E Pluribus Unum is threatened

Pull coins from your pocket. Look at the back. Our Congress of the Confederation founders put that Great Seal on their money in 1782 before creating the United States. It’s still there.

The superstitious recoil from hotels with a 13th floor. They favor floors numbered 11, 12, 14, 15. Our founders loved 13 — 13 states, 13 stars in the Seal, and 13 letters in E Pluribus Unum (after removing the “x” from Ex).

Did you study Latin? No? Me neither. Fifty-six percent of high school students studied Latin in 1905. Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, both Bushes and Clinton did so. By 1977 only 6,000 students struggled with the national exam.

Thankfully, “Google translate” studies Latin. It reveals our money’s motto means “out of many, one.” Google is not reassuring us that while we’re out of many dollars we still have one. Google’s sharing the founders’ long shot they could blend 13 states into one United States.

But compare the founders’ challenges — 13 states and 4 million people — with ours: 50 states and 340 million people. People breathing in the polluted air of deliberate divisiveness and politically promoted hatred, occasionally bursting into flames of violence, leaving ashes from which authoritarian dictatorships emerge.

Some politicians and their followers shout demands that immigrants seeking asylum be sent back to their home country — and almost certain death — without a hearing. Those advocates ignore, if they ever knew, that their ancestors also immigrated to this county, often for similar reasons. Unless, that is, they’re registered members of one of America’s 574 Indian tribes.

It’s easy to notice the many differences among us — languages, ethnicity, customs, religion, wealth, norms, appearance, and political affiliation. We sometimes forget we are 99.9% identical in genetic makeup and belong to the same animal species: Homo sapiens.

Those differences dissolve like fog in the sunshine when disaster strikes — floods from heavy rain, rising seas or rivers; home-destroying derechos, tornadoes and hurricanes; fires, airplane or highway disasters, mass shootings and a 9/11 or Oklahoma City bombing.

Well folks, don’t want to scare you, but we may soon find ourselves struggling with a disaster to end all disasters.

We need to realize, as we descend the waterslide of democracy into the Putin-like polluted pool of political populism, that loss of our 247-year-old democracy is upon us.

We can no longer smugly say, “It can’t happen here.” It’s already happening here. It’s no longer a matter of saving our democracy, it’s a matter of rebuilding a democracy.

Don’t whine about the things an individual Gazette subscriber can’t do — compete with billionaires’ political contributions, or knock on every Iowan’s door.

What we can create is what we do in disasters. What the Youngbloods sang in “Get Together.”

“Come on people now

“Smile on your brother (and sister)

“Everybody get together

“Try to love one another

“Right now”

Gift a stranger with a smile and “Good morning.” Pay a compliment. Do a favor.

E Pluribus Unum.

Nicholas Johnson authored the books Columns of Democracy and Test Pattern for Living. Contact mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org