Part 3, Plea #4
Use the powers of understanding to reunite “We the People.”
We are a divided nation. It is not that we have disagreements. We have always had those. But today, those who have taken the reins of power are tapping into their worst instincts by making statements, manipulating minds and voter rolls, and deploying forces with the help of technology to diminish the rights and sully the voices of those not in power. They are likely trying to protect themselves from the expected backlash of voters in upcoming elections because they know, when Americans see injustice, they act. Just this past weekend as I was writing this, these same government leaders began to say that people who plan to protest against presidential and congressional abuse of power in a No Kings rally, a right enshrined in our First Amendment, actually hate America!
So, what is America and what is an American? I suggest we use the 10 aspects of Understanding that we previously explored to acknowledge (1) what the United States of America is, (2) what basic needs it was designed to satisfy, (3) how the government was intended to function in satisfying those needs, (4) whether the way it is functioning now is true to those designs, and (5) what needs to change to re-unite us as one nation.
Let us start by looking at our founding documents and their opening statements. Every great piece of writing has an opening that is not just poetic, it defines a truth that cannot be ignored, a sentiment that feels God-inspired, a kernel from which everything that follows grows. For example, look at how these opening lines stick, and how they made the words that followed great.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, …” (A Tale of Two Cities)
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Book of Genesis)
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” (Gettysburg Address)
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” (1984) [I include this because we are in a 1984 moment where what gets broadcast as truth is controlled by those in power.]
In the same vein, let us look at the Declaration of Independence. After declaring our intent to dissolve our political connection with the British Crown and the State of Great Britain, it lays out the basis for a new beginning with these opening lines.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
The protests of the people in 2025 America are based on the same needs as the first American citizens of the United States: a right to life (e.g., ready access to food, clothing, safe shelter, and the ability to make a living); a right to liberty (e.g., privacy and a freedom to follow paths of exploration and lifestyle guided by your heart, soul, and mind); a right to Safety (e.g., health care and not ever being afraid of our government or the bullies that try to dominate us); and a right to pursue happiness (e.g., enjoy life while also supporting our families’ and neighbors’ pursuit of happiness). Given that those demonstrating against the actions of today’s leaders are reflecting the same concerns people had 250 years ago about a runaway, unaccountable government, they are as American as our nation’s original leaders.
Another founding document, the Constitution, declares immediately in its opening where the strength of this nation derives from and why a new government needed to be formed.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The Constitution makes it clear that the U.S. government is a creation of and based on the needs of “We the People.” Demanding accountability against those who abuse their powers is as American as the opening to the Constitution. Holding government accountable when it does not promote the general Welfare is American.
Interestingly, while this country was never intended to be based on Christian Nationalism (a modern invention by insecure white men who, though rich and powerful, demonstrate tremendous insecurity in the face of a changing population), the opening lines of both founding documents seem to promote that being American means following the best features of Judeo-Christian and Islamic teaching, that is to love one another and take care of one another, sometimes with the help of the government we create, and in that way secure the blessings of liberty for everyone.
The Constitution then goes on to describe how our government is to be organized and how its powers are to be divided, used, and regulated. Most power is given to the Congress who has the sole responsibility for writing laws and funding their implementation. Power to administer the laws of Congress and guide the national defense is given to the Executive branch which includes the President and all other officers of the country. The authority to resolve disputes around interpretation of the nation’s laws and to hold those who break those laws accountable, is given to the judicial branch.
It is very American to demand that Congress step up and fulfill their Constitutional duties of legislating and oversight. It is very American to demand that the Judiciary stop giving power to the wealthy at the expense of “We the People” and stop writing new law (not their job!) that gives the President immunity in violation of the plain text of the Constitution. It is very American to demand that the President stop violating his oath of office, stop accepting what has the appearance of bribes, and care for “We the People” rather than ignoring those he disagrees with and trying to hurt those he hates (like defunding programs he believes help any Democrat, all of whom he considers his enemy). Demanding that our leaders follow the Constitution makes every one of us as American as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln. Note that our founding documents never mention that the purpose of our government is to promote the prosperity of a subclass of its citizens.
