EP08 | The Quest for America's Multi-Racial Democracy

As America poises on the brink of the authoritarian vision posed by Project 2025, pro-democracy citizens must brace for an assault on democratic principles by stewarding themselves.  The real work lies ahead in a resistance to the oncoming efforts to dismantle our democracy. 
 
A hero's journey is always fraught with struggles, and this one is no different. In this episode, American Musecast seeks to identify the vision of America that was promised by our founders and framers. What is the America we want to see, and how is it different from what the MAGA movement wants to see? How do we reconcile the two visions into one America?

Together, a new democracy may well emerge under a banner that says, "Yes we can, build back better, because we're not going back."

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20 Positive Psychology Exercises - by Rec Therapy Today

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Transcript

Episode 8: “The Quest for Multi-Racial American Democracy” 

Welcome to American Musecast!   I’m your host, Susan Travis, exploring American politics using the construct of the hero’s journey and archetypes of the psyche.  

If you’re a regular listener, you’ve been following as we’ve set the stage!  You recognize yourself as one of the heroes and villains of the American tale.  You recognize our precarious state of democratic decline because of American complacency, cynicism, and distrust.  And you know that our fixer upper called democracy faces a heartbreaking demolition should a conservative president win the upcoming election and implement the agenda he has in store for us.  Today, we’ll look closely at that plan, Project 2025, and the implications it promises. 

Now, I’ll remind you that we are on a hero’s quest within the American story.   Once complacent and cynical, we are newly poised to tip the balance, to defend democracy and right the ship.  We’re the ragtag army, the hero populace perfectly positioned to rescue democracy.  We’re like . . .mmm, a sleeper cell.  Here all along.  Never responding to polls, ignoring, grousing, and not making eye contact until the big mission – saving American democracy.  How exciting!  

Our mission, you’ll recall, is to develop a new political lifestyle of dynamic citizenry. It will be to vote for freedom over chaos, and to commit to new healthier habits as American citizens.  It’s time to set aside our politically sedentary lifestyle, and step toward a refreshing dive into civic understanding!  

Now, as I mentioned previously, we’ve had a rough summer in my little town, but since the worst seems to be over, I’ll pick up the pace.  This week begins our series on American institutions such as education, law, media, etc.  The health of our institutions is vital to a healthy democracy, and although they are every in need of improvement, we’ll discuss that in context of the profound threats they face through the conservative agenda known as Project 2025 or similarly through former president Trump’s plan, Agenda 47. There’s little daylight between the two

We’ll look at the project in general, beginning with the opening documents outlining conservative intent, then, in subsequent episodes, we’ll look at how Project 2025 ties into other issues and concerns such as white Christian nationalism, compromises to the Supreme Court, immigration reform, media and propaganda, the viability of the electoral college, healthcare and climate change.  SO. As you can see, there’s not a moment to spare!  

But first, let’s start with where we’re now, in that space between a healthy democracy and an actual authoritarian takeover.  You are here . . . set a pin in the place of what is called, “democratic backsliding.” It’s that an evolutionary situation which occurs when essential components of democracy are threatened.  That’s our current environment.

Democratic backsliding is generally subtle and gradual.  It’s like the frog in the pot  It’s a slow erosion that softens the ground for nefarious intent.  Democratic backsliding generally involves a combination of legal, political, and social changes, driven by economic instability, political polarization, corruption, and the strategic actions of political leaders seeking to consolidate power.  So.  That’s us.  We’re being groomed for fascism, and it’s why we’ve been characterized as a failing democracy since 2016.  With our own eyes, we see the following markers, normalizing dysfunction.

We see the Erosion of Democratic Institutions, such as the judiciary, the electoral system, and legislative bodies. attempts to concentrate power . . . the weakening of checks and balances  . . . the demonization of compromise to the point of obstructionism. These are our democratic institutions, eroding and being battered before our eyes.

We see Restrictions on Civil Liberties, such as freedom of the press hobbled by the constant bullying accusation of “fake news,” on the freedom of assembly; and on freedom of speech, not so much eliminated, as saturated with lies.  The undermining of our civil liberties limits our ability to credibly criticize the government, to hold it to account, and to advocate for change.  But those are our OUR civil liberties, being restricted, and our democracy, backsliding.

We see the Manipulation of Electoral Processes . . . changes to electoral laws, gerrymandering, and other forms of electoral manipulation, all of which undermines the fairness and transparency of elections. erodes public trust in the democratic process, and inclines us toward consolidation of power in the hands of a few.  The efforts by former president Trump to subvert the 2020 election, with his January 6th insurrection incitement at the top of the list.  Slanderous conspiracy theories interwoven into frivolous legal challenges and foreign interference, even in the current election. We know, because they tell us, and in that telling, we see our democracy, backsliding.

We see Attacks on Political Opposition, those efforts to weaken or eliminate political opposition. through harassment, unsubstantiated legal challenges, and violence.  Threats by aggrieved followers, who mount chaos against election officials, politicians, and even their neighbors.  Threats by former president Trump to use the DOJ and the military to jail and even execute his opponents, should he win.  This was never a part of a healthy democracy – and now, it’s evidence of democratic backsliding. 

We see the Weakening of Rule of Law, undermined as leaders act above the law, fail to enforce legal norms impartially, and use legal mechanisms and biased interpretation of the law to suppress dissent and delay justice. Former President Trump floated the idea of suspending the constitution itself, and continually works to erode the independence of the judiciary.  This weakening of the rule of law, is part of democratic backsliding.

We see an Erosion of Democratic Norms – they erode before our very eyes - respect for the outcome of elections, tolerance for dissent, and commitment to democratic principles.  Every day, from early lies about Obama’s birth certificate, to the lies about Haitians eating cats, and FEMA confiscating hurricane properties.  Lies. Name calling. Backchanneling to Putin as a citizen. Stealing a bathroom-full of classified documents and such an act meets with a shrug. The sound of that “so what,” is the sound of democracy, backsliding.

We see an over-emphasis on national security as response to acts of terrorism or perceived antagonists such as immigrants and indeed, fellow Americans.  Build a wall, they’re coming, they’re coming for you and me, they’re rapists and pillagers with leprosy and Aids, all sent from the foreign asylums.  Hide your children . . . and your pets.  National security will never save us, so put those kids in cages.  If ONLY I were painting a picture for dramatic effect.  This is every day, so . . . Breaking News: We’re in a state of democratic backsliding.

When public opinion is on our side, there’s no need to struggle against democracy with such shenanigans.  It’s when we see our vision slipping, when our agenda has less merit, less public support, that darker methods become so tempting.  And so, encroachments into an anti-democratic realm just keep creeping forward, on the very screens before our eyes.  Breaking News – we’re in it, and each day, the democratic backsliding of our times calcifies into American contemporary history.  

In previous episodes, we’ve looked at how various authors urge us to address democratic backsliding:  through increased vigilance, by developing robust democratic institutions, and by committing to a more active civil engagement to uphold democratic norms and values. We are called to strengthen trust, establish policy integrity, and good faith implementation.  

NPR Citizen’s Guide to Preserving Democracy – Richard Haas
 https://www.pbs.org/video/a-citizens-guide-to-preserving-democracy-hcrswk/

-I'm worried.  We're off the rails.  Good news is, we can get back on the rails.  There's nothing that's happened that's irrevocable or irreversible, but there is something amiss.  -You really call it a crisis.  Is that the appropriate word?  Are we in that level now?  -We can argue whether it's a crisis or not, but if you're not worried, you're not paying attention.  I don't think any of us has the luxury to be sanguine about the state of, future of American democracy.  And if you value it, as I do, as you do, as I hope everyone watching this does, they should be worried.

