I know that this sounds like a nasty, sarcastic question. Yet it is being be asked by some serious people in the American political community.
One of them is New York Times columnist David Brooks, my favorite Republican opinion writer. I admire him, of course, because he is convinced, with only a few reservations, that President Biden’s legislative agenda—including the infrastructure bill, the reconciliation package, and the measure designed to prevent voter suppression—are all necessary to end polarization in our politics and slow down the GOP move towards authoritarianism. Unlike the Trumpist Republicans, Brooks cares about people.
In a recent column, Brooks expressed dismay that in traveling through five states, he found widespread indifference to the current battle in Congress over Biden’s legislative package.
“Have we given up on the idea,” Brooks wrote, “that policy can change history? Have we lost faith in our ability to reverse, or even be alarmed by, national decline?” Have we lost respect for “the common man,” so admired by our ancestors, he asked? Are we now so caught up in a “culture of individualism” and “vicious populism” that we no longer care for others?
If we did care for each other, would we let friends and family members die of COVID by not getting vaccinated?
Brooks noted that “the Democratic spending bills . . . serve moral and cultural purposes” and should not be viewed as only important politically and economically. Yes, “they would support hundreds of thousands of new jobs for home health care workers, childcare workers, metal and supply chain workers” but they would also “redistribute dignity downward” and “ease the indignity millions of parents face having to raise their children in poverty.”
While Brooks’ concern about American indifference to the importance of this current legislation is on target, behind his concern lies the greater danger facing us because of our present situation. This is the threat to each other (neighbors all) and to democracy itself.
An underlying reason for the current deadlock threatening people and planet, aside from what Donald Trump did and said, is that many Americans felt ignored by their government for an entire generation. Both parties, especially Republicans, have fought expensive and fruitless wars against “terrorism” and catered to the rich with tax breaks.
Many of those who voted for Trump and Biden were angry at being ignored.
Biden’s proposals would address the loss of faith in government that has been worsening since at least the Nixon presidency. They would increase jobs for infrastructure, cleaner energy, and expanded internet connections. They would provide tax credits and child care for parents, and protect our right to vote freely. The largest per capita share of most money in the infrastructure bill would go to the very states where “Trumpian resentment is burning hot,” according to Brooks: Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota.
President Biden is trying to support and dignify those very Americans who voted for Trump. He is trying to show them that their government cares. Of course, this will be just another empty promise if this legislation fails to pass or if the money Congress approves is reduced to a mere token of what is needed.
And yet most of us, writes Brooks, seem “indifferent.” There are no protest marches, no massive letter or email writing campaigns urging Congress to do what is necessary to break the deadlock and pass these measures. This is true in Kentucky where the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy estimates that 1.9 million Kentuckians would have guaranteed paid family leave and sick leave under the Build Back Better bill. Why does Mitch McConnell think that is unimportant? Why do Kentuckians continue to let him think that??
Have we lost energy? Democracy requires more energy than does dictatorship. It also works best in a community where all have minimal economic security.
Dictatorship, whether in a capitalist or socialist state, or in a mixed system like that of China, values obedience over energy. Is that what we want?
And let’s not pretend that “it couldn’t happen here.” It can and it will, if we do not act now to move our legislatures off of their “if, ands, and buts.”