Da­van Ma­haraj

O, let my land be a land where Lib­er­ty

Is crowned with no false pa­tri­ot­ic wreath,

But op­por­tu­ni­ty is re­al, and life is free,

Equal­i­ty is in the air we breathe

(There’s nev­er been equal­i­ty for me,

For free­dom in this “home­land of the free.”)

—Langston Hugh­es, “Let Amer­i­ca Be Amer­i­ca Again”

At its in­cep­tion, the Unit­ed States was nei­ther a democ­ra­cy nor did it claim to be. Read the Found­ing Fa­thers’ de­c­la­ra­tion in The Fed­er­al­ist Pa­pers, No. 63, and you will see how they pro­claimed—in cap­i­tal let­ters—that the new re­pub­lic would guar­an­tee “THE TO­TAL EX­CLU­SION OF THE PEO­PLE, IN THEIR COL­LEC­TIVE CA­PAC­I­TY, from any share” in the gov­ern­ment. Re­call the three-fifths clause that count­ed the num­ber of en­slaved peo­ple in frac­tions to de­ter­mine how much rep­re­sen­ta­tion white slave own­ers would have in Con­gress. The Founders shut out their moth­ers, wives, daugh­ters, and sis­ters from any mean­ing­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion in gov­ern­ment.

Women se­cured the right to vote on­ly in 1920, forty-two years be­fore Na­tive Amer­i­cans won the right to vote in every state. Vot­ing rights for Black Amer­i­cans, de­spite pas­sage of the Vot­ing Rights Act in 1965, have re­mained a strug­gle as old as the Re­pub­lic.

Through var­i­ous pro­gres­sive move­ments, the Unit­ed States em­braced rights and free­doms not en­joyed in oth­er coun­tries. This en­hanced record al­lowed the Unit­ed States to as­sume the po­si­tion as the van­guard of democ­ra­cy, thanks in part to myth­mak­ing that pro­mot­ed Amer­i­can civ­i­liza­tion as the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic mod­el, the shin­ing city on a hill.

Now those hard-fought rights are com­ing un­der at­tack. Af­ter years of pro­fessed ex­cep­tion­al­ism, the Unit­ed States can no longer even claim to be the bea­con of democ­ra­cy.

The to­tal col­lapse of Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy, once con­signed to the realm of hy­per­bole, is now spo­ken of as a clear and dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty.

The 2020 midterm elec­tions, which did not re­sult in a Re­pub­li­can red wave, as many had pre­dict­ed, caused many Amer­i­cans to de­clare that the threats to democ­ra­cy had been staunched. That eu­pho­ria fad­ed as the House Re­pub­li­cans, with their ra­zor-thin ma­jor­i­ty, be­gan tak­ing con­trol.

Hard-right law­mak­ers, many of whom cheered on Jan. 6 in­sur­rec­tion­ists, will play an out­sized role in Con­gress af­ter ex­tract­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­ces­sions from House Speak­er Kevin Mc­Carthy. The new speak­er wast­ed no time in show­ing that the hard-right law­mak­ers held sway. Mc­Carthy said he was open to ex­pung­ing the im­peach­ments of the for­mer pres­i­dent, whose sec­ond im­peach­ment —a bi­par­ti­san vote—in­volved his in­cite­ment of the in­sur­rec­tion­ists. Note to read­ers: Trump calls Mc­Carthy “my Kevin.”

With hard-right law­mak­ers call­ing the shots, the in­sur­rec­tion­ists will have full in­volve­ment in the new­ly formed Se­lect Sub­com­mit­tee on the Weaponiza­tion of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, which will in­ves­ti­gate the agents pur­su­ing sep­a­rate in­quiries in­volv­ing the in­sur­rec­tions and the 45th pres­i­dent.

Amer­i­can po­lit­i­cal cul­ture has changed. Not long ago, if you asked Amer­i­cans whether far-right para­mil­i­taries would storm state capi­tol build­ings or lay siege to the U.S. Capi­tol, they would tell you: not in this coun­try. To­day, right-wing mili­tias run ram­pant. At many pub­lic events, you can ex­pect them to show up, armed and masked.

These sin­is­ter en­coun­ters sug­gest that the in­sur­rec­tion­ists—and the peo­ple who in­spired them—mere­ly lie in wait. Jan­u­ary 6 was a dress re­hearsal for the big show.

The in­sur­rec­tion shook the na­tion and raised the ques­tion of whether the Unit­ed States could ever main­tain its boast of be­ing the world’s first mul­ti-racial democ­ra­cy. View­ers around the world saw videos of ri­ot­ers beat­ing po­lice of­fi­cers with clubs and crush­ing them against walls. The “QAnon shaman,” who wore a horned head­dress and an­i­mal pelts as he sat in Nan­cy Pelosi’s Speak­er’s chair, be­came the face of the in­sur­rec­tion.

What has be­come of Amer­i­ca? With each pass­ing day, threats to the Amer­i­can po­lit­i­cal or­der abound. Heav­i­ly armed mili­tias es­pous­ing white su­prema­cy. Record num­bers of hate crimes against eth­nic and re­li­gious mi­nori­ties. And Re­pub­li­can rep­re­sen­ta­tives em­brac­ing Chris­t­ian na­tion­al­ism over the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion.

In June, an em­bold­ened Supreme Court, wield­ing its new 6-3 ma­jor­i­ty, re­versed Roe v. Wade, strip­ping women of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights they had en­joyed for half a cen­tu­ry. The court’s de­ci­sion sug­gest­ed that con­tra­cep­tion, mar­riage equal­i­ty, and vot­ing rights could be the next tar­gets. One by one, the lights in that shin­ing hill­top city have been go­ing out.

