Sounds Pollyanna as hell, doesn’t it? But we are. Lucky, that is. Stay with me on this.
Look way back and way ahead, before and beyond the Bush presidency. These seven grim years we’ve spent will be the high-water mark of the Second American Revolution. Revolutions are not always good things. They can overthrow dictators, monarchs, and oligarchs as well as supplanting benign, representative governments.
You and I are integral parts of the counter-insurgency, and we didn’t have to kill anyone. The bad news is, the revolution and its sycophants have erased or obscured in many ways what makes America unique and good. The good news is, America’s "fundamentals" were so strong, this movement could only succeed with massive deception and corruption, and found its greatest allies in religious extremists – the American extremists who supercharged the movement and the Islamic extremists who gave the movement what it really lacked: the power of fear. And even that power has ebbed away to near nothingness.
America is defined by its laws and by its basic decency, by its open and largely tolerant society, and by a world history that in its majority respects is benevolent. Yes, we have had our Dark Years, and even our heroes of democracy have had their Dark Moments – the internment of Japanese Americans by FDR, the Bay of Pigs invasion by JFK and the escalation in Vietnam by LBJ. But history will equate the initials "GWB" forever with a time of American social and political tragedy that bordered on the insane. He is one of the world's most despised humans. There is much justice in that.
George The Usurper is the ultimate front man for a movement that the evidence will eventually show was one created by the wealthy and for the wealthy. The Revolution of the Rich gained traction by lying to the middle class again and again – "There is a silent majority in America"; "A rising tide lifts all boats"; "Government isn’t the answer, it’s the problem"; "Morning in America"; homilies that provided quick, easy answers to frustrated Americans, made scapegoats of the poor and which were slavishly mouthed by the insurgents who had slowly taken over the Party of Lincoln.
A Democratic President’s infidelity lifted the revolutionaries to power that they could not have seized even with the benefit of their lies and illegalities, and a tampering with the highest court in the land that dates back to this president’s father, himself a scion of the wealthy elite. The real Americans followed the rules, and we lost. The pseudo-Americans claimed their victory. We hadn’t realized the extent of the evil until the revolutionaries, blessed by their incompetence, were given the gift of 9/11.
Many plots and subplots flourished before and after that date, but in the short years after 9/11 we came as close to near-permanent, unitary rule as this country has seen since its colonial government. As extraordinarily successful as the movement was in gaining power, however, the movement was at least that extraordinarily unsuccessful in wielding it. Failure after failure cascaded down upon the heads of the movement’s public and policy leaders, all brought about by their own disdain of government that was so profound it left them unable to govern. Flush with their own successes, the revolutionaries refused advice and denied all "negatives" in the most widespread epidemic of American "groupthink" since the South’s disastrous secession from the Union. A system that had been designed to perpetuate itself was held hostage by its own "paybacks," putting loyal incompetents in charge of vital functions and critical areas of operation. Politics above policy is all well and good – until those vital functions and key decisions are needed.
The movement could only exist because its core character was flawed, as were its proponents. The functionaries of the movement were by necessity greedy, corrupt and scandalous. This was the secret of their success, but it also was inevitable that these character flaws would become exposed and doom many of the revolutionaries’ loyalists to their fall from grace. What no one could have expected was the degree to which the flawed characters included sexual hypocrisy and outright perversion (politics make for "strange bedfellows" indeed). This made a mockery of all of the banners that the revolutionaries had flown: morality, dignity, law and order, religious faith, social restraint, personal accountability.
But as the revolutionaries moved in to claim their most valued prizes, an unchecked Executive, imperialism, a controlled society, and a redistribution of American wealth to those who need it the least, it all started to fall apart. We are entering the final stages of the expulsion of the revolutionaries from power. There is some damage that cannot be undone. There is much more, however, that can be repaired, reversed and rebuilt.
There is no need to fully recount the many ways in which the Republicans are now suffering, but for posterity, they can be summarized. We have seen the religious zealots, the movement’s "emotional dynamo," admit at last that they have been duped, and are now willing to support a third party candidate that toes their line. Despite the most powerful media manipulation imaginable, global warming and the American health care crisis have become "kitchen table" issues. Few Americans can grasp the details of every scandal, but there has been a seeping realization that Republicans cannot be trusted. Stock portfolios have done well; wallets and pocketbooks have not. Corporate America is turning to the Democrats. The GOP has lost any fleeting toehold with American minorities. The party has lost America’s youth in great numbers. Independents and moderates know they are not Republicans. Even some Republicans know they are not "Republicans" – of this stripe, at least. And hanging over all of this is the most blazingly unsuccessful military incursion since Hitler turned upon the Russians.
But our rescue would not have happened without the Internet. It’s just that simple. Media and most forms of public examination had been compromised, and even the independence of the courts was starting to wobble. For all the shortcomings of our discourse, this was the only path by which we could connect, expose the lies and shine the light of truth. We were lucky that this medium existed. We were lucky that the revolutionaries rejected intellectual analysis. We were also lucky that the revolutionaries practically worship the Second Amendment, or we may have seen repression at home become open and violent – instead, the revolutionaries made innocent Iraqis pay the price, using extreme and unjustified violence to bring about the American war mindset, allowing greater manipulation by quashing all opposition as "unpatriotic."
Yes, we are worse off than we were in 2000. Yes, we have been attacked on our shores for the first time since World War II. Yes, we are not as safe. Yes, we are an international disgrace. And yes, thousands of our people have been lost, in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in New York City, in Washington, in a Pennsylvania field, and in New Orleans.
But despite the raucous criticism of the Democrats that these and similar pages contain, it is undeniable that we are taking back our country, one blog, one letter to the editor, one contribution and one vote at a time. It’s not over, it hasn’t been pretty and there are still lots of risks and uncertainties ahead. There will be setbacks. This, too, is undeniable.
But I feel better than I have in years. And when in our war of words-not-guns, you need the ultimate put-down for a dead-ender of this failing revolution, say this:
"If Lincoln were alive today, he’d be a Democrat."