There’s a joke. One asks the other, “What’s worse: ignorance or apathy?” And the other guy replies, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
It connects what I always marvel at about the good people I’ve known here in rural Shenandoah County. Is it that they don’t know what they are supporting? Or, while they see it clearly, do they somehow care that what they support is an attack on the constitutional order by which we Americans are supposed to do our political business.
ignorance or apathy.
A very large majority of Republicans, for example, have told pollsters they believe the blatant untruth about the stolen 2020 election.
• Somehow don’t they see that a remarkably prolific liar simply told a lie that he wanted to tell—or perhaps needed to tell?
• Or do they know the big lie is false—that Biden is as legitimate a president as anyone—but don’t care that the “stolen election” lie is attacking the very foundations of our democracy?
Neither possibility makes sense to me given what I thought I knew about the Conservatives I live among:
• I cannot understand how the intelligent people I know out here in Republican rural Virginia would not see what is obvious, which has been repeatedly proven by a wealth of evidence.
(It seems that no amount of evidence would convince some Republicans that the big lie was just that, a lie. On the radio recently, someone being interviewed said, “If Joe Biden won the election, I would be the first to admit it .” Just to add right away: “There’s nothing to convince me he won.”)
• And I don’t understand how the good people here can see without caring that the party they support is waging a multi-pronged attack on the Constitution that American conservatives have always revered.
All of this leads to my deep uncertainty about what will happen when the House Special Committee tells the American people what its investigation has uncovered.
What I am not clear on is that the Commission will present – truthfully and with integrity – a vital picture. This image will show much of the Republican world deeply engaged in an unprecedented and earnest attempt to “overthrow the United States government.”
(That would have been considered—by traditionally patriotic-conservative Americans of yesteryear—the most serious crime a political actor could commit.)
That much is clear. What is quite uncertain, however, is whether this clear picture will have any effect on the American electorate, regardless of the power and clarity of the picture they present.
America’s two major political parties have feuded over generations over a variety of issues. But no one in the America I grew up in ever thought we would ever have an election that was primarily about whether this nation would continue to be a democracy or be ruled by an authoritarian regime.
But, by almost universal agreement among the most astute observers of American politics, these are the current stakes in our political struggle.
And it looks like the goose of our democracy could be cooked – and I mean that
• “The wisdom of the crowd,” as expressed in the futures markets, says that the Republicans are likely to gain control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections
• a number of astute observers believe that if Republicans gain this control of Congress, it could be game over for American democracy;
If the problem is ignorance — that is, that the majority of Americans somehow fail to see the reality that is unfolding before our very eyes in a multitude of ways — there is anything that can be done to replace it with a clearer understanding of what this is republican does? party?
But when the problem is apathy — that is, when the majority of American voters don’t care if their government is led by a political force that has attempted to overthrow an election with a coup d’état and is openly working to seize power in future elections, even against the will of a majority of the American people – then American democracy may already be dead.
Almost daily, America’s most credible news sources report scandalous and even criminal behavior that in ancient times would have sunk the fortunes of any politician or political party. A part of me is heartened to see these shameful truths brought to light.
But then I remember: so much has already been revealed, and yet the evildoers’ prospects remain bright.
We recently received a Christmas card from a dear 97-year-old family friend (and my father’s former colleague). He concluded his message by saying: “I wish I could be optimistic about the future. But all I see is a future of minority rule by a Republican Party that has no constructive ideas and is determined to rule. What is saddest and most alarming is that there are no signs of concern in politics. I consider myself fortunate to have been born into what I consider to be a golden period in American history. Ah, this gold seems destined to be turned into lead!”
“Certainly” seems like too strong a word. But I am deeply concerned that our friend is right.
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