Faith, Democracy & Disbelief

 

Morality is doing what is right when you are told it is wrong; Religion is doing what you are told, when it is wrong. 

--H.L. Mencken

When you think about it, democracy is a leap of faith. 

It is a major leap of faith. 

When kings ruled the world, governance depended only on the power of the sword. The kings' henchmen came around with their horses and swords and told you how much of your harvest they were going to take. Simple formula. We have the power, you have something of value, and we will take what we wish from you.

You did not have to believe in anything much, except that they were stronger.

When the English started electing representatives to parliament, something new got introduced: votes got counted and tallied and the public got told of the results.  Maybe the first elections were not secret ballots. Maybe people lined up and stood by the representatives of their choice. 

But once the concept of "secret" ballot got introduced, tallying votes, by its secretive nature, became something you could justifiably doubt.

There is a lot about American life which more or less demands faith. I order something online: I give my credit card number and my credit card company has faith I'll pay them and I have faith the item will be sent. I order furniture, pay for it, wholly or in part, and await its delivery. I have faith the merchant will send the rug. He has faith the credit card company will pay him. The credit card company has faith I will pay them.

Oh, of course, there are legal remedies for breach of faith, but the only people who win there are the lawyers.

So we do a lot on faith, every day, in this country.

When Donald Trump won in 2016, I was sure in some part of my soul, that the big fix was in, that he had stolen the election with computers.

When he lost in 2020, Trumpists were sure of the big steal.

Now, we have Trumplings routinely running for office saying, right out of the gates, if they do not win, they will not accept the results, because, surely nobody but them can win any election. And any vote against them is by definition, fraudulent. It's all part of the "Big Steal."

Even during the Civil War, in 1864, there was an election by secret ballot. In some cases soldiers could vote from the battlefield, but some states required they return home to vote, which must have caused all sorts of problems, but they did and they gave Lincoln the election. But the vote was not dismissed as a big lie. Americans, in the midst of a Civil War, when all sorts of basic notions were questioned, accepted the results as the true reflection of the voters.

But do we have a republic any more, even now, before the midterms, if half the electorate accepts the premise that no vote is trustworthy, that the Democrats will cheat and steal any election?

Mad Dog would have to answer, tentatively, "No."

Which is to say, we have already lost our republic; we just haven't realized it yet. 

That lover who just went out the door will never come back. You think, "Oh, we've broken up before. She'll be back." But no, not this time. What we had is truly, sincerely, seriously dead.

Lincoln said the Civil War was about slavery, of course, but even beyond  that crucial issue was a more fundamental problem: the war tested whether any government "of the people, by the people, for the people" could continue to exist or would perish from the earth. 

America was the first republic since Rome.  Monarchists said people could not govern themselves, that the people needed a powerful leader to keep order and guide governance. The Civil War ended and the American Experiment seemed to have been saved. 

But, always, lurking there, were the words enshrined in the musical, "Hamilton" from King George III: "You'll be back." Which is to say, people cannot govern themselves. They'll fall to fighting amongst themselves. They'll clamor for a king eventually.

We thought he had proved King George wrong, but nothing on earth is fixed and beyond the winds of change. The 231 years of the American experiment has been a remarkable, if brief,  run, an interregnum. For 1,000 years before America there was no democracy or republic of any significance and democracies have often failed--as the Weimar Republic in Germany did. America has been the exception.

And one might argue the only reason the American republic lasted as long as it did was because it was a fake democracy, denying power to any racial group but whites, ensuring that only an upper crust of society actually had control of the economy and the political structure. It was a democracy of inequality, where the powerful subjugated the less powerful. So it was a monarchy without an anointed king. It still had a ruling class.

But now the barbarians are inside the city. They are not at the gates. They are among us. They are the losers in this inequitable society, the Sarah Palins, the resentful throngs who mob Trump rallies, the folks for whom no evidence is ever needed, only faith, only the statement: The election was stolen, no proof required. They believe they are as smart and worthy as any of the Soros class who rule them, but they have been cheated and that's why they lost the game and live in trailer parks, or have no better options than the Army or the police and most other options are a lot worse than that. 

The Republic is dead. Long live President-for-life Trump, and then, his successor, his Brutus,  DeSantis.