An Election Year Independence Day – Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane
This week, I’m writing to you with this week’s holiday in mind, with some of my aspirations and hopes for America.
While I have colonial ancestors who settled New Haven, Connecticut and Newark, New Jersey, and who at the time of the American Revolution were living in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina, I more closely associate with my recent immigrant ancestors. I’m one of those hyphenated-Americans who holds onto elements of a culture and identity that transcends the Atlantic and provides connections not only to this country but to the places where my ancestors came from. One aspect of the political philosophy of American nationalism that I don’t agree with says that you have to conform to a particular American identity when you come here. My ancestors did that, to varying degrees, and I’m more American than anything else, yet it’s all those other elements that give our Americanness its richness of character.
So, when I think of the music that embodies the soul of America, it’s music written by a fellow hyphenated-American, Aaron Copland, the dean of American classical music. When I tried my hand at musical composition in college, I wrote a four-movement trio sonata that told the story of a voyage from Ireland to America by St. Brendan and his monks in the sixth century. My addition to the fable was to have the tone of the music switch from being very Irish in the first and second movements to taking after Copland’s sound in the third and especially the fourth movement as they reached this side of the water. I’ve long wanted to write a blog post all about my admiration for Copland’s music, but thanks to the copyrights on his recordings I’m waiting for a few more decades. For now, go listen to Appalachian Spring and Rodeo after you’re done listening to, or reading, this.
Copland’s music speaks to me now in 2024 especially as we approach an election year. This is the most sacred task that we American citizens fulfill in our obligations to our republic: we do our duty by voting for whom we want to represent us on all levels of government, and on the host of ballot measures found further down-ballot. This election feels far more pivotal than any we’ve seen in my lifetime. For context, I was born exactly one month before the elder President Bush stood aside for President Clinton. While I may have disagreed with the policies of both Presidents Bush, they still seemed to be decent men. It’s hard to say that this year about one of the two candidates who flooded Thursday night’s debate on CNN with so many half-truths and outright lies that the network did nothing to check live on air. I was baffled watching it to think that the network’s executives and news directors didn’t choose to lay out better safeguards considering this is the same man whose rhetoric and refusal to admit his loss in 2020 led to the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
When I think of a President who I want leading our country, I think of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.I want someone who best represents the best ideals of America, someone who can speak with all of us and for all of us. I hope for someone who can work with Congress and the states to execute legislation that will lead to an overall improvement in our national well-being. I was disappointed to see the President perform so poorly during the debate on Thursday, yet of our choices this year he is the closest to embodying that ideal of the common man.
This year’s election is not politics as usual, there are deep intrinsic questions at stake over the future of our country and what sort of government we want to have. I was deeply unsettled to read the transcript of David Brooks’s recent interview with Steve Bannon, who Brooks called a Trotsky-figure for the MAGA movement. From the interview, and from the way Bannon positioned himself as a leader of that movement, he made it clear that there is no room for communication with their political opponents, who Bannon termed in a far more affrontive manner as their enemies. That is the most essential element of good government, something that all the great political philosophers recognized: we need to be able to communicate with each other and grow together as one body politick made up of a great many parts. I’ve seen the same problem on the left as on the right, a disinterest in listening and in compromising to achieve a higher ideal or a common good that will benefit everyone. Yet the greater threat is coming from the faction who’ve gained enough sway that they now control their party and their leader is again a candidate for the Presidency.
This Independence Day, Americans around the globe will celebrate the invention of our republic from an ideal written on paper during a hot and humid Philadelphia summer 248 years ago. I’ve heard it said that that was the first time that anyone thought to write down the idea that “all men are created equal.” Think about that for a moment: that was the first time that the notion of universal equality, or better universal equity, had ever been considered. The President is the President, and I respect him for serving in that office as I feel respect for the office itself. It is a monument to self-sacrifice when done well, and a trap of self-aggrandizement when the oath is taken for the wrong reasons. Yet when a sitting President leaves the office on Inauguration Day, they may still be Former President, but they are now again just another citizen who’s offered to carry that mantle in the relay until the next candidate will take it up.
The burdens of preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States are greater than one person can carry on their own. The office holder ought to have us, we the people who come first in the Constitution, supporting them as long as they keep their oath, and do their duty for as long as their term lasts. It is a humbling thing to serve in such an august role. It is something that truly should not be taken lightly, or brought on by a candidate for any other reason than for service.
Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane 