Democrats have simple equation to win the culture wars
President Joe Biden’s speech on Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge commemorating “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Ala., covered everything from voting rights to his economic plan. His most important remarks, however, did not concern a specific policy, but, rather, a critical message in the battle to defend the United States’ pluralistic democracy.
“The truth matters — notwithstanding what the other team is trying to hide. They’re trying to hide the truth,” Biden said. “No matter how hard some people try, we can’t just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know. We should learn everything — the good, the bad, the truth — of who we are as a nation.”
He returned to that message later in his address: “We know history does not look kindly on those who deny the march across the bridge to redeem the soul of America,” Biden declared. He quoted Amelia Boynton Robinson: “You can never know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been,” adding: “We know where we have been.”
On one level, this was simply a response to MAGA ideologues who try to censor history and distort the past under the guise of “anti-wokeism.” In pushing back, Biden was channeling the views of the majority of Americans who overwhelmingly say that they want their kids to be taught about the complete story of America, including race.
According to a study by the group More in Common, “Most Americans (81 percent) regardless of demographics and political affiliation believe that the history of minority groups is an integral part of American history.” In addition, “8 in 10 Americans (84 percent), including Democrats (91 percent) and Republicans (77 percent), believe that it is important for students to learn the history of different racial groups.”
However, it is not “merely” that the Republican base wants to excise non-whites from U.S. history and absolve the United States of racism. There is a full-court press to create a fact-free universe in which politicians — not scientists, educators, doctors and a free media — tell us what is true and what is not. We’ve seen how MAGA pols strive to get their followers (and the rest of us) to believe that COVID-19 is a hoax, vaccines are a plot, Donald Trump won the 2020 election, and whites are the biggest victims of racism. This is an attempt at information control, a dangerous tool in the hands of a movement that repudiates democracy.
Whether in Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from Underground” ("I agree that two times two makes four is a splendid thing; but if we’re going to lavish praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes also a very charming little thing”), or George Orwell’s 1984 (“2+2=5”) or the signs held aloft (2+2=4) in Solidarity’s battle against communism, opponents of authoritarian movements have always known that authoritarians depend on information control.
Call it gaslighting or propaganda or “alternative facts,” but the concept is the same. If a government can control facts and obliterate objective measures of truth, leaders can no longer be held accountable.
Present-day defenders of democracy, therefore, would do well to get off defense when faced with a MAGA movement dependent on conspiracies and deception. Democrats and their allies should not be afraid to explain that COVID denial, book bans, teacher censorship and Fox News (be it the network’s election denial or “Great Replacement” propaganda) are all from the same authoritarian playbook. (Disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor.) Freedom-loving people cannot let politicians and their propaganda stooges dictate what is true and what is not.
In short, instead of scampering around to debunk each new outrageous claim or tactic, pro-democracy forces should return to an historically powerful message: A party that will tell you 2+2=5 is out to quash democracy itself.
Biden was on to something: Better to be on the side of truth.