Not Retribution — Truth and Reconciliation is the Way Forward
The Apartheid government of South Africa fell in 1995.
The country faced an existential question: How to reconcile the two sides in such a way that blacks got the justice they believed they deserved without destroying the economic heart of the country that the whites largely built and controlled.
A secondary goal was to stem the loss of whites leaving the country with their institutional knowledge and capital.
The Allies, after World War II, held trials for the war crimes of both the Japanese and Germans.
South Africa instead created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to allow people to "confess" their wrongdoing without jailing or executing many people and as their means to heal the country.
TRC was the beginning of a progressive term — restorative justice. Some liked the idea of a public catharsis. Still, it did little to assuage the fears of whites who, to this day, are targets of government retribution, nationalization, redistribution, and pernicious crime that the government doesn't seem interested in.
Seventy-six million Trump voters also voted for change, many voting for radical change. How do we move forward when, as a country, we are not on the same page, with some out for blood after the tyrannical Biden years?
I have a friend I call the Queen, who did not vote for Trump and is scared to death for her children and herself. While she can't articulate her concerns factually except through rhetoric, she represents millions who don't understand the need for change, much less radical change.
That's why I believe we need the equivalent of a TRC here in America, in a different form that doesn't personalize or focus on individuals but instead exposes to all the means and methods of the policies that permeate government and that act like tightly applied brakes on our society while further dividing us. Without releasing those brakes, we fall further behind other more energetic and enabling economies as we apply the wrong focus here at home.
President Trump's newly created DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is not an entirely new idea. But with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy at the helm, it gives the idea the high-octane gas that previous commissions did not have. Yet, something is missing. That something missing is the "why" of the mission to change our government fundamentally.
Without that explanation, it may seem to many as political payback that, in the end, will hurt people the government is supposed to help. At least, that's the vision of some 73 million Harris supporters.
DOGE is likely to be successful in a practical sense. Still, it will fail if the American people don't understand that the fundamental mission of DOGE is to rationalize our economic system in a world of competition and, at other times, cooperation.
There is a reckoning coming between the America Firsters and the free traders who misunderstand the world's interconnectedness and why we can't have the strongest military in the world waiting menacingly at our shorelines for an invasion that will never come even as we face decisive defeat almost everywhere else.
Unless we realize what's at stake, we will likely find ourselves defeated socially and economically bypassed by a more clever strategy.
I am in lockstep agreement with virtually all of Trump's stated objectives. What's missing is that we must convince many of Trump's adversaries that without Trump's agenda, we are currently on a losing path and therefore must adjust course to obtain glory, justice, treasure, and peace.
A secondary goal must be to share how if America can obtain these goals, the entire world benefits, the same way it did from the 1800s until about 1975. Millions of Americans, through a failed educational system, have no idea how much our country contributed to a free and predominantly prosperous world and are the heroes and not the villains.
We now face the same issues that South Africa confronted after a long, violent, and unfair system of government.
Resource-rich South Africa is now an economically failed country living off the accomplishments of its Apartheid regime.
Like South Africa, we have yet to accept that the social element of the three-legged stool, which includes social, economic, and governmental practices, is a first among equals.
Without our citizens behind major shifts in policy, failure is a near certainty. Would we have been able to win WWII without the absolute support of the American people?
No.
The mechanics of fitting that first leg to our stool are much less daunting than commonly supposed.
First, we must understand that the difference between propaganda and persuasion is not a fine line; it is the difference between truth, supported by facts vs. lies, spun believably and directed at individuals devoid of an ability to tell the difference apart.
If the people don't believe that our government is a reliable, truth-telling, non-partisan purveyor of facts and information, all is lost.
People will always gravitate towards the truth because it is consistent, understandable, and positive. They'll never forgive a leader who equivocates, parses, withholds, or otherwise attempts to manipulate the truth in a manner most favorable to their aspirations.
Biden lost his credibility through his own words and deeds and that of his supporters, who could not convey authenticity to millions. As stated by his press secretary, Joe Biden running circles around his staff was a blatant lie, and he and his cabal were punished for it. Harris broke no new ground in her highly scripted word salad style of communication. The American people roundly rejected her for cause.
Donald Trump has the American people's attention and commands the moment. How he delivers his message, the need for specific changes, and the missteps we took in the past will be our Truth and Reconciliation; let's not be shy about trumpeting it.
God bless America.
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