My Turn: Can we keep it?
Published: 09-07-2024 10:56 AM |
Mike Pelchat lives in Webster. He is a retired pharmacist and history student.
On Sept. 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia voted to approve the new constitution. Upon leaving the final meeting, one of the delegates, Ben Franklin was asked by a young woman, “Well Dr. Franklin, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
His response is well-known, “a republic, if you can keep it.” Franklin’s response was a plea, a warning and a statement of fact. In a government formed, in Lincoln’s words, of, by and for the people, it is up to the people to sustain it. Being a citizen of a republic is not a spectator sport, it requires its citizens to be engaged and gives them the ultimate responsibility of holding office holders to account, even ex-presidents.
In 1831, a young French nobleman, Alexis de Tocqueville, traveled to the United States and spent 9 months traveling throughout the country. Upon his return to France, he put his observations on America on paper and published Democracy in America. He was impressed by much of what he saw but he raised some concerns. He noted the obsession Americans had with commerce and worried about the effects of that obsession. Too great a love of commerce could lead to a too great a love for comfort. He wrote, “Love of comfort has become the dominant national taste.”
History has shown de Tocqueville to be correct. Our obsession with commerce has only grown until it has overshadowed everything, including what we see as what is right and what is wrong. We have grown comfortable and complacent. As a society, we are less willing to look beyond our own personal comforts at the bigger picture. Too many Americans are willing to let others do the work of living in a democracy. The price of gas or a pound of bacon has become more important than sustaining the form of government that has made the comforts we enjoy today possible.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said of Jan. 6 and the threat posed to our democracy, not to worry, our institutions held. They did, this time, but only because people in those institutions said no; that there was no fraud and the election was valid; and that they will not break the law to change the outcome.
But what about the next time? We have endured four years of endless lies about the legitimacy of the last presidential election and as a new election nears, the specter of fraud and stolen elections is being raised again. In the face of that onslaught, can they hold again?
Institutions are composed of people and the checks on excess power only function if the people making up those institutions choose to make them work. They are not automatic. We have seen in the last 50 or so years a Congress either unable or unwilling to exercise its check on excess executive power. An increasingly partisan Supreme Court calls into question whether they can ever render a judgment involving presidential power impartially and based on the law. In the states, election deniers have been put in positions to supervise elections and legislatures in some states have merely become rubber stamps for their Republican governors. Will our institutions hold again? I am not so sure they will.
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For the moment, at least, we still have a republic and, in a republic, the people are sovereign. If the institutions in place cannot be counted on to discharge their duty, that duty falls to us. We have to do the work a democracy demands of its citizens and decide what is truly important. Unlike some nations, we in the United States have had the luxury for most of our history to vote based on the issues. For this election, we no longer have that luxury. In the face of the many threats to our republican form of government, everything else pales in comparison. The only issue in this election that matters is this: do we or do we not think a democratic republic is worth keeping? A history professor once told me we can’t get “IT” wrong because of the economy. Get this “IT” right and everything else will take care of itself.
Supporting a deeply flawed candidate with known autocratic tendencies for some perceived economic benefit is foolish and shortsighted, if not dangerous. America’s history has been marked by repeated economic peaks and valleys. A president’s policies may have some impact on those peaks and valleys but whatever impact they have is reversible. You only choose an autocrat once, after that, your approval is neither needed nor sought. Too many Americans today are fine with this autocrat because he looks like them, sounds like them and thinks like them. However, the next one or the one after that may not look like them or sound like them or think like them. And then what?
Franklin had one more thing to say on that September day. He had spent the summer gazing at an image carved on the chair occupied by George Washington. The image was that of a half sun and Franklin could not decide whether it depicted a rising or a setting sun. As the convention closed, Franklin had his answer, “I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”
On election day we will have our chance to determine whether our republic’s sun is still rising or has begun to set. We can choose the dystopian vision, the one consisting of hate, fear and anger, obsessed with conspiracy theories and infatuated by a would-be strongman. Vote that way and the shadows of that setting sun will eclipse our democracy, perhaps for good. Or we can vote the other way, with the belief that our republic is worth cherishing and sustaining and, like Franklin, we can say our republic’s sun will continue to rise.