And they should basically say, we can no longer assume that after 247, 248 years, it's gonna be around here for another 10, 20, much less 248 years.

Indeed, we, the hero-populace find ourselves in this space of democratic backsliding with all its terrain of shifting sands, turbulent seas and gusting winds.  It’s an environment ripe for a perfect storm, and in this environment, the right wing of our country seeks to cement power by implementing Project 2025.  

We’re at a crossroads.  And the stakes?  Democracy.  Keep it or ditch it? That’s what sits in the midst of our turbulent times.  Door number 1, our rather motheaten democracy, in need of care and repair; Door number 2, the dystopian fascist vision of Project 2025.

Lining up behind Door Number 1 (keep democracy) are Moderate Republicans, Centrists and the full Left wing who say keep it.  Let’s get to work, and fix it up!  In case you can’t tell, I’m with those guys. 

Lining up behind Door Number 2, are right wing extremists, Neo-Nazis, Q-Anon, White Christian Nationalists, and the fevered MAGA movement of dedicated Trumplicans who seem keen to ditch it, as outlined by Project 2025.  Democratic backsliding?  No.  This promises to take us far beyond. Under this agenda, America transitions into an authoritarian state in which 250 years of democratic processes and institutions are replaced by autocratic governance structures. A dictator on Day One, looking, as he has stated, for generals like the ones Hitler had.  These are the ideals of the extreme right-wing of our political citizenry, eyeing the profitability of strangling our social and electoral rights, and loosening the checks and balances that have long held back single party governance.

Now, you’re right to expect some sort of catastrophizing at this point.  A bit of jumping around dramatically screaming that the sky is falling on our heads and we have no hats!   Well, this this is not a catastrophizing tactic. It’s the real deal – it’s not a drill, because we truly are at a critical moment in our nation’s history, much like other democracies, long since fallen into the wastebins of history.  So heads up.

Let’s look seriously at these plans in terms of what constitutes the health of our institutions, how Project 2025 will affect that health, and how Project 2025 authors and supporters articulate and characterize their written manifesto in their own words.  

The primary authors of the project are led by the conservative organization, the Heritage Foundation, along with over 500 conservative contributors from various religious and financial entities.  Heritage Foundation has been around since the 70s, a self-described academic-styled “think tank,” though, their evidence-based research has generally been questionable.  As the Republican Party hasn’t posted an official election campaign platform in well over a decade, work by the Heritage Foundation is recognized as filling that gap.

Now, although former president Trump insists that he knows nothing of this project, his own “Agenda 47” very closely follows the project, and at the heart of the authoring body are former Trump Administration members and close associates who publicly assert that this is the agenda that Trump expects to undertake from day one, should he win the 2024 election.  It’s a rather obvious have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too strategy.  Disavow your heart’s desire for unchecked power.

Project 2025 can be found as a 922-page pdf on the Heritage Foundation website, and I’ll provide a link in the show notes.  For the purposes of our exploration, I’ve printed it out and have made copious notes in the margins.  In addition to its introductory section, it has 5 sections.  1. Taking the Reins of Government;  2. The Common Defense;  3. The General Welfare (which is itself comprised of 20 chapters); 4. The Economy; and 5. Independent Regulatory Agencies.  

Now, I’ve several general observations before I get into specifics.  First, this is a document curated by over 500 conservative lawyers and political professionals, a document of grave importance to our national dialogue, presenting to the world, their view of liberal Americans.  And it’s littered with not only with demeaning and contemptuous language, but with gross mischaracterizations and demonizing rhetoric (commentary, that is) about liberals and their political aspirations.  This sort of language would never be acceptable within an academic paper.  It’s hard to say if they really believe their own words, or if they are merely “catastrophizing” to manipulate support.  Either way, it’s a rather heartbreaking read, and rather chilling entry into our nation’s archives.

Secondly, if you want to know how conservatives view democracy, the multi-racial complexity of our populace, the idea of power balanced between our co-equal branches of government, the need for an impartial rule of law . . . this document, Project 2025, prepared by the most elite conservatives in in our nation, also unmasks their contempt for these time-honored bones of our democracy, even as they posture as protectors of democracy.  Democracy is a bit too fair, for their taste.  

And finally, I’m struck by the ways Project 2025 postures itself as a noble defender of democracy, by using profoundly anti-democratic strategies to achieve decidedly fascist consequences.  This project shows no awareness of democratic philosophy, of the purpose and reasons underlying rule of law, ethics, the values of diversity, equity and inclusion, checks and balances, or the separation of powers.  These fundamental values at the heart of democracy, the authors of Project 2025 dismiss as irritations, all while claiming to righteously defend and preserve democracy.  

This conservative vision is held by the most powerful right-wing power-brokers in America.  Win or lose, it outlines their political aspirations, vision for government and citizen dynamics, and socio-economic structure for our country.  It tells us the kind of America they would like to live in, and we can expect this document will remain a relevant handbook for conservatives, even, and perhaps especially, if they lose the election. 

My final impression?  Certainly, we can all see the lack of trust and the erosion of governing quality, so there’s a general American consensus about the reality of democratic backsliding.  Nonetheless, we are poles apart, grappling to identify the real obstacles, blame, interpretation, and solutions - how we came to backslide, how we characterize that backsliding, and what to do about it. Our country desperately needs the principles of civics threaded throughout the curricula of every grade in school, lest such unprincipled “defenders,” run amok through America’s future journeys.  Surely, their work can be mitigated by a more informed, less malleable populace.  

Now, the odd structuring of Project 2025 is the least of our worries with this thing, but here’s the gist.

It’s comprised of four pillars. 1. Project 2025 is the FIRST PILLAR of itself.  THE SECOND PILLAR (of the first pillar), is to establish a database of conservative personnel with proven loyalty to the agenda of a conservative president, THREE a new presidential academy, that’s an online educational system taught by them, a sort of civics-for-conservatives aligned with conservative principles setting the bar for what is expected of senior leadership; and THE FOURTH PILLAR is a “playbook” which in their words, “we’re forming agency teams and drafting transition plans to move out upon the president’s utterance of ‘so help me God.’ 

The preface explains their strategy:  “a well-conceived, coordinated unified plan, and a trained and committed cadre of personnel to implement it.”  necessary, they say, “because of the long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions,” and further, “our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the administrative state.”

So. A pause here to reflect on the administrative state. What’s that? Well, it also goes by the term, “bureaucracy” which I long understood to simply be another word for “red tape,” civics not being a requirement in my high school.  But, no, it’s actually a term referring to those governmental agencies within the Executive Branch.  

Another pause, because my little poll of regular people has yielded the need for a little additional info.  Our government has three branches.  The Legislative Branch, related to law-making, and that’s Congress.  The Judicial Branch, related to our court system, and that includes the Supreme Court, and the many courts and legal apparatus across the land who interpret the law and dispense justice.  And finally, the Executive Branch, which includes the President, the Vice President, and the Bureaucracy aka the Administrative State.  

Now, the Executive Branch is primarily the branch under scrutiny in this part of Project 2025, because within this branch each department in the bureaucracy is tasked with enforcing laws, policies, regulations, etc. within that department. That’s the primary role of the Executive Branch – how will we enforce the elements of our structure.  The agencies and departments within the bureaucracy put policies into practice on a daily basis, and they are staffed with experts and career professionals generally regarded as the most highly esteemed in their fields of expertise.  

