I recently saw Robert Reich’s film, The Last Class, and was totally engaged throughout the 72 minutes I was in the theatre. Part of this was because the film talked about issues at the center of my life now and in the past, on education, retirement, and aging, on equality, democracy, and freedom. He asked questions that reached right inside my mind and heart. Less than a year ago we had an election where only 34% of voters thought democracy was the primary concern. And although many recognized DT as a threat to democracy, how many of us truly believed he would immediately act to strip our constitutional rights and protections from us?
He asked, “who are the teachers,” and “who are the leaders?” Or maybe who will be the teachers and leaders? Who will awaken generations to the necessity to stand up for others, for equality, for our environment, for our right to an honest and evocative public education? And who will the leaders be? Especially, who will lead us with courage, sincerity, and compassion? We assume leaders need to have the backing of formal institutions. But Reich pointed out that some of the most striking and powerful had no formal position. Think of Mahatma Gandhi, and Rev. Martin Luther King.
In a democracy, all of us play both roles. We’re teachers not just in the classroom and in the home, but in the streets, the workplace, the playground. We teach by the example of our actions and character. And we also lead by example, as well as through what and how we speak, what we do and how we do it.
To live in a democracy is a demanding endeavor. It requires that “we the people” take responsibility for what the government does in our name and supposedly in our interest. In 5th Century Athens, possibly the first democracy, all citizens (which only included free men) were legally required to participate in government decision-making and could be fined if they did not. But it has taken me a good part of my life and DT’s threats to the nation to realize just how demanding it should be. For many years, too many of us took democracy for granted. We were selfish and didn’t want to take time from our personal lives to give to the collective. When I was younger, many of us thought of the government as a foreign body we had to resist. We didn’t realize how much we could lose by non-participation.
A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
Democracy and self-government require we treat our life as citizens as a sort of continuing education or practice, and government as an extension of ourselves, not just a biannual obligation. Self-governance means governing our voices, our votes, our actions, our thoughts, to deeply and comprehensively understand our world. And doing this as a practice means we do it kindly, mindfully aware of how governing fits in the totality of our lives. This is too easily forgotten. And DT, in his own despicable way, is doing all he can to undermine any belief that government is us and exists to serve and protect us.
Maybe this is why some people voted for a president who said he’d be a ruler more than a leader; a dictator, who promised to take our voice, our formal power away from any of us who might speak out against him. There are certainly times when we don’t want to decide; when we want a strong leader or wish someone would just do it for us. Or when an issue is just too complicated for us to figure out. When we feel like that, we also imagine that whoever decides for us would have our interest in mind, and care about us.
But DT doesn’t care about us. He was very clear that he wanted us to be powerless minions, followers, not equals. He wanted job slaves with no rights and protections as workers. He told us his actions would be motivated by spite, hate, and taking revenge on those who prosecuted him in the past and who oppose his taking absolute power in the present. He told us he would not be restrained by the laws and practices of our nation⎼ that he would not be restrained by the constitution.
There are times when we feel freedom means being unrestrained, not physically imprisoned or imprisoned by fear. And this is important but there’s more to it. Frithjof Bergman, one of my philosophy professors in college, pointed out we often think freedom means a lack of restraint and having endless choices. We have so many choices in our lives. But what if we had thousands of choices but none mattered to us⎼ would we feel free? Or what if we had only one choice, but it was deeply important? Is it the number of choices, or the meaning of them? Bergman said we feel free when we have choices that matter to us, that have real meaning.
And lack of restraint is too often a cover for lack of self-governance. Hate and grievance are a way of pushing others⎼ and our responsibility to them⎼ from our mind. This can easily be another sort of prison.
So, how could anyone in a democracy support a would-be dictator who, for example, thinks of the mission of the DOJ as serving not the constitution, not the national interest, but his own personal interest? Who uses fear to shut up any person or news media that opposes him or reveals his lies? If he’s a dictator, then only his voice matters.
DT does not care about our well-being, or the well-being of any of us who do not serve or support him. But Democracy is about care. It is about self-governance, which means not only voting but reaching down to the core, to the reality of what we face, so we can better understand our world and how to be caring actors in it. That we make informed, empathetic, and well-reasoned choices.
And what could be more responsible, freer and more meaningful, than protecting and getting out the vote in the next election, and removing DT’s unquestioning adherents from power?
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