trump called U.S. policy toward the rest of the nations in the Western Hemisphere the 'Donroe Doctrine,' which seems to be a more intense form of the Monroe Doctrine. For America's 250th birthday, does the Donroe Doctrine tell us which path America has chosen between empire and republic?

To answer that question, one could consider Trump's request for a $600 billion increase in defense spending. This is despite the fact that the U.S. spent more on defense in 2025 than the combined spending of the next 6 nations. Also consider that with the war possibilities that Trump anticipates, Trump claimed that the U.S. government cannot also support Medicare, Medicaid, and daycare programs while financially supporting the military.

How does Trump justify his Donroe Doctrine? For one thing he claims that the U.S. has a right to clean up its own backyard, with its backyard referring to the rest of the nations in the Western Hemisphere. The problem with the comparison is apparent to anyone who has owned a house. One's backyard is a part of one's own property, not someone else's. And so when Trump refers to the rest of the Western Hemisphere as America's backyard, he is implying U.S. ownership over that land.

And so the demands of the Donroe Doctrine as well as Trump's other foreign interests require reducing our government's responsibilities to that of financing its military. But are the President's priorities here the same as the majority of Americans? 

Why the big increase in defense spending? Did not Trump say that it was in anticipation for fighting new wars?  What new wars is Trump talking about? Is Trump speculating what it might take to get some of the nations in the Western Hemisphere in line with his agenda? Here, Trump has had success in influencing some elections in some Western Hemisphere nations. But what will he do to those nations that are not so influenced? Also, is Trump anticipating more Middle East entanglements? And is Trump planning to eventually have a war with China? Are Americans willing to sacrifice their republic to satisfy Trump's appetite for domination and/or acquisition?

And speaking of imperialism, didn't Trump express imperial intentions when he talked about annexing Canada or threatening to use force to do the same to Greenland? Didn't Trump say that he could do anything he wanted to do with Cuba?

And so it seems that Trump is seeking a position of an emperor and/or hegemon. Does the cost of that combination require such executive control of the budget and other facets of government, that allows the President to curtail or eliminate certain rights and benefits? Are there other reasons why Trump wants to remove the Federal Government's support for our current social safety net programs?

And what about the American people. I don't know what the polls say but my preliminary reading of the MAGA doctrine says that Trump's vision for the future includes some key elements which go against what MAGA devotees voted for. And, being that many of those MAGA followers are some of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, I can safely say that at least some of them are no longer keen on keeping the Republic. For some prefer a strongman leader because we religiously conservative Christians have a penchant for authoritarianism. For others, the emergence of the LGBT community from the margins of society have caused  them to lose faith in our democracy. I have even heard some of them even say that they prefer a government led by Putin to supporting full equality for those in the LGBT community. And considering that Project 2025, which Trump seems to be following, is the work of organizations like the Heritage Foundation, conservative preference for a strongman leader as opposed to a republic is significant.

And finally, we need to look at who financially benefits from Trump's imperial and hegemonic dreams. Is it not the Military Industrial Complex including the executives, shareholders, and those employed by the companies in that complex? And there are others besides those in the Military Industrial Complex who also greatly benefit from Trump's imperial and hegemonic dreams. How many of them prefer personal financial gain to keeping our republic?

Because of Trump values-free agenda, he has majored in promoting a transactional agenda. That agenda measures the value of decisions by profit margins. And so all decisions are measured by the amount of profit that can be acrued by Trump and his major donors. The problem with a republic, when the republic takes the form of a representative democracy, is that its emphasis on principles of equality and the value of each individual  person works against the governmental needs of supporting an empire. And the question for America is whether there are enough Americans, most of whom if not all, who have been raised in a consumer-oriented society, who are concerned enough with principles of equality and the value of each person to still prefer a republic.

What values and prinicples are needed to maintain a representative democratic republic? One value is treasuring the sanctity of human life. Besides the abortion issue, when a nation so values the human life of immigrants, especially those who are emigrating to escape poverty and/or violence, so that it freely takes in those who are emigrating to stay alive. Another way of valuing the sanctity of human life is to try to ensure that there are enough jobs with living wages, enough affordable access to food and healthcare, and the realistic chance of economic upward mobility for those in the lower economic classes.

Another essential value to our democratic republic is to protect the equal rights of all people within one's borders regardless of race, religion, national identity, language, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We should note that regardless of the democratic processes we employ, without equality we have no democracy. What we would have instead is some kind of ethnocracy or classocracy with the latter consisting of either oligarchy or plutocracy. And the best way of preserving equality is to work to ensure the equal rights of others.

