America's Four
Freedoms, Plus Two
Enemy or Opponent?
Trumpism Vs. Americanism
A Guide for the
Perplexed
American disunity is as severe right
now as any of us can remember. It might be the most severe disunity
since the Civil War. There is so much deep unrest, there are so many
obvious threats to our basic means of governing, that there must be
deep causes for it. Maybe the most profound is the correction we are
making in traditional American racism and the associated displacement
of a favored ethnic group, perhaps it is the ongoing economic
pressure and mistakes in governing over decades, or there are other
nominees as well. Or maybe new technical modalities have enabled
dark, James Bondian, Rupert Murdochian, Koch brotherian forces to
capture the country with lies, deceit and fear to an extent never
before seen. It's complicated.
But what has not been the ultimate
force behind our descent into discord and disunity has been a
disparity of ideas. Despite Keynes' famous
quotation about the primacy of ideas in
history, most students of events would hold (in the tradition of
Marx) that in this time of conflict, ideas are a secondary effect.
Reason and reasonableness can be replaced by rationalizations to
support basic economic interests, fears, emotions, personal
advantages, tribal feelings, prejudice, a sense of justice –
in short, all the basic instincts to which man is heir. There are
many, maybe a majority, who are never sincerely attached to ideals at
all, who just want as much as they can get for themselves, who use
arguments just to get what they want, and (since we are importantly
driven by comparisons) who mostly want to be somehow better off than
at least some others. And it comes as no surprise to recognize that
there are politicians who are only interested in power and the
various emoluments that office brings, who worship reelection, who
function virtually as paid agents of their funders, and to whom
democratic beliefs are only shibboleths they must mouth, and
sometimes do not even understand.
But while all that is true, it does not
mean that ideas are unimportant. In fact, I would argue that when we
are under such pressure, our ideas are more important than ever. We
need our ideas to clarify our cause to ourselves as well as others,
even if we do not hope to persuade more than a few. We need the
confidence in ourselves that clarity of thinking can give us, and we
need to understand where we stand vis-à-vis
the other side. Is the opposition simply our usual opponents with
whom we can ultimately cooperate and compromise, or are they our true
enemies, whom we must seek to defeat? We have to understand when we
are disagreeing on basic principles, and when we have a common end
and we are just arguing over means. In cinematic terms, do we share
the same image of the Emerald City, the basics of our country, and
are we just disagreeing over which Yellow Brick Road to follow, or do
we differ on the nature of Emerald City itself?
In times of great division, we need to
evaluate our ideas. This is what President Franklin D. Roosevelt did
when he needed to unify a divided country to fight World War II. He
looked back at the history to find our common ideals, and then used
his communication genius to forge a necessary unity of purpose in the
starkest demonstration of leadership since Lincoln. Finding those
common ideals is what we need to do now, if not to unify to fight a
war, at least to clarify our thinking about how divided we actually
are, and to chart our course of action.
The Four Freedoms (Plus
Two)
Roosevelt faced his problem of unifying
the country as fascist Germany was overrunning
Europe and World War II loomed, and as we were unprepared materially
for war and our people and politicians were significantly divided.
His organizational and political skills would take care of material
preparation, but to unite the country in purpose, he needed his
rhetorical skills. He articulated his conception of bedrock
principles of American democracy, principles which stood in stark
contrast to the fascists, in his State of the Union address on
January 6, 1941. This was his Four Freedoms speech, identifying as
our uniting principles Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship,
Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear.
As a nation, we move forward through
time, amending our values, and discovering where we stand at each
moment. The first two of Roosevelt's freedoms were present in the
vision of the Founders; the second two had been discovered more
recently. If he were to give the speech today, 80 years later, I
think he would have to add two additional freedoms to his bedrock
list of four. The Civil Rights movement changed our basic concepts
of ourselves permanently, so we need to add Freedom from
Discrimination. The Civil Rights movement also identified what
Roosevelt took for granted, as a fish is unconscious of the water in
which it swims. Now that it is being attacked, we see the need to
declare freedom number six, Freedom of Free and Fair Elections.
