Historical Overview of the Fight for an American Democracy

One of the problems of living in a democracy is that it’s easy to get comfortable and compla­cent with the freedoms we en­joy. It’s easy to think that those freedoms will always be there. If you’ve ever had an opportu­nity to travel to a country con­trolled by a dictator you may be familiar with the vibe of repres­sion that exists in such places, the presence of heavily armed security police patrolling the streets, the tendency of people to go quickly about their busi­ness and not gather in groups. Folks who live under a repres­sive regime don’t have the lux­ury of complacency. Fear and an abundance of caution are more common to their experi­ence.

Many Americans may not think about the fact that the real story of America is that we have had to repeatedly fight to keep the Republic that Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders established back in 1787. Each of those little “rev­olutions” have moved us closer to the ideals our founding.

When the French and Indian War ended back in 1763, Amer­ican colonists, for the most part, were glad to be part of the British Empire. Along came the Stamp Act thirteen years later and the colonists severed that connection to England to establish a nation where they began to hammer out that elu­sive and, in the beginning, ill formed idea that all men are created equal. We commonly think of this as The American Revolution.

In 1853, the Presidency, the Senate and the Supreme Court were controlled by elite South­ern slaveholders who rejected the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Their vision, because of their wealth and their arrogance, was to rule the country and create a global economy based on human en­slavement. Then, along came Abraham Lincoln who called for “a rebirth of freedom” and for government “of the people, by the people and for the peo­ple”. Americans said “no” to the Southern elites and “yes” to Lincoln’s vision. Historians consider this to be the second American revolution.

The “Gilded Age” was a pe­riod in American history when the government was so en­twined with big business that the exploitation of workers was commonplace. The extremely wealthy enjoyed the freedom that comes with vast, unregu­lated fortunes, while the work­ing class and their children faced horrifically unsafe work­ing conditions, long hours, starvation wages, violence if they protested and little hope of being able to make a life for themselves beyond their station. The corruption and ex­ploitation of this era came to an end in 1929 with the Stock Market crash. In response, the voting public ushered in a new era by electing Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised a New Deal for the American people by regulating business, promoting infrastructure, pro­viding a social safety net and working to protect civil rights.

There are many other exam­ples of little revolutions with­in our country. The Women’s Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, The Amer­ican Indian Movement and rights for Disabled Americans and for LGBTQ Americans have all been about extending the rights of full citizenship to people who have been pre­viously excluded from those blessings.

We are living in a time where, once again, there are those outside our government who wish to impose their will on our lives. Like England during the colonial era and the Rob­ber Barons of the Gilded Age, they are not elected by “we the people”. They operate behind the scenes to enact an agenda of self enrichment and domina­tion. Their motivations are al­ways at odds with the concepts of democracy and the idea of government by, for and of the people. They seek to limit the right to freely determine one’s identity and would circumvent the concept of equality be­fore the law. The real story of America is that in such times, the people, regular folks like us, have stood up and chosen the path of expanding democ­racy.

As historian Heather Cox Richardson said recently, “Ev­ery time we expand democra­cy, it seems we get compla­cent, thinking it’s a done deal. We forget that democracy is a process and that it’s never fin­ished.”

The past eight years have been especially turbulent with foreign interference in our pol­itics, the pandemic, impeach­ment trials, mud slinging and name calling, an attempted insurrection and an attempted assassination.

One Presidential candidate, at 81 years of age, chose to pass the torch to his Vice President. The other candidate recently told an audience at a Turning Point USA event that “It will all be fixed in four years and you won’t have to vote again.” Ap­parently, someone doesn’t un­derstand that a government by, for and of the people requires that we vote on a regular basis. Be that as it may, the truth is that the torch has been passed to “us regular folks” because we determine what comes next. Are we, like those who came before us, going to sup­port an expanding democracy that moves closer to fulfilling the promise of America, or are we going to choose something less?