“…What
if we replace our allegiance to freedom with an allegiance to some version of
national identity, of a fictionalized shared heritage, or an official national
religion? What if we become a one party state, with a muted and cowed press,
left with the formal procedures of democracy but little else? What obstacles
will face those of us who seek to make America great again?
“We
have grown accustomed to hyper-incarceration as a solution to our social
problems. This is dangerous in a country that has only ever known what W.E.B.
Du Bois called our ‘two systems of justice,’ one for our white citizens, and
the other for our black citizens. When the president-elect randomly tweets,
apropos nothing that burning the flag should lead to loss of citizenship, or a
term in prison, he is signaling that it is
the second system of justice that awaits those who dissent.
“Both
previous administrations have defended an all-powerful security apparatus and
severe punishment for its whistleblowers. In the face of legal protest, our
police don the garments of our military. Too many members of the
political class in the UK and USA have profited mightily from power. While it has not
been to the extent of the world’s most notable authoritarians, it has been
notable enough to ward off future alarm bells that should be headed. Charges of
dynastic succession will ring hollow when it is recalled that in this election,
the ‘smart money’ pit the son and brother of two former presidents against the
wife of another.
“Suspicion
of the press has mutated into the loss of truth; we lack a common reality. But
when truth is gone, the press can no longer defend itself against charges of
bias. Our deliberative bodies have long since collapsed, our representatives
locked in combat, not cooperation. Politicians have placed
fealty to Christian values explicitly
over democratic ones, and have been rewarded for it at the ballot box. With
this background, it is understandable that many Americans are sympathetic to
the view that all politics is struggle between groups, with the façade of
cooperation or honesty being only propaganda used to mask that reality.
Convincing American citizens that the values of liberal democracy are not mere
masks for political struggle between groups is the largest challenge we face.
“Illiberal
nationalist parties have swept to power, or its doorstep, in healthy and
prosperous European liberal democracies. Judging by Hungary and Poland, such
parties have no incentive to be fair to their critics. Nor we should not expect
them to be. Fairness is a liberal value. Illiberal nationalists view politics
through the prism of war, and the legal system as a weapon.
“Plato
predicted that democracy would end by the hand of a demagogue who stoked the
fuel of the resentments caused by freedom’s disturbances of the ground of
tradition. Faced with an enemy for whom political disagreement is war, the
struggle to retain our liberal freedoms will be hard. We must resist the
temptation to adopt their ethic; it is no way to defend our own. But the window
of liberal democracy is closing, and the time for
its vigorous defense is now.”
For
the complete article, click here.
Jason
Stanley
is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the
author of How Propaganda Works.
