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Black Lives Matter protesters march in New York.
Ira L. Black - Corbis/Getty Images
Progress is won by pursuing justice, not waiting patiently in line
Jul 16, 2024
Agbo is the CEO of the Kataly Foundation and the managing director of the foundation’s Restorative Economies Fund.
It’s another election year. Another year when the stakes are sky high and the promise of our democracy is in peril. Another year when people — primarily people of color — are asked to put aside differences and come together to save our country.
What is the responsibility of philanthropy in yet another moment of political uncertainty?
I have read perspectives from philanthropy leaders offering hopes for a commitment to pluralism, unity, and bridge-building. Polarization and divisiveness are presented as twin plagues threatening our democracy. But this analysis is fundamentally flawed. Polarization and divisiveness are symptoms of the problem, not the problems themselves. Until we address the root causes of the injustices that sow division, any sense of unity is inauthentic and disproportionately taxes those most proximate to the harm.
To preserve democracy, we must first acknowledge that the promise of American democracy has yet to be fully realized, in large part due to the vestiges of slavery in our political systems. Recognizing that truth, we can meaningfully grapple with the role that philanthropy can play in sustaining democracy. Most importantly, we can stand on the side of justice, eschew the convenience of neutrality, and provide long-term, at-scale support for social movements.
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When we consider how to protect and preserve democracy, we must remember that the democracy as designed at the country’s founding exclusively served the interests of wealthy white landowners. As journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project, reminds us, “Black people have been the great perfectors of the American democracy.”
In short, it’s only through the resistance and struggles of social movements, particularly underpinned by the political organizing and analysis of Black people, that voting rights full citizenship were extended to white women through the 19th Amendment in 1920 and to Black people through the civil rights movement and enactment of the 14th and 15th amendments.
Our democracy still moves sluggishly through the dregs of slavery thanks to the Electoral College, a system designed to protect the influence of white slave owners. This legacy is made more foul through constant attacks on voting rights and voter suppression, which are particularly aimed at voters of color. These assaults on fundamental rights illustrate how we continue to struggle toward the realization of a more perfect, multiracial democracy.
Those who seek the full realization of our democracy strive only for the narratives and promises made to all Americans. As history shows, progress is achieved by constantly demanding greater inclusion and equity. Social advancements aren’t handed out to people standing in line, patiently waiting their turn.
Many of the narratives about advances in our democracy are retold as though benevolent white men generously shared their rights and wealth with others. In fact, we know that it has always been through the organized struggles led by social movements composed of Black and Indigenous people, people of color, poor and working-class people, and transgender and gender non-conforming people that we can boast progress, even if we lag far behind other nations.
President Abraham Lincoln did not willingly free the enslaved people of the South, and President Lyndon Johnson did not dream up and pass the civil rights legislation of the 1960s on his own. The 40-hour work week was not a manifestation of corporate benevolence. These achievements were realized only through many years and sometimes decades of struggle, resilience, and the audacity to demand dignity, respect, and rights. The few times we’ve seen those in power proactively enact legislation or initiatives that have helped to make positive economic and social advancements for society have been initiatives like the GI Bill, which targeted investments and centered participation for white men while excluding Black men from the very same programs.
By demonizing resistance and minimizing it as divisive, we place the burden to take the high road on the most disadvantaged. From the policy decisions to daily microaggressions of those in power, it is clear that they have no intention to collaborate and no interest in negotiating. The responsibility to “go high” must be placed on those who have the most resources, information, and support to go more than halfway to meet and understand those who demand care and equal treatment under the law.
Desmond Tutu once wisely said: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Philanthropy cannot pretend that we are not aware of the deep systemic injustices baked into the American democratic project. Once we acknowledge those injustices, claiming false equivalencies or taking a “both sides” point of view demonstrates an unwillingness to stand firmly on the side of justice for fear of disrupting the status quo.
And yet we must have compassion for leaders in philanthropy who do this, because they are trained to believe that they must hold onto their proximity to power in order to stay relevant, safe, and secure in their positions. So rather than plant their foot on one side of the debate, they toe the line between two perspectives so that they can appear palatable to either side and teeter back and forth between whichever side is most convenient on any issue at any moment.
