Democracy Means More Life, But Not to Trump and Company

It’s such a simple idea—that our nation was founded to provide its citizens and new arrivals with more life. Our unique form of government, grounded in the notion of self-determination, explicitly seeks to expand life possibilities for more people so that they might realize gifts granted at birth. Why didn’t this occur to me sooner? After all, “life” so clearly precedes “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence.

To our detriment, we are now living through a period where the person we elected president, whose predecessors largely upheld the nation’s founding principles, seeks to bury its most basic intent. The administration’s agenda for the last two years is built around the concept of less access to life. It has committed billions of taxpayer dollars to this mission. When superimposed on their repetitive attempts to disempower women, people of color, and ethnic minorities, the four efforts that follow cap a prolonged assault on life:

The allocation of vast resources to expel several hundred thousand people from the country, sidestepping their due process rights. All emigrated to fulfill more of life’s possibilities in safer and more nurturing surroundings. A strong majority have bolstered the nation’s economic might and cultural richness. Read this Guardian article for a full grasp of the horrifying actions done in our name and paid for with taxpayer dollars. For those expelled, life’s possibilities have been lessened. Ours too are diminished, as their contributions are subtracted from community life.

Preserving an entitlement to more life in all its various forms inspires a cause that warrants universal backing.

The denial of science-based findings regarding climate disruption and positive health measures. This translates into many more citizens having fewer life options. On the climate front, the administration has contended that more oil enhances our lives. The truth is that more oil equals less life. Profligate burning of it disrupts the proper functioning of the atmosphere, sickens more people, and causes extreme weather that results in severe dislocations and needless deaths. At the same time, disregarding years of learning regarding preventive health measures and positive treatment protocols shrinks the chances of more of us for a full life.

The constriction of public discourse by curtailing press freedom and criminalizing constitutionally protected citizen dissent. The upshot is that the breadth and depth of the field of ideas available to us as citizens is considerably constrained. Life’s richness is fed with bursts of fresh air, not with heavy doses of government suppression. When the range of the possible is narrowed, there is less of life’s potential.

The direction of public resources in support of the fortunes of a few extremely wealthy people. This distortion shuts off opportunities for more citizens to spread their economic wings in pursuit of a better life. The so-called “American Dream” has become a mirage of unrealizable expectations for 90% of the population. Ironically, it was the throttling of these expectations that stoked the anger and resentment of a plurality of our fellow citizens and led to the election of a person committed to limiting life chances for millions.

These acts, designed to deprive constituents of more life, are evidence of a transgression more egregious than all the others this administration has perpetrated. It demands immediate attention and redress.

Strategically speaking, fighting for more life is easier to grasp than fighting for democracy, The latter asked people to stand together in defense of an abstract idea. For some it had partisan overtones. In contrast, preserving an entitlement to more life in all its various forms inspires a cause that warrants universal backing. It would be sufficient for undertaking a mass movement fueled by nonviolent direct action.

Who of us, regardless of political affiliation, would advocate for less life? This is the cause for which we must fight now—to regain the ground we have lost, and to realize even more fully the primary intent of the Declaration of Independence: more life.