Americans will survive Trump era
In notes he made during his long post-presidency in Independence, Mo., Harry Truman was candid about the tricky nature of democracy. Yes, much of the nation’s fate lies in the hands of the president, Truman wrote, but the voters have the ultimate authority.
“The country has to awaken every now and then to the fact that the people are responsible for the government they get,” Truman observed. “And when they elect a man to the presidency who doesn’t take care of the job, they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves.”
The 33rd president’s words often come to mind as the reign of our 45th president unfolds amid tweet storms, raucous rallies and cries of “fake news.” For Donald Trump’s opponents, he is the embodiment of regression. For Trump’s supporters, he is nothing less than an American messiah.
My own view is that however ferocious the current hour feels, American history tells us that the people, when properly engaged in politics, have always managed to survive even the most divisive of presidents and the most depressing of eras.
From Reconstruction to the first Red Scare under Woodrow Wilson, from the rise of a new Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century to the cataclysm of the 1930s, from Joe McCarthy to the backlash against civil rights, our national story is no fairy tale. Despite the narcotic of nostalgia, troubled times are the rule, not the exception.
Every generation tends to think of itself as uniquely challenged and under siege. The questions of the present assume outsize and urgent importance, for they are, after all, the questions that shape and suffuse the lives of those living in the moment. Humankind seems to be forever coping with crisis. Strike the “seems”: Humankind is forever coping with crisis, or believes it is, and will until what William Faulkner described as “the last red and dying evening.”
We have, however, overcome the crises and vicissitudes of history. Our brightest hours are almost never as bright as we like to think; our glummest moments are rarely as irredeemable as they feel in real time.
How, then, in an hour of anxiety about the future of the country, at a time when a president of the United States appears determined to undermine the rule of law, a free press and the sense of hope essential to American life, can those with deep concerns about the nation’s future enlist on the side of the angels?
Enter the arena
The battle begins with political engagement itself. Theodore Roosevelt put it best: “The first duty of an American citizen, then, is that he shall work in politics; his second duty is that he shall do that work in a practical manner; and his third is that it shall be done in accord with the highest principles of honor and justice.”
Politicians will disappoint; that’s in-
evitable. But they will also, from time to time, thrill. “Every man who has been in practical politics,” TR remarked, “grows to realize that politicians, big and little, are no more all of them bad than are all of them good.”
One need not become a candidate (though that’s certainly an option worth considering) or a political addict hooked on every twist and every turn and every tweet. But the paying of attention, the expressing of opinion and the casting of ballots are foundational to living up to the obligations of citizenship in a republic.
Resist tribalism
Engagement, especially at a time of heightened conflict, has its perils: Those motivated by what they see as extremism on the other side are likely to see politics not as a mediation of difference but as existential warfare where no quarter can be given. The country works best, however, when we resist such tribal inclinations.
Ever practical, Eleanor Roosevelt offered a prescription to guard against tribal self-certitude. “It is not only important but mentally invigorating to discuss political matters with people whose opinions differ radically from one’s own,” she wrote. “For the same reason, I believe it is a sound idea to attend not only the meetings of one’s own party but of the opposition. Find out what people are saying, what they are thinking, what they believe. This is an invaluable check on one’s own ideas . ... If we are to cope intelligently with a changing world, we must be flexible and willing to relinquish opinions that no longer have any bearing on existing conditions.”
If Mrs. Roosevelt were writing today, she might put it this way: Don’t let any single cable network or Twitter feed tell you what to think.
Respect facts and deploy reason
There is such a thing as discernible reality. Facts, as John Adams once said, are stubborn things, and yet too many Americans are choosing this view or that perspective based not on its grounding in fact but on whether it’s a view or perspective endorsed by the leaders one follows.
To reflexively resist one side or the