Being naïve means being deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgment.
It is a dangerous condition that usually leads people to make mistakes that create serious problems for themselves and others.
Yet they never intend for things to go bad. They are as dismayed as most others when they do. In hindsight they are shocked at what happened because at the time they were sure they making the right decision.
That’s the story of Germany in 1933. It was in ruins financially because of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI and the U.S. calling in the debt Germany owed when the Great Depression hit.
Not surprisingly, having lost faith in the leaders of the Weimar Republic, when Hitler promised a new day, the German people naïvely believed him. Disaster they never saw coming was the result.
Naïveté was my first thought about the outcome of the November election.
I certainly don’t believe Trump is Hitler, or that Republicans are Nazis, but all signs point to a coming “reign of terror” as Trump and congressional Republicans enact legislation that will make for more corruption and social/economic injustice.
In a recent Washington Post article, David Weigel noted that Republicans now believe they have a mandate to do what they couldn’t do under President Obama:
– undo financial regulations and slash business taxes (tax cuts for the rich)
– strip Planned Parenthood of federal funds used for healthcare for the poor,
– repeal Obamacare (with nothing to replace it).
Add to this their plans to do the following:
– turn Medicare into a voucher program, privatize Social Security
– reduce Medicaid and Food Stamps to the point of elimination
– sanction religious intolerance in the name “protecting” religious liberty.
I think this agenda constitutes the stuff of a genuine American tragedy, undermining the nation we have been at work becoming for many years.
It is true that U.S. is far from a perfect nation, and in many ways much worse than super patriots will ever acknowledge. Inequalities in various many forms still characterize our civic life, and our divisions are deeper and more bitter than at any time in recent memory.
But we are also a nation that has never stopped working to become a more just society, more compassionate, more self-reflective, and more tolerant of one another.
We are learning what it means to be a diverse culture with people of different religions, traditions, languages, and customs, joined in the common cause of making life better for themselves while respecting their neighbors.
These areas of progress are now in jeopardy because Trump and Republicans don’t share the moral worldview that has been the foundation for the progress we have made over the last 50 years.
Scholar George Lakoff says that conservatives hold a moral worldview that he calls “the strict Father” model of family (Moral Politics).
In the name of small government, they believe the economy should be left in the hands of a corporate capitalism without concern for the degree of social injustice it creates.
In the name of self-reliance, they believe social programs should be minimal.
In the name of the myth of a Christian nation, they believe in legislating public morality to fit their version of Christianity.
So the last thing our country needs is for Trump and the Republicans to have free reign.
Differences in worldviews matter. They have theirs. We who oppose them have ours. They have made it clear they don’t like ours. We need to show them we don’t like theirs.
As uncomfortable as it may be, the reality we now face is that we are in the fight of our lives for our lives.
We need to be strong, stand firm, and be bold in confronting what is coming.
That we will be is the service we can render to the nation in this new year.
linnposts.com 