I recently had the opportunity to talk to MLive employees about how we are doing so far this year as a company, what’s ahead and to answer their questions.
Much of what our employees heard from me and the leadership team was around the need for change and ways we experiment and innovate. It is, in the end, the only way to grow as a company and meet our customers’ needs.
Any business, or person for that matter, needs to evolve or risk being left behind, rendered irrelevant.
That thought made me think of this election season, and how we govern ourselves. Is the United States of America a bit, well, stuck?
I’m not talking how polarized and angry our politics has become, although that undoubtedly is a discouraging and unhealthy sign. I’m talking about how a country that once exuded confidence and ambition in ideals, progress and programs has been on “pause” for more than 30 years.
The U.S. Constitution was conceived and written as a living document; the Founding Fathers wanted it to be pliable to weather the inevitable changes facing a growing country. The first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, went into effect collectively after the Constitution was ratified; the 11th Amendment, protecting states from certain lawsuits, came a short four years later.
Three amendments, including abolishing slavery, came out of the Civil War era. Four more, including the establishment of federal income tax and giving women the right to vote, were ratified from 1913 to 1920. Another four amendments, including making the voting age 18, were added from 1961 to 1971.
The 27th and last amendment, dealing with congressional pay raises, was ratified in 1992. Since then, crickets.
What, nothing major socially, culturally, politically or otherwise has happened in America – or the world – for 32 years? But no politician even brings up changes that should happen in how we govern ourselves, provide guaranteed rights to citizens, adapt to a changing world.
We’ve also stopped growing in a physical sense: The last state added to the union was Hawaii, in 1959. It was one of five states added to the union in the 20th century. When’s the last time you heard any meaningful talk about adding Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia, which both have passed referendums to join the union?
The 1960s was rife with tumult – the Vietnam War, political assassinations, student protests, racial strife. But somehow our politicians managed to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Clean Water Act, the Economic Opportunity Act, as well as establish Medicare and Medicaid and Head Start.
Oh, and we landed men on the moon seven years after President John F. Kennedy said we’d do that, and other major things, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Can you imagine our government, our leaders, articulating a vision for our country so audacious and challenging? The last thing that came close was the Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2013 but was, and remains, polarizing – not unifying.
This isn’t a Republican or Democrat problem, it’s a democracy problem. It’s us – what we envision this country can and should be. Yes, I’d like leaders (or candidates) to be aspirational and to articulate a path to a better country in a changing world. But we have to pull together to support getting it done.
About 50 years after America’s birth, French aristocrat and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville toured the country and wrote about our national character in “Democracy in America.”
“Without common ideas, there is no common action, and without common action men still exist, but a social body does not,” he wrote. “In order that there be society … it is necessary that all the minds of the citizens always be brought together and held together by some predominant ideas.”
What are our predominant ideas, today? What is our next moon mission? I don’t have a ready answer nor a solution to get the country “unstuck,” and many Americans may feel like it’s hopeless to think we can in our current political environment.
All I know is that 15 years ago, if my company had hunkered down instead of facing a changing world head on, you wouldn’t be reading this here today.
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