That said, Project 2025 calls those experts, “careerists,” defined in Collins dictionary as a pejorative, a slur that is, implying mercenary, calculating, opportunistic, self-serving, or looking out for number one.  They are the Administrative State which Project 2025 has tapped to be deconstructed.

So what gives? And why?  Well, the president’s cabinet is made up of heads of each agency and department within the bureaucracy, each of whom are presidential appointees, who require Senate approval.  These department heads generally carry the title of “Secretary,” and are the closest advisors to the president.  For instance, the Secretary of State oversees the State Department, which is in charge of international diplomacy. 

As the crème de la crème of experts, the secretaries are put in place to strengthen these departments through reasoned regulation in service to the people. We elected our president and members of Congress because, presumably, we view their character and expertise as sufficient to warrant our trust in choosing the best our country had to offer. So, the role of the secretaries, based on their expertise, their analysis, and their evaluation of related factors, is to guide policies toward the very healthiest of consequences aside from mere profit, power, or partisan agenda.

Project 2025 makes clear that this is a problem, that the bureaucracy’s FIRST consideration should be loyalty to the conservative agenda of a conservative president.  And that agenda, in most cases, includes the deconstruction of departments within the administrative state. In the prior Trump Administration, this goal of deconstructing the administrative state took the form of undermining and disrupting the departments using unqualified secretaries, so that the department could be shown to be ineffective and ripe for dismantling.  You may remember the Secretary of the Interior compromising our public lands and the Secretary of Education, defunding so many of our educational programs, to name a few.  

Trump tried in his waning days of office to create this new quote unquote, schedule F, a different category of civil servants who would be moved away from the protections of the merit system and into a space where they could be fired at will for not carrying out his agenda.

He rolled out an executive order to this effect.  In the late days of his, of 2020.  He started to try to implement it, but ran out of time.

Joe Biden rescinded this executive order on one of his first days in office, but a real area of overlap between what Trump is promising himself and what project 2025 is articulated is a resuscitation of this executive order, and plans to get it out the door right away to remove some of the internal checks that, usually like prevent presidents from taking illegal actions, but in this case would enable, the Trumpian agenda with, with few checks at all.

Restoring our bureaucracy to a healthier, more efficient structure of service to the public has been no small task for the Biden Administration, and the work to ever improve is an ongoing endeavor.

In addition to the many commissions and boards that manage policy, there are currently fifteen primary departments with representation in the president’s cabinet, including the departments of defense, interior, agriculture, commerce, and labor, the department of health and human services, housing and urban development, the departments of energy, education, and veteran’s affairs, homeland security, the environmental protection agency, the office of management and budget, national intelligence, the CIA, the departments of trade, economic policy, small business administration, and the office of science and technologies.  

These are the agencies targeted by Project 3035 when they say they want to “deconstruct the administrative state.”  The plan outlines the intention to eliminate many of these departments with some folded into other agencies or privatized, including the Transportation Security Administration.  Imagine weakening these regulatory bodies so that they diminish public protections, leading to environmental harm and unsafe products, all for profit and power. 

Bonnie Erbe’ and Aisha Woodward from Protect Democracy. 
 https://www.pbs.org/video/protect-democracy-vs-project-2025-oqeuul/

As you know well, the nonpartisan civil service is kind of foundational to how our government is run.  These are people who are hired because they have expertise in science and data and policy, and they carry out the day-to-day functioning of government.  And they don't change from one administration to the next because their fealty is into a political party.  It's to carrying out the law as they see it and the policies of elected officials.

Right.

Like you work for the FDA, you, a lot of the, civil servants there have advanced degrees in medical research, and they make their judgments based on what's on science, not on their political beliefs.  And he would want to change that so that he could appoint people permanently who would make those judgments based on their religious beliefs.

That's exactly right.

The Heritage Foundation director, Kevin Roberts, introduces a need for this bucket list by identifying liberalism as culprits guilty of “wholesale dishonesty and corruption of the political class who oversees inflations, drug addiction, transgenderism with drag queen and pornography in their libraries, China’s cold economic war, and governmental dependency.”  

He goes on, “contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s “radical chic” to build the totalitarian cult known today as “The Great Awokening.”  Well, that’s cute, but what in the world are they talking about?  I think he just made that up.  Until now, I’ve never heard of the “Great Awokening,” though maybe it’s a Fox News thing.  A totalitarian cult born of the radical chic. This bogeyman under the bed born of the conservative imagination is a radical chic controlling America through their totalitarian cult known today, far and wide, as the “Great Awokening.”  Or maybe the Great Pumpkin . . . Also, apparently, “unaccountable federal spending is the lifeblood of the “Great Awokening.”  So.  Move over Q-Anon. Identifying America’s threat comprises the second paragraph of the Project 2025 foreword, and it reads like the overarching conspiracy theory of a dystopian novel.  

This is the anti-democratic adversary of the hero populace, an irrational part of America that fears and hates, and will dismantle the guardrails of justice and democracy.  Remember that the actual historical definition of “woke” refers to an alert vigilance for injustice.  I’d like to note that each time I ask a conservative to define “critical race theory” or “woke,” they either admit to not knowing, or answer that it’s “the liberal agenda.” Remember too, that being “antifa,” means being anti-fascism, that hard right concentration of power steeped in injustice.  Additionally, they specifically reference “the scourge of socialism, communism, Marxism, progressivism, fascism, whatever name it chooses” . . . . not seeming to remember that fascism is born of right-wing extremism, not left. 

Referring to his foreword as “the opening salvo of Project 2025,” Kevin Roberts introduces “The Conservative Promise” with four promises.  Section ONE of Project 2025, “Taking the Reins of Government” puts meat on the bones of each promise.

FIRST To restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and to protect our children. Well, good on’em.  A noble goal . . . ah but, having already accused the left of centralizing power the opening of that promise reads, “the ENTIRE point of centralizing power is to SUBVERT the family; it’s purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatural ones.”  

Conservatives have long deemed liberals as the culprits behind centralizing of power, perhaps because it’s the locus of the human rights protections in our democracy . . .the constitution at the heart of democracy, intends the broadest umbrella “centralizing” protection of our human rights, speech to religion, arms to welfare, soup to nuts.   Our humanity, our dignity, is the first aim of the constitution, and to that end, the constitution establishes the structure, the checks and balances and due process to do so, allowing states to sort out their own unique interests.  Roughly speaking.  It makes sense that the rights of our humanity should be consistent.  Yet, Project 2025 paints all of that justice and democracy as a diabolical liberal conspiracy.  Yet, decentralizing our human rights into the purview of the states will generate 50 ideas about who warrants dignity, leading to profound inconsistencies in rights and protections across states, as we’ve seen in the reproductive restrictions following the Dobbs decision to dismantle Roe v Wade.   

Now, while Project 2025 doesn’t explicitly call for an abortion ban, it does advocate many steps to restrict the procedure, including outlawing the abortion drug mifepristone, blocking abortion equipment or medication from being mailed, barring the use of federal funds to provide healthcare coverage for abortion and requiring states to report all abortions through a federal database on the reproductive status of citizens. 

This promise to restore family means, “to make the institutions of American civil society, HARD TARGETS for woke culture warriors, starting by deleting the terms ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’ aka SOGI.”  SOGI-inclusive schools embrace the different gender identities and experiences of their students, and ensure that these identities are never a cause for discrimination, but Project 2025 wants to delete even the term “SOGI” as well as, again quoting, “DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the following terms gender, gender equity, gender equality, gender awareness, gender sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights.”  They add that these terms should be deleted, from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists,” adding that, “anything related to “critical race theory” or “gender ideology” poison our children.”  

