My Ardent Prayer For November 5 : Survival of American Democracy

“Democracy is the worst form of government ever invented, except for all the the forms that have been tried from time to time.” Sounds like something Plato might have said in his Republic but it comes from Sir Winston Churchill in a speech to the House of Commons in 1947. It is a statement that understands the imperfections of human beings and their capacity to be manipulated by tyrants for tyrannical purposes. After all he had arm wrestled the devil himself, the very embodiment of evil, Adolph Hitler, and had implored his countrymen to defeat a fascist/ totalitarian dictatorship at whatever cost, and of course the cost was enormous for the British infrastructure, its people, cities and way of life. And so in making this statement Churchill acknowledges the imperfections of humanity–its selfishness, self interest, tribalism, nationalism, weaknesses of temperament for unethical causes–but also appreciates that the most effective safeguard against a Hitler ever coming to power again, murdering his people and endangering the world is the consensus of government deriving from a free people in a free democracy that allows for human beings expressing their self interest, their individuality and goals for a better life in as large a market place of ideas as is possible. For Churchill such would be the safeguard against a return of the Fascism he helped to defeat. And that only through democracy can the greatest good be achieved for the greatest number of people.

Democracy is ‘messy’, as it were, because it allows for the free expression of ideas, however repugnant, ignorant, racist, misogynist or even inclined to the desire for repression, extremes of law and order and a call for fascism or dictatorship.

It is by encountering such thinking in the ‘light of day’ that a democracy is able to survive and thrive–allowing these ideas to fail because they threaten the very democracy that gives them life rather than have them percolate and emerge as a volcano that undermines a civil, democratic society concerned for the welfare and providing a safety net for its people. And in this marketplace of ideas the best and the brightest of leadership can and should emerge to shine a light on the darkness and propel a society to reflect the greatest good for the greatest number of people–a true democracy based upon ideas of progress, fairness, an ideal of equality and equality of opportunity.

This is the type of democracy envisioned in United States Declaration of Independence and found in the Constitution. However, there was grave unfairness and human misery in the form of slavery that would inevitably have to be overcome as the country would evolve in recognition of its founding principle written into the Declaration of Independence that ” we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal , that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In Churchills statement about democracy is the inherent understanding–given that it is the worst form of government except for all other forms of government ever invented–that it would be possible that sometimes democracy gets it wrong–and that democratically elected governments based on corruption or narrow religious beliefs, or based on a merger of exorbitant wealth and corporate greed with a corruptible leader, or based on extreme nationalism at the expense of the collective and greater good is possible.

And in my judgment this is the democratic choice America faces tomorrow, November 5, 2024. The country has the opportunity to choose to unify for the common good despite its huge differences in economic policy, foreign policy, social policies, or it can select a tyrant, a twice impeached convicted felon already convicted of sexual abuse and charged with fomenting an insurrection to deny the legitimate transference of power. Kamala Harris is not perfect–clearly nothing and no one is perfect in a democracy where there is a massive market place of ideas competing for acceptance. But she has not and never will threaten her political opponents with prosecution and jail if she loses. She acknowledges the difficulty of immigration threatening America’s resources and knows that legal immigration is a complex and essential issue to handle–but she will never refer to those that are coming into America as vermin and poisoning America’s pure blood. She will not handle the issue by massive deportations and the separation of families. She will never refer to nations as ” shit hole countries’ or will ever describe America as a nation that has become a “trash can”. She will pursue the greatest good for the greatest number of people and seek to restore the freedom of women to choose their own reproductive health without fear of their doctors being imprisoned for participating in these consultations. In essence, the kind of democracy America wants– or whether America really does want a democracy but rather is willing to experiment with dictatorship and a form of oligarchy–will be decided tomorrow and in the coming days as the vote is counted. For Mr. Trump it is a “heads I win tales you lose” proposition, and that the only way he could lose is if the election is rigged. Mr. Trump, there are many reasons for you to lose this election in a country whose elections are the fairest in the world–equally fair for both sides.
America exports election supervisors to other countries to monitor the fairness of their elections. And Mr. Trump describes these people as having the tendency to be corrupt–particularly in states he needs to win the Presidency.

Democracy is at a crossroads in America at this very moment. We are a ‘coin flip’ away from being over taken by repressive mechanisms that seek to transform our entire system of health care, medicare and social security safety nets; the imposition of evangelical moral judgments that relegate women to ownership by the state as they are denied control over their own bodies and deprived of essential reproductive health care; the threatened imposition of laws that define right and wrong ways to love and be married; the elimination of departments that serve education and operate the entire infrastructure of civil service that enforces regulations that protect the public. And we are a coin flip away from having the reigns of the most powerful office in the world given to a man consumed by retribution and avoidance of facing the prosecutions that await him if he loses.

There is a Totalitarian Temptation in America right now, at this very moment. The quality of a democracy is determined by the indifference of law to title and power. Donald Trump has already threatened to use the levers of authority against his political enemies. Clearly we are seeing the threat of fascism which is a vehicle for totalitarianism in America.

The Totalitarian Temptation in America is a clear and present danger tomorrow, November 5, 2024. It is a clear and present danger. An existential crisis of almost incomprehensible magnitude–affecting the entire infrastructure of American life, freedoms democracy and the constitution.

One of my closest relatives, watching this election from Britain, wrote to me today that the “ebb and flow of political forces can eventually balance out, but there can be many years of gross imbalance in the process…”

I can only hope and pray that America will choose wisely tomorrow and it will not take a generation at least to reconcile the destruction wrought upon our democracy and its democratic institutions.

My ardent hope and prayer is that democracy in its best condition will work tomorrow and that, despite all the protestations of ‘foul play’ by Donald Trump, Kamala Harris will win every battleground state that is needed to propel her into the Presidency and literally ‘save American democracy’. Tomorrow democracy is on the ballot and America will choose what kind of democracy it wants to be-or if it even wants one at all.

Bruce Farrell Rosen