The Ongoing Negative Cultural Impact of the Pandemic

How many times have I heard that things are the way they are today because our practices changed during COVID, because of the then-need to distance ourselves or isolate ourselves?

For example, it used to be that auditions for actors for parts in plays were done in person.  Today, there is almost no such thing as an in-person audition. Instead, actors are told to send the producer/casting director an audition video.

When I was told this, I was dumbfounded by this change because it not only robs the actor of the whole community experience of auditioning and practicing his craft before a live audience, but because it robs the the producer/director/casting director of the ability to see how the actor performs on stage. Performing on a video is something quite different for many reasons, one of which is that it can be done over and over again till the actor feels he is satisfied.  On stage, both in performance and the audition, one gets one chance and it is what it is.

Looking into this recently, I discovered that while there was some movement towards this type of auditioning for reasons of efficiency and convenience prior to COVID, it was COVID that made this practice universal.  And of course the rigors of COVID protection lasted for almost two years.  

During that time, producers got so comfortable with the system and used to its efficiencies, that they didn't want to go back to the old system.  Actors have no power or voice, so they just had to do as directed.  Although there are some actors that favor the new system as well for reasons of convenience and efficiency.

It seems that today, for so many things, considerations of efficiency and convenience rule the day, regardless of their impact on quality.  This point can be made, for example, about vast portions of the professional workforce working remotely.  It is certainly convenient and efficient, but the employer looses the ability to interact with employees on a frequent and more casual basis, and employees loose the ability to feel and be part of the larger dynamic which is a company.

Some will say that zoom meetings take care of much of that, but I would beg to differ.  I have been in many zoom meetings, both as an outside presenter and as a member of the group, and I have always been aware that I have not had the same interactive experience as I would have had had the session been in-person.

So to answer the question of why things have not returned to the practices which were in place pre-COVID and which almost everyone would agree were better from a quality perspective, the answer is efficiency and convenience.  These considerations have always been present, but in today's technological environment, they have become more than buzz words; to technology, they are the holy grail.

 

Why the Declaration of Independence Argues for the Removal of Trump

The Declaration of Independence set forth a list of grievances against the English king that warranted the revolution that the Declaration announced.

Some of these grievances dealt with the king's relationship with the judiciary.  To quote: “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”

To quote a Heritage Foundation paper, "The declaration stated that the executive was intent on bending the judicial power to his will. In short, these are the actions of an aspiring tyrant."

Trump's actions and words in his first 100 days against the judiciary certainly are an example of trying to bend the judiciary to his will. His call to impeach judges is like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland demanding, "Off with their heads!"  It is clear that he feels that there is no legitimate law other than his.  

Regarding the king's perspective on administration, the Declaration stated, "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to Harass our people."

While Trump has not erected a multitude of new offices, he certainly has destroyed a multitude of existing offices that protected the people.  And the descent of DOGE, Musk, and his acolytes on the agencies of government certainly sounded like a swarm off people harassing government officials.

Finally, while not enumerated in the Declaration, by trying by hook or crook to invalidate the 2020 election and even now refusing to accept that the people voted him out office—despite a multitude of court decisions rejecting his claims of fraud—he has defied one of the most central aspects of our democracy: free elections and the peaceful transfer of power.

These grievances, along with many others, would be sufficient for Americans to rise up against Trump and remove him from office.  

But that is not the American way.  Trump was fairly elected and there he must stay unless impeached.  The people can voice their displeasure, however, by backing Democrats for Congress in the 2026 midterms and electing Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.  And returning a Democrat to the White House in 2028.

 

Are Liberals Destroying America's Ideals?

In the opening paragraph of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, it wrote, "America is now divided between two opposing forces: woke revolutionaries and those who believe in the ideals of the American revolution,"  

What a perfect example of fake news.  By taking on the mantle of American values and attacking their opponents as destroying those values, the Heritage Foundation has done what Trump and his allies always do: they accuse their opponents of doing what they themselves have actually done.  In truth, it is the MAGA-Right that perverts and destroys our founding values.

This distorted view of our founding documents was formalized in Matthew Spaulding's 2009 book, We Still Hold These Truths.  Spaulding is a former Director of American Studies at the Heritage Foundation.  In the book, Spaulding faults liberals for perverting the vision of the Founding Fathers.  Liberalism is the enemy.

For example, in speaking of the "certain unalienable truths" proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, he states that liberals have "rejected the idea of self-evident truths and enduring principles."

