This should be an anniversary worth celebrating. I wish I felt better about it. I’m writing a few thoughts based on recent reading.
Below, in no particular order – The Winter of Our Discontent, de Tocqueville, Sam Adams, Passages from the Declaration, religion and morality and civil society … and, of course, China
Winter of our discontent
There are three Winters of our Discontent here – the first two lines of Shakespeare’s Richard III, telling of the moral corruption of a leader; and Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent, a tale of degeneration, corruption, and spiritual crisis in American society.
Now is a time of intense discontent for many Americans. Real hardships for some, with more expected. The revulsion from public moral quagmires for others, the loathing of public lying and corruption that seems pervasive in some elected and appointed federal officials.
It is a winter of discontent now in America. A spring seems very far off. The president of the United States is our stand-in for Richard III, whose unchecked ambition led him to murder his own family – in our current case, to figuratively murder the families under his care, the collective families of America, whose struggles – with our debt-laden government, denial of health care, untrustworthy morally bankrupt leadership, floundering in political, economic, religious and community terms – will not make the President a tragic hero, but a despotic villain, a man whose mendacity and hardness of heart is remarkable even by the standards of this ruthless age. Some in America still see this president as … well, messiah, delivering us from the clutches of modern democratic government, foreign entanglements, and – dare I say it – the entanglements of Christian values of empathy and kindness. The real population of England was also sharply divided whether Richard was a despotic villain or tragic hero.
There are some differences between Richard III and our current president – Richard III could be charming and eloquent. No one rational will accuse the President of either. And historians consider Richard’s reign to be one of real reform that benefitted the general population. Historians will make no such judgment about the current president.
How did we get here?
The system of government created after 1776 went through amendments and growing pains and internal rebellion and depressions. It survived, creaky and maddeningly slow and inefficient at most times. Most of us retained sufficient respect for law and each other and dislike for corruption and self-dealing. The general good will of legislators was assumed, at least at the margin, even when we disagreed.
The promises of freedom have been delivered only slowly. There is continuous adjustment to delivering on the promises of the Constitution. We killed each other for four years in conflict over what those freedoms meant. At the end, some of us were able to see across the differences and shake hands. Grant let rebellion officers keep their swords.
Now close to the 250th there is much written about a moral hole in American politics and society. The good will of leaders and some followers is no longer a good assumption. This is David Brooks in 2023 – How America Got Mean – We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein. I understand Americans as if we are all at a big shopping mall – all in one place, certainly not together, owing nothing to each other and nothing to do with one another unless we squabble over a parking place or standing in line.
For the hundredth anniversary Emma Lazarus told us we lift the lamp beside the golden door. Ancestors for many of us – maybe most – saw that lamp. Now it is a different time. We seem to no longer want the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A good example is from the NYT – Trump Squeezes Immigrants by Cutting Them Off from Jobs, Health Care and Housing.
Passages from the Declaration won’t help us solve our moral problems but the 250th is on our minds and some remembrance might invoke comparisons with our leadership now. Remember, a fish rots from the head.
It is a different time than envisioned by Emma Lazarus, but some of the transgressions have returned. So let us remind ourselves –
Let facts be submitted to a candid world
He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.
He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent
He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us
Anything sound familiar? Then, a judgment was delivered –
A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.
Who are we to quarrel with the founders on a list of grievances?
Richard III
Others have compared our current president to Richard III, both in history and in the novel – How President Trump Is Like Richard III. This is from 2019, six years before the present –
Shakespeare’s Richard changes almost immediately once the crown is set on his head …. My main argument is that Trump’s presidency has steadily skirted more and more towards authoritarianism through his actions and his rhetoric, much the same way Richard became more like a dictator as soon as he became king. Moreover, Trump, Shakespeare’s Richard and even the historical king Richard have been distorted beyond recognition because of fake news, but not the kind you might expect.
Richard claims the throne by manipulating everyone in the British political machine- stoking hatred among the nobles, while trying to appear as a pious, humble man to the common people. Because of his years on reality television and experience as a businessman, even I must admit Trump has a gift at manipulating people’s perceptions and playing the part of a man of the people. Linguist Jennifer Sclafani in the Washington Post – This linguist studied the way Trump speaks for two years –
If you watch Trump in interviews, he often closes his remarks with “believe me,” Richard also understands the power of oaths and pretends to speak like a plain blunt man, claiming that the British nobles hate him because he ‘tells it like it is’-
From the play – Cannot a plain man live and think no harm? But his simple truth must be abused by silken, sly, insinuating jacks! – Richard III, Act I, Scene iii
As for Trump, even though he is a privileged billionaire with inherited wealth, he pretends to be an unpretentious, unapologetic common man, abused by the ‘mainstream media’ and his political opponents.
