The American Grumblers
Over the last twenty or so years, the level of disunity in American society has risen to a hostile, or at least dysfunctional level, leading to destabilization in the balance of world power. When I read about the Russian invasion of Ukraine or Chinese aggression toward Taiwan, I see it as the fruit of American disunity. That we have to share the same space and listen to the same crap from each other, day after day, just aggravates the mutual loathing. We have become so used to it, we can no longer remember when we did get along, or the fruits of unity.
Therefore, if there is blame for breaches in the fabric of world peace, it stems from our preoccupation with our internecine rivalry, that distracts us from effective world leadership. Our perennial rivals Russia and China like know that we lack the foundation for consistent effort in our foreign policy. Each change-over in our leadership saps our morale and makes us pessimistic about the future.
In an interview, the German news magazine Der Spiegel asked former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "Is America still capable of acting as a world-power?" Kissinger admitted he had his doubts: "There used to be more agreement among the political parties." His doubts should speak to all of us. We cannot just accept the division as status quo. We have to act soon, if we want to preserve the Pax Americana.
Sometimes the circumstances of our lives have to get worse before they get better. They have to penetrate the grudging acceptance of things as they are. They have to reach a level of visible threat that Americans can no longer deny or shrug off. We hope things will improve on their own, so that we don't have to get involved; but letting the disunity or polarization drift without considering remedies has its risks.
The Right defines the risk as "Cancel Culture" or the "Woke." The Left defines it as intolerance, inequality, and racism. We have grown so used to angry marches and street-confrontations, we hardly pay them attention anymore. We respond to the disunity by tuning it out.
Every time I listen to the music from the Woodstock Festival in 1969, I realize how Americans have cut themselves off from the giddy idealism and good feeling that characterized it. How any of the attendees could have guessed that America would reach a crisis-point during their lifetime, or that talk of collapse from revolutionary anarchy would define the present.
We need another Constitutional Convention, like the one that created our country in 1787. The Founders held it, so that the future U.S. could define itself in legal terms, starting with the protocoll for elections, the procedures for the daily functioning of the Congress, and corporate personalities of the administrative departments. The delegates from each new American State had to vote to ratify the final version of the Constitution, in order to include itself—or not include itself!
So, hold two conventions, create two new nations. Let the delegates vote on their respective constitutions, so that the new nations can start with new mandates, with new unity and optimism, based on the wording of a constitution, so that the citizenry can renew their national priorities.