The 2024 Elections and Beyond: Americans Need a Lesson in Examining and Appyling the Lessons of History to Ourselves

There were four influential people in my life whom I credit with placing in me the desire to choose education as a career and pass along an enthusiasm for learning, and a recognition of the value that solid, excellence in academics has to the preservation and advancement of a democratic society.  Of course, my father, a World War II Naval veteran, would be one of those, along with three very influential teachers, two in high school and one college professor.  These people knew and could interpret history in such a way as to make it come alive, demonstrating its relevance to my life and showing me where I came from as a result of it.  They also had a deep loyalty to the United States of America, a strong understanding of the connection between an educated informed electorate and the preservation and strength of our constitutional democracy, and a desire to pass this along to their students.  

My father's high school and college years occurred during the period prior to the beginning of the Second World War.  He had just started his sophomore year in college when Hitler invaded Poland, and graduated in June of 1941, when he enlisted, and was training in San Diego when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  He passed along to me a wealth of experience.  Several of his own high school teachers and college professors had the foresight to realize that the generation of students they were teaching would be depended on to defend the nation, in spite of the isolationist mentality and the priorities of the depression on American politics.  He grew up with that, and experienced the war in the Pacific, under the command of Admiral Halsey.  

One of my high school history teachers had a similar experience, but as an Army veteran who experienced the Normandy invasion and fought in Europe.  The other was the son of Irish immigrants, with an unlimited appreciation for all things American, but also a very realistic perspective of American history, setting aside the idea that everything we did as a nation was right, and exposing the real truth.  He eventually was re-assigned as a result of his perspective, always a danger in this country when teaching social studies.  That was one of the things that made me want to do it.  

One of my college professors, from whom I took the bulk of the constitutional law and government classes required for majoring in social studies education, was a Palestinian immigrant who grew up as a Christian in post-war Israel, near the Syrian and Lebanese border.  Being Christian and Arabic, at that time and place, was a double whammy, with being a woman as an added disadvantage.  Working as a translator got her to a place where she was able to emigrate, she got a scholarship because of a connection between the church in which she grew up and the university in the US where she would eventually teach.  I have met few people in my life with as deep an appreciation and understanding of the idealism and vision of our founding fathers, of the freedom that we enjoy and take for granted, our history as a nation and especially the way we are seen by the oppressed people of the world.  She would know. 

So, I Said All of That to Say This...

We are living in a time where the qualities, the information, the experiences, the loyalties, even the prejudices, of these people who influenced me to become an educator in the realm of social studies, may be what saves us from ourselves in the coming years.  It's a common cliche in history classes that "those who do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it."  I don't necessarily believe that history repeats itself, but I do believe that it teaches valuable lessons which, if applied in consideration of the context in which they occurred, can prevent similar historical disaster.  

I also believe, given the destructive capacity that technology has given us since the Second World War, that there is far less room for error, with far greater consequences resulting from failure.  Human intellect has yet to find a way to eliminate the influences of human problems, specifically poverty and the inequitable distribution of wealth along lines of political power, and the prejudices and biases that lead to destruction which grow within them.  We now have the capacity to destroy enough of the world that the survival of humanity is at risk.  That's a relatively new development in human history. 

The United States has been fortunate to have had the advantage of the minds of individuals who rose to leadership and had the intelligence and ability to recognize its own internal factors which gave it just enough of an advantage to win a very narrow victory over the British monarchy.  But the momentum of that victory took another decade and a half to arrive at the constitutional democracy capable of uniting thirteen very different colonies with very different interests into a single nation.  Survival was the motive then, in a world surrounded by political powers constantly at war with each other and survival is still the motive, in a world that we thought had changed significantly after learning the lessons of the destructive Second World War and seeing the fear of nuclear holocaust, but we may not have made the kind of progress we expected.  

I hope we are still fortunate enough to be able to see the dangers to democracy that are not lurking in the shadows, but are taking the form of members of our House of Representatives, Senate, state legislatures and in the judiciary.  Our country and most of its institutions, are under ideological and philosophical attack.  It is an attack that is using democratic freedom to sustain itself, infiltrating on the coat-tails of politicians who are finding ways to create fear and then use it to deceive people into believing that their way is the right way, while attacking the freedom that allows them to do it.  

America is Not Immune to Anti-Democracy Ideology

Many of the history teachers and professors I encountered in school held the belief that our country was immune to the kind of political and social atmosphere that produced Fascism, Nazism and Marxism.  "The social ills produced by authoritarian monarchies. led by incompetent or militaristic self-interested heirs to the thrones created oppression that bred the kind of rebellion led by the likes of Mussolini, Hitler and Lenin," they said.  "We fought for our independence in 1776, and most Europeans under the totalitarians didn't have theirs," they said.  