Given our power and influence — particularly when the name “philanthropy” translates to “love of humanity” — we cannot choose neutrality. That would suggest we are satisfied with our democracy and country as they are, unwilling to strive for a more perfect union. It would mean we accept the status quo, which benefits white, male, wealthy individuals at the exclusion of everyone else.
Often, philanthropy hedges bets by investing in both sides of an issue: We fund the work of prison abolitionists while investing in private prisons. We support climate and environmental justice work while holding stock in fossil-fuel companies. This allows us to feel good about our charitable work without confronting the realities of what it truly means to stand for justice and the love for humanity.
The question becomes: If we choose to stand on the side of justice, what is the responsibility of philanthropy to protect democracy? Our role must be to support organizers and social movements that champion a long arc vision of a truly inclusive, multiracial democracy. We must sustain the organizations that pursue civic engagement work, particularly outside election seasons, when many politicians forget the platitudes they made to poor and working-class communities in exchange for votes.
Intersectionality, a term and idea coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, helps us understand that to fully participate in a multiracial democracy, you must have your needs met at the crossroads of your identity and day-to-day experiences. This means that who we are, where we live, and how we live, all impact our safety and security, which ultimately shapes our ability to participate in democracy. Economic stressors that require people to work multiple jobs limit their opportunity to vote. Individuals, families, and communities under economic duress, facing daily threats to their safety due to criminalization of poverty, race, gender, religion, or any other identifying characteristics might even regard the act of voting or the election system itself as irrelevant to their daily needs.
For this reason, philanthropy also has a responsibility to fund initiatives that address the economic needs of Black and Indigenous people, all people of color, and poor and working-class communities. A strong economic foundation, including a resilient social safety net, can provide individuals with the confidence and stability to think beyond their immediate needs and to consider participating in the democratic project.
Democracy, obviously, is not just about casting a vote. It’s about engaging in the community every day, having time to spend with family and friends, and the space to get to know neighbors, patronize local businesses, participate in city council meetings, volunteer on commissions or at schools, etc. It is important for philanthropy to recognize that all these routine actions, big and small, contribute to someone’s sense of belonging and a productive democracy.
It’s critical that philanthropy provide generational, multi-year general operating support. Such support is what gives a movement-building organization the financial flexibility to meet the unanticipated daily needs of its membership and community and experiment with how to expand civic engagement and democratic participation. Philanthropy’s heavy-handed restricted funding fails to recognize that people live not in silos but lead whole and integrated lives.
Following the Fearless Fund ruling that a grant program for Black women business owners is discriminatory, the responsibility of philanthropy is to demonstrate that we will not operate from a place of fear, and we will not waver in our support for racial justice. Philanthropy has the moral responsibility to use our voice, power, and resources to support those committed to the ever-enduring struggle of a more just world, a fair and equitable democracy, and most importantly the right for everyone to be able to participate in the great multiracial democratic experiment that is the United States of America.
This writing was originally published in The Commons, a project of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
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A shoe is left on stage after a former President Donald Trump was ushered off by the Secret Service following an assassination attempt on July 13.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The assassination attempt: Reflections from The Fulcrum contributors
Jul 15, 2024
Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
I woke up Sunday morning, like I am sure you all did, attempting to process Saturday's assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
In my role as co-publisher of The Fulcrum I immediately started thinking about how we should respond and started to write a column with my thoughts. But first I needed to figure out my approach.
- Should the writing be the typical column about the need for our country to lower the inflammatory rhetoric and bridge the divide?
- Should the writing be about how the event might change the nature of the upcoming presidential race and, if so, how?
- Should the writing be a discussion of the moral equivalency or lack thereof between Trump's inflammatory language about immigrants being hoodlums and dangerous and the language used by those who believe Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must not be reelected, more words that might incite violence?
With those and many more thoughts crossing my mind, I decided to pause and write to about 30 Fulcrum contributors.
I want The Fulcrum response to be different. I want our responses to fit in with our mission of asking:
- What's dividing us on this issue?
- What is oversimplified about this issue?
- What are the nuances and complexities of this issue?
- Is there any part of the other side's position that makes sense to you?
- What do you want the other side to understand about you, and what do you want to understand about the other side?
- What's the question nobody's asking?
More than anything I want The Fulcrum to be part of a solution that brings our country together.
Following are some responses I received.
