What’s the Good of Democracy?

Our precious, beloved democratic republic is an annoying chore. I praise and treasure it, and I’m sick of it. I believe in the goods that we’re made of, not the fallen goods the subtle deceiver dangles before our eyes. The natural cosmos, the delicate and interdependent environment, the honor and hope in the people – these are good.

We’ve forgotten our inheritance and responsibility. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine. He was nicknamed “Common Sense” for his pamphlet that sparked the American Revolution. He contributed his profits from that top-selling pamphlet of its day, and he later went on to fight in that war and to rescue the faltering cause by writing “Rights of Man,” in which he posed an issue of his day that also applies to ours: We are not beholden to dead people and their documents. “Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it.” (His italics.)

Would that we would! We’re trying, but the game is rigged.

Domestic and transnational corporations now play the role of the English Monarchs. Bad to begin with, our plight was worsened by Citizens United, the Supreme Court’s decision to deliver our political campaigns over to unregulated, unreported, gigantic donations from secretive billionaires. Corporations are “persons,” and money is their “speech.” Gigantic speakers blast their narrow, selfish slogans at maximum volume during campaigns. The new sound canon weapon is emblematic of that anti-democratic ruling. Free speech is used more on us than by us.

Daily, I delete pages of emails from worthy candidates. If I send my $5 here or there, it only mushrooms. My phone chimes often during the day with similar desperate pleas. Little people like me try to fund worthy persons and causes, only to be overtaken by the Elon Musks and Peter Thiels of the world. They can toss off mere chump change from their astonishing wealth, overwhelming the millions of small donations that would otherwise do so.

No matter how much money such people have, they want more. They easily invest in the Republican Party, and the investment pays off. Witness this rush to war in the oil states. Waste oil to steal oil to burn oil to create the global overheating that will need oil. Electrification of transportation in the U.S. has declined, despite growing adoption elsewhere. Our car makers will stall, left behind with their stranded assets. We’ll pay for this fossil fuel folly for generations.

It’s as though wealthy conservatives read “1984” and Machiavelli’s advice to the Prince and used them as guidebooks. They have no empathy or compassion; they mock both.

I’ll share here five cartoons by Kuper (in The Week), each a four-panel ominous prophecy:

That second-to-last one is especially ominous, for we here on the West Coast didn’t have a winter last winter. There is hardly any snow on the mountains to feed the soil and waterways. The world’s climate is warming faster than scientists warned. Unusual fires rage around the planet. Heat deaths are on the rise. Whole communities went up in flames recently, and the danger is magnified this summer. Meanwhile, Trump, true to his financiers from the fossil fuel industry, attacks and forestalls the free, endlessly renewable, clean, economical energy of solar, wind, and electric vehicles, the very mechanisms that could help rescue us from this transhistorical, transnational global warming predicament. He mocks them, calls it all a big hoax, and snickers at our danger and plight.

Are these cartoons funny, or prophetic? Just as we got some meager relief from the out-of-control war in Vietnam by watching “MASH,” so do we recently get both news and relief from the comedians such as Steven Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and John Oliver. We get out-of-the-way commentary from Bill Jubran, Politics Girl, Erika Jordan, and Olivia Swing, far more informative and honest than anything on network TV. But we who see these truth-telling jesters don’t realize how many others never encounter such views.

On the way home from Ashland’s excellent recent No Kings Protest (all of the following photos were taken at that event), I ran into a boy on a bike who countered the protest. He said, “Bill Clinton was in the Epstein Files,” and “Protesters are traitors.” I asked him if his parents held the same views. He said he didn’t know, and that he does his own “research” by watching Fox News. He parrotted their talking points. He had no idea of earlier rounds of fascism and how their key tactic is to own the news.

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr summed up recent takeovers of the 4th Estate. “Look at the results, so far,” Carr told CPAC. “PBS defunded,” he bragged. “NPR defunded. Joy Reid gone from MSNBC. Sleepy-Eyed Chuck Todd gone. Jim Acosta gone. John Dickerson gone. Stephen] Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN is gonna have new ownership as well.” The little bit of news we had left is being undermined and owned by the wealthy. They’re out to own all the news, everything we see and hear. They’ll supply the thoughts we use to think with. The so-called Fake News has capitulated or been bought out by Even Faker News.

The daily insults and assaults on our democratic republic caught us with our pants down. Or rather, the Epstein Files do that for our leaders, even though we don’t get to see what they did because most of it is redacted or unreleased. We do get to see strangers blown up from afar, boats exploded, buildings brought down, graves by the hundreds, and talking heads taking up most of the news hour, justifying it all.

Eight million Americans spent their Saturday protesting. Face the Nation gave them 10 seconds.

We’re left with our oft-defeated hopes turned into worn cynicism. We need to revalue the makings of democracy – freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, journalism, decent politicians, and an independent judiciary are all the workings of a healthy democracy.

Voting is the minimal thing we do as citizens. It usually matters not much at all. Most voters are gerrymandered into for-sure voting areas. Because our Representatives represent only their voters, they can ignore all those who voted otherwise. It’s a win/lose game. No state is entirely red or blue. Losers have no representation. The founders worried that political parties would lead to contentious factions. Indeed, this is what we have. Some toy with civil war.

We shouldn’t be ruled by those who lived in the 18th Century. The balance of interests in the House, Senate, Presidency, and Courts has served us well in keeping us going, but where now? Couldn’t we adopt Ranked-Choice Voting, or voting based on a party’s share of the vote, rather than winner-take-all? Couldn’t we require that all campaign donations above $1,000 be disclosed in the contest they are in while it is happening? The lock-hold of white men and the merchant class of Thomas Paine’s day needn’t obligate us. It is as he wrote, each age should rule for itself.

Here in little Ashland, it was as with thousands of protests in huge cities and the smallest towns, Family Values were on display:

I was proud to see the youth join the protest. One young girl redefined MAGA:

Even grandmas had a say:

Read it right to left or up to down, it comes to the same thing.

Besides the double lie of calling his social media platform Truth Social, Trump is out to ridicule and dismantle DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the very foundation of the goodness our America was founded to accomplish. What is the “woke” he rails against?

Liberals aspire to woke values. What do liberals want? What do they do?

Who else promoted woke values?

“In the least of these, there you will find me also,” he said.

Woke is the current aspect of The Enlightenment, in which our humanistic, secular country (meaning freedom of religion and freedom from it) was founded to secure. Yet Trump and Hegseth would mock and insult that empathy and inclusion. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump were to dismiss Simone Biles as a “diversity hire.”

Is it America First or America Fist?

Eight million (at least; more at home) expressed their rage and courage:

Two expressions of patriotism (photo from an earlier No Kings Protest):

Because of what TRUMP has come to mean:

The profits of the munition makers and fossil fuel giants are soaring. The richest of the rich have manipulated our self-run government to pay less in taxes than the bulk of the people just trying to get by. The violent ones who attacked our government on January 6th have been pardoned. They’re off to new offenses. The FBI that would have monitored them is an empty shell assigned to redact the Epstein Files instead. The sex and money scandals are so wild that we have to suspect Trump is a puppet of Putin and Netanyahu.

These are again the times that try our souls. Will we live up to our responsibility and opportunity as citizens? It involves far more than mere voting.