The Greater Good as Nostalgia?

The Constitution's first 10 amendments are known as the Bill of Rights; it mostly is a list of the rights of an individual. Thus, among other things the Bill of Rights appears to recognize that protecting every person's dignity is worthwhile. 

Yet, "majority rules" is at the heart of democracy; as a principle it appears to recognize that what's seen as best for the community is sometimes more important than any one individual's rights and desires. 

 

As those two basic points of view often conflict with one another, society needs governments to serve the greater good. It needs laws and courts to establish guidelines and absolutes. If you steal your neighbor's car and get caught you will be punished and you can't keep the car. 

 

As well, society has customs and it had standards of morality. However, in the current age, millions of conservatives seem to think that caring for one's neighbor is old hat. 

Moreover, the MAGA team appears to believe that most liberals are only pretending to care so much about the commonweal, because no one really cares more about humanity than they care about the satisfying the every desire of good ol' Number One. Therefore, when Democrats want policies that are designed to benefit the health of the community Trumpists call it, "just politics."

It says here that Trump's January 6th terrorists and their ilk view having a sensible agenda, designed to serve the greater good for society, as nostalgia. As a style that ended when Obama left the White House. 

With the abrupt arrival of Trumpism, wasn't the sharp turn to the crazy right the GOP made, in 2015, fueled in great part by gathering and focusing widespread hateful reactions to Obama's two terms in the White House? To put it plainly, reactions to having endured eight years of a Black president. 

As Biden likes to quip, "This isn't your father's Republican Party." 

In 2023, that old saw packs more punch.    

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Words and Art by F.T. Rea