Maybe you’ve figured out that I’m a pragmatist but not a centrist. I’ve done legal work in the environmental movement, the poor people’s movement and the movement for equal rights for Blacks, gays and women. Some of that was as an attorney in the legal services system. Some of that was part of the work I did with the New York Civil Liberties Union. I care. But a country like ours is like a huge tanker – it takes a lot of time and tugs to turn it. So I’m often frustrated. This commentary is an outlet for me – to put some effort into keeping our politics moving in a decent direction. I can live with that even though things won’t change instantly.
But losing democratic government to extremists who think they’ve the right to threaten, intimidate and demand we do what they want, is not acceptable to me. They’ll destroy everything I care about. They’ve drawn on people who admire Hitler’s Nazis and their racial and religious persecution. I don’t trust them with my life. I don’t trust them with yours. I don’t trust them with the rights of Blacks, browns, women, girls, gays, the poor or working people. Guns aimed at democratic government don’t purify democracy – they end in dictatorship where everything is for the dictators and nothing for the people. I don’t trust dictators. So I can be patient with democracy but I can’t be patient with those who would tear it down so they can be the dictators’ storm-troopers, wear his emblem and rule our lives with impunity.
That’s a world where everything takes bribes and justice is irrelevant.
There are good and bad people everywhere. But does the system care? Is the system rigged so justice has no chance and any petty tyrant who doesn’t like us can beat us down. That’s dictatorship.
Democracy is a world in which we can help each other, work for justice, for so-called ordinary people, for the downtrodden. We won’t always succeed. Corporations and bad people are constantly trying to take everything they can from us – sometimes take our very lives – but democracy is the way we fight back.
Democracy is precious, the way we hold hands or put our arms around each other and do the best we can for love, justice and decency.
If you need data, democracy produces more for its people than dictatorships do. Some autocratic societies have gotten better, but their people would still rather live here because we treat people better – not always, but usually. And where we fail, there’s room to work for improvement.
When I was younger, New York political parties used to balance their tickets with a Protestant, a Catholic and a Jew, recognizing that good people worship in all kinds of places. We haven’t come close to opening all the doors for African-Americans that I’d like to see but we’ve been opening opportunities. We haven’t come close to rewarding working people for their contributions and squelched the union movement over the last fifty years though there are signs of improvement recently. Farmers and red states have asked a lot of the rest of us and get a disproportionate share of the welfare budget, not the groups they rail against. But the future in a democracy belongs to coalitions, to the groups that work together, that recognize each other’s humanity and bring everyone in the circle of care and concern. That’s what I’m for. That’s why I care about democracy.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.
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