Now, even the Republican candidates have taken up the cry, "Change!" We need "Change!" Even Hillary Clinton is crying, "Change!" Everyone wants change, right?
No. Not me.
Maybe you’ve heard: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I don’t want things to stay the same. So, candidates--Democratic candidates--give that word change a rest. There’s a better word, one the Republicans can’t co-opt.
Maybe three years of presidential campaigning is wearing on me. The word change is boring. It’s not crisp. It doesn’t distinguish Democrats from Republicans. It’s become a punditry word.
What I’m not hearing in the presidential debate is the right word, the word that represents what this country really needs. That word is progress. Change ain’t good enough. We could change back to the kind of country we had before. We could go back to Reagan’s America. We could go back to Nixon’s America. We could even go back to Polk’s America. Would that satisfy you? No. No. I’m looking for progress. You are looking for progress. We want to progress (the verb); we want to have progress (the noun). I’m sick, already, of change and I want to see some progress, thank you.
And, our candidates should talk about it. Progress should be every third word that comes out of their mouth. Our candidates need to construct all their public pronouncements out of a noun, a verb and the word progress. Because that’s what Democrats stand for. Democrats, as opposed to Republicans, want progress.
This is what Democrats should be debating: What represents progress? How are we going to accomplish that progress? Who is going to be in favor of progress and who will resist it? How do we overcome that resistance? Which of our candidates are actually progressives and which of them are just going to change things so that they stay the same?
We are progressives. We don’t want regressive change, which is what the Republicans promise. We want to move forward, and that actually requires something more fundamental than change.
Change is, ultimately, superficial. That’s why Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes. This election is about a great deal more than change, it’s about transformation. Transformation is a fundamental change, a change of being. We don’t just need change in Washington. We need a different country. We need a change in the heart of our country. We need a transformation into a new country. Our candidates, as progressives, should be calling on the people to step up to the plate and progress (the verb), step up and be the change they want to see.
First, a transformed country would be a leader in the world, not a bully. A leader doesn’t demand that others do as they are told. A leader provides an example and a plan that others want to sign up for. We’ve devolved into a bully, but we’ve been the leader of the world before. We’ve been there, done that and got the T-shirt. Why did we stop wearing it?
There were always people in this country that thought Americans were better than anyone else, especially after the last world war, when we fought all our foes to their knees and dictated surrender terms to our worst enemies. But they didn’t run the country. It wasn’t the way we officially treated others, and to the extent that anyone felt we treated them as second class, they had to know that this was frowned on by our government. It wasn’t until one of these yahoos got into the White House that anyone dared make it official U.S. policy. Progress in this case is returning to our principles. That means doing simple things like obeying international law. We need to let everyone in the world know that we are a player, not a gamer; we are not here to game the system to our own advantage.
Second, a transformed country would have a fair system, one in which every person can live up to their potential (and is encouraged to do so). It is not a country with a system rigged to favor a small class of people, a chosen few. That doesn’t mean that everyone automatically becomes a millionaire. It does mean that the barriers in the system are not artificial ones designed to favor one person over another.
Progress, in this case, is not going back to what we had before. It’s going ahead to a country where everyone is bought into fairness. There were always people in this country who thought that they were better than their fellow Americans, using one excuse or another. For a long time that was official policy, but it (thankfully) is no longer. Yet, until we all buy in to that policy, it will never be real. Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy, but it is simple. This is simple. We need to look at all people as equal, equal in an essentially moral way, not simplistically the same. That’s what I call progress, and it’s progress I want.
Third, a transformed country would produce a great standard of living across the board without damaging the environment. It would have a sustainable high standard of living. We’ve got the first part right on average, but the disparity in how that standard of living is distributed leaves a lot to desire, and the cost to the world is staggering in ways from destruction of species to climate change. We have to take responsibility for our use of the world and we haven’t been doing it.
Progress would mean a fundamental change in the way our people live. I will believe we have made that transformation when I see people giving up their emphasis on consumption in exchange for supporting a sustainable world. As long as the average American takes their big box car to the big box store to buy big boxes to take home to put in the great room in their big box house we are on the wrong track no matter who is President. Progress means a transformation has happened in what the country wants in its heart of hearts. I’m heartened that in that heart of hearts, in Iowa, it looks like the passionate have turned out in record numbers to say their piece on who should be the next President of the United States, and that they voted for progress, not just change.
None of these things are new in their ideals. In fact, one might argue that these goals were implicit in the founding of the country, or maybe they’ve developed over the last two centuries. But accomplishing the ideals and dreams of our people is exactly what constitutes progress.
Let’s bury that old word, change. Say it, progressives! Let us have progress, not change.