The Dialectic of American Democracy
We are not as great as we believe, nor as consistently evil either: the ebb and flow of history shows we have been both
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Note: I am writing this piece the day before what may be the most consequential Presidential election since 1860. While there have been populist and nativist movements in this country throughout its history- and even a populist President, Andrew Jackson- this is the first time a large minority encompassing nearly half the population is willing to vote for an aspiring autocrat. Donald Trump has already been President- a poor one, at that- and it is incomprehensible that he has a possibility of being returned to office. Our history shows that at inflection points, in times of crisis, the American people have managed to preserve the republic with decisive leadership and a mobilized populace. As the 19th Century French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his opus Democracy in America, “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults”.
Another opportunity to do so is at hand.
American national identity is premised on the belief we are the greatest country in the world. It is a self-image drawn from our economic and military power conflated with the foundational myth of a society organized on the lofty ideas of individual liberty and self-government. Myths play an important part in binding groups together. They tell the stories that underpin belief systems like religion (Moses and the Ten Commandments or Joseph Smith and the Angel Moroni), political ideologies, and even prosaic groups such as fans of entertainers or sports teams. The American Myth canonizes the Founding Fathers and bestows reverence on the Constitution. It tells us that we began as a great nation in 1789 and have since become greater. It is an uplifting story, one that makes us proud.
Except that there are holes in the story, gaping holes. The nascent republic based on the idea that ‘all men are created equal” did not extend ‘God-given unalienable rights’ to the 18 percent of the population who came here as slaves1. Since they were black Africans and the source of cheap labor, it was a convenient rationale to treat them as property rather than persons. The native Americans who occupied the continent before the Europeans arrived were faced with waves of immigrants with a rapacious desire to “settle” the vast lands. Describing the natives as ‘savages’ led to a near genocide.2 Then there is the matter of women’s suffrage: It took 132 years from the drafting of the Constitution until the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. For over half the nation’s existence, power was held by white men.
The post-Civil War Reconstruction is the prime example of the stumbling progress the country continues to make to live up to the ideas- or at least the words- upon which it was founded. The 1865-1877 period was marked by the end of slavery and the extension of rights to freed blacks via the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. But the end of the military occupation of the former Confederate states brought the revanchist Jim Crow era, the political dominance in the South by whites, and the relegation of black Americans in those states to something less than second-class citizenship. The consequence of that period persists in the stain of racism coursing through American society.
There are other examples of what America has gotten wrong and struggled to correct. Yet, despite our flaws, the accomplishments of our often-messy democracy have made the United States the most powerful nation in the world. Given the nation‘s good fortune to be situated on a continent bounded by two great oceans and blessed with abundant natural resources, it has indeed been the land of opportunity, a nation that in its youth, was a vibrant society, a place of possibility.
The 20th Century became the American Century. The US first flexed its muscles by defeating the Spanish at the end of the 19th Century and saving Europe from itself in the First World War. We survived the Great Depression in time to ensure Allied victory in World War II because our industrial output far surpassed that of our enemies, permitting us to arm our allies as well as ourselves. In the post-war era, we led the way in establishing the liberal world order to avoid future violent conflicts. As the world’s greatest power and most enduring democracy, we won the Cold War as the Soviet Union collapsed and broke apart. America was, in Ronald Reagan’s words, “the shining city on the hill”.
We were very smug about American ascendency as we entered the new millennium, but ignored the realities of America’s recent past: the turmoil brought on in the 1960s by the civil rights movement and the unpopularity of the Vietnam War, the reactionary efforts of the conservative movement to undo the changes wrought by FDR’s New Deal policies, and an economy that was trending toward inequality in income and wealth. In the first decade of this century, deregulation showed its ugly side when the near-toral collapse of the financial sector led to the Great Recession of 2008. Cynical forces worked to discredit government and succeeded in 2016 in electing the most unqualified person ever to be President. Donald Trump’s mishandling of the Covid pandemic was another example of the importance of effective political leadership.
So we find ourselves once again at the crossroads, a place where we the people once again have our say about which path we should take. There will be time in the future to debate and implement reforms to our sclerotic political system. But now we should ask ourselves if we still have the ability to repair our faults.
Beginning tomorrow, we will learn the answer.
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While there is no precise data on the number of natives before the 1890 census, estimates put the number at approximately 600,000 in 1800. Only 250,000 Native Americans remained in 1890. Source: Russell Thornton, (1990). American Indian holocaust and survival: a population history since 1492.
Actually the sentiment of America being the prime nation on earth came after World War 2. The facts of our location, potential military and economic statuses, and insult that we could be sneak attacked led to it over the war years.
In 1789, there was no guarantee that the 13 Confederation states could hang together; quite the contrary, it was an assemblage of independent American entities without a foundational document of importance. That's why the Constitutional Convention was called by revolutionary leaders, to facilitate commerce and cooperation among struggling independent states.
Nor was the Constitution guaranteed of passage. As its presentation stalled in the states, the population demanded individual rights against the power of the proposed government; hence, a Bill of Rights was hastily assembled; the two documents as a unit were approved, with the admonition by Ben Franklin, that it presented one form of democracy, 'if you can keep it'. Imbedded in it we founding flaws.
James Madison, prime architect of the new 'nation', shepherded approval despite second class status for everyone but propertied white men. No blacks or women as voters, changed after Civil War killed 600,000 citizens and women gained the vote generations later. Even black citizenship was a joke until the 1960's Civil Rights Acts. Blacks were hardly involved in WW2. American Indians per se are still massively oppressed.
So the notion of the 'greatest' came after America saved the world from German, Italian and Japanese militarism and government and the world viewed America, founder of the global United Nations organization, as it's leader. Now we are threatened in that quaint notion from within and without.
Latent bigotry and concomitant hatred derived from ignorance and personal weakness of certain citizens found voices in the late last century with communist backing in David Duke and white supremacists in Dixie after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, ladders for black ascendancy. With feminism emerging around that time, men felt demeaned and started voicing their objections to women and anything else (remember the Birchites opposing fluoride in the water?) they didn't like. Others felt impoverished as 'isolationists' and 'survivalists' and oppressed by government as'posse comitatus' believers. Some hated government dominance of education where 'everybody had to pass' weighed down schools with an impossible goal to meet. Some like Newt Gingrich wanted to shrink government and stop the tax drain on paychecks. Others saw commies everywhere subverting the nation. In sum the white men who started the government in 1789 we resurrected in Proud Boys, III Percenters, Oath Keepers and other hate groups determined to discard government above the county level, deregulate everything, don the cloak of homophobia, rig elections to negate their minority status, revere strong men dictators, lie about everything good and decent ala "1984" text, reject media intrusion into anything and everything via ubiquitous social media, attack science as in global warming and pandemic containment, and attack many more roadblocks to individual ascendancy in their minds.
So in effect a small minority of white men with sycophants want America to revert to antebellum racism, 18th century neighbor oppression, women's suppression and squelch 'progressive achievements' to reestablish a banana republic, resume isolationism, revert to autocratic rule and assert individual and States rights. It's a nightmare in the face of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea plus radical religious foreigners whose leaders all want to suppress America. Saving grace, I believe: there's more of us than them who revere our ascendance and like our ubiquitous presence on the world stage.