Dana Blankenhorn

Imaginary Crisis

One thing I have learned reading American history is that every generation feels it’s in an existential crisis.

Usually, they’re right.

In the Founders’ generation, John Adams passed a Sedition Law against Thomas Jefferson and his supporters. Then James Madison, the “father of the Constitution,” lost a war and saw his Capitol burned. America was only saved by Bonaparte’s downfall, which caused Great Britain to lose interest in us.

Jackson Democrats saw Whigs as oligarchs, looking to destroy the poor for the benefit of a few. The death of Whig President W.H. Harrison in 1841 destroyed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s faith in democracy. Abraham Lincoln was a Whig, then 1 in every 50 Americans died during the Civil War, which was nearly lost.

March for Democracy

There is a way to make what I wrote about yesterday real.

March for it.

The King family got us rolling with this. Yesterday’s March for Voting Rights needs to grow in intensity, from now through the November election, everywhere across the country. In blue states, purple states, in the very reddest states.

Marching on behalf of causes is a common political tactic. Its results are proven over time. The problem is that it’s often done haphazardly. It’s not done consistently, strategically, with a definite aim in mind.

This year, democracy is the aim. Marching is how you make it a cause and, ultimately, the wedge issue that destroys the fascist right. (If at this point you want to pretend the fascist streak in today’s Republican Party is just cosplaying, or politics as usual, here’s your hood.)

Securing Democracy

“In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

 – Martin Luther King Jr.

This King Day, I’m angrier at Democrats than at Republicans. Millions share my frustration.

The Democratic Party made a mistake in 2021. They assumed democracy could be secured by elites. That’s not the case. It’s the people who secure democracy. No one else can do it for us. By pretending otherwise, Democrats from Joe Biden down did us all a tremendous disservice.

King Day 2021 was a celebration. It was assumed then that Democrats controlled the Congress and the White House. It was assumed that whatever Republicans tried, Democrats could checkmate it. It was assumed then that democracy had won.