DEMOCRATIC AMERICA IS BEING TESTED – PART VI
Discrimination has been practiced in Europe since ancient times. It has created the caste system in India. It was, and still is, used as a means or weapon to stay on top. For a long time, it has been seen as ugly and wrong.

White people themselves had fought fiercely against discrimination in Europe. But the struggle was hard and almost impossible to overcome because discrimination had been built into the fabric of societies in Europe and because discrimination was based on wealth and status (another topic worth discussing at another time). Waves of discriminated white moved to the New World, to try to create and build a society supposedly free of discrimination.

Two of the most notable efforts were Thomas Jefferson’s declaration and Abraham Lincoln’s fighting the Civil War.
Jefferson did not just possess an extraordinary insight but was honest and brave. Living in an environment where everyone, his friends and his constituents (he was a politician if you did not know), owned slaves, he had the courage to declare that “all men are created equal”, meaning, unambiguously, that white was just a color like any other color on the skin of a person. With his declaration, he pointed out the irrationality of the claim that white, just like a color on a piece of clothes, was superior to other colors.

Credits should also be given to his colleagues, the Founding Fathers of this country who endorsed his declaration as the new country’s Declaration of Independence, which has been as important as the Constitution of the U.S.A. in creating and building Democracy in America.

Documents about the Civil War recorded Lincoln as saying that he had always seen slavery as unjust. He was even engaged in a devastating war, the American Civil War, against his own race to correct their wrong. Along the way, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation not just abolishing slavery in the U.S. but changing the focus of the Civil War from preserving the Union to freeing the slaves.
(Next, Part VII)

DEMOCRATIC AMERICA IS BEING TESTED – PART V
Billionaires – forget millionaires – of all ethnic groups pop up almost every month. They not only have tons of money in their control, but also time, ample time, because those new billionaires are so young. The old money knows that real power will soon shift to these younger rich kids who unfortunately do not belong to the old hierarchy and do not answer their beck and call. They don’t need to climb the tree because they don’t need to look into the house; they are building their own house. The system that has been created and built meticulously to protect and serve the old guards’ interest does not seem to work as intended.

The banking system has been not just the circulatory system regulating the life blood of the world economy but also the U.S.’s weapon for control. But now, there has been talk, and even effort, to move the money transactions out of the banking system. With technology and science having made progress so fast and so frequently, the old guards are wary of this new wealth and new knowledge, and the potential loss of their control.

And then, there is another threat. The “ah so” Chinese, the mocking image of weak Orientals suitable for nothing but being servants to the white families, suddenly shattered that image and have become formidable competitors against the West in every aspect of life including technology, computer science, economic activities, arts, architecture, movie making, and even ballet dancing. Now the West says “jump”, the Chinese do not meekly say “how high” but shoot back with “excuse me?”, a strongly backboned and proud attitude that is alarming.

The threat might still be far away, but the old guards wanted to pre-empt and fight back immediately. And they needed allies.

Thus, a coalition had been formed between the extremists and the old guards preceding the political tsunami of 2016 that was when the coalition found a spokesperson so natural in the racist language and racist manner as to be extremely persuasive to the white population. It was, and still is, a formidable coalition that has effectively swayed the thinking of so many Americans. That is why 74,000,000 Americans voted for that coalition’s representative even after four disastrous years with him at the helm.
(Next, Part VI)

DEMOCRATIC AMERICA IS BEING TESTED – PART IV
For most of the history of the U.S.A., the country has been run by the energy companies (oil, gas, and coal), industrial companies (railways, automobile, defense) and banking companies. The incestuous relationship among these companies enables them to control our country and therefore the world.

Anything or anyone outside of their circle, including other countries on earth, is just a service provider for them.

For the past few decades, the world has changed to the dismay and anxiety of lots of members of this circle.

There was the story of a former U.S. Secretary of State meeting a delegation of Japanese businessmen in Bangkok. They asked for help to sell cars in the U.S. The secretary put his hand in his vest’s pocket to pull out a chain watch, looked at it then told the Japanese to better sell their cars in the third world countries such as Thailand; the Americans would not buy Japanese cars because of their low quality. The secretary was probably not condescending, just stating a matter of fact.

But the fact had changed.

One example is the automobile industry. A few decades after the Bangkok meeting, Japanese cars surpassed American cars not only in sale but in terms of engineering, technology, and craftsmanship. They even beat the Germans, the white bastion of engineering excellence according to automobile experts including German. With the new wave of changes caused by electric cars coming on the markets, the dominance of Detroit was sunsetting. Toyota just surpassed General Motors as the seller of most cars in the U.S. in 2021. The founding ultra-rich families and the millionaires who rode the coattails of the combustible engine revolution to wealth saw the writing on the wall.

The coal industry and the oil and gas business have struggled against a different kind of attack, at first not from competition but from the people and therefore the governments, on environmental issues, climate change. That has led to competition, the solar energy industry, currently not a major threat to them but the trend is worrisome. In no time, coal, and with it wealth and power, will be history.

The most striking, and to the white establishment the most threatening changes have been in the finance sector, the heart of capitalism and the seat of power of the old order for centuries.

Sabrina, the movie, was the perfect image of the old order, which the old guards have tried to preserve. It is not just a beautiful movie but for them a beautiful order. The patriarch, though senile still sits at the top, proud and respected. His executive power has already been transferred to his oldest son, therefore the continuity of the family’s wealth and influence is preserved. The second son is the embodiment of the bon vivant aspect of the privileged life, having none of the cares in the world. Everyone else, represented by the chauffeur and his daughter, can only climb the tree to look in from the outside, dreaming of the life inside and of being admitted. The hierarchy is rigid, and the separation is absolute: without permission – and permission is granted only after passing heartbreaking tests – an outsider has no way to get in.

