What I'd Say If They Asked Me

"What I'd Say If They Asked Me" is an article first published in The Nation on July 16, 1988 and reprinted in the collection Vonnegut By The Dozen in 2013. It is a framed as a proposed acceptance speech for Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, free of the "revision-by-committee process".

Summary

Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention

As president, he would seek to serve all the people of the United States, using all lawful means. No one who runs for president is humble, since it is "a pinnacle of power and of vanity". A seemingly appealing aspect of his vanity to many is his belief that "with the help of the fourth branch of government... 'We the people'", the United States can at last live up to its promise. We should acknowledge our past tarnished with slavery, genocide, and the treatment of women. Thus we can both celebrate the progress—measured by "the health and happiness and wisdom and safety of all our people"—made in so short a time and recognize how far is yet to go. America's is the most pluralistic democratic experiment in history since its wealth, Bill of Rights, and open borders have encouraged human beings of every type to immigrate and become Americans.

There is much to regret in the recent past as well, including an enormous nation debt, borrowed from our children and grandchildren and spent on investments of dubious long-term interest. This administration will seek to have the future think well of us, starting a path free of poisons, hunger, ignorance, and hate. This may be too much to ask, but the poet Robert Browning wrote that "a man's reach should exceed his grasp/Or what's a heaven for?" Put more directly: "Company's coming! Let's clean up this mess".

Although many of the poisons destroying the environment are new, one of the worst is ancient: the idea that women and persons of color are inferior. It is a poison that always seeks to return and join all the destructive chemicals, drugs, and diseases of modernity, but it will not during this administration. He proposes a redistribution of wealth since it's already being constantly redistributed in ways against the national interest. Taxing and spending already occur by various private entities who become as rich as small nations, spending nothing for the common good. The military-industrial complex so mistrusted by Republican President and General of the Armies Dwight Eisenhower is a massive public works project, and he will move such funds to public programs of peace, such as health care and education. If anyone objects, he would like to hear why, since company's coming.