After The November Mid-Term Election Results Are In What Then America?

By Robert Kimball Shinkoskey Photos: YouTube Screenshots The political powers that be in America are laser focused on the November mid-term elections. After the results are in, what then? Here is the question I am really asking. Both major political parties have platforms. Both parties have basically two factions vying for ascendancy within the overall party. Let’s call these two the majority view and the rising minority view. Here are the four great factions: 1.)   MAGA loyalists who accept whatever the President says or does; 2.)   Increasing numbers of disappointed America First Republicans; 3.)   Moderate Democrats; 4.)   Progressive Democrats Do any of these factions have a north star they can turn to help them lead us back to the Promised Land? I don’t think so people. All I hear from leaders of these four factions is proposed tweaks to the policies of the nation. Strange as it may sound to uneducated ears, policies are not solutions to America’s problems on any kind of foundational level. Every day I look for signs that Republicans and Democrats have even an elementary understanding of how historical “republican” government actually works, or, in other words, how “democracy” can get back to its original groove.   Our ancestors had a north star. It was their extensive study of the history of democracy and actual experience with government by kings. They had reliable knowledge about foundational legal charters from ancient democracies like Rome and Athens, and more modern democracies like Anglo-Saxon England and the Dutch Republic. These historical experiences outlined for them the kind of laws needed for organization and operation of democracy, and ways to banish kingship from the land. The MAGA faction wants to build a wealthy aristocracy that lords it over a demoted commoner class, and to pay its devotions not to God in heaven, but to a third class of government power, an absolutist monarchy. Oh, and this aristocracy wants lots of money, power, and immunity from prosecution. Why should people with money ever get in trouble for anything? With billions or hundreds of millions they can always just buy their way out of trouble with non-disclosure agreements, bribes, politicized appointments to the judiciary, unlimited campaign donations . . . you get the picture. The moderate, disappointed Republicans, who still have some morals and socio-economic ethics left in their bodies, want an exit strategy from the Iran War, a return to America First policies, and lots of money and power for themselves. Moderate Democrats want Medicaid, affordable housing, reasonable consumer prices, lots of jobs for Americans, and lots of money and power for themselves. Progressive Democrats want socialism in our time, and lots of money and power for themselves. Do any of these platforms give any sign of understanding what our Founding Fathers and Mothers knew that grew this nation into such an admirable and attractive place for all the world’s people to drool over? I don’t think so, partner. Do any of these platforms actually solve the real problem of our great wandering away from responsible government and from an educated and responsible citizenry? I don’t think so. Democracy and republican government are not about lots of money and power for a privileged few ambitious politicians and parties. Here is what democracy/republican government is all about. Our Constitution deals not with policies (it could barely even mention the word “slavery,” leaving that to the states) but with how the national government is to be organized and operated. It specifies things like the basic political science of consensual government as opposed to kingship, like yes to “Consent of the Governed” and no to “Despotism” and no to manipulation of elections (see the Declaration of Independence); how the free enterprise economic system is to function (sacred private “contracts” and court action to fix disputes); the distribution of government power across various levels of government (most “police power” policies decided on the state and local level); the rights and responsibilities of citizens (Bill of Rights and extensive responsibilities); the expectations of the judicial system (no financial bribery, no class-based decision-making, and no “Judges dependent upon his Will alone”); and the necessary humane relationships to be maintained with neighboring landowners and neighboring nations (love your neighbor as yourself, no “Swarms of Officers to harass our People,” and no going abroad looking for dragons to slay).  Get a life and a real government, people. Robert Kimball Shinkoskey is the author of books and editorials on democracy, religion, and the American presidency.