I was at a fundraiser this week for the ACLU and one of the speakers talked about Lincoln's Lyceum Address titled "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions." Lincoln's main idea was that the American democracy wouldn't die by the influence of a foreign state, but rather the cause of our undoing would come from inside the house, just like a horror movie.
I had never heard of this speech before, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.
And then...
It is to deny what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them. The question then is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs. Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.
I didn't understand what the current administration is doing, or why. When I read the above from Lincoln, it started to make sense. I used to think Trump was like Hitler, but he's not. Germany was in immense suffering after the World War I, and a leader emerged who made the Germans feel powerful again. Trump isn't like that. We are seeing someone who disdains the beaten path, someone Lincoln described almost two hundred years ago.
Thomas Friedman wrote an article in The New York Times "Why Trump's Bullying Is Going to Backfire." Friedman described the interconnectedness of the global economy where more than fifty countries are involved in creating iPhones. Friedman understand tariffs, but not against Canada and Mexico, major trade partners with many American companies. As Friedman wrote,
As the Ford Motor chief executive Jim Farley courageously (compared to other chief executives) pointed out, “Let’s be real honest: Long term, a 25 percent tariff across the Mexico and Canada borders would blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we’ve never seen.”
Yeah. What does Farley know about American industry other than running one of the largest manufacturing organizations in the world?
Trump's talk about invading Greenland? Making Canada a U.S. state? How do you think they would vote after they have been taken over by the U.S.? Do you think they'd vote MAGA? What about making Puerto Rico a state, or Washington, D.C.? They want to be states, no military intervention necessary. We can add two more stars to the flag.
Cutting funding from the National Institutes of Health? Because people like cancer and heart disease?
I think back to when America was great, and I recall when we changed directions.
We used to practice genocide.
And now we don't.
We used to have legalized slavery.
And now we don't.
We denied women the right to vote.
And now we don't.
We denied gay people the right to marry.
And now we don't.
I was a history major in college, and I can't claim to know much because history is so vast. I do know humanity has survived dark times, that people fought against injustices and tyranny.
I never expected that I would have to.
