“Democrats are in the wilderness, and they don’t have a response…We have to get up, dust ourselves off, criticize what we think is wrong and offer better alternatives.” (NYT)

Neera Tanden, CEO, Center for American Progress

Note
This article is the third in a series.
The first was published December 1, 2024: Managing the Disruptions of Change in the Foreseeable Future
The second on March 3, 2025: The Challenge of Our Time

The distinction between a conservative Republican and a liberal Democratic Party is no longer useful. The takeover of the Republican Party by Trump and the right-wing MAGA movement has left the Democratic Party without a contrasting alternative, other than, like Chicken Little, following two steps behind and warning that the “sky is falling.” The old debate between left and right is over; the stakes are now totally different. There is a 180 degree, either/or choice, before us – either go back to a dark past, or forward to brighter future. This choice is not about a conservative or liberal political philosophy.

The sun will continue to rise in the East if we focus our beliefs, values, and actions on Patriotism, Freedom, and Public Services. There is no viable future if we anchor our beliefs, values, and actions on Nationalism, Censorship, and Privatization; those are setting sun policies from the past. We as a nation, as individuals, and our essential institutions – education, science, and technology – need to move forward into a new and challenging future, not escaping from our many current urgent social issues into a past that is no longer relevant to life in the 21^st Century.

Patriotism Not Nationalism

True Patriotism is the opposite of Nationalism. Patriotism dictates policies based on national values and beliefs – such as democratic processes –to achieve political, economic, and social ends; Nationalism seeks power, economic advantage, and social influence by any means. 

Authoritarian countries reflect the personal character of their leader – such as Putin’s Russia. In contrast, democracies typically reflect the personal character of their people. In the world’s view, the United States is becoming more like Russia, than the Uncle Sam they used to know. It is time to turn our back on the self-serving character of Trump and reclaim the character of the best of us. Extreme Nationalism is incompatible with the patriotic values that make America a good neighbor and the envy of the world. Patriotic citizens take pride when the United States provides leadership in maintaining a global world order in which all countries can thrive cooperatively together. 

Trump’s tariffs which targeted Canada stimulated internal proposals to open a seaport on the Hudson Bay’s western shores, extend an oil pipeline to it, and mine rare minerals in the Ring of Fire north of Thunder Bay, all aimed at an Asian alternative to the US market. Economically, this would be disruptively expensive for Canada in the short term, but in the long-term feed a transition from the US being their good neighbor to the south to those people next door.

The isolation that results from extreme nationalism undermines the political, economic, and social beliefs and values that define America’s character. Increasingly, we need to move toward a patriotic sense of World Citizenship, not just separate competing Citizenships of the World.

Freedom Not Censorship

The only necessary constraints on Freedom are those required to protect the freedoms of others. Freedom carries with it limitations and responsibilities for respecting the rights of others to do as they please (e.g., read a particular book). We are not free to drive our car at any speed, anytime, in any place, because we may harm others. Censorship reverses the order by telling you what you cannot do, and freedom becomes a residual without reference to whether it needlessly infringes on the rights and freedoms of others.

Personal freedoms require a complex and transparent democratic process that spans political, economic, and social elements. Censorship requires unrestricted power. This is not an insignificant distinction. Political freedom requires the ability to criticize elected officials, but also restrictions against retribution. Economic freedom requires the freedom to unionize to improve working conditions but also constraints – like speed limits – such as a minimum wage standard. Social freedom requires not only the right to practice whatever religion you wish, or none, but also the complete separation of church and state.

Freedom is a democratic process of recognizing the power of balance between do as you please and necessary constraints, versus authoritarian imposition of self-serving arbitrary restrictions.

Public Services Not Privatization

The revenue to make the government work comes largely from taxes. Tax cuts benefit the wealth at the expense of ordinary people who rely daily on access to many public services to function within their own resources – roads, airports, communication, commerce, schools, science, education, healthcare – to name some of the most essential. The loss of school free lunches or Medicaid for their children does not impact the wealthy whose children go to a private school and whose employer provides premium healthcare benefits. Tax-cuts return comparatively small amounts of money to the average person – not enough to cover the additional costs of privatization of essential public services. But tax cuts do return large amounts of money to the wealthy who are using their political power to increase their own wealth at the expense of others.

