[Salon] REMEMBERING DEMOCRACY’S FRAGILITY AND TREATING IT AS SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED - Guest Post by Allan Brownfeld

REMEMBERING DEMOCRACY’S FRAGILITY AND TREATING IT AS SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED BY ALLAN C. BROWNFELD ————————————————————————————————————————- Our democracy is in real trouble when candidates for public office are unable to debate issues with one another without deteriorating into name calling. When Kamala Harris was announced as the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, how did Republican candidate Donald Trump respond? He called her “real garbage.” A week earlier, he referred to President Biden as both a “fascist” and a “communist.” Without civility, democracy is unlikely to survive into the future. Our political life didn’t used to be like this. When I graduated from law school and went to work in the U.S.Senate, Republicans and Democrats did not view one another as “enemies,” as many seem to do at the present time. Remember Ronald Reagan, the Republican president, and Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, becoming good friends. Working together, Republicans and Democrats won the Cold War and advanced civil rights. It was an era when American politics worked. A common phrase in those days was the need to “disagree without being disagreeable.” During the Vietnam War, I was a member of the staff of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. I was the author of the committee’s report on the New Left and traveled around the country debating with critics of the war. In these debates, people on both sides were polite to one another. We often went out for drinks and further conversation when the debate ended. This was a highly emotional issue, but I remember no negative exchanges. In some cases I, as a young person, was even aided by my older debating opponent. In one instance, the Rev. William Sloan Coffin, the chaplain at Yale University, quietly told me that I had gotten several dates wrong in my presentation. Now, in retrospect, my views about the Vietnam War have changed. On some key issues, I now agree with the views of my debate opponents. Today, unfortunately, politicians who disagree often do so in a way which demonizes those on the other side. At a rally in Middletown, Ohio for Republican vice presidential candidate J. D. Vance on July 22, the speaker who preceded Vance was Ohio State Senator George Lang. He told the audience of an impending “civil war”if Donald Trump were to lose in November. He declared, “I believe wholeheartedly that Donald Trump and Butler County’s J.D.Vance are the Last chance to save our country. Politically, I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country.” The assault on the U.S. Capitol after Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, shows us where the unwilllingness to accept the results of a free and fair election can lead. Honorable political leaders like Vice President Mike Pence insured that the rule of law would prevail. And Attorney General Barr made clear that the election was properly conducted. What will happen if there is a similar refusal to accept the results of the 2024 election? Our country is preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our independence. No other people in the world today live under the same form of government which existed in their country 250 years ago. The Founding Fathers got something right. Earlier democracies, in Athens and Rome, lasted for a limited period of time and then faded away. That was the prediction that was made for America. So far, we have avoided fulfilling it. But some fear that time is not on our side and a number of current developments are concerning. The Founders understood some things many of our contemporaries seem to have forgotten. Brown University historian Gordon S. Wood notes that, “They put a heightened emphasis on learned and acquired values at the expense of the traditional and inherited values of blood and kinship. Contemptuous of the pretension and luxury of metropolitan England, they enthusiastically adopted the new, enlightened 18th-century ideals of gentility and public service.” Dr. Wood cites William Livingston, New Jersey’s first governor, who at the outset of the Revolution set forth prescriptions for proper enlightened behavior: “Let us abhor Superstition and Bigotry, which are like the Parents of Sloth and Slavery. Let us make war upon Ignorance and Barbarity of Manners. Let us invite the Arts and Sciences to reside amongst us. Let us encourage everything which tends to exalt and embellish our Characters. And in fine, let the love of our country be manifested by that which is the only true Manifestation of it, a patriotic soul and a public spirit.” In Dr. Wood’s view, “These prescriptions for a healthy and civilized society seem relevant today.” Discussing the decline in civility and the respect for opinions different from our own, Prof. Brian Schrag of Indiana University, in his book “Civility and Community,” provides this assessment: “Modrrn American society is marked by a high degree of mobility, a decline in voluntary civic activities and an emphasis on rights (i.e. what others owe me). The result is rootlessness and detachment from family and friends. Higher crime rates, chiefly among youth, show a strong statistical correlation with lack of self-control, moral disputes are often marked by dogmatism, the inability or unwillingness to see the moral voice behind another point of view.” In response, argues Schrag, “…the possibilities for improvement include (1) reinvigorating our civic associations, (2) developing self-control, and (3) demanding higher levels of mutual respect and tolerance in the way we speak to and treat one another.” The American society is something unique in history, though there are some who wish to transform it into just “another country.” It is based on a unique idea of limited government, with a written Constitution, dividing power among three branches of government. Uniquely, it gauranteed religious freedom to all. It is made up of men and women of every race, religious faith, and ethnic background. If you shed a drop of American blood, the author Herman Melville said in the 19th century, “you shed the blood of the whole world.” It is an extraordinary legacy, if we can keep it. But democracy is fragile and ours is being challenged, both from within and without. Will we properly rise to this challenge as we have in the past? Let us hope that we will.