How did we get here? How did the families of so many who fought fascism to save the world 80+ years ago come to believe that being an American means supporting an authoritarian and that supporting unrestricted capitalism is the only model that the Constitution allows? I believe the evidence shows that we have been targeted by those so interested in their personal wealth and power that they were willing to break the sacred trust we had in each other. They did so in a coordinated and systematic way starting in the 1970’s, by creating and following models that de-emphasized the importance of We the People and in their place promoted the creation and maintenance of wealth for a few, as outlined below. (I apologize that this list is so long, but that is long because there were many steps taken to get to this point over several decades. Still, I hope you will see that they follow a pattern).
In 1970, businesses began to follow, Republican politicians began to promote, and judges began to cite a Chicago School of Economics model developed by Milton Friedman. The basis of that model is that the only purpose for businesses is to maximize profits for the company’s shareholders. Friedman considered it blasphemous for businesses to care about their impact on their customers, employees, and the society, calling that socialism. His model justified, in the minds of the business owners, Republican politicians, and conservative justices, the mergers and large-scale layoffs of employees that began in earnest later in that decade and accelerated in the 1980’s.
In 1971, businesses began to unite and lobby to fight regulations designed to protect customers, employees, and the environment, i.e., laws that promote the general welfare. Such regulations grew from the public’s reaction to information such as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” about the impacts of pesticides on bird populations, and Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe at any Speed” about car designs that could not protect their occupants in a crash. Businesses began their attack on regulation by implementing a model developed for the US Chamber of Commerce in 1971 by Lewis Powell, a Richmond Virgina attorney who soon after publishing a memorandum describing his prescription for the United States, would be named by Richard Nixon to the Supreme Court. Powell believed that business needed a united and strong presence to counter a perceived “move towards socialism” by giving businesses stronger voices in state government, federal government, law schools, and the judiciary. His memorandum also led to the creation of business-friendly think tanks, the denigration of unions, the recasting of environmentalists as irrational lunatics, and the creation of a self-enriching legislator-to-lobbyist ecosystem. In the process, the voices of We the People became secondary concerns.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan told We the People that government was not your friend but was your problem. He made it easier for us to look at government not as what represents us, our dreams, our future, but as a roadblock to our happiness. Then, by doubling down on Friedman Economics through his Trickle-Down Economics tax plans, he increased government deficits, made the wealthy even wealthier, and oversaw the beginning of a massive transfer of manufacturing jobs to other nations. Note that for the 5 decades that followed, nothing sustainable has trickled down to the working class, e.g., in 2025, the top 1% of income earners in this country owned 30% of the nation’s wealth whereas the bottom 50% owned 2.5%.
In 1987, President Reagan’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) abandoned enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine, a broadcasting standard that had required news outlets to present contrasting viewpoints on issues of public importance. Its repeal cleared the way for figures like Rupert Murdoch—an Australian-born media mogul who became a U.S. citizen in 1985—to expand his empire of television stations and media outlets without the obligation to provide balance. Murdoch’s Fox News may brand itself as “fair and balanced,” but that slogan functions more as propaganda than principle. Exploiting public anxieties and channeling them into resentment toward “the liberals” became the hallmark of this new style of partisan broadcasting. Today, the phrase “owning the libs” serves as a rallying cry for audiences shaped by a media landscape no longer bound by fairness, but by polarization.
In 2000, the Supreme Court broke the US Constitution by intervening in the election process and the counting of ballots in the State of Florida, thereby handing the presidential election to George W. Bush who was ahead in the count at the time of their intervention. The conservative majority would not let the process unfold as required by the Constitution so that the People’s choice would rule. However, subsequent counting of the yet-to-be-counted ballots by news organizations showed that Al Gore would have won the state if all ballots were recounted and therefore should have been named President. Furthermore, if Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida and brother of the appointed President had not removed over 50,000 largely black Americans from the voting roles in Florida prior to the election (people he claimed were ex-felons though subsequent investigations showed many were not), it is likely the vote would not have been so close. The breaking of the People’s trust accelerated.