Richard is also a fan of the moral equivalence argument (also known as whataboutism). He tries to offset his own murders by mentioning other people and their misdeeds during the Wars Of The Roses, making them seem as bad or worse than Richard. For us, now, remember ICE. Remember murders of people in boats on the high seas.
As to Trump’s authoritarianism – what is an authoritarian? Basically an authoritarian regime concentrates power into the hands of one person, and tries to hold onto power by projecting strength, demonizing opponents, whether real or imagined, demanding unwavering loyalty, and destroying institutions. In 2026, anything sound familiar?
De Tocqueville would be confounded. Sam Adams would be appalled.
Some keen insights on America come from China Thought Express, published in the US and featuring mostly Chinese authors. In The Secret Code of America’s Rise and Fall Bei Ming makes the point that a democracy depends upon a general sense of good will among the people. She cites De Tocqueville in Democracy in America and Sam Adams in a 1798 letter.
Bei Ming on de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835) –
Tocqueville observed that three main factors sustain American democracy: geography, law, and what he called mores and national character. Of these three, he argued, the last—habits of life and public manners—is the most crucial. It is, in his view, the decisive reason the American system could be built and then endure.
What he calls “mores” is the nation’s entire “moral and spiritual physiognomy”:
“It does not signify only those things which are commonly understood by the phrase ‘habits of the heart,’ but also the various notions and the opinions current in a society, and the whole set of ideas that shape people’s ways of life.”
Habits of the heart may be secular – holding a door for someone or giving up a seat – or religious, particularly if faith promotes community of all – love one another and do unto others.
De Tocqueville points out:
“An autocratic regime can do without religious faith and still govern, but a free nation cannot.”
He believes that a republic needs religious faith even more than a monarchy does, and that a democracy needs religion more than any other form of government.
Faith, by sustaining social morality, functions as the bumper guard of democracy. De Tocqueville sharply perceives that social collapse often occurs “when the political tie is relaxed but the moral tie has not been strengthened.” The American experience, in his eyes, is that faith creates and guarantees democratic institutions, not the other way around.
Tocqueville thinks that “mores” are manifested in the entire nation. This “nation” includes its political elite—that is, those who wield power.
He describes in concrete terms how Christian belief operates within the ruling class:
When they were entrusted with executing the laws they had framed according to their own ideas, that same Christian morality and justice prevented them from casually violating these laws; and even if they could have broken them without the reproaches of their own conscience, they would have been checked by the censure of their associates. … Thus, while the laws allow the American people to do anything, religion prevents them from imagining everything and forbids them to dare everything.”
This is not religion of the sword or a mandate to put Jesus in the classroom. It is the habits of the heart (see Robert Bellah, 1985) and respect for traditions and … well, civility. All lacking now. In 1999, Lucian Pye told us that civility is fundamental. It is first necessary for social capital and civil society. Civility, Social Capital, and Civil Society: Three Powerful Concepts for Explaining Asia. Pye was explaining Asia, particularly China. Its lack of civility and civil society seem to be more Chinese imports to America. No charge.
Then Bei Ming on Sam Adams in the same article –
Would America’s own Founders have agreed with the conclusions reached decades later by this French visitor? Does Tocqueville’s description of American realities match the ideals of the Founders? The answer is yes, beyond doubt. Consider what John Adams, one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and a key framer of the Constitution, said during the constitutional era:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
(John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9, “To the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts,” 11 October 1798)
In Adams’s view, the democratic nature of the regime means that a moral and religious people is the precondition for the Constitution’s applicability.
“Because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.”
What Adams expresses is the view common among the generation of statesmen who founded the United States: no matter how well designed a constitution may be, unless it is addressed to a people with moral self-awareness, it cannot secure national freedom and prosperity. Adams and many of his contemporaries believe that in a society saturated with vice, the mechanisms created by a constitution cannot function as intended. The ultimate result is that democratic and republican order will be displaced by despotism.
Pointedly, Sam Adams is not promoting Christianity, but a means of moral self-awareness generally among the population. Despite protestations and avowals to the contrary, my thought is that moral self-awareness is supremely lacking among a good share of American political leadership and its followers.
As our president likes to say, with elevated intonation “China, China, China”
I mentioned American lack of civility as – facetiously – an import from China. It is a shame that our real imports could not include thoughtfulness about international relations. Our foreign policy is purely transactional – like a real estate deal to buy a house. One sale, one purchase. Done. The real world doesn’t work that way. In our winter of discontent, below are some thoughts on how China is thinking –
Sometimes there is a text that succinctly captures a historical moment. For our current president, I think that would be Adam Serwer’s 2018 Atlantic article The Cruelty is the Point. Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear. True domestically; true internationally.