There are other ways of preserving a democratic republic, especially in the area of voting rights. We need to realize that federal id cards for voting based on birth certificates usually makes it difficult for many in economic lower classes where birth records are more difficult to recover because of the recovery process or the lack of formal record keeping at the time of birth. Those who want federal id cards for voting are not concerned with the obstacles that many in the lower economic classes face in obtaining such id cards. Instead, they are more concerned with restricting voting to only certain American citizens.

The U.S.A. will soon be 250 years-old. It has a complicated history. While those obsessed with patriotism will, at best, acknowledge that America is not perfect; others will point out that perfection is not the issue, direction is. And up until Trump's Republican Party Revolution, we could see a very slow but positive social-justice direction of the nation just by looking at the number and identity of groups that were emerging from the margins of society. That direction was positive however slight and slow it was. That positive direction was due to prioritizing values over interests, principles over transactionalism when the they clashed.

Trump's Republican Party Revolution has changed the direction of the nation in several ways. Not only has the nation more strongly pursuing a transactional direction that prioritizes profit margins over people, it is becoming more authoritarian. And note the pairing here. When we are more concerned with principles of equality and the value of people, we tend to be more democratic in how we are governed. When we measure value by profit margins, we also place a higher value on domination, we look to authoritarianism. And that is not only true when we passively look on while oligarchy gains more influence on our government, it is also the case when we become more ethnocratic such as what exists in Christian Nationalism.

And so America at 250 faces a crossroads. Will it restore that slight but positive direction toward a more equal and just society and nation, or will Trump's Republican Revolution become more and more the status quo of our nation. Please note that all of the negative end results that Marx saw in Capitalism are incarnated in Trump. We cannot have both Trump's Republican Revolution providing the new status quo for our nation while maintaining a democracy with equality. The more we slide down Trump's rabbit hole, the more authoritarian, and thus darker, our status quo and thus our future becomes. And the defense against such a future is simple. We need to be vigilant in defending the equality of others in the nation. For in so doing, we prioritize principles of equality and the value of each person  over profit margins when they clash.

America As A Nation Is Much Older Than America Is As A Democracy

Europe and North America are facing a battle between Democracy with equality vs authoritarianism with hierarchy. Today's conservative populous groups favor the latter. 

The more groups that are recognized as having equal rights in society in a given nation, the more that nation is leaning toward Democracy with equality. The more that a nation operates by giving preferential treatment to a given set of group(s) based on ethnicity, economic class, and/or ideology, the more that country embraces authoritarianism with hierarchy. What muddies the waters here is how groups that promote authoritarianism with hierarchy are treated.

Why is equality a requirement for a democracy? Jeff Halper explains on pg 74 of his book An Israeli In Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel when comparing ethnocracy with democracy

'An ethnocracy is the opposite of a democracy, although it might incorporate some elements of democracy such as universal citizenship and elections. It arises when one particular group—the Jews in Israel, the Russians in Russia, the Protestants in pre-1972 Northern Ireland,  the whites in apartheid South Africa,  the Shi’ite Muslims of Iran, the Malay of Malaysia and, if they had their way, the white Christian fundamentalist in the US—seizes control of the government and the armed forces in order to enforce a regime of exclusive privilege over other groups in what is in fact a multi-ethic or multi-religious society. Ethnocracy, or ethno-nationalism, privileges ethnos over demos. whereby one’s ethnic affiliation, be it defined by race, descent, religion, language or national origin, takes precedence over citizenship in determining to whom a country actually “belongs.” Israel is referred to explicitly by its political leaders as a “Jewish Democracy.”

Thomas Jefferson put it a little bit differently by saying what a democracy becomes when the majority does not respect the equal rights of the minority in his 1801 Inaugural Address

'All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression'

In other words, unless minority groups are recognized and treated as having equal rights, you have groups that do not have an equal share of the nation as well as oppression.

The more consistently we apply the inclusion of equality with democracy, the more we are compelled to relabel what the U.S has been for most of its existence. Until lately, America has been a nation that is not a democracy. And the more that political conservatives answer back that we were created to be a republic, the more they show that they do not understand the different forms that a democracy can take and that they are in favor of hierarchy provided that they are the ones with the power over all others. So considering that, should we be surprised at the support that my fellow politically conservative evangelicals have shown Trump and how they will be reluctant to withdraw that support even though they feel a building tension inside? 

