I fear the next decade of American society if current political trends portend the future. I long for some hope, something, anything that relieves my fear that the current generation of pre-teens and teens will damn us and the political, cultural, and social legacy we bequeath them. That is separate from the legacy of crushing student debt many will incur if they still harbor the illusion that a college education is their key to a rewarding future.
Americans are both admired and condemned worldwide for the public way they distinguish themselves from the rest by the ‘freedoms’ they insist they enjoy–often implying that others do not. If only you were an American, you’d understand. There once was a time when our foreign hosts could not understand. Today, however, envy is no longer an underlying tension.
Earlier in my life’s journey, I suppose I would have been a disciple of that school of thought. I mean, why not?! Prior to 1980 and the ascendancy of Republican conservative/right-wing orthodoxy, American freedoms, i.e. rights, and privileges, were expanding for populations of color, the LGBTQ community, and women – the other half of the American labor force and the population.
Republicans, and religious conservatives in search of a political horse to ride, combined energies, fear, and resources to begin a patient, methodical, and pernicious unraveling of social, economic, and political gains intended to bring about more parity within the American population. The provisions of The Civil Rights Act and The Voting Rights Act of 1964 and 1965, and the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973 shifted the tectonic plates under American society. Alarm bells rang in the hallowed halls of Congress and key committees under the iron thumbs of southern political barons; in corporate boardrooms; and in the paranoid, vindictive White House of Republican Richard M. Nixon.
Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson withdrew his finger from the dike holding back eager proponents of new freedoms and the old order retreated – momentarily – to regroup, to anoint a septuagenarian standard-bearer for the new old order: Ronald W. Reagan. The assault on newly won freedoms for those others became a mantra for the next forty-plus years. Religious conservatives were invited into the tent, and a new, dangerous alliance was forged. The unifying element was fear, fear of the other, the different. They wanted what the entitled wanted to keep for themselves, and most alarmingly, they demanded the right to be independent of the moral leadership of the selfish. They didn’t want to be like the oligarchs of hereditary privilege. They maintained they could co-exist. They had to be stopped, crushed. To paraphrase one of the conservatives’ historical giants, “Extremism in the defense of conservatism is no vice.”
The GOP raised the question of our times: Who [meaning the rest of us] can become what we have not preordained? If an interpretation of personal freedom transcends boundaries conservatives had not established or transcended their moral frontiers, it could not be sanctioned: civil rights, voting rights, abortion rights, right to collective bargaining, freedom from fear [of rampaging law enforcement], freedom to marry who you love, private consensual sexual activity, contraception…
What definition of freedom will today’s pre-teens and teens accept a decade hence? Who, I might ask, will man the ramparts against a conservative juggernaut force until this new generation qualifies for sentinel duty? The Democratic Party? Quel Horreur! Open the gates! The sentinels currently on watch are reviewing their principles while the barbarians – the GOP – are marshaling their heavy artillery.
This sounds harsh, you say. Is it not richly deserved? Well earned? So what is it that distinguishes a generic Democratic leader from his/her Republican counterpart? For starters, attitude. Democrats’ unwillingness to suit up for battle, to meet their political adversary on equal terms, to wage war on behalf of those they want to lead. They stall, equivocate and allow perfection to impede the good; they lack political courage and political will. And they prefer to hang separately in politics and prosper individually like the GOP elites at the expense of the many, who are their base, particularly those of color. Most damning, they cling tenaciously to abstract – or outmoded – principles of civility, bipartisanship, and centrism, over party coherence, unity of message, and a plan to prevail with a tough strategy to stand up for the little guy. Stated simply, it’s ‘Well, we lost that one [presidential election, Supreme Court nominee, candidate for a competitive Senate seat, governorship]; let’s come back in two or four years and try again. How’s that book deal going? See you at the club this weekend!’ Some say the leadership of the Democratic Party lacks steel in its spine. A spine would be a good beginning.
The GOP is waging a fierce culture war within the country because they see it as a winning strategy. Their intent is to divide, challenge the very legitimacy of democracy as a governing philosophy, burn the American edifice down, and rule over the ashes. They are motivated by the pursuit of power and to exercise power, not by the preservation of democracy. Established Democrats have long been aware of this but yet maintain a strategy of unilateral political disarmament. Or benignly, play by the Queensbury Rules when confronting Republican obstructionism. That’s who we are. Imagine the level of gratification in that! Meanwhile, enthusiasm among the Democratic base wanes, voters who have been disenfranchised by a frightened GOP opt-out, and frustration mounts.
Democrats are the party of Hope, not the party of Will. Hope may propel you between paychecks, but Will pays the bills, lays the foundation for a future, strengthens the base of the party, and unites against adversaries.
How a new generation will choose to grapple with this challenge is grist for debate. Their options, however, are unlimited–including constructing a new American Phoenix from the ashes; reconstructing a representative government, saying “No!” to a minority Republican oligarchy and the feckless Democratic Party, and getting rid of the gerrymandered electoral college, and lifetime appointment of judges. Creating a real balance of powers rather than slavishly believing that a two-party system is sacrosanct and must be preserved.
And what about the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–for everyone? The Republicans use the 2nd Amendment metaphorically to assert their rights to life, liberty, and happiness at the expense of those things for us. They can carry a loaded weapon into a school, hospital, whatever, and it gets people killed. They can tear down the capitol to preserve their freedom, keeping everyone else hostage. I do not condone violence. The menu of possibilities can be as rich or as bland as a new generation imagines it to be. No less than their futures hang on their choices.