National Task Force on Election Crises
The National Task Force on Election Crises unequivocally condemns the attack that injured former President Trump, which took place as a crowd of his supporters were exercising their freedom of peaceful political assembly. Our thoughts are with the former President, as well as with the other innocent victims of this horrific act of violence. There is no place for violence in American politics.
Hugo Balta, publisher of the Latino News Network
Like you, I’ve struggled personally to grasp the enormity of what has happened and have engaged in conversations and debates that range from politics to gun control to a culture of violence that seems to have reached the boiling poimnt (and is overflowing).
I am concerned that we are on the fast lane towards something worse that goes beyond the November election.
My position now as it has been all along is that mainstream media does more harm than good. It continues to fan the flames of divide instead of providing a platform for discussion and debate (especially debate because it is in our differences, in what makes people uncomfortable … that’s where new ideas are born and innovation lives). We must learn to be comfortable at being uncomfortable.
And that’s what I think our country needs and the opportunity The Fulcrum has in front of it … to be the counterculture of a news media that has long ago lost its way to appease its sponsors. And with it, their political bias.
Amy Lockard, author and journalist
Decency: No law reaches it, but all right-minded people observe it. (Chamfort)
With our presidential choices teetering between The Despot and The Doddering, shots ring out at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
Ex-President, and presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump is injured. Another man is dead, two others critically injured. Trump raises a defiant fist as the Secret Service bustles him to safety.
The country is shaken; the world horrified. Yet again.
The ironies of this shooting abound, but that is not the matter in question.
Politics, religion, emotions, all else aside, there is only one road, ever, to take.
That is the high road.
And decency is demanded of all who travel it.
Charles Savenor, rabbi and executive director of Civic Spirit
The assassination attempt on Trump backfired because it reminds us not only about our shared humanity, but also the futility of silencing ideas and opinions. Gun violence sadly represents a symptom and illness plaguing our nation. Agreeing with elected officials is not the goal, rather it’s creating safe and constructive forums for us to listen, disagree, debate and dream.
Political dialogue needs to be reimagined away from a zero sum game to an opportunity to identify areas in which we can work together towards a productive civil society that is the cornerstone of an America in which we can take pride.
Two years ago I was at Chautauqua when Salmon Rushdie was attacked, and similar feelings of dread washed over my soul about the state of the freedom of speech and civil dialogue. And yet, I still harbor a deep conviction that we — our country and humanity itself — are better than this. And we owe it to our children to leave them a country committed in word and in deed to creating a more perfect union.
David Toscano, a former Democratic leader in the Virginia House of Delegates
Many commentators are suggesting that this event creates problems for the Biden campaign. The discovery that a 20-year-old registered Republican shot with an AR-15 lessens those problems. But Biden could nonetheless commit to reexamining his own rhetoric. He should never refer rhetorically to putting Trump in the “crosshairs” or “bullseye.”
Trump also faces a huge challenge. Will he examine his own language and commit publicly to lessen the vitriol? This would be a great opportunity for him politically to commit to a different kind of rhetoric — and it would put Biden in a more difficult position. To do so publicly would change the election process dramatically.
Similarly, Biden could give a speech with examples of his own, and commit to eliminate similar rhetoric. I don’t think Trump would ever do it and doubt Biden would either, but politics is full of twists and turns.
Lynn Schmidt, syndicated columnist and editorial board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
I have been thinking about the incentive structures surrounding our elected officials with my state's two senators on my mind. Instead of turning the temperature down, they have used this tragic situation to rile things up by blaming President Biden and the media, making things worse. I believe that a majority of Americans do not want to live like this but until we change our primary election system and enact reforms, the politicians who inflame our current political situation will face no consequences.
Scott Klug, podcast host and former member of the House of Representative
Visit the Kennedy museum in Dallas and you’ll find an entire wing focused on conspiracy theories. Sixty years later new theories still get published.
Is anyone surprised that within minutes of the Trump shooting the extremes pointed fingers at each other? Trump haters said it was a false flag operation to ramp up sympathy for the former president. Shadow of Ezra, an anonymous conspiracy theorist account on X, wrote that “The Deep State tried to assassinate Donald Trump live on television.”
Those of us disgusted with current American politics, those of us who are political orphans, need to remind friends and family that the shooting in Pennsylvania is the predictable outcome of the bile in today’s political incivility. We have to stop it.
