“And the devil said to
him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been
given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be
yours. St. Luke 4:6-7
“If anything unites America in this fractious
moment,” says the New York Times’ David Brooks in a recent column, it is a widespread
sentiment that power is somewhere other than where you are.”[1] “The Republican establishment thinks the
grass roots have the power,” he continues, “but the grass roots think the
reverse. The unions think the corporations have the power but the corporations
think the start-ups do. Regulators think Wall Street has the power but Wall
Street thinks the regulators do.” He
goes on to cite a recent Pew study which asked Americans, “Would you say your
side has been winning or losing more?” Sixty-four percent of us, majorities of
both parties, believe our side has been losing more.
People
respond to this feeling of powerlessness, Brooks says, with “pointless acts of
self-destruction.” When we believe we
have no power, compromise is suspicious.
If we believe we have no power, utopian dreams seem the only possible
escape. If we have no power, we must get
behind the one who promises to “start winning again,” no matter what real
abilities he might have to keep his promise.
This sense of powerlessness,
Brooks says, is very dangerous in a political system like ours, which attempts
to draw together a deeply diverse society through common citizenship and shared
institutions.