Transgender rights and gender identity beyond biological sex are roundly rejected with the intention to reinstate the ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, to prohibit public school educators from referring to students by anything other than their birth name and pronouns without parental permission, and to ensure no federal funds are used to provide gender-affirming care.  Just a note, US prisons easily approved gender affirmative treatments and surgeries under the Trump Administration.

While Project 2025 doesn’t outlaw same-sex marriage, it supports “nuclear families” that include a “married mother, father, and their children.” They call for restricting laws that bar discrimination on the basis of sex, adding that such laws should exclude sexual orientation and gender identity.  In other words, THAT discrimination would be acceptable.

A full paragraph of the foreword relates to the eradication of pornography, jailing users, and “shuttering telecommunications and tech that facilitate pornography.”  Educators and librarians would be imprisoned and classified as sex offenders.  Now, pros and cons of pornography aside, Project 2025 states up front that they will shut down telecommunications and tech that facilitate pornography.  So, let’s think it through.  Conservatives throughout the country have banned, books they have identified as pornography including To Kill a Mocking bird, Beloved, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Handmaid’s Tale, and even Sleeping Beauty. So, for facilitating their idea of pornography, there goes your internet provider. There goes Random House and Audible for their digital publications of classics.  As conservative characterizations of these matters increasingly become the law, democratic backsliding slips down the slope, and plops into a fascist pool far beyond the promises of an open and inclusive democracy.

Project 2025 asserts:  “Schools should serve parents . . . states, cities, and counties school boards, union bosses, principals and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds.” Most of us maintain that the school should equitably serve the students.  Yet, imagine if EVERY parent (though doubtfully, the liberal ones) gets to insert their conspiracy theory into actual curriculum, their views on religion, race, or a liberal democracy. 

Such conservative fundamentalism does not understand that the ideas of freedom, free societies, and “free will” rest on the idea of choice from among the options arrayed before us through an open society.  Within a democracy, the building of character and virtue comes not by having the government remove access, but rather through the individual journey of hard choices and resistance to temptation

The SECOND PROMISE of Project 2025 is to dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the people.  This concept was introduced previously, but amid this “promise” section is the plan to remove those unelected and appointed career professionals, the one’s they call “careerists,” to, in their words, “defang and defund the woke culture warriors who have infiltrated every last institution in America.”  In other words, people who don’t think like them, who refuse to take an oath of loyalty to the president (not the constitution, the president) and to insert only political appointees who are ideologically aligned with the president into the executive branch. This would affect as many as 50,000 federal employees, expert in their field.  So, no push back.  No guardrails or information that might give pause or remind the cabinet of legal obstacles or social consequences.  It promises that arrogant good-versus-evil mentality that shuns the idea of complexity and nuance.  If you aren’t fully with us, you are the evil enemy needing a silencing and disempowerment.

Part of this effort to dismantle the administrative state, places a huge target on the department of justice. It focuses on appointing judges who strictly interpret the Constitution and are aligned with a conservative president’s agenda, yet this focus undermines judicial independence and fairness, and blatantly ignores the fascist implications of ensuring biased rulings that favor specific ideologies. 

Laura Barron-Lopez, in an interview with PBS  
 https://video.pbsnc.org/video/trump-agenda-1720559568/

Project 2025 proposes placing the Justice Department squarely under Donald Trump's authority, doing away with any traditional independence that we usually see for the Justice Department and the attorney general.

They want Donald Trump to install a loyal attorney general, install loyal lawyers across the board, and Trump himself has repeatedly said that he wants to do this.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: We will restore law and order in our country.  (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And I will direct a completely overhauled DOJ to investigate every radical out-of-control prosecutor in America for their illegal, racist and reverse enforcement of the law.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: There is no law.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That, Amna, is a regular part of Donald Trump's stump speeches.

So it's not just Project 2025 proposing this.  It's also the former president himself.

And Russ Vought, again, that person, the -- who worked in Donald Trump's first administration, likely going to be into any second Donald Trump administration, has said that the Justice Department is not an independent agency.  He has said this publicly, and that if anyone were to try to say that they are independent in a second potential Trump term, that he would kick them out of the White House.

Even as they argue to expand and consolidate power with a conservative president (not just any president) at one point the document says, “the government should stop trying to substitute its own preferences for those of the people,” while a few sentences later noting “there’s no such thing as the government, only people who work for the government.” They add, “ultimately, the Left does not believe that all men are created equal, they think only they themselves have an unalienable right to pursue the good life and only they themselves have such a right along with a moral responsibility to make decisions for everyone else.”  Again, blind to what they themselves are doing with Project 2025 which established up front their position of “down with diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

The inherent contradiction of the scourge to be eliminated and the means they chose to do so is lost on the authors of Project 2025.   In loathing a politically appointed bureaucracy answerable to the president, (though actually answerable to the rule of law), they seek to secure for themselves, a politically appointed bureaucracy answerable ONLY to the president.  Makes no sense.  Except that it’s not about anything other than securing conservative power.  In their words, “the great challenge confronting a conservative president is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power, including the power currently held by the executive branch, to the people.” But that isn’t what’s happening here.  They want the power to reside with a conservative president and all bureaucratic roads to lead to his or her agenda. But, if power were fairly returned to the people, it would be balanced in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or NOT, because they’ve already spurned such a balance along with “woke” policies in their opening salvo.  

Project 2025 calls for a “top-to-bottom overhaul” of the DOJ and FBI that gets rid of what it calls an “unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class and radical Left ideologues.” They propose an agency that would be more focused on violent crime and filing litigation that’s “consistent with the President’s agenda” and filled with far more political appointees; it also proposes prohibiting the FBI from investigating misinformation or making “politically motivated” moves against U.S. citizens, an interesting conflation, a mushing together of two unrelated issues.  Consider also, that former president Trump’s stated agenda is to retaliate against his political opponents using the military and justice system. 

The proposal would undo much of the federal government’s climate work which they call “climate fanaticism.”  They would leave the Paris Climate Agreement, eliminate the Office of Domestic Climate Policy, overhaul the Department of Energy to promote oil and natural gas and deemphasize green energy sources, remove the Department of Agriculture’s focus on sustainability and curtail climate research. Their words.

Project 2025 would make significant cuts to Medicaid and impose work requirements to receive coverage, and would reform Medicare—including by making the default option for patients, Medicare Advantage, a paid supplement with a disturbing record of miserable coverage.

The project seeks to reform the Federal Reserve by “tak[ing] the monetary steering wheel out of [its] hands and return[ing] it to the people,” which the authors propose could be done by getting rid of the government’s control over the nation’s money entirely—instead leaving it up to banks—or returning to the gold standard, in which the dollar’s value would be tied to a specific weight of gold. 

Project 2025 would seek to get rid of current tax rates and most deductions and credits, instead proposing a 15% rate for anyone under the Social Security wage base ($168,000 in 2024) and 30% for taxpayers earning more than that—which means the lowest-income taxpayers will now pay more and some higher earners will pay less, and it would also lower the corporate income tax rate to 18%.  

This is not my area of expertise, but the worry by prominent economists is that such policies would exacerbate inequality, concentrating wealth and power, undermining the economic foundations of a healthy democracy, as would their plans to secure election integrity through stricter voting laws and measures to combat alleged (though negligent) voter fraud.  These laws often disproportionately affect marginalized communities, hindering their participation in democracy. Stricter voting laws and reduced federal oversight typically leads to systemic disenfranchisement of specific populations, deepening existing political divides, creating an environment where compromise and bipartisanship become increasingly difficult.

