We have a long-standing tradition in the United States of individuals speaking up at times of crisis. Thomas Paine, one of our Founding Fathers, stepped up in 1776 to make a case for why the colonists should cut ties with their British overseers.
I can’t say that Paine’s seminal work, Common Sense, had a profound effect in shaping my own thinking. Of course I was aware of its existence, but to be honest, it never left a lasting impression. I did like the title, mostly because it resonated with the approach I took to politics and governance. I believe that most people would like to see common sense restored to America generally and to the political sphere specifically. If there’s one point of agreement now among those who stand at any point along the political spectrum, it’s this: Enough is enough. Actually, I think we are well beyond the tipping point. We’ve been knocked off the two-party teeter-totter and have landed in the territory of too much is too much.
Come to think of it, we do have something in common today with Paine and the rest of the revolutionaries-turned-Americans. At that time, the colonists (us) were ruled by a distant and seemingly indifferent government. Back in 1776, you could stand on any street or go into a public house and hear people grousing about the British government. Mostly, it seemed, that far-off government was far more interested in serving its own interests than in supporting the colonies. They just didn’t get it. They didn’t live like us and yet they wanted our money and they wanted us to obey the rules they imposed on us. They were busy with their own problems. The monarchy, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons were busy battling each other, waging little wars and making power grabs. They all had their own interests and obligations to various factions. So much of that had too little to do with how our lives were being lived in America. Too much time spent trying to stay in power, fending off anyone who might take the tiniest sliver of power from the larger pie.
Power.
Self-interest / self-preservation.
Inventing new ways to get their power fix by meddling in private matters.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
From the revolutionaries’ perspective, it wasn’t so much about power and control. It was about liberty and freedom. Maybe those are the flip sides of one another, but as is true of much else in life, perspective is what really matters most.
I think most Americans would agree that liberty and freedom are the founding principles that guided this country’s formation. I think most Americans would say that power and control are a necessary part of living together in common. What’s needed is a balance among those concepts. How much should we give? How much should we get in return? If I let you take control of this, then what am I going to be able to do or get in exchange for giving that up?
Freedom and liberty.
Power and control.
For quite a while it seemed as if we had that balancing act down pretty damn good. At home and abroad we managed to carve out a nice niche for ourselves. Eventually, through a lot of hard work, we managed to expand that niche to extend to the borders of this beautiful landscape. We became a model for others to follow who wanted their own taste of freedom. We stepped in as needed to defeat imperialism, fascism, Nazism, and various other aggressors who were anti-liberty. We were that proverbial beacon on the hill, that shining light.
What happened? How did we get here?
How did we end up defeating tyranny from without, only to replace it with an encroaching tyranny from within?
I want to make clear from the outset that I don’t think America has lost its way; but I do believe there are those among us who would lead us astray.
Why do they want to do that? For many of the reasons I stated above—mostly because they put self-interest and the needs and desires of a few ahead of the common good.
Ultimately, it’s about those whose balance has tipped in favor of power and control, and against freedom and liberty. Today, who are the most prominent representatives of this imbalance in favor of power and control? The two major party candidates for the presidency—Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Remember my reference to campaign songs? In Trump’s case using them without asking is exactly what an authoritarian would do. Not just that: the assumption that other people (the recording artists) must agree with his position is an authoritarian assumption.
How bad has it gotten? Not to the point where irreparable harm has been done, but far enough that we can’t let things go on like this any longer.
Common-sense principles applied to serving the common good: this is how we can restore our balance.
What frightens me is this: the imbalance between power and control, on one hand, and freedom and liberty, on the other, has become so obvious that only 19 percent of the American people trust their government to do what’s best for them. How are they going to feel when they have to choose between two candidates who have already demonstrated that they are politically and temperamentally authoritarian?
We don’t have to guess. We know.
How do we know? Because you are telling us right now in the polls. Not only that, you’re sharing your dissatisfaction on street corners, in bars, on Twitter, on Facebook, on other social media, on traditional media, on your smart phones, on your home phones, on radio talk shows, in your blogs, online, in line, twenty-four/seven, seven days a week, twice on Sundays, with your friends, family, and strangers. Some of you are shouting, some are whispering, some are swearing, some are crying.
And you know what?
I don’t believe that Donald and Hillary are even listening. They might be hearing some sort of indistinguishable rumble, but they aren’t really listening to you. They’re too busy devising strategies to get you to listen to them, to get you under their control. And it should come as no surprise that so few of us believe that our public officials are listening to us. By one measure, only 24 percent of Americans believe that public officials are truly listening and responsive. And I’m not talking about the National Security Agency here. I’m talking about listening to us, not listening in on us.
