Celebrating Under Tyranny

In conversations with friends last week, we discussed how it was important not to let the current political moment steal our joy. There is too much that is too good about life to let politics interfere with our moments of happiness.

We were talking about Donald Trump, of course, the man dominating not only our national politics but our national consciousness. That he is doing so shows how anti-democratic he is: American politics isn’t supposed to be about a Maoist strongman who hangs over our national culture. But here we are, celebrating America at 250 with Trump’s dictatorial banners hanging over our national buildings.

New York Times.

Of course, it goes without saying that there is a lot more to celebrate in America than that wretched man. When I am with friends and neighbors this weekend, it won’t be about Donald Trump. America is more than our government or political system. America is our people and our culture. No doubt, attempts to define American culture are clumsy and necessarily incomplete, so we point to whatever works (often politically) for us: apple pie, country music, Hollywood, innovation, or whatever… Perhaps one of the things that makes America America is the vastness and indefiniteness of our culture. Whatever it is, it is not something that derives from a political system or can be changed easily by it.

Getty Images

But, nevertheless, we can’t escape thinking about politics on July 4^th because the 4^th of July is about politics.

America, more so than many (most? all?) other countries, has our national identity tied closely to a single political act. We point to a single date of our founding, not some slow unfolding process of the changing of regimes, the slow realization of rights that were removed from kings, or the marriage of different noble families. We trace our founding to a single (or chain of) political acts that led to the creation of a new system of government on a national scale. And of course, because this political act was the opening move of the birth of modern democracy, we inevitably tie what it means to be American to our democratic processes. It was the creation of democracy that, in many ways, defined America.

So, it might be inevitable that when we celebrate America’s big birthday, we can’t escape politics. And, even if I’d like to, I can’t celebrate America without thinking of the acute threat our democracy faces from the current occupant of the White House.

One can disagree on the level of extremity—after all, America’s an old country and we have a lot of would-be tyrants under the bridge now. But that doesn’t make the current tyrant any less of a problem. There’s no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy with no precedent in the lives of any American living today. Compared with Donald Trump, George III’s offenses listed in the Declaration of Independence make him seem like a relatively benign king.

Fortunately, as I’ve noted previously, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s reign of terror. In some ways, it may be seen as a testament to the strength of American democracy and civil society that, despite the extreme test he has posed, there are some signs that we are, maybe, more likely than not to come out on the other side now.

Perhaps we can take some joy in this. But we also should recognize that when we memorialize July 4th, 1776, we are celebrating the taking of risks and the fight for change. We are celebrating people who were willing to stand up and put their lives and sacred honor at risk in order to challenge a regime that was threatening their liberty. The best way to celebrate this is to use it as inspiration to take those same actions ourselves. Celebrate it by working to elect an opponent of Donald Trump to office in November; celebrate it by hitting the streets and protesting against this terrible regime; celebrate it by donating to the defense of the victims of his political purges; celebrate it by demanding that your elected leaders take actions to reform the system that brought us the tyrant of Trump in the first place.

And take joy in doing these things. Donald Trump only steals our joy if we allow him to drive us towards inaction. We’re celebrating a moment of democracy in America that shook the foundations of the world, and America can do it again by ridding ourselves of the tyrant in our midst.