advancing community![]() |
democratic America |
from triumphing over pathology to scaling Bidenism globally gary e. davis |
November 22, 2020 |
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This is a long page, relative to what I usually do. I expect that all of the sections below, which mark topics for development, will become separate pages—but not the first three, which mark passing events—as days go by. |
• a triumph of democracy in America • We survived the lack of a president. • promise in genuine leadership • American political pragmatism • Biden and political leadership • fair markets for progressive economics • collaborative Congressional relations • Biden’s challenge: Republican need for Trumpist fealty • America’s example in the world • collaborative global advancement of global public goods |
triumphing over pathology through the promise of genuine leadership |
a triumph of democracy in America |
Actually, election of Biden is a triumph of our electoral system, a triumph of most voting Americans’ sense of engagement in the face of a pandemic and plutocratic audacity, and a triumph of cybersecurity specialists.
What is “democracy” in America—or anywhere, actually—is an occasioned salience of demophilic aspects of good government and democratic aspir-ations of civil society. Democracy is always a work in progress (ostensible locally, model-theoretic or/and lawfully systemic regionally). Parts of a progressive compact between good government and good society show relative to generally emergent want (which is a mix of need and desire). I’m optimistic about the near-term future, contrary to unsurprising journal-istic jadedness. I see a “great feat of democratic citizenship that the 2020 election actually was,” commenting this week at the NYTimes, contrary to finding “lies have a long half-life”: “Democracy is in no danger, especially because intelligent voices like the Times won’t let that happen. Nor did voters intimate that democracy is in danger. We showed what we’re made of. That will be remembered.” [full comment] Time will tell, of course. But an especially remarkable feature of it all is that, even though there’s no Constitutional guidance on the matter of a president (so called, in the present case) refusing to concede, the improvisational flexibility of our society—media, fluid public opinion, the political system (as living organon)—is making a mockery of Trump’s tantrum. Even a jaded case for alarm about “Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election” avow that it’s not a danger. As I noted yesterday (pulling phrases from David Sanger’s article): To those in the world who see “incredibly damaging messages… being sent…about how democracy functions,” nota bene: “…there are…safeguards in place…We are going to follow the law and follow the process.…In state after state, the president’s lawyers have been laughed out of court…the voters clearly rejected him for re-election…. Even some of Mr. Trump’s onetime enthusiasts and former top aides have abandoned him on his claims, often with sarcastic derision.” |
We survived the lack of a president. Now, let’s move on. |
Trump was a front man for the U.S. chapter of global plutocracy, which I noted today at Maureen Dowd’s column: Trump’s Big Money backers are quite pleased to see everyone displace blame for the destruction of U.S. government on Repub-lican intransigence and on their loyal agent, the orange-faced golf club king (who, by the way, is true to form during today’s G20 meeting). [Trump played golf.]But that’s over now. While “A vindictive Trump seeks to undermine Biden’s presidency” and use his “…Last Days to Lock in Policies and Make Biden’s Task More Difficult,” “Business and World Leaders Move On.” G-20 leaders are quick to praise the anticipated return of U.S. engagement in global affairs. A short half-life of memory will easily move on from… the ridiculousness of Trump’s political tantrums [which will] become radioactive as soon as he’s again a loser TV huckster“Biden success means the waning of Trumpist appeal for the 2022 election,” I noted a couple of days ago, though I may have been in a bit of a bubble to avow that “Biden success means a definitely Democratic Senate in 2023.” In any case, “the GOP has hitched its wagon to a sick animal. The appeal of authoritarianism is dying in the light of enlightened political character and virtue. We are seeing the GOP approaching need for intubation. They are desperate.” So, Frank Bruni asks today “Who Will We Be Without Donald Trump,” to which I answered (and a good number of readers of my comment recom-mended). “I will be building back better my life, my trust in American humanity, and my engagement with urging others to pay forward for planet sustainability, being well, inquiring well, thinking well, and advancing community.” |
The daze of pandemic humanity finds promise in genuine leadership |
Last summer, a desperate ER physician in Australia asked NYTimes readers “Is Covid Scaring Us Away From Our Humanity?” The answer in the U.S. has never been “No.” Yet, addressed to humanity, the question remains open, but resolving itself: “WHO establishes Council on the Economics of Health for All.” G-20 “leaders call for global coronavirus vaccine access as U.S. labs near approval” and “discuss help for poorest nations in post-Covid world, [while] Trump golfs.” |
from BidenCare to collaborative global leadership |
The following section heads are intended to be separate discussions. For now, I’m only including further comments by me at recent news articles (with some added context). At each news article posting, my comments aren’t sectioned,
so the sectioned sequence below uses parts of comments, causing multiple citation of some comment episodes. |
American political pragmatism |
When the presidential election was “called” for Biden, his remarks to America included the following: …It’s time…to see each other again—to listen to each other again. Biden wants a healthy two-party system. Joining both parties, in principle, America created progressive pragmatism, that is: balancing idealism with realism, aspiration and feasibility, high hopes and gracious patience. We are a democratic republic that is con-comment Nov. 8: American political pragmatism can be progressively Conservative and at the same time conservatively Progressive. And this is something that McConnell can appreciate—and should appreciate, if he really wants to see economic recovery be channeled by him into Kentucky. [full comment] |
