12 Years A Democracy
Oh, the week of November 8th. History remembers that day in 1923 as the "Beer Hall Putsch", Adolf Hitler's first attempt seizing supreme power over Germany with a failed coup in Munich, (he would have better luck his next time). That same week in 1532 saw shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca become the first known European to set foot in Texas, (he would not). In 2016, history remembers the American presidential election as the day of the Donald. Like those who made history in the week of November 8th before him, 'tha Donald' has the capacity to plunge the planet into a series of world wars or end up being banished from ever setting foot on the North American continent ever again.
Decries that the nation "lost its way" were deafening only eight years after Americans elected hope itself. Amazing how the road to salvation winds along the same path as destruction. Despite bloodthirsty police violence and the accompanying self-defense from repressed communities leading up to the election, despite Russia's looming yet undefined presence hanging over our electoral process like unopened text messages from your ex, despite Orlando's deathly graphic reminders of our inability to disagree without becoming violently disagreeable, it took Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida's electoral votes (again) to tell the American body politic that this nation is divided fundamentally, and quite probably, irreversibly.
America's inability to be the more perfect union is questioned primarily when a privileged group's hopes are dashed by one of this nation's infamous '-isms'. Disappointed, we scramble for clues, wondering how the nation we love, or the nation that blackballs Colin Kaepernick (no pun intended), can be the place where the POTUS has an on-again, off-again bro-mance with Grand Wizards and Russian czars. If we seem so far from the American dream, isn't it time to trust our senses? The absurd fainting by the American populace every time we find out that military contractors double-bill the Pentagon is the real crime.
There seems to be a predictable ebb and flow of late that ensures that the balance of power leans further and further away from the masses. It seems that the political turmoil and unrest created by everyday Americans that once secured the 40-hour work week or women's suffrage converts less and less into tangible returns for American citizens. The turn of 2017 saw Americans in the streets en masse again. Perturbed by 'tha Donald', citizens took to the streets to demand (momentarily) that we be heard. Yet, the same force of show needed for marches is the same show of force required to complete phone calls, secure donations, host community meetings, recruit volunteers and petition government officials toward policies that reflect democracy. Rather than sporadic outcries of dissent, democracy demands smoldering cinders of activism to motivate citizens and institutions in between organized marches. Although the Women's March, and even longer-running grassroots movements such as Black Lives Matter or Occupy Wall Street were not designed to ultimately align together to provide a critical collaborative, or "a new majority" for progressive politics, it does seem difficult to see how each could achieve political goals unilaterally when looking at the long-term.
More poignant than the possible collaboration between broader movements as a political solution is the burgoening persistence of the hardcore conservative electorate. Is anyone else surprised that the GOP thrives in a post-racial, post-modern world? After Bob Dole in '96, I made the personal calculation in high school that the GOP had fallen out of touch with the new, multi-faceted American coalition. The Joe 6-pack ballot was finally taking a backseat to the cultured and educated new American voter. However, despite constitutional amendments, the emergence of Anderson Cooper and the tens of millions of Americans who have sworn off all forms of prejudice since the 1980's, defeating the GOP seems increasingly precarious, even when Democrats have the White House. Although Hillary won the "popular vote" by 20-40 million votes according to most reports, winning the electorate eluded her. But not only at the federal level, the GOP has increased their control at state and local levels since 2008. Exiting 2016, the GOP is holding 33 of the 50 governorships nationwide and literally half of the states are living under GOP majorities at both the state and federal levels. The last two Democratic POTUS' undoubtedly, were the last two national politicians that supposedly captured the liberal-American imagination. Young, charismatic, well-spoken and hopeful, they seemed to carry with them the direction of the new America. Boasting a young, multi-gendered & racial alliance, the first two black Presidents were poised not only to gain the White House, but also set the tone for the political coalition that is the progressive majority for the new millienium.
