Healing America – USA Gov Policy

Why is America so close to being ripped apart, with differences that appear to be irreconcilable?

The United States, with its vast diversity in ethnic and religious groups as well as political perspectives, has not, with the exception of when the Union was divided by those who sought to preserve slavery, been torn asunder.

That reason is twofold.

The First Amendment allowed contentious perspectives to play out to the fullest extent. All the shouting and arguing resulted in volatile differences being aired out and defused.

A fair election system, invigorated and fueled by journalism, made solving differences at the ballot box instead of the battlefield a viable alternative to violence and division.

These attributes have been misunderstood abroad. According to one former State Department official, The Chinese government believed that during the 2000 “hanging chad” election, the nation was about to be tossed into massive disorder.

Those two unique civic virtues are now being threatened.

The censorship imposed by social media giants, and the “cancel culture” throughout academia, the media, and corporate America has prevented honest and thorough discourse in the public square. Those challenges are magnified by a journalistic environment that has changed emphasis from informing the public, to telling the public what to think.

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A study in Tablet found that “Between 2017 and 2018, trust in media…dropped from 47% to 42%. Trust in government declined even more precipitously, with a 14-percentage-point drop in the number of people who said they trusted the U.S. to ‘do what is right.’ While those numbers rebounded by a few points in 2019, Americans’ overall faith in the country remained dismal: A mere 20%…And that’s the insidious thing about a culture where trust is eroding: A majority of people don’t even have to support or participate in cancel culture for it to wreak havoc on society at large…Without trust, we become fearful and desperate to exert control. Instead of terrorism or violence or a boogeyman lurking in the bushes with a gun and a roll of duct tape, we suspect the ordinary person sitting next to us, who suspects us in return. We are less charitable, more judgmental, and more likely to go to extremes—including violence…”

It is undeniable that the 2020 election has torn America further apart than at any time since the 1860’s. The harsh divide did not end with the conclusion of the balloting and the inauguration of the new president. The reasons for that are due to both censorship and cancel culture, as well as the appropriate loss of confidence in the electoral system itself.

Terrified editors of both print and electric media mandate that writers and newscasters preface remarks about the very real irregularities in the 2020 ballot with disclaimers that the complaints are false, despite an almost overwhelming abundance of evidence that procedures were changed without the required legislative approval. A mere mention of the phrase “Stolen Election” may get one kicked off of YouTube and Facebook.

Journalists, who in the past have been so vital a part of the electoral system by keeping the people informed and allowing discourse to replace discord, utterly failed in their duty during the last presidential election. Their extreme partisanship in favor of Biden was undeniable. That trait was made far worse by their willingness to lie on his behalf, and obscure key facts concerning major issues that were damaging to his candidacy.

The United States Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the complaints about irregularities in the election procedures could have accomplished what journalists were unwilling to do: provide a forum for both sides to be heard in a fair manner. The highest court’s failure to do so, including on one petition from a majority of the states, ended the last, best chance to lower tensions and restore some semblance of national unity.

The Journalism, state election systems, and the Supreme Court must examine their consciouses and their actions in order to bring America back together.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.