A republic, if you can keep it

At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, a woman outside Independence Hall asked Benjamin Franklin if the delegates had created a monarchy or a republic. “A republic,” Franklin replied, “if you can keep it.”

American history is a chronicle of our efforts to keep it. At some moments, our republic has seemed secure. At others it’s stood in peril.

This is one of those dire times.

There’s no single reason we’re in trouble. It’s not just the economy, or inequity, or the demise of self-reliance, or the rise of entitlement, or our rampant narcissism, or the partisan incompetence and intransigence of our government. A less prominent obstacle to governing ourselves is our misunderstanding of how our government is supposed to work and what our role as citizens is supposed to be.

Our government isn’t a democracy. It’s a republic. There’s a big difference. Our founders rejected the tyranny of a king, but they also recognized the danger inherent in the tyranny of the mob.

They believed that sovereign power properly resided with the people. We the people formed this union and established its government, we the people appoint its officers, and we the people can remove them from office. However, we the people aren’t the government. That’s because most of us aren’t qualified to govern, just as most of us aren’t qualified to remove each other’s gall bladders or represent each other in court.

That’s why it’s so vital that we choose people who are suited to govern us, and why so many of us feel so despondent over the choice we face in this election, a choice for me between the unappealing and the unthinkable.

Our lack of understanding can’t entirely be blamed on our apathy. For decades as part of education reform’s disdain for content and “facts,” schools have intentionally neglected to teach students, meaning future voters, the allegedly “dustdry” fundamentals of American government. Civics classes have focused instead on “service learning,” “problem-solving,” and “collaborative skills.”

Our resulting ignorance — fewer than a quarter of eighth graders are proficient in civics — is why as voters we’re acutely susceptible to empty promises, unconstitutional rhetoric, and vain posturing. Sadly, this gives free range to our baser inclinations.

Part of being a history teacher is having students ask who I’m voting for. I’ve always declined to answer. While I explain candidates’ views in the light of history and my understanding of constitutional government, I’ve remained impartial in my explanations. I tell my students that teachers can have undue influence on students’ opinions, influence that runs counter to their parents’ ideas, and that I don’t believe exercising that undue influence is proper.

This time, in this election, I have a dilemma. This time we don’t face a choice between conventional ideologies, between liberal and conservative, expansive and limited government. This time I face a choice between Mrs. Clinton, with whom in many respects I disagree and for whom I never expected to vote, and Mr. Trump, who embodies the “love of power” and “real despotism” that Washington warned against in his Farewell Address.

Mr. Madison cautioned that “if tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be under the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” Even more prescient, Mr. Lincoln predicted that “some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us,” and that “when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.”

I could recite the familiar, extensive litany of bizarre declarations, outrageous acts, fallacious assertions about government, and outright lies that have characterized Mr. Trump’s candidacy. I could cite his winks at racism, his repeated endorsement of thuggery, as well as the bigoted thugs he’s placed at the helm of his campaign.

It’s worth remembering that in 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power by election. It’s worth remembering that he promised to make Germany great again. It’s worth remembering that he cynically pandered to the working class while he consorted with the wealthy and powerful. It’s worth remembering how Germany’s political leaders assured each other they’d be able to control him after he took office.

Hitler declared that having lost the war, the German people “deserved to perish.” Donald Trump declared that he “will never, ever forgive” the American people if he loses.

In Mein Kampf Hitler celebrated the “big lie.” He asserted that owing to the “primitive simplicity of their minds,” the “broad masses” are easy prey to “colossal untruths” because they simply can’t “believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

Mr. Trump has proven himself the prince of gross distortion and infamy. He isn’t Hitler, but the similarities are striking and worth noting. So is the catastrophe into which Hitler led his nation and the world.

Mrs. Clinton, it may be argued, is a typically self-serving, arrogant politician. And there are many legitimate reasons for voters to be dissatisfied with things as they are.

But for what it’s worth, this history teacher sees our republic in peril from the species of man and President that our founders feared.

This is no time for ambivalence.

A republic, if you can keep it.

Mrs. Clinton, it may be argued, is a typically self-serving, arrogant politician. And there are many legitimate reasons for voters to be dissatisfied with things as they are.