Yet, William Jefferson Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama failed in passing their presidential torches to their successors. Not only that, from the start of their terms, these Democratic Presidents lost Democratic congresses in their first mid-term elections, Clinton in 1994 and Obama in 2010. In addition to centrist policies while in office, these presidents both abstained from setting a tone that the progressive agenda is worth defending on the ground-level. Unlike right-wing Presidents, it seems that two-term Democratic POTUS' lack a bully pulpit that generates electricity, support and authority within their base to face and win ground-level political and moral battles. When a political party attempts changing the values and politics of a nation on issues such as public education, fair wages, integration and affordable healthcare, the battleground becomes everyday places and commonplace situations. Waiting for the school bus, undoubtedly meant something more in 1954 as opposed to 1953. Presidential symbolism is a time honored tradition that speaks to a collective body. Superficially or not, there once was a time where progressive politicians spoke to their base, rallied their nerve and offered the conviction that liberals in America were on the move.
Democrats, especially, were susceptible to calls from social and cultural leaders due to the progressive insistence on traditional American values of inclusion, tolerance, justice, and progress. Such appeals were the unifying calls to distinct groups who had been institutionally denied one, if not all of such values, particularly, by members of the GOP. Thus, it does beg the question that now, in the absence of such unifying calls from Democratic political leaders, does some alignment of larger reaching social movements need to form to finally defeat the Right at the local, state and federal levels? Civil Rights leaders, in the early years of the Movement insisted on the power of moral reconciliation to awaken the sleepy American morality to democratic ideals of free labor, fair housing, self-determination, fair wages and public safety. Since abandoning moral suasion in the mid-1960's, there has not been much momentum by political or civic groups to attain political goals through a moral awakening of their political and social antagonists. Groups now look to hold representatives accountable though political pressure to ensure that their needs are met by government, not seek to change the hearts and minds of representatives. Although various social movements of the 1960's never formally aligned, their general agitations spurred legislation to pass through Washington for nearly 20 years that redressed social grievances. Ranging from the passing of the Voters' Right Act and Civil Rights Bill to Superfund, the Clean Air and Water Acts and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Congress addressed issues of race, employment, gender and the environment in response to the social agitation from various cross-sections throughout the nation.
Although the 20 years from 1950 to 1970 saw the passage of drastic and historic legislation that serves as headliners of United States history textbooks everywhere, two 2016 presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders alike, ran on the platform of "a failing system". A third candidate and the Democratic nominee for President, Hillary Clinton, ran on the slogan of "Better Together", a direct appeal for unity to a historically divided nation. Although mass media can project certain images of the new America, the political or social landscape has yet to catch up to the mythology of This Is Us and Modern Family.
In fact, it is hard to find any time in history in which this nation was close to being the more perfect union once so tragically imagined. Legislation passed within our parents' and grandparents' lifetime have fizzled so that labor standard of the "top 1% paying their fair share" sound more of a used mattress sale catch-phrase at the 4th of July liquidator's sale than the rallying cry of organized and vigilant working and middle classes. This past election cycle saw in clarity the lack of distinction between Presidential candidates. Routinely, it was plausible for candidates to excuse their own impropriety or previous limitation by connecting their plight to the transgressions of their opponent. Canvassing for the 2016 Election in Miami, FL brought me to the door of a 27-yr old voter on election day. When asked who he voted for, he recounted that he voted Democratic down-ticket save the Presidency. When questioned as to his Presidential vote, he responded that he did not vote for the Presidency. When asked why he abstained from the federal election, he responded, "neither deserved my vote." Voters have started to trust their senses that America is as far from them as they sense.
From 1864-1876, America briefly pursued its better nature, partially, but at least openly. Congressional Reconstruction serves as the brief time period by which America attempted the challenge of constructing its so-called democratic experiment through pro-action and resolve. More than superficial lip-service, Congressional Reconstruction altered Southern society not only through landmark legislation, but also through the deployment of federal soldiers throughout the South and Western territories as the essential enforcement mechanism of democratic law. The attempt to enforce law is more than a nominal distinction. Law enforcement, in this moral and political sense, is what makes Americans feel as if they are full citizens. Without the enforcement of law, Americans come to see they are not citizens, but rather the pawns of a political game that exploits them. Reconstruction saw the first and most authentic attempt for democracy in the United States, and that is saying a lot for a country who laced blankets designated for Native American families with smallpox.