Over the course of our modern history, our government has accounted for about 20% of the GDP to keep all the moving parts in synchrony. Although the constitution had nothing to say about air traffic controllers or the regulation of the sky, as the world became more complex, so did the government at a parallel rate. We are now in the emerging era of artificial Intelligence which discards human roles and occupations, and with them, the personal identity of individuals. Our security, freedom and identity now requires our government to provide a coherent system in which to function, and the means for individuals to thrive free of the cost of privatization. 

A New Era

For 5000 years people lived in the past tense – yesterday was the best predictor of tomorrow. For the next 500 years people lived in the present tense — the modern era of science and technology – today can be what ever we want it to be. Now, for the next 50 years, roughly from 2000 to 2050, we must start living in the future tense – we must start living today as if it were tomorrow, or there will not be a future worth living for.

Again, this is not about a choice between liberal or conservative political philosophies. It is a choice between going forward to a new and challenging future based on Patriotism, Freedom, and Public Service, or going back to a no longer relevant past of Nationalism, Censorship, and Privatization. The challenge of our time, of living peacefully and sustainably on a crowded planet in the 21^st Century, has three essential elements:

Establishing a Peaceful and Collaborative World Order

In the distant past, most of the events that impacted a person’s life were physically and temporally close at hand; but today the effects of change are increasingly external and arbitrary, and their mechanisms are largely distant and invisible. Our neighborhood is no longer the families on our block, or those on the other side of our town, state, or even region. Our neighborhood now includes nations and people on the other side of the globe – who we have never seen nor spoken to – but who’s actions, beliefs, and values affect our daily lives in essential ways.

The intractable problems we face today are global in nature – information technologies, environmental collapse, breakdown of international order, global waves of migration — and beyond the control of individual nations; they require a cooperative world order for solution. On January 20, 2025, President Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Accords on Climate Change for a second time, using an Executive Order without national debate, Congressional authority, or provoking a National Day of Protest. This was followed by dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency which undermined global efforts to prevent environmental collapse. We have good reason to believe that day, in silent acquiescence, was the beginning of our own end, unless we rejoin the other nations in the world in the search for a new peaceful and cooperative world order.

Living Sustainably on a Diverse and Crowded Planet

Science and technology have now taken us to the limits of the Modern Era. As our clearest example, we have the knowledge to understand we are killing the very planet we need to sustain ourselves. History books are full of accounts of previous societies that collapsed because they depleted their local natural resources. Science has shown us that we are consuming our global resources faster than the earth can regenerate them, and that our consumption rate is increasing. By living as we do in the present tense, we are in the process of extinguishing ourselves.

The singular political ideology of conservative vs liberal has divided the nation and paralyzed our transition from the Present Era to the New Post-Modern Future we must create within our lifetime. Using singular political ideological perspectives – as we are now doing — oversimplifies the complexity of our current social issues, resulting in unresolvable consequences. Complex issues rest on a combination of political, social, and economic values which at any moment are in a natural state of tension. When a significant number of people can be persuaded that any one of the three – such as political ideology — is an overarching hierarchical value, it is a prescription for falling into an irreconcilable trap: Cheap fossil fuel will support economic growth, until we suffocate.

Using Science and Technology to Advance Human Well Being

There are autonomous taxis to drive us and autonomous weapons to protect us, both without human intervention. Brain implants have been developed that allowed a person who could not speak to have AI transfer their thoughts into spoken words at a rate of 60 words per minute, or in another case an immobile person using their thoughts to move a computer curser well enough to play chess. These are examples of scientific progress, of an emerging era of artificial intelligence which discards human roles and occupations, and with them, the personal identity of individuals. People are losing a sense of control over their life. They are becoming insecure about how to retain their place and purpose.

