By George Cappannelli

Hans Christian Anderson’s beloved fairytale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, is a cautionary tale.  It warns us of the dangers of vanity and duplicity and exposes the frailties of even so-called reasonable people when swindlers appear and play upon our pain and confusion by convincing us that we are in danger of losing something we think we are entitled to or we become afraid that we might be judged by others to be stupid or poorly informed.  As a result, we often do just want the swindlers want.  We deny reality and turn away from what is in plain sight.

If you’ve never read Anderson’s tale or have forgotten the plot, it’s the story of an Emperor and the majority of people in the Empire who are duped by swindlers who promise to weave a special and magical new suit of clothes for the Emperor.  A suite of new clothes, he is told, that will not only adorn him in the finest fabrics, but have the unique power of being invisible to anyone who is unfit for their office, or who was unusually stupid.

The Perfect Con. Of course, the swindlers’ claims establish conditions for the perfect con.  Conditions that protect the swindlers against discovery and allow them to enrich themselves and ensure acceptance by the Emperor and all of the people of their fabrication.  And so Hans Christian Anderson unfolds his predictive tale.  First, the court ministers are asked by the Emperor to look at the clothes and render their opinions. Then the Emperor himself looks at them, and finally, the people of the Empire have their opportunity to view these magical new clothes during a parade.  And since none of these individuals want to be seen as either unfit or stupid, they all override what their eyes see and praise the swindlers for doing a remarkable job.

Thankfully there is a hero of this tale.  A young, innocent boy accompanies his father to the parade and is unconcerned about his position or anyone else’s opinion of his intelligence, so he simply blurts out the truth.  “But the Emperor doesn’t have anything on,” he says.  And, as is the case in fairytales, the instant truth is spoken – especially from a place of innocence - the veil of delusions and illusions that has blinded the majority of people, falls away.

Couldn’t Happen To Us.

Most of us who read or hear this tale smile and nod sagely, something reasonable people often do.  We also indicate that while we are grateful to Hans for the moral of his story, we are confident we would never fall for such an obvious fabrication by swindlers.  After all, this is America in the 21^st Century and not some Fairytale empire!  This is the age of astounding technology, medical wonders and digital magic. At a key stroke or the swish of a mouse we can find out anything we want to know about our world.  And obviously, we trust the information because we’ve found it on the internet or heard it on television or read it in print – so it must be true, right?

A Tale Come Home To Roost Unfortunately, as I look around our ‘empire’ in these days following the 2016 Presidential election, I find myself shaking my head in disbelief.  For it is clear, all protestations aside, that at this very moment we are walking rapidly and blindly along the very same path followed by all those very reasonable people in Hans Christian Anderson’s story.  Indeed, we have fallen under the spell of the swindlers and are now proclaiming that the Emperor’s new clothes are beautiful.  And in this instance the ‘we’ unfortunately includes the members of the outgoing administration who are being far too silent, docile and polite in the face of the challenge; Hillary Clinton who actually won the election, but has vanished from sight; many of our leaders on both sides of the aisle in Congress who lack the moral fortitude to speak the truth; the heads of many of our institutions and businesses who are either remaining woefully silent or, in some case, expanding the threat by colluding with an emotionally unbalanced President-elect; the majority of members of the Fourth Estate who have completely lost their way;  a number of doctors who specialize in mental health and emotional stability who could and should address the emotional instability of the President-elect, but do not; most of our religious leaders who seem to conveniently fall asleep at times like these; and of course,  a significant number of citizens – particularly those who voted out of pain, misplaced confidence and unfounded hope for Donald Trump.

Who are the swindlers? In this contemporary version of the Emperor’s tale, they are many in number and continue to collude in misleading the people of this nation.  Some are still tenaciously re-arguing the philosophical battles that raged over 240 years ago at the time of the crafting and signing of our founding documents.   Others are still fighting The Civil War.   Still others use neither of these pretexts as justification to undercut the stability of our Democracy. Instead, out of greed and a quest for power, they are committed to ensuring that the few control the many and that their personal and limited religious beliefs are imposed on a nation founded on the principle of religious freedom and the clear separation of church and state.

The Powell Memorandum - These efforts to derail American Democracy were greatly advanced in 1971 when a lawyer named Lewis Powell wrote what has come to be known as The Powell Memorandum or The Powell Manifesto.  Two months later Powell was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by Richard Nixon.  And this single memorandum – although ostensibly just a pro-business document - took on a life of its own and has since been for over 45 years as the game plan to corrupt American Democracy. First by fringe elements of the Far Right, then by the Republican Party itself, the Chamber of Commerce, other rabid, pro-business organizations and a number of Right Wing Think Tanks whose primary intention has been to erode the fabric of our way of life.

The Next Phase of This Unfolding Tragedy. Today, as we move closer to the inauguration of Donald Trump and the installation of his not-so-merry band of reactionary and ethically-challenged “ministers,” we see the next phase of this malicious plan being played out in plain sight.  Yet even with this naked truth so obvious, there are many in our country – unfortunately too many on both sides of the aisle - who still suggest that the kind of swindle described by Hans Christian Anderson could never happen here.  “This is America,” they claim, ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave.’ The greatest democracy in history, not some third world “Banana Republic.

The Most Serious Challenge To Our Democracy. But I say we are much more like the people in Hans Christian Anderson’s fictional story than many of us are willing to admit.  I say we currently face the most serious challenge our Democracy has ever faced.  And even though we have our valuable founding documents that contain a system of checks and balances; even though within these documents we are also told that this is the land where - “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness;” we are in serious trouble.

We are not, of course, living in Putin’s Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, Kim Jong-un’s North Korea or Assad’s Syria.  At least not yet.  But I know we are not immune to the terror and abominations currently being visited on the world by these dictators, nor those visited on humanity by other well-known miscreants in the last century.

Time To Stop Deluding Ourselves. So, it is time to open our eyes to the cyclical nature of history and admit that from time to time, we humans fall victim to a repetitive form of collective amnesia.  And this form of amnesia makes us susceptible to swindlers and con men who periodically rise up, from their dark, selfish and reactionary places to wreak their personal wounds and dysfunctions, their distempers, delusions, ignorance and insatiable quest for power upon humanity.  Yes, with a level of cunning and malevolence that defies the ability of most reasonable human beings to understand, they rise up and usher in periods of unconscionable turmoil and suffering.

Time To Get Back In Touch With Truth. And we are certainly in the throughs of just such a time.  And if we do not wake up and get back in touch – through our hearts - with truth, we will soon witness a repetition of an awful tragedy.  For today, here in America, and in a number of other nations around the globe these willful, reactionary, xenophobic practitioners of deceit are playing upon our fears, spreading lies and divisions and working to bring forward another time of hate and division that they believe they will benefit from, but that even they will soon regret.

So please, my fellow Americans let us do all that we can to avoid this tragedy. Whether you voted for or against Donald Trump please, take the time to read and re-read our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of these United States and our Bill of Rights.

All The Justification We Need.  It will not take very long to read these documents and they will, I know, help us all to remember that they contain more than sufficient justification and legitimacy for what we need to do to send these swindlers packing.  And who knows, maybe if we wake up and have the courage to act soon enough, we will also discover these remarkable documents will not only allow us to reclaim the heart and soul of our nation, but to go even further and finally fulfill the true scope of our Democracy. All we need do is to once again admit what our eyes see, our ears hear and our hearts feel which, of course, is truth.

God Bless, America