“It Can Happen Here, But Not for the Reasons You Might Think” Sydney Williams
http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com
In 1935, while Nazism and Fascism swept across Europe, Sinclair Lewis published a novel, “It Can’t Happen Here.” The story was based on Huey Long, then governor of Louisiana. It tells the story of how “Buzz” Windrip, running on a populist platform and portraying himself as a champion of traditional values, defeats FDR at the Democratic convention and then goes on to win the 1936 election for President. He soon takes complete control of government and, with a paramilitary force, like that of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s, he imposes totalitarian rule.
Is Lewis’ story a lesson for today? Despite accusations from Democrats, I suspect the threat to democracy is more likely to emerge from left field. As Gerard Baker put it in Tuesday’s The Wall Street Journal, regarding Democrats’ desire to preserve political power as we head toward the mid-terms: “…the identification of the domestic opposition as a seditious enemy may be their last, best hope of salvaging something.” After a failed start to his Presidency, it is all Mr. Biden has left.
There is a natural tendency to look to the past as a guide for dealing with today and tomorrow. Professor George Santayana (1863-1952), in his 1905 book Reason in Common Sense, warned: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Wise advice, but perspective is also needed. Politics is a competitive sport, appealing to many who make it their life’s work. Power, prestige and money are on the line. It was unsurprising when outsider Donald Trump, acting as a populist and portraying himself as a patriot and champion of middle-American values, was deemed a threat to democracy. He was narcissistic and loose with facts, and he fed off the resentment of many middle-Americans toward coastal elitists who dominate Washington’s bureaucracies, especially its intelligence agencies, run universities, manage media and entertainment companies, professional sports, Wall Street and Silicon Valley. But was Trump a threat to our democratic system? I think not. Too many forces were assembled against him.
While history teaches us what did happen, it is not a fool-proof forecaster of what is to come. Evil does not always appear in the same guise or enter through the same gate. Threats to democracy can come from other directions. An (unintended?) consequence of today’s schools and colleges emphasis on pedagogy, rather than creating a foundation for students based on the classics, civics, literature and history, is that teachers, professors and administrators have actively censored conservative thought, while they have instilled left-wing propaganda. Democracy is best defended when schools and universities encourage open debate, sprinkled with skepticism while encouraging individual thought. “Blind belief in authority,” wrote Albert Einstein in a 1901 letter, “is the greatest enemy of truth.”
Ours is the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. We have lasted because diversity of opinions had been allowed in our schools, colleges and legislative bodies. We remained strong because of the founders’ emphasis on debate and restraint, rather than on mandates and self-indulgence. We became wealthy because free markets rewarded merit, rather than connections. Today, with conformity in and disagreements out, opinions that do not hew to a prescribed agenda are denied. Merit has been replaced with quotas. The use of Executive Orders has surged, with the pandemic as justification, and some Democrats want to kill the filibuster, do away with the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court and they question the Constitutional requirement that all states, regardless of size, have an equal number of U.S. Senators. In the lexicon of the woke, diversity is defined as race, ethnicity and gender. Equity refers to equivalence in outcomes, not opportunities, and inclusion means racial and gender balance.
Democrat leadership have been telling us that the Republican Party has become radicalized against democracy, yet the ramparts are well-manned against right-wing uprisings – by our Constitution, the military and mainstream media. Instead, real risks to democracy are more subtle. They stem from the growth of the administrative state, where Congress has delegated legislative powers to agencies populated with unelected bureaucrats. Risks are fueled by social media platforms that cancel the accounts of those they dislike and result from military officers who, against convention and rules, side with political parties. Risks come from open borders that let in those who come not for opportunity, but for the freebies the U.S. offers. Risks to democracy come from the erosion of individual rights and from the tribal desire to segregate people by race and gender, and from a growing dependency on the state. It is this doctrinal, religious-like allegiance to woke beliefs that threatens our democracy. And mainstream media is silent.
Democracy assumes a belief in the collective wisdom of the people, that they are capable of self-government. The United States has the most diverse population, in terms of race and ethnicities, of any country on Earth, with between 350 and 420 languages spoken. Yet, the country has been a melting pot, as millions of immigrants from myriad backgrounds who came her, learned English, assimilated, intermarried and became Americanized. They emigrated to the U.S. because of the freedom and opportunity to better themselves, not to be compartmentalized by racial, ethnic or sexual identity. While they had pride in their heritages, it was their desire to become proud citizens of the most successful country the world has ever seen that made the United States what it is. This we must preserve if we want to save our democracy. Democracy is not meant to be efficient; it is meant to be fair, to offer opportunity to those willing to make the effort and to reward merit. It is a system where character is more important than race.
President Reagan used to warn about the fragility of democracy – of how it could be lost in a generation. And that remains possible, but I believe our democracy is resilient. It has withstood difficult challenges over the course of its first 233 years – from tax rebellions in its early years, to a Civil War, bank runs, two World Wars, the Depression and an attack on its homeland by Muslim Extremists. But that does not mean we can rest on our laurels. Given the woke orthodoxy of Progressives, we must be vigilant. The foundation of our democracy is a universal liberal public-school education that is open to competition and to all opinions. Democracy demands the freedom and self-reliance of the individual, along with the acknowledgement of his God-given rights – it is a system we should cherish, must never forget and certainly not lose.
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