Here in the Fieldston bubble, discussing the impending apocalypse from afar, it’s generally easy to believe that decency and democracy will prevail regardless. We believe, perhaps as a means of coping, that justice will come out on top, and that despots always topple under their weight. But now, as armed extremists storm the Capitol and the President responds to their attempted coup by telling them “We love you. You’re very special,” we are left to wonder: will it work out in the end?
If there had been lingering doubt about the Trump Presidency, today confirms what he stands for: himself and the preservation of his power. Today, January 6th, 2021, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in our nation’s history. To echo Senator Chuck Schumer’s description, it was “a horrible stain on our country that will not so easily be washed away.”
Today’s events were about more than just the political partisanship that divides us into blue and red; about more than the myriad identities each of us possesses and more than the lived experiences of different communities. Today was about the tearing of America’s most basic, most guaranteed fabric: freedom and democracy. The right to peaceably assemble was corrupted by rioters attempting to invalidate the people’s will and vote.
America’s decline into fascism is becoming more than intellectual classroom fodder–it’s been made real by the political violence that has grown steadily more common leading into this year. Dangers that have long existed relatively comfortably in the realm of the hypothetical are becoming tangible, as the most terrifying ‘what-ifs’ imaginable loom ever-closer to our reality.
A fear lingers that our irreconcilable differences will soon become too vast, too extreme, for us to coexist as “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Although we wish that the statement from Senator Mitt Romney urging “colleagues to move forward with completing the electoral count, to refrain from further objections, and to unanimously affirm the legitimacy of the presidential election” could quickly restore faith in the U.S. Constitution, this feat will take time. And although we wish to believe Mitch McConnell when he says that “they try to disrupt our democracy, they failed,” we know that as a nation, the restoration of our government will, too, take time.
Today’s events struck perhaps the most savage blow to America’s reputation as a paragon of liberal democracy. Our current political climate has seduced and reduced us to the superficially satisfactory “blame game” across the board. Yet now more than ever we need to overcome the temptation to throw ourselves deeper into division and instead, take on this atrocious threat to our democracy with unity – not the unity that belongs in an ideological realm, but one that authentically brings Americans together on the necessary notion that we will prevail and preserve democracy.
Our generation is now faced with the task of healing a fractured nation in the aftermath of Trump’s polarizing presidency. A task, we might add, that is an obligation rather than a choice if we want a safe and just world for ourselves and our children. We must remain committed to restoring our democracy and to the principles of unity and freedom. As written in an email by our Head of School, Jessica Bagby, “As citizens of conscience, we will not be cowed by a lawless rabble, but are more committed than ever to knitting together our divided country and empowering [ourselves] to strengthen our democracy through [our] moral imagination and will.”