The magnitude of the current rate of change we are facing has never been experienced before in human history. These are uncharted times that require adopting new ways of thinking. In the past, patents and copyrights have secured the advantages of scientific, medical, and technological progress behind a pay wall that contributed to disparities between groups of people. In contrast, human progress needs to better track scientific progress by rewarding the application and distribution of their benefits, not their creation. This reform of scientific and technological progress is called “Open Source” and needs to become the rule, not the exception. 

Interdependent, Interactive, and Simultaneous

Each of the three current challenges have political, economic, and social elements that are interdependent, interactive, and simultaneous. That means that they influence each other in a systematically exponential way. For example, five hundred dollars given to a homeless person would have great personal value, but it would take a huge additional amount of money to have similar personal value for a billionaire. There is a similar relationship between the three elements. For someone who already has a large amounts of political power, gaining additional amounts of authoritarian power can only occur at the expense of large reductions in social and economic constraints. However, when the political, social and economic elements are of equal weight, their interactive exponential relationship yields the maximum level of mutual benefits, illustrating the principle that the power of balance has greater utility than owning the balance of power. This complex dynamic relationship between the three elements requires them to be internally consistent with each other and to provide an explicit coherent rationale for how they answer each of the three challenges of our time (see summary Table).

 A Legislative and Policy Agenda for Going Forward

The Challenges of our Time	PoliticalElements	EconomicElements	SocialElements	GuidingRationale
I Establish and Maintain a New Peaceful and Cooperative World Order.	e.g. Promote the UN to offer certificates of “World Citizenship” to every person of every nation. We need to think globally and act nationally.	e.g. Expand US foreign aid to help developing countries transition to renewable energy and cope with extreme weather. Develop a global cooperative responsibility for avoiding environmental collapse.	e.g. Recognize that our neighborhood now includes nations and people on the other side of the globe who we have never seen or spoken to, but who’s actions, beliefs, and values affect our daily lives in essential ways.	Increasingly we need to move toward world citizenship, not citizenships of the world.
II Living Sustainably, Inclusively, and Equitably on a Diverse and Crowded Planet.	e.g. Limiting the conflation of economic and social wellbeing with obtaining excessive political power within the US and internationally between nations.	e.g. Significantly reducing wealth and income disparities within the United States and between nations and avoiding the “Zero-Sum” policies that result from choosing economic power over balance.	e.g. Restoring a personal sense of place and purpose in the world through respecting the power of balance for people who are experiencing the disrupting effects of change as external and arbitrary.	Increasingly we need to move toward the power of balance, not the balance of power.
III. Using the Power of 21st Century Science, Technology, and Artificial Intelligence to Advance Human Well Being and Social Progress.	e.g.  Addressing the need for increased limitations on patent and copyright protections with more requirement for open-source materials and products.	e.g. Developing methods to require profit from new technologies to come from their application not their creation. Such as expanding broadband to every door starting with rural areas, like rural electrification in the past.	e.g. Realizing that we are consuming our global resources faster than the earth can regenerate them.  We now know we are killing the very planet we need to sustain ourselves.	Increasingly we need to move toward science and knowledge being in the public domain, not a means for financial gain.
Guiding Rationale	The three elements are dependent, interactive, and simultaneous. They are NOT independent, hierarchical, and sequential.			Adapting to the disruption of change by “Living in the Future Tense.”

We, as a Nation, need to turn our back to the setting sun of Nationalism, Censorship, and Privatization and face the rising sun of Patriotism, Freedom and Public Service to meet the new challenges of the 21st century by embracing World Citizenship, the Power of Balance, and the fruits of Modern Science and Technology as belonging in the public domain. This is a positive agenda for the Democratic Party that Neera Tanden, CEO of the Center for American Progress called for: to “dust ourselves off, criticize what we think is wrong and offer better alternatives.” (NYT)

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Edward Renner is a retired Professor of Psychology who has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Illinois, and the University of South Florida. 

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