I don’t mean to throw a damper on the enthusiasm with which most people have greeted the new year. I should celebrate the anticipation of a happier year full of hope and expectation. But I have to be frank, this year has opened with little to be enthusiastic about. Once again, a government shutdown is looming and might happen as soon as the coming week. Whether it will be full, partial, permanent, or temporary remains to be seen, but if it happens, it will disrupt the nation’s business. The Congress has failed to approve the new federal budget plan, presumably a resolution worked out on a bipartisan basis. There are veiled threats to remove the new House Speaker, Michael Johnson unless he rejects the budget compromise that he has already agreed to. The intransigent tail continues to wag the feckless dog in the Republican-majority House of Representatives, and the legislative dysfunction goes on because a vociferous minority refuses to cooperate in governing responsibly. Obstruction? Yes, they have mastered that tactic, but honest collaboration? Not a chance.

Are there legitimate complaints behind some of their objections? Yes. The immigration crisis at the southern border is the central one. The issue has cried out for reform for decades, and the need for action at the border has become desperate. This problem is neither new, nor its urgent requirements unfamiliar, but you wouldn’t know that from the way the issue has been hyped and exploited across the last two White House administrations. The previous one, with Republican control of both houses of Congress, promised to fix the problem, one-two-three. It didn’t happen. The current one, with its minority party in the House, cannot obtain Congressional agreement even to alleviate the problem–it needs budget approval for the proposed increase in the ranks of the border patrol, immigration officers, and immigration court judges. That wouldn’t eliminate the problem, but it would be a start. Additional policy initiatives are required, and comprehensive reform of immigration policy must be the goal. But the loud voices denouncing the current budget proposal are insistent, they will have their way or else. Fix the border, they say, or there will be no support for Ukraine or Israel. Those foreign policy concerns are shelved unless the Freedom Caucus can get its way one hundred percent. So all other areas of the national interest are held hostage awaiting their kind indulgence.

Freedom Caucus, how ironic! Freedom only for that mischievous little group to get what it wants, and to hell with anybody else who disagrees with them. What is really frightening is how narrow and unreflective the members of that group are. Their extreme right ideological position so completely saturates their minds that their most often-demonstrated characteristic is the lack of any capacity for appreciating complexity, nuance, collaboration, compromise, and most of all, the principles of American democracy. Or perhaps they are not so obtuse, but choose instead to pander to their most extreme constituencies–those who themselves have so often been misled by the bombastic political and ideological voices they have trusted without reservation. They appear to have forgotten or have chosen to ignore the indispensable role America has played and continues to play in international affairs. The post-World War Two world became a saner place largely because of American leadership. The twenty-first century world is fraught with fresh challenges and risks, and it needs more than simplistic solutions and cheap platitudes to keep our country safe, relevant, and competitive. Constructive legislation and statecraft require mature, responsible statesmen who can manage in a complex world, rather than self-serving ideologues and opportunistic demagogues. The former have grown scarce in our politics.

So what do we see before us in this new year? Millions of Americans who believe absurdities, who blindly and unreservedly support political charlatans from the incessantly mendacious Donald Trump to the cynical purveyors of completely debunked lies about fraud in the 2020 election. Those determined underminers of confidence in our democratic institutions along with media con men exploit their fears, refuse to tell them hard truths, and are cavalierly willing to dispense with the very principles that brought this nation and its blessings into existence. The ominous rumblings of authoritarianism remind us of what began in Europe a century ago, and ended in Berlin in 1945, only after so much devastation, death, and sacrifice. But it ended with the triumph of democracy and freedom. America was the exemplar of that triumphant worldview and the model for the liberal democratic world order that has kept us safe for over seventy years. In this election year, attacks on the foundations of American democracy and our national institutions occur daily through disinformation and demagogy. The legacy of the Greatest Generation hangs in the balance, and the endurance of America’s experiment in democracy can no longer be taken for granted. This year think, reflect carefully on American history, read widely and consider all points of view, but bear in mind, not every idea is worthy or valid. Inform yourself and apply reason and careful judgement. Then in November of this year, vote!

Remember Benjamin Franklin’s response following the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 when asked what kind of government the delegates had established: A republic, if you can keep it.