Trickle Down Leadership

I don't know if Reagan was right about Trickle-Down Economics, but I do know there's such a thing as Trickle-Down Patriotism.  Why, the evidence is all around us.

A new article on Financial Times laments the disunity of modern America.  While I will respond to a few selections from the article, please ignore my tone if it becomes condescending or sarcastic because I think the article is quite good (despite his British spellings, which I find irritating).


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[[Source article in italics, my responses in bold.]]

Once upon a time, Americans settled around the television to enjoy a white Christmas together. Nowadays, it seems, they are too entrenched on opposite sides of the “war on Christmas”, or commoditising it to oblivion, to remember Bing Crosby’s crooning. 

Interesting to use White Christmas as the example, considering that when that movie came out, America was about 90% white.  Even more were Christians.  How shocked should we be that black people, Hispanics with no family history of being American, Jews that don't give a shit about Gentile traditions or holidays, and Muslims who still think they live in the Middle East don't care one bit about anything the nation cared about 60 years ago?



Black and white, straight and gay, Jewish and Muslim all flock to the latest Star Wars movie. Interest in the Oscars and the Super Bowl obliterates sociological distinction. So too does fear of economic insecurity. These things unite most Americans.

Wonderful.  Let's recap: a kids' movie, Hollywood idiots, a game, and a shit economy.  That's what we have.  Distractions and purse strings.  So the same things that unite the entire planet.



Is the idea of America as a republic of shared values under threat? It is tempting to say no. The country has gone through philosophical clashes before and emerged stronger. It was born in the heat of one. The dispute between Thomas Jefferson, the poet of the American Revolution, and Alexander Hamilton, its chief federalist, predates the republic. It lives on in the form of conservatives who favour states’ rights and liberals who prefer a bigger role for federal government.

History began in 1776 and updates itself within the same reference points. That argument will be on display again in 2016 between Hillary Clinton and whichever Republican is nominated. According to this view, it is wise to be complacent. However cacophonous the noise, it will be drowned out by history’s drumbeat to an ever-closer union.

Right now I will point out one of the great myths that has been placed on this generation: that our American values are what they are simply because we are "American."  That all people of the world flock to these values and come to this country because they are "American" in their hearts.

No.  We have the values we do because we were founded by a group of intelligent, powerful, straight, white, Christian Protestant men from a small, particular place on the planet.  And for the next 150-plus years, almost all newcomers to this nation were in the same group.  Some outside of this group have adopted and assimilated to these values as they came to this country.  Some have looked to this country as an example and fought for those values in their own lands.  But the values have become diluted right along with the dilution of the founding demographic.

Whatever disagreements we had in the past about matters of government, we overcame them because we still fell under the same tribal tent.  This is true no longer thanks in large part (and according to Ann Coulter and a few others) to a 1960's immigration bill. *



And yet. It is hard to listen to today’s poisonous exchanges and imagine them petering out any time soon. Mr Trump cannot be uninvented. The last Republican debate sounded more like the launch of the Tenth Crusade than a question of which candidate had the best ideas to stabilise the Middle East.

And here's the sad truth: it will not change.  The divide will only get worse.  As the line graph showing our unity trends downward, there may be an occasional blip in the upward direction, but we're past having any inflection points.  There is no turning back.


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Now, to return to my original thoughts and the title of this post: our leaders have done this to us.  Patriotism, shared values, and belief in this nation are attitudes that must be espoused and disseminated from the top.  Any organization is only as good as its leadership and we have been sorely lacking for a long, long time.  Whatever Obama's politics are, he either openly doesn't care about a large portion of the people he leads, or he's just an absolute shitshow of a leader.

I believe if Donald Trump gets elected we may have a bit of a Reagan-like unification where belief in the American Way and optimism become our guiding principles once again.  You read it here first, people.  The Donald gives us a chance for a brief reprieve, but only a reprieve.

It may be time to not only start preparing for rock bottom, but to welcome it.  Complete government and administrative dysfunction may be the only way to form a nation that had the type of unity we did when "Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye."



* The existence of the Civil War seems to counter this point but I believe as the Financial Times author does that America, "has gone through philosophical clashes before and emerged stronger."  The difference now is outline in my arguments and is such that I think we can no longer resolve our differences and become stronger.