The Unit­ed States is not alone in ex­pe­ri­enc­ing up­heaval in its po­lit­i­cal es­tab­lish­ment. Across the globe, au­to­crats have risen to pow­er on nar­ra­tives of na­tion­al de­cline, the cul­prits be­ing lib­er­al­ism and the mi­nori­ties who de­fend it.

At the May grad­u­a­tion of my daugh­ter at Keny­on Col­lege, I lis­tened with rapt at­ten­tion as com­mence­ment speak­er Sheila Coro­nel, who heads an in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism unit at Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, urged grad­u­ates to stand up to the au­to­crats. “Strong­men don’t re­al­ly go away,” said Coro­nel, who was a young re­porter dur­ing the re­pres­sive regime of Fer­di­nand and Imel­da Mar­cos. “Like bears in win­ter, they fall in­to a deep sleep and awake once they can feed again.”

Au­to­crats do not gain pow­er by lies alone: they wait un­til a so­ci­ety is sick, riv­en by di­vi­sions and fear. On­ly then can they feed, as Coro­nel says. In Amer­i­ca to­day, the con­di­tions are ripe.

In Weimar Ger­many, one word ig­nit­ed ha­tred of the press: Lü­gen­presse, or “ly­ing press.” The Nazi Par­ty had a sim­ple strat­e­gy to counter bad press: ac­cuse jour­nal­ists of ly­ing. Why waste time de­fend­ing your­self when you could be on the at­tack. No mat­ter how long or well-sup­port­ed an ar­gu­ment was, the Nazis re­spond­ed, “Lü­gen­presse.”

In the Unit­ed States, a sim­i­lar phrase emerged: “fake news.” Pop­u­lar­ized by the 45th pres­i­dent, it was de­signed to fos­ter dis­trust in jour­nal­ists scru­ti­niz­ing his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s many mis­deeds. Adolf Hitler once said that “great liars are al­so great ma­gi­cians,” and the key to that sor­cery was tap­ping in­to feel­ing, unadul­ter­at­ed by ra­tio­nal­i­ty.

The for­mer pres­i­dent may not seem elo­quent to most, but to his sup­port­ers he was spell­bind­ing, promis­ing them a reck­on­ing for the elites and a re­turn to the Amer­i­ca of myth. His rhetoric evokes 1933 more than 1776.

On Jan­u­ary 6th, the Oath­keep­ers and Proud Boys brought their as­sault ri­fles to Capi­tol Hill, show­ing the world that they were no week­end war­riors. As they set foot on the mar­bled floors of the capi­tol, these para­mil­i­taries walked in the foot­steps of the Ger­man Brown Shirts.

Amer­i­can in­sti­tu­tions have proven more re­silient than those of Weimar Ger­many, but they have on­ly sur­vived the first skir­mish. The for­mer pres­i­dent is still fir­ing up his base, stok­ing po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence. The Proud Boys and Oath­keep­ers, among the para­mil­i­tary groups loy­al to the for­mer pres­i­dent, are will­ing to shed blood for him. With an ac­tivist Supreme Court, mil­lions of Amer­i­cans face see­ing their rights leg­is­lat­ed out of ex­is­tence.

The bat­tle for democ­ra­cy and racial equal­i­ty has moved to the fields of truth and nar­ra­tive. I re­cent­ly guest-edit­ed a spe­cial is­sue of the Michi­gan Quar­ter­ly re­view in which some of our finest po­ets, es­say­ists, and fic­tion writ­ers tack­led the chal­lenges fac­ing Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy.

Fresh from his suc­cess with the best­selling Caste Mat­ters, Suraj Yengde, one of In­dia’s lead­ing schol­ars and pub­lic in­tel­lec­tu­als, demon­strates how the roots of the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal ten­sions can be traced to Amer­i­ca’s caste prob­lem es­tab­lished in the ear­li­est days of set­tle­ment.

The stand­outs al­so in­clude med­i­ta­tions on Langston Hugh­es’s 1935 po­em, “Let Amer­i­ca Be Amer­i­ca Again.” From Paris, the Amer­i­can po­et Hen­ri Cole says: “If em­pa­thy is our most im­por­tant hu­man char­ac­ter­is­tic, it is the feel­ing I take away from ‘Let Amer­i­ca Be Amer­i­ca Again,’ which speaks for poor Whites, Ne­groes, ‘red men,’ farm­ers, im­mi­grants (Irish, Pol­ish, and Eng­lish), and de­scen­dants of those ‘torn from Black Africa.’”

Hugh­es tapped in­to the dilem­ma many Amer­i­cans face. Al­though the mar­gin­alised pop­u­la­tions he in­vokes have not ben­e­fit­ed from the free­doms af­ford­ed to the elites, they are of­ten called up­on to help save the Re­pub­lic. Like now.

Hear what Hugh­es is say­ing:

We, the peo­ple, must re­deem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The moun­tains and the end­less plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make Amer­i­ca again!

Even though it was not made for peo­ple like Langston Hugh­es, the Unit­ed States had the flex­i­bil­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ty to be­come an Amer­i­ca for peo­ple like him. Amer­i­ca can change, and has changed to pro­tect the free­doms of its peo­ple. That is why we must re­make Amer­i­ca again.

Da­van Ma­haraj, the for­mer ed­i­tor-in-chief and pub­lish­er of the Los An­ge­les Times, is a mem­ber of Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed’s board of di­rec­tors. This opin­ion piece is adapt­ed from his fore­word for a spe­cial is­sue of the Michi­gan Quar­ter­ly Re­view, “Frac­tured Union: Amer­i­can Democ­ra­cy on the Brink.” Log on to–https://pay­ments.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/mqr-or­der-form/