Category Archives: All Politics Is Local

Political Religion

In his book Bad Religion, Ross Douthat states: “Using the Word of God to support political causes has long marred Christianity.”

The interplay between Christianity and politics has long been discussed by both religious and secular thinkers. When Christianity began in the backwaters of the Roman Empire, it would hardly have been suspected of much influence. It came to the attention of Rome only after its rapid spread had disturbed the authorities by its devotion to another king, Jesus, called the Christ.

Few adherents of the new religion, however, advocated the overthrow of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the apostle Paul sometimes appealed to his Roman citizenship for protection. Roman roads meant the gospel could more easily be spread. Good government is indeed a blessing.

Roman authorities were mistaken in their belief that the Christianity of Jesus wished to overthrow the empire. When practiced, however, Christianity conquered the Roman empire, but by peaceful means. The government continued, but the practice of Christianity grew to become a major influence.

In its first few centuries, the interplay between government and religion continued. After Christianity became, not only tolerated, but ascendant, the temptation to use it for political purposes increased. However, the more that Christians attempted to use political power, the more they risked corruption.

Later, when religion and political power began to separate, Christianity grew. Those who chose a religion because they would be persecuted if they did not, now were free to leave. Many did. However, the new freedom meant that the remaining members were more committed to their faith. Their dedicated work drew in new members.

In areas like the southeastern United States (where I grew up), the general population was more “religious” in the sense of church membership. Religion became part of the general culture. That included a kind of civil religion.

For many, this meant choosing a political party which catered to religious beliefs. Even though you could choose your religion, you were more favorably accepted, including politically, if you were culturally Christian. Such societies, however, tend to ignore the hard parts of the gospel.

It’s not a coincidence that slavery and then segregation became embedded in southern culture, while the area was termed more “religious” than other parts of the nation.

However, it’s also not a coincidence that Christians have been among those fighting first slavery and then segregation. Stories are legion of southern children growing up in a segregated society who eventually took their Christianity so seriously that they become convinced that racial discrimination was terribly wrong.

The fact that such struggles continue should not surprise us. Those who take Christ seriously, while often a minority, often surprise us with the changes they ultimately birth.

Is Jesus in My Politics?

The short answer for a Christian is: “Yes, of course Jesus influences my politics, the same way Jesus influences how I interact with family or my neighbors or my fellow workers.” Presumably, if I’m attempting to live as a follower of Christ, the teachings of Jesus guide me in all parts of my life. This would include my political life as well.

Thankfully, the U.S. Constitution gives me the right to worship God as I see fit, even to ignore religion if I so choose. It gives that same right to all Americans.

The Constitution’s protection of the right of Americans to believe and worship as they see fit, however, was revolutionary at the time. In the Europe from which most of the American founders descended, a state church was a given. Perhaps because they saw how religious wars had devastated large parts of Europe in the recent past, the founders wisely decided to avoid such conflict by opting out of a state religion.

The majority of early Americans were influenced by churches, however, even those not active in one. Certainly, the country’s day to day life was influenced by what people thought was Christian. (Surely, though, any country that was truly “Christian” would not have allowed slavery.)

The United States stayed more religiously attuned long after Europe had become more secular. Eventually, however, secular trends reached more and more Americans. Christian worship lessened, even though many who did not regularly worship would call themselves “Christian” in a cultural sense. Active church membership, however, has decidedly declined.

Any group who has been in a majority tend to be alarmed when their group diminishes, whether religious, political, or even believers in small town life. In addition, of course, political movements now concern fundamental issues like marriage and abortion. People who considered themselves Christian because of culture may not consider themselves as such in terms of traditional beliefs on these issues.

The question is not whether those actively involved in trying to live as Jesus taught should be concerned. Certainly they should be. The question is how they will respond to their concerns. America is not changing because it is no longer “Christian.” It is changing because those calling themselves Christians are being challenged to actually live as followers of Christ.

Giving Up When You Lose

The United States has often complained to some of our Central American neighbors when unelected dictators take over a government. Lately, Guatemala has bucked the trend and freely elected Bernardo Arévalo to be their new president.

In a region where freely elected governments are hardly a given, the election in Guatemala has been a welcome signal that things could change. Hopefully, outgoing officials will feel the pressure and allow the new government to take over.

Regardless, the United States must temper any arrogance toward countries with a tradition of less than freely elected governments. After all, Donald Trump’s supporters in our last election attempted to keep him in power by insisting that he won the election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In court case after court case, the results of Joe Biden’s election to the presidency have been validated.

