The Nouns Of The Preamble
By
Leonard Zwelling
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Listen to the attached podcast and you will gain great insight into the meaning of the first 100 days of the second Trump Administration. I wrote this back then, but it is even more germane today.
In this Opinion podcast from The New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Carlos Lozada make the point that there has never been anything like this 100 days and most of what has happened has undermined the values of the United States at home and in the rest of the world. It is what Dowd calls the shift from idealism to “dealism.”
Of course, none of this should have been unexpected. What has occurred is precisely what Mr. Trump said would occur. He believes that extorting the rest of the world, friend and foe alike, in some geopolitical “art of the deal” will create wealth in America, certainly wealth for him, and place the United States on equal footing with China. He believes that he can bring manufacturing back to the United States from its current locale in Asia, create millions of blue-collar, high paying jobs for MAGA world in the process, and maybe win himself the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing hostilities in Ukraine and Gaza to an end. It’s his version of payback in a world he believes has taken advantage of the U.S. and, more importantly, not respected him. And, as a late breaking caveat, I suspect the reason he will not put Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado in charge of Venezuela is because he thinks she stole his Nobel Prize.
Since this Trumpian economic scenario of manufacturing growth and millions of new jobs seemed unlikely to Dowd and Lozada, and seems unlikely to me as well, I thought I would return to American idealism from Trump dealism by looking at the opening words of our most important document, the Constitution. I have written the Preamble above and thought I would take a look at the pronouns and nouns.
We
People
United States
Union
Justice
Tranquility
Defense
Welfare
Liberty
Ourselves
Posterity
The message is clear. The Founding Fathers envisioned a unified nation of people (not just white people, although all of them were white despite what you saw in Hamilton) that worked together to assure justice, peace, safety, and well-being for a free people, a free nation, a free republic. We would assure these things for ourselves and do so for future generations.
No wonder they made several Broadway plays about these guys. Now do you think what has happened in this country and around the world in the first 100 days (or since) of Trump makes us safer? Is justice being served by the Trump Administration and its use of ICE as storm troopers? Has tranquility been supplanted by chaos and purposely so, particularly now in Gaza, Ukraine, and Venezuela? Will the GOP effort to chip away at Medicaid to ensure tax cuts for the wealthy create more well-being or just enlarge the chasm between the haves and the have-nots? And what do parents say to their children about what is happening all around them? War, poverty, deportation, and crime.
And while we are at it, let’s consider what the actions of the United States in Venezuela could mean for Taiwan. Now that Russia has invaded Ukraine, and the U.S. invaded Venezuela, could Taiwan’s invasion by China be far behind?
I believe Ms. Dowd is correct. American idealism is taking a big hit in favor of Trump dealism. While he’s getting a new airplane from Qatar, the president’s minions in the Congress are finding ways to further damage the poor of America.
I have no idea whether Mr. Trump has ever read the Constitution. He certainly does not understand it nor respect it. If he did, he wouldn’t be trying to undermine the other two branches of government and establish an autocracy.
Many institutions in American academia, in Silicon Valley, and in Washington, D.C. are becoming the visions of single individuals with those affected by decisions at the top being uninvolved with those decisions. That’s not “We, the people.”
As the UT System and the Texas Legislature moved to eliminate faculty senates as we know them and replaced them with appointees of the institutional leadership and Board of Regents, we see another example of autocracy in action.
There is only one answer both in Texas and in the United States. Peacefully and respectfully, in full compliance with the law, push back!
Remember the magic word. No!
