Democracy Awakening, Heather Cox Richardson’s 2023 “Notes on the State of America” is a worthy 253-page read. Richardson marshals our past to provide context to the last decade. She prods us to explore our future in a different light.
Among the most poignant lessons in Democracy Awakening may be our struggles, notably in the mid-Nineteenth Century among the wealthy enslavers of the Confederacy that drove the Union to civil war followed by the abuses of the industrialization era. Both were times when oligarchy presented similar, but unique, threats to the founders’ vision of what the republic could become.
The Boston College history professor reminds us that democracy in the United States has not been, is not, and never will be a destination. It is a journey. It is an adventure. It is messy. Richardson charts the competing pressures in our history that form the moment among nativism and diversity; pluralism and authoritarianism.
Richardson reenforces that two important characteristics are necessary to successfully navigate this journey and remain resilient in this adventure. First, is vigilance in maintaining civics competencies. Read and understand the complexity and contradictions of our past. The place at which we find ourselves may not be so very different than the places and paths our predecessors experienced. We need to avoid the vanity of the moment. Evaluate the media and social network feed of today with an eye to both the past and the future. Discern among fact, fiction and fabrication.
Second, as Judge Learned Hand observed nearly eighty years ago, “the spirit of liberty is the spirt which is not too sure that it is right.” Richardson challenges us to think critically and make judgements as citizens that advance the democratic experiment. That critical thought, and sound judgement, must be tethered to a factually accurate knowledge of our past. Like physical fitness, our practice of citizenship needs consistent exercise without audacity.