Even after 100 years of political emancipation, black liberation leaders predicted in the mid-1960's that it would take a military dictatorship to ensure black political and economic freedoms throughout this country. Instead of looking ahead for such a time when the American military protected the civil liberties of Americans, we must look behind us. In the 1860's, the American government effectively blackballed Southern rebels (landowners, politicians, former Confederate officers & soldiers) who were intent on nothing but re-instituting white supremacy. Political platitudes of ingratiating rich and racist Southerners and letting those freedoms "trickle-down" to newly franchised black Americans was seen as the sham of a strategy it as always been. But sadly, and after just 10 years of relative protection for blacks, America was not interested in maintaining a pursuit towards real democracy any longer. Not surprisingly, it was another controversial presidential election, the election of 1876, that saw the legacy of Reconstruction aborted in much the same fashion as the Civil Rights and environmental legacies would be a century later.
The narrative of black political progress too often begins with the protest movements of the 20th Century. Yet the first black congressional representatives in United States history were elected throughout the South of all places in the 1860's, not the 1960's. In fact, the state of Mississippi, comprised of the largest black population this side of Africa, elected two black Senators to Congress in 1868. Mississippi has not elected two black Senators in the 152 years since Emancipation. Now, the state government enjoys a Republican super-majority and Republican governor and remains the only state in the Union still sporting the Confederate battle emblem as its state identity.
Perhaps the fact is there is no longer a common language or voice tying together the varying prongs that comprise the "liberal majority". Very rarely is there ever any discussion of tying together the disparate ends of the conservative coalition. More than most other political groups within the "melting pot", the GOP takes on a strikingly monolithic tone. And there is little questioning regarding whose identity one takes when assuming the GOP platform.
In listening to Trump on the campaign trail and also during his first 100 days of his Presidency, Trump sounds a little different than the typical Democratic model of POTUS. Trump seems to understand his people already have one identity, a unified viewpoint that he connects to by claiming that their collective identity has been ignored and downtrodden by the liberal and special-interest machine. Subtle? No. But this is politics and politics are not supposed to be subtle. Listening to his public addresses, he talks to his base intimately, rallying them with phrases they can repeat back to their political opponents in the barbershops, doctor offices and bus stops of America. Intimacy, togetherness and appeal are not the general descriptions of the personality of Trump the man, however, as a focal point leader, Trump delivers age-old cues for his supporters to exercise brashness and tenacity in reclaiming the promises abandoned by the liberal coalition. I have expressly disagreed with everything expressed by Trump and his platform. But his passion and simplicity are appeals that make the Joe-6 pack vote pop open a can and a can, I still want to hear him speak. Although horrified by his ascent, he gets how to do it. I just wished there was a Democrat who also understood how to talk to his or her progressive base. A progressive leader who was not afraid to give her base the courage to knock on doors, hold signs, register citizens to vote and persuade undecided voters of the merits liberation. We need a hero.
Maybe it is just fantasy. Maybe it is my own shamefully convenient, fairy-tale, old-fashioned, churchboy desire. But, I want a liberal hero. I want a hero so bad, that I am willing to put a curse on my daughter, changing her into a green ogre at sunset, coercing her into the dubious marriage with the toxic Prince 'Charming' just to get Jennifer Saunders to break out a rendition at the downcast blood marriage. But not just any hero, the kind of hero that calls a spade a spade. I need a Trump. It seems as if the left as forgotten that we have right on our side. Values of equality, fairness and justice that used to ring with authority now sound like whiny appeals to remind liberals to branch out and make a new friend during happy hour. Now more than ever, the question of who America will become is pressing. Trump made his claim that only he can make America great again. Liberals were left pondering if we are in fact better together by 11:30pm of election night.
The platform of justice requires that this country and her citizens simply become realistic regarding the positioning of this nation. 150+ years into Emancipation and nearly 100 years into women's suffrage and the plights of blacks and women, and most of all black women remain as precarious as ever. America often heals her wounds on the cheap, claiming victory when victims of Hurricane Katrina or No Child Left Behind no longer make the front page of the newspapers. With Trump in office until after the next summer games in Japan, America's public school system, the composition of the SCOTUS, the Affordable Care Act, Social Security and more are all issues that will be visited by this sitting president.
It is disconcerting to notice the strength of leadership only on the aopposite side of the aisle. However, it seems that what it means to be American, patriotic and loyal to one's country will be defined byterms selected by the other side as well. The liberal platform seems to be in line with truth, yet that has not stopped the liberal agenda suffering from labels of "wasteful", "idealistic", "bleeding heart" and "untimely". It seems difficult to find out how the left can deal with this, save a hero.
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