Even in a country with a long history of democratically elected leaders, some would still attempt to overcome that tradition and connive to keep in power a man who lost an election.

The euphoria that followed the end of the cold war, when democracy appeared to be in the ascendency, has vanished. We are learning again how difficult it still can be for free and fair elections to be accepted.

 

When We Have Enough? What Then?

Americans certainly include those who are poor, but America in the last half century or so has known an age of prosperity unlike any in history. What do we do with our prosperity?

Those with money left over after their basic needs are met will make choices, whether purposefully or not. Understandably, “basic” is a moving target. Nevertheless, American prosperity has long given a significant number of us disposable income.

Most would agree on uses of income that we would abhor—use of income to sexually exploit others, especially children, for example. We generally would agree, in principal at least, that paying bribes to obtain political favors is wrong.

But what lawful ways do we agree are acceptable? Vacations, probably. Surely, time away from routine duties refreshes and renews us. But vacations can range from a few days of hiking trails to mind expanding foreign travel to expensive sojourns in exotic locations.

We can use extra money to fix up our house to be more livable and create space for relaxing hobbies or entertaining or bringing people together in community. Or we can make our house some kind of useless god which devours our money and time and keeps us from more useful pursuits.

We can support political causes. We can support international efforts to feed people or develop democracies. We can support soup kitchens and affordable housing.

We owe it to the gifts given us to give thought as to how we use them. Money itself is not the root of all evil. As always, our decisions about the use of our money determine whether money is good or evil.

Letting the Other Side Win

Many years ago, when one of my sons played on a church baseball team, I remember a heated confrontation between players at one of the games. I don’t remember the exact play which started the argument, but the young boys, all presumably church goers, fell into a heated debate about the call. Fortunately, the leaders were able to tamp down the hostility before blows were exchanged.

Unfortunately, Americans today in the political realm too often appear in need of adult supervision. Granted the stakes are high. Abortion, election results, sexual identity, and other issues have bitterly divided us. Surely, no one can deny either the importance of the issues or the major impact of political decisions on them.

What should be questioned is our hostility, even seeming hatred, toward those who disagree with us. How can we find paths that allow disagreement, but without hatred, even on matters we consider of utmost importance, even dealing with human life?

How should we choose to fight when we lose a political round? Even when we are sure our cause is not only right but morally right?

The only acceptable path, it seems to me, is to allow the winners to win, then become members of “the loyal opposition.” To correct political directions we believe to be wrong, we have the freedom to organize peaceful campaigns, present our arguments through newspapers and social media, and talk to our friends and neighbors.

No matter how absolutely sure we are of our beliefs, no one, in fact, including us, is infallible. Surely the height of arrogance is to assume that we are.

Healing Before Leading

I worked at a U.S. consulate in a Middle Eastern country many years ago during a government shutdown over congressional budget disputes. It was hard to explain the shutdown to the people in that country, those we were trying to interest in a democratic form of government. They may have wondered why they should accept a kind of government that couldn’t even keep its government functioning.

The country is even more divided today. Yet, we persist in trying to overcome those with whom we disagree by following a “take no prisoner” kind of approach. If we don’t win, we’ll make it impossible for the winners to govern.

Democracy, however, requires that the losing side let the winning side govern, as it was elected to do. We don’t come up with ways to impede the government when we’re on the losing side. We write and speak our criticisms, but we don’t shut down government functions.

Americans have generally prided themselves on sportsmanship—the referee makes a call, and we expect the losing side to acquiesce. For the game to go on, the players must follow the rules, even accepting penalties when the referee so calls them.

It helps if we recognize that no human or human movement is without error. We may think those on the opposite side of an issue, with whom we strongly disagree, are wrong. If they win, however, we accept it and govern as “the loyal opposition,” with emphasis on loyal. We don’t act like children in a temper tantrum because they must share a toy.

Saturday Night Live Politics

Lately, the American political scene resembles the old Saturday Night Live TV show at its best, before Covid and Hollywood actor strikes. In a kind of comedy of errors, political groups sling accusations at each other, sometimes so absurd as to be comical. They form cabals, making it almost impossible even to appoint routine government officials.

Meanwhile, our tax system continues to favor the rich, allowing political clout to be based more on political donations than on what voters want.

In addition, state voting districts too often favor gerrymandered divisions having little resemblance to actual population distribution.

