We still have a democracy to sustain

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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“These are the times that try men’s souls,” observed Thomas Paine in 1776, and he might have been writing about these times, too, if not for the archaic use of the word “men.” The country is in the midst of a presidential campaign that is disturbing, even frightening — especially so given the warnings from each of the major candidates that unless he prevails, the country, or at least its system of government, is doomed.

Can we all agree that we hope they’re wrong? Even that much consensus may be more than we’re capable of. The country seems obsessed with its own internal divisions, and dissent has drilled down into what used to be our foundational bedrock. As the author and commentator Andrew Sullivan has noted, many Americans have now come to believe that their country “was really founded in 1619 to oppress, and not in 1776 to liberate.”

The voices that remind us of our country’s history of slavery and other crimes against humanity — starting with the theft of land from its original inhabitants — have truth on their side. They need to be heard and heeded. “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine,” thundered Frederick Douglass in 1852. “You may rejoice. I must mourn.”

But there are other compelling truths in our history — that we have fought wars to establish and preserve freedom at home and abroad, for example — that suggest we are at least partly liberators by nature. Americans have died — willingly, selflessly — on behalf of strangers.

Last month we watched as world leaders commemorated the 80th anniversary of D-Day. The troops who poured into Europe in 1944 went on to liberate the continent and defeat the forces of fascism. The staggering losses they suffered are a testament to the character of the countries that sent them.

How would those soldiers have felt if they could have looked 80 years into the future and heard the political rhetoric of 2024?

Most of them are gone now, so how the patriots of World War II would have reacted to our current political dynamic is anybody’s guess. Is the spirit that motivated them liberal, or conservative? Or is it both, or neither?

In this country, those labels have become barriers to understanding. They have reduced all issues and relationships to a single frame of reference. Ironically, even as we are coming to accept a wide variety of gender identities and sexualities, we cling to a binary view of politics. People may be bi or trans or gay or lesbian, but they must be either liberal or conservative.

Trump or anti-Trump.

We think the founders would have been alarmed to see such social and political influence invested in a single individual. The declaration they signed 248 years ago was explicit in its rejection of one man’s rule. When Donald Trump muses that he might need to vacate parts of the Constitution, or assume dictatorial powers for even a short time, he is sounding notes that clash harshly with America’s themes.

The discord grows harsher with the addition of a Supreme Court ruling that a president cannot be prosecuted for actions that might be construed as official. We have a pretty good idea of what the founders would have thought of that. But then, their perspective might have been affected by the possibility that they were about to be hunted down and hanged.

This holiday is a good time to remember what those early Americans endured, what they sacrificed and the size of our debt to them. And even if we can’t agree on a preferred outcome for 2024, let’s make a resolution for 2028: Enough, already, of campaigns that predict democracy’s demise. Let’s hear about democracy’s future.