We must rededicate ourselves to ‘unfinished work’ of America’s democratic ideal

The storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 represented the inevitable consequence of a political party’s enabling of a pathological demagogue out of fear of incurring the political wrath of a toxic coalition of white supremacists, Christian nationalists, militias, nativists, and grievance holders in general. Whether the failed insurrection will be the beginning of the end of this American fascism or a temporary setback to its assault against democracy, time alone will tell. History provides no assurance of salvation for our republic from this latest challenge. But history can serve to provide some markers for a nation’s self-reflection, if it can muster it.

We need to recognize that truth is the absolute bedrock of any functioning democracy. There can be no invocation of First Amendment rights to provide cover for lies or any disinformation that promotes baseless conspiracies or paranoia. There needs to be accountability for the spreading of falsehoods and distrust and hate, whether it be via talk radio, the internet, Fox News, or any other noxious forum of the radical Right. There needs to be a restoration of respect for the authority of scientists and experts in general. Anti-intellectualism should be exposed for the fraud that it is.

There has to be a clear repudiation of the notion that this is a Christian nation. Nothing in the Constitution nor the actions of the Founders says that it is. Church-state separation and religious liberty, hallmarks of the nation, are incompatible with a confessional state.

There can be no misuse of the Second Amendment that maximizes the acquisition of military weapons in order to oppose what is contrived to be tyrannical government. The proliferation of militias across the country contributed significantly to the climate that made insurrection thinkable. No democracy can long endure in a society teeming with private militias. We have to ensure the public safety that an out-of-control gun culture menaces.

The Republican Party has to disavow the pathological partisanship that has increasingly defined it, as it has more and more, in its campaigning and its governing, put party above country. For too long government and its bureaucracy have been depicted, by Republican demagogues and opportunists, as inherently corrupt and inefficient. We need to recognize government as the fundamental instrument for the peoples’ realization of the American dream. We need to appreciate government workers for what they are: Public servants who enable government to do its vital work. As the Constitution makes clear in its preamble, the promotion of the “general welfare” is a primary purpose of the government it created. We have to rediscover the commitment to the common good that lies at the heart of any authentic republic.

The breadth of that common good and general welfare cannot be appreciated until we affirm what makes an American an American. What defines us as Americans is a commitment to a set of ideals, the most fundamental of which is the equality of all members of this society. This equality establishes our right to full participation in government. It is what determines our government’s character to be “of the people, by the people, for the people.” At its core this is the fundamental American identity – this unity amid diversity which embraces everyone, no matter their place of origin, or the color of their skin, or their religious belief or lack of it.

In the Gettysburg address, Abraham Lincoln challenged his listeners, and the entire divided nation, North and South, to dedicate their own lives to this “unfinished work” of realizing the democratic ideal in all of its potential for freedom, equality, and union. In this hour of crisis, we are painfully aware of how unfinished this work remains amid our own seemingly irreconcilable divisions. There is no higher patriotism than to re-commit ourselves to its completion. It is absolutely vital to our survival as a democratic republic that we do so.

Robert E. Curran is Professor Emeritus of History at Georgetown University. He resides in Richmond.