Our foundational documents are showing their age, beset with modern problems undreamed of in the 18th century.

Even if our foundational documents were all updated, however, issues like abortion and gender identity would not be easily solved. The problem is not with any one issue. The problem is the absolute certainty that tempts us, we fallible humans. We do not listen to our opponents or oppose them with arguments, or God forbid, talk responsibly together. We prefer to demonize each other.

Perhaps it would help if we realized our human imperfections and noted that our founding documents, indeed, were written by imperfect humans. Yet, the country’s founders also made them difficult to change. We can hope that one day we may come together in a more conciliatory age and update our constitution.

At the present time, however, we may simply have to muddle along—in other words, work within the imperfections of our founding documents. What is a greater impediment to our political functioning is our refusal to recognize that no political group or human being has all the answers. It would help if we humbly recognized the possibility that the other side could be right or, at the least, have ideas worth considering.

Taking valuable time by throwing up unnecessary roadblocks to ordinary government duties is not just maddening but possibly deadly to the country’s influence and even survival.

Stopping Politics at the Water’s Edge

Senator Arthur Vandenberg, from Michigan, is credited with using the phrase: “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” Though a Republican, he supported President Harry Truman’s anticommunist foreign policy. America could practice effective world leadership only if partisan domestic politics did not spill over into the country’s foreign policy decisions.

Though a mob attacking the U.S. capitol on January 10, 2021, did not directly attack U.S. foreign policy, it certainly weakened respect for the country’s ability to lead in world affairs. If our own ability to peacefully elect and inaugurate a president is in jeopardy, why should we presume world leadership?

Our government is based on peaceful changes to power, not mob violence. Those who lose must let the winners take office, even if the differences that divide us include life changing issues like abortion, sexual orientation, and school curriculums.

Such respect for the other side on an issue does not restrict peaceful involvement in groups favoring change. The ability to criticize via print and internet also is a protected right. (This right does not include lying or false accusations.) In addition, local elections provide opportunities for newer political directions.

America loves a winner. Yet, in past history, those who lost elections sometimes, by patient perseverance, ended up as later winners. Sometimes, of course, past ideas were changed by new discoveries or directions in thought.

We are all subject to human error. Allow past error to be changed by peaceful means. As long as we can look forward to the next free election, we can and should accept our losses.

Taxing the Second Million

Earning the first million dollars of income is the hard part, we are told, but the second million is comparatively easy. A financial advisor could line out this truism, as well as the time required, depending on the investments. Nevertheless, I’m fairly certain that investing most of your million (even after saving out a little for conspicuous consumption) would net you another million within a reasonable time frame. I’d bet it would certainly be sooner than earning the first million.

What are the reasons for wanting a second million? And should we not place a higher tax on that second million?

One reason for earning money far beyond our basic needs could be a desire to improve and/or grow a company. Another might include growing wealth in order to give much of it to charitable causes. Others: comfort in old age; passing to children; buying the things we lacked growing up; or simply a desire to own as many things as possible.

We make our own judgements of right and wrong ways to use wealth. Along with these judgements is the question of what is the proper taxation of that wealth. How do we in the United States decide this issue?

I wonder why, with all the wealth in this country, we not only experience tax deficits but also poverty, especially child poverty. Yes, I know, the drug epidemic has certainly fueled some of it. However, plenty of low wage earners work hard, stay off drugs, and still have problems meeting basic needs.

Some of it happens because men don’t support the children they father. Some of this can be tied to the breakup of a common belief that a man and a woman should be committed in marriage before they have children.

Nevertheless, the children should not suffer inadequate food and housing because of what their parents did or didn’t do.

Yes, we should establish safeguards and checks against welfare going to the wrong people. However, every child in this wealthy country should have basic needs met. That includes proper schooling as well as food and a safe place to grow up.

If this requires more taxation, I believe the taxes could be raised on our wealthier citizens without any injustice to them.

The Psalms of the Old Testament were written thousands of years ago. Yet, the call for justice to “the poor and oppressed” is often stressed in its pages. For any of us who value justice, the care of the poor and needy is a minimum requirement for a just society.

Since Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford

In 1976 Jimmy Carter and incumbent Vice President Gerald Ford vied with each other for the U.S. presidency. That may have marked the highest level of decency for a U.S. presidential campaign since then. Both candidates appeared decent men who respected not only the electoral process but each other. Carter narrowly defeated Ford for a one-term presidency.

