Congress Can Do Whatever It Wants

Moreover, and as one of my graduate school professors once said in a lecture, Congress can do “whatever it wants.” As a result, Alvin Bragg did not have a long view or even a notion or basic idea of what the consequences and implications of his decision could be. And for the House Republicans to respond by simply stating that Alvin Bragg will be held “accountable” is a subtlety of rhetoric and words. But as I mentioned before, the combination or package of foresight, intuition, sagacity, and an inclination towards complexity, detail, and subtlety is not something which everyone possesses. Power does not automatically translate into a possession of such attributes and qualities.

In turn, certain folks have framed this overall situation as a politics of race rather than the politicization of the justice system in this country. But I would push back against this sort of assertion and framing of the situation, for three reasons. For one, if America was fundamentally and thoroughly racist, then Barack Obama would not have gotten elected as president for two full terms. Secondly – and this second reason relates to our first reason for why race is not the singular issue here – there is the issue of qualifications and trust which many folks are overlooking. Barack Obama, for instance, was not only the most qualified person for the top job in the country during his time, but he also had a God-given ability to express himself clearly and to win over people’s trust. In fact, trust is gained only by expressing oneself clearly and by telling the truth. 

Also, winning over people’s trust is not an exact science. It is an artform that requires God-given ability and talent. And what we are experiencing at the moment from a political and social standpoint as a nation and as a society is the inability to gain credibility and trust because people are not being forthright and are not telling the truth. As a result, there is a credibility and legitimacy crisis in the system, and there is no easy way out of it. Some of us who analyze and critique Barack Obama’s tenure as president do it solely based on a philosophical and policy standpoint, namely, to decipher and to understand why Obama decided to partake in a policy of global hegemony despite his long-held intellectual and worldview. There is no cultural, racial, or social motives behind our analysis or critique of Barack Obama, given that Obama was indeed the most qualified individual for the top job in this country at his time. 

And finally, there is the issue of human nature and how human nature plays a bigger role than race in our current political and social crisis. As mentioned before, human nature is something which is subject to change and evolution. And the change and evolution in human nature results from a change and evolution in the culture and mentality of the people and the environment in which the people inhabit and reside. The culture and mentality in New York, for instance, is different than the culture and mentality in Florida. In turn, the culture and the mentality changes and evolves as a result of unique educational and life experiences which cannot be gained either by entitlement or privilege. These educational and life experiences either have to be gained through effort or by a “grace of God” as some philosophers and intellectuals have argued. And without these educational and life experiences, no matter who you are – regardless of whether you are White, Black, Jewish, Arab, or anyone else – power will bring the worst out of one’s basic nature. In sum, these last few decades have brought the worst out of our basic nature in American society as opposed to the best parts of our basic nature given the basic policy paradigm which prevailed and in turn prioritized aggression and brute power over complexity and smart power. Thus, our argument all along has been to consider a shift in the basic policy paradigm, so that everything else can change and evolve with this paradigm shift.