These Six Freedoms would seem to be a
strong bedrock vision of our American Emerald City. If we look at
them closely, it should help us once again to define the details of
our own current values and their challenges, and it should also help
us distinguish how deep our disunity really is.
Freedom #1: Freedom of Speech
Roosevelt was right to put free speech
in the first spot – what could be more American than free speech?
We see it as both a basic moral individual human right, and as an
instrumental asset of society, letting ideas compete in a free
marketplace.
The problem with free speech, as with
every freedom, is balance. The traditional obvious example of free
speech limitation is falsely yelling “Fire!” in a movie theater.
We can disagree on current proposed limitations that might or might
not be equivalent to yelling fire. Hate speech, for instance, or
Holocaust denial – offending feelings is a common price to pay for
free speech, but what about exciting prejudices that go beyond simply
offending feelings, but which would lead to discrimination or even
violence? Or what about denial of publishing by a major outlet
based on expressed political views,
or alleged views on misogyny, when there are other outlets, perhaps
less prestigious, available? These are obviously upsetting and
important issues, but at least for the present, they would seem to be
boundaries that can be rationally discussed and disputed among
opponents.
A more severe test of democracy than
those arises from modern technologies. Today we are faced with the
threat of the Big Lie, conspiracy theories and misinformation
reverberating and promoting home-grown
terrorism. Cable television and social media
have created platforms living in the nexus of untruths,
radicalization, and revenue. While we won't adopt the UK solution of
a state institution, OFCOM,
to banish lying media, self-regulation is a possibility, political
norms could improve by informal pressure and elections, consumers
could pressure sponsors of objectionable programs, antitrust
agencies could arise from their long slumber to break up social media
and conventional media concentration, the fairness doctrine could
reemerge, and social media business
models could be changed.
While it is not clear what must be
done, it is clear that there must be something, because we face not
only the threat of the Big Lie, but the threat to the value of truth
itself. We regulate truth in advertising, truth in medical claims,
truth in safety. We value truth as a basic human duty. Truth is so
important to democracy, in fact, that we cannot abide the
free-speech abusers, those putting profits over preservation of our
values, and those perpetrating lies (or “alternative facts”) for
power.
There needs to be
agreement on this goal, even if proposed solutions will differ.
Something must be done, because the Big Lie constitutes malicious use
of a freedom against the freedom itself, which is intolerable.
Defenders and proponents of the Big Lie and all the other constant
lies spells enemy, not opponent. The Big Lie spells Flying Monkeys
impeding the path to the Emerald City.
Freedom #2: Freedom of Worship
Even if Roosevelt's reference to a
Christian-tinged God seems outdated today, American freedom of
religion provided a stark contrast to the anti-religious fascists
abroad (and the Communists, too, of course, which was papered over in
favor of the-enemy-of-my-enemy principle). While he cited freedom of
worship as a simple personal moral human right, the Founders were
closer in time to European religious wars, and to the European power
structure triad of king-aristocracy-established religion that America
had revolted against. To them, keeping state and religion separate
was a passion.
Today, ironically, the Freedom of
Worship
issue has returned to the table. Deeply held religious convictions
are always a threat to civil government, as in the oft-repeated words
of former Vice President Mike Pence, for instance, “I am a
Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” One
is left waiting to see where “American” will appear in his list.
It seems increasingly clear that several Supreme Court justices might
be comfortable with a similar declaration. State support for private
and religious schools, refusing to provide services for gay weddings
or gay foster parents, prayers under public auspices, refusing to
supply contraception because of religious beliefs, forbidding free
entry to the country for Muslims, allowing religious services to
contravene public health measures during a pandemic, and the intense
fights on abortion rights – all test the validity of the line as it
has been traditionally drawn. Linda Greenhouse
observes that “Despite a rapidly secularizing society... the
Court's majority … is reflexively choosing religious over secular
interests.”
Does the Emerald City vision of
separation of church and state hold? Clearly, the claim of the
intense minority that we were founded on Christianity and Christian
principles should prevail over the traditional interpretation of the
constitution threatens our vision of the Emerald City. To Katherine
Stewart, Christian nationalism “is not a
social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its
ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to
America's pluralist democracy but to replace our foundational
democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a
particular version of Christianity....”