Since then, we appear to have descended lower and lower into hatred and falsehood. No doubt the internet and easy access to rumors, with less fact checking, have played a part.

Whatever the reason, arrogance sets the tone. Our side has all the answers; the other side is not only wrong but a villain. We don’t just disagree with each other—too often we appear to despise each other. The fate of the world is dependent, apparently, on whether we win.

Somehow, we seem to have lost a valuable sense of humility.

Certainly, we have our standards of what is the better political direction for the country. So does out neighbor. It may be different from ours. The problem is not different viewpoints. That is inevitable given the world we live in.

What often seems to be ignored is that all human viewpoints are imperfect, including our own.

If We Care About Children

Often ignored in the controversy about the U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow states to forbid abortion, is the cost of having a child in this country. If we care about children, perhaps we ought to make it easier to have them.

Rose Marie Berger, an editor at Sojourners magazine, visited the issue of free births (Sojo.net, May, 2023.) She quoted extensively from an article by Elizabeth Bruenig (The Atlantic, “Make Birth Free,” July 9, 2022.) According to the article, a birth in the United States costs an average of $18,265. The average not covered by insurance, the article states, is about $2,850. Presumably, poorer mothers tend not to have any medical insurance.

Raising a child continues to cost, of course—food, adequate shelter, clothes, doctor visits, and so on. In addition, unusual medical conditions can render more expenses than any normal household can cover. Some parents have family medical insurance through a job. Having a job, however, is not a guarantee of medical insurance. Lesser paying, more seasonal jobs, often have no medical insurance.

While Medicare provides medical insurance for older Americans, medical care for children often depends on what kind of job their parents have.

If we want to save children’s lives, both those unborn and those already born, we could start simply with making children more affordable for average Americans.

Healing Before Leading

This week a school killing in the city where I grew up, Nashville, Tennessee, brought the tragedies of my country a little closer to me.

How can we expect to live up to our world leadership status when we can’t even protect school children? How can we lead the world against tyranny when we lack money for adequate water systems in some American cities? How can we support democratic movements in other countries when our own country experiences rising income inequality?

To lead the world does not require that we think we are better or more superior to other nations. It does require that we practice respect for each other and for differing opinions. No one person, government official or private citizen, has all the answers.

Democracy requires that some win elections and some lose elections. The winners have an obligation to listen to all opinions while carrying out their programs. The losers have an obligation to respect the right of the winners to govern even while respectfully disagreeing with them on some or many issues.

To squander the blessings given us by withdrawing into our corners and waiting for an opportunity to knock the other unconscious hardly produces a well governed country.

Perhaps a country governed by the people is more like a continuing race in which different teams hand off power to another team who performs better. Nobody is annihilated. The losers rest and enter the contest at a later date.

Renewing Democracy

Actually, the United States does not have a democracy. We do not elect our national leaders by popular vote. We elect them by people called electors, sent to Washington in early January every four years by the states after the presidential election.

Until January 6, 2021, few Americans paid attention to the electoral college, meeting after each presidential election to certify the vote. For most of our history, it functioned as a kind of rubber stamp after the November election.

Where did this “electoral college” come from? Some of our nation’s founding leaders, back in the late eighteenth century, didn’t trust the idea of ordinary citizens electing their leaders. They wanted a group of supposedly enlightened state leaders to actually decide on the outcome of the presidential election. Ordinary citizens would elect these “electors” who would then make the choice for them of the next president.

We all know how that turned out.

Nothing humans devise is perfect. We must constantly fine tune even well-thought out designs. After the January 6, 2021 calamity, perhaps we should examine the idea of political parties, whose development the founding citizens didn’t foresee.

One suggestion for overcoming the power of political parties is ranked choice voting. Voters rank political candidates on their ballots instead of voting only for one.

Another is overcoming gerrymandering. Gerrymandering allows winners of an election to create voting districts that don’t reflect the population density but instead create weird districts that tie the favored party into divisions that favor them.

Regardless of the methods chosen, we need voting laws which decrease the power of parties and increase the power of individual voters.

The Winter Ahead

Growing up in the shadow of the Cold War, I remember the joy we felt after Soviet Union satellite countries began throwing off Soviet rule and establishing democracies. Was that only thirty or so years ago?

Ukraine now braces for Vladimir Putin’s reawakened desire for a Russian empire as winter clamps down. Democratic governments worldwide have moved toward more autocratic rule. Xi Jinping has consolidated his rule in China, though lately his Covid lock down has caused problems.

