HONORING THE PAST. MEETING THE MOMENT. BUILDING THE FUTURE.
The Oakland County (Michigan) Democratic Party holds its annual fundraiser, the Phil Hart Dinner, tonight. The theme of the dinner is Honoring the Past. Meeting the Moment. Building the Future. That theme calls to mind the Democratic Creed.
Imagine if the featured speaker at this dinner gave a speech along these lines….
First Jefferson, then Lincoln, then FDR … and now it us.
Honoring the Past
It was 250 years ago that democracy took a breath here and a new nation was born. Born of democratic thinking, a government of, by and for free people.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the words that founded democracy in America. But it didn’t end there. Because years later, Abraham Lincoln stood strong against the anti-democratic forces that could have split us in two. We survived. The Union survived. The idea of Freedom survived.
Less than seventy years later, FDR stepped up. Like Jefferson and Lincoln before him, FDR believed that government should be for the people. And he invented a new mission: government serving the people by providing for the people.
Jefferson. Lincoln. Roosevelt. They all did their part. Whose turn is next?
Meeting the Moment
Jefferson was in an historic moment - he and the other colonial revolutionaries were taking a stand against one of the biggest powers on Earth, with a mighty military on land and sea. Jefferson met that moment - and brought the 2nd Continental Congress with him - by creating a radical new purpose of government - to equally protect the individual’s God-given rights. And Jefferson made clear that, if a government that failed in that purpose, it should be altered or abolished, and replaced with a government that worked for the people.
Lincoln was in an historic moment - testing whether this nation or any nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal can long endure. Lincoln met the moment, saw it to its successful end, and gave his life for it. But his radical proposition that government is of the people, by the people and importantly for the people lives on.
Roosevelt was in an historic moment - a national economic crisis that spread across the country and across the world. A people suffering under economic collapse. It was a depression not of the economy alone but of the spirit. Roosevelt returned to the true purpose of government in democracy - to serve the people. His New Deal was a radical change in government’s duty - to care for the people, to provide for them what private power, wealth, and greed robbed the people of. Roosevelt met the moment.
What is our moment? How are we meeting it?
Building the Future
Jefferson. Lincoln. Roosevelt. Each one of these took a radical stance when the time called for it. They did the impossible.
That was only possible because each of them was driven by a vision beyond themselves and the moment they were in. They built for the future. And we have been living out their visions our whole lives. We’ve taken their vision as our reality - taken it for granted, because it seems so obvious. We expect and demand what Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt hoped for, dreamed of - their radical visions are our expectations.
What is our radical vision? What is the future we’re building?
This is a hypothetical “speech”, inspired by the theme "Honoring the Past. Meeting the Moment. Building the Future”. Kudos to the Oakland County Democratic Party for selecting this motivating and compelling theme.
