Happy 233rd

Happy Birthday, America. Eleven score and thirteen years and counting.

In many ways, this is a less than happy birthday for our nation. The twin collapses - in our economic model and our international prestige - have severely weakened us. But these are surmountable problems; they are not existential dangers for the U.S. We can rebuild our finances and our industries, our alliances and our military.

In my mind, a far greater worry is internal division. During the Cold War, no matter how much groups of Americans disagreed about issues and about policy, the threat of the USSR kept us committed to upholding the same institutions. No more, unfortunately. Since the 1990s many of us seem to have become convinced that this country doesn't have room for people who don't think like (or look like, or talk like) we do. We are fighting over who gets the pie.

This disunity is, I think, the fundamental cause of our economic and international collapses. On the economic front, conservatives were so worried that tax revenues would simply be handed out to liberal support groups (blacks, in particular) that they starved the government of money needed to pay for public goods. And many liberals in the public sector, eager to preserve their comfortable government sinecures (I'm looking at you, teachers), fought tooth-and-nail against needed reforms that would have made the government-dominated sectors of our economy more efficient. Nobody budged, and so all of us suffered. Wages stagnated, inequality increased, trade deficits went up.

Meanwhile, short-term electoral considerations meant that neither Republican nor Democratic presidents were willing to take the risk of popping the bubbles that have now clobbered our economy three times since the 80s. And Republican unwillingness to cut spending to pay for their tax cuts created the albatross that is our national debt. Once again, beating the other party was more important than providing for the country's long-term health.

Infighting also contributed to our international woes. Politics no longer stopped at the water's edge; we went to war in Iraq, and stayed there too long, largely so Bush could label the hated Democrats as peaceniks and wimps (he succeeded). Willingness to support torture and extra-legal detention became badges of pride for many in the conservative movement; not, perhaps, because they really believed in those things, but because it allowed themselves to look down on "wimpy" liberals.

I'm very happy that Barack Obama is our president. Almost uniquely among today's party leaders, he seems to really believe in reaching out to the other side (and not just by cynical, poll-driven "triangulation"). His rhetoric constantly emphasizes the need for national unity - "not Red America, not Blue America, but the United States of America" may be a bit cheesy as slogans go, but it's exactly the right idea. He has made substantial efforts to appoint Republicans to his administration, include conservative voices at his events (Rick Warren), and compromise on key legislation even when politics didn't demand it. What other president - Republican or Democrat - would have done the same?

Which is why it frightens me to see how resistant conservatives have been to Obama. I am not suggesting that our country unite in lock-step behind our Dear Leader. But when Rush Limbaugh repeatedly declares his hope that Obama's policies fail, and when Glenn Beck paints Obama as a fascist tyrant, dissent has gone beyond policy disagreement into the realm of separatist absolutism. Figures like Limbaugh and Beck have made it clear that they will not accept the legitimacy of any leader who is a Democrat or liberal - that means that they implicitly reject the legitimacy of the American institutions that put him there (electoral democracy, for example). When they should be quietly grumbling, some (not all) of conservatism's leading mouthpieces are shrieking furious defiance, as if their backs are to the wall and the apocalypse is here. And they are beginning to preach ethnic and cultural separatism; Sarah Palin's rhetoric about the "real" America resonated with entirely too many people.

And herein the danger lies. If conservatives decide that they can't live in a country where whites are not an overwhelming majority, or if they decide that they can't live in a country that sometimes elects Democrats, then liberals may decide that they can't live in the same country as conservatives. And if that disunity continues to spiral, America is basically done as an economically strong, internationally powerful nation. I don't think we'd see civil war or national collapse - I'm not Glenn Beck, here - but I think we would have no chance of halting the deterioration of our vital national institutions; we would disintegrate into a patchwork of gated communities, ethnic/cultural fiefdoms, and corrupt politicians representing narrow tribal interests. In other words, we would be Brazil.

Which I couldn't bear to see, because I believe that America's national ideals and values are the best hope for humanity. I strongly believe in the twin revolutions of democracy and personal liberty that we began 233 years ago today. But no movement is self-sustaining. It's up to us to keep this thing going, people.