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The FBI, ATF and other law enforcement agencies work at the crime scene where a gunman attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on July 13.
Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images
The language of violence
Jul 15, 2024
Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”
Real violence erupted at a presidential campaign rally on Saturday night. Rare though it was, it was still a sickening sight.
Tragically, metaphorical violence as part of campaign speeches is not at all rare. Democrats and Republicans — Biden and Trump, Harris and Haley, DeSantis and Kennedy, you name it — throw around allusions to violence as if we are currently engaged in some domestic incursion.
How often have we heard presidential candidates exclaim, “We are fighting for the soul of America” or battling “the opposition’s assault on democracy”? How frequently have our leaders implored us to “wage war against the foes of women’s freedom” or in defense of “the innocent life of an unborn child”? Of course, my favorite metaphor du jour is the “weaponization” of institutions and actions. Republicans talk of the weaponization of America’s legal system and of the left’s “woke” principles, while Democrats talk of the weaponization of impeachment efforts and family laptops. It has to stop.
The language of violence is not new to American politics. But it has taken on heightened consequences because of our current polarized state. Leaders on both sides of the aisle (along with the media) are simply too nonchalant about encouraging their followers to “fight, fight, fight.” The world feels somehow different today than when Ronald Reagan would occasionally invoke the battle metaphor (remember the “war on drugs”?) or when Bill Clinton wouldreference the “fight for farmers and the fight for accessible health care.”
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Survey after survey shows that Americans are exhausted. The constant exposure to political intransigence and partisan bickering has drained our emotional reserves. It has also damaged Americans' faith in the government, their confidence in its leaders and our general sense of national pride.
Make no mistake: There should be no blaming the victim here. What happened to Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., is tragic and indefensible. A chorus of lawmakers past and present have condemned the actions of this apparently lone gunman. Many have echoed President Joe Biden’s sentiment that “there is no place in America for this kind of violence.” Agreed. But, equally, there should be no place in American politics for the sort of violent language that so easily passes the lips of those in power.
My plea to politicians on both the left and the right is to erase the violent vernacular from your messaging. Talk of restoring America to a progressive vision or a conservative ideal, not of destroying the opposite party. Speak of rebuilding the country to its rightful standing as the paragon of liberty, freedom, equality and justice, not of razing all policies initiated by representatives from across the aisle. Instead of the impulse to vilify, tell of your plans for renewal and rebirth, as Lincoln did. And FDR, and Johnson, and Reagan, and Obama.
Americans are fortunate. We inhabit a polity where liberty is valued above all else. The First Amendment to the Constitution safeguards these candidates and their messages. It should. Their remarks are rightly recognized as political speech, the loftiest and most revered variety of free expression. But as with all protected speech, the freedom to express oneself is not equivalent to the moral necessity to say anything that comes to mind. In other words, because some messages are protected does not mean they should be uttered. This is not a case of “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” Surely, we can still get our most complex, nuanced and inspirational points across with a far less violent tone.
Democrats and Republicans alike should come together in prayer for Donald Trump’s swift and full recovery. Once that’s assured, we should renew the campaign for the presidency. Let it be vigorous, spirited, courageous and ardent. But, please, please let it also be rhetorically peaceful.
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The American tragedy of the Trump assassination attempt
Jul 15, 2024
Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, is of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy. Sarat is a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was a crime against the entire country and against democracy itself. Every American should be grateful that it failed, and that Trump has survived it.
Let’s say it plainly. It is an abomination that he was wounded as he campaigned for a return to the White House. Every one of us has an obligation to examine what we can do to stop any kind of recurrence.
We are grateful that, as The Washington Post notes, “Leaders of both political parties, including some with whom Mr. Trump has clashed, swiftly and unequivocally condemned the attack.” They are setting the right example in an otherwise toxic political environment.
We have lived this national nightmare too many times. In the last 60 years, we’ve had the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, of Medgar Evers and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, of Robert Kennedy, and the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.
In May of last year, another assassination attempt was foiled when a 19-year-old man drove a rented van into a White House barrier. He was a Nazi sympathizer who was prepared to “kill the president” and “seize power.” Saturday’s shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, apparently used an AR-15-style automatic rifle.