Could we say that America was a democracy from 1787 to 1865? Blacks, Native Americans, and women could better answer that question. Could we say that America was a democracy from the start of  Reconstruction  to the 1920s? Blacks, Women, and Native Americans could better answer that question. Could we say that America was a democracy from the 1920s through the rest of Jim Crow? Blacks and women could better answer that question. Has America become a democracy since the days of the Civil Rights Movement? Blacks and the LGBT community could better answer that question--btw the LGBT community could answer all of the previous questions too. If you don't count the dominance that the wealthy have had over our government, we have been, ethnically speaking, coming closer to becoming a democracy than we ever had in the history of our nation. And that is because more and more groups were having their equal rights recognized by their governments and by more and more people in society.

And so America's transition to Democracy with equality has been very slow and long journey as it has been in much of the rest of the world. Before that, authoritarianism with hierarchy has ruled the day. And so perhaps we should not be surprised when we see groups throughout Europe and North America vying to reestablish authority with hierarchy. Once that has been reestablished, it is goodbye to democracy.

One of the keys to Trump's populism was the Obergefell Decision. Why? It is because it was after that SCOTUS decision when many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians were galvanized in fighting with their backs against the wall a culture war of their own making. The final spark that sustained the religiously conservative Christian initiated culture war was the emergence of the Trans community from the margins of society. And so the expansion of LGBT rights energized religiously conservative Christian to continue the culture wars. Without equal rights being recognized for the LGBT community, Trump might not have had enough ammunition to fan the flames and exploit the culture wars.

Our return back to the past, to authoritarianism with hierarchy, was well marketed by the Trump campaign. That kind of authoritarianism was sold as being ethnically based by demonizing DEI--religion is an ethnicity. And though the concerns of those who hated DEI have been initially based on religion, our actual return to authoritarianism is primarily economic class based--as the Trump Presidency has shown. In other words, what we are seeing is further cementing of a classocracy, Oligarchy in our case, wearing ethnocratic clothing. In other words we just experienced a partial bait and switch. And so we have begun our journey to become like Russia. Today's Russia is an oligarchy with a strongman leader and has a religious façade.

And so as we lose our democracy, let's remember that democracy was never really entrenched in America. And that is because, just as it is in the world, America's base has always been looking to dominate whether that pertains to dominating domestically or globally. What we are seeing today is tragic. It is like seeing a child die and so we are now robbed from seeing what that child would become if they were given an opportunity to fully mature.

Where The World Stands Now

Monsters Among Us

Apparently under beds are not the only places where monsters reside. Some monsters have managed to become heads of state. Others have become gangs. Of course it is easy to point to Putin, Jinping, and Hamas as being monsters. But what about Netanyahu and those who are aiding him? Is what Netanyahu doing in Gaza and the West Bank any less evil than what Putin doing in Ukraine or what Jinping has done in Uyghur? And what about Islamic Jihad and ISIS? They cannot be left off the list. I am sure that there are others missing from this very brief list. In fact, with the way that the US has replaced left leaning democracies with brutal tyrants, we could add both those tyrants and the U.S. Presidents who supported them to the list. 

The Current Battle

Authoritarianism has reigned for what seems like all of human history. It wasn't until the 20th century that we really began to see the emergence of democracy. Some would remind me that America became a democracy after the Revolutionary War. But what is essential to democracy is equality and that is where America fell far short. America began to approach democracy as women gained the right to vote and Native Americans could become citizens. But those events occurred in the 1920s. The Civil Rights Movement and the Sexual Revolution, without the right to an elective abortion, elevated more groups out of marginalization. And now we are facing a counterrevolution to the emergence of the LGBT community out of the margins.

Currently, America is approaching democracy as more groups are recognized as having equal rights. But it appears that there is a western  counterrevolution to democracy with equality. And so democracy with equality is being challenged by authoritarianism with hierarchy. The current form of authoritarianism in Europe and America is authoritarian ethnocratic movements where the ethnocracies in Western European nations are based on national identity and race while the ethnocracies in America and Eastern Europe tend to be based on religion.

However, seeing that if the authoritarian ethonocratic movement in America takes control, America will resemble what Russia is today. And if we look at what Russia is today, perhaps the ethnocratic movements are mere disguises meant to usher in the kind of authoritarian government that Russia has.

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto

Published in 1955 in response to the development of thermonuclear weapons by the U.S. and the then U.S.S.R., British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and it was endorsed by Albert Einstein. Other famous scientists added their signatures to the document.