Their THIRD PROMISE is to defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders and bounty against global threats.  Okay, but here’s the meat on those bones. “The next conservative president must end the Left’s social experimentation with the military (?) restore warfighting as its sole mission, and set defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party as its highest priority.”  Along with progressives, they claim that “America’s corporate and political elite do not believe in the ideals to which our nation is dedicated, self-governance, the rule of law, and ordered liberty.” They claim that “the left cavalierly supports open borders,” that their goal is to decrease wages for the working class and that “environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human and (is) a pseudo-religion meant to baptize liberals ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the holy water of environmental virtue.”

So to all of this, they state. “The solution of ALL OF THE ABOVE problems is not to tinker with this or that government program or to replace this or that bureaucrat.  These problems are not of technocratic efficiency, but of national sovereignty and constitutional governance.  We solve them not by trimming or reshaping leaves but by ripping out the trees, root and branch.” International organizations and agreements should be abandoned, and America should adopt a more isolationist stance, despite the worry that reduced international engagement could weaken alliances and diminish the U.S.’s global influence and ability to promote democratic values abroad.

Their FOURTH PROMISE OF PROJECT 2025, is to secure our God-given individual right to enjoy the blessings of liberty.  For a group that wants STRICT interpretation of the Constitution, they begin this segment “When the founders spoke of pursuit of happiness, what they really meant might be understood today as, in essence, pursuit of blessedness. … Our constitution grants each of the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought.”  Not exactly strict originalism; because saying “What they really meant might be understood today as, in essence” phrases us to their own stumbled interpretation. An interpretation that says, “BOO to free will.” 

I’d wager a sack full of money that if Project 2025 were to use the find and replace feature on their agenda, replacing “conservative” with the word, “liberal,” and “right” with “left” conservatives would suddenly have their own Great Awokening. Because imagine if an Obama, a Biden, or a Harris should decide to openly replace all conservative career appointees with liberals required to pledge loyalty to a democratic president, instead of to the constitution.  The flaws to Project 2025 would quickly become apparent if they viewed it from that perspective.

By prioritizing ideological appointments and reducing the role of regulatory agencies, Project 2025 risks undermining essential checks on power.  What Project 2025 fails to understand is that within the idea of “checks and balances,” is that checks critically ensure that power is balanced.  But when the goal is to concentrate power in any direction, the balancing of power is an obstacle, so, the checks must go, and VOILA, you have yourself an unchecked president, with full immunity for official act, now declaring all acts official. Concentrated power is the literal opposite of balanced power.  I can’t help but wonder if our conservative fellow citizens are really all that gung-ho about this plan . . . if they really understand the impact it would have on a healthy democracy, and if they even know it’s out there, speaking for them.

Project 2025 is a 922-page plan for reshaping American society according to their vision, a vision that poses significant risks to democratic norms, equity, and participation, potentially reshaping the political landscape in ways that favor a narrow ideological agenda at the expense of broader democratic values, and this radical emphasis on executive power and reduction of institutional constraints will pave the way for authoritarian practices.

Now, in today’s call to action, I urge you to explore Project 2025 from more than just the perspective offered in this podcast.  If you’re already in podcast mode, consider searching the term “project 2025” or specifically listen to Ali Velshi’s podcast which regularly explores elements of Project 2025 with amazing clarity.  He is really SO GOOD at explaining this – you can also just search Project 2025 Velshi on YouTube and video segments from each of his episodes are there as well.  Additionally, there is an amazing NPR podcast fully dedicated to Project 2025 which I recommend.

Our next episode will explore trends related to White Christian Nationalism, the need for a woke popula       ce, and the threats posed to people of color through Project 2025.

So that’s it for today, but for my dear listeners with a fire in the belly, please follow this weekly podcast, share it with others, and tell them how much you love it. I welcome your observations in the comments section because sometimes they offer a sparkle of ideas to include in other episodes.  Just use your manners.  I’m a real person, not a chew toy!  So, buckle up buttercups!  Let’s get out there, and steward democracy!     

Welcome to American Musecast!   I’m your host, Susan Travis, exploring American politics using the construct of the hero’s journey and archetypes of the psyche. 

In this first episode of American Musecast following the 2024 US Presidential Election, pro-democracy listeners are no doubt speculating about the state of our quest.  Shall we ignore the whole thing and go about our business, maybe batten down the hatches and grow a garden, perhaps make a run for the border, or shall we ride at dawn? 

Our challenge is that of the 2024 American voters, roughly half voted for “change,” though their visions of change certainly varied in an election with uncomfortable choices.  Many looked beyond the darker lurking threat of Project 2025 and the freight car of baggage, hoped for the best, and voted for a constellation of concerns, from the price of groceries to the security of the border. For them, their interest was never to dismantle democracy or remake the government.  

For that contingent, their concerns felt BIGGER than egregious flaws of character, criminal behavior, or even incitement of an insurrection against the United States.  Whatever their concerns, those worries overrode the threats perceived against democracy.  So, for many, the consequences to the country, and to the world, may come as a surprise, and they may eventually join the rest of us in feeling, as my cousin would say, “fakootched.”  

In the end, the quest hasn’t changed, because the oligarchs and authors of Project 2025 now move forward with a perceived mandate to remake the government outside the bounds of democracy.  And surely, there’s no such mandate held in the hearts of most Americans.  That said, we will need a new infusion of energy for our quest.  So let’s hope for the unexpected cowboys who ride up to join the posse at the last minute – the finally convinced holdouts, who might make all the difference to the quest at hand.

Generally, heroes accept the call to quest hoping for blue skies and following winds, for balmy weather, calm seas, and at the end, a tally of fingers and toes showing all have returned unscathed.  Heroes hope for noble comrades, wise mentors, flashy gadgets, magic beans, and any luck, a red Lamborghini, and a sweeping vista with a dramatic orchestra score as the credits roll by.  (ZZIPP)

Yeah. Well.  Most of us really don’t go questing very often, do we, and any hope for a nicely paced quest, suited to our skills, allowing for plenty of rest and a healthy work-life balance – well, it would have been nice, wouldn’t it? If this were going to be more of an elementary quest?  Well.  It never is.  It was never going to be that easy.  It was easier and lighter to spend 9 episodes rallying the troops to save democracy; it’s sinking in that the troops are now discouraged, and that the quest has been moved to a new level of difficulty. 

But knowing what I know of quests, I rather imagine if the hero archetype could speak to us now, it would say quite decisively, “Perhaps I wasn’t clear, that a quest isn’t easy.  That a quest is rife with set-backs and self-doubt, and that there WILL be dragons and armies of trolls. That our moments of hope and celebration will come to us peppered with moments of despair.  Perhaps I wasn’t clear, that we are just getting started, and, that giving up, is not an option . . . well, not for a hero, that is.”  So, up we get.  

Because the pattern of the hero’s journey fits any saga, it appropriately serves this journey of the American citizenry.  Its unique application allows us to predict, to strategize, and to better cope with what lies ahead – IF we welcome its pattern as a necessary tool. If we recognize our place within a plot as old as time.  If we place our feet in the tracks and recognize the handholds and markers along the way.  The pattern of the Hero’s Journey helps to make sense of the nonsense, not only to conquer dragons and armies of trolls, but also to stay grounded and hopeful when unsettling forces seek to rattle our psyches.    

On November 5, 2024, Americans stepped over a threshold as too many missed mayday alarms and the rallying cries to the cynical and complacent.  And so, we toppled through the wardrobe of Narnia, into Dr. Who’s phone booth, and down the rabbit hole, as millions of fellow citizens dragged us into somewhere we don’t want to be.  And so it is, my friends, that the journey begins. 