Of course, we have no guarantee that changes in either Russia or China would bring in more humane regimes. Given the trends lately, some are understandably pessimistic.

Perhaps the greatest risk is to the country that has, since the mid twentieth century, been seen as the guarantor of democracy, the United States.

Trembles from the January 6th 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as continuing threats from groups espousing armed insurrection, continue to worry us. That numerous courts have upheld Joe Biden as the legally elected president of the United States seems not to matter for some. If you lose, the present pattern seems to be, you simply ignore the facts and declare a fraudulent election.

One major reason the United States was victorious in the long Cold War against the Soviet Union was the staying power of U.S. democratic traditions. Despite our nation undergoing long needed changes to overcome racial sins of the past, the people hung together against outside enemies.

We overcame huge disagreements, yet were united in holding to and even increasing our democratic practices.

Now we spend too much time fighting simply to remain humane and to overcome insidious slurs. And almost daily, it seems, moral pygmies decide to use guns to hurt as many people as possible.

How can we overcome these harmful trends even as winter provides an even more challenging environment?

Courage, perhaps, to uphold those who attempt civil discussion about real problems. Common sense to ignore those who would waste valuable time on lies or meaningless accusations.

Loving Our (Political) Enemies

Today, we are faced with a rise of what is called “Christian nationalism.” In this movement, the Christ story is supposedly tied to America.

This comes close to proclaiming the worship of a country. It also elevates political parties to claiming almost godly status. If our side loses, we, being God’s people, must prevail even if it means physically overcoming the other side, as was attempted at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Christianity can be championed in at least two ways. Too often, the church of the early modern era chose the political, nationalistic route: Those who didn’t follow the prescribed belief of an established church risked being killed, tortured, or exiled.

Though they certainly had their faults, the revived Christian groups of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries chose a decidedly better way of championing Christianity. Groups of Christians, not countries, were more likely to carry Jesus’ story to the non-Western world. This movement included “good works” like feeding the hungry and setting up schools, in home countries as well as on mission fields.

Today, we risk falling again into the trap of “might makes right.”

“Democracy is currently facing an unprecedented crisis, both in the United States and around the world.” (Daniel K. Williams, “The Forgotten Christian Cause: Preserving Democracy,” Christianity Today, October 17, 2022)

We are all sinners, prone to error. Until we recognize that we are not capable of playing God ourselves, democracy may be in danger.

“Democracy in the U.S. will succeed only if parties on both sides are ‘willing to allow their worst enemies to govern if they win an election.’” (Historian James Kloppenberg, quoted in the Williams article.)

 

Christian Nationalism? Which Christianity?

Recently, we’ve seen discussions about saving “Christian America.”

What would it look like to “save Christian America”?

Which Christian America would we save?

A generally establishment Protestant Christian America? An evangelical Christian America? Would it allow citizenship for those practicing Roman Catholicism? What about Greek Orthodoxy?

Not atheists or Jews or Muslims, I suppose. That does, however, seem to suggest taking a lesson from some Middle Eastern countries which uphold Islam as the state religion. Is making some form of Christianity a test for holding office any better than Iranian mullahs dictating an Islamic government?

Unfortunately, saving Christian America might end up like saving Christian Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Religious wars devastated Europe. Christians who didn’t agree with other Christians killed their Christian enemies with sword and torture while presiding over mass devastation of the countryside.

Getting to practical considerations, what kind of litmus test would we require of seekers after public office? What must they swear to uphold in order to have a “Christian” America?

Maybe we could just require Christian office holders to “follow Jesus.”

Of course, one test for a “Jesus follower” might be a test Jesus mentioned, the “last judgement test.” The only ones accepted at the end of the age are those who followed Jesus in his concern for the “least” people—the poor, jailed, hungry, and so on. Possibly we could make this a criteria for leadership.

 

That Voting Privilege

There may have been an election or two for which I was eligible to vote and did not, but I don’t remember it.

I once searched out a notary public in Kotzebue, Alaska, to notarize my vote. I have voted absentee from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia., and Washington, D.C.

I have voted in various towns in the United States: Jackson and Adamsville in Tennessee, Oak Park in Illinois, and other towns in California and Georgia, whose names I barely remember.

As a U.S. Foreign Service officer, I have helped overseas Americans cast absentee ballots for their home states when they were abroad in foreign countries.