The understanding these men had of the results of an all out nuclear war were not as well understood then as they are today. Then, they understood such a war made the practical extinction of mankind possible. From what we understand now, such a result is a certainty.

Back then, only the U.S. and the then U.S.S.R. were the only nations that possessed thermonuclear weapons. Today more nations possess such weapons including India and Pakistan who, btw, almost went to war with each other in 2001. And so the threat of nuclear war is currently greater today than back in 1955.

And when we consider that advancements in technology make the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and other WMDs, inevitable, the warning issued by the Russell-Einstein Manifesto needs to be heeded now more than ever. Below is part of that Manifesto (click here for the source and the full document ):

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.

The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term “mankind” feels vague and abstract... They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited. 

This hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out

Though some would point to history and say that the warning of the Manifesto is not realistic because we have always had war. The Manifesto points us to other realities at play here. And those realities include what will follow the continued reliance on war to settle our disputes as well as the results of a full scale nuclear war. For those results tell us that such a war is a death sentence not just for the warring nations, but for all of mankind throughout the whole world.

Where do we stand in the 21st century having been warned in 1955 by such an esteemed collection of scientists? First, we should note that some nations already have stockpiles of thermonuclear weapons and so there would be no need to produce new ones. Second, Israel and the Palestinian terrorists are still at war with each other. The U.S. has attacked either directly or through proxies multiple nations. And Russia once invaded part of Georgia to its south and has been invading Ukraine. NATO is providing Ukraine with weapons and ammunition so it can defend itself. And the Russian leader, Vlad² Putin, has threatened to use nuclear weapons on those who would go too far in aiding Ukraine. 

And should Russia succeed in conquering Ukraine, it is unclear as to whether it would be satisfied with that conquest or it would invade other nations. And should Russia attack a NATO member, then we have a world war. But then again, NATO's expansion eastward not only reminds Russia of some horrific parts of its past, it went against the understanding that President George H. W. Bush had with then General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev when they agreed on Germany being reunited.

Have we learned enough from our scientists, both past and present, on how to survive the 21st century? If we look at the U.S., the answer appears to be 'NO!' For just as too many of us Americans scoffed at the pandemic warnings and thus incurred one of the highest, if not the highest, death rate from Covid among the 1st world nations, too many of us also scoff at climate change. The latter reaction is due to the unwillingness to change our lifestyles. And that unwillingness puts future generations at risk.

Evolution tells us that survival can depend on a species' ability to adapt to its environment. Yet, human history tells us that we humans are highly resistant not just to change, but to even recognize the need to change. And that is especially true for those who live the good life.

Our prospects do not look good.

The Rule of Law vs The Rule of Force

In trying to distinguish Israel from its enemies, Ben Netanyahu claimed that Israel follows the Rule of Law while his Palestinian enemies do not. What Ben, and I can call him Ben because he went to a neighboring high school of mine and he is somewhat close to my age, did not understand is that the Rule of Law is not about being strong enough to make the rules for others to follow--that also seems to be the American version of the Rule of Law. Rather, the Rule of Law refers to the set of laws which all nations, including those nations that make rules for others, are to follow. Here, the Rule of Law refers to international law. And when it comes to violating international law, Israel is as guilty as those Palestinian terrorists who are its enemies.

Are the major powers any different here from Israel and its enemies in terms of not following the Rule of Law? The U.S. certainly isn't and neither is Russia, nor are the major players in NATO. And that brings us back to the Russell-EInstein Manifesto and ominous clouds that seem to be advancing toward us from the horizon.

Conclusion

History and the book of James tells us that we fight wars because we don't have what we want. In fact, sometimes we go to war because others won't share with us what is rightfully theirs. And since the continued reliance on war will eventually trigger the use of WMDs, such as thermonuclear weapons, as it stands now our demise will be the result of our refusal to share power and wealth with others. Such a conclusion does not bode well in the current political climate where many nations are seeing movements that demand to have absolute power over their own nations. And they demand to have such power because they feel exclusively entitled to it due to their own delusions of grandeur.

And the above is where this blog's 2024 emphasis comes into play. For that emphasis revolves around what Martin Luther King Jr. said about the need for a world revolution that calls on us to change from being a thing-orient society to being a person-oriented society(click here for the source):

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

That revolution can start at home and with how we treat our own neighbors. And then it can spread to the nation and how it treats its neighbors, especially those who are seeking to escape poverty and violence. And perhaps, then we can see that revolution change into a world revolution.