The diagnosis is uncertain. Are we merely at one extreme of a partisan swing of the pendulum, soon to be restored by the inexorable dualism of political yin and yang? Or have we reached a more serious cusp, like that of Rome at the ascension of the Caesars, in which Republic hardens irrevocably into empire, and prepares for its final plunge into disorder, to be followed by dismemberment and absorption by Barbarian hordes? Or is the case less desperate: more akin to that of the English Civil War and the rise of Cromwell - a few decades of Puritan dictatorship to be endured, followed by a glorious restoration?
I myself subscribe to the Cromwellian model, not on the evidence per se, but rather because of my belief that British democracy -- sprung from the Magna Carta, and as such the world's oldest living exemplar - is the template of American democracy, whose early success is purely due to the British heritage of our early colonists. Two asides here: first that democracy is not readily transplantable, save in hospitable soils, and second, that the unique and remarkable genius of America over the centuries has been its ability to draw into its own vortex the immigrant heirs of no particular democratic tradition, and to spit them out transformed, as functioning members of democratic society.
Until now; and as our home-grown Puritans clamor for theocracy, and civil discord verges towards de facto revolution I search for historical parallels, analogies, and antecedents.
I believe that we are witnessing in fact a late eruption of our own Civil War, though perhaps my case for this is somewhat tortured. In making it, I wish, among other things, to reclaim (with all his flaws) the great H. L. Mencken as an oracle for the American Left. I hear the chorus of groans and `yeah, right's'. But this: Mencken covered the Scopes monkey trial in 1925, (in which a Tennessee high school teacher was convicted under a statute which forbade the teaching of the Theory of Evolution. ) William Jennings Bryan prosecuted; Clarence Darrow defended. Bryan died soon afterwards, and Mencken's obituary of him - entitled "In Memoriam WJB" - describes the culture war between fundamentalist and progressive in terms so fresh they seem to have been penned last week. Further, it implicitly locates the cultural dichotomy in a context (that of the Civil War) which is at once historical and geographical, as well as familiar to students of our red state/ blue state divide- with the North embracing science and progress, the South turning towards superstition and Biblical literalism. To me, Mencken's essay is the fulcrum upon which swings the beam connecting 1861 and 2004.
So where does this lead us? To reflection, but also to action-- and on many fronts. We must endure, for a better day, and minimize the damage on our watch. Much is being made of the need to defend the Supreme Court; but I would argue that practically in the near term, the struggle to save Social Security takes precedence.
Turning from the practical to the abstract, much has been made of Rightists' linguistic prowess in `framing' the issues favorably for their cause. I believe the larger question is: who now controls the popular day to day narrative of American History unfolding? At this point, clearly the Right - witness the theatre surrounding the funeral of Ronald Reagan, now billed as the heroic progenitor of the Conservative (so called) movement, and vanquisher of World Communism. All this , in my view, must be deconstructed. No less is at stake than the record available to future historians. The facts are on our side, but much time and a major and multi-faceted effort will be needed, which must proceed concurrently with the urgent battles which await us in the legislative and electoral trenches.
Now all of the above is posited on the assumption that we are politically, so to speak, in a straight game. But what if the game is rigged? Many dark scenarios have been posed, over the question of an election stolen by electronic voting machines. Indeed, statistical and anecdotal evidence point to discrepancies between exit polls and reported vote counts, in the two key states of Ohio and Florida. Without attempting to tease out a conclusion from this morass, one point stands out in terrific clarity: most of the voting machines in this country offer no voter- verifiable hard copy and/or audit trail; furthermore, the vote is tallied in many instances on servers which are less secure than those which administer corporate electronic mail. What is astounding here is that we have committed our vote to a mechanism which none of us would accept from an automated bank-teller machine. The wheel of a functional democracy turns upon the axle of a trustworthy voting system --accurate and tamper-proof. At present, ours is neither. If I were to recommend a single course of activism over the next two years, it would be for insuring the integrity of the 2006 mid-term elections.
The prospect is not one I had hoped for, as I navigate my sixth decade on this earth; though at the very least I shall be able say that I have fulfilled the terms of the old Chinese curse, and have lived in interesting times. But I weep for my country, and what it has become.