ment power (unless the government
can demonstrate that these actions are
clearly and immediately necessary to
repel a foreign invasion or to prevent
one citizen from unjustly harming
another). A distant government that,
for example, demands that they and
their neighbors regard homosexuality
as a personal choice, rather than as an
abomination or illness, is tyrannical
– as is one that forbids them from
discriminating however, they like on
the basis of race, or that denies them
the right to assign different social
roles to men and to women, or that
requires their community’s schools
prohibit prayer and teach evolution
and sex education.
Economic revolution
The third important observation is
that, like developed nations around
the world, America is in the throes of
a technology-driven post-industrial
economic revolution. Like the nineteenth
century industrial revolution,
this revolution is generating traumatic,
even brutal, social change. While
this new revolution has brought economic
and status rewards to East and
West Coast elites and, more broadly,
to the professional class, it has been
devastating for large swathes of the
working class. Skills and attributes
that were once valued now are not.
Behavior once regarded as virtuous
is now mocked or punished. Communities
that took many generations to
build are dying in a single lifespan.
With them, an entire way of life is
being destroyed.
In truth, there is probably little that
the federal government could or can
do to stop this economic revolution
or to prevent this social destruction.
But it is natural to look for human
causation, and it is hardly surprising
that the traumatized blame the government
and the elite that controls
it as being responsible for the devastation
they are experiencing. And
indeed, successive administrations –
including the Trump administration
-- have embraced policies aimed at
Edward Rhodes is one of digital SAM
Magazine's columnist.
easing the economic transition and
social transformation rather than at
trying to protect these communities’
abilities to preserve their traditional
way of life.
Worse, from the perspective of
these devastated communities, the
government has actively worked to
ensure this societal destruction. Devastated
communities see themselves
as under attack from their own government
--being told that they need
to abandon their “deplorable” cultures
and their now increasingly illegal traditions,
and that they must embrace
the foreign values and lifestyles of
“progressive” America.
Not a collapse of
democracy in America
The events of January 6 are less surprising
once one acknowledges these
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three realities – that armed insurrec-
tion has a long history in American
culture as a response to perceived
tyranny; that government action to
compel individuals and communities
to change their “way of life” is regarded
by many Americans as inherently
tyrannical; and that in response
to the crisis of post-industrialization
the U.S. government has sought to
ease transition from, rather than to
protect, the traditional way of life of
many American communities.
None of this takes the Trump administration
off the hook for its anti
democratic demagoguery or for the
collapse of civility in American political
life over the last four years. It does,
however, suggest that the problem is
deeper than Trump.
Equally important, however, it
suggests that what we are witnessing
is not a collapse of democracy in
America. What we are witnessing is
the American political system operating
within its own liberal, democratic
norms as American society deals with
the end of the industrial era and the
emergence of a post-industrial one.
There is sometimes an expectation
that the political life of a liberal, democratic,
republic will be calm, stable,
and peaceful. This, however, is an entirely
unreasonable expectation. The
success of liberal, democratic, republican
political life is not measured in
consensus but in individual freedom,
inclusion, and virtue, and there is no
reason to expect that the process toward
these will be smooth.
Edward Rhodes is a professor of Government
and International Affairs at George
Mason University. Rhodes is best known
for his research into the philosophical and
cultural roots of American foreign and
national security policy. Rhodes received
his A.B. from Harvard University and his
MPA and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton
University.
There is sometimes an
expectation that the political
life of a liberal, democratic,
republic will be calm, stable,
and peaceful.
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