A recruiting poster in Britain during World War I depicted a father in a comfortable chair with his daughter on his lap, as she asked him an uncomfortable question. She held a history textbook and said, “Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?” Her father cast a shameful look, unable to look his daughter in the face.
Americans will soon face similar questions. What did you do when Trumpism discarded democracy for an authoritarian state? What did you do when American values were cashed in for tax cuts for billionaires as inflation and gas prices spiked and when American citizens and those desperately trying to become Americans were terrorized and killed?
As a journalist, I had never seen such government abuse. But journalism rose to the challenge. Solid, courageous journalism revealed more about President Trump than perhaps any previous president and documented his assaults on the U.S. Constitution, including freedom of speech.
But I felt the next critical defense of American democracy wouldn’t be through the press and couldn’t be through the political system in which both major parties failed us. Defending democracy isn’t partisan. I didn’t see this Constitutional crisis as Republican vs. Democrat. It was Trump vs. America.
The next great defender of American democracy must be through the resounding voices and actions of Americans. So, last year I found my new path to resistance. I left journalism after 44 years to concentrate on services and activism.
What I sought was a way to contribute more. What I found was inspiration.
After I retired from my full-time journalism job, I volunteered to teach English to immigrants. I find that these immigrants embody American values of freedom and humanitarianism that too many native-born Americans have allowed to slip away.
Next, I joined a local chapter of Indivisible. The group and its 2,000 chapters nationwide organized three peaceful No Kings rallies over the last two years to fight President Trump’s march toward dictatorship.
Among activists I met have been young mothers worried about what kind of country awaited their kids. I marched with grandparents who realized they are still much-needed role models. I protested with seniors who marched against the Vietnam War 50 years ago, and then answered the call again. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder with veterans who saw that Trump’s America is not what they fought for. And I met college students motivated by stories of a more humane America that once tried to help lead the world as a force for good, instead of bullying backed up by the lives of service men and women.
And it’s working.
These protesters refused to behave like “good Germans” who let fascists destroy democracy in 1930s Germany for hollow promises.
Today, the protesters don’t all agree on issues like abortion, global trade or crime. Those debates can wait. Right now, they are united in defending their country.
Indivisible members sweated through the August heat outside Albany International Airport. They shivered in the biting cold this long winter on street corners from Glens Falls to Glenville. At every event, they were buoyed by support blasted from automobile horns and carloads of thumbs up, which far outnumbered the profanities and menacingly revved engines of unrepentant opponents.
Years from now, however, those dwindling number of Trump acolytes will be forced to a reckoning. It will come not from activists, but from their own children and grandchildren when they learn in history class about this American crossroads.
And the children may well ask, “What did you do in the war?”
Michael Gormley is a retired journalist who covered state government and politics for The Associated Press as capitol editor and for Newsday. He covered the 2016 presidential election in the South, Midwest, California, New York and in New England. He also worked for the Times Union in Albany and other newspapers in New York state.
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