Beyond the festivities, the burden and the inspiration

David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) offers an Independence Day twitter thread for these "times that try our souls." He's not exactly Tom Paine but his response to the Trump presidency was to write a book he called Traitor and to found the Deep State Radio Network. I've shortened the thread, edited slightly, and will chime in using italics. Rothkopf is indented here.

On this July 4, I think of all the progress the US has made & the struggles we have endured & am convinced that ultimately those who seek to undo that progress & steal that democracy for which we struggled will be defeated.

If I were writing this, I'd go a little lighter on the "progress" and a little heavier on the "struggles." He's just enough younger than I am so that our country's Vietnam aggression was childhood background noise, not the morally indefensible crime it seemed to a very slightly older cohort. Our young men were sent to suffer the moral injury of committing crimes against the Vietnamese. For nothing. Younger people have their own points of disillusionment with US wars and other crimes.

[Winning for democracy] is going to take a long time. Our system will be tested & weakened before it can be strengthened again. Indeed, we will be reminded in the years and perhaps decades ahead that the struggle for freedom is never over, that current generations will have to do their part. 

This holiday is not a time simply to look back at the accomplishments but to recognize that we are in one of the great struggles in our history

I could not agree more. I'm reading these days about the early months of the Abraham Lincoln's 1860 administration when it was not at all clear that the Union could be preserved and the rebellion of the enslaving states turned back. Preserving the country was not at all foreordained then. Or now.

One of our two major political parties, the GOP, seeks to turn back the clock & strip away essential rights we thought had been won. They are actively and, thus far successfully, trying to turn America--once again--into a minority rule nation. There is every reason to believe that their success will continue in the years immediately ahead.  

The Supreme Court majority are now extremist political agents. They are likely to continue to curtail voting rights and give unfair electoral advantages to their allies.  

To the extent Republicans in Congress regain power, they will do the same--attacking core rights of all but those of the white, rich, Christian, male elites they serve. 

Not all GOPers are elites. Many are just people who have been scared into identifying their safety and interests with those of  white, rich, Christian men. That includes some women.

They will continue to harness the power of biased, unprincipled, media outlets to inflame the grievances of a base they claim to serve--but who are actually among those they exploit most egregiously.  

They will win more elections, take more court seats, further enshrine their radical views into law. As long as Democrats seek to compromise with them, to treat them as though we were engaged in the politics of decades past, to negotiate with ourselves, to seek to "reach out" to those who refuse to hear, we will lose ground. 

What makes this struggle so difficult is that it has been engineered for decades by the opponents of democracy within our own country to look as though it were not a struggle at all, to look as though grave defeats were actually "our system at work." 

Baloney!

My optimism is based on the fact that those who believe in democracy, who reject the views of the radical right (which, we must be honest, is today virtually the entire Republican Party), are actually in the majority. Indeed, it is not even close. We are two-thirds of America.

This is true. Issue polling bears Rothkopf out. The struggle is to make our majority forces effectual and powerful. That's always the democratic (small "d") project.

Demographic change is also on our side. The white supremacist impulse of the right is a manifestation of their awareness a more diverse future is coming.  

I also believe that next generation leaders are emerging who will gradually gain more power. These leaders understand the urgency and gravity of the threat we face, that we are in fact at one of those turning points that will define what kind of nation we have... and they understand we cannot take past promises and guarantees for granted.

The sooner this new generation assumes the lead in this fight, the sooner rising generations of voters back them and turn out, the sooner the tide can be reversed. That is not to say older voices must be silenced, but those inclined to compromise and capitulate must be ignored. 

Throughout our history, strength in the face of grave threats, a refusal to meet the enemies of our democracy halfway, has guided our greatest victories, the ones we typically celebrate on Independence Day. 

We need to keep that resolve and spirit in mind as we enter the next phase of this struggle. And make no mistake, while the enemies of democracy have co-opted our system to advance their interests, they have also shown they would go farther, embrace violence, steal, cheat. ... 

Failing to hold them accountable for their crimes would be a defeat. Failing to turn out to deny them majorities in our Congress would be a defeat. Failing to call out their lies each and every time they advance them would be a defeat.

Failing to use every tool at our disposal to undo the damage they have done, reverse the unfair advantages they have given themselves, would be a defeat. And each of these defeats must be seen as every bit as resonant as those we once thought confined to battlefields. ... 

But ours cannot be a contest on a battlefield. The best of us knew that. Martin Luther King knew that. Lesbian feminist activist Barbara Deming knew that, teaching that nonviolent power can win, but only if we understand that our people may have to take most of the casualties. A hard teaching, but one that seems true.

But I have hope this July 4th, that thanks to the over-reach of our enemies and the resolve of many to call out and make clear their crimes, that we are starting to see the dangers we face for what they are.  

[S]uch an awakening along with the trends on our side will ultimately bring yet another set of victories that restore our values and our commitment to progress, to the great (if never fulfilled) aspirations that are America's greatest strength. 

I am not over-confident and none of us should be. But there are reasons to be hopefully, not the least of which is the essential spirit of the American people and the fact that we have not lost such battles before.

I agree with this framing. That's why we're going to Nevada to fight an election against Republicans alongside unionized workers. The particular NV Republicans we need to turn back are pretty dangerous specimens. This sort of campaign is not everything, but in this moment, it is one thing. 

A little more Tom Paine seems appropriate to the day: "Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered ... "