Eight lessons to carry forward from 2023
We are approaching the end of another year of insurrection. Remember, January 6th was just one day. The MAGA crowd has never stopped trying to tear us down. 2023 will be remembered as the year the GOP House majority elevated an unrepentant election denier, the architect of the legal strategy to disenfranchise voters in swing states, to be its Speaker. It will be remembered as the year the GOP base opted not to disqualify the repeatedly indicted Mr. Trump, for saying that he will build concentration camps, fill the government with willing attack dogs, and use that government to punish his enemies. Instead, Republicans chose to make him their front runner. It will also be remembered this way: Just as Lincoln did during the Civil War, President Biden has had to deal with insurrection and govern simultaneously. It was a year that saw the ordinary Americans take up the fight for our democracy, organize, and win.
Reflecting on the year, I think there are lessons we can learn.
1. Don’t panic. We’ve done this before. There are always people, usually people with power, who want us to believe humans are inherently unequal, and that their group is always supposed to be in charge. British monarchy in the 1700s. The slave power in the 1800s. Corporate robber barons in the 1900s. And now, a MAGA movement aligned with big polluters and a particular brand of Christian nationalism. The particulars are new. The threat is old.
2. Our real history is more powerful than their fake history. Since 1776, Americans have fought to realize the idea that each of us is as important as any other, and that together we can determine our own destiny. That’s the arc of our history. Experts in fascism teach us that the ones who don’t believe that all of us are created equal always try to foist a dishonest historical narrative upon the rest of us. That narrative is always the same: some people are inferior to others, and a few get to make choices for the rest. In this false narrative, the social order flows from cultural heritage and religion. Today’s MAGA crowd is trying to sell us the latest version of this rubbish. Just look at their efforts to re-shape school curricula, to ban books, and to politicize schools by adopting courses from places like PragerU, Bob Jones University Press, and Hillsdale College. So long as we remember our real history rather than their fake one, we are less vulnerable to authoritarian power grabs.
3. The present is better than the past. The next time a young person says they are living in the worst time, ask them to live without their phone for a few days. Or the internet. Today, more Americans are working, more have health care, and more have access to education than ever before. For nearly two generations, our economy has favored the wealthiest over the rest of us, but now, during the Biden Administration, and especially when Democrats controlled Congress, the biases are finally being addressed.
4. None of our progress in our country came easily. You think it was easy for women to get the vote? Or to end slavery? Or to enfranchise the formerly enslaved? Do you think it was easy to create the 5-day work week and establish minimum wages? It was not easy. The folks on the wrong side of all these issues were Americans too. Our task has always been hard because the biggest obstacles we overcome are the ones we create ourselves.
5. You are more powerful than you think. When you start to melt down over a bad poll, ask yourself what you owe to the people who fought for and won the freedoms you now enjoy. Ask yourself what you owe the people who will come later. Look in the mirror: you will see someone just as capable as earlier Americans of pushing back against the powers that have always tried to drag us down.
6. Setbacks are irrelevant. Are you going to work less hard because of a bad poll? Are you going to slack off because of a good one? They don’t matter.
7. Americans are inspiring. Yes, a good portion of us has fallen into the MAGA trap. Yet when MAGA tried to take over school boards, the great majority of Americans stopped them. When they tried to steal the election, again, the majority stopped them. When MAGA leaders desperately try to paint America as worse off than it once was, Americans keep moving us forward. We came out of COVID with the strongest economy in the world, and we are transforming it to be greener and to reward workers in ways we haven't seen in generations.
8. Look forward with optimism. Americans want to clean up the workings of the government to make it more responsive and less corrupt. We are eager to restore to women the right to make their own reproductive decisions. We expect to reward work and workers, not just money and investors. We demand an end to the arms race on our streets. We are determined to tackle climate change. We see, just ahead, the most inclusive democracy the world has ever seen. The MAGA crowd cannot help us achieve any of these things; they are out of step with our aspirations just as they are out of step with our history, which is where we will soon find them.