Two years ago, extremists attacked the physical citadel of democracy. Today, extremists are assaulting the institutional pillars of Congress, in an offensive that could inflict even more lasting damage.
Consider the demands that hard-right conservatives opposed to California Republican Kevin McCarthy as Speaker have made, some of them already proposed as House rules:
·A balanced federal budget with no deficit spending, an objective that, however worthy over the long term, could upend the economy if it’s imposed overnight or shuts down the government.
·More freedom to eliminate federal offices and fire government workers, potentially decimating the nonpartisan civil service that serves as a cornerstone of effective governance and a functioning democracy.
· Defund the Internal Revenue Service, making it easier for the super rich to evade taxes, and harder for the government to fund its operations—and balance the budget.
· Gut the House ethics panel, officially the bipartisan Office of Congressional Ethics, making it harder to hire staff and imposing term limits that would effectively oust most of the panel’s Democratic-appointed members.
The anti-McCarthy brigade, led by such Freedom Caucus firebrands as Andy Biggs, of Arizona, Matt Gaetz, of Florida, and Virginia’s Bob Good, casts its agenda as a bid to bring back “deliberation and input by the body” that serves as “the people’s voice.” That’s how several of them put it in a “ Dear Colleague ” letter outlining their concerns that also called for re-opening the legislative process to allow House members more time to read and amend bills.
Allowing more time to read bills sounds reasonable enough, but that same letter also made clear the economic chaos conservatives could unleash if they refuse to raise the debt limit or approve a federal budget. The letter urges using “Must-Pass” legislation to “Check the Biden Administration,” leveraging appropriations bills, for one, to “utilize the power of the purse to actually stop the border insurgency, restore energy freedom, and/or block the hiring of more IRS personnel to harass Americans.”
The real agenda of the group blocking McCarthy, which has grown to some 20 lawmakers, is to slash the size and reach of the federal government, an ideological crusade that has been building since the days of former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990s and the Tea Party movement launched in 2009. Now, with a new crop of far-Right Republicans bolstering the Freedom Caucus, the GOP lurch to the right is nearing its logical conclusion with full dysfunction in the House.
Is this worse than the loss of seven lives in connection with the January 6 assault on the Capitol two years ago, and a president who, according to the House select committee that investigated that attack, violated the law on several fronts in seeking to overturn the 2020 election?
It remains to be seen whether far-right House members succeed in dismantling key ethics, governance and economic safeguards that aim to keep American government transparent, accountable and functional. But the successes of the January 6 committee, on the second anniversary of that assault, are ominously overshadowed today by a House minority’s determination to interfere with Congress through institutional, if not physical, destruction.
Old engraved illustration of Ulysses defying the Cyclops.
Odysseus Reimagined: Nolan’s Epic Explores What Makes a True Hero
Who is a hero? More importantly: what is a hero? What attributes are universally admired, inspiring glorious stories, ballads and songs, memorials and movies, all chronicling the hero’s bold adventures?
The Odyssey, a new release written and directed by Christopher Nolan, attempts to answer that question. Based on the ancient tales The Iliad and The Odyssey, written by Homer around 800 BC, the film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope, his loyal wife.
Historians have puzzled over the “Homeric question,” that is, who was Homer? We know very little about him, not even when or where he was born; seven Greek cities lay claim to him as their native son. Yet, he is considered the “godfather” of national Greek culture, and his stories are among the earliest masterpieces of literature.
Homer is sometimes romanticized as a blind poet who wandered from town to town reciting his stories. But he, who could express so poignantly the tribulations of Odysseus, was not blind to human nature. He keenly wrote of the attributes as well as the paltriness in his characters and the flaws of his great hero, Odysseus.
The Iliad is the story of the final years of the Trojan War, sparked when Helen, the beautiful wife of Sparta’s King Menelaus, was kidnapped by Paris of Troy. Because the kings had initiated a pact to defend one another, Odysseus was drawn into the fray.
After spending ten years fighting the Trojan War and finally achieving victory, The Odyssey tells of Odysseus’s struggle to return to his kingdom, Ithaca. On his way home, he encounters many dangers and delays. He is pursued by the sea-god Poseidon, must surmount Circe’s spell, and overcome the seductive charms of the enchantress Calypso, and his journey takes him another ten years.
Odysseus’s desires and struggles are universal: his longing for home, yearning for an end to his troubles, for rest after a long and difficult journey. His difficulties reflect the immemorial questions of what it means to be loyal, to belong, what it means “to be” at all. Despite his hubris, which manifests in his propensity to court catastrophe without regard for consequences, Odysseus is an authentic hero, noble and admirable, brave and dedicated.
According to the Greek ideal, a true hero must possess physical excellence and moral virtue. He must, as well, embrace his civic duty. Achieving such status requires “paideia,” a good education; “sophrosyne,” moderation in maintaining physical and emotional balance; and “arete,” an allegiance to the state.
Fictional or real, heroes’ deeds resonate through the centuries and shine a light on what is best in humanity, what matters, what will live on despite our mortality.
Is our digital age really so different from Homer’s Bronze Age? Physical beauty is still adulated, as it was then with Helen of Troy, “the face that launched a thousand ships.” (Marlowe) Power is still king, and wealth is still power.
The years of the Trojan War were harsh and violent. But were they more brutal than the times we live in? Although millenniums have passed and we now have different battlefields, Palestine, Ukraine, Iran, etc., the ravages and the wages of war remain the same: death and suffering. Humanity’s currency is the same, and so, too, is our quest for heroes.
Social scientists claim that after three generations most people are forgotten by even their direct progeny, and after four, remembered only by historical records. So, what then does last? What makes a difference? What is truly beautiful and worthwhile in life?
The universal themes embodied and emboldened by our heroes throughout the ages, the faithfulness of their hearts and the courage of their deeds, these last.
The essential qualities of a hero are manifested in Homer’s Odysseus. Steadfast integrity: “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.” His deep compassion: “Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for others’ good, and to melt at others’ woes.” (Both quotes from The Odyssey.)
Nolan’s movie may have created a more virtuous hero than Homer’s works, but the core of the nearly 3,000-year-old-story is intact and as crucially relevant today as it was then. It is the stuff of life: trauma, survival, relationships with others, finding oneself, deciding what is right, choosing a path forward, sometimes, ultimately leading to the honing of a hero.
Just as Odysseus braved storms, temptations, and trials in search of home, we too face a modern sea of civic turbulence, polarization, mistrust, and the fraying of our shared story.
As we live, we too will write our defining stories. How then might we become modern heroes?
By instigating the third Greek ideal of “arete”; embracing our civic duty. By becoming citizens who are open to reflection and debate, who are willing to act with purpose for the betterment of our nation.
In this journey, the work of renewing our democracy can be its own Odyssey, a voyage calling for integrity, courage, and steadfast commitment. Not to return home as Odysseus so desired, but to preserve our home, for the grand and worthwhile purpose of working toward an ever-better future for our country.
With others, we can shape the next chapter of our nation’s collective story.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."