Our American Crisis
Today I was watching “second to second” coverage of the anniversary of the Charlottesville race violence of last year. Charlottesville has declared itself closed to demonstration and protests of any kind this year, so the white nationalists have determined that they will take their message to Washington, D.C.
They organized in Fairfax, Virginia, and drove by car with police escort to the Vienna Metro Station. Then they took a (single) reserved Metro car into DC. By the way, if you can fit a whole protest into a Metro car, then it probably isn’t much of a protest. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of counter-protestors awaited them, as the white nationalists made their way from the “Foggy Bottom” Metro Station to Lafayette Park across from the White House. The counter-protestors point is already made; the “anniversary protest” is now just a First Amendment exercise.
This is after a week where Americans have had some reason to question whether our leaders are racist or not. President Trump has called black men who criticized him, Don Lemmon of CNN and LeBron James of the LA Lakers, “stupid,” Maxine Waters a black woman who opposes him as“low IQ,” and Omarosa, a black woman who was his former staffer a “lowlife.” The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency tried to “spirit away” Hispanic immigrants who were asking for amnesty in Federal Court (the judge ordered them returned to the US,) and a Fox News Commentator (Laura Ingraham) told us that the migrants have “taken away” the America we all “loved.”
So while we are still a nation dealing with a backlash to the momentous changes of the past twenty years, the paltry turnout of “hate” in Washington today may give us some measure of reassurance.
Last night I had the privilege, thanks to my brother-in-law, of watching the musical, Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda has written the striking saga of an immigrant, Alexander Hamilton, and his impact on our nation. In song and rap, it covers the idealism of the American Revolution, and the terrible crises of American infancy. Farmers versus City dwellers, North versus South, Slave versus Free, Strong Government versus Weak; the founders struggled with immense problems. And, while they all “took their shot,” it wasn’t clean, or agreeable.
When John Adams ran for his second term in office, Thomas Jefferson, the Vice President, ran against him. And while in those times it was considered “unacceptable” for a candidate for President to campaign, partisan newspapers took up the fight, not unlike today where we have differing “news outlets” supporting one side or the other. And while the Democratic-Republicans called Adams, the author of the Alien and Sedition Acts, a tyrant who wanted to be King; the Federalists had a much more personal attack. To the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” a song was composed to “Montecellian Sally,” referring to Jefferson’s slave and paramour, Sally Hemings.
America has been through tremendous crises. And while we haven’t seen the intellect and power of post-Revolutionary America (Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison et al) rise yet on our current crisis, you can already see the beginnings of the “American Exceptionalism” we have grown to expect. There will be those who “Rise Up” to lead our country forward.
And it isn’t just Democrats. While Republicans seem bound and gagged by the Trump base and tweet, there are still a few who lead forward, even some who have not already given up seeking office. Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, is quietly leading the Senate Intelligence Committee to find real and honest results in their Russia investigation (yes, a distant relation to Aaron Burr, Hamilton’s protagonist.) John Kasich, Governor of Ohio continues to speak out against the abuses of the Trump Administration.
And as we watch Democrats begin the long, drawn-out process of jockeying for the 2020 Presidential nomination, there are those doing the hard intellectual work of finding the truth, without making too much political capital from it. Congressman Adam Schiff of California, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, and Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York are pressing for fairness and truthfulness, and in January, may well be leading us through this Presidential crisis.
There are always those who will refuse to accept an outcome. Aaron Burr, the Vice President of the United States who shot and killed Hamilton in a duel, went out West to become involved in a plot to create a separate nation. In our present circumstances, there will be those on both sides who will refuse a “political” solution. To the right, they will threaten to “exercise their 2ndAmendment Rights.” To the left, they will demand an overthrow of all of the Republicans, regardless of the Mueller results.
We have been there before. This is not our first American Crisis. And while we may not be as “…young, scrappy and hungry…” as we once were; we will still find the leadership to find our path through.