Why are those rumblings out there? Because you don’t want to give them the control they want to take from you. You like your freedom, and you’re not going to give it up without a fight. That’s why things have gotten so nasty in our public discourse. Someone is trying to take from you something you love and treasure. You’re not going to hand it over quietly. You’re going to kick and scream.
Looked at from that perspective, is it any wonder there’s so much name-calling and mudslinging and finger-pointing and calling out this one’s bankruptcies and that one’s e-mails?
And now that we’re getting down to the end, people are even angrier and more dissatisfied. Why? Because while we have a multiplicity of choices in other spheres of life, our freedom and liberty are being limited by a system that has reduced our political choices to two: Republican or Democrat.
One of my favorite scenes in Monty Python’s irreverent film The Life of Brian shows a long line of haggard, shackled individuals. They walk up to a cheery Roman centurion with an anachronistic clipboard and a dazzlingly out-of-place smile. As each prisoner struggles up to him, the centurion asks, “Crucifixion or hanging?”
Is that you? How much of an exaggeration is this depiction in 2016?
I’m all about freedom, so I’ll let you decide. But first, here are some other things to consider.
I’ve used the terms authoritarian and authoritarianism already in this essay. I haven’t precisely defined them. If I’m going to label someone an authoritarian or a believer in authoritarianism, I’d better do that.
When you think of an authoritarian, you probably picture that drill sergeant getting in the face of a boot camp recruit, an angry coach publicly dressing down a player, that stereotypical school teacher staring down the end of a knuckle-rapping ruler. Truth is, authoritarian individuals come in all shapes and sizes, and there are many other elements in their temperament.
Authoritarianism, being a member of the class ism, is a belief or a philosophy, not a person. In politics and political theory, then, a person who is an authoritarian believes in and practices authoritarianism. As a form of government, authoritarianism is characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. So when I say that I believe the two major party candidates are authoritarians, I’m making a heavy claim against them.
Contrary to what some may think, authoritarians are not confined to any one party. They can be Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives. Sometimes authoritarians will stand up and self-identify. They’ll do something that’s equivalent to raising and waving a hand furiously as if to say, “I’m one! It’s me!” On April 10, 2006, President George W. Bush did just that when he said, “I’m the decider. I decide what’s best.” I guess one thing he was deciding was to let us all know what we already knew—that he was an authoritarian.
In many ways, Donald Trump has made a similarly bold display of his authoritarian tendencies.
I don’t want to make too much of Trump’s reality TV ventures, but they are of a piece with his temperament and leadership style. When he declares, “You’re fired!” he is exercising his right as a businessman to decide the fate of an employee. Authoritarian leadership is all about being simple, powerful, and punitive.
Trump’s authoritarianism is also reflected in his campaigning. We’ve all heard stories of him ignoring his staff’s advice to tone things down, stay on message, use a teleprompter, and so on. In a way I admire Trump for not giving in to the experts. I’m very much like that myself. But you have to consider the results—and they are catastrophically bad. He doesn’t need a campaign staff, he needs a fire department to put out all the conflagrations he’s started. I won’t stomp around on the charred and gutted remains of the structures he’s decimated to kick up more smoke and fire. You get the point.
Authoritarians can be classified as such because of what they believe, or how they act. One is more or less consensual—I choose to be this way—while the other is instinctual—This is who I am. Call it nature and nurture. In either case, it’s the behaviors that result from temperament / personality and belief / philosophy that matter most.
Both pose a threat to our personal liberty and political freedom.
Authoritarians seek order, clarity, and stability. They have little tolerance for deviance. They scapegoat outsiders and demand conformity to traditional norms.
When I look into a future America shaped by a President Trump, I see a border wall. I see massive deportations. I see a sweeping ban on Muslim immigration and loyalty oaths required of all new immigrants. I see women going to jail for having abortions. I see mourning Muslim women ridiculed based on offensive stereotypes about their faith. I see brutal police crackdowns on inner-city youth. I also see a cozy relationship with the world’s leading authoritarian, Vladimir Putin. (Well, I see that with Hillary Clinton too.) This is authoritarianism of the right, presenting itself as a defense of law and order and traditional values.
