Biden wants to unite America but the Republicans have a different meaning of the word unite.
In America as the call for natio
nal “unity” from people in the media and political classes get louder, a stronger sense of displacement appears. Taking into consideration events such as
protests, an impeached ex-president, business closures, government-ordered quarantine,
lock-downs and riots- national unity is an in-executable illusion.
Americans were told by the so-called “unifiers” that all Trump had to do to unify the country was to go quietly into that good night, and that all Joe R. Biden has to do to help unify the country, is to make nice with Trump voters, and above all be the liberal/ moderate that he has (dis)played in public during his four decades of government service. What an oxymoron.
On September 9, 1776 the Continental Congress formally declared the name of the new nation to be the “United States of America”.
This replaced the term “United Colonies,” which had been in general use. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-renames-the-nation-united-states-of-america. Despite the name, the United States of America is not and has never been a united country. It is a federation of states, comprised of 330 million people of different religions, political beliefs and cultural values. The states are held together legally by the Constitution with all the amendments, and culturally by tradition, mass media and educational indoctrination. The political, economic, and judicial system is based on fierce competition.
It is not just that public trust in politics has been declining for decades.
Public confidence in virtually every major American institution — from religion and the courts to media and the military — has fallen. The best we can hope for is tolerance. I do not mean the new definition of tolerance; the one that means we love and celebrate our differences. I am referring instead to the old definition that required actual toleration.
The question remains: what would a president do to unite us? What is President Joe Biden’s blueprint for reuniting the nation, considering that 74 million Americans voted for
Donald J. Trump.
Furthermore, I dare ask, is it the job of a president to unify the country? Far too many people mistakenly think that it is the president’s job to “run” the country, when in truth and essence not even.
Presidents do not run anything. Nada!
The president’s job is to manage, not the country but a single branch of government, and appoint people to “run” large federal bureaucracies staffed by employees.
The more the call for national unity reverberates, the more I think of the song “Imagine” by John Lennon of the Beatles. Nice song but unimaginable. No heaven, no hell, no greed, no hunger, no possessions, a brotherhood of man?
Really man? If history has proved anything, such a world could never exist once it is inhabited by human beings. The sooner that reality is faced or gotten used to, then the chances for relative peace and tranquility will be better.
One thing that unites America is an attack by outsiders. Americans are loosely united in going to war against foreign enemies. Note the war in Iraq and how rapidly they became disunited in the fighting of that.
As America’s 46th seeks to fulfill his urgent plea for unity he will confront a dissonance between the two parties’ definitions of the word and is likely to be forced to choose between fighting for a bold agenda and forging bipartisan agreements. Will those disaffected by the defeat of Trump listen, and will they as President Biden asked, agree amicably to disagree.
At his inauguration on a chilly January day on the West Front of a Capitol that was overrun two weeks ago by a pro-Trump mob, Joe Biden said , “For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury, no progress, only exhausting outrage, no nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge. And unity is the path forward,” Biden said. “Hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion.”
The irony lies in the fact that this Union (United Colonies) later U.S.A started out in disagreement. The ultimate hope is that the majority of Americans and their representatives in Washington truly want the country–rather than a particular political dogma– to succeed.
President Biden will struggle to live up to his lofty themes of unity and healing, but alone he cannot unite America. That’s not to say the effort is pointless.
Aleuta—– The struggle continues.