Biden and political leadership |
Though character was central to Biden’s appeal, I wanted to see his program-matic proposals receive more deserved attention. Two weeks before the election, I commented:
We owe Biden respect for the proposals he advocates more thanMore from the Nov. 17 comment: I believe that Biden is going to surprise us, and shape the most important presidency since FDR:Nov. 19: Biden is assembling the best and brightest for an administration that can be the most constructive for American prosperity since—since the last two Democratic administrations which each survived for eight years—echoing the progressivism of LBJ and FDR. |
fair markets for progressive economics |
I’m delighted to see Nobel economist Paul Krugman anticipate a “Biden boom”: …progressive politics [do not] somehow prevent prosperity… a fair market can promote innovation and long-term investment that can reap greater benefits than a series of short-term returns that are constantly worrying about today’s financial market volatility. |
collaborative Congressional relations |
Earlier this month, I fantasized that “American humanity prevails”:
Biden’s bipartisanship and legacy of relations with Republican Senators will bode well (in my view,…), given the fully-recovered economy that will preface the 2022 elections, thereby pressuring moderate Republicans to cooperate during 2021.More from my Nov. 8 comment: Authoritarianism is dead in America. Those Trumpist voters who were non-voters before Trump will go back into the woodwork,“And of course, renewing the Party will take years,” I noted to the Lincoln Project, after the election (website message), “years which Biden has bought the party by truly exhibiting the values that, for example, Yuval Levin’s wonderful NYTimes article expressed on election day, re: “…Our Deepest Problems Will Remain.” Nov. 8: The Fourth Estate should insist that McConnell be accountable to the shared values that Biden conveyed in his Saturday evening remarks [after he was declared the winner]. We can be a nation with high degree of shared values about what We are about. |
Biden’s challenge: Republican need for Trumpist fealty |
Biden must keep in mind that his pledge to be the president for all Americans serves Republican dependence on their constituency’s acquiescence. To the Washington Post, “Clearly, Republican acquiescence to Trump’s tantrum is about keeping Trumpist voter fealty for the sake of 2022. ‘We “fought” the “good” fight, Trumpists. So, please support our re-election.’” [full comment] So, Biden’s success with Congress depends on gaining acquiescence from Republican voters. Nov. 19, I wrote to the Editors of the Times about “The great challenge for Biden—and opportunity”: Succeeding with the apparently impossible task of building trust by citizens who don’t trust Biden (and Democrats) will be necessary for Republican Senate cooperation on Biden’s ambitious agenda, because those Senators can’t afford to appear to ignore their Trumpist constituencies. |
America’s example in the world |
Mid-summer, I declared at the Times: “The beacon of American humanity in the world is sorely needed in collaborative global leadership, if we are to not let the hot Earth destroy milllions of persons through poverty, famine, and disease.” [full comment] Nov. 19: “We Americans set a great example to the world this past season. The light to the world (and against authoritarian appeal) that we have shown ourselves to be will make Trumpism easily forgettable.” [full comment] Nov. 8: “…the example of America in the world is vital for developing nations to create the stability that results in stable markets which benefit American business. The world needs the valid ideology of American Exceptionalism. Biden’s theme of “the power of our example” is realpolitik.” [full comment] Nov. 20: “…the American example is working quite well, thank you. Nowhere else in the world has authoritarian nonsense been so roundly rejected. People striving in developing nations to establish fair government should be heart-ened. America is showing how it’s done.” [full comment] |
collaborative global advancement of global public goods |
I’m very drawn to isomorphic scaling of living exemplarity to systemic levels (inasmuch as that’s credible). So, models of organizational collaboration can be employed to model large-scale systems. That’s in mind with such com-ments as (Nov. 15, continued below) “Joining forces for actualizing shared values and solving problems collaboratively is, as they say, a no-brainer. So, it’s deeply saddening that the obstructionist Republican leadership is of a kind with obstructionist nations.” An historical isomorphism is that between (1) the U.S. Constitutional situation of unionized confederation of states; and (2) the E.U. situation of a confeder-ation of states that some influential voices want to see unionized by constitu-tion (a United States of Europe), while many voices do not want that, thus, keeping the E.U. Parliament informal, with ambiguous power, growing and waning with election cycles. So, that issue is implicit when I continue the above comment: You don’t see states within the U.S. regarding each other as adversaries. And friendly competition between the U.S. and the E.U. never looks to undermine the other continent. Healthy competition doesn’t have to look like war by other means.But I’m optimistic, because the shared value of global public goods appeals for constructive solidarity (Nov. 17): “Admirable leaders of other nations will quickly show collaborative solidarity with Biden in facing global problems in terms of great possibilities for advancing global public goods (like climate leadership) that will be associated with that solidarity.” [full comment] Nov. 19: No wonder Putism maneuvered so intently against the prospect of a Biden administration. No wonder kindred sycophants in the GOP— those once-upon-a-tme Never Trumpers—are playing along. |
The above sections of comments support an evolving project on practically advancing deliberative democratic tendencies, though they’re occasioned by recent events, not developing the basic character of the project.
The above shows how theory—or conceptual prospecting—can emerge from the shared life of our world,
a shared world of manifold lives, which I discuss elsewhere today. |
Be fair. © 2020, gary e. davis |