“…these are not ordinary times and this is not an ordinary election…”
RFK, March 16, 1968
In March 1968, it seemed that the nation was on the precipice of imploding. That time was unlike any other since the Civil War 100 years earlier. Very pronounced differences divided us: civil and women’s rights; the war on poverty; an unpopular war in Southeast Asia; a counterculture challenging the status quo.
I lived through those times and can say from firsthand experience that it was a time for choosing. There was a simple question: which side are you on? In many ways, there was nowhere to hide, it truly was a time for choosing.
By March 1968, there was a tension in society, the conflict between opposing ideologies, objectives, philosophies. The certainties of our postwar hegemony began to erode under the pressures for change.
Then by April, and then again in June, violence altered the trajectory of history. Violence would continue throughout that summer and beyond. The road to peaceful change was marred by acts of violence.
Each of us had a civic duty to participate in the events of our time. Many of us followed our consciences, often alienating us from our friends and families. Self evident truths were shattered. We had to re-examine our understandings of civil disobedience versus civil disorder.
In short, in many respects we no longer knew who we, as a people, were. To some extent we still don’t. But maybe that’s the point of this country, that there is still a process of evolving, of becoming, of moving forward.
After all the tumult, ’68 ended in an anticlimax with the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency. Suddenly it seemed that after all, these were ordinary times.
The philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche once wrote, “Be careful when you cast out your demons that you don’t throw away the best of yourself.” In electing Nixon, voters thought they were exorcising our demons without recognizing that we threw away the best of ourselves – the vibrancy of an evolving progressive political, social and cultural movement.
And we didn’t exorcise our demons after all. Look how Nixon turned out.
For the fifty-six years after Nixon’s election, we have inexorably traveled a path that brings to 2024 where we can again say that these are not ordinary times, and this is not an ordinary election.
For decades, a movement has grown in number and strength to the point where it now poses an existential threat to our democracy.
As we grew increasingly complacent, focusing instead on working too long, spending too much, and becoming more inner directed, others were planning on an agenda that is antithetical to our nation’s values.
These people spent decades planning and organizing so that when the time came, they’d be ready. In 2016, they found the perfect candidate to advance their interests, if not their full agenda. In 2020, they sought to overturn a free and fair election.
Fortunately, they failed, but they didn’t disappear into the dustbin of history. Emboldened, they publicly and proudly advanced their agenda, labeling it as Project 2025. You can access it here:
This Project is 922 pages long. What it seeks is the establishment of a perpetual concentration of power in the Executive branch, diminishment of the regulatory apparatus that serves, among others, to ensure that we have safe foods and medicines, and to ensure fairness in the marketplace.
The Project seeks to regulate a woman’s reproductive decisions and it seeks the end marriage equality to the detriment of the LGBTQ+ community.
The Project seeks to end the Affordable Care Act, a program providing health insurance to millions of Americans who otherwise would not be able to afford such coverage.
The Project seeks to ban contraceptives. It seeks to lower taxes for the wealthy that will only exacerbate the drift of wealth inequality to the detriment of millions of middle and low-income Americans.
The Project would defund the FBI and Homeland Security, two agencies vital to our safekeeping from all threats, foreign or domestic.
The Project would ban the teaching in our public schools about slavery and civil rights, as well as banning books on these subjects in our public libraries. It would also divert taxpayer dollars to fund private religious schools.
The Project would eliminate unions and worker protections.
There is so much more packed into this Project. Suffice it to say that even if some parts of this anti democratic agenda are implemented it would transform our country into something dark and unrecognizable. Think of an Orwellian 1984, or a Hobbesian dystopian nightmare and you’ll get an idea of what’s in store if the Project’s proponents succeed.
Entitled Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, it is intended as a blueprint for the winner of this year’s election. It is Donald Trump and his administration that they intend would implement the goals of this Project.
It is Trump’s people who worked on this. It was for an incoming Trump administration that it was written. It was Donald Trump who proclaimed that he would be a dictator for only one day. Since “day” is a subjective construct, he never said how long that day would be.
Make no mistake, these are not idle talking points. These are serious people who intend to destroy our democracy. They say what they’re going to do and if in power they will execute on their promise.
If you think “they will never do it,” or “they’ll be stopped by the other branches of government” history doesn’t support that contention. In 1925, another work laid out what would happen if its author and associates ever came to power. People ignored that book, relegating its contents to the musings of a madman.
