I’m sorry, folks. I really, truly wish I could be an optimist. I wish I could write positive articles, telling us that America’s golden days are yet to come, that a bright and shining tomorrow awaits our nation, and the reasons are A, B, C, X, Y, Z. I sincerely wish I could do that. But I’m a historian, and as much as that, a student of the Bible. I have degrees in both subjects, have taught both for literally half a century, and have written thousands of articles in each field. I confess, such tends to make me cynical.
But maybe, just maybe, America’s best days do still lie ahead of her; I’m a historian, not a prophet.
Yet, to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t have a lot of hope, and history is the reason why.
However, rather than me simply giving my opinions on the matter, let me recount some words of great men of yore. Let’s hear what they say about nations, their future, how they succeed and how they fail. Some of these quotes I’ve given before, but they will always be relevant.
Let’s begin with 18th-century historian Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
This great historian informs us that democracies exist, on average, for about 200 years—some more, some less. They destroy themselves from within, fiscally, when the people start raiding the treasury (and, by implication, politicians are too gutless to say “no.”)
Benjamin Franklin agreed with Sir Tytler: “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
Can you say $39 trillion in debt? And counting?
Mr. Trump, in neither of his administrations, has lowered this horrendous debt, i.e., solved a key issue Tytler and Franklin said would destroy the nation. Even if Mr. Trump wanted to, the problem is that he is fighting against two political parties and over 330 million people who don’t want the problem solved, not to mention how many millions of illegal aliens who came to America for the express purpose of getting some of that debt-producing money government hands out. I don’t see this changing any time soon (do you?), so I have a hard time finding any hope here.
James Madison added this footnote: “If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.”
Thomas Jefferson has a thought-provoking blurb: “The worst day in a man's life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing.”
Bums and promiscuous profligates. This certainly helps explain Tytler and Franklin’s analysis above. And modern America.
John Adams had some things to say about republican (representative) democracy:
“We may appeal to every page of history...for proofs irrefragable [indisputable], that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous, and cruel as any king or senate possessed by an uncontrollable power. The majority has eternally, and without any one exception, usurped over the rights of the minority…Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
Democracy. The “most vile” form of government, James Madison called it, and Adams, Tytler, and Jefferson (among others I don’t have space to quote here) explain why. Look what our representative “democracy” is producing on our streets, and reread Adams.
The Democratic Party today is, of course, 100 percent gone, utterly irredeemable for the foreseeable future. And that is half the country, at least. Too many Republican Party politicians aren’t much better—cowards in a crisis. The Republicans have controlled the presidency, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court for the past 17 months, and the Republican Congress has done absolutely nothing to reverse the direction the nation is headed. Oh, we get occasional, small, inconsequential victories, and yes, America is spending countless billions and appears to be winning a war against a 7th-century barbarian sandpit (and helping Ukraine again). But I’m sorry, I see very little—actually, none—movement back to virtue, righteousness, thrift and frugality, limited government, self-control and responsibility, spiritual faith and courage (Tytler)—the things that are absolutely essential to truly “Make America Great Again.” It appears that the only hope Republicans have of holding on to Congress this fall is if the Democrats are stupider than they are. But, folks, we cannot—must not—pin the future of America on the hope that the opposition is dumber than we are. That won’t work.
“The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases” (Thomas Jefferson). Yes. Exactly. History. Most Americans know absolutely nothing intelligent about it.
The curse of being a historian.
We do have hope. It’s the same hope James Madison told us over 200 years ago: “The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.”
God can save us. That is my one hope. But will He? That I don’t know. What does history say?
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