What about a future under President Hillary Clinton? I can’t recall her making a clear self-declaration of her authoritarian impulses on the order of Bush or Trump. I don’t know if that’s by accident or design. But it doesn’t really matter. We can see it in her policy positions. Let me count a few:
All of that sounds like authoritarianism to me—an authoritarianism of the left. I know what’s best for your kids. We’ll keep you safe from bad influences.
But what do I know? I’ll wait for someone to tell me what to think and believe.
Sarcasm off.
The third section of this essay includes a more thorough examination of the authoritarian policies and practices of both major candidates.
Very quickly, let me remind you of the Tea Party movement. Conventional wisdom holds that the Tea Party people are antiauthoritarian. I disagree. Some of the supporters of that movement are most upset today by the fact that the government hasn’t fully exerted its power. It hasn’t made the necessary moves to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. It doesn’t support the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. Worse, it doesn’t put God (the ultimate authority) into government.
Also, Tea Party members are not inclusive and harbor many anti-immigration and anti-inclusive views. Comprised in large part of whites—a group who once held a substantial numerical majority in this country—they see their control of voting and policy slipping away and employ various straw men to bolster their position.
The 2000 election was nearly as contentious as the run-up to 2016 has been. In fact, in early July of this year, just before the two major parties’ conventions, a Pew Research Center poll indicated that voter dissatisfaction with the two candidates was at a higher rate than at any time since 2000. That was when Al Gore and George W. Bush both ran—and we know how that turned out. The controversial Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision ultimately determined the winner; the American public felt like the loser.
Why? Not so much because of the result, but because voting had come down to court challenges. It felt like our power to choose had been taken away. Who takes away our power, our freedom to choose?
Authoritarians.
How do I know that people were dissatisfied with the process (and not necessarily the result) in 2000? Because that 2000 election left such a lingering bad taste in our mouths that eleven years later, a Gallup poll indicated that 65 percent wanted presidential elections to be decided by a popular vote. Only 35 percent wanted to keep the Electoral College system in place.
I see that as a mandate for common sense (whoever gets the most votes overall wins) and a strike against authoritarianism.
Let me decide. Let my vote have as much power as possible. If I live in a state where my vote won’t really matter (because it’s already certain that the majority in my state will vote one way, and my vote won’t affect the electoral votes), it doesn’t mean that my vote shouldn’t count in the big picture. Give me the opportunity to be in control of my destiny.
Common sense.
Power.
Control.
Freedom.
Liberty.
Now back to the present: the 2016 Pew poll revealed that only 43 percent of registered Democrats were satisfied with Hillary Clinton as their candidate. Comparably, only 40 percent of registered Republicans were satisfied with Donald Trump.
To put it another way, the dissatisfaction rates were 57 percent and 60 percent, respectively. And that’s the views of people talking about their own party’s candidates!
You’d think this shared dissatisfaction might be a bonding experience for registered Democrats and Republicans. It’s not. It just provides another opportunity to view the MMA (Me, Mine, Anti-you) cage match that is partisan politics. Here’s where the Big Three come into play. I call them FFA.
Another Pew poll looked at registered Democrats and Republicans and their attitudes about one another.
Percentage of Republicans Who are Frustrated by, Fearful of, and Angry at Democrats1
|
Feeling |
All Republicans |
Highly Engaged Republicans |
|
Frustrated |
57% |
58% |
|
Angry |
46% |
58% |
|
Afraid |
49% |
62% |
Percentage of Democrats Who Are Frustrated by, Fearful of, and Angry at Republicans
|
Feeling |
All Democrats |
Highly Engaged Democrats |
|
Frustrated |
58% |
60% |
|
Angry |
47% |
58% |
|
Afraid |
55% |
70% |
I could spend a lot of time interpreting and commenting on these results. My point isn’t that we understand who’s more fearful, who’s angrier, who’s more frustrated. We could speculate about the reasons—because Trump is scarier, or Hillary is more deeply entrenched in partisan politics—until the proverbial cows come home.
What frustrates and angers me is that we have to have a discussion at all about FFA and the effect that these dark unruly passions may have on the election.
I’m no Pollyanna. I understand that FFA are going to play a role in most elections, and in a lot of decisions that people make in their lives for that matter. But these levels are out of control.
When the Pew Center drilled down further to look at what those on both sides felt about the opposition—who is more closed-minded, who is more dishonest, more immoral, lazier, and so on—the picture didn’t get much better.
On the positive side of the ledger, partisans on both sides said that talking about politics with people they disagree with politically would just as likely be “interesting and informative” as it would be “stressful and frustrating.” Unfortunately, those conversations also led the majority in both parties to feel that they had less in common politically than they thought going in.
