GAZETTE COLUMN: GOING FORWARD – AFTER THE ELECTION! by John P. Flannery

This is written Sunday evening, two days before we’ll know the outcome of the presidential election, and I only know now that the election of our next President appears to rest on a razor’s edge of voter disagreement, in our own Commonwealth and nation-wide, that may mean we won’t have any mandate from the voters to do much of anything, no matter who wins. 

It is also clear that, if we don’t conduct our government differently than we have, then we will have continued stalemate in our government, suffer a perpetual campaign of vitriolic claims, when challenges at home and abroad demand constructive engagement.

Our elected officials are going to have to work together, and show courage, what Hemingway called, “grace under pressure.”

We the people are going to have to insist our leaders act on our behalf – or it won’t happen. 

But, what are the conditions that dictate why and how we must move forward with our government?

We live in an age in transition, changing at an accelerated rate, on an unimaginable historic scale, with an ever-expanding population, that sees a popular and irresponsible demand for unrestrained individual freedom in a crowded shrinking world of finite resources that requires unprecedented personal discipline, complex policy choices, and compromises that many refuse.

The “common” is at risk because of the collective demand on fossil fuels, shelter, food, air, water, and so much more, yet some demand they be let alone to do what they want.

We have to provide for education, health, and retirement although some prefer every man, woman and child be responsible for himself or herself.

We want to rule the world but fear a large government.

If any man ever was an island, he is not now.  Thomas Jefferson once said the government that governs least is best but apparently decided that didn’t work once he became President (see the Louisiana Purchase).  We live in times so much more complex with an ever-expanding population that eclipses Jefferson’s America, making such diverse demands that no modern-day government could serve its constitutional mandate without being “big.” 

Many individuals may fear losing control of who they are and suffer a persistent distrust that anyone else, particularly the government, could have any person’s best interest at heart.  These citizens have fallen prey to the tempting tonics of fear dispensed by demagogues who would make them victims, rather than the enfranchised factors for change every citizen is meant to be.

When Alice went through the looking glass and the Queen demanded Alice run at a breathless pace only to remain where they both started, the Queen said that’s why they had to run “at twice the pace to get anywhere else.”  We are running to catch up so we can go forward.

We are a country that celebrates business and protect business by law and strengthens business with various legislative measures – as we rightly should. 

But we have to dispel the myth that we citizens shouldn’t take charge of our own economic future and that the benevolent wealthy will provide for us.  Plainly, they have not provided for us; indeed, the unrestrained malefactors of wealth broke our economy and took a disproportionate share of the nation’s earned wealth, leaving many to fend for the economic scraps. 

Many citizens would therefore perpetuate an existing order where the wealthy are our guardians, and the people are the wards of these job “creators” – as they were called.

Thus are the wealthiest encouraged to take more as we so willingly grant them license to command our economic life.

We shouldn’t be surprised when espousing such a subservient arrangement that our government does not represent us the people, so much as they represent these special interests, who spend billions to secure the government for their benefit – not ours.

Going forward, in order to seize our destiny, we must demand political dialogue, public discussions with elected officials, at every level of government, and not what now passes for citizen participation, the mind-numbing series of time-limited monologues delivered without any exchange of views with the elected officials by which we could divine how they are making public policy, so we could influence their choices as unworthy or encourage them to consider an overlooked nuance. 

We must also have the information to participate in these discussions but, all too often, government hides the ball and disadvantages full and fair discourse and, unsurprisingly, then government gets it wrong.

The most important lesson learned from the election marathon in its final days is that exercising your franchise on a forced choice in a Fall election every several years is not enough to assure us of good government.  But will we force the changes that are necessary to the common wealth?