Our political system and our broader society seem to operate on the ratchet principal.
We go through a period of reactionary politics and social norms that single out seemingly helpless people for persecution or deny facts, that substitute bluster for courage. The Reagan and Bush eras were such times.
Then a self-proclaimed reformer promises to make our laws and our broader society decent again. He’s never real specific as to what he’ll actually do. Think Obama and his promise of hope.
Decent people vote for him.
But the moment he’s elected, he starts backpedaling on reform. Think Bill Clinton and his promises. Think Obama and Guantanamo. Ask yourself, how come Obama, who had promised to extricate us from covert one-decider war, authorized many, many more classified drone strikes than Bush?
Obama gave Trump the precedents and the private armies he craves.
We say, “Oh, I don’t like that particular action, but I have faith in the person. He’s trying to do the right thing.” Things get a little looser. We actually go so far as to, say, condone the right of gay people to get married, or we actually acknowledge that our industrial practices are killing the planet, and we call that progress. If there’s not as much progress as we’d hoped for, we blame the bad guys. Like, say, the House Republicans.
We tell ourselves things are a little better. We let our reformer, our champion, off the hook. We tell ourselves, “Well, it could be worse.”
But then in four or eight years there’s another election, and once again authority shifts to the reactionary. The reactionary, claiming to speak for everyone else, to be free of political correctness, smashes much of what little his predecessor has done. Things lurch to the crazy. The crazy becomes government policy. The crazy becomes the norm.
It’s like tightening a ratchet. Sure, in the moment the ratchet handle is reaching for the next gear, there’s a momentary relenting on the pressure. But over time the ratchet squeezes tighter and tighter. Or it’s like a rack. The rack works the same way. To dismember somebody, you need a purchase. You can’t keep tightening and tightening with no relenting. Rope doesn’t work that way. In the hands of a competent functionary, the man on the rack may think he’s getting a reprieve. He’ll soon find out he was wrong.
I don’t want to live that way. I don’t want my country to live that way.
Nearly two centuries ago, William Lloyd Garrison wrote a manifesto in his first edition of the abolitionist newspaper “The Liberator.” He said, “I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.”
Writing that, he probably thought, “Boy. That’s pretty bold of you. Who put you in charge? What makes you so smart?”
But he published his paper. He tried to tell the truth. How can I do any less?