Personally, I’d rather see people walking away from a political conversation feeling like they’ve learned something, even if what they’ve learned is that they don’t share as many beliefs and values as they thought.
Someone with a third-party affiliation would be the ideal choice to bridge the gap between two positions and establish common ground. Third-party people might also be the ideal go-betweens, since they’d likely share some beliefs and values and insights with both of the other two parties. They might even be able to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of two opposing points of view and judge one as better, suggest a different solution, or combine elements of both sides.
As much as I’m troubled by what the Pew Center found, there is at least this ray of hope. They asked a relatively straightforward question: Why do you identify as a Republican or Democrat? The possible responses they gave Republicans to choose from included these two key ones: Democratic policies are bad for the country; Republican policies are good for the country. Flip the party affiliations in those two responses, and you have what they asked of Democrats.
The findings were similar for both parties. Almost an equal number chose bad as good. Bad policies of the other side “won,” but only by a relatively small margin—4 percent for Republicans and 6 percent for Democrats. (In my mind’s eye, I can see members of both parties celebrating this “victory.”)
As absurd as what I’m about to say may sound, if you’re going to take a me-against-them attitude, I’d rather have that spring from a belief in the goodness and rightness of your own convictions than in the wrong-headedness and dangerousness of theirs.
On second thought, maybe that’s not true. Maybe if you don’t hold on to your beliefs too dearly and too tightly, you might be willing to listen to a different point of view.
Interesting. I just provided an example of reflective and flexible thinking.
Let me think a little bit more and get back to you with my decision about which is the better way to solve that problem of negative and positive attitudes toward the opposition’s policies.
This positive versus negative, good versus bad thinking extends beyond policies and parties. Another Pew study from June 2016 revealed that 55 percent of Trump voters thought of their selection as a vote against Hillary Clinton, not a vote for him.
Clinton supporters are more or less equally divided (50 percent to 48 percent) in viewing their vote as an “against” versus a “for.”
Regardless of the against / for factor, both sides agree that neither candidate would make a good president. Only 35 percent of respondents in a Quinnipiac University poll believed that Trump would do a good job in the office, while 43 percent believed that Clinton would.
So why are these two widely unpopular figures the majority party candidates?
I urge you to read an August 1, 2016, New York Times article. In my opinion it presents a very user-friendly approach to explaining what has troubled me so much in the last two presidential election cycles. The headline says it all: “Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees.”
In the rest of the graphics-heavy article, the authors show how they arrived at that startling statistic. I’ll spare you all the details, but they did it by counting out those who don’t vote, those who aren’t eligible to vote, those who aren’t members of the two political parties and thus can’t vote in primaries, those who did participate in caucuses but are difficult to track precisely, and so on.
Having 9 percent of the people in this country determine our options in one of the most critical choices we make as citizens of this country is just wrong. It just is.
It concentrates power in the hands of the few.
It makes others feel as if they have no control.
It diminishes our freedom of choice.
It is anti-liberty.
And who advocates for this kind of policy and acts in this manner?
Authoritarians.
To combat FFA (Frustration, Fear, Anger, for those who’ve forgotten), I’d like to call in another ally to join freedom and liberty.
Trust.
It’s no accident we put in “In God We Trust” on our currency. Trust is one of the eternal truths, a time-tested verity, deserving of being mentioned in the same breath as God or the Eternal.
We carry that statement around with us in our wallets every day. When we use that money to buy goods and services, those coins and bills also serve as a reminder of the trust we put in one another, and in our government. It announces an unspoken pledge that this bit of paper or scrap of metal is representative of the value of a product that we’re paying for. What’s more, the government backs up the pledge that value for value is being exchanged.
As far as most Americans today are concerned, trust in government is in very short supply. The government can print more money, but it can’t seem to issue enough trust to cover all its obligations.
In fact, only 19 percent of Americans indicated that they “always or most of the time” trust the government, according to a Pew Research Center study released in November 2015. In some ways that may be a good thing. It’s good to do due diligence and investigate and think critically. But that’s usually a standard operating procedure to apply on a specific element. For most of us, trust is a gut-level choice. I either trust another person or I don’t. When we’re operating at our peak, we balance head and heart and gut to make that judgment.
What’s more troubling is a possible reason why we don’t trust the government. Seventy-five percent of respondents in the same poll indicated that they believe public officials frequently put their interests ahead of the nation. Along with that, a vast majority indicated that they wanted the government to take a “major role” in solving problems. Clearly then, we have a trust gap. I want you to do this job, but I don’t trust you. I want you to do this job, but I don’t think you’re competent enough to get it done.
