A birthday wish for our beloved nation

I am a 90-plus-year-old white, straight, recently widowed female in the depths of a conundrum as we approach the Fourth of July, the day we set aside each year to celebrate our nation’s independence. This year, I don’t find myself feeling like celebrating, though I do have a birthday wish for the U.S.: That our politicians would put our country before their party.

I love the art of politics and find myself loathing many, if not most, politicians. Being a news junkie is not a pleasant way to spend my declining years, but sadly, that is a given. My favorite course in high school was Civics.

The three branches of government with their attending checks and balances are at odds with each other. The welcome and customary art of compromise has vanished. Back in the good old Sam Rayburn days, both parties argued and debated like cats and dogs, but they were friends, as were their families. They drank, laughed and partied together. But those members of Congress were focused on governance for the good of the country. Now we have a House and Senate that can probably agree on the time for a lunch break, but not much else.

Both parties, Democrat and Republican, are articulate about what they dislike and won’t tolerate, but neither has a clear, viable message of their aims and goals to sell to the electorate. The grim result of this foolishness is that each party has come to define the other one. So animus, distrust and polarization are the main features of what should be discussion, debate and compromise.

Recently, I saw a cartoon of dogs sitting around a conference table. They were deciding on feline health care. I laughed out loud, but it wasn’t funny. How have men come to be the arbiters of women’s health care? Some of the bills in many states that are anti-abortion and for defunding Planned Parenthood are not about health care. They are about male power and will deprive millions of women the screenings they need for breast cancer, sexually transmitted diseases and the many other services that the agency offers, among them contraception and family planning. That a bill would deny contraception payment while paying for Viagra is also not funny. The worst outcome of this is that Congress feels no obligation to help pay for all those babies they insist on being born.

There are so many of our values that are in jeopardy. Gerrymandering fosters the discriminatory exclusion of voters, usually minorities, the disabled and the elderly. Reading history tells us that the Framers also fought like cats and dogs, often viciously, but their minds were on a single goal: that of creating a constitutional republic that could withstand the vicissitudes that would befall it, (that is, if what we are experiencing today are mere vicissitudes.) And so far, we’ve made it through some very tough times.

Now it’s all about the money. Was it Woodward and Bernstein who said, “Follow the money?” The Citizens United Supreme Court decision was a grave setback to honorable government. Since elected officials start running for reelection the moment they deplane in D.C., they oblige their large donors with legislation that is often not in our national interest, but friendly to their donors’ bottom lines. Everything is now politicized: the environment, education, health care and the courts.

I have always known that racism is not dead or even moribund in the U.S. I was Houston-born, but my mother’s family was from Alabama, and I could always sense their intolerance. When I was about 11 years old, Hazel Scott, a famous black pianist, was scheduled for a concert at the University of Texas at Austin, which she cancelled upon learning that blacks had to sit in the balcony. I thought she was absolutely right and my mother said, ”Just who does she think she is?”

Now, it seems that permission has been given to release our inner bigots. The horrific incident of harassing the two Muslim teenage girls and the murders that followed on the train in Oregon and the desecration of LeBron James’ home make me heartsick.

What and who are we becoming? Is this how we want the world to perceive us? Is this how we want to see ourselves? My sadness is overwhelming. So, how about all of you elected officials honoring my Fourth of July wish? The Framers gave us a noble concept of governance. Why not give it a try? It would make this old lady very happy and the rest of the country would be pleased, too.

Keeper is a Houston writer.