It’s always been this way, as each generation steps across that threshold into the myriads of fraught journeys of American history – wagons west, and a trail of tears. Native boarding schools and Japanese internment camps. A day in the life of Jim Crow laws, or just another ordinary day biding one’s time at the back of the bus.  

There is always a threshold between one way of being and another.  It’s the place between a message sent, and a message received, a place of choice between giving up or getting on with it, where the Greeks would invoke the god, Hermes, or Africans, the goddess, Oya.  Change, when, like silence to a thunder clap, one thing ceases, and another begins.   Ann Reed, in her song “Heroes,” tells us that “By your lives you tell us it can be done, that I must do the thing I think I cannot do.”  And Cesar Chaves, leading farm workers in a labor movement famously pointed out that the only direction is forward.  

The threshold is a place of guardians, those characters and energies of discouragement, just trying to see if the hero has the moxie to proceed.  It’s that voice that says:  “You can do better than that guy – you’re not college material – the country is already lost.” It’s the place where we show what we’re made of, and how badly we want it for ourselves and our progeny, and whether we trust in our tools and mentors enough to proceed despite our trepidations.  Because, as we all know, courage means taking action in spite of our doubts and despair.

What our ancestral heroes have in common is not that they never collapsed, but that they always rose after falling.  Each generation has had to step over that threshold, to plow throw the naysayers, and to fight for a future in the company of better angels.  In days gone by, our multi-great grandies found their way, entering their journeys already tired, but resisting tyranny and exploitation with the same number of hours in a day as have each of us, and at least, the same outrage and determination in their hearts.  They pressed through their moments of doubt, their Gethsemanes and meltdowns.  Now, it's our turn.  The question is, what are WE made of?  what are we going to do?  Give up, rend our garments, or forge ahead?  

To be sure, we can surrender and move back into the realm of complacency, accepting Trump’s embrace of Project of 2025 and its promised autocracy.  We can turn our backs to the assault on already beleaguered institutions and the least fortunate among us who will fare the worst.  This will be to allow democracy an ignominious death at the hijacking hands of oligarchs and the authors of Project 2025 with their self-proclaimed mandate, and we can choose this path.  Some say this is overreacting anyway, being melodramatic, but that’s always a dynamic accompanying any warning; to discredit Cassandra, the canary in the coal mine or Nostradamus – those who study patterns, and who can read the writing on the walls of the future or understands trends in social and economic politics. Those who predict or read the signs. 

SO Those who study the disintegration of democracy into fascism point out that among the first, most insidious features of democratic decline are that citizens become disengaged, ever more uninformed, and detached from the stewardship of democracy. We looked at this in Episode 3, and now, already we see this happening, as ratings to reliable news sources plumet by over half, as too many from among those previously engaged, increasingly say, “I just can’t watch anymore.  It’s too depressing.”  So.  There’s our first check mark, the surrender, just as predicted. The chaos and outrage were designed to wear us down, because that is the energy meant to test us, and diminish our numbers. The guardian energy. Unless, of course, well, perhaps surrender is short-lived; and America’s stewards will return after a much-needed break.

Some truly are rending their garments. They’re in some state of surrender packing their bags and making for greener fields, emigrating to different lands just as immigrants into America have done so often under even more savage circumstances.  Fortunately, those dearly departing won’t have to walk, or swim. 

The other choice, which you may suspect I prefer, is that we gather our wits and protect the principles of democracy as if they’re our own precious family jewels.   We use Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg as our north star.  We highly resolve that our heroes shall not have fought and died in vain – that this nation, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.  We put our backs into democracy and work to make America live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all.  I say, “check THAT box, accept that challenge, stand our ground, and be the heroes needed for the American journey of democracy!”  

Averting an authoritarian era, will be achieved by staying informed, and by honing our attitude of approach, and our ability to personally and collectively organize.  As heroes of the pro-democracy movement we begin with deep breaths and a review the tools of our kit in terms of discipline, strategy, and the legitimacy of our quest.  

The antidote to complacency and disengagement nestles at the very root of resistance to authoritarianism – an antidote which not only raises the spirits, but also lays the groundwork for a disciplined dynamic citizenry.  When disengagement is rooted in denial, fear, or depression it can fester as a sort of toxic brew masquerading as self-care.  But when we step back, mindfully detaching, we importantly strengthen both personal and collective consciousness with inner strength.  Our energy, our calm demeanor and sense of normalcy becomes then the bedrock of our journey as a whole. 

This is a much-needed super-power, born of positive psychology, rich with strategies and principles that buoy our spirits and ensure our resolve.  Traditionally, psychology (like traditional media) looks at our wounds for  keys to our struggles – where did we go wrong and what so deeply ails us that we self-sabotage?  That’s important to the long-game, of course, but in our case, more immediately, we need to leverage the constructive side of our psyches, where our current strengths build resilience, motivation and confidence.  What are our tools, where is our support, and how might we leverage those assets toward recovering democracy?  

From Timothy Snyder to Zibblat and Levitsky, we learned that there are daily habits necessary to the resistance of tyranny. When we lightly engage or even fully disengage, we can do so in ways that strengthen these recommended habits: By establishing a strong private life dedicated to a high ground denouncing violence and hate.  By strengthening civility through the maintenance of healthy trusted friendships and alliances, and by supporting good causes, and engaging in volunteerism.  These foundational habits of mindful detachment prepare all of us for a more robust dynamic citizenship.  The antidote then is self-reflection, identification of our own places of character deficit and of strength, and resolving to a more disciplined, less politically indulgent outlook.  

Critically, indulging in low-road habits of snark and disdain toward fellow citizens cannot continue.  Those habits neither further our goals of moving toward a more mature citizenry nor do they demonstrate a healthier path.  BE what we want to see and what we want to become.  –It’s time to do kind deeds for others, even for those who are thick into fascism, because pro-democracy stewards must demonstrate a contrast of THIS, not that.  So, it’s in our best interests to neither panic nor surrender, but to demonstrate a citizenry dedicated to institutions rooted in accountability, dedicated to truth, expertise, and evidence, and dedicated to the betterment of ALL Americans.  

Those who take comfort in their faith should lean into that, with a reminder to remain particularly vigilant in protection of your sense of kindness, forgiveness and generosity.  And remember what we all learned in elementary school; that losing an election doesn’t make anyone a ‘loser.”  The media has done a public disservice in failing to characterize poor sportsmanship behavior as that of “sore losers,” because the shame lies not in the loss, but in the reaction.  When there’s no evidence of foul play, Americans of any stripe are called to accept the loss with gracious acknowledgement, and to begin again, with a peaceful transfer of power and a fire in the belly to do better next time. 

When Barack Obama won in 2008, his millions of campaign supporters dusted their hands in satisfaction, toddled off home, and left him to his work.  In retrospect, we’d have been much better served had we honed ourselves into a professional citizenry unceasingly aimed at hardening our institutions against threats to a healthy democracy.  Well, lesson learned; I hope.  

Unfortunately, the leaders we came to know during that fierce and frenzied 2024 campaign seem to have evaporated as if taken in the Rapture.  It’s as though we’re left milling around in the clutter of the afterparty, kicking at discarded party hats and unused kazoos.  Now, new leaders unknown to the public are being chosen by the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, and we can anticipate that their work will be to get out the vote for 2026.  

Well, we’re going to need a lot more than that, but in the meantime, we can build on our political muscles, and discipline our outlook and commitment.  In the coming months, we’ll need to sort ourselves for directed purpose, and find that fire in the belly to reclaim and reconstitute our democracy!  