We could still be opponents negotiating
over the Yellow Brick Road, but we could also quickly become enemies
fighting tenaciously over the vision of the Emerald City. The return
of the old European problem that the founders thought they had solved
once and for all would be bad news for the republic.
Freedom #3: Freedom from Want
Unlike the clear constitutional
pedigree of the first two freedoms, Freedom from Want staked out new
ground pioneered by FDR’s New Deal. The state's role in helping to
provide the basic material requirements of life has now become our
heritage. Roosevelt defended it both morally and instrumentally –
a wealthy nation should care for the less fortunate, and democracy
requires a secure populace without huge differences of means. In his
speech he stressed equality, including access to jobs, civil
liberties, pensions, unemployment insurance, and medical care.
The Lyndon Johnson years added to
Roosevelt’s social and economic legacy. Although the conservative
years of government from Reagan to Trump have led to the most unequal
distribution of wealth since the Gilded Age, the basic social safety
net has remained intact, and especially with the Affordable Care Act,
has even been extended. It is impossible to say that this freedom is
not now basic to America's conception of our Emerald City.
We can argue as opponents about the
extent of help to be given and the specific path of the Yellow Brick
Road. Medicare for All or extend our current system of health
insurance? Free university for all, or targeted assistance? State
owned housing or subsidized private housing for the poor? But if you
deny that state help for economic security needs to be part of the
American vision of the Emerald City, if you think that government
should be so small it can drown in a bathtub, that health care should
not be a right, or that “personal responsibility” should extend
even to food and shelter without any governmental support, then you
are far from the mainstream and will be counted as an enemy.
The debate over this third right has
been sharp. The Right defends the last 40 years of material gains
for only the upper classes, giving short shrift to un-American
inequalities of opportunity and shrinking social mobility. They are
edging up to a very different view of the Emerald City.
To be fair, the Left also tries the
patience of traditional American thought with claims of “nobody
should be a billionaire,” which is close to “nobody should be
rich.” Personally, I would propose a modern Freedom from Want
agenda for an Emerald City credo as The
Policy of Nobody:
Nobody should be
a second class citizen.
Nobody should be
without health care.
Nobody should
lack education because of money.
Nobody should be
food insecure.
Nobody should
lack shelter.
Nobody should
lack possibilities.
Freedom #4: Freedom from Fear
Roosevelt's fourth freedom was directly
aimed at the fascist thugocracies threatening neighbors and the
world. Roosevelt cast this threat in terms of a state of mind of
safety, security, and non-intimidation, reminiscent of the
Declaration of Independence's call for freedom in “the pursuit of
happiness.” Our current thugocracy threat where might rules right,
of course comes from within rather than from abroad.
States trade their monopoly on violence
for a pledge to administer justice fairly. The cell phone camera
revolution has illuminated for the country at large what has been
known for decades, that police enforcement does not meet the standard
of legitimate fairness. Now that the problem is impossible to
ignore, opponents will contend on how and at what rate to fix it.
Enemies will defend the current standards and prevent police reform.
Given the recent assault on the capital
and the specter of armed rebellion by an intense minority in other
venues, not a few of them members of exactly those elements of
society that exercise the state monopoly of violence, the threat is
less abstract that before January 6. The vision of justice fairly
administered and backed by judicious use of violence is in question.
The founders tried to balance the need
for state monopoly on violence with the need to resist tyranny.
Their solution was to ensconce a right to armaments for a
“well-regulated militia,” so that central force illegitimately
used could be resisted. How this was changed to an interpretation of
free guns of all types for all types has a clear history, but a
mysterious motive force. What is perfectly clear, however, is that
the dispersal of guns has now become inimical to feelings of safety
and security in the general population. Solutions are difficult, but
realization that solutions are necessary is less so. Opponents will
agree on the problem and propose solutions with different means and
timelines. Enemies will deny the problem and even seek further
“freedom” to own, display, and use guns, as the general
population cowers.
Freedom #5: Freedom from
Discrimination
A case can be made that the biggest
change between Roosevelt's time and ours is the status of
discrimination and racism. The Civil Rights movement, and the
associated liberation movements that followed, have unalterably
changed the basic creed of the country. Non-discrimination is now
accepted as morally right, and as instrumentally useful for the
country in allowing more people to contribute, and in its morality,
enhancing the legitimacy of our government. Were FDR to give his
speech today, he would certainly add non-discrimination as a basic
value.
