The Malady of the West
Do Republicans have any values apart transferring wealth from the many who create it to the few who own them? They no longer pay lip service to the values they daily desecrate: freedom, democracy, reason, elections, separation of powers, representative government, rule of law (international and local), education, public health, civil liberties and human rights, truthfulness. Tyrants and invaders are extolled, the dispossessed mocked and robbed. Thugs, rapists, and felons: in place of the American flag, they give us fascist salutes.
Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Musk: Have you no decency? Two-and-one-half centuries ago, our forebears brought forth a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to what conservatives have long extolled as the values of the West. You daily show your intent to destroy the promise of a nation so conceived and so dedicated, testing whether our ever-difficult journey to be more perfect with each generation –– the American experiment –– can endure.
Our nation was built by indigenous people and those brought here in chains, along with waves of migrants seeking a new world, from the forebears of our founders’ generation to the Dreamers today. It is for us, here and now, to be dedicated to the great task remaining ahead. That we here highly resolve that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom –– and that government of the people, native and nonnative; by the people, one person, one vote; and for the people, not just in American but around the world –– shall not perish from our land.
Charles Bernstein
March 3, 2025
Kinderhook, NY