Making America GOOD Again
America’s founding generation believed we could become a great nation. Greatness would result from self-government anchored in shared moral values. That combination would protect individual freedom and provide for the common good. Good people would preserve freedom at home and demand respect abroad. That is the heart that has pumped blood through the veins and sustained the exalted visions of American history.
The current focus on “Make America Great Again” misses what constitutes greatness in a people. That essential quality is character, both of citizens and the United States as a nation. “[I]t is in their choice, and depends upon their conduct,” George Washington told State governors about Americans at the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783, “whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptable and miserable as a Nation . . . this is the moment to establish or ruin their national Character forever.”
The national character requires private and public virtue. As John Adams wrote to Mercy Otis Warren on April 16, 1776: “Public Virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.”
If being “great” is the destination, being good is the GPS to guide us there. Simple slogans, like MAGA, and appeals to popular passions which violate private and public virtue may make us feel we are great, but that feeling at best serves the interests of the few not the many. It is the stuff of smoke - without substance and dangerous.
Being good does not rest on material gain. Jeffrey Rosen, President of the National Constitution Center, notes that the “pursuit of happiness” Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence must be achieved by being good not simply by feeling good. Nor can public virtue be achieved by a focus only on national economic strength and military power.
Too often we lavish praise on politicians who defy the demands of private and public virtue, catering instead to citizens’ short-term wants rather than the nation’s long-term needs. Too many Americans are content to be treated as consumers of government benefits and services, forgetting that citizenship comes with far more responsibilities than voting and paying taxes.
The focus on “MAGA” has allowed meanness to fellow Americans and callousness to the world’s poor to substitute for understanding and compassion. Too many in positions of power are pulling fellow citizens down instead of helping them rise up, enriching the wealthy when they should be helping the poor, old and infirm. MAGA has encouraged feeling superior to other nations as a substitute for respect and thoughtful engagement. America currently acts as if it owes little to the world outside our shores, to nations on which we daily depend and who have more than once fought on our behalf.
Treating fellow citizens as enemies fosters hatred and distrust, destroying the civility essential to national unity in dealing with domestic needs and foreign dangers. Mistreating immigrants – whether legal or undocumented - dishonors our faith traditions that require treating strangers with dignity. Consciously spreading false information leads to bad policy and encourages conspiracy thinking, poisoning the well of democratic discourse. Leaders who betray the public trust to gain money or power and consciously weaken the institutions we depend upon for our lives and livelihoods damage the nation they presume to call “great.” Ignoring the rule of law means that little stands in the way of a society at the hands of the unprincipled and the mob. Threatening or attacking government capitols and demeaning public servants turn the virtue of patriotism on its head.
By contrast, America is a good nation when we practice the moral virtues we teach our children. Humility, honesty, self-discipline, prudence, civility, moderation (temperance), compassion, justice, courage and respect for human dignity are not platitudes. They have lifted us to our best moments and served as guardrails during our trials. They are the polar opposite of the meanness that pervades much of American life and politics today.
Being good also demands the moral courage to do the right thing when the wrong thing is more appealing. Being good demands achieving justice rather than twisting the law to rationalize injustice. Being good requires politicians to speak out, not remain silent or excuse behavior they know is dangerous to democracy and our reputation in the world. Being good requires citizens to confront that silence and those excuses rather than meekly remaining loyal to ideology, politicians and parties.
America has many models of being good. We must recall and learn from them. On July 2, 1864 Congress, intent on punishing the Confederacy, passed the Wade-Davis bill. For re-admittance to the Union, it required a majority of those in each state to take an Iron-Clad Oath that they had never supported the rebellion. President Abraham Lincoln killed the bill with a pocket veto. He wanted a more lenient, ten percent standard. For Lincoln, Union victory had to be marked by magnanimity. “With malice toward none, with charity for all” was the principle he would announce in his Second Inaugural Address eight months later. Lincoln was a strong and savvy politician. He was also a good man, an example of the strength that comes from humility not hubris, from forgiveness not revenge. He gave his energy and ultimately his life to fashion a good nation, to call forth “the better angels of our nature” as he put it in his First Inaugural.
When Americans focus on being good, being great is much more likely to follow.
Photo Credit: The cardinal virtues of classical thought and later Christian morality are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.. These statues are located on the façade of the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, Italy and were created around 1380 by the Florentine artist Agnolo Gaddi.
