OPINION: Obama, A Civilized Alternative To Barbarians In Suits And Baseball Caps

Years ago, I found a paper my father had written as a college student in the 1930s on whether civilization is self-destructive. I don’t know why Dad concluded that it is since water damage had left most of the pages unreadable.

But our federal government, which is known as the Trump administration but is apparently run by the Project 2025 cabal, is showing us how civilization crumbles from within.

After all, there’s something barbaric about sweeping people off the streets and, without due process or even a pretense of it, shipping them off to harsh detention centers or dangerous foreign countries.

And abandoning measures to prevent preventable diseases.

And slashing the government health care and Social Security programs that so many people rely on.

And crippling agencies that warn of natural disasters and help victims recover from them.

And arresting political opponents for exercising oversight of the administration’s questionable activities.

And aligning with a Russian dictator who invaded a sovereign country.

And dangling the prospect of joining Israel’s barbaric war against its equally barbaric neighbors.

With all that under serious consideration or actually happening, I felt nostalgic when I watched Boston College professor Heather Cox Richardson interview a real statesman from a more civilized time.

Unlike Donald Trump, Barack Obama was a president of no drama and many achievements, despite GOP members of Congress who were intent on thwarting them and undermining him.

Thanks to Obama, our country recovered from the global economic meltdown, millions of Americans got health insurance, women and LGBTQ+ people gained more rights, and undocumented immigrants who came here as children received more protections.    

He also got the U.S. into the Paris agreement to fight climate change and the Iran nuclear deal. (Trump withdrew our country from both. Now life on Earth is hotter and more uncomfortable than ever, and he’s brought us to the brink of war with Tehran.)

Except for Trump, former presidents in my lifetime have kept a fairly low profile, but we need Obama’s intellect and rationality more than ever. The interview he gave on Tuesday is well worth reading or watching.

The current administration, he said, has “a weak attachment to democracy” (an understatement if I ever heard one). But he added that we’re “dangerously close” to the autocracy of “places that hold elections but do not otherwise observe what we think of as a fair system in which everybody’s voice matters and people have a seat at the table and there are checks and balances.”

And he emphasized the need for everyone who adheres to democratic principles to fight for them: “Change happens because ordinary people get together and reimagine what their lives could be and push on the system. But I also think that you have to have people inside that system that can translate those impulses into laws and institutional practices.”

One of the biggest threats to our form of government has been MAGA influencer Steve Bannon’s strategy to “flood the zone” with so many lies that basic facts (like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 and domestic terrorists’ attack on the Capitol) have become matters of partisan opinion.

“We want diversity of opinion,” Obama said. “We don’t want diversity of facts.”

To heal the divisions, those of us who are committed to what really has made America great instead of backward or stagnant must promote “homespun values,” he said.

Such values include treating all people equally under the law, with no monarchies or aristocracies. And taking responsibility for our own lives while understanding that we each have a role in democracy and that some things are better accomplished when we work together.

“If that’s our starting point for a common identity…, then I think we’ll be OK,” Obama said. “But that’s not where we are right now.”

Last weekend, millions of No Kings demonstrators, including 180 of us in St. Clair, tried to take us there.

An apparent Christian nationalist had just embarked on an assassination spree in Minnesota. The GOP Congress was pushing to shower even more wealth and power on the fortunate sons. And Trump was watching his military-themed birthday extravaganza.

As Obama said, our commitment to our values is being tested. But if we keep upholding them, we just might save our civilization from destruction. 

Lisa Von Ahn is an experienced columnist previously published in the Pottsville Republican Herald newspaper.

Canary note: Opinions expressed in any Op-Ed column appearing on this site are the views of the writer and are not necessarily the opinions of Coal Region Canary.

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