Trump is NOT a citizen!

The upside of Trumpism is that it pushes us who are concerned with the directions of our nation and world to achieve greater clarity on our values and principles. More than ever.

In my last blog, I argued that the foundational principle of a democratic republic is in politics over culture. We have various expressions of that foundational principle: “We the People,” “liberty and justice for all,” “all men are created equal,” human rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Note that the expressions are in culture, the principle itself in politics.

I contrasted this political principle with the principle of cultural assimilation, including language, religion, custom, life-style. The union of a democratic republic is in the public space created by the willing participation of all as equals. The governance of a democratic republic is not by hierarchy with some divine ruler at the pinnacle of power setting the standards of human life and action.

The foundational principle of public space organized by willing people without exclusion is also expressed in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.  That amendment affirms freedom of assembly, of speech, and of religion as the essential tools and rights to build and shape the public space, its contours, rules, and governance.  Public space is not to be confused with government run or owned although government guarantees and protects that space. There are places and organizations that are government run and owned: schools, museums, libraries, enterprises, non-profits, research institutes, theaters, and parks. But government is of, for, and by citizens assembled without discrimination in the public space.

And who is a citizen? Primarily a citizen is any person from any persuasion, origin, culture, and religion who accepts and lives by the foundational principle of the democratic Republic. This principle arises from our human nature and being. In other words, it is ordained by natural and existential (as opposed to positive or essential) law.

Those who believe in a divine Maker affirm that human nature and existence is not (just) the product of evolution but created by Elohim or Yahweh if Jewish, or by Allah if following the teaching of the Prophet, or by Christ, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, or by Krishna, avatar of Vishnu, or by Crow or Coyote in indigenous mythology. The Mosaic, Papal, Sharia, and Vedic codes of laws, holy books, and personal moralities are espoused by individuals and groups who enter the public realm. But the source, foundation, premise, and rationale for the Republic is human nature and being as understood by reason and decided by the will of citizens.

Traditional beliefs, holy books, and behaviors can be cited in public libraries, government funded schools, civic parks and museums as long as none receive particular preference. There is freedom for religions and their codes of behavior in the private and cultural sphere. There is freedom from religion in the public sphere where the understanding of the common good and the rules for governance are negotiated.

The Constitution of a democratic republic is an imperfect human expression that attempts to articulate the foundational principle and set rules and guidelines for its implementation. To say it is divinely inspired, as did Mitt Romney, or to treat it that way, as do fundamentalist jurors, is contrary to the very principle of a democratic republic. If you know the history of the debates and compromises by which the Constitution was written, you know that the principle which it embodied was more aspirational than achieved. It permitted slavery, excluded women and the non-propertied from voting, allowed votes of some to count more than others. But it did not overtly promote these inequities, sinning more by omission than commission.  

And it allowed for interpretation and amendments that did in fact over time reduce these inequities and exclusions. It is still today an imperfect document allowing for gerrymandering by parties, plutocracy through the influence of money in elections, an aristocracy through the electoral college, and populist corruption through bribes and lies. But the promise remains.

Many occasions pushed the nation towards greater implementation of its aspirational democratic principle. The Civil War defeated a Confederacy bent on maintaining slavery and therefore retiring the democratic republican principle. Industrial corporate suppression of workers led to the labor movement. Jim Crow practice furthered the civil rights movement. Discrimination against women advanced the women’s movement first for political and then social and economic equality. Wars have been countered by peace movements. The Trumpian interval is a setback for progress, but it is also an occasion for renewal of commitment to the democratic republican ideal.

In the Trumpian age, a reactionary party and movement, recoiling from the election of the first black president and an African American family in the White House built by African slaves, is negating the democratic republican principle. This party and movement would set a cultural standard for belonging—straight, manly, Euro/Anglo, monied, churched—by enabling white supremacy and immigrant hate groups. Trumpians want to build walls, keep out immigrants, reward the wealthy, punish the unconventional, put religious belief over critical thinking. The Trumpians use tribal fear to blame others for their shortcomings. They want to reduce health care, make poorer people poorer, keep out immigrants, pit race against race, debase the free press, undermine the organization of workers and consumers, put profit for some over safety and health for all, and substitute force for power, punishment for justice. They treat and so make government not of, for, and by the people, but against the people.

A citizen is a person who accepts and lives the foundational principle of a democratic republic. That principle is a safe open space for all without exclusion to live, worship, love, work, worship, and play as they want in private and to speak, decide, and act together as a public. A public--whether a neighborhood, a nation, a region, a world--is the inclusive space where all have the ability, including the resources, to have life, meaning and respect. Therefore, persons intending civil, worker, racial, LGBT, immigrant, income rights and power are citizens whether or not they have legal status. Trumpians, their leader and their enablers, are not.