Book banning has become a frequent method used by parents and politicians seeking their votes to exert control over the education of their children. This trend reflects the changed relative education levels between parents and elementary and secondary school teachers in recent decades.

When baby boomers and their ancestors raised their families, they willingly deferred to the curricular judgement of their children’s teachers, who usually were more highly educated than they. In the 21st Century, that educational balance has changed, at least in the parents’ perception. Parent-teacher discussions have curiously been transformed from sessions concerning pupil behavior to disagreements over curriculum choices.

Book banning, therefore, is not really a freedom of thought issue; it is a matter of returning responsibility for shaping the future of society to biology rather than delegating it to the community. Winning voters with children, therefore, is the goal of school book banning. Right-wing conservatives have made a thoughtful decision that parents are a more numerous and perhaps richer source of support than the teacher unions.

The cooptation of the Republican Party by disaffected solipsistic followers of Donald Trump and political careerists has deformed the American democracy’s role as a forum for making and enforcing common civic policy.  One party has been transformed into a nihilistic faction that contravenes the legitimacy of the very republic for which it was named.  Reducing reliance on the government for providing common social needs does not mean eliminating (or “defunding”) national or community organizations. 

The single term of the Trump presidency was enough to portend the nightmare of a nation-state that operates to satisfy the whims of a self-anointed dictator.  His self-defined and ignorant benevolence would have been the primary hope for achieving the common welfare.

If the Democratic Party is thought to espouse overbearing government-directed solutions to the republic’s problems, destruction of the government itself or rendering it irrelevant is not a solution.  Less burdensome resolution of society’s problems cannot be accomplished without an effective and competent common institution, the very goal of good government.  That is what our Constitution was created and amended to provide.  It won’t provide that unless those seeking to administer it are committed to using it.  That is the principle that conservative politicians must enshrine in a new Constitutional Party.  It could replace the Republican Party, which has been corrupted by the benighted followers of Donald Trump.   It would be a worthy alternative to the Democratic Party and may even inspire the Democrats to moderate some of their own extremists.

The story revealed in today’s NYT about the scheme cooked up by Trump 2020 Campaign advisors including Rudi Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and others demonstrates the total contempt of the former president for any society’s rules, and that his supporters were infected by his hubris.  What it doesn’t clarify, and what the January 6 Committee has failed to explore, is what motivated Trump’s election day staff to abandon constitutional rationality in foisting hairbrained “fake elector” tactics which could only please a losing candidate who valued obsequiousness more than practical service from his supporters that might realistically appear to achieve a reversal of the election results.  Ultimately, their scheme would surely have been rejected by the courts, including the Supreme Court.  Of course, the nefariousness of the entire scheme might have depended on a plan to ignore such a Supreme Court decision, accomplishing a wholesale upset of the Constitution.  

Little did Barack Obama know that his sarcastic swipe at Donald Trump when he spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner would prompt a potential coup d’état.  School-yard bullies will never be able to take a joke; but they still can cause harm.  Luckily, we escaped the consequences of ignoring that threat.  Hopefully, we learned our lesson.

The Biden initiative for expanding the internet apparently prioritizes miles over people in the belief that, “If you build it, [they] will come.” The country has been experiencing “deurbanization” as a result of the pandemic.  Such periodic health emergencies are likely to become frequent phenomena in our increasingly interactive world.   Nevertheless, the public health benefits from reducing population concentration come at the cost of the inconveniences caused by isolation.   

Easy access to the internet can mitigate the harm to cultural and civic life caused by population dispersal.    Perforce, the more efficient way to make the internet available while anticipating a continued need for rural development is to devote substantial resources to expanding the geographic extent of affordable internet connections.

Of course, that strategy impacts electoral politics, as well.  Whether the internet is used more effectively as a demagogic tool than for education and community activation probably depends on factors other than the timing and inclusiveness of its development.   Just as important as providing infrastructure will be creating a staff and protocols for mobilizing this electronic communications medium for enlisting citizen involvement in the use of the internet as a means for exercising their democratic rights.  

Working class people (service providers or physical laborers and their families) resent shortcomings in their living standards and power compared to information manipulators. This animosity has been reinforced by advances in communications technology, which have speeded its growth in urgency   It has also invited demagogic exploitation

This is not the first time that a new communications technology has revolutionized society—think of the Gutenberg printing press, telephone  radio, etc.   However, the persona and  inexpensive nature of social media, its global and instantaneous reach and its ability to  transmit impulsive messages are new

Social media as well as communications enterprise economics have raised recognition of commonality between similar interest groups and facilitated their activation.   Perhaps the most dangerous feature of social  media, however, is their lack of critical editing.  Furthermore, public institutions responsible for resolving policy differences have failed to keep up with the technological pace, resulting in more frequent possibilities for conflict.

Improved CT can either knit us together or it can polarize us into competing factions.  Unfortunately, the latter has been the result, threatening the peaceful functioning of liberal democracy.  The modern world and its nations require government mechanisms that match the immediacy of societies’ demands before they lose self-control.

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Sadly, in spite of his embarrassing and hopefully forgettable tenure as President, the Donald can indeed have a significant impact on American history. He selected three conservative, if not retrogressive, nominees for appointment to the Supreme Court. Not since the early years of Franklin Roosevelt’s term in office has a majority of the Court so persistently stood in the way of fulfillment of the Constitution’s promise in its preamble to promote the general welfare.