Over the years, the annual "State of the Union" address of our Presidents hasn't been something that caught my interest. I do try to watch some of them every year, as it is important to understand what is going on, but in particular with the last President (Obama) there was only so much I could handle before I would have to change the channel to a re-run of Mork and Mindy or something in disgust. However, last night actually caught my interest in a real way, as in many aspects President Trump's address was different from many in previous years. And, that inspired me to share some thoughts on it.
I also wanted to mention that I have not exactly been a great fan of Trump's - I didn't vote for him in the 2016 elections, and to be honest I was a bit skeptical about his election. However, so far I can honestly say I have few complaints about how he's been doing. Granted, he isn't perfect, which we all know - the "$#!+-hole" comment, for instance, could have possibly been more judiciously thought-out (it wasn't what he said so much that was wrong - we all know, and those who have been there can also say, that places like Haiti would indeed qualify for such a description - but rather how he said it; perhaps a better descriptive was warranted by the man representing the leadership of the free world). But, for the most part, Trump has managed to actually do something that many of the career politicians who leech our resources have failed to do - like him or love him, he is at least trying to keep his promises. Compared to the eight years prior to his election, life has been somewhat better than it was when Obama was in office, to be sure. However, we have not "made America great again" yet - America socially right now more resembles Berlin in 1946 - there is a lot of damage to clean up, and much of our standards are in tatters, so that will take some time. That being said, the question is, can Trump do it? Let's discuss that a minute before going into the actual SOTU address itself.
As culturally I am a paleoconservative, politically a Monarchist, and economically a Distributist, much of my own thought about American Republicanism is somewhat admittedly critical. To be completely honest, the system was broken before it was built honestly. America calls itself a "democracy," but to be honest that may not be a good thing. In his book The End of Democracy (Los Angeles: Tumblar House, 2014) Christophe Buffin de Chosal points out on page 31 that "As long as democracy has existed, every means has been devised so that the 'self-ruling' people have in practice almost nothing to say....Democracy has produced a ruling class propped up by the political parties, whose foremost objective is the preservation of power." He notes further on page 32, "Once in place, the parties do not in the least seek to serve the common good, or rather they do so only if it first serves their own interest, which is to stay in and enjoy power." On page 48, de Chosal nails the bottom line to all this - "Political power, in a democracy, always thus has a tendency to grow weak and the money powers to grow stronger." As my good friend and noted American Monarchist Charles A. Coulombe also pointed out recently on a video broadcast called "Off the Menu," the problem with a Presidential government is also that if a President like Trump is elected with good ideas, the term limits he has in office would not allow time to implement them, and his successor can undo everything - this is made more real by the fact that in our nation there is a cultural divide between "Progressives" and varieties of Conservatives, and the mob rule of the "democratic process" allows the media and Hollywood to impact and influence cultural values, which in recent decades has not exactly been too good. De Chosal's comments bring to light two important aspects of this - first, incumbent career politicians - those who de Chosal describes as "a ruling class propped up by the political parties, whose foremost objective is the preservation of power," to only serve the common good when "it first serves their own interest, which is to stay in and enjoy power." Second, it is another of de Chosal's observations that catches our attention - political power tends to grow weak and the money powers tend to grow stronger. We see this happening in so many cases where Hollywood interests, big corporations, and the media buy off politicians and assert their will over that of the citizenry, as well as imposing their values. With that is their pet causes - feminism, the "LGBTQ" agenda, etc. In other words, democracy degenerates into an oligarchy of rich Congressmen who sit on their butts, do nothing, and then come against someone who does make a stand against their pet interests because it could jeopardize their million-dollar homes and offshore accounts. A good example of this is the recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, which should be something our government should recognize but refuses to - why? Reason is, Turkish money is bankrolling many of those who are supposed to be elected to represent their constituents, and in the case of some such as Steve Cohen in Tennessee, Eddie Bernice Johnson in Texas, and John McCain in Arizona, it means outright hostility against Armenian-Americans and others in favor of Turkish money. Or, let's look at Nancy Pelosi, whose actions in last night's State of the Union address were so embarrassing and disrespectful that they are almost laughable if her power was not so dangerous - the people spoke in this election when Trump was voted in, but she, Hillary, and others like them called the average working American citizen "deplorable" for exercising their rights to vote. And, they don't care - the average blue-collar guy who works his butt off and just wants to provide a good life for his family means nothing to Pelosi and her kind, but the rich, spoiled Hollywood stars and NFL athletes who disrespect the national anthem do because they have money - de Chosal's observation, then, becomes a reality. This is the other "Golden Rule" that many of the elected officials in Congress follow as a creed - "he who has the gold rules, while those who don't are fools." The average person who is our neighbor and co-worker has not been oblivious to this either; they will quickly tell you if they are being honest that they have little faith in our government. It can lead to hopelessness and frustration, and indeed has as we have seen "special interests," biased media, and spoiled rich celebrities take control of the values system in this nation with a negative impact. It is that hopelessness and frustration that has made someone like Donald Trump possible, and hence why the State of the Union address yesterday was so pivotal.
In last night's address, President Trump was attempting to be conciliatory in stating the obvious - we have some major problems that need addressed in this country, and it is for the good of the working American citizen that they need to be addressed. Problems such as illegal immigration (a big one, which the President also attributed to the rise of drug abuse, gang violence, etc.), the economy, and also healthcare. What he said made excellent sense, and not only did he just merely pontificate, but he introduced people who exemplified what he was saying - the North Korean expatriate with the crutches, for instance, as well as the policeman and his wife who adopted the newborn child of a heroin addict. Whatever the intent, this personal dimension to Trump's address definitely resonated with most - except, of course, the pickle-faced Democrats sitting in the chamber, many of whom looked as if they were about to have strokes or episodes of regurgitation (one noted that Pelosi looked like she was sucking on a Tide pod, which the meme exemplifies below). I imagine too that a Marxist like Bernie Sanders (in true Southern sentiment, I say, "bless his pea-pickin' heart!") was probably mortified at the fact that a survivor of a regime Sanders idolizes (North Korea) being present could also be seen by Sanders as a threat against his own Marxist utopian delusions. Also, Trump's correct assessment and identification of rogue regimes like the current Iranian government as well as North Korea was excellent - he was right on that, and hopefully he can implement what he declared to do. Overall, Trump had many strong moments, but maybe a few weak ones as well.
One area I would significantly differ with Trump on is in regard to Russia. Russia is not a threat, nor is it in opposition to us - unless, of course, we provoke them as Obama tried to do, which is never wise in that Putin isn't one to take a lot of crap. We have no conflict of interest with Russia, and in many cases the values Putin espouses could be a lesson for us - Putin doesn't let terrorists and the "gay lobby" dictate policies in his nation, and he also is very supportive of the Church and of persecuted Christian communities around the world, something our own nation has miserably failed to do. Trump is on the right track with this, but there is much to be done. Also, America has not arrived at recovery yet - much of the damage wreaked by the Obama years is still evident, and as mentioned the cultural landscape in this nation looks more like Nagasaki or Berlin in 1946. We are still divided, "political correctness" is stifling true freedom of expression, and the twin "wild cards" of sexual harassment and racism are being used and abused as weapons against people others don't agree with. Until this is dealt with at a fundamental level, true recovery will be slow at best. Fundamentally America has a moral problem that is rooted in decades of Enlightenment-inspired postmodern gobbeldygook, and it has gotten so tangled that it will take either time or a radical solution to remedy it. It remains to be seen how Establishment career politicians, bankrolled by special-interest lobbies and their own agendas taking precedence over their constituents' needs, will react to Trump's initiatives. Much of what he has said would actually be beneficial, but activist judges and career Congressmen are going to present challenges. It is one reason why I would tend to agree with de Chosal and Coulombe, as well as historic thinkers such as Chesterton, Ilyin, and Belloc, who all concur that democracy as such is a bad idea and cannot really exist - as Coulombe has noted in many of his own discourses and books correctly, democracy ultimately has its end in totalitarianism. De Chosal notes on page 129 of his book that democracy is a system that "has no fundamental understanding of the concept of goodness." This mirrors some things that the late Pope St. John Paul II noted in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor that my Moral Theology graduate course had us read a couple of years back, and on thing that the late Pontiff notes is that truth is the place from which the dignity of conscience derives (VS 63). God's plan, which is truth, poses no threat to man's genuine freedom, and indeed only the acceptance of this truth is the only way to affirm that freedom (VS 45). Further, it is only in this freedom, foundated in God's truth, that man can turn to what is good (VS 33). Goodness and truth are actually transcendant properties of being (along with beauty) and theologically and metaphysically speaking they are intrinsic to our worldview, which in turn is reflected in the socio-political structures that govern us. When one attempts to redefine what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful apart from God's establishment of these things as universals, it creates problems. The concept of goodness therefore that de Chosal notes modern democracy lacks is also in part due to a lack of understanding truth (or a blatant denial of the true, if I dare say so). Democracy's subjectivization of truth and goodness has led to this confusing mess that is exemplified today as "political correctness," and it is one reason why it will inevitably fail. Many early architects of Enlightenment thought, such as William of Ockham and Marsilus of Padua, as well as Machiavelli and Descartes, denied universals via a school of thought called nominalism, and in doing so it also elevated individual reason above empirical evidence in many cases - what one therefore thinks is true, in true Cartesian fashion, then becomes the truth, and that means that the "good" is redefined by the whims of an individual rather than universal norms. When that happens, a man can therefore claim he is a woman because he "feels" like one (note this is the whole idea behind this transgenderism issue) or a White woman can say she is "Black" because her "soul" is Black. Reality for such people is what they say it is, rather than what it actually is, and therefore this is why transcendental properties of being (goodness, truth, beauty) are reduced to subjective definitions. And, that is why de Chosal correctly observes a deficiency in democratic systems regarding the fundamental concept of goodness. That discourse now relates to Trump's speech last night in this way.
