Stand Up Boomers

Stand Up, Boomers! So now we know. An inept political class has nearly sundered our heritage. Faction, that destructor of republics past, about which James Madison warned us, has fractured and polluted our lives. Citizens are dying and our national government only looks on, cowardly. Our parents and grandparents learned first-hand the cost of untethered political passions. The impulse to dominate, to crush bodies and souls, was loosed on the world. An entire civilization, astounding achievements, darkened by the hateful ideologies of Naziism and its accomplices. Our greatest generation beat them back, at terrible cost, and bequeathed to us a country reclaimed from Depression, saved from tyranny and rebuilt for the modern world. Then we took over, the boomers. In spite of high points and achievements of technical wizardry, medical advances that astonish, we neglected to sustain and defend the political structure and norms we enjoy. We allowed our political parties to congeal into the factions that even Adam Smith warned us about. We took our good fortune for granted. Now we suffer from busted norms, the intrusion of fierce ideologues into the business of government. We elect people incapable of governing. Worse, they enter government with no intention of actually governing well, but only to promote a hard agenda that doesn’t allow for compromise. The disease of certainty that has bedeviled humankind in the past 100 years. And we boomers allowed all of this to happen. Gerrymandering that stifles and distorts our political discourse is tolerated. It should be intolerable, a clear sign of a lack of courage that seeks “safe” districts to avoid the marketplace of ideas. We don’t even teach our children civics any longer, something our parents and grandparents would find disgraceful. After all, America is built on the idea of informed citizens choosing good leaders, and making sure they follow the rules. But civics, the Constitution, and history are neglected - and we inherit the wind. We have only ourselves to blame; but it’s not too late. A vast restoration project should follow upon the defeat of the COVID, including of our civic life. Teach our children, teach your grandchildren what it means to be an American. Let’s not, finally, disappoint our Moms and Dads.