Friends, this is not a popular view even among Democrats, but I still think it's true. We went through a period around World War I when the possibility of real autocracy came to the fore, with the Espionage Act, etc. And for decades after the shameful compromise that ended Reconstruction we had a whole section of our country that was, in effect, an authoritarian state. But the turn to authoritarianism, towards legitimization of oligarchic control, towards the complete institutionalization of the disenfranchisement of much of the population, began with Ronald Reagan, and grew steadily worse under Republican and even Democratic administrations ever since. Biden represented a fairly strong attempt at reform, but the re-election of Trump has solidified a historical trend: the end of democracy in our country. Can we restore it? Yes, of course. Look at Argentina and Chile. But it will not happen without major sacrifice, and without far, far more courage and willingness to stand up and say No! than I see in our country right now.
I still believe in the principles, and the great strength, of our small-r republican ideals. We must make reforms to ensure that they continue. But first and foremost, we must win over the hearts and minds of more of us, and we must be willing to stand up, to tell those who would just presume our compliance that we will not cooperate, we will not obey in advance, we will not follow orders that violate our Constitution and our conscience, even at great cost to ourselves. We must have the courage of our convictions, and really mean it. I hope it will be enough, but I am not sure. Please think long and hard about these things before you, as we all want to do, just "hunker down" and hope for the end of these dark times.
I admit that it is easy for me to say this. I am not a teacher who might lose his job if he says that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, no matter what the autocrats say. That the Constitution does not give the power to the president to make laws or wage war. That releasing people who committed violence in an insurrection is an obvious abuse of the pardon power never intended by the framers of the Constitution. I am not a policeman being asked to commit illegal acts against our own people. I can just stay in my house and try to stay healthy and well. But we all must at the very least speak truth to power.
Benjamin Franklin told someone that the 1789 convention had given us a republic, if we could keep it. Now we are the final test of whether we can, or not. Courage.
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