The phrase "Make America Great Again!" has a feel-good quality that rightly should be an admirable goal. And, for those who do embrace traditional values, we know what that entails. However, we need to remember something as well, and it is also a good barometer to measure our President by too - Machiavelli had a premise to his political theory, as laid out in The Prince, that what is true is irrelevant to what works. Truth, then, for a person with a Machiavellian mindset is sacrificed for "what works," and we have seen where that has led with recent foreign policy decisions by both Republicans and Democrats alike. Take this issue of the Armenian Genocide. The truth is that it was a real event that happened in 1915, and practically every Armenian alive can testify to that today as almost all of them have lost family in that event. Logic dictates that recognizing that this event happening is the thing to do, but the Machiavellian mindset of many of our leaders see something else - they see dollar signs, as the seductive siren call of the Turkish lobby, with its rich resources, has wooed Senators and Presidents alike to ignore the Armenian Genocide as a historical event because it might "embarrass" our Turkish "friends." But, here is the thing - the Armenian Genocide was a true event; it happened, and the Turks bear culpability for it. So, why do elected officials such as Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, and practically every sitting US President since Woodrow Wilson choose to ignore and (in the case of Eddie Johnson) outright deny it happened? Because what works for them is more important than what's true - Turkish money to fill their coffers, much of it generated from Azeri oil fields, speaks louder than the graves of innocent Armenians slaughtered in the Middle Eastern deserts. The personal "good" of personal wealth has priority over the greater good of the preservation of a nation of people. Yet, is it all that "good?" Ask former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who now is in prison (and he is a Republican - career politicians know no parties!) for bribery, much of which came from Turkish drug money and other things in which Hastert, who could have in his position at the time as Speaker of the House passed a measure recognizing the reality of the Armenian Genocide but did not. Let's look at something else equally appalling - abortion. Trump is thankfully making a pro-life stand in his Presidency, and he afirmed that loudly last night in his address. But, we need to recall something - Planned Parenthood, which is the largest mass-production entity in the abortion industry, is also rich, and on its bankrolls sit many Congressmen. To these Congressmen (Pelosi is the most blatant) the howls and squeals of a motley bunch of sexually-frustrated ugly feminists in "pussy hats" mean more than the millions of innocent unborn children who end up dying before their life starts in agonizing ways - the reason why is money! Pelosi and those like her (including many Republicans) are very Machiavellian in this aspect in that they are going with what gets them the most votes rather than what is morally right and good, and thus de Chosal's assessment that there is a deficiency in the universal concept of goodness, as well as revealing the real objective of the "leaders" (and I use that term loosely!) is to seek and preserve their own power, only appealing to the common good when it serves their interests - this is right out of Machiavelli's playbook in that they choose what works over what is true. Ear-tickling - particularly if it has the backing of a bunch of rich celebrities and powerful special interests - works, and unfortunately it works too well - often, it is too late by the time the itch subsides and people realize they have been lied to. And, that leads to a couple of closing thoughts before I conclude in regard to our President.
Trump was a fluke as far as his election was concerned - he was outside the "Establishment," and in many aspects observers on both the right and left of the political spectrum have correctly observed that the "Trump Train" was the fruit of a popular discontent with traditional politicians. Under the surface of our American society there is a brewing of discontent that one day will erupt when finally many normal citizens will say "enough is enough" and change will happen. Trump's election is a harbinger of that in a good way, but a lot remains to be seen as of yet, as it is only his first year in office. When the eruption of popular discontent takes place, we need to pay careful attention to where it leads the nation as a whole - after all, many writers (Chesterton, Coulombe, de Chosal, and others) have noted that totalitarianism is the natural climax of democracy, and as Pope St. John Paul II notes in Veritatis Splendor, the root of modern totalitarianism is in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person, and when democracy loses a fundamental concept of goodness, then dignity of the human person is cheapened and the person becomes a mere means to be used by those who wish to exercise power. This is why we need to pay attention and be careful, lest we fall into a hole we cannot get out of. In order for America to be great again, a fundamental sense of goodness must be recovered, and that goodness is ultimately found in God's truth. It is here that politics and theology meet at a crossroads, a crossroads which is often blocked and ignored by the champions of secularism, yet we cannot afford to do so. America's greatness, therefore, is found in solid values rooted in universal truth, not in subjective ideas of truth exploited for ambitious means. And, that essentially is what I would say I got from Trump's address last night. If he stays true to it and can resist those who seek to undermine what he is trying to do, we might have a fighting chance as a nation. But, there is still much to do, and ultimately it is God in whom we place our trust, as Trump is but human too. Have a good week everyone.