How bizarre.  It is liberals, i.e. Democrats, who embrace the words of the Declaration of Independence.  Given the MAGA-Right's assaults on immigrants, LGBTQ, people of color, and women, it is clear that it is the MAGA-Right that has rejected these truths.

The position that support for conservative arguments can be found in our founding documents is not without basis, as I stated in my 2004 book, We Still Hold These Truths: An American Manifesto. But the MAGA-Right disavow traditional conservative positions. 

What they advocate instead is the dismantling of the Federal government to comport more with the Anti-Federalist view—a weak and limited national government—that was the basis of the Articles of Confederation, rather than the view that was adopted by the Founding Fathers after the failure of the Articles and was the basis for the Constitution—a strong and multi-faceted Federal government with proscribed checks and balances.  

True, some of the Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson, were concerned that a strong federal government would constrict the rights of citizens and so he proposed what became the Bill of Rights.

But for the MAGA-Right, there is no recognition, appreciation, or tolerance in their point of view of the rights of others.  For example, as MAGA Christians in what they consider a Christian country, they believe they can forbid gays to marry and demand that women act in accordance with MAGA beliefs. This is not protecting MAGA freedom of religion. This is imposing MAGA's religious views on others, violating others' rights.  They pursue the denial of liberty to others. 

If you read Spaulding's book—if you didn't read it carefully—you could come away thinking he is a reasonable man who respects our founding documents and history.  He has, for example, a section on equality and equal rights that is a powerful exposition, which one would think would presage support for all civil rights legislation as well as the DEI efforts of government.  He certainly talks the talk.  

But when it comes to the implementation, to the interpretation, of these words, he doesn't walk the walk, but distorts their meaning to suit his own political ends.  He and the MAGA-Right have a one-sided view of liberty.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are profoundly liberal documents for their era that depend on the balancing of powers and of rights. What the MAGA-Right is attempting to do, and in the short-term are succeeding, is to destroy that balance—whether it's between the branches of government or the rights of people. Their goal is to create a government and system of laws that is a radical departure from our historic ideals and values.

This destruction of American ideals can only be stopped by the people, by their realizing what the Trump administration is doing, and how it affects them and their children.  It is only by their votes that this perversion of America can be stopped.

Given the massive misinformation campaign by the MAGA-Right, for this to happen the Democratic Party must mount a counter-campaign to inform the public what America's true ideals are—what our founding documents and the Founding Fathers said—how the Trump administration cynically perverts those ideals, and how that perversion impacts us all.  That is the focus of my book, We Still Hold These Truths: An American Manifesto.

The MAGA-Right and Spaulding speak of equality, of freedom of religion and speech, and liberty being dependent on a respect for both rights and responsibilities—these are indeed America's ideals—but they just mouth the words; their implementation of those concepts limits and perverts the Founders' meaning.  And that meaning comes from the Enlightenment—the words were aspirational—not from the facts on the ground at that time.

For example, in saying that all "men" are created equal, the Founders meant that all mankind have certain unalienable rights.  Their "self-evident" came from the fact of creation—that "we were all of the same species; made by the same God"—not what they saw looking around them. These rights don't belong just to white men or the MAGA-RIght.

The traditional meaning of "balance of rights and responsibilities" is that someone in the exercise of his rights has the responsibility not to thereby interfere with the rights of another.  But the MAGA-RIght's interpretation is that others have the responsibility not to interfere unjustly with the practice of their rights; for example, by regulating business.  Whereas they aggressively interfere with the rights of others because, again, they do not acknowledge the rights of others.

But beyond this information campaign, the Democratic Party must rediscover the source of their policies and communicate that source to the people.  This source is not "liberal" thinking, or progressive "woke" thinking.  Instead, the foundation of all their policies are the words of the Declaration of Independence. 

To this end, I have proposed a domestic Mission statement for the Democratic Party:

"To build a country of greater opportunity for all where:

• each and every American has a real chance to experience the promises made in the Declaration of Independence … ‘that all men [mankind] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights … Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness;’ 
• government meets its responsibility as set forth in the Declaration … ‘to secure those rights’ … within the constraints of fiscal responsibility; and
• all citizens have a shared responsibility to support the government’s efforts to secure those rights and promote the public good, each according to their ability, and to not, through the exercise of their rights, impinge on the rights of others."

This statement is the moral philosophy, the heart, the soul of American democracy. This is, or was, America’s common faith. 

I believe that this is the path out of the abyss of Trumpism and back to a government and policies that will truly make America great again—government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

 

The Capitalism v Socialism Myth in the U.S.

Capitalism is usually thought of as a combination of private ownership of the resources of production with free market principles.  Socialism is thought of as government ownership of the resources of production and government direction of the economy.

