This is who we are

December 21, 2024

Those of us decrying the end of the American republic (and we’ve always been the numerical majority) can take comfort in the knowledge that that republic had not been around for very long. The United States might be approaching 250 years old, but the “republic for which it stands,” the one for which the majority of us believe that “all men (and women) are created equal and possess the “rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” has been around – and only episodically so – for maybe 90 or so of those years.

Walk with me a while. Let’s start with the fact that the Founding Constitution, the one with all the supposed nobility of The Enlightenment and the elegance of its checks and balances essentially enshrined slavery as God’s Plan. As late as 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court was ruling a black man was not even a man. (Let’s not even mention where women were on the judicial radar at that time.) The American republic, as defined above, began with the so-called Reconstruction Amendments immediately following the Civil War and lasted all of ten years before the forces of repression ended it and ushered in slavery by another name, otherwise known as Jim Crow. (Since women had never had or gained any rights during this period, you could argue cheerfully they never lost any.)

And then there was the Progressive Era. I won’t attempt to quantify its life the way a trained historian could. Let’s say it lasted from the open immigration and early labor movement years of the 1880s until (with some regressive hiccups, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1925) 1965 and the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. That’s it folks: 10 years of Reconstruction and 80 years of progressive legislation, including that of the New Deal, is all we have to show for that sanctimonious declaration that all men (and women) are equal and enjoy equal rights. The other 160 years have been devoted to relentless and eventual successful assaults on basic human freedoms scurrilously defined as a fight for “liberty.” The last fifteen years in particular have been a slow, relentless and – mostly – quiet and now successful coup by the powerful, moneyed minority that has always sought to restore a form of the old Confederacy. It’s going to be about more than just monuments to the heroes of slavery this time around.

This is who we are.

Some months ago, I wrote about my seventy-five years on this earth and the great fortune I had in being alive for what those years have spanned. Now, however, I feel blessed for being 75 and not being around for much of what the future is sure to bring.

Oh I know, it won’t last forever. Just like all republics have come and gone, fascist dictatorships tend to have an even shorter lifespan. But by the look of things in the Supreme Court alone, I won’t be around for the end of this American version of fascism. But my grandchildren and great grandchildren no doubt will be. And they’ll be the ones standing on the Capitol steps waving rainbow flags, Black Lives Matter and My Body My Choice signs while singing all the old Negro Spirituals. Hopefully, White Nationalism will have ended once and for all.

Just not in my lifetime.

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