Giving Thanks for Our Democracy
Thanksgiving, A Day to Step Back and Count our Blessings
We want to take this opportunity to give thanks for our country. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving public agencies.
Today, we celebrate Thanksgiving, the quintessential American holiday. We take stock of our many blessings, our family, friendships, health and beloved places. Some of us are less fortunate than others, but all of us—at least to some degree—benefit from the good fortune of living here. There are many places—Afghanistan, Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen, to name a few—where such blessings are scarce.
So, today, we should cherish not covet. The writer Kurt Vonnegut depicted this best in a story about his friend Joseph Heller. At a billionaire’s party they graced, Vonnegut asked Heller, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?”
Heller wisely replied, “I’ve got something he can never have, …, the knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
In America, we occasionally fail to fully appreciate our blessings until they are gone. Our loved ones. Our homes. Our health. Our youth. Our memories. Sadly, this failing also applies to our democracy.
Consider Donald Trump’s sad decline. The deteriorating mental health. The escalating narcissism. The dwindling public appearances (except for the courtroom). The incoherent ramblings on Truth Social. The exhausting lies. The pitiful cries of victimhood. The increasingly ugly taunts.
More alarmingly, Trump has devolved from his trademark authoritarianism and demagogy to full blown fascism. His rants display no more grasp of—or interest in—substantive policy issues than he exhibited as President. However, unlike any national figure since Father Coughlin or Ezra Pound, the expected Republican presidential nominee has condemned the very pillars of our democracy.
The 2024 presidential election will provide an imperfect stage for debating many issues—like abortion, healthcare, inflation and war. Some politicians and media will try to distract us with phony issues. Most experts will waste our time with shallow analyses and false equivalencies. But there will be one issue—the survival of democracy—that will dwarf all others.
The threat posed by Trump to democracy is unmistakable. He has promised to “cast out” his opponents, “rout the Fake News Media” and “root out … the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country." He has even referred to the 2024 election as “our final battle.” On that score, he may be right. If he wins, 2024 could indeed be our last meaningful presidential election.
There are over 11 months to the 2024 election, but the polls should gravely concern everyone who reveres our Constitution. In the face of his many indictments and trials, Trump is running away with the GOP nomination. Worse, due to voter concerns about Biden’s age and widespread ignorance of our post-Trump progress, the general election looks like a toss-up. As The Economist has observed, just one misstep by Biden could “determine the outcome of the race, and … the fate of the world.”
A second Trump term will be more disciplined and destructive than the first. Dissent will be quashed. Political opponents will be silenced or jailed. Professional civil servants will be replaced with sycophants. Our global alliances and standing will be decimated. Our democratic institutions, including the courts, will be emasculated. Democracy survived Trump’s first term (a close call), but it will not survive his second.
Democracies face many threats. Demagogues, after all, don’t win in a vacuum. To illustrate, there is often a strong correlation between their popularity and economic crisis, witness Argentina’s recent election. In the absence of a solid culture of respectful disagreement, demagogues can sow division and upend a democracy. As Eisenhower once wrote, “in a democracy debate is the breath of life.”
Another threat is voter ignorance. Uninformed (or ill-informed) voters are highly susceptible to the siren song of demagogues. President Eisenhower, who knew something about fascism, posited that dictators gain power by promising voters “freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning … complex and difficult questions.” That, in a nutshell, is Trump’s allure—simple (and wildly impractical) solutions to complex problems.
Voter ignorance has many causes, but one is a refusal to heed the past. To some degree, we all prefer good tidings. However, when an entire society chooses to ignore inconvenient facts, its ability to solve problems is severely compromised. When state lawmakers seek to ban books or facts that aren’t aligned with their ideology, they are engaging in cancel culture that will weaken our democracy.
The December 2023 issue of The Atlantic includes a thoughtful essay entitled, Why is America Afraid of Black History? Written by Lonnie Bunch III, the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the essay discusses the emancipation-era Freedmen’s Bureau. It highlights the power of the Bureau’s records to shine a light on the struggles and resilience of enslaved people.
The article’s overarching message speaks to all Americans. As Bunch writes, “One can tell a great deal about a country by what it chooses to remember [and] even more by what [it] chooses to forget.” In other words, for those who love America, it makes no sense to “fear a history that asks [our] country to live up to its highest ideals.” Rather, loving our nation means expecting it to be better.
As we gather across America today to celebrate Thanksgiving, we will no doubt express our gratitude for the people we love most. Let us also remember to thank those who help us honor our “highest ideals.” The parents who put their children on the right path. The friends and neighbors who disagree respectfully. The teachers and librarians who trust us with the truth. The public servants and volunteers who serve us. The citizens who think for themselves and fight for our democracy every day.
This is one Thanksgiving on which we cannot afford to take our democracy for granted. In fact, this may be the last Thanksgiving on which we can still celebrate America’s long-standing devotion to democracy.