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As we have before, all of us will live through the trauma of seeing the attempt on former President Trump’s life replayed over and over on the news.
Political violence is never acceptable, and attempting to assassinate a candidate for public office, much less the presidency, is particularly abhorrent. Once killings of leaders, political candidates and presidents become embedded in a nation’s history, neither figures on the left nor the right are immune.
We are grateful for the courage of Secret Service agents and first responders who acted quickly to protect Trump. But we need to stop putting them in harm’s way in ways that have become too common.
However, rooting out political violence will not be easy.
In our society, as political polarization has increased, so has approval of violent means for partisan ends. An April 2024 PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll showed that one in five Americans believe that political violence may be justified.
At the time, experts said these figures put the nation in “an incredibly dangerous place” in the months before the 2024 presidential election.” And here we are today, with another presidential candidate shot at.
Signs of the danger have plainly escalated. The Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol was the largest collective resort to violence to achieve political ends since the Civil War.
And the cynical attempt to excuse violence as an expression of “political discourse” — or an exercise of patriotism — reflects a breakdown in the shared belief that only peaceful means are acceptable to affect change. Once that social consensus erodes, you can never know where violence will next strike.
A study led by Garen Wintemute, a University of California at Davis physician, surveyed more than 8,600 Americans about their views on political violence. It found that one in three Americans believe that violence could usually or always be justified to achieve one political objective or another.
The survey also found that “support for political violence ... grew among those who said they were recent firearm purchasers and grew even more among those who admit they always carry a firearm outside their home.” As Wintemute stated, “The data tell us there are, on any given day, thousands of armed people walking around in the United States who think that political violence is justified.”
It is no more justified than the commonplace shootings in America of school children, music festival attendees and grocery shoppers. Indeed, there is no reason for the use of firearms by any citizen against another except in self-defense.
If it hasn’t been reported already, we will soon learn whether former President Trump’s now dead assassin had his weapon lawfully. Whether he did or didn’t, however, is beside the point.
It defies common sense that guns are so readily available in America. Ours is the only country in the world with more firearms in circulation than citizens. We are on a pace to have over 500 mass shootings this year, well over one per day.
Ultimately, when a society relaxes or virtually eliminates the controls on individuals’ ownership of firearms, gun safety and weapons of war, the result is to loosen the social norms on gun violence in everyday life. Frequent mass shootings normalize it and inevitably undermine the civil norms disapproving of violence.
Count on hearing from the NRA and its companion organizations that Saturday’s assassination attempt was by a crazed individual or a criminal. We may even hear from gun advocacy organizations that if citizens in or near the shooting site had been armed, they might have stopped the shooting before Trump was wounded and two other individuals who lost their lives.
We can’t let such talking points obscure the brutal truth. Speaking to the statistical connection between guns carried in public and the readiness to engage in political violence, Wintemute put it bluntly: “Denial is not our friend here.”
Time will tell whether the attempt on Trump’s life will spur a turn in the direction of common sense gun safety. In the meantime, each of us should speak out against what happened last night in Pennsylvania.
We should also speak out about, and not deny, the role in yet another American tragedy of a Supreme Court majority intent on approving bump stock machine guns,concealed firearms on the streets and virtually unlimited rights to gun ownership.
Words and ballots, not bullets, are the way to secure a just and peaceful America, as well as to preserve our freedom and our constitutional republic against political threats to them.
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It's never too late to act
Jul 15, 2024
Sturner, the author of “Fairness Matters,” is the managing partner of Entourage Effect Capital.
This is the second entry in the “Fairness Matters” series, examining structural problems with the current political systems, critical policies issues that are going unaddressed and the state of the 2024 election.
Back in April 2023, I wrote “It’s time to act,” wherein I quoted Winston Churchill saying, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”
In a January 2024 interview with the Financial Times, the 55th speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, referenced the quote above when discussing modern day Republican legislators (who had just voted him out of the speakership). He concluded: “We're just exhausting our options.”
The horrific assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump is a wake up call. Even before the attack, I’ve consistently written that we needed to move past this current state of play and break out of the media narrative that is tearing our country apart.
