“We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another, until we speak quietly so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.”
That has President of the United States written all over it. Anyone else daring to utter those lines would at a minimum be branded un-American or in bed with Islamic terrorists or delusional. A President with the right kind of bona fides could get away with it. Probably not a Republican, even one looking to shore up his legacy credentials.
Line up the usual suspects, and who is first out of the gate? Not our newest occupant of the White House, for whom shouting (when he’s not twittering) is probably why he’s president. How about our former Commander-in-Chief? A perfect accompaniment to that sonorous voice and impeccable stagecraft? Even taking hypocrisy to the next level, the answer is no.
In the depths of the depression in the thirties, when hunger, fear, and desperation raised tempers and voices, how about soothing words from FDR? No, not him.
Dark horse candidate. How about Woodrow Wilson, reputed to be the Progressive-in-Chief in 1919, flipping the verbal bird at the women marching in front of the White House for woman’s suffrage as his police led them kicking and shouting to jail. Definitely not him.
During that summer, bloody summer in 1968 when cities disintegrated along with public order and civility. LBJ, his reputation beyond repair as Vietnam raged on, making a last stab to get on the right side of history? Good guess, but no.
If not him, then Jimmy Carter. The author of such memorable lines as “…too many of us…worship self indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defended by what one does but by what one owns. But…piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.” (1979) Sounds like he’s in the right ballpark but no.
Who then? Bill Clinton, the great humanitarian, who felt our pain in the 1990s while he was shepherding draconian welfare “reform” legislation through congress? Enabling states to set unconscionable barriers to welfare, institutionalizing workfare which guaranteed low wage, low skill labor a permanent spot on the bottom rungs of the employment ladder. A bill that mandated minimum wages (as low as $68 per week) for workfare recipients while workers doing the same job but not branded with the 
welfare poker earned twenty or thirty percent more. That was the law every legislator admitted wasn’t perfect. But hey, Clinton needs a win and doing something about welfare is the ticket to a second term. Congress could fix it later. 21 years later and Congress still haven’t gotten around to it. Moral? Fix the bill before it’s signed. Who ever heard of a rock rolling uphill? Two immutable laws of democracy. “Triggers,” never get pulled and passed bills never come up for review.
The truth is, even Clinton, the Great Pretender, couldn’t have uttered those immortal words without blushing. As critics and supporters alike were fond of saying, admittedly in a different context, he had no dog in the hunt. Clinton’s humanitarian instincts only went into high gear at election time and post-presidency when it best served the legend.
The winner is…Richard Milhous Nixon. That Nixon. In regulation and social policy, Nixon’s record is more than respectable. He was no FDR and attention must be paid to the divide between proposal and enactment. In this regard Nixon was often more bridesmaid than bride. He signed amendments to the 1967 Clean Air Act for reductions in auto emissions and the national testing of air quality. Then turned around and impounded billions Congress set aside for implementation.
On the credit side of the ledger, in 1971 OSHA was created to set workplace standards for health and safety. The 1972 Noise Control Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act and the 1973 Endangered Species Act gave environmental protection a place at the table. His most lasting contribution although he may not have realized it: a significant expansion of Medicare disability payments reaching two million people under age 65. He also proposed a health care overhaul, more progressive than Obamacare, but Ted Kennedy and Watergate torpedoed it.
From the mouths of babes and dishonored presidents occasionally come pearls. Turning down the volume on national discourse, particularly in these noisiest of times is still a good idea.
Turning down the volume has its dark side. Promises evaporate without a word. No, Guantanamo didn’t close. It was never mentioned again. No public option emerged from all the health care posturing. In the end, Obama disclaimed promising it. Backroom deals didn’t end, they went underground. Wars didn’t get declared or debated, they just happened. Terror Tuesdays, kill lists, drone strikes mostly unremarked. Whistleblowers hunted down and hounded into jail. The arc of privacy bent into the government’s wheel house. No shouting, no raised voices. Things happened and the world kept spinning.
All the Obama dithering, a hapless and hopeless democratic candidate – major factors in the November surprise —Trump becomes the 45th president. Immediately he sets up an administration that operates at 80+ decibels with hordes of climate deniers, focused on billionaires, corporate honchos, the bitter and truculent minority (aka Trump’s base) who were attracted by Trump’s immigrant-bashing, promise to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal, defund Planned Parenthood, and kill Obamacare. This is the administration that may yet determine if the Supreme Court becomes a haven for an ideologically right-leaning majority of justices.
In the end, Nixon was probably right. Too many voices are noise. The voice that could have make a difference didn’t. That door has closed. The voices emanating from the Oval Office now are loud, strident, threatening all the good, decent values Americans have always liked to think they stood for.
It’s not too late to bend the “arc of the moral universe towards justice.”
Not from this administration or this commander-in-chief. Now is the time for the people to make their voices heard. To speak truth to power. Tell your representatives and senators that if they want to keep their jobs, the time has come for them to speak out against militarism and imperialism, for an egalitarian society where wealth is not the ticket of admission to the so-called American dream. It’s time to give peace a chance to change the world.
The sand is running out of the hourglass. We’re the only ones left standing.
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