At the great junctures in history, Nations are challenged to redefine themselves and to create a new synthesis between Conservative forces of preservation and stability vs Liberal forces of change and adaptation to new realities. It could be said that at those critical moments in history a nation seeks to redefine itself without destroying its Soul. America’s most dramatic moment was, of course, the Civil War, when we had to fracture into two warring nations before we could come back together, unfortunately at the end of a gun barrel to try and forge a new identity that assimilated the changes won on the battlefield. It was not easy, nor are the racial battles of the Civil War yet fully resolved. But, though not fully healed, we are different and better for having transcended that moment. Like the echoes of the Big Bang that still reverberate through the Universe, the energy of that conflict still resonates through the nation’s consciousness. And it is a reminder of where we once were and how far we have yet to go. The Soul of the Nation survived.

We are at another critical juncture in our History. The Republican Administration elected in 2016 has calculatingly torn the fabric of our national identity along weaknesses in its seams. And this rift is of greater import than the usual change of administrations that occur every 4 years. The current administration is, at base, reactionary. Beyond the impulsivity of the current President, if his administration is seen as having taken the drivers seat of the National Vehicle, he represents a slamming on of the brakes and a jamming of the transmission in reverse.

Since the mid-1950’s the United States have seen dramatic, almost unprecedented changes. The Civil Rights movement; Women’s Liberation Movement; Gay Rights (LGBTQ) movement; Significant changes in immigrant demographics. We have just had our first Black President, and almost had our first Woman President. And perhaps the most significant change, in terms of the rapidity of cultural shifts was the dramatic, seemingly overnight change in public acceptance of gay marriage, which not only represented a  shift in terms of public acceptance, but was also, surprisingly,  ratified by a divided but Conservative-dominated Supreme Court. For Liberals, this period is seen as an era of progress towards advancing fundamental American values with a dramatic expansion of  the circle of freedom and equality for formerly marginalized citizens. For many Conservatives, it is seen as a period of vital loss, that chipped away at the national character, with the  decline in important “timeless” values and the retreat from an original vision of what the nation was supposed to be. We are now, though not threatened with conflict on an actual battlefield, about as close to warfare as can be without taking up arms. We are, a nation divided. (Though in a nation that has over 300,000,000 firearms in civilian hands, a spontaneous explosion into violence is certainly a possibility)

In a dialogue from the movie, Inherit the Wind, characters Clarence Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady, in a fictional recounting of the Scopes Monkey Trial, involving in 1920’s Tennessee the challenge to the teaching of evolution in public schools,  (Clarence Darrow vs. William Jennings Bryan) were having a conversation in which Brady wonders aloud how once good friends had drifted so far apart. Drummond responded by saying that sometimes distance is created when one person is moving and another one stands still. This is the fundamental dynamic between political conservatism and political liberalism. Conservatives try to “conserve” or preserve the extant system vs Liberals who want to change the system to adapt to new realities. It is the inherent dynamic of all life at all levels: organisms, people and systems are in a constant state of dynamic tension defined as “stasis”: The equilibrium point brought about by the equal and opposite forces in temporary balance. When one side of the dynamic begins to shift, it throws the stasis into disequilibrium and out of struggle a new synthesis results. Like biological systems, any system that fails to adapt, dies.

In most elections, the disequilibrium is manageable within the constraints of the system. We change leaders who tweak policies, but the system is not under threat. Foreign and economic policies shift, social programs advance or are reversed, but we know that in the next election, all changes can be reversed. In 1860 that all changed:

From Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:

“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.”

The Southern States had lost faith in the system under which they existed. They wanted revolution, not evolution. They wanted to destroy the Federal System of a strong national government and replace it with another Confederacy, or league of friendship between states in which each state was sovereign. In order to protect the “peculiar institution” of slavery, the South resorted to war in defense of a the specious argument that states never intended to give up their sovereignty to a Supreme Central Government when the Constitution was ratified. It was a naked attempt to elevate the conflict by making the war something based on principle (state’s rights) rather than a simple defense of slavery.

Southerners, long fearing that demographics would shrink their national influence and threaten slavery decided to wage a war, to gain on the battlefield what they had failed to gain through political struggle. Lincoln knew that the impending war from the Southern perspective, was about the preservation of slavery; he  had one, very simple goal–to prove that the Union was indivisible; that what the Founding Fathers had created by and through implementation of the Constitution was intended to be greater than any conflict that threatened to divide it. Though the South started the war to protect slavery, Lincoln did not commit the Nation to the war to end slavery–the war triggered by the Southern provocation of firing on Fort Sumter. He wanted slavery to end, and he thought it was inevitable that it would end, but it would end as a result of  demographic, moral and eonomic changes. He wanted the end of slavery to be organic and effected within the constraints of a system that elevated law above human fecklessness.

This is not the space in which to take up the issues that have us so badly divided at this moment in our History. Suffice it to say that there is currently an administration in power that wants to deconstruct much of the gains that have been made in the last half-century. (Steve Bannon said he intends to deconstruct the administrative state) Within 30 days of the administration’s inauguration, we have seen a flurry of Executive Orders rolling back much of what many, and perhaps most of America would see as progress. Water and air pollution standards have been relaxed; Corporate regulations are being rolled back; recent changes regarding the rights of transgendered, school-aged kids have been relegated to the realm of state’s rights issues; the media, generally unpopular by the political establishment have now been declared “enemies of the people;” The President, claiming that he is not subject to conflict of interest laws continues to manage a sprawling international business empire, placing himself in the position of being manipulated by foreign economic interests; and, of course, there is the “Russia problem”: his seeming genuine affection for Global Thug #1, Vladimir Putin, perhaps the most chilling element of his entire agenda.

I end with reference to George Washington in a passage that is definitive to our current situation, from his Farewell Address of 1796: Washington recognized 221 years ago how a political party, unmoored from wisdom, principle or primary loyalty to the nation, would elevate survival of party over all else. And he strongly warns of the dangers of foreign influence in such a critical moment:

“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State… Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. 

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. 

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. 

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.” [Boldface emphasis mine]

Once again, despite their occasional glaring shortsightedness on some issues, there is plenty of brilliance and lucidity to be mined from the original work by the Founders of the Nation that are startlingly relevant to our current situation. And we are wise to be aware that this current Republican Administration and the soulless Republican Party in league with him are a danger to the survival of our Republic. They have demonstrated that they will be willing to acquiesce, if not assist in the killing of  the Soul of the nation in order to replace it with a system of their design. Once again:

The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. 

The people who currently run the country want to destroy the system and replace it with one in their preferred image. They do not want to alter the system–they want to wreck it and them build the system they envision as superior. The battle has been joined, and it will be the vigilance of a resisting and uncompromising public in opposing the powers-that-be that will preserve and protect the legacy that we have inherited.

It really is that important.