Upholding Democracy in Our Challenging Times!

On the evening of November 5, I fell into a restless sleep before the results of the presidential election were final. When I roused from my light slumber around 3:00 a.m., turned on my phone, and saw the outcome, I immediately felt dismayed and disheartened. That morning on social media, I wearily read that friends were already organizing to resist the anticipated move toward authoritarianism, but I had no vision nor energy for such endeavors.

Thinking that it might be time to get the hell out of Dodge, I Googled life in British Columbia, specifically Vancouver Island because of the more temperate weather there. I reviewed our passports to make sure they were up to date, then discussed the possibility of immigrating with my wife Shonnie and daughter Gracelyn. Shonnie said that she would prefer Quebec since she was once fluent in French and could easily be again. Gracelyn, on the other hand, had discovered an art high school in Victoria, British Columbia that looked ideal to her. But we weren’t going anywhere, at least not yet.

I remained in a deep funk for a couple of months, even as the new administration began taking actions that I intensely opposed. One day during my daily meditation I called out to the Universe for guidance: I am your instrument, I am ready, show me the way. And a few days later, the Universe responded in the form of Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde and thes sermon she gave during a prayer service at Washington’s National Cathedral on January 21. During that sermon, Bishop Budd appealed to the newly inaugurated president:

Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.

In that moment I knew I could no longer mope around on the sidelines. As Bishop Budde had modeled, I would take a stand and speak my truth to the powers-that-be.

As I began to consider my mission, I recalled my previous experience in confronting presidential power. It was 1969, Richard Nixon was president, and the Vietnam War raged on. I was twenty-six years old and had helped organize the October 15 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam at Middle Tennessee State University, a day on which anti-war demonstrations took place in cities and on college campuses across the nation. Intent on doing my part to end what I believed was a disastrous, unjustifiable, and immoral war, my then-brother-in-law Johnny and I drove from Tennessee to Washington, D.C. to participate in the second Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam protest on November 15, 1969.

On Saturday, we joined 500,000 demonstrators from across the nation at the Washington Monument. We sang along as Pete Seeger led us in John Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance.” Peter, Paul & Mary performed Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changing,” Arlo Guthrie led us in “This Land Is Your Land,” and Richie Havens gave a rousing rendition of “Freedom.”

Johnny and I sang along and chanted with the crowd. “Peace now!” “Hell, no, we won’t go!” Exhilarated to be a part of this extraordinary event, we hoped that our massive turnout, along with the subsequent growing public opposition to the war, would bring the politicians to their senses. But we saw no evidence of any change as the war relentlessly continued until 1975. With the release of declassified documents in 2015, however, we learned that our massive effort for peace did have an effect. After media reports of the enormous crowd at the protest, President Nixon reluctantly called off his irrational plan for a major escalation of the war against North Vietnam, including the use of tactical nuclear weapons, an action that could have set off World War III.

Our democracy is now facing a constitutional crisis like no other since the Civil War. Our two highest elected officials, many members of Congress, and the majority of the Supreme Court justices seem hellbent on leading us down the path to oligarchy and authoritarianism. The guardrails of our democracy are extremely unstable as the president aligns his agenda with Russia and alienates our long-time allies in Europe and Canada.

So, now is not the time to sit back and complain. Now is not the time to minimize the current upheaval and assume everything will eventually be OK. Now is not the time to wait for the midterm elections. Now is not the time to hope for the hero on the white horse to ride to our rescue.

At this perilous time, we must remember that we’ve confronted similar adversaries before. Eighty years ago, our fathers and our grandfathers, at great cost, fought and decisively defeated the Nazis—those in Germany and their sympathizers in Congress here at home. Now it’s time for the children and the grandchildren of The Greatest Generation to resist the encroaching anti-democratic forces.

We, the people, must be clear about the tasks before us. We must support those who are in harm’s way, as well as one another as we join together in steadfast community. We must remain engaged and hold our elected officials accountable. We must arise in such massive numbers, with such powerful spirit, that we cannot be denied. We may not see immediate results from our actions, but never doubt that each individual act makes a difference.

I’ll close today with some inspiring words from Mahatma Gandhi:

Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.

[I shared this personal essay at the March 9 Jubilee! Sunday morning celebration.]