In June 2023, I wrote about “Our culture of violence,” where I discussed everything from gun control and the Second Amendment to the rise of political, racial, cultural and religious violence and our neverending wars. I started that article by quoting Shimon Peres’ final work, "No Room for Small Dreams: Courage, Imagination, and the Making of Modern Israel," which he finished writing only weeks before his passing in 2016. Here is a passage from the final chapter.
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“Countries can no longer afford to divide the world into friend and foe. Our foes are now universal poverty and famine, radicalization and terror, these know no borders and threaten all nations and so we must act swiftly to build the bonds of peace to tear down walls built with bitterness and animosity so that we can together confront the challenges and seize the opportunities of a new era. Optimism and naivete are not one and the same. That I am optimistic does not mean I expect a peace of love. I expect simply a peace of necessity. I do not envision a perfect peace, but I believe we can find a peace that allows us to live side-by-side without the threat of violence.”
Ultimately, we must break ourselves out of our echo chambers, end our partisan allegiances and reject the rank tribalism and political dogma that has defined the last few decades. Until we reject the propaganda and the narratives being pushed on both sides of the aisle, we will never elect common-sense centrist politicians willing and able to construct and implement common-sense centrist strategies in America.
If you’re like me, you were likely shocked by what you saw on social media in the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt. This was a national tragedy that should unite us. Instead, we were immediately confronted with divisive narratives on both sides raising the specter of further political violence.
Some on the right seemed to be drawing false equivalences between Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and what happened Saturday. USA Today reported:
“A number of Republicans are pointing fingers at President Joe Biden after the shooting of former President Donald Trump at a political rally on Saturday, with some citing Biden’s recent statement that ‘it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.’ … Republicans pounced on Biden's remarks after the shooting, even though there is no evidence tying those comments to the attack on Trump or the shooter's motivation. The man the FBI has identified as the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel, Pennsylvania, is a registered Republican, according to county voter records. Still, Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., shared part of the Biden quote on X and claimed without evidence along that ‘Joe Biden sent the orders.’”
And on the left, conspiracy theories are going viral, even asserting that the attempt was staged. As reported by the BBC:
“As ever, the conspiracy theories sometimes started with legitimate questions and confusion. They centred on alleged security failings, with lots of users understandably asking how this could happen. How did the attacker make it to the roof? Why weren’t they stopped? Into that vacuum rushed a wave of disbelief, speculation and disinformation. ‘It looks very staged,’ read one post on X which racked up a million views. ‘Nobody in the crowd is running or panicking. Nobody in the crowd heard an actual gun. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust him.’”
Do you see how dangerous these narratives can be? As I wrote last week in “Quite simply, fairness matters”:
“To regain our footing and build hope for the future, we need to rebuild trust in our political system. … Numerous factors have led us to where we are today, and one of the most damaging is the erosion of the journalism industry. If we intend to restore a sense of unity as a nation, we must transform the media industry in this country.”
It’s critical we wake up and realize that this current "crisis" is not an anomaly. And it was predictable. Sadly, it's human nature.
To quote Ecclesiastes 3 in the King James Bible:
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
As you are likely sensing, our "winter season" is upon us.
In 2023, Neil Howe published "The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End." I found it to be a timely refresh of his earlier work. In discussing the seasonality of life, Howe writes poignantly:
“America, along with most of the rest of the modern world, is demoralized and confused. Multiple indexes of global unhappiness have surged over the last 15 years. It is not hardship that causes this misery, but hardship without purpose. We feel disconnected in space from our broader communities. We also feel disconnected in time from our parents and our children. Linear history, which ties us to an incessant desire for novelty and progress, destroys the bond between us and those who came before us, and we fully expect it must do the same between us and those who will come after us.”
Very poignant when you consider that while times do change, things do often remain the same. At least where human nature is involved. As William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It's not even the past.”
So this is, in part, why I decided to write “Fairness Matters” last year — and I invite you to join me. Together, I believe we can develop a common understanding of the history that brought us to the precipice of a second Civil War and work to fix a broken political system that has become a major barrier to solving nearly every challenge our nation needs to address. To cite Neal Howe, we are in the “Fourth Turning” and how we exit this crisis depends upon all of our leadership. We all have a role to play!
Do you know that the average age of empires, according to the late Sir John Bagot Glubb, is 250 years? Empires always die, often slowly but usually from overreaching in the search for power. The America of 1776 will turn 250 in 2026.
It’s time to act!
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