When I heard in the news a few days ago about Liz Cheney's rise to defend democracy, I applauded her for making the right decision even if making the right decision ought to be a simple decision.
Shortly after that news, I also heard in the news about her commentary in The Washington Post in which she wrote: Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work.
That is when I said to myself she is half awake in her defense of democracy. May be I am more passionate about democracy than the U.S. Congresswoman who lived in American democracy her entire life.
In my view, anyone who has a skillset to unravel critical elements of a "constitutional structure that make democracy work" has to have a foundation of knowledge that is superior to that which was put in the structure that made it work for nearly two and a half centuries, all its flaws not withstanding.
If my reading of Liz Cheney's premise in her statement I quoted above serves me right, it appears to me that she thinks that Donald Trump has a skillset that is superior to what is embodied in the constitutional structure that made democracy work.
Granted that my reading of her premise is right, I would argue that the premise is colossally fallacious. I am saying this as someone who looked forward in earnest to Donald Trump's announcement speech on June 16, 2015. I still remember turning away from my TV in the middle of his speech because I found it disappointing to a limit.
I failed to hear a skillset in that speech or part of his speech of January 6, 2021, that I got a chance to hear, which was enlightening enough for a layperson like me in social science to understand how democracy works.
Continuing to hear him as an observer since the June 16, 2015, announcement speech, I failed to be convinced otherwise than my intuition in the middle of that speech. After America's electoral college in democracy made him its President, there was a moment that I literally uttered to myself as an observer that Thomas Jefferson made the U.S. and Donald Trump murdered the U.S., politically speaking and without being politically correct. I do not think that after the U.S. showcased the presidency of Donald Trump, it has any moral higher ground left to lecture any polity anywhere in this world about anything.
Years ago, I came upon by chance a primary letter by Thomas Jefferson in a humanities course textbook. While reading that letter, I immediately connected with his appreciation of art and making efforts to find it, including among a badly affected sample. I wished that we met in person to talk about art. I wished that he went to ancient Egypt to explore his pursuit of art further. I wished that his reading of ancient history started from the era of Pharaoh Akhenaten instead of that of Goddess Athena. I wished that he understood that the former chronologically came before the latter.
Later on, I read a book by Professor Stephen Greenblatt, which is titled "The Swerve: How the world became modern." If I am not mistaken, Professor Greenblatt's book suggests that Thomas Jefferson had a predominant role in incorporating the swerve skillset in the U.S constitution.
I understood that his gap of knowledge in ancient history led him, at least partly, to making a lousy judgment that consequently had him and others to commit the original sin of the U.S. Even then, I can only respect his efforts to seek art. If he didn't make the effort to go back to the era of Goddess Athena, even at the risk of being called a closet Muslim by his own peers, our wonderment today about the gap between the two ancient eras would likely be less rich.
My respect for him didn't diminish when I heard Van Jones say on TV recently what Thomas Jefferson had said when he was alive: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." Hearing this was another enlightening moment about the man.
He was not an unbound viceroy. He had the capacity to pursue art, including among the badly affected sample. He had the capacity to reflect. He may have spoken prophetically when he was alive and may be turning in his grave if he knew that the democratic ideals he labored for, notwithstanding all of its flaws, have been unraveling under Donald Trump.
Many may wonder how a country boy like me who grew up in Ethiopia's countryside and an American Congresswoman from Wyoming could have resonant ideas about democracy even if the former turned away on June 16, 2015, and the latter turned away after January 6. 2021, from the man that both think has been unraveling American democracy. One answer I can imagine is that democracy is a constant that different variables try to influence.
If there is a constancy in democracy whereby the people get the upper hand about who serves them with payments from their tax coffers, the resonance is easy to realize.
The level of passion for the constancy is definitely a function of the knowledge about the genesis and maintenance of that constancy.
In her other statement, Liz Cheney evidently expresses a level of passion for the maintenance of that constancy in the U.S. She wrote: ...the most conservative of conservative values is reverence for the rule of law.
I do not really know what she means by "the most conservative of conservatives." However, reverence for the rule of law literally reminds me of one of the enlightening moments for me about what I think may be one of the genesis, if not the earliest known genesis of democracy. It is a simple picture that shows farmers in Ethiopia's countryside laying down spears in order to make laws. It is shown as a ritual for the Gada system, which is practiced as a tradition, including in northern Kenya, the country that Liz Cheney said recently that she has visited. It is a traditional system that the late Professor Donald N. Levine observed as having produced one of the most sophisticated social organizations ever devised by the human imagination. I am paraphrasing his words here. For beginners who wish to understand that traditional system, its term limit of eight years is the same constancy as that incorporated in the U.S. constitution.
