For hundreds of years, people around the world have pointed to the United States as a land of opportunity. A land born with the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A land with the aspirational desire that began with the words that “all men are created equal.”
The fuse that lit the American Revolution was a Declaration of Independence written using only “We, Us and Our” to assert the voice of all. Years later the preamble of the Constitution would start with the words “We the people.’
Indeed, we are a nation founded on the ideals of We and Us, E Pluribus Unum. That is why, despite our initial and continuing imperfections, we remain the aspirational land of limitless dreams. It still draws people to our shores.
Even in Happy Valley, walk the streets of State College on a warm spring afternoon. In the faces and smiles of a diverse community of international students and faculty you’ll see that the world is here.
But in 2023 the words that bound us together, the ideals of the shining city on the hill may seem distant. Forces both domestic and foreign are using the tools of communication to spread a false American gospel of discord, a land where “we” and “us” are replaced with “I” and “Me” and We versus Them.
This is the era of the great political grift. A powerful outrage industry fuels the exchange of billions of dollars to hold the levers of power.
We are being prodded to look for fault lines. Who did you vote for? What do you look like? Who do you choose to marry? How do you choose to worship? For many, answers to those questions are assigned assumptions about one’s morality, character and intentions.
The foundation of that outrage relies on manipulation. We’re told to believe America is a land of limited zero-sum opportunity. Your gain is always my loss. We draw the lines, cue the talking points and spark the angry resentment.
McCarthyism is alive and well in the camps of both extremes. Some use overblown anti-woke rhetoric to whip up the base. Wokeness is the bogeyman behind all society’s ills, even being blamed for bank failures. Others wield extreme woke standards to condemn everyone not measuring up. Frothy-mouthed zealots are duped and dependable financial contributors paying into a massive jackpot of political graft.
And while the extreme camps command media attention, those quietly acting in the middle are looking for pathways blending the best ideas. But the powers of inaction are a tough peak to scale.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the rhetoric about immigration. We forget that sisters and brothers in our shared humanity come here with dreams of a better future. They’re drawn to our ideals of We and Us. But they’re used as pawns in the great political money grab.
If solutions to immigration reform elude us, political consultants, cable news networks, social media platforms and political action committees use the standoff and anger to reap ungodly financial rewards. But it need not always be that way.
No less than conservative icon Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. Those holding Reagan as either a hero or a villain would be surprised at the immigration provisions he signed into law as president. He was interested in solutions.
Now look at issue after issue. Guns, abortion, immigration, elections, women’s rights, voting rights, civil rights and so many more down the line have become all or nothing, either/or. It is all too easy to forget where we came from.
Our minds should imagine empathy and wonder from our past. A cold wind blowing through the streets of New York City as an Italian sailor who jumped ship found himself alone in a strange place. A destitute family waited among the throngs of people at Ellis Island. Landing in a new place and having the spelling of their name forever changed because the clerk could not understand them. Or families facing times so hard that risking their children’s lives on an ocean crossing or a dangerous trek across the desert seems like a better option.
And in our nation’s original sin, how fearful it must have been for those stolen from their homes to try and understand being sold into the slavery that awaited them here? How would they view the generations who’ve persevered through the centuries only to emerge to a freedom limited by hurdles placed in their path towards equality?
These and so many other stories thunder across the ages. These are the stories of a shared history that is at turns inspiring and tragic, at times noble and sinister. That is the nature of humanity. But we the people endured to face what’s next.
To those profiting from sowing the seeds of division, your time will come. Your selfish harvest will yield a mutated crop to poison your soul. We will not dine at your table of hate. Our people seeking solutions will always best people who only point out problems.
The future of a great nation is neither ensured by its proudest history, nor limited by its worst acts. It belongs to those who understand and accept everything that brought us to this moment. It belongs to those who use that understanding to enact solutions rising above those spewing venomous rhetoric. That is how We The People have always prevailed.