I'd like to go back and ask any of them if they watched the evening news tonight.  In a relatively short hour, there was coverage of a civil rape assault trial of a former President whose idealism runs so close to some totalitarian European ideologies of the 1930's that it's frightening.  In addition to a Supreme Court justice who took hundreds of thousands of dollars in the form of expensive, exotic vacations from a wealthy businessman who frequently appears before him in the court, there are now other cases where conservative justices are violating ethics while refusing to enforce any ethical standard on themselves.  Three United States Senators are calling attempts to hold the justices accountable to ethics standards as a "political attack."  Apparently, they think their own constituents are bottomless in their ignorance and stupidity, to believe their lies.  

That's on top of ongoing investigations into an insurrection that attacked the Capitol and Congress, intending to subvert the Constitution and overturn a legitimate election, which was a direct attack on Democracy.  The fact that these investigations have not produced any conclusions with regard to the perpetrator, and have dragged on into a time frame that will make them moot and useless if they don't produce convictions prior to the 2024 election make me wonder just how far the ideological infection in this country has reached. And what message is being sent every day that the perpetrator walks free and continues to run for President.   

The governor of Florida is launching a direct attack on constitutional democracy and individual freedoms.  He's decided to label his stumbling Presidential campaign "anti-woke," and stand against individual rights and freedom, and against every other ideal that Americans have.  His assault on freedom has run like a blitzkrieg through the state.  Florida, after Trump's presidency, is a preview of what American fascism looks like.  Thankfully, he seems to be alienating more people than he is attracting, and there are lawsuits and protests piling up.  And hopefully, it's not a preview, but simply an unfortunate experience that leads to a surge of support for candidates who are for real democratic values. 

And there's still all kinds of discussion over the firing of Tucker Carlson at Fox News.  Now there's a news commentary that summarized every anti-American, anti-freedom, anti-democratic principle that exists.  His was a tangle of racism, sexism, misogyny, and outright hatred for which he was paid a tremendous amount of money to spew on a nightly basis, and which made me wonder whether he really believed all of his lies, conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric, or whether he spewed it because it paid so well to play that role.  His uncovered text messages would seem to indicate that he didn't really believe much of what he was saying, which makes him saying it even worse.  

Defending Democracy is Always a Challenge

Personally, I think defending and preserving our democracy will always be in the face of challenges to its existence and ability to function as it was designed to do. There is always an enemy waiting to destroy it, whether that enemy is fascism, communism, the wealthy and prosperous, unbridled nationalism or corrupted religion.  And that requires an electorate that is educated and informed, able to recognize the dangers that are being posed and have the ability and the power to eliminate the threats.  We need to recognize the threat, but we also need to be willing to fight to prevent the threats from taking our freedom.  

The power in a constitutional democracy is "we the people."  And it rests in the ballot box.  If we really care about this, we need to figure out a way to activate the large segment of our population that doesn't participate, convince them that their rights are in danger, and get them to the polls.  Voter turnout among registered Democrats in most red states in the midterms wasn't good, because all of the money and momentum goes to the battlegrounds.  We need a real surge in support.  And while I hate cliches, that will take some outside of the box thinking, some risks, and some courage.  

Trump has to fall.  It's long past time for him to suffer the consequences of his actions.  The Manhattan indictment and the E. Jean Carroll rape trial are sideshows.  It is time to bring multiple indictments for the sedition and rebellion against the United States that he committed on January 6, 2021, and for the document scandal at Mar-a-Lago.  I've heard all the excuses and all the arguments, and I also know that powerful people can do powerful things.  Trump needs to be indicted, and he needs to get a speedy trial and a quick conviction and a judge who sticks his finger in his face, and wishes him well on his way to hell.  

This, too, is the power of the people.  No more dithering and dinking around with possibilities and probabilities at the DOJ.  Garland must act now.  The indictments must rain down and the trials must be on the docket in time for the summer re-run season.  We must push for this, we must protest for it, we must demand it.  It is already beyond ridiculous that he has announced a presidential campaign while hundreds of the minions who followed his orders on January 6th are in prison or are headed there.  The news media is going to sit around, watch it happen, comment on it and let it happen.  We, the people, must use the means our democracy and constitution provide to us, staying true to our ideals, and defending our freedom before it is too late, and it is lost.