Joe Biden asks questions worthy of Thomas Paine: Who the hell are we, and what century is this?

Thomas Paine is sorely missed. We've abandoned the Age of Reason, are lacking in common sense and live in times that truly try men's souls.

"Folks, what century are we in?" President Biden asked the press pool Tuesday afternoon.

His detractors will no doubt seize upon the question as further proof of the president's mental decline, but the facts — and the context — once again won't support it.

Biden was talking about the anachronistic stance of today's Republican Party, a synthesis of evangelicals, crackpots, conspiracy theorists, authoritarians, misogynists, sadists, racists, masochists, flat-earthers and science deniers whose greatest shared characteristics are fear and ignorance.

His question to the press pool was a retort after being asked about contraception and comes on the heels of regressive actions by the Supreme Court toward women and reproductive health care in particular, while certain members of Congress try to throw the nation into a tailspin in order to embrace a time that never existed.

In other words, Biden asked a damn good question. If you're Donald Trump, you might imagine that it's the 16th century and that you are Henry VIII. He certainly yearns for the divine rights of kings and has declared as much. He's counting on a majority of the Supreme Court — three members of which he considers his vassals — to delay any accountability in court for his actions. 

If you're Amanda Jones, a middle school librarian in Louisiana, you might fear that it's the late 17th century after Republicans came after her for opposing book banning. The Salem witch trials look all too familiar to folks in Louisiana, and in a bunch of other red states. If the right books are banned, however, then you won't be able to read about that.

Many Trump supporters apparently think they're somewhere toward the end of the 18th century, and that they're the patriots trying to ward off the British Empire. They have parted company with facts and reason, however, and are more like the mistaken group of villagers who opposed the rule of law after the Boston Massacre — when John Adams defended British soldiers in the face of popular outrage.

Then there are the rest of the politicians and police officers who cannot stand people of color and miss the good old days of the Ku Klux Klan. They think it's the middle of the 19th century and violent retribution against anyone of a different color is just keeping the peace.

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Finally, there are the more enlightened atavists who favor the first half of the 20th century, when Jim Crow laws were enforced, women were subservient to all men — at least if they were white men — voting rights were restricted to land-owning white heterosexual males and marijuana (along with liquor, in some places) was the stuff of the devil.

None of these people, it seems, actually lives in the current century where the vast majority of us dwell, nor do they understand the political terms they use to describe themselves and their solipsistic universe.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and a constitutional lawyer, said he was recently asked if he was a liberal. He answered yes, because he values liberty. He's a Democrat, he said, because he values democracy. He calls himself a progressive because he values progress. "But I also call myself a conservative," Raskin explained on the podcast "Just Ask the Question." That was because, he said, "I want to conserve a woman's right to choose, the U.S. Constitution, our natural resources, our climate, our health and many other things we cherish in this country that the Republicans wish to destroy."

Michael Cohen would agree with that sentiment. Cohen, Donald Trump's former fixer and the author of a new book, "Revenge: How Donald Trump Weaponized the U.S. Department of Justice Against His Critics," said he believes the Republican minions are happy to follow Trump wherever and whenever he may take them, logic and common sense be damned. "Democracy is under siege from Moscow to Mar-a-Lago," he explained. Raskin said we have reached an inflection point, and our decisions in the midterm elections will determine whether "reason can govern" America in this century.

It sure feels like the Age of Reason is behind us. Thomas Paine proclaimed: "Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good." None of that would fly today. "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one," he also said. That, at least, seems to have some relevance in today's world.

So, it follows that Joe Biden's question wasn't merely rhetorical or sarcastic, but one that must be legitimately asked and answered if we are to follow those who dwell in reality rather than those who pine for things that do not exist (and never did). Further, we must use the knowledge obtained by asking such questions to build a sustainable future of liberty that can serve as an example to the rest of the world.

We live in a world of struggle. While Paine's maxim that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph, has never been more true, it is also true that the struggle appears more difficult than ever. In Russia, Vladimir Putin wants to go back to the mid-20th century and  reinvent the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. OPEC wants a more recent time, the last quarter of the 20th century, as it slashes oil production and jacks up prices. China wants to return to any point in its long imperial history when it ruled over Taiwan. 

