By John M. Miller
Throughout the first eighty years of the twentieth century, American democracy flourished, despite the obvious partisanship of some of its more forceful presidents: TR, FDR, HST, RN, LBJ. In Congress, the two political parties worked well together, and they cooperated and compromised to get important legislation passed.
Then Ronald Reagan was elected president, twice, and from that point on, American politics started to erode. Each party wanted to do everything they could to take control of both the White House and the Capitol. Both sides gerrymandered Congressional districts to their own advantage as much as the courts would allow. Of course, successful gerrymandering depended on which party controlled which state legislatures and governorships. And, depending on who was sitting on the courts, and who elected or appointed them, the judges and justices might reflect rather than deflect the political partisanship. The parties hired more professionals to succeed in what they sought, and the lobbyist money spent on accomplishing it skyrocketed into the multi-billions nationally and the millions in state or Congressional elections and the production of legislation.
Concurrent with these trends, television news programs became the only source of news for many Americans. Later, internet sources became the sole medium of news for growing millions of people. Newspapers and newsmagazines lost a painful percentage of their readers, and inevitably they had to cut the size of their journalism staffs as well as the number and size of their printed pages. The volume of vetted news decreased, and the volume of fake news thus increased.
An even more alarming trend had plagued us for the past half-century. The level of education that promoted civic awareness and participation has plummeted. The quality of education in general has also dropped, while the secondary school educational emphasis turned to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). We were losing ground economically to our competitors, especially China, and it was thought we had to improve our technological prowess, in which we had previously excelled. However, it was in basic civics where we lost the most ground.
In that process, our schools have turned out too many students who could build better mousetraps or radar systems or automatic weapons or electric cars, but they developed little discernment or inclination for voting intelligently. Whether the schools were public, secularly private or religiously private, the students may have been taught what to think (how to build better mousetraps, etc.), but not how to think.
Experts who study the quality of national educational systems place the USA in the high twenties among all nations. This means we are 26th or 29th from the top in educational excellence. For a country that considers itself excellent in everything, we are definitely not excellent in the quality of students we produce in our high schools and colleges. That is especially true in the low quality of genuine political savvy of our populace. The dangerous uninformed polarity we have created among ourselves is the factor which best illustrates that alarming trend.
As if that that tendency is not bad enough, with the ubiquity of cellphones, more and more Americans instantly turned on their favorite newscasters or news packagers, depending on their growing political biases. Liberals chose liberal sources, and conservatives chose conservative sources. Thus the polarization which had been occurring somewhat naturally since the “Morning in America” president was elected made America an increasingly ignorant nation in genuine civic awareness.
From 2016 on, many of the voters in one of our two major political parties have essentially become a political cult. Many of the voters in the opposite party have become a collection of Cassandras, claiming with little evidence of influence that the nation is coming unglued. Their concern may come to pass, depending on how many objectively informed people turn up at the polls on November 8.
People who only watch news, on whatever media it is they watch it, and do not read well edited and vetted news, are not well informed. They may be well indoctrinated, well programmed, but they are not well informed. Reading is still the primary way to receive and to contemplate what “the news” really means.
The Trumplicult is more than a twisted ideology based on one man. It is a mindset which disparages the value of learning and education, and is actually repulsed by liberally educated people who are attempting to save contemporary America from itself. The recent disastrous Supreme Court decisions are an index of our malaise. The governors and the governments of Texas, Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina are blaring and glaring examples of the potential catastrophes in which we find ourselves. Flagrant successes by which the cultists may control who counts the votes in November is a dire warning to every alert American.
Those whose views of news are formed mainly by watching only cable TV news programming are being bombarded at both ends of the political spectrum by sensationalist emotionalism. Television is a hot medium, as Marshall McLuhan and Newton Minow told us decades ago. The written word is a cool medium - - - or should be. What we need now are readers, not watchers.
We need many millions of cool heads to go to the polls in November who have deeply pondered our current peril. It is not Democrats who will save democracy in the upcoming election, if indeed it is saved. It will be democracy which saves democracy, informed voters, people who understand the seriousness of the threat that is facing us, and who act on their concerns by flooding the polls with their votes.
“The people” must rise to this unique occasion by utilizing our ballots to express our comprehension of the jeopardy which confronts us. This year’s midterm election will determine whether or not we continue as a fully functioning democracy. If the zealous cultists elect a sufficient number of candidates, American democracy will take a new direction from which it might not recover for many years to come.
Are these thoughts nothing more than a conspiracy theory which expresses deep fear of conspiracy theorists? If chaos comes in November of 2022, then in November of 2024 complete chaos will descend upon us, because whoever is elected president and whoever controls Congress will turn us into an American Hungary, Russia, or China. Then it will no longer be a conspiracy theory; it will be a conspiracy fact.
Now is the time for all good folks to come to the aid of the country. We need to think as we approach November 8 rather than merely to react. It is not the future of the Democratic or the Republican parties which is at stake; it is the future of the United States of America which hangs in the balance. Do everything you can to encourage every thinker you know to vote.
- August 1, 2022
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.