Make America Accountable Again
“O, let America be America again-The land that never has been yet…From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, We must take back our land again, America! … And make America again!” Those were the words that social critic Langston Hughes penned during the Great Depression, another era of rapid economic and social upheaval in America. Sadly, in many ways they describe America today.
America is off on the wrong track and we have been there for most of this century. Trust in many of our institutions are at historic lows. A majority of the country believes that our economic and political systems only work for insiders with money and power. We are bitterly divided politically. This is not the America that the Founders wanted for us, it is not the America that we want for ourselves, and it is not the America that we wish for future generations.
Let us look back to understand the chasm between this promise and our reality.
America was founded on the premise that we hold these truths to be self evident. These truths were shared truths and represented a shared reality. Now, far too often truths are dismissed and science is denied when they get in the way of personal or political gain, while lies are spread to confuse and divide us.
America was founded on the idea that we are exceptional and that we could both be an example to the rest of the world and do great things that others could not. We used to come together to meet seemingly impossible challenges head-on like mobilizing and sacrificing during World War II. Now, in responding to COVID, too many of us consider ourselves to be the exception when it comes to wearing masks, avoiding a crowded bar, or even watching leaders who call on us to stay home, while they travel for vacation or hold mass gatherings. We have gone from shared sacrifice to sacrificing the most vulnerable among us, losing more Americans to COVID in less than a year than all of the battles of World War II.
America was founded on the belief that we as citizens have the right to a representative government and the ability to hold its leaders and institutions accountable. Now, we have a system that applies one set of rules to some and another set to everyone else. Instead of the promise that no one is above the law, there is now a calculation at play that has infected every part of society from public discourse to business to sports to everyday life. The question too often is no longer what is right and what is wrong, but instead, what can I get away with?
Donald Trump’s ascension to the highest office in the land was made possible because of the failure of America to live up to its promise. Specifically, his life’s story has been a series of far too permissive responses to the question: what can I get away with? And far too many Americans have watched and learned from his success and followed his example, apprentices spreading this disease of getawaywithism across the country.
We have a lot of work to do in fighting this disease, or removing the leeches on the people’s lives that Langston Hughes described. The past four years have moved us further away from the promise of the shining city on a hill, culminating as we watched the People’s House on Capitol Hill being defiled by rioters inspired by a president who is trying to subvert the will of the people by spreading lies for his own gain at America’s expense.
To make America again, we need to make all Americans accountable again.
We must begin the hard work of accountability by convicting Donald Trump. Just as he was Exhibit A in the era of getawaywithism, he must also be Exhibit A in our new era of accountability.
To make America again we must hold Donald Trump accountable and he must be convicted for what he has done so that America is no longer the land of what you can get away with, but a nation of laws that govern us all equally. Only then can we start the hard work of restoring the promise of America.
