Below the double line is the more or less famous excerpt on American party politics from George Washington’s Farewell Address. The address itself is long (32 hand-written pages) and difficult to read, mainly because sentences written at that time by learned people were skillfully packed to the point of bursting with relevance and meaning, making their content unequivocally clear to people even in distant places and times. But it’s a fascinating read because it was ghost written by several authors of the US Constitution and so, I think, it offers unique and precious insight into what the fathers of our country thought of their creation as it was taking its first steps into history.
When I read the passage below, I realize that Washington was charting his understanding of one of the processes by which a free nation reverts to its medieval, feudalistic roots and in sequence. How these people could be so keenly aware of the last century or so of our politics–which was also the second century beyond their time–will fill me with awe for many years to come.
For those who truly see the danger the United States is facing as represented by the 2016 presidential election, the onset of the 45th administration, and the ramifications of both, I place us at having recently left Defensive Condition Level 3 and having just entered Defensive Condition Level 4. For those who believe in a rational United States that believes in, and looks to, a rational future as worth pursuing, we are at DefCon 4.
In my judgement, we were at this same level of crisis at the end of the second term of George W. Bush. But the two terms of Barack Obama returned us to perhaps even the lower range of DefCon 3.
In my most sincere opinion, if we do not to least return to DefCon 2–and quickly–we will find ourselves at DefCon 5. There is no third option that I can see. And I fear that neither luck nor the efforts of others will win out this time, Folks.
Even though the social inertia driving what we are seeing happen in our society is enormous, I think that stepping back is just what we will do. And it will be due entirely to massive, conscious, dedicated effort on the part of millions who have accepted that the efforts of others will not be enough, nor, appropriately, should they be.
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I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy[DefCon 1]. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism[DefCon 2]. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual[DefCon 3]; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation[DefCon 4], on the ruins of public liberty[DefCon 5].
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.[DefCon 1]
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