U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) spoke to the U.S. Conference of Mayors about something many of these municipal leaders sense and must confront daily — the weirding of the American society.
Murphy, who is currently the lead Democrat in Senate negotiations on border security and immigration with Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, says that “what I know is there’s something a little wrong in this country today.”
Yet as Murphy begins to enumerate those wrongs, his chosen adjective — a “little” — quickly begins to seem ill-chosen. To hear Murphy list off the number of things that are common today that were mostly unthinkable a “quarter century ago,” is to hear a deeply disturbing account of the American experiment gone awry — or at a perilous crossroads, to say the least.
“It’s not normal for a woman to be shot for turning into the wrong driveway. It’s not normal for thousands of people to take a drug that’s designed to dull the senses and facilitate a withdrawal from life. It’s not normal for citizens to storm the Capitol in a desperate attempt to keep their preferred leader in power.”
Murphy concludes that “There are all of these things that are happening in our society today that are deeply abnormal.”
Seen a certain way, Murphy’s is an optimistic viewpoint, as for many Americans the things he lists have become completely normal and normalized, the unending content of the everyday news.
America feels like it's unspooling a bit, and too many leaders have their heads buried in the sand.
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 19, 2024
I went to the U.S Conference of Mayors this week to talk about America's spiritual crisis and what we we need to do to help people find meaning, connection and purpose. pic.twitter.com/lAbOgDZuOi
Murphy suggests it’s a moment in American history when we need, as a society, to find out “why people are so unhappy, so disconnected…It feels like in this country today we’re having a spiritual crisis.”
Murphy admittedly strains for answers, though he lands on the idea that leaders need to create a “set of rules, of laws” that allow people to “live a more meaningful, a more purposeful, a happier life.”
Murphy’s solution is to use laws to foster fairness, as he sees it, with a society only effective, efficient and prosperous if each citizen bears equal responsibilities and is granted an equal opportunities to achieve success.
But Murphy’s solution requires compromise where there is no agreement or consensus, and that is where the struggle keeps hitting the same roadblocks, bumping into absolutism (on both sides).
The pro-life generation is working to make abortion unthinkable.
— Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) January 18, 2024
Murphy need only look at his negotiating partner Sen. Lankford, who might easily say, unlike Murphy, that as few rules as possible is the answer.
Parents shouldn’t live in fear of their government every day—moms and dads have the right and responsibility to determine what’s best for their kids. @SenatorTimScott, @virginiafoxx & I are working to keep government overreach out of our homes and families.
— Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) January 17, 2024
