our moment
We are standing at a true moment in American history, a fork in the road that will decide our future as a nation. This fork isn’t about Donald Trump, and it isn’t about the next election. It’s about something much, much deeper. For the first time ever as a nation, we are actually facing up to the fundamental principal American democracy: are all people created equal? Do all of us .. everywhere .. have the same right to equal Freedom, equal Justice, and equal Opportunity? That is what’s really going on.
We have nibbled at the concept of equality for nearly 250 years. Back in 1776, of course, we had virtually none. Wealthy white males didn’t just dominate society, it was considered normal. Women didn’t count at all. Blacks and Native Americans were considered subhuman. Being born gay was considered an aberration worthy of either prison or death, and Catholics were considered spawn of the Devil.
FILLINg a hole
The Supreme Court has spoken, and it’s going to go on speaking for a long time. But what is it really saying? That decision on gay rights isn’t really about gay rights, and the decision on affirmative action isn’t really about race. Deep down, these decisions … all of them, including Dobbs and those endless ones yet to come … are really a statement about a giant hole in this country, a spiritual hole: the lack of commonly accepted, fundamental American values. We don’t have those values written down anywhere, the basic beliefs that say who we are.
America has never had such a statement of values. Ever. For the first two hundred plus years, it didn’t matter. Nobody agreed on national values, so basically there weren’t any. Racism and injustice were ingrained in society. They were accepted. As a result, social progress was tough. It was bought very, very slowly, one agonizing issue at a time.
We have a story
We have a story that begins with with FDR, a mythical figure who was actually a very real human being, a man crippled in the prime of his life, yet who found the courage to abandon the precepts of his wealthy upbringing and work for the common good. His story is our story as Democrats: leading this nation out of a national catastrophe, then through a World War, and in the process creating the vision of a government that works for the people. That story that led to Social Security and workers rights and an end to child labor, then on to Medicaid and Medicare and voting rights and every other bit of social progress inspired by his vision. FDR’s story is indeed our story, even today, the endless struggle to keep that vision of a government of and for the people alive, and to make it work. FDR did nothing less than found our party and lay the emotional foundations for the idea of a truly just society.
WE ARE IN A MESS
We’re in a mess. Our country is in a mess, our party’s in a mess, and it’s likely to get worse next November. If we want to fix things … and we can ... then the first thing we have to do is step back and recognize what’s really going on. We’re not suffering from a failure of effort, we’re suffering from a failure of vision.
Our country is in the middle of a vast, slow-motion social revolution, a true moment in American history. We’ve had political upheaval before, economic disasters far bigger than this one, wars even, but the amount of change going on in social norms, the upheaval in the basic tenets and traditions that control our everyday lives, that has never really happened before. And it isn’t about to stop, not for a long time.