Reflection or Revenge?
I wrote a piece for National Newswatch this week titled “The Democrats are in More Danger Than They Know.” A strong response ensued, with the majority feeling that Trump and the Republican Party deserve all the grief they get, if they lose. It’s understandable, but it denies some of the more courageous aspects of our history. That’s right – courageous, the act of facing our fears and our anger with something other than revenge in mind.
The punishment unleashed on Germany following the First World War has generally been accepted as one of the key causes of the next war that came just three decades later. Understandably, the victors were furious at a conflict that caused 20 million deaths and just as many wounded. It had been senseless but the victors emerged from the carnage with the clear desire to punish the perpetrators. Germany lived in isolation, eventually sinking into poverty and a seething anger. We know what came next. Most historians agree that the sheer weight of the revenge motive by the Allies led to the emergence of the Third Reich and all the horrors that came with it. The Treaty of Versailles, in which the victors divided the spoils and starved the German people led to something even worse.
The Second World War ended much the same, but the Allies had learned some lessons in the decades previous. The efforts to help both Germany and Japan rebuild the nations and their livelihoods led to the greatest era of peace the world had known. Both countries are now key partners in all manner of alliances.
It’s a dangerous thing to equate world war with a divided political climate in America, but the issue is really about human nature. Suppress a group of people, whether economically, culturally or politically in free societies and the results will be similar. The implications of the Republican agenda under Trump are some of the most disturbing in the country’s history, but should they be defeated next Tuesday and get driven off into isolation, those divisions that are so endemic to the American way of life at present will never go away and could return with their own brand of revenge.
We know what would transpire with a Republican victory next week. It would be far worse than what we have witnessed in the last four years. The list of those people at greater risk of far-right policies would only grow and the punishment be more severe, including for good moderate Republicans. So, why would Democrats do the same should they prove victorious? The only way to heal the nation is to take a different path, one of attempted reconciliation. Is it possible? It doesn’t feel that way at present, but time can do its necessary work. Observers said the United States would never recover following their bloody civil war after seeing 620,000 people perish, but it did. It wasn’t perfect and its effects still linger today, but the nation didn’t descend into carnage or oblivion.
America’s greatest orators over the years have been those women and men who contrasted the nation’s choices – love or fear, healing or hurting, a great nation or a ruined one, unity versus division. Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the most prescient of all when implying that a nation divided against itself couldn’t stand. So, why ignore those lessons and sink further into animosity following this election. Do they deserve it? Likely not, but it isn’t about them. It’s about extending the franchise, healing the wounds, ending the poverty, healing the planet, dignifying work and giving light to the world.
The reality is that a great nation is more divided than at any time in recent history and that Democrats have been part of that division. When in power, they never did enough to heal old wounds and find new paths for compromise and cooperation. Sure, they look not too bad compared to their competitors, but what they did with power wasn’t enough. It’s time to look in the mirror instead of through the window of revenge.
An old American indigenous proverb put it this way: “Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls us.” This is the choice the Democrats face. Unleash your anger and set free the dogs of war, or bind the wounds of the nation and getting on with making it a better place.