The Loss of American MoJo

Face It, Folks. We've Got Collective Case of "the Mondays"

America is in a bit of a rut. It isn’t just two years of COVID exhaustion. It isn’t just a stumbling stock market, high inflation, and legions of people choosing to leave the workforce. It isn’t just that the Taliban kicked our ass, or that Putin is about to give the western world the finger as he reprises half-a-millenniums worth of Russian paranoia about buffer security, or that the Chinese build three warships for every one we build. It isn’t just the that one entire American political party is dedicated to an insurrectional lie, or that the other American political party is dedicated to the destruction of much of the federal system resulting from our founders’ genius. It isn’t just that young women are harming themselves or considering it in record numbers or that young men increasingly cannot be bothered to submit college applications or put down the X-Box controller.

I could go on, but the loss of mojo cannot be properly laid off on any one of these many national pathologies. Taken together though, they represent a considerable headwind for the collective American ship of destiny, and for the first time in my 56 years I wonder about our future. That said, we didn’t get here overnight. We’ve been on this path for twenty years, and it is high time we snapped out of it.

9-11?

If you’re looking to a day or date to hang the start of the decline on, you could do worse than that horrible day in September 2001. Everything really did change that day, at least for anyone who had achieved fully formed adult status. For those who were children or born after 9-11, the suck has pretty much been all they know.

Really though, 9-11 is about a year too late. I’m going to move the clock back a 10 months to November 2000, the contested election that resulted in George Bush the Younger becoming President. Don’t get me wrong—I am a George Bush man. I recognized his limitations then but appreciated the spectacle of having a truly good man in charge. Like his Dad. But as I look back, I remember the political discourse that surrounded that election, and I’ve come to conclude that the slide really began with George Bush and his rhetoric about “nation building at home” and the whole post-Cold War vibe of “hey, we won the Cold War, everything is cool, the world needs less of us and we need more of us.” He went on to win that election (fair and square), and governed for ten months before the terrorists hit. Do you remember “No Child Left Behind”? Do you remember the whole issue of fetal stem cell research? These were some of the big pulls of that Presidency before the terror. Clearly, that event—that attack—changed Bush, changed his approach, and rapidly put the U.S. very much back out into the world. But you cannot get around the fact that in November 2000, we pretty much decided that we wanted to tend to our own vine and fig tree, and leave the rest of the world to the rest of the world. There weren’t any big threats, so we could take our foot off the gas.

By the time the Bush Administration was over, we were tired, the economy was tanking, and we turned to a political messiah who told us that the waters would begin to recede and the climate would cool. But he also told us we were too involved in the world, that others should step up, that we should lead from behind. Foreign entanglements begun in the previous administration (Afghanistan, Iraq) could not be wound down fast enough to suit them (and their supporters). and we were told that we were unexceptional. We began to believe it.

Next we turned to a grievance-mongering carnival-barker, whose stock in trade was anger and blame, and who connected with enough dark hearts to empower him into office, an office he defiled from his first day in it, and whose structure and authority was set down in a document he sought to destroy as he neared his last day. All throughout, he—like his predecessor—told us we shouldn’t be as involved in the world, that we should leave it to others not paying their fair share, that the world needed less of the U.S. in it. Unlike his predecessors, he talked a good game about building up the tools of world influence, but this like all of his policy preferences, fell victim to his attention span and lack of a work ethic.

And now we are led by a man who sounds like a vaping undergraduate when he mouths the trope of “forever war”, who cashed in U.S. credibility in a precipitous exit from Afghanistan, whose national security team speaks of “integrated deterrence” as a smokescreen for military unpreparedness, and who dithers away accusing those who believe that States have a right to reduce early voting days (as well as increase them) of being reincarnations of Bull Connor. Even now, Vladimir Putin puts the finishing touches on plans to re-re-re-re-annex Ukraine while the President fecklessly stumbles through a news conference that must have sent shivers through world capitals.

What’s To Be Done?

By now, I think you see where I’m going with this. The “uber” malady in the United States is purposelessness. We’ve got no spring in our step, because we haven’t a clue where we fit anymore. I realize that it is difficult to make a direct leap from national ennui to the pathologies I began this essay by listing, but there is a link nevertheless. Because my formative professional experience was commanding a Destroyer, I am somewhat fond of ship-based analogies, and one of the things that sustained me throughout my naval career was that if your ship wasn’t clean, you probably couldn’t do much else right, either. I mention this because how clean your ship is really shouldn’t matter to how well your sonarmen can find submarines, but trust me, it does.

We need to get our mojo back. And it starts by acting like we have mojo (clean the damn ship). Sort of a “fake it till you make it” as a country. Act like we’re strong. And proud. And influential. And necessary. Be indispensable.

Start to concentrate national energy on tangible and intangible signs of strength and leadership.

Rebuild American diplomatic AND military strength.

Talk boldly. Plan big. Stop acting like the world is better off with less of the U.S. in it.

One of the few relatively popular things this President did was push his infrastructure bill. It wasn’t big enough. Go back for more. Add more ships and airplanes and roads and ports and airports and research and technology. Stop trying to wrap all this stuff in wokeness and climate change. Say that we need things because leading is who we are and what we do.

Stay away from divisive, silly, extreme/base coddling positions. Relentlessly pursue policy ideas that have broad appeal, rather than policy ideas that have narrow appeal to donors.

Use domestic policy to show strength and unity. Ignore the wing-nuts.

Stop with the performative leadership on COVID. Concentrate on protecting the most vulnerable, encourage people to do what they think best and to be respectful of what others are doing or require on their property. Plant the flag in a bright future. Point toward it. Lead the way.

We need a bit of relentless optimism.

SCOTUS

News today that Justice Breyer is retiring. This will invariably unleash the worst impulses of all poles in our political spectrum. Worsening everything I just talked about above.

But wouldn’t it be nice if…

Everyone realized that 1) With the VP, the D’s have 51 votes in the Senate. 2) There will be a vote on a replacement this summer, and Biden will get his way. 3) The ideological balance of the court will be unchanged. So…

Why not under-react? Why not not get your undies in a twist (GOP). Why not take a stab at a responsible process, one in which good, tough questions are asked of the nominee, but no character assassination is attempted?

If the outcome is already known…and it is…why go through damaging political theater? Maybe Senate Republicans could consider the possibility that acting like responsible, lucid statesmen would help their brand going into 2022 midterms?

Play the long game.