The Second American Revolution
"If you could choose, what time period would you want to live in?"
It's a fun thought experiment that many of us going through periodically throughout out lives. As children, we often think about what it would be like to go back and time and see the dinosaurs. As we grow older, we tend to think about time periods that reflect our values and our interests. Those drawn to deep philosophical ideas and thinking often desire to live during ancient Greece. Those drawn to chivalry and romance often desire to live during the Middle Ages. Those drawn to traveling and seeing new lands often desire to live during the age of exploration. And those that see themselves as heroes wanting to save the world are often drawn to living during the Second World War.
For myself growing up in New England, I was always drawn to the American Revolution. Like all good Greater Boston schoolboys, I was engrossed with the story of Johnny Tremaine, a fictional account of a boy who got caught up in the whirlwind that would become the American fight for independence. As a social studies teacher, I always enjoyed teaching the time period by including both The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and The Midnight Ride of William Dawes as a way to get students to think about how and why certain people become famous. My love of the time period lay dormant for a bit as I left the teaching profession but reignited when Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote his brilliant Hamilton musical in 2016, once again bringing back the very same love for the time period that I had as a little boy. Now instead of Johnny Tremaine, I wondered what it would be living in the era as an adult and what my specific role would have been in the American Revolution.
Specifically, I wondered how involved I would have been. Would I be willing to leave my profession to join the revolution? Would I attend secret evening meetings despite a threat of being caught? Would I be vocal in my support or keep it quiet? Would I be able to confront family and friends who remained loyal to the Crown? Would I understand the gravity of the situation or would I simply see it as a flash in the pan? Would I know that I was living through a critical moment in world history?
Little did I know that these hypothetical questions would be the driving force in my life for 4 whole years.
Because what we all collectively experienced these past 4 years was a 21st century version of what our revolutionary brothers and sisters faced. Granted, we are now 240 years into the future and the world has evolved by leaps and bounds. This time around, we didn't face an unstable tyrant abroad but instead we faced an unstable tyrant at home. Instead of fighting Red Coats, we fought those with the red hats. Our war was not waged with guns and ships but with activism and advocacy. We did not cower in secret taverns but instead marched in the streets for social justice and accountability. We may not have been on the fields of battle but we had our share of setbacks that caused us to fall back and regroup. But through it all, we persisted because we knew that our vision for the country was worth fighting for.
When the Broadway musical for this time period is written, it will undoubtedly highlight some of the eras true political heroes: Joseph R. Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Stacey Abrams, James Clyburn and Adam Schiff are just a few of the names that come to mind. But we can't ignore the minor players with each and every one of us who did our part to salvage our democracy. Because like the American Revolution, our current war would could not have been won without the soldiers on the ground. This time around, those soldiers were primarily women and the people of color who started the resistance on Donald Trump's first day of office by marching on Washington. They were the ones making millions of phone calls to save the ACA in the summer of 2017. They were the ones who not only voted but ran for office and flipped the House in 2018. And they were the ones who helped swing 5 critical states in 2020.
Like our forbearers 240 years ago, we did what we could with the resources we had available. Instead of guerrilla warfare, we used information. We organized in a digital world. We mobilized in record time, whether it was the army of lawyers who descended upon our nation's airports to fight the Muslim ban or if it was an army of retired doctors masking up and flying to New York City during the critical first months of COVID-19. Those of us fortunate enough to have a digital platform raised awareness of candidates and issues and actively fought against sabotage from those claiming to be our allies. We gave money, hundreds of millions of dollars during a pandemic and global recession, to remove Mitch McConnell from power. We shared information on social media, no matter how many personal relationships it would sever. And we let those lead who needed to lead from the high school students in Parkland to our leaders of color in the wake of George Floyd's murder to our indigenous communities organizing voters in Arizona.
We did it all not to be the subject of a future chapter in an American history book. We did it all because it was the right thing to do. Because an injustice to one is an injustice to all. Donald Trump's presidency was one big injustice to the American people. But he had enough enablers that made him impossible to remove. So collectively, we chipped away at his power. We mocked him endlessly. We booed him when he dared venture out into public. We reported his tweets to no avail but we reported them nonetheless. We shared memes about him. We posted comedic videos about him on our Disqus message boards. We did all this because we knew that he would engage in psychological warfare against us. That he would be so horrible and would commit so many crimes that the idea was to overwhelm us. To make us feel hopeless. The cruelty was the point for the bulk of his domestic policies. But like King George III, we wouldn't let our own Mad King wear us down, no matter how badly he wanted to do so.
As the story of this era is told, we will not be starring members. We may not even be mentioned in the footnotes. But we can take great satisfaction in knowing that we saved the great experiment in democracy known as the United States of America. We were presented with the greatest internal threat our country has ever seen and we won. We beat back 21st century American fascism. We beat back a complicit Republican Party. We beat back 74 million of our countrymen and women who wanted to permanently dissolve our republic in order to appease a conman from Queens. We saw the historical moment, met it, and cemented ourselves as the latest generation to take on and defeat fascism. When our grandchildren and great grandchildren are asked which time period they want to live in, they most likely will not list the Trump era as one of their choices. There will be no romanticism about the last 4 years. But for those of us that lived during this time, we will know the truth about what we did: we saved the country from a fascist takeover.
And we met the historical moment that fate chose to present to us head on.