Mein Kampf explicitly told the world what its author, Adolf Hitler, would do once in power. Germans thought they could control him and his party. Once elected to office, there were no other elections until his Reich was destroyed. Yes, Hitler was a madman, a madman who did great harm costing millions of lives.
It may not be too much of a stretch to see this Project 2025 and the modern equivalent of Mein Kampf. In tone and tenor, there isn’t a lot of daylight between them.
In short, Project 2025 was written by and for what history professor Federico Finchelstein calls The Wannabe Fascists. Wannabe solely because they’ve yet to attain power.
These are the stakes in this election. I could care less about others’ personal and political agendas. The only issue in the election that counts is the safeguard of our democracy from the grip of these wannabe fascists.
Whether we’re comfortable with him or not, there’s only one man standing in the way. His name is Joe Biden, 46th President of the United States.
I know, Biden had an ugly “debate.” That’s it. Incumbent presidents often have poor debates that if decided on the basis of an initial debate would have resulted in a President Mondale and a President Romney. Are we ready to raise Donald Trump to the presidency on the basis of one debate? I hope not.
It’s almost as though we all found out that Joe Biden is 81 years old. He is. So what? Are we to discount the last three-and-a-half years of what most think is a successful presidency on the basis of a cumulative 40 minutes on television?
I know there’s a feeding frenzy in the media, anonymous sources “revealing” the cognitive decline of the president. There are rumblings about pressuring Biden off the ticket, I’m sure to the delight of the wannabe fascists.
Hand wringing and pearl clutching is the order of the day. To those who wish to replace Biden I have one two-word question: with who? We have less than 120 days to the election. Casting aside the turmoil if not chaos that would result, who would seamlessly take the top of the ticket?
Kamala Harris may be the only choice and is otherwise a great choice. At least she would have access to the campaign’s finances and infrastructure. But even she would not settle into the role of democracy’s defender until the election was nearly over.
The other wishful candidates – e.g., think James Carville’s absurd NCAA type regional playoffs – and we have a messy situation that will play into the hands of Trump and his crew of wannabe fascists.
Messy campaign’s never win. They breed dissent from others who believe that although overlooked that they could do a better job. If that’s our direction at this point in the campaign, then we might well open the gates and let the wannabe fascists sack the country.
This we must not do. This we cannot do.
With all his frailties, with is slow gate and sometimes garbled language, he’s still our guy and we’ve got to be his guys.
The 2024 election is not a battle for the soul of America. This election is a battle over the existence of America itself.
…these are not ordinary times and this is not an ordinary election…
History rhymes…
In 1838, a then little-known Abraham Lincoln spoke at the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. He sought to address the increasing turmoil over the slavery issue, calling for our political and legal processes to address this danger to our national compact. One passage of his address, often misquoted, was this:
"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
Lincoln knew nearly twenty-three years before he was elected and took office that the issue of slavery was a lethal threat to the health of our democracy. He placed great faith in men of good will to resolve these issues through our existing institutions.
When Lincoln ran for president in 1860, few of the “elites” thought he was up to the impending challenges confronting the next occupant of the White House. This was particularly true of the republicans he defeated for his party’s nomination, especially Seward and Chase.
Lincoln took office in March of 1861 and within six weeks South Carolina fired on Ft. Sumter, signaling the beginning of the Civil War. Lincoln, with unwavering faith and leadership, kept this country together.
Seven hundred fifty thousand lives later, slavery was abolished, and the Union was preserved.
Lincoln was right, the danger to our democratic experiment sprung up amongst us. We were its author then and we remain its author today.
Since its inception, the United States has always had an anti-democratic streak running through it. Some thought democracy to be too chaotic, too messy, too unwieldy, too inclusive. For much of our history, in spite of Lady Liberty’s torch in New York harbor, we have not been as welcoming to others as our civic mythology might suggest.
We face another test of our democratic ethos. The question before us in 2024 is whether we will continue, incrementally and painfully, to be an inclusive democratic society, or whether we will install an anti-democratic regime and extinguish this “lively experiment” begun long ago.
For me, the choice is clear. Joe Biden will preserve our democracy, Donald Trump and his band of wannabe fascists will kill it.
…these are not ordinary times and this is not an ordinary election…
America, get a grip….
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