The Dream

“But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.” — MLK

***

When it comes to democracy, it’s essential to recognize that democracy is a goal that the U.S. has never fully attained — that it is a work in progress. Those overly fond of paying homage to the “Founding Fathers” are celebrating a group of wealthy 18th-century oligarchs who denied women the vote and posited that enslaved black Americans would be classified as only 3/5ths of a person.

Nearly 250 years after the republic’s launch, thanks almost entirely to organizing efforts by women’s groups, civil rights advocates, labor unions and human rights organizations, we are substantially closer to an actual democratic society than they were in 1776.

But progress toward that goal has always faced opposition from entrenched groups of citizens determined to protect the inequalities baked into the Constitution, as if they were the word of God. It’s worth emphasizing that they are not the words of God but the words of a group of aristocrats, albeit relatively high-minded ones. 

The dialectic between forward progress and backsliding has defined the historical rhythm of our quest for a truly representative democracy.

Unfortunately, at the present moment we are in a reactionary period. It isn’t the first and it won’t be the last. Donald Trump has risen to power by relentlessly exploiting our society’s ancient flaws — internalized sexism and racism — that still animate one large segment of the population.

And although the immediate issues behind Trump’s electoral victory were the inflation triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and fear of immigrants trying to escape oppressive conditions in their home countries, the underlying forces propelling him to power are the suppression of the rights of women and minority groups.

In other words, the fatal flaws in the vision of the Founding Fathers.

That is the explicit meaning of Trump’s slogan to make America great again. The question has always been, great for whom? And the answer is, for rich guys.

Martin Luther King, Jr. would have recognized this moment for what it is. His words quoted at the top of this essay were uttered on the eve of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. He was there to help lead a demonstration by the local black citizens to obtain their rights denied by a racist city administration. (As it happens, I was there too, as a young journalist covering that demonstration.)

Half a century later, during the first Trump administration, it was no coincidence that the Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupted nor that Trump’s inauguration was greeted by one of the largest women’s rights march in history.

These upheavals were the inevitable reactions to his ascension to power, and if history is our guide, there will be similar uprisings from the broad swath of the population opposed to Trump’s narrow vision of who matters in the years to come.

What can be stated with certainty is that our progress toward democracy, while facing a temporary setback today, will inevitably resume tomorrow, because that ultimately is what the American Dream is all about.

“I have a dream today.” — MLK

Recommended book: An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by Charles A. Beard (1913). Beard contends that the Constitutional Convention was attended by, and the Constitution was therefore written by, a "cohesive" elite seeking to protect its personal property (especially federal bonds) and economic standing. Beard examined the occupations and property holdings of the members of the convention from tax and census records, contemporaneous news accounts, and biographical sources, demonstrating the degree to which each stood to benefit from various Constitutional provisions. Beard pointed out, for example, that George Washington was the wealthiest landowner in the country, and had provided significant funding towards the American Revolution. — Wikipedia