[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 20 (Tuesday, February 1, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S436-S437]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, from the sweeping Green Mountains to the 
shores of the iconic Lake Champlain, one need look no further than 
Vermont to find the beating heart of America. To this day, communities 
across Vermont are welcoming refugees from around the world and most 
recently from war-torn Afghanistan. It is our history as a nation of 
immigrants that make these United States, as George Washington put it, 
the Great Experiment.
  But with each passing moment, it seems this simple foundation of our 
Nation is under attack. Nationalism is on the rise and, with it, the 
threat that bedrock principles of our democracy are threatened. The 
strength of our Nation rests not in what divides us, but in what unites 
us. By sharpening the division, we edge toward authoritarianism, as 
Vermonter Haviland Smith wrote earlier this month in his column, 
``Rural Ruminations.''
  Another of our great Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, so clearly said, 
``A house divided cannot stand.'' Those words, now nearly 164 years 
old, are as true today as ever.

[[Page S437]]

  I would invite everyone to read Haviland's recent column, and I ask 
unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  Its observations, and importantly the questions he pose, deserve 
thoughtful consideration.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From the Times Argus, Jan. 3, 2022]

           Rural Ruminations: Edging Toward Authoritarianism

                          (By Haviland Smith)

       At the onset of 2022, The United States of America appears 
     to be heading for possible major change. Opposing forces and 
     ideologies are so hostile toward each other that there is 
     clearly the possibility that this former relatively pure 
     democracy will be taken over by an entirely authoritarian 
     management.
       Authoritarianism is defined as ``the enforcement of strict 
     obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom and 
     a lack of concern for the wishes and opinions of others''. 
     Does that not define the United States at this moment? All we 
     need to do now to be true to the ongoing world pattern is 
     codify the situation governmentally.
       If you look around the world you will see case after case 
     of countries being taken over by authoritarianism. Look at 
     the Philippines, Brazil. Nicaragua, and Venezuela. One 
     rationale for these takeovers is to ``restore order''.
       How is it possible that the United States could fit into 
     this mold? To understand that question, it is important to 
     look at the religious and ethnic makeup of today's 
     authoritarian states. What you will see right away in many if 
     not most of those states are ethnically and/or religiously 
     divided countries. Authoritarianism in the Middle East has 
     not only ethnic divisions (Arab, Persian, Kurd, Druze, 
     Turkish, etc.), but the religious split between Shia and 
     Sunni. The Chinese have the Uighurs and over 50 other ethnic 
     groups. The Russians have over 120 ethnic groups within their 
     borders. And so it goes on and on, with many, if not most 
     countries dealing with minorities that are not always 
     friendly and that are often sufficiently hostile for the 
     majority to install authoritarianism to gain and maintain 
     power and to cope with those minority groups and their 
     concomitant disorders.
       Where many if not most of such divided countries have 
     simply evolved that way through the realities of geography 
     and simple migration, the United States is in class by 
     itself. It has voluntarily created what may well be the 
     world's most diverse country and it has done so purposefully 
     and eagerly. Let's face it, the only people who have always 
     lived here are the native Americans. Europeans changed all 
     that when they arrived in numbers on this continent in the 
     middle of the 16th century. Since then, largely for economic 
     reasons, we have seen every kind of migration that has ever 
     existed. Over the centuries we have benefitted from 
     immigration from over 100 countries in Africa, Asia, Central 
     America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, North Africa, 
     Europe, South America and North America.
       Many of those immigrants, particularly black Africans, were 
     brought here against their will as slaves to work for the 
     European settlers. Others, mostly from more adjacent 
     countries to our south, came here to work for better 
     compensation, but it is critical to understand that they have 
     played an incredibly important role in the advancement of the 
     United States on the economic front. How are we Americans to 
     survive if today's politicians succeed in forbidding or even 
     limiting the migration of Latin Americans who come to work 
     mostly in agriculture? Who will do that work?
       Nativism has always existed in United States history. Some 
     of the original colonists despised people who did not share 
     their own religious faiths. Nativism was particularly strong 
     during the major periods of immigration in the 19th Century.
       Somewhere along the way, America's nativists came to 
     believe that people who were born in the United States were 
     somehow better that those born abroad. Given our history and 
     recognizing today's realities, one simply has to ask whether 
     the remnants of nativism are playing a role in the philosophy 
     of a large chunk of the American population.
       We have imported diverse groups of people over the years. 
     In the main, they have been encouraged to maintain their 
     original identities and cultures. This has created here in 
     immigrant America the kinds of frictions between those groups 
     that have always existed around the world. With a positive 
     attitude toward immigration, whether for justified reasons or 
     not, we have created the kind of situation that has led to 
     authoritarian coups throughout the world.
       One could speculate that the negative attitudes of one 
     third of our population toward immigrants and foreigners is 
     nothing more than a holdover of attitudes that have existed 
     here since the first European settlers arrived on our shores. 
     That certainly does not make those attitudes appropriate, but 
     it would provide some understanding on how they got here and 
     why they continue to exist.
       ls America to have the next authoritarian regime?

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