In my book, that picture is worthy of Picasso's artistic rendering.
As much as I look at the picture as a depiction of a genesis of democracy in a very ancient time, I do not know if it predates the era of Pharaoh Tutankhamun or not. I also do not know if it can serve as a piece for the missing link between the eras of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Goddess Athena.
A case in point about different variables trying to influence the constancy in democracy is an accomplished medical doctor looking at the same picture at the same time and suggesting that it symbolizes submission. When one sees a reckoning of the supremacy of the rule of law, another could easily see a submission of one man to another.
Isn’t Donald Trump’s resistance to concede to Joseph Biden after the latter won a democratic election by a large margin and making it personal between the two men instead of submitting to a national constitutional provision reflective of the same kind of variable trying to influence the constancy in democracy?
If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he might be able to tell it at a moment's notice because of his extensive study of ancient history.
If I were to scale up that ancient reckoning and reverence for the rule of law to the present time, I can easily come up with a wild imagination where the Americans and Russians take their F-Series and SU-Series jets for a match, then get horrified by the bloodsheds that they could cause, then become sober to say why can't we make laws for all of us, and then reckon that the laws they end up making for all may be more powerful than these crazy flying gadgets that they have been racing to make. That reckoning would become a swerving in its own right in this era.
It doesn't take a genius to see in the traditional ritual that spears have caused horrific bloodsheds in ancient times, that there came a moment of reckoning in those times that it was time to retire them in favor of making and revering laws. I fail to see a practically meaningful difference between the reverence for the rule of law then and Liz Cheney's reverence and call for the rule of law in the 21st century.
Then again, her call in this century may be her virtuous baby with a potential to make her an American Stateswoman with a choice of enlightenment over ignorance.
When Socrates said "the only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance," it is evident that he chose enlightenment over ignorance. When Thomas Jefferson ventured to pursue the knowledge of the Socrateses of the ancient world, he chose enlightenment over ignorance. If she can bring up her baby to become an American Stateswoman, I can only imagine her paying homage to those who came before her for the same cause.
Words of wisdom from ancient times are in abundance. One of them goes: ሰዉ ሰዉን ስያማ ለራስህ ብለህ ስማ። It roughly means when one backbites another, hear it for your own sake. When Donald Trump was freeloading on Mexico, a sovereign State, on June 16, 2015, shouldn't Liz Cheney have foreseen his freeloading on the supremacy of American democracy on January 6, 2021? Another goes: ኤሰ አባ ኬ ህን ጄዺን፣ ኤሰ አባ ኬ ሲን ጄዹ። This one is hard for me to translate. An analogy that I can think of is to say don't say son of whatever, you would be called son of whatever.
Now, as Liz Cheney deals with her baby, she may have to ask if Donald Trump is more or less enlightened than Thomas Jefferson. I do not know if she agrees with me on this one or not. My observation is that Donald Trump is far less enlightened. If she agrees with me on this one, that is why I think that she is half-awake in her defense of democracy. If she disagrees with me, I wish to be enlightened and be convinced how the man who she thinks is unraveling American democracy is more enlightened than one of those who engineered it in the first place. The logic about her being half-awake is that simple.
To add here one more words of wisdom from ancient times, it has been said: በከ እት ኩፍቴ ምት፣ በከ እት ሙጩጫቴ እላል። It roughly means look not where you fell but where it was slippery.
Assuming that she agrees with me on this one, how was it that many Americans failed to be convinced otherwise and ended up handing electoral college victory, not democratic victory, to Donald Trump in 2016?
The answer may lie in the trajectory from Thomas Jefferson's lousy judgment to the mental juggernaut among some that appears to have produced a political entitlement society in the U.S. Based on my short observation, it appears this society believes that it is entitled to lead the U.S. population using its tax funds but without earning the privilege and honor to serve it. If it is not, what else can plausibly explain the reason for the January 6, 2021, riot after credible democratic elections took place?
If this proves to be true, with all due respect to the adults in its room that see it as a means to achieving their policy goals including fiscal responsibilities to the taxpayers, this community looks to be a bizarre group that has ever walked as a polity and hence in politics in the long history of humankind. In my view, self-respect is the source of respecting others. It appears to me that this group is devoid of the minimum consciousness of self-respect or has become a cultural orphan.
It may well be while one is half awake that one wakes up so late to how bizarre it has been all along.