Humane and effective governance
Accountability is an essential step in shutting the door on the threat of authoritarianism.
Dear ones:
We end the first month of 2021 with so much to process, reflect on, and attempt to understand. One clear theme: our work is not done. Intimidation is still too big a player on our communal stage.
Waking up to a new administration, we begin to see just how much of a threat authoritarianism was - and continues to be. Lying serves the purpose of destabilizing democratic participation (what can we trust?) and, in a deeper way, it shows that the liar has the power to determine reality (the truth is what I declare it to be).
Intimidation needs to dismiss opposition in order to succeed. It cannot succeed on its merits. Knowing that, intimidation uses the tactics of fear, gaslighting, and lying to convince opposition to go silent. “This is your problem: you cannot let things go.” “You are pouring gasoline on a fire.” “Why do you want to take away my freedom of speech?” Listen, dear ones: your intention to hold accountable those who have done harm to you, your families, your communities, your country, is not “divisive.” It is not “cancel culture.” It is not “crazy.”
Accountability is not (only, or primarily) about punishment. It requires a full, complete, and honest account of the events that resulted in harm. Accountability makes the harm visible, and thoroughly describes the actions and actors that contributed to it. It is the opposite of dismissiveness, and a powerful inoculation against authoritarianism.
To resist authoritarianism successfully, the federal government needs to be perceived to be both humane and effective. An ineffective government is fertile soil for authoritarian leaders who claim they alone can “fix things” for the people as a whole. An inhumane government loses the support of its people. In recent years, our two major parties have failed in one or both of these tasks. The Republican party has been more effective in gerrymandering districts, approving federal judges, and taking over state governments, and yet their policy agenda has been widely unpopular. Gerrymandered districts led to more extreme partisans being elected; anything perceived as compromise of ideals is now threatened with “punishment by primarying.” The Democratic party tried to stake out the territory of supporting policies that help people, and yet fell apart regularly in their attempts to actually enact those policies.
Democracy requires a lively, vigorous exchange of ideas, and a deep respect for the wisdom of the people as a whole. Recent decades of strategies to shore up unpopular policies has eroded both. In the absence of respect for human beings, corruption flourishes. The results of these failures are the growth of a kind of false populism, opening the door to authoritarianism.
On January 6, a mob poured through that door with violence on its collective mind. We haven’t shut it yet, but we can start to close it by holding those who committed, aided, and abetted crimes accountable. We also need to hold the leaders of our major parties accountable for their signal failures in constructing humane and effective government.
This time presents a critical test of our criminal justice systems and our citizen activism. Silence from leaders is complicity in the emerging threat of authoritarianism. Resistance takes on new meaning: active support of a more humane and effective government that uses its power to help real people, care for our planet, and end toxic corruption.
The second month of this new year starts tomorrow. As always, I am grateful for your company on this continuing, ever-renewing journey.