Saving Democracy: Our Opportunity Amidst Crisis

The Chinese symbol for crisis is identical to its symbol for opportunity, and we would do well to remember that while we look at what is happening in Congress these days.

The crisis is that we came within a hair last week of turning the U.S. House of Representatives over to fascists.

I’ll get to the opportunity part in a minute, but first let’s look at the disaster we barely escaped.

First, it is not hyperbole to say fascists almost took over the House.  Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, came within a handful of votes of being elected speaker of the House, and Jordan is both the attack dog and lap dog for Donald Trump – Trump, who openly reveals himself daily to be a fascist (although he calls himself a Republican).  I detailed all the proof for that in last week’s posting (The Hitler-Trump Connections, 10/16/23).

(Just to make sure we’re on the same page here, when I refer to fascists, or neo-Nazis, I’m thinking Webster’s definition of fascism: “an authoritarian system of government under absolute control of a single dictator, allowing no political opposition, forcibly suppressing dissent, and rigidly controlling most industrial and economic activities.”)

If Trump is a fascist, so is Jordan.  Jordan is closer to Trump than just being his attack dog and lap dog; he was a key ally in Trump’s felonious effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.  And he defied  a subpoena during Congress’ investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.  He also is one of the founders of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, the group that’s mucking up Congress right now.

So if Jordan had been elected House speaker, Congress would be under the control of fascists now, led by Trump, and Jordan would be second in line to become president.

The question is, what is happening in our society that has allowed fascism to incubate and grow in plain sight ?  And what can we do about it?

Michiko Kakutani, the Pulitzer Prize winner and longtime Book Review editor of The New York Times, did a deep dive into that subject for her book “The Death of Truth,” and came up with several reasons.

One reason is that some people want our democracy to fail and fascism to take over.

Another is that some people just don’t care.

Yet another is  that many people are being fooled, and, as P.T. Barnum made millions by understanding, many people do not mind being fooled as long as they are entertained.

But a major reason is that we are worn down by the never-ending avalanche.  We’re fatigued by fatigue. Making matters worse, dictators and would-be dictators know that and they use it.

Adolf Hitler, Trump’s favorite mentor, knew the value of wearing people down.  Hitler wrote: “Who cares whether they like us or insult us, treating us as fools or criminals?  The point is they talk about us and constantly think about us.”

Lenin understood the need “to disrupt the existing order of things” and “thus make room for the penetration” of new doctrines.

And Hannah Arndt, who examined the essential role that propaganda played in driving popular acceptance of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, concluded that “in an ever-changing, incomprehensible world, the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.”

It’s hard to miss the connections with today’s would-be dictators, isn’t it?

So although the bad news is that democracy lovers surrendered to fatigue and stopped paying attention, stopped voting, and thus almost turned the House leadership over to a neo-Nazi, the good news is that word “almost”.  It almost happened.  But it didn’t.  Democracy won that important round and is still in control.  It’s true that we barely won it, and democracy is a little shaky at the moment, but we did win it and we are in control.

More good news:  Jim Jordan’s failure is also Donald Trump’s failure.  Trump badly wanted the flame-throwing Jordan to become speaker, so Jordan’s defeat indicates Republicans’ fear of Trump is weakening, and thus so is his hold on them.

But here’s our opportunity.  Maybe we can use this near-disaster to shock our sleeping allies into realizing how important it is that fascists almost took over the House of Representatives while they slept, and that fascism is a very real here-and-now in-our-face threat.  Maybe that new understanding will jolt them into doing something about it.

The ultimate “doing something”, of course, will be to vote.  The only way we can save our democracy is by using it, and the numbers show that if we have a large turnout of voters across the nation on Election Day we will win.  But only if we vote in great numbers can we overcome the system that is so unfairly stacked against us, such as the Republicans’ strong campaign to keep people who don’t look like them from voting, the Electoral College, and the Republicans’ starkly gerrymandered voting districts.  If we vote in large numbers we can send the fascists packing.  So voting in large numbers next year will be an absolute must.

But that’s next year.  We need to do something now so that we will be ready when next year arrives.  Each of us who feels this way can use this time to talk it up with our friends and make sure everyone in our sphere understands how important voting will be and get them involved.  We all need to think of something we can do and do it.

Every county’s Democratic Party headquarters needs volunteers to make phone calls, cover the desk, deliver pamphlets, stuff envelopes, handle other jobs.  On Election Day they need volunteers to drive people without transportation to the polls.

We can offer to help a favorite candidate, donate money if we’re able, write letters to the editor, use whatever talents we have in imaginative ways.  But whatever we do, each of us must do something.

And we will end this nightmare.