Erasing the historical practices of
discrimination needs to be part of the Emerald City vision. Which
Yellow Brick Road to take, however, is difficult. What time schedule
and what kind of enforcement, what if any reparations, how much
affirmative action, what protections for non-minorities from
counter-discrimination?
All changes have their pace, and there is always a progression from
innovator to early adopter, to early majority, to late majority, and
then to laggards. We seem to be well into late majority adoption of
the new ethos.
Realistically, this change is hard, as
every change that involves giving up even an unfair advantage is
hard. But what is jarring today is to watch television and see
spokespeople with foreign names and foreign faces speaking perfect
English and extolling the American creed with deep feeling, while
traditional white faces and names proclaim themselves the “real
Americans” and extol exclusionist, racist doctrines.
Opponents will debate the Yellow Brick
Road to non-discrimination; enemies will call the former advantaged
group now the oppressed, declare change unnecessary and sabotage and
obstruct progress, and support white supremacist groups. We have to
acknowledge that the forces of the enemy in this category of the
American freedoms are substantial.
Freedom #6: Freedom of the Free and
Fair Vote
Free and fair voting is both morally
important and instrumentally useful in conferring legitimacy to the
government, leading to a more stable society, and (some say)
resulting in better decisions and directions for society. It is
viewed as foundational for all other freedoms. “Voting
is the simplest, most electrifying way that ordinary people can
make their voices heard. Anything that unduly inhibits it saps a
people’s democratic faith.”
Since our free and fair voting system is the clearest possible
contrast with fascism, it is remarkable that FDR did not include it
as one of his basic freedoms. Given current events, he would not
omit it today.
Not that voting has been anything like
the naive presentation in civics classes of old. At first slaves,
women and others could not vote; the Connecticut Compromise made
less-populated states over-represented in the Senate; indirect
democracy had senators elected by state legislatures and presidents
by the Electoral College. Democracy developed further imperfections
such as political machines, candidate choices made in “smoke filled
rooms,” Jim Crow voter suppression, gerrymandering, dirty tricks
and blatant fraud, electoral financing that enabled corporations and
the rich to have more “free speech” than common people, and the
abuse of the filibuster. Senators representing 18% of the population
can block
legislation. Even in good times political
scientists concede that there has been
“long-standing participatory advantage of the
well-educated and the well-off.”
Inclusive voting has its theoretical
critics as well. The
National Review has
consistently argued that “Too
many people are voting,” and that voting
laws should make voting harder to produce a smaller, "better"
electorate.
But despite voting's spotty history and
some divergent theories, the arc of voting history has bent strongly
toward inclusion, even with setbacks. Especially after the Voting
Rights Act of 1965, we now have arguably a freer, fairer, and more
inclusive system of voting than ever before, and probably the most
error-free and fraud-free system in history. That free, fair, and
inclusive elections are part of the Emerald City ideal is evidenced
by the fact that opponents feel forced to defend their actions with
euphemistic claims of protecting “voting integrity.”
Given this history, the onslaught
against free and fair voting in the past ten years is truly
remarkable. From violations of norms and often laws, to Russian
intervention, to the Big Lie, to unprecedented fouling of the
post-voting and tabulation electoral mechanisms saved only by heroic
unsung
measures, to a spectacular assault on the
Capitol, to absurd assaults on the integrity of the 2020 vote, to
state by state legal assaults on future voting with the current
Republican plan to win the presidency without
getting a majority of either popular or electoral votes, to
Republican justices of the Supreme Court eviscerating the Voting
Rights Act and supporting state anti-free voting and anti-fair
counting measures – “if you can keep it” speaks to us right
now.
No one expects that elections will be
pristine. Elections have always attracted chicanery. But we can ask
for sincere adherence to an ideal of free and fair elections within
the traditional norms, without significant overt voter suppression,
not too many dirty tricks, not too much manipulation, lying, and
demagoguery. If there is disagreement on the Yellow Brick Road, we
can ask for it to be sincere. But right now, despite popular
opinion's widespread support of fair elections, we are seeing more
enemies facing off than opponents disagreeing. In fact, the rush to
suppress free and fair voting is so severe, we may be on the verge of
discovering the contemporary definition of treason. Nothing says
“enemy” so strongly as treason.