Republicans have criticized any effort by the Federal government to interfere with the freedoms of the private entrepreneur, be it a doctor or a businessman, as socialism.  Thus they were against Medicare, calling it "socialized medicine,"  They are routinely against any regulation of business regardless whether its intent is to protect the public.  They are against all social welfare programs for the poor as subsidizing people who should take care of themselves (Social Security is excepted from this argument because retirees have earned their payments).

And yet, Republicans have no problem with the billions of dollars that are spent by the Federal government each year to subsidize business in various ways, including tax loopholes that enable some of the most successful major corporations to pay no taxes each year despite making huge profits.

In fact, we do not have a capitalist economy.  We have a hybrid system with the government subsidizing big business—as well as the poor, the elderly. and people in need.  It also attempts through various economic measures to control the direction of the economy.

The government's expenditures to subsidize industry as well as the poor have the same justification—to insure a prosperous economy.  If industry does not prosper, the economy suffers and unemployment rises.  If the poor and others in need do not have sufficient funds to maintain a reasonable life style, they not only suffer personally, but they cannot participate in and thereby support the economy.

Government's role, in the famous words of the Declaration of Independence, is "to secure" citizen's "inalienable rights" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  In our society, which is a money economy, one cannot have the freedom to pursue happiness or life without a modicum of financial resources.  Everything the government does is in the larger sense done for this purpose.  And so it is absolutely justified.

However, what is not justified is the money the government spends, or forgoes collecting through taxes, because it seeks to enrich the moneyed classes.  This does nothing but create excess wealth and increase inequality; it in no way furthers inalienable rights.  The very rich, the top 1% ($800,000+ income, $35.5 million household wealth), have so much excess  wealth that they have no use for it other than conspicuous consumption and creating more wealth.  Philanthropy consumes only a small portion of this wealth.

Since it is against the government's role in a democracy to enrich the wealthy with no benefit to the rest of the population —Reagan's "tickle down" economic theory has been proven to be baseless time and time again—all such largesse by government, whether in the form of tax cuts or tax loopholes, should be eliminated.

As a point of reference, in the years prior to 1944 the top tax rate ranged from 46-88%. From 1944-1963, the tax rate was above 90%.  For the rest of the 60s and 70s it was more than 70%.  From 1987 to the present, the top rate has mostly been in the upper 30s%.

If one looks at the country's GDP during the post-WWII years, the GDP was on average somewhat higher (3.6%) in the years prior to the Reagan tax cuts in 1987 than in the years since (3.2%).  Since the high tax rates for the very rich did not have a negative impact on the economy—on the contrary, it  seems to have been somewhat beneficial—there is no economic justification for this largesse.  It's sole purpose is to further enrich the rich.  

This largesse must be stopped so that the government has more money to balance the budget and provide resources where they are most needed to support its role to secure all citizens the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Trump Violates Freedom of Religion

A recent article in the New York Times detailed how prevalent Christian prayer and Christian conservative perspective has become in the daily operations of the White House.  

He has elevated the Faith Office to high visibility.  And that office has promised, "an ambitious agenda, including ending what it sees as Christian persecution in America and to end the prevailing belief that church and state should be separated."  While it says it's mission is to support all religions, clearly it's focus is on Christian dominance.

In furthering its cause, the office and the Evangelical pastors who frequent the White House have used misleading statements to ground their message in broadly accepted beliefs/concepts.  For example, one pastor talked about their commitment to affirming "our Judeo-Christian value system."  Please, leave Jews out of this; the MAGA Christian agenda has nothing, or at best little, to do with Jewish values.

In another example, a book prominently displayed in the Faith Office is titled, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America: Christian Self Government.  Yet, although the Founding Fathers were all Christian and many had a strong contemporary belief in God, there is absolutely no mention of God in the Constitution.   

Why?  The First Amendment specifically provides that Congress shall not establish a state religion.  The Founders believed strongly in the importance of the separation of church and state. This was based on their knowledge of the wars and suffering that religious absolutism had caused in Europe.  To speak of God in the Constitution would have given the appearance of violating that separation.  

In support of this separation and the appreciation of diversity, Article VII provides that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for public office.  It is thus absolutely clear that from a governance perspective, rather than a personal one, religion was not to be part of the process.

President Trump, in bringing Christian practice so visibly into the daily workings of the White House has crossed the line between observing his personal faith (of which he seems to have had none) and establishing Christianity as the state religion.  This is yet one more example of his deceptive perversion of American values.