Democracy is an eleventh-hour phenomenon. It is an action, not a thing, and it occurs always at the edge of civic catastrophe.
To be worthy of the name, democracy is inclusive. That means even those who detest it – calculating authoritarians and economic opportunists – can always claim a part in the action. Worse, they have the advantage. The rules don’t apply to them. To the despot, a lie that seeks to get or keep authority is not a lie. In fact, it can appear to the villain as a moral imperative.
And so, in America, egalitarian democrats are always at risk. The U.S. Constitution was meant to empower us. But we must be ever-vigilant defenders of democracy and sometimes a stubborn Resistance. We should remain proud and hopeful because, so far, we’ve saved America from a permanent authoritarianism. Tough as today’s fight for universal health care is, we are in the fight. In fact, we are a handful of votes away from winning the fight. That was unthinkable not so long ago.
A politically overheated imagination, however, can easily warp its struggles with the true perils of democracy into something like Captain Willard’s passage up the River Nung in Apocalypse Now. We see frightening visions in the mist rising from the inky river’s surface. The monster Kurtz waits somewhere up ahead in the night. Courage seems quaint. Something more manic is called for. The struggle for the light turns dark, when it’s the engagement itself that should create the light. Such a trip even gave the actor pretending to be Willard, Martin Sheen, a heart attack.
Life at the eleventh hour is hard, another reason the totalitarian temptation survives. Humans want stability and calm. Wouldn’t it be easier to just do what we’re told, especially if the only real demands are to shut up and watch television?
Danger is not doom, and confronting menace with eyes wide open doesn’t necessarily require a 24/7 adrenaline high. In fact, democracy’s enemies try to create the fatigue and demoralization such physical abuse produces.
Democracy requires thinking, and urgent calls to action can often be translated, “No time to think. Just act.” There are such pressing times, of course. Now is one of them. But no soldier can fight at the front for the full duration of a war. Battle fatigue is probably why the army of activists who helped elect President Obama appears less engaged in the monumental fight over health care. Don’t misunderstand. Many progressive activists are engaged (with FDL helping lead the charge). We’re gaining ground, too, despite the efforts of the Right, with its millions of dollars from the insurance industry.
I confess that it is hard sometimes for a writer like myself to resist the allure of alarmist rhetoric. Evolution made us alert to danger, and cries of danger command attention, and attention to our ideas is a fond hope of every writer. Early warnings of mortal danger can enhance the appearance of wisdom, too, though most cries of apocalypse prove the very opposite. We could, perhaps, avoid the temptation if we’d remember that Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H out-earned Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now at the American box office.
The frenetic pace of our lives makes it seem like every moment is a tipping point. Failure to recognize that the time is nigh could mean lost opportunity or certain defeat. Isn’t this the message strategy of the car salesman, trained to keep the customer on the lot until a sale is closed? Haven’t we all felt, deeply, the anxiety of being pushed to act before we’ve had time to think? Democracy can’t bear it. Democracy needs thought.
But if democracy is always in danger, when then is it okay to take a break from its defense? Well, never. That is the bind we find ourselves in.
One solution, of course, would be to finally win some distance from the precipice, though I see no possibility of that. The abyss, I think, will always remain in the geography of democracy.
We’ll get the rest we need if we’ll just pause and recognize that we need it. As I said, danger is not doom, and it is always better approached with calm than with panic. Attention to our colleagues is also important. Reinforcement, relief and moral support are crucial. We also help when we resist too frequent cries of danger. Such calls wear us out, and they drive away some who simply can’t handle the news of danger any longer.
The lion sleeps, and so does its prey, and the fragile gazelle lives on an edge of a disaster every bit as real as democracy’s. Neither creature, of course, can dream of apocalypse, a nightmare reserved for the species that can actually create the last catastrophe. All the more reason to get some rest.