As much as I believe that trust is one of those eternal verities, I understand that it’s easier to maintain trust in our human relationships than it is in our relationship to government. The individual / government relationship is always going to be subject to a greater degree of ebb and flow and ups and downs. The historical record of this is revealed in polling data as well as anecdotally. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, trust in government was high, topping out at 77 percent in 1964. By 1980 that percentage had dropped by more than half. Except for a relatively brief spike post-9/11, it’s stayed below that 30 percent line.
As you probably could figure out yourself, when things are going well, trust is high. When things are going badly, trust falls. When we’re feeling insecure and the government does something to help, trust rises.
Here’s how that has played out, according to the same Pew Research Center study of trust and government:
|
Event |
Percentage of Americans Who Say They Always / Most of the Time Trust the Government |
|
Contested election, 2000 |
31 |
|
9/11 response, October 2001 |
60 |
|
Iraq War opposition, 2003 |
36 |
|
Hurricane Katrina, 2005 |
34 |
|
Financial crisis, 2008 |
18 |
|
Affordable Care Act debate |
22 |
|
Partial government shutdown, 2013 |
18 |
Though I don’t have polling data to back this up, I’d say that the trust numbers are related to the power / control / liberty matrix very closely. When we feel as though we’ve lost control, or government has taken some of our freedom away, trust drops. All you have to do is think about how you felt in 2008 during the financial crisis. You didn’t do anything wrong, but your house dropped substantially in value, or you lost your home, or you were underwater on your mortgage. Hey, the government was supposed to protect me from these kinds of things. They stepped in to rescue car companies and big banks, but what about me?
Look around today. Are we dealing with the same level of threats and issues listed above? I’d say no. The threats have changed, but I don’t believe they are as intensely troublesome as they were. Yet that 19 percent trust figure is near the bottom of the range.
What’s driving that? I think it’s the upcoming election. We don’t trust the candidates, we don’t trust the process; we’re frustrated, fearful, and angry. We have a limited choice of leaders to vote for. We don’t think they’ll be good at the job. We’re not fully a part of the process of choosing the candidates. If we don’t like the options at one restaurant, we have the option of going to another. Not so in politics. It’s column A or column B—no other choice allowed.
Where’s the freedom and liberty in all of this? Who’s got the power and control?
Just as important: Where’s the common sense for the common good?
Cue the bat signal! The villainous two-party system is up to no good!
Sorry. I couldn’t resist that last bit. In truth, however, it does serve as a lead-in to this next point.
Let’s look at the current political problem from the other perspective. Why do people want authoritarian leaders? When they’re afraid. I’ll look at this more closely later on, but remember the high approval rate that George W. Bush enjoyed in the wake of 9/11. Remember how Rudy Giuliani, as much a law-and-order / tromp-on-personal-liberties political figure as ever there was, skyrocketed in everyone’s estimation. We were afraid, and an authoritarian figure projecting power and strength, issuing hit lists, and taking names and kicking ass was what many of us wanted.
Are we there again?
Politicians thrive when they can create a bogeyman. For Trump, it’s Mexicans and Muslim immigrants. He plays to the fears of mostly white working-class Americans who feel as if their grip on life in this country is slipping away. Hillary Clinton wants in more subtle ways to protect us from video games and other imagined ills that she believes we’re incapable of dealing with ourselves. Let’s form a committee. Let’s enact some regulations.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Republicans fear Democrats. Democrats fear Republicans. The end is near. The end is near.
Send in the authoritarians.
That’s got to be the answer, right?
I mean, after all, look how much safer we are now than in the wake of 9/11, with all these Republican deciders and Democratic nannies looking out for us. We want strong men, and now maybe a strong woman, to save us.
No. That is not what we need.
Democratic and Republican authoritarians have failed. Their regulations and policies have failed. People are more afraid than ever before.
Frustration. Fear. Anger.
That’s not the America I want to live in and leave behind for my kids.
There has to be an alternative. And there is. It’s called libertarianism.
No bat signal needed.
Too bad about the Batmobile, though. It would be kick-ass to have that thing lead a motorcade down Pennsylvania Avenue, “Hail to the Chief” thumping from a subwoofer the size of a washing machine.
Good times. Good times.
Trust me. They can be here again.
1. Based on data included in: http://www.people-press.org/2016/06/22/partisanship-and-political-animosity-in-2016/.