All of those scary ways of being – anger, fear, or depression. . .  None of that need overtake us, because in this moment, we’re preparing, we’re standing back, assessing, hydrating, and gathering our wits, all of which are critical habits necessary for disciplined political health.  In the end, it will be mindful, strategic activism that inspires all of us to the light of better days.  We’ll achieve a healthy democracy when we become a citizenry worthy of its bounty, because democracy is only found in the fertility of higher ground.  

Now, a recent Tiktok activist gave a hard NO to taking the high road, saying, “that may work for you, but the rest of us will fight fascism, our way.”  I get it.  I, too, have a talent for snark that I’d like to unleash and wield with abandon.  But if we succumb to the temptation to “fight fire with fire,” and use overt lies and mayhem, then we become what we struggle against. How will anyone tell the difference?  Most importantly, what will our children and future generations learn about public discourse and the promised dignity of democracy?  Right now, the last eight years are their example of public discourse and the role of citizenship, and we can’t let that stand.

So, the high road.  That’s the path for which I’ve made a case, and the path which I’ll advocate through this podcast.  Because, eventually, high ground is the ground on which we will find the democracy and the peace of mind that we seek.  And it’s the ground upon which we hope to seat future generations for their own stewardship.

Now, strategically speaking, we hold some marvelous advantages – maybe not magic beans, but advantages not available to heroes of yore.    Our mentors and authors schooled in the path of fascism and who’ve studied the advancement of tyranny in other times and places do more than just list breadcrumbs; rather, they have literally written books detailing what we may expect, along with strategies for blocking egregious policies and behaviors.  The works of Tom Nichols, Ruth ben-Ghiat, of Ziblatt and Levitsky and Timothy Snyder, have been featured in previous episodes of this podcast, and their insights are invaluable.  

The solution lies in a growing commitment to democratic principles, which many will need to relearn, and in re-valuing truth and trust as critical to democracy.  That part is a long-game, so we need to get started.  Because the arc of history isn’t a rainbow being magically pulled by unicorns– it bends toward justice only if we put our backs into it and bend that sucker.  

We’re not all in the same boat, but left, right, and center, stewards of democracy struggle together within the same storm.  We don’t all snap to what is going on at the same time, but bringing people into the light, into awareness, is how we build a healthy democracy.  It’s not by berating our opponents into submission – it’s by convincing them that protecting democracy is in their interest.  So.  When on our paths we meet those who see with newly open eyes, our job is to welcome.  It needs to be what we do, with a gracious and hospitable heart.  It’s on all of us, to build our numbers until enough dynamic citizens are on the side of democracy, so that our teeter, cannot and will not ever again totter outside the bounds of democracy. We build our personal mental core, and we build our community through numbers. 

If there’s one thing that President Trump understands and fights against, it’s numbers.  The numbers in his crowd size.  The number of Covid cases.  The numbers that might be unveiled through an accurate census, or the legitimate ballots of a popular vote.  “STOP counting,” he says each time, wanting to freeze counts in the moment when he is ahead, as if that works.  “WE HAVE A MANDATE” he cries, until it is shown that he decidedly does NOT have a mandate.  Final tallies are not his thing.  His golf scores - the amount he charged the Secret Service and foreign dignitaries was not enough, his apartment was not big enough, and the list goes on.   He’s the Goldilocks of numbers – ever seeking to adjust up or down to his preference – facts be damned.

But in the stewardship of democracy, each single count moved out of the columns of complacency and autocratic support adds to the stewardship of democracy.  Not only that, but each person in the crowd, each citizen, voting or not voting, in all of our bodies, the courts, the people, the states, the interest groups, the institutions, corporations, and the haves and have-nots . . . in every subgroup of Americans we find the multitudes of individual s living a version of an American Dream that doesn’t quite live up the promise of liberty and justice for all.  Those are the real numbers that can’t be stuffed into some ostrich hole. Those are the American numbers that seek understanding of their diversity, a just and equitable opportunity, and inclusion within the democratic process.

The visceral opposition against all that is left of the extreme right is BECAUSE by its very definition, a liberal democracy grows, expands, and includes; it embraces, celebrates, and accepts . . . EVERYTHING that actively anti-democratic forces reject.   A liberal multi-racial democracy embodies all of the “Bogeyman Other” outside the smaller tent of those opposing democracy.   The goals of grants, studies, and non-profits focused on every subgroup across America and the western world have established a trajectory of America that progresses toward justice and toward diversity, equity, and inclusion.  But as those numbers move ever further toward a more perfect union, or at least, a more inclusive union of diversified power.  Those numbers move ever further away from the constricting tallies that narrow and concentrate power into an autocratic minority, desperation grows in the extreme right corner of our populace.

AT this point, to be left of the extreme right is all of that ideological space from moderate conservatism to progressive.  Hard right extremists characterize all of that space as “liberal,” but those who occupy this space are more accurately characterized as “pro-democratic forces.” 

Some say that that “liberal” tentpole should be economic, and perhaps so, because clearly, the distance between the haves and the have-nots, pits us against one another.  Critically, Americans need to understand economics better, because, despite warnings, we are too easily lured onto a fascist path. Perhaps it was as inevitable as the day Eve was lured by the apple.  

What we MUST recognize is that democracy is bigger than any few of us - it’s about our humanity throughout all of our diverse identities.  Our humanity is our biggest silo, the biggest tent, and the ultimate unifier. 

Democracy is the only governing structure that places our humanity at its core, so what’s outside of the tent?  Anti-democracy.  I think the words of James Baldwin sum it up, “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”  And that’s outside the tent.    So. There’s the line in the sand. That’s the intolerable, the caveat, that we are ONLY a democracy if we are a multi-racial democracy willing to place the American Dream in a place available to all of us.  

And so, left of the extreme right, whether we are conservatives, moderates, liberals or progressives, we are the cadre known as “pro-democratic forces.”   Because we are poised to lose even the very path to a healthy democracy, it will take all of us, in all of our diverse ideologies and sub-identities to find our way back . . . to put our backs into bending that ol’ arc of history toward justice.  

AMERICA PROMISED – BREAKING the PROMISE

Our journey is about pursuing the America promised by the better angels of a moral world. A democracy emerging out of a petulant adolescence into a space of poise and dignity for all.  Democracy, maturing, yet, under siege by its juvenile sense of self.   Ever met an angry adolescent?  Well, meet America at its own stage of democratic arrogance and immaturity. “I want it my way, or I’ll break it so no one can have it.” That’s what happens when power is challenged.

The America promised by better angels of a moral world has cast pearls before us, gifting us inspiration through our short history.  Liberty, and justice for all. Not just for Trumplicans, not just for men or Christians, or billionaires.  Not just white people.  Liberty for all.  Justice for all.  Yet for those fearing the loss of 250 years of power, the encroachment into their power is so unacceptable as to push them to the brink of breaking democracy.   

The prospect has been there all along, promising through various wordings amid the declaration, the constitution and even the pledge of allegiance – that pesky aspirational notion of liberty and justice for all.  It just keeps coming back.  That recurring promise within our founding documents paves the way for a multi-racial democracy, giving some hope, and others heartburn.  That will mean a truly multi-racial, multi-cultural democracy, and that is the part, that promise of equal footing that is the nut of our authoritarian drift.  Yet, it’s the America we must defend.  It’s the foundation of an America awaiting in a future worth fighting for.