Until now.

(Next, Part V)

DEMOCRATIC AMERICA IS BEING TESTED – PART III
The profound wisdom of having only two political parties seems to have been challenged, at least after the general election of 2016. Before that, the leadership of the parties and the elders played a catalytic role. Politics was still the art of compromise. The parties were supposed to fight each other, fiercely sometimes, to attain the best solutions to serve democracy and build a stronger and better nation. But bipartisanship was considered a noble call.

The Republicans, at least the extremist Republicans, have been determined to change that foundation. Their political fights are mortal combats meant to destroy and bury the enemies, the Democrats, or anyone who opposes them. No more gentlemanliness. Coarseness, rudeness, vulgarity, lies, and dishonesty all are weapons they readily use without exception. Bipartisanship is betrayal.

The Republican Party has become as monolithic as the targets of their constant animosity: the communist regimes. Not a single Republican dares to disagree with the extremists’ line, except for a rare example of some who are willing to take the risk of being rudely attacked and ostracized. Except for a handful of them, there is no Republican extending his or her hand across the aisle to reach a compromise. Not even Republican leaders dare to publicly disagree let alone criticize their colleagues’ extremist views.

How the extremists have been able to wrestle the control of the Republican Party?

The current state of the Republican Party has its roots in the Southern Strategy that started out as a scheme to win the white votes to defeat the Democrats in the South.

The weapon they used? Racism.

Up until the election of Donald J. Trump, racism had been used discreetly: words of mouth in small gatherings such as PTAs, clubs, HOAs, neighborhood associations. Racism had proved to be effective to gain control of local and state governments.
Then, several forces converged to push racism to the forefront, widespread and perhaps mainstream – white mainstream.

Immigration has stirred anxiety in the general white population, which has become more amenable to wild conspiracy theories. The manipulators, the extremists, who are not just the KKK and their cohorts, but include many intellectuals, academicians, tech billionaires, influencers such as TV and radio hosts, movie actors, have found a large audience. That combination has encouraged the extremists and made them bolder and more aggressive. They started making public racist statements and digging up past racist discourses of intellects such as Ayn Rand previously reserved for literary salons or academia.

The interaction between these two groups – the anxious white population and the racists – helped push the wave higher and higher until it coalesced with the third force to create a tsunami, which reached the American political shore in 2016.

(Next, Part IV)

DEMOCRATIC AMERICA IS BEING TESTED – PART II
My wife and I drove down Highway 101 South from San Jose. Somewhere between Atascadero and Paso Robles, we found ourselves in a deserted one street downtown, looking for gas. It was a late Sunday afternoon. Everything on the street was closed. But a little farther ahead, there was a restaurant with outdoor wood tables still open. I parked the car in the graveled parking lot and went inside to ask for information. Then, I ordered a cup of coffee.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked the young white man who handed me the coffee.
“It’s ok. It’s on me.” He smiled and pushed the cup into my hand. For a moment I did not quite grasp what he said. He repeated it, “It’s ok. You don’t have to pay.”
I said thank you and tried to do something, like shaking his hand, but could not because one of my hands was holding the cup of coffee and the other my car key, before he went back into the kitchen.

On the way back to my car, I walked by one of the large wooden tables with seven or ten people standing around it, sitting on it or on the benches, middle aged, young, male, female, children. All were white. A little girl said “Hi”. I turned around to wave at her and several of them smiled and waved back at me. It was quite a good feeling.

But it struck me as something more.

Even though it was a random encounter, probably a speck of gold in a river, and I should not conclude that the river is full of gold, it is difficult to think that they are bigots or racists, just like it is difficult to think that all the 74,000,000 voters are bigots or racists.

But it is much easier to believe that they want to preserve what is theirs and precious to them, their way of life, their tradition and culture that have been built by many generations. They don’t want such to be disturbed by some foreign forces and are determined to fight to protect them. That means they can be persuaded and convinced to do the right things, right for Democracy, for the country and for themselves. That is Democratic America’s fervent hope.

But that also means they could be persuaded the other way.

The Democrats cannot just pursue progressive ideals at the cost of alienating half of the country. They cannot just ignore them without a convincing explanation as to why their progressive agenda is good for them and their children. The Democrats could be forgiven for not knowing the deep feeling of the white “silent majority” because they had been silent. But after 2020, they have no excuse. In the pursuit of lofty ideals, their policies must take into consideration the wish of 74,000,000 voters. They cannot simply dismiss them as deplorables if they want to govern.

Attacking the former president is barking at the wrong tree. He did not create the extreme right wing of the Republican party. He had been a Democrat before switching side. He even invited Hillary (and Bill) Clinton to his wedding.

Mr. Trump was just an astute businessman who saw a profitable opportunity and took it without knowing for sure that the unseen (by him) political wave would carry him all the way to the pinnacle of American politics. The immense power had caused him headaches and giddiness. It was clear he did not like it (being the president of the democratic U.S.A) at all. He was not prepared to handle the heavy burden of the top job and unable to associate himself with competent and talented professionals to help him run the country.

The tree is the huge number of voters who voted for Mr. Trump – twice – because he and his supporters have successfully persuaded them, true or not, that they serve their interest.

It is a tree not to be barked at but cultivated.

(Next, Part III)