In 2008, Senator Mitch McConnell stated that his only goal as Senate Majority Leader would be to make Barack Obama a one-term President. His subsequent actions further proved his adherence to personal animus and conservative power rather than making the Senate perform its Constitutional duties. Most telling were his decisions to not hold hearings for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee even though there were 9 months available to do so before the upcoming 2016 presidential election, and then to rush through hearings for Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee even after President Trump lost the 2020 election. These actions made it clear that the Supreme Court would no longer reflect what We the People wanted, but rather what the conservative power brokers wanted.
In 2012, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts ruled in the Citizens United case that money was equivalent to free speech and further opened the door to telling appellants the types of information the Court was interested in hearing so that they could effectively overturn Court precedents… and that is what led to the Court’s 2024 decision giving Presidents nearly unlimited power. Interestingly, 3 conservative members of the current Court, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, played roles that led to the Court naming G. W. Bush president in 2000.
There are many other examples showing how the transfer of wealth and political power from We the People began and accelerated over the past 50 years. All the examples represent the pursuit of models that are not truly embraced by the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. The Friedman Economic Model should even be considered a zombie theory because it has not led to greater wealth for the American people. But with technology, the ability of propagandists has increased to enrage the least wealthy of us and make us focus our anger on those who were not responsible for this transfer of wealth and power. Can we begin to counter that?
In the original campaign by Bill Clinton for President, his advisor James Carville kept him focused with the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
To uncover the Watergate conspiracy, the Washington Post journalists adopted the motto “Follow the money!”
The purpose of my writing this book is to demonstrate that in this more complex world, we also need to understand the model that is being followed and implemented by those in power. We need to uncover the starting conditions, the needs that are being met, the language that is being used, the scale of the problems they want to address, the simplifications that hide complexities, the complexities that need to be revealed, the limits of what any one action or series of actions can achieve, how power flows or gets accumulated (this is where the economy and the money come in), the facts and material the model is based on, and what history tells us about what can work and what should be avoided.
I suggest that the way forward is to re-emphasize that the success of America depends on the support and the uniting of We the People and that it depends on ensuring that all actions taken by the government reflect our needs as stated in the Preamble to the Constitution. We should also recognize how our most successful and revered presidents resolved disagreements on the purpose of government by creating new balances that protected the rights of those abused when others’ insatiable lust for power went too far. In so doing, they were able to expand the promise of America to more citizens and residents by disarming the abusers and providing chances for the victims to regain a degree of freedom, power and wealth. This includes Teddy Roosevelt (reining in monopolies), Franklin D. Roosevelt (providing work for victims of the Great Recession and uniting American people to fight Nazism), Harry S. Truman (concluding the war and integrating the armed forces), Dwight D. Eisenhower (building American infrastructure and warning of the growing power of the military-industrial complex), John F. Kennedy / Lyndon B Johnson (expanding civil rights, recognizing the uniting power of art, and promoting a government role to protect the environment), and Barack Obama (expanding lifesaving health care access to those who traditionally could not afford it).
Each of these Presidents took steps to ensure the American people would stop being stepped on by the powerful, that the American people would again become the primary beneficiaries of government action, and that the class blessed with wealth would continue to thrive (e.g., not be dishonored or made destitute) even as they paid an increased share of taxes that would support the creation of a fairer, more vibrant society, i.e., promote the general welfare.
In this, I pray we find our footing to move forward.
(Originally posted October 17, 2025)
(Prior Post: Section 3, Plea #3: Learn to recognize false information, malicious intent, and zombie theories)
(Next Post: Part 4, Concluding Remarks)