In our own country, up is down and down is up: We have erased 50 years of progress for women, and now target civil rights. Decades of progress that followed the Stonewall riots are being eroded as right-wing politicians and activists target LGBTQ youth. Books are being banned — in America, in 2022. Instead of history, some school districts are choosing propaganda.

And then there's North Korea, whose leadership has never advanced beyond the middle of the 20th century and desperately wants the world to pay attention. 

Yes, a lot of this sounds like the 1950s. Hopefully, poodle skirts and greasers won't make a comeback. But pop music has gotten so bad (in my humble opinion) that Buddy Holly, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Ray Charles would be a vast improvement. 

When I asked Donald Trump, six weeks before the 2020 election, whether  he'd accept a peaceful transfer of power, "win, lose or draw," he made clear he wouldn't. Biden asked at the time, "What country is this?"

So it is that Joe Biden, a couple of years apart, has asked the two most relevant questions facing us today. What country is this and what century is this? If we are to be the United States, claiming to lead the rest of the world toward liberty and justice in the 21st century, we must change course dramatically.

"I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to death your right to say it" sounds completely old-fashioned in today's world. It's a necessary sentiment, because if I do not accept that others may think differently than me, then I've enslaved myself to my own opinion and have  taken away the potential that I might change my mind. The Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Lauren Boeberts and other ignorant, self-flagellating clowns on the right want to beat you into submission with their ignorance — and are outraged if anyone thinks differently than they do. Sometimes the far left is no better, wishing to silence anyone on the right who thinks differently than they do. Paine noted that if you are afraid to offend someone you cannot be honest. I honestly don't care who I offend, at this point. Both extremes are convinced of their righteousness, and both are anything but.

Fear and loathing, as Hunter Thompson once reminded us, is a powerful motivator for both sides. The right wants you to fear "socialism" and the left. The left wants you to fear the right. At the end of the day, we're still dealing with electing a bunch of politicians this fall who are flawed human beings like the rest of us. We all know where that can lead.

H.L. Mencken said it best. "If experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. His very existence, indeed, is a standing subversion of the public good in every rational sense. He is not one who serves the common weal; he is simply one who preys upon the commonwealth. It is to the interest of all the rest of us to hold his powers to an irreducible minimum, and to reduce his compensation to nothing."

Many politicians today have rigged the system so they are accountable to nobody, and as Paine said, they should be trusted by nobody.

We the people have become "we the entitled," "we the white," "we the oppressed" or "we the exploited," and have allowed our political leaders  to hoodwink us so badly that many of us have forgotten that we have far more in common with each other than with most of the people we have elected, supposedly to represent us. 

No one outside politics could get away with avoiding subpoenas, taking bribes from lobbyists, ignoring our work, exploiting workers, lying on every conceivable occasion, refusing to take consequences for their actions and not only profiting from obvious corruption but being revered in some circles for doing so. It isn't the behavior we claim to value or want to teach our children. Greed, disharmony, fear, anger, hatred and lack of empathy are universally reviled by every rational person and in every social construct known to man, but those things are overwhelming us today. We find ourselves right on the edge of a cliff, and if we go over it, we may never recover.

Michael Cohen saw the handwriting on the wall. After being thrown under the Trump bus, he has dedicated himself to trying to right the wrongs he admittedly helped to create. Jamie Raskin is among the very few politicians with his head screwed on straight trying to steer the ship of state into a safe harbor.

And Joe Biden is asking the most important questions, even if his staff is muddling the message. Republicans only want power to force their minority views upon the majority, and millions of Americans have become angry and confused.

What country is this?

What century is this?

Thomas Paine saw the blessings of liberty, and saw an emerging nation called the United States as an asylum for mankind. We cannot return to his age, but we can use the sentiments upon which the country was founded, and our knowledge of our past, to better understand our lives today.

November's election will let us know if that's possible. Today we still live in a time that tries men's souls. But we remain stuck in this political quagmire precisely because we haven't learned the lessons of history.