MULTI-RACIAL DEMOCRACY

We are the only country in human history where race, culture, nationality or religion does not preclude one from being of US. We can move to China and while we might become Chinese citizens, we will never be Chinese.  But anyone can come to America and not ONLY become an American, but also celebrate their own cultural heritage as Irish Americans, African Americans, Native Americans – whatever Americans, in all the colorful adornment of their Americanism.  Americanism so often wears cultural heritage as a plumage – because it takes all of us to make this beautiful vibrant country.  

But strip away our cultural diversity?  Cloak us ONLY in red trucker hats made in China and flag print promo gear and that getup does not make anyone MORE American. But it does identify the tribal trappings and plumage of those demanding ONLY a meat and potato Americanism – speak only English, and stop calling yourselves by another heritage.  From the extreme right, there’s a strange imperative for ethnicities to fit into a narrow characterization of “American-like-us,” which demonizes an exotic identity, ancestry, and history.  That vision of the hard-right America says bygones to all but a whitewashed history, archiving the rest into a dusty unspoken memory they prefer ignored.

 ETHNIC HISTORIES

But, you know, history is not only closely felt, but it’s also too much a part of us to just scrape away, even if we don’t understand it!  I recently watched the movie Harriet about Harriet Tubman’s enslavement, her escape, and her work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, just prior to the Civil War.  She liberated over 300 enslaved people before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863.  Lincoln died two years later, and she regretted not meeting him, though they lived at the same time.  She could have shaken Lincoln’s hand, breathed in the air of his day.  When she was born, James Monroe was our fifth president, and when she died at the age of 91, my grandfather, Olin Travis, was 25 years old – she could have also shaken HIS hand, breathed HIS air. That’s how close we are to history – how close I AM to Harriet Tubman.

 I’m only three degrees of separation, from the fifth president of the United States, as are many Americans.  When people say of early American slavery, “it’s time to get over it!” they’re speaking of a trauma so close to our own history that it touches generations still coping with the aftermath.  The trauma of our nation is still right up against us.  And the sore losers of the confederacy are still butt-hurt, not only that they lost the war itself, but that they lost power over a people whom they believed were lesser than themselves.  It’s not hard to figure out that we are in an era in which the past still fights for power and is still unable to cope with a maturing democracy.

The future holds the potential for a multi-racial democracy that leaves patriarchy in its wake, Ah! But then the lure of “making America great again” would put everything in its very conservative place, wouldn’t it?  Project 2025 is the new Jim Crow, 2.0, more broadly applicable than the last with its narrow view of “appropriate” Americanism.  The old white guys in power, the little woman in the kitchen, the many other cultures knowing their place, along with a closet full of gender issues.  If Project 2025 realigns America according to its design of a perpetual white Christian supremacy, autocratic supporters, the oligarchs, and authors of project 2025, could then dust its hands and nestle in for the long haul in which all’s right with their world.  

This episode is about pursuing the America promised by the better angels of our constitutional framers. Well, and those who eventually decided that blacks were more than three fifths of a person.  Our constitution was not born without blemishes . . . and in two very important ways, the United States began with what are understood as our original sins:  the genocide of Native Americans, and the enslavement of Africans. We don’t get to ignore that stuff when we tell our story.  America was born of that muck.  Exploitation critically fostered success of the privileged in those early days of America, and racism has long been our drug of choice, still craved by many. That shame of launching out of profound racism can’t be just erased - ever.  History sticks to us like a shadow.

We aren’t personally responsible for this shame.  The guilt is on those of our forefathers in whatever ways they participated or were complicit.  But contemporary Americans ARE responsible for how we react to and perpetuate those shames, personally and collectively. We ARE guilty of a tremendous shame when we try to shut down the discussions and education around these matters.  That’s called “the whitewashing of American history.”

We’re taught to embrace the fortitude of pioneers and of EARLY American immigrants, and pioneers like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone are characterized as reflective of America’s spirit.  Our revered authors include Steinbeck, Hemmingway and Walt Whitman, but where is ever a welcoming hand extended to tell the contributions of non-white citizens of that era?  The Chinese, the Irish, and the Italians, . . . the Jews; there’s a hierarchy to America’s acceptance of each.  So American history gives us the Revolutionary War, The Civil War, the cotton gin, World War I and II, maybe Korea, but in my school, Vietnam and the Civil Rights movements were considered “Modern History,” and so they weren’t included.  Those aspects are so close to contemporary times that they weren’t really history per se, so, that was the way American history is told to many of us, that now we all have the same rights, the end, enjoy your summer.  But where in that recitation is the history of those who are not white?  Because I’ve already shown how close it is to us.

So, clearly, we have imperfectly bumbled our way into a flawed and failing democracy.  It happens.  We’re a new democratic experiment, and we have to work with what we have, along with our nearly 400 million fellow citizens.  Not everyone can do it.  But my dear listeners, we are NOT going back.  WE have the diversity and comradery of each other. We have our tools, and mentors.  And we have the legitimacy of our quest for a multi-racial democracy.  

To surrender to a new authoritarian age of American history will color the world for future generations. So encourage your fellows, not with empty platitudes or little pats of there-there, but with daily reminders that we have in our kit much more that past heroes had in theirs.  A quest isn’t easy.  A quest is rife with set-backs, and there WILL be dragons and armies of trolls. And while our moments of hope and celebration come to us peppered with moments of uncertainty and self-doubt, like our great-grandies, we’re just getting started, and taking a breath, because, we ride at dawn.

Now, in today’s call to action, I urge you to have a calming creative outlet that gives you time away from political discourse.  If you’re not ready to reengage with democratic stewardship, your SOLE TASK is to not give up.  For now, that’s enough.  Just don’t surrender.  I’ll post some links to some good resources in the show notes, and you may trust that we will explore paths to a robust stewardship as we move forward.  

Now, our next episode will explore the realities facing citizenry seeking information looking at Project 2025’s dismantling of the Department of Education, and the appointment of Kari Lake, an avowed election denier and Q-Anon to oversee Voice of America.  Generally, speaking, that’s not going to work for us! 

So please, follow this podcast so that you get alerts when a new episode has loaded.  We’re getting too big for me to text you all individually – American Musecast now has listeners in 43 countries, and 167 cities, and, wow, I’m ever so grateful for your time!  Thank you to those of you in Germany and France – and thank you in Taiwan, South Africa, and Slovakia.  Thank you in Colombia, New Zealand, and Finland.  Thank you in Turkey, Poland, and the UK.   I’m so humbled to now have at least one listener on EVERY continent!   If I didn’t mention you here, I will next time!  

So! That’s it for today, but for my dear listeners with a fire in the belly, please follow this weekly podcast, share it with others, and tell them how much you love it. I welcome your observations in the comments section because sometimes they offer a sparkle of ideas to include in other episodes.  Just use your manners.  I’m a real person, not a chew toy!  So, buckle up buttercups!  Let’s get out there, and steward democracy!     

As always, aside from the views expressed by authors and guests, the observations included in this podcast are my personal contribution to the national dialog on democracy, and are not necessarily held in full by my sponsors.  

American Musecast is underwritten, in part, by WOODSWAN, modern, minimalistic, organic furnishings and architectural elements derived from rescued fallen trees, stumps, and reclaimed wood. Designed, built and sourced in New Mexico, each piece is handmade with great attention and care by my friends at Woodswan. Like America, every tree naturally displays beauty and character born from adversity, thus we’re invited to celebrate all their cracks and wrinkles. I know my own pieces add to the elegance of MY home, so check out the beautiful creative pieces at woodswan.com and when you order something beautiful, tell them you’re stewarding democracy!