The nation with most to gain from our American miasma is China. Internationally, we can see the Chinese reaction to Trump in an ancient text still used in politics and international relations. Per the the san shi liu ji Thirty-Six Stratagems China need do nothing as it watches the American tragedy unfold.
You remember Jiang Zemin on international politics – Hide your strength, bide your time. Even now, considering Iran and Greenland and Venezuela and Ukraine and Cuba and all of Africa and the -stans and the UN and tariffs on, tariffs off, we can find Chinese policy toward America in the Stratagems. Here is a guide to policy –
Wait at leisure while the enemy labors (以逸待勞, Yǐ yì dài láo)
It is advantageous to choose the time and place for battle while the enemy does not. Encourage the enemy to expend their energy in futile quests while one conserves their strength. When the enemy is exhausted and confused, attack with energy and purpose.
Loot a burning house (趁火打劫, Chèn huǒ dǎ jié)
When a country is beset by internal problems, such as disease, famine, corruption, and crime, it is poorly-equipped to deal with an outside threat. Keep gathering internal information about an enemy. If the enemy is in its weakest state, attack them without mercy and annihilate them to prevent future troubles.
Watch the fires burning across the river (隔岸觀火, Gé àn guān huǒ)
Delay entering the field of battle until all other parties become exhausted by fighting amongst each other. Go in at full strength and finish them off.
Make the host and the guest exchange roles (反客為主, Fǎn kè wéi zhǔ)
Usurp leadership in a situation where one is normally subordinate. Infiltrate one’s target. Initially, pretend to be a guest to be accepted, but develop from inside and become the owner later.
These ancient precepts are studied by business and political people in China, and in America as well by business leaders. The point is there is thought behind policy action, serious and careful planning. The world knows the American president is not a serious person, and this will reflect on us for at least a generation.
The end of the beginning -“Great changes unseen in a century” -CCP rhetoric
In Richard III the time of discontent was ending. For us, I fear that is not so. Per Churchill about the Battle of Britain – we are not at the end, nor are we at the beginning of the end, but perhaps we are at the end of the beginning. American status in the world is critically damaged for a generation. No nation, even allies, will value an American promise as once before. What trust in the American government to honor its commitments in trade, debt, militarily and treaties? Unaligned nations will try to carefully balance in ways they did not need to do prior to 2024, or put in with the country that seems more stable and forward-looking.
In Steinbeck’s novel the venal corrupt Ethan becomes suicidal at the end. Well, ok. I don’t think America is committing mass suicide at this point in our history. We do see suicidal characteristics – disregard for expenses (debt is of no concern to the president, his allies, and his fawning masses); depression at loss of status, anxiety about reclaiming a rightful position in the world (lots of concern about a Thucydides Trap, a declining hegemon going to war in frustration at loss of status); disregard for the future and for long-standing relationships; disregard for morality (too many examples to cite, by leadership and the ranks) striking out at perceived enemies by way of revenge (willingness to act irrationally as if there is no future to care about (too many examples to cite).
Let me give the last word to Niall Ferguson. Yes, I know, perhaps a bit too conservative for your taste, but he is a serious scholar of history and international development.
In an interview at Noema magazine with Nathan Gardels Ferguson opines on US similarities with the late Roman republic. This echoes the work of Chalmers Johnson in his trilogy on the end of the American empire – Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis; The Last Days of the American Republic.
Ferguson in the Noema article –
For the Italian prime minister, Western civilization means, as she has put it: Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christian humanism…. Now we are living through the end of that period of Western ascendancy.
This dramatic race for military parity has produced a grave threat not only to the United States, but to its allies… A world in which China won would be a world in which individual liberty would be quite quickly snuffed out.
Nathan Gardels. Interview with Niall Ferguson, Future of Democracy. America Is In A Late Republic Stage Like Rome. Noema Magazine, Berggruen Institute, May 20, 2025. Available at https://www.noemamag.com/america-is-in-a-late-republic-stage-like-rome/
Ferguson says that over a 10- or 20-year time frame, free societies are likely to prevail because they will be more innovative. But striking a somewhat more negative note, he says –
If I could strike a very pessimistic note for a moment, there is some sense of being in the late republic in America today, by which I mean that the institutions of the republic are being corroded by a latent civil war in which the stakes of political defeat become too high. That’s something of what eroded the Roman Republic and paved the way to the Empire.
My sense is that history has always been against any republic lasting 250 years. So this American republic is in its late republican phase with the intimations of empire, to bring our conversation back to where it began.
By the way, one of the geopolitical themes of CCP since 2020 has been “the east is rising, the west is declining.” Even Chinese dynasties only lasted about 250 years on average. What chance for an American democracy?
Happy 250th!
