Blowback A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump

by Miles Taylor

A victim mentality has overcome voters since the Trump presidency, with Americans lamenting the brokenness of our politics, as if the unwelcome situation were a faultless mishap. We must be candid with ourselves. This isn’t happening to us; this is happening because of us. Our city streets are now the front lines in the war for the soul of our political system, and it won’t end without a great civic awakening.

In the end, I discovered that in politics, the real struggle is not us-versus-them. It is us-versus-us.

“If you don’t take time for yourself, Miles, your body will do it for you,” she said, “when it’s least convenient.”

I wound up face-to-face with my political idols and ended up working for some of them. The thrill wore off quickly after I saw their flaws in high definition and found myself regularly disappointed by their indecision. Washington was populated by children wearing big people clothes who also hid under their beds from bullies.

Positive memories seem to wane like sun-faded posters, while negative ones are chiseled in marble. Your brain reminds you of them again… and again… and again.

Former U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant spoke to a group of military veterans in 1875, a decade after the Union and the Confederacy fought over the future of the country. Grant offered a prophecy about what might happen if America was split in two again. The divergence wouldn’t be North versus South. “If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence,” he offered, “I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.”

Put another way, there is strength in numbers, which applies as much to courage as it does to cowardice. When we are silent about antidemocratic behavior, especially within our own political tribes, it will flourish and get costlier to oppose. When more people stand up against it, the consequences become less severe. The hard part is making people feel comfortable expressing their true opinions.