The Scorecard
For those of you keeping score at home,
the six-fold test finds Trumpian Republicans pretty far outside the
bounds of the Six Freedoms:
Freedom of religion: Trumpist
Republicans repeatedly press positions that place religious beliefs
over civic laws, and Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices
increasingly support these positions, with possible reversal of Roe
vs. Wade pending.
Freedom from want: Trumpist
Republicans support the new enhanced levels of economic inequality,
as particularly evidenced with tax cuts, and continually seek to
pare back safety net programs.
Freedom from fear: Trumpist
Republicans obstruct reform of discriminatory policing, support
freedom to carry weapons of war, and defend and encourage armed
militias who march with torches, assault the Capitol with gallows
erected, and chant “they will not replace us.”
Freedom from discrimination:
Trumpist Republicans have become strongly anti-civil rights,
catering to perceived grievances of whites, often supporting white
supremacy.
Freedom of free and fair
elections: Trumpist Republicans have supported Russian interference
with elections, support rejection of honest election results, and
support voter suppression legislation across the country with plans
even to disrupt electoral mechanics.
A fair reading of these positions
reveals such serious dissent with traditionally held values that it
is impossible to present them as positions of opponents rather than
positions of enemies.
Conclusion
The point of this essay is to find a
cogent perspective to make sense of our current perilous situation.
Are we facing opponents or enemies in our disunity? Can we look to
accommodate and compromise, or must we look to defeat? We look to
our history to find our constant and evolving values to make that
assessment, using the formulation of Franklin Roosevelt in
identifying our constant and evolving values.
Looking at Roosevelt's Four Freedoms,
and then adding two that were inherent in his formulation and newly
illuminated by our last 80 years, it's pretty clear that the Trump
Republican party stands well beyond the role of opponent, firmly in
enemy territory. There are certainly adjustments to be made as
indicated when we looked at the individual points, but they cannot
involve giving way on the essential points. It is pretty clear that
strength in opposition is needed, with a goal of victory, not
negotiation.
For unity to be reasserted, the
Trumpians don't need to disappear – unity is never unanimity, we
could well coexist with perhaps 15%
of an electorate seditionist in thought. Despite current
appearances, we might actually be closer to that goal than it seems.
Schlesinger's concept of the “vital center” and “liberal
democracy” has always held in the United States pretty well, and
it's hard to think that we are in a revolutionary situation now –
revolution should not happen in a country with so much liberal
democracy history, so much prosperity, so many centers of power, so
much decentralization, such a righteous military, so many lawyers, so
many influential elites, so much resistance, so much good sense.
Grievances and resentments are the lot
of mankind. The question for civil society always is how to tame
those emotions in a way that satisfies needs with respect for
individuals and groups in a way perceived as “fair enough.” Our
system has generally managed to be fair enough at the end to muddle
through. Unity does not appear overnight; it appears cumulatively as
success follows success. I doubt that we will need a crisis like WW
II to be unified. Following a Yellow Brick Road does eventually lead
to the Emerald City, no matter how many Flying Monkeys we need to
fight off. In America we talk, we do not insurrect.
But it still remains true, in the
historic off-hand remark of Philadelphia's patron saint Ben Franklin,
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
Budd Shenkin
Thanks very much for the help and
encouragement of David Levine and Leif Haase.
There are two earlier versions of this
essay, a long one at:
http://buddshenkin.blogspot.com/2021/03/finding-unity-four-freedoms-plus-two.html
and a shorter one at:
http://buddshenkin.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-path-to-unity-six-freedoms-of-2021.html
The reader is also referred to an
article and a summary on necessary post-Trump reforms, detailing six
potential tools, and eight areas for reform:
http://buddshenkin.blogspot.com/2020/05/planning-for-post-trump-reforms.html
http://buddshenkin.blogspot.com/2020/05/post-trump-reforms-executive-summary.html