My connection with voting began early. I played around polling booths growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, where my parents helped as poll volunteers.

Also, of course, I have lived in countries where citizens couldn’t vote, where elections were not held at all.

These experiences cause me to wonder why so many Americans don’t bother with voting.

I’m particularly saddened by the efforts of a few misguided individuals to discourage some Americans from being able to easily vote.

Perhaps, they need to experience what it’s like to live in countries where only privileged individuals have a voice.

Turning the U.S. Into a Democracy

The United States, at this time, is not a democracy, that is a country ruled solely by its citizens. The founding of the country certainly was at the forefront of the movement to give power to citizens, compared with most other countries in the world at the time. As the years passed, however, we did not build on this beginning as we should have.

We have certainly progressed from those white mostly upper class men who hammered out a constitution for the new nation in the late 1780’s. The progress, however, has been slow and incomplete.

It took us almost a century to rid the country of slavery, and the racism that lingers from that time still impedes us. The election of senators by citizens and not state legislatures was granted in 1913. Women weren’t give the right to vote until 1920.

We also are burdened, as we discovered on January 6, 2021, by a relic from the past, the electoral college. This gives power to individual states to elect the president rather than to the popular vote. It also allowed for the growth of political parties, not foreseen by many of the country’s founders at the time.

One suggestion for giving more power to citizens over political parties is the institution of ranked-choice voting. Voters rank candidates by choice. The two candidates with the most votes win. They could be from different political parties, the same party, or have no party affiliation. It would tend to give more power to voters and less to political parties.

Who knows? In time, perhaps we might eventually tackle the problem of gerrymandering, in which outsize power is given to party leaders to set voting boundaries.

Taking Democracy for Granted?

Watching events in Britain following the death of Queen Elizabeth II has given me a new admiration for a country that has practiced an evolution of democracy through centuries of existence. To an outsider, the British form of government is a gigantic hodgepodge of laws and practices and traditions. Yet it works as a democracy.

I’m concerned about my own country of America in comparison. You would think, considering our traditions of self-government and “government by the people” and our Constitution, we would be just as firmly certain of our democratic traditions here.

Yet, we’re the ones who almost lost, if not the republic, something close to it with the storming of the Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral ballots on January 6, 2021.

Writes Adam Russell Taylor: “It’s both alarming and bitterly ironic that false claims of a stolen election continue to be used to make a truly stolen election increasingly possible.” (“Democracy Can Be Easily Taken for Granted,” Sojourners, Sept/Oct 2022)

In that same issue of Sojourners, Rose Marie Berger writes of the recent visit of seventeen international religious leaders to Ukraine. (“Come and See.”) They were answering an appeal from requests on Ukraine social media for religious leaders to visit Ukraine in solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

She commented on the false religious teaching of Putin and others seeking to build a country around “a particular ‘race or tribe.’ It’s what happens when religion cloaks ethno-nationalism with a veneer of mortal rectitude.”

The temptation of political power is strong. Some would even use religion as a weapon to gain that power instead of as a path to God.

Lose the Republic or Lose an Election?

Does the idea of democracy—people rule—come from an optimistic view of humankind or a pessimistic one?

Do its adherents believe that people, given the chance to rule, will always (or most of the time) choose the best leader? Do they believe that the alternative, dictatorship or oligarchy, would prove too liable to corruption?

If you believe that power spread widely will naturally result in good rulers, you will be be disappointed in some of our U.S. elections. (I don’t mean only in the 21st century.)

On the other hand, if you believe that the people are going to elect bad leaders at least once in a while, you may weather the occasional bad leader with more optimism.

A problem arises when a significant number of people are not willing to accept the view of the majority (or of electors, given our electoral system.) After the past election, some who voted for the losing candidate were so disappointed in the outcome that they could not accept the evidence of multiple investigations and court cases indicating that Joe Biden had, in fact, won against Donald Trump.

It couldn’t be, they proclaimed, that Trump didn’t win. Surely, he represented what the people wanted. They seemed unable to understand that they had backed a losing candidate.

Of course, loss this time is wrapped up in strong opinions about particularly divisive subjects like abortion and public school curriculums, to name just two.

Perhaps it’s a lesson each generation of Americans must learn: rule by the people (or their electors) means we lose sometimes—even in matters that deeply concern us.

Congratulate the winners and start working for the next election. Be grateful for the promise of a next election.