How Did We Get to This Moment of Backward Momentum in the US?

Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. often preached that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Change, he asserted, takes a long time, but if we stay committed for the long-haul, we can bring it about.

I add an amendment to King’s noble arc of justice by imagining this as a coil, like the old slinky toy laid out on its side. I see moral progress revolving like this coil stretched out, advancing up and forward, then circling down and back, though not as far back as it began, until it starts its upward forward motion once again.

Unfortunately, at certain moments in history, the noble arc or coil seems only to retreat and back up many cycles upon itself until most if not all of the previous forward movement has become undone.

Within the past 125 years or so, we have witnessed or learned of this ultimate retreat in which the relative liberal democracies of, for example, Italy, Spain, Germany, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Hungary, Turkey, and other countries have devolved into fascist or communist totalitarian dictatorships.

One day, when I was very young, I sat upon maternal grandfather Simon (Shimon) Mahler’s knee. Looking down urgently, but with deep affection, he said to me, “Varn,” (through his distinctive Polish accent, he always pronounced my name “Varn”), “you are named after my father, Wolf Mahler, who was killed by the Nazis along with many of my 13 brothers and sisters.”

When I asked why they were killed, he responded simply, “Because they were Jews.” Those words have reverberated in my mind, haunting me ever since.

Simon and three of his sisters left their home of Krosno, Poland bound for New York, leaving the remainder of his family behind. Already in this country there was one brother, David Mahler. They had hoped to earn enough money to bring the remaining family to the United States one day.

Simon heard the news of the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland while sitting in the kitchen of his home in Brooklyn, New York. He was so infuriated, so frightened, so incensed that he took the large radio from the table, lifted it above his head, and violently hurled it against a wall.

He knew what this invasion meant. He knew it signaled the end of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe as he had known it. He knew it meant certain death for people he had grown up with, people he had loved, and people who had loved him.

Simon’s fears soon became real. He eventually learned from a brother who had escaped into the woods with his wife and young son that Nazi soldiers had murdered his father, Wolf, and several of his siblings either on the streets of Krosno or up a small hill in a mass grave. His mother, Bascha, had died earlier in 1934 of a heart attack.

Nazis eventually loaded other relatives and friends into cattle cars and transported them to Auschwitz and Belzec concentration camps.

Simon never fully recovered from those days in 1939. Though he kept the faces and voices from that distant land within him throughout his life, the Nazis also invaded my grandfather’s heart, killing a part of him forever. My mother told me that Simon became increasingly introspective, less spontaneous, less optimistic about what the future would hold.

Some advocates of liberal democratic institutions in the United States are currently expressing concerns that our nation is either on the cusp of authoritarianism and oligarchy, or that the nation has already crossed that threshold.

What appears certain, however, is that many of the gains progressive people have worked tirelessly to achieve have been reversed or abolished at this point in time.

Does Social Change Operate Like a Pendulum?

 Rather than imagining social change as either an arc or as a laid-out coil, some conceive it as a pendulum swinging back and forth by opposing forces from right to left and back again persistently.

These forces comprise coalitions of those who would rather maintain the status quo or reverse the tide to benefit their power and privilege at the expense of the collective, as opposed to those who are champions of a more equitable distribution of resources and power within the collective.

Of course, though, we cannot conceptualize this divide as a binary with two clearly demarcated and bounded sides. Rather, we can picture this as a lengthy continuum between two extreme poles.

Recently, a colleague and I opined over how our nation has arrived at this moment in the devolution of our liberal democratic institutions. My colleague asked me questions, which I paraphrase:

Have we pushed too hard? Should we have taken a slower or more cautious approach to our advocacy and teaching about issues and concepts of diversity and social justice?

My response was that I do not believe we pushed too hard, and that our approaches, for the most part, have been sound and just.

Oh certainly, at times social justice educators face resistance and even backlash. When we show how everyone of every social identity gains from a more, yes, diverse, equitable, and inclusive society, we will reach that moral universal understanding.

The opposition–those who gain power, privilege, and prestige by reversing progressive change–however, has brought us to his horrific inflection point.

I am continually reminded of the words of one of our former presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson:

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

When Johnson stated this in the 1960s, he could have been gazing into a crystal ball predicting the political agenda on which Donald Trump would base his racist and misogynistic campaigns in his effort to divide and conquer the electorate.

A major tactic used in autocratic regimes is to control information. This is evident in the so-called anti-woke and anti-diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) movement that has given rise to the increasing number of banned books and attacks on academic freedom in schools and throughout society.

The MAGA movement has transformed the terms within the concept of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” into accusations and epithets for “unqualified,” “low experience,” “low education,” “low expectations,” “anti-white,” “anti-Christian,” and “anti-male” regarding workplace quality and performance.

In reality, however, to paraphrase the National Association for Multicultural Education:

“[Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)] is a philosophical and educational model founded on principles of freedom, justice, equality, equity, and the empowerment of human agency, integrity, and dignity as illuminated in respective key documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights. [DEI] affirms a standard of governmental, educational, and business policies and practices in organizing and sustaining positive, warm, and welcoming places essential in a democratic society. It values the many social and cultural differences and identities and prizes the pluralism that all people bring.”

What is more “pro-American” and “patriotic” than programs and people who are attempting to bring about the promise of our founding documents?

The leaders of those who oppose progressive social change, though, are reading from the playbook tyrants have used throughout the ages to divide and conquer through fear, intimidation, stereotyping, and scapegoating as Lyndon Johnson’s quote implies.

A democratic republic like the United States of America, as in any other form of governmental system, demands an informed and committed public to maintain at least a basic standard to which our leaders are held.

Even within some of the most tyrannical regimes throughout history, resistance movements have come to the fore to work on behalf of the people over autocratic, oligarchical, and kleptocratic assaults. Individuals and groups of people have found ways to become involved according to the times in which they find themselves, and according to their own particular interests and strengths.

Many of us in progressive social change efforts have been shaken (again) by the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States and the MAGA movement he has spawned. As our country is sliding in reverse, individuals are exploring ways to counter the fire hose of negative policies saturating our environment. Fortunately, the resistance has begun in many quarters of our society and in other countries worldwide.

We must continue our work, change our strategies when necessary, never give up, and become forever vigilant while taking nothing for granted regarding the tactics used by the opposition. We will ultimately stem the tide in the current devolution of civil and human rights and reversals in the progress the nation has made.

As always in my own life, I stand committed to ensuring that my country, the United States of America, will never go the way of Germany under the Nazi regime.