NTXIF 2024

This is a time of testing for all of us

by | Aug 12, 2020 | Opinion

A few weeks ago, The New York Times ran an article noting that with the U.S. preoccupied by the coronavirus pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and massive unemployment, “its competitors are moving to fill the vacuum, and quickly.”

Russia, China, North Korea, Iran. All are testing how far they can go, seeking to exploit our weaknesses and fill the vacuum they perceive in world leadership. Our allies, meanwhile, are expressing dismay at the U.S.’s inability to come to grips with the pandemic – symbolized most acutely by the prospect that Americans will be barred from traveling to a partially reopened Europe this summer – and at our withdrawal from world organizations, treaties, and involvement in places where we have traditionally been central to keeping the peace.

There are good reasons we have turned inward. As a nation, we have botched the response to the coronavirus, as its recent sharp upward trajectory illustrates. We are still feeling our way through the economic impact, with every likelihood that millions of people will be struggling for a long time. And, of course, street protests, concern about policing, and turmoil over the nation’s racial practices are occupying many people’s attention.

Any one of these things would have been enough to try us as a country; all together make this a desperately difficult time. We’ve been through times like this in the past, and no doubt will again in the future, but at this moment, our mettle is being tested as it rarely has been. The country won’t be out of control if each of us steps up to the challenges we see in our own neighborhoods and our nation.

Oddly, I find something bracing about this. Not long ago I was meeting with a group of young graduate students, who asked what troubled me most about the problems we confront, and the word that instantly came to mind was “complacency.” As Americans, we have a tendency to feel that we’ve always come through hard times and always will. The result is often a sense that we can leave things to others; to our leaders, to our nonprofits, churches, and community groups, to our more involved neighbors. We ourselves don’t set out to do the things we know need to be done.

But here’s the thing about a representative democracy like ours; it doesn’t work unless citizens do their part, and I include our leaders in this. At its heart, it asks of us that we find a niche where we can improve things. It’s disheartening to see recent polls that suggest huge percentages of Americans believe things in the country are out of control – 80% of respondents in a recent NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll – but it’s heartening to know there’s something we can do about it. The country won’t be out of control if each of us steps up to the challenges we see in our own neighborhoods and our nation.

I began my political career because I felt like I needed to do something to help my community in southern Indiana and didn’t know where to start. So, I asked my precinct committeeman, who enlisted me to go door to door to try to get voters involved. That led eventually to Congress, and ultimately to a committee chairmanship trying to resolve some of the country’s knottiest foreign affairs challenges. You never know where these things are going to lead.

My point in saying this is that we can all start somewhere. We are divided as a nation on political, economic, and racial lines. We face the existential challenge of climate change. Many of us on both the right and the left worry about a lack of moral perspective in how we approach our problems.

All of these are ripe for actions that we, as individuals, can take. If you’re white, for instance, how much time have you spent talking to Black people or Latinos about the hostility and difficulties they face? Making the effort to understand as best you can is an important step toward recognizing how deep-seated these problems are, and at the same time how they might be overcome.

This time of testing is an opportunity. It’s a chance to shake off the complacency we’d settled into, and to exercise the gift that our system gives us, the ability to make a difference.

For more stories like this, see the Aug. 12 issue or subscribe online.

By Lee H. Hamilton, Director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years.

Subscribe RH Love

0 Comments

Order photos

Related News

Read this. Build a stronger community.

Read this. Build a stronger community.

Saddened. Embarrassed. Determined. These three words evoke distinct feelings and emotions.  In the context of an opinion piece we ran in the paper four and a half years ago, they described the aftermath of a community that lost its newspaper. After 130 years in...

read more
Largest wildfire in state history still raging

Largest wildfire in state history still raging

A wildfire in the Texas Panhandle has consumed more than 1 million acres and as of Sunday was just 15% contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. It is the largest wildfire in Texas history. The Smokehouse Creek Fire is by far the most extensive of...

read more
Pet ownership: A lifetime commitment

Pet ownership: A lifetime commitment

He was crossing the road. Over and over. I was surprised someone hadn’t hit him with their car. I was also surprised the coyotes hadn’t gotten him. It was 9 o’clock at night and according to the residents of the small strip of country road, he’d been out there for a...

read more
Pitch made for new power plants

Pitch made for new power plants

Lt. Gov Dan Patrick joined with the world’s largest investment firm to pitch investors on building natural gas power plants in Texas at a summit held last week in Houston. Patrick and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink shared the stage as they attempted to persuade investors to...

read more
Dewey or don’t we?

Dewey or don’t we?

On Christmas Eve 2008, there were just three of us working in the office. Well, technically, there was one of us working, the other two were there. A couple of the young ladies on staff either didn’t have enough vacation time built up or they were saving it for...

read more
A range of options

A range of options

My great grandparents lived on a homestead. They cooked on a wood stove. Most of us today have no idea how good we’ve got it. For my great grandparents’ generation, remodeling the kitchen meant picking a different place to stack the wood. When I was growing up in...

read more
A word from our sponsors

A word from our sponsors

Commercials used to be great. They used to be an art form. They used to be fun. Today’s advertising is boring in comparison. Television commercials were something to which I looked forward when I was a kid. Some were better developed and more interesting than the...

read more
Quakes prompt officials to limit disposal wells

Quakes prompt officials to limit disposal wells

The Texas Railroad Commission has suspended nearly two dozen permits that allow oil and gas companies to inject saltwater into the ground, which regulators say has contributed to increased earthquakes of greater magnitude in West Texas. The Austin American Statesman...

read more
The Walking Dad

The Walking Dad

It’s obvious that I have to wait to die until after everyone else in my home goes. Otherwise, every light in the house will be left on for all of eternity. My dad used to say that I could leave on all of the lights whenever I started paying the bills. That time has...

read more
Order photos