Is there still a common good?

[Uncle Joe]

We’ve gone through the shameful first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol and of the refusal of 147 members of Congress (all Republicans) to certify all the electors from states that voted for Biden, on the basis of no evidence of fraud. So far, no political figure has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. We’ve seen 34 voter-suppression bills enacted by 19 Republican state legislatures; at least 8 give state legislatures the power to disregard election outcomes. More than 400 additional voter suppression measures are now being prepared. And we are now witnessing a struggle in the Senate to reform the filibuster so that voting rights legislation can be enacted. All of which raises a basic question: Is there still a common good?

I was at the impressionable age of fourteen when I heard John F. Kennedy urge us not to ask what America can do for us but what we can do for America. Seven years later I took a job as a summer intern in the Senate office of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy. It was not a glamorous job, to say the least. I felt lucky when I was asked to run his signature machine. But I told myself that in a very tiny way I was doing something for the good of the country.

That was more than a half century ago. I wish I could say America is a better place now than it was then. Surely our lives are more convenient. Fifty years ago there were no cash machines or smart phones, and I wrote my first book on a typewriter. As individuals, we are as kind and generous as ever. We volunteer in our communities, donate, and help one another. We pitch in during natural disasters and emergencies. We come to the aid of individuals in need. We are a more inclusive society, in that Black people, LGBTQ people, and women have legal rights they didn’t have a half century ago.

Yet our civic life—as citizens in our democracy, participants in our economy, managers or employees of companies, and members or leaders of organizations—seems to have sharply deteriorated. What we have lost is a sense of our connectedness to each other and to our ideals—the America that John F. Kennedy asked that we contribute to.

(snip)

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/common-good

[SharonAnn]

1. I'm not sure we volunteer in our communities as much as we used to.

Seems that things have changed enough that people’s involvement in the “common good” has changed.

[YP_Yooper]

2. "at least 8 give state legislatures the power to disregard election outcomes"

Frankly, this is the most dangerous beyond just making it harder to vote. Racists and politicians make it harder to vote, but so does rain and cold weather.

The idea that even if you come out to vote, that some single Sec of State politician or dominant political party who may have even just a suspicion that there are irregularities, and therefore throw out an entire state's elections (ie, what Trump tried in overruling the electoral college votes by the Sec of State) is what really needs attention. While everyone is looking at the little things to making voting more difficult, the right is creating a nuclear option.

[BeckyDem]

3. 2020 brought more than hope, imo. The country elected Biden in huge numbers.

The flaws in our democracy as obstacles are many but let us remember, the country did reject in 2016, Donald Trump.

The Electoral College is not a democratic process, it should have been done away with long ago. Clinton won the popular vote yet the country ended up with a man they did not want. We got rid of him 4 years later because we pushed ourselves despite the repeated efforts of the GOP to suppress the vote actions and a failed coup. Thankfully, our judiciary system, even with Trump-appointed judges, proved over and over again, there was no fraud in the election process.

Citizens United is another obstacle, corporations are not people, any imbecile knows that but some of our justice members are as twisted as Trump on these issues...imho. One only needs to see the background on politicians' funding, connecting the dots is not hard with legislation that passes and fails despite its popularity across both parties.

I truly believe most Americans will do the right thing again in 2024, but with advancing obstacles by the GOP, it is critical to pass a strong voting rights act...a must in every way. I also believe Biden must be honest about who in our party derided his policies and we must invest in getting many more Democrats elected in the Senate and the House.

[appalachiablue]

4. The ideology of Individualism in the last 50 years

has diminshed the concept of maintaining the general welfare/the commons for all. To put it mildly.

[ShazamIam]

5. I consider our U.S. Constitution to be our unifying document and the rule of law that it brings.This

is what can be used to refocus the discussion even as we watch a Supreme Court poised to shred it, having already given it some rips.

[CrispyQ]

6. "Social media allows us to feel like we're connecting while we isolate."

A character in some movie or TV show said that.

Social media has made it possible for people to disconnect from their real world community, & only associate with like-minded people in the virtual world. Then, when they step out into the real world, some of them can't deal with views & lifestyles different than theirs, & they go ballistic.

[YP_Yooper]

7. +1000