The American Social Contract in Trouble

In my book, We Still Hold These Truths: An American Manifesto, I noted that the Republican right wing had rejected the American social contract that has developed over time and was accepted by both political parties.  Actually, it resulted from the policies of both Republican and Democratic administrations.  

The basic idea is that as citizens, we are all equal participants in the great American experiment.   In exchange for receiving the benefits of citizenship, all Americans are responsible for contributing to the government’s work, which includes helping less fortunate citizens, each according to his ability.  It was indeed Republican President Theodore Roosevelt that initiated the progressive income tax, which is the main tool by which the financial responsibility of citizenship is implemented.

One can find no better expression of the concept than John Donne’s famous words:  “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. … Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”  A predecessor of the Enlightenment movement that so influenced our Founding Fathers, these words are the essence of the American social contract.

As I’ve stated often before, the soaring aspirations of our founding documents and our Founding Fathers were indeed “just” aspirations.  But they have provided the light that has guided America and Americans forward through difficult domestic times and have enabled it constantly, although often by fits and starts, to grow, to reinvent itself, and become more reflective of its founding aspirations.

But the social contract has been under attack over the last few decades by the increasingly right-wing Republican Party.  Among right-wing Republicans, there is now a disdain for the poor in general, not just people of color.  They are against the “undeserving poor,” which includes whites.  

Mike Mulvaney, Trump’s Budget Director, said in an opinion piece, "For the first time in a long time, we’re putting taxpayers first. Taking money from someone without an intention to pay it back is not debt. It is theft. This budget makes it clear that we will reverse this larceny.”  The poor receiving assistance are viewed as thieves.  Remember when Mitt Romney was exposed referring to those benefitting from government programs as “takers,” which included those on Social Security?

But the threat facing our social contract does not just involve attitudes towards the poor.  In our increasingly polarized society under Trump, any feeling that we are all part of the American community or are responsible in any way for each other's welfare is gone.  Replaced instead with warring camps.

America must return to an embrace of our social contract.  Without that attitude, we will drift further apart.  FDR’s refrain, “My fellow Americans,” will become not just hollow in the contemporary context but a deceit.