EASY CHAIR 7defense of the Constitution that he
and the other Founding Fathers had
just drafted, in which Franklin ad-
mitted that he did “not entirely ap-
prove of this Constitution at present,”
but that “the older I grow, the more
apt I am to doubt my own Judgment,
and to pay more Respect to the Judg-
ment of others.”
Besides, Franklin conceded, any
form of government “may be a Bless-
ing to the People if well administered,
and I believe farther that this [Con-
stitution] is likely to be well adminis-
tered for a Course of Years, and can
only end in Despotism as other Forms
have done before it, when the People
shall become so corrupted as to need
Despotic Government, being incapa-
ble of any other.”
Here is a startling idea: thepeople
can be corrupted.
Have the American people been
corrupted now, as so many of our com-
mentators imply, by their suffering and
desperation? But how could that be?
The people have been much worse off
in the past, and they have at times
responded by joining together and tak-
ing action. A handful of bankrupt
men started the original Populist
movement in a humble Texas farm-
house one night in 1877, when the
nation’s farm economy collapsed.
Workingmen occupied General Mo-
tors’ Flint plant in 1937, in the midst
of the Great Depression—the culmi-
nation of a labor movement that had
struggled for decades to win workers’
rights. Women won the vote for them-
selves after seventy years of agitation.
Another thesis is that social media,
tilted with the help of the Russians,
has polarized us, “tribalized” us, as we
have not been divided since the Civil
War. Yet we have always been divided.
“All right we are two nations ...
America our nation has been beaten by
strangers who have bought the laws,”
John Dos Passos wrote, on the execution
of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927. But were
Dos Passos’s strangers really strangers?
America has always hung in the
balance. America is exceptional in
that there is no other place where so
many people have come from so many
other places to live in relative peace
and democracy for so long. People all
over the world have seen the United
States as a light unto the nations, and
with their strength our country has
done many great and good things in
the world. But we did not banish
human nature.
That other America has always
been with us, too: those “strangers”
who have invariably seen America—
the land and its other peoples—as
something to be exploited, to be sub-
jugated. The idea of America has of-
ten been a close-run thing between
us, with the same battles for human
freedom and dignity needing to be
fought again and again, and in that
sense, our nation is not exceptional
at all.
There have always been the Nativ-
ists, the Know-Nothings, the Klan,
the John Birchers, the Knights of the
Golden Circle, the Tea Party, the Proud
Boys. All the believers in manifest des-
tiny, and the white man’s burden, and
a thousand conspiracy theories, going
all the way back to Jamestown and
Plymouth Colony.
It’s true enough that most white
conservatives are not monsters, and
that some of them are not bigots—
though they have demonstrated no
unease whatsoever with the bigotry of
their leaders. It’s true that we should
go on trying to persuade them, with
restraint and respect. Contrary to
what every columnist in the country
seems to believe, no one I know lives
in a “blue bubble.” We have right-
wing acquaintances, relatives, even
friends, and we listen to what they
have to say.
But it’s important to understand
that they have been voting the way
they have for decades not out of de-
spair or bruised feelings but to get
what they want. It does no good to
pretend otherwise. A people can be
corrupted as well as a man, and our
people can be corrupted as much as
any other people. Red America is re-
sponsible for most of their own
problems—and ours—thanks to the
policies and the candidates they have
supported for decades. But rather
than acknowledge any of that they
have simply doubled down, foisting
upon us this wretched, hollow man,
this constant liar who vulgarizes all
he touches, who smears and mocks,
and who sells himself at every turn,
even to foreign dictators. The people,
yes—they did this. Q
amherst and boston
http://www.umass.edu/umpress/juniper
1-800-537-“This is a
novel of
tremendous
emotional
complexity...
The language
is lush, and
the wound
deep and
abiding.”
—NOY HOLLAND“Wallman
expertly
maps out
the madness,
joy, and
complexities
of belonging.”
—ROBERT YUNE“A vividly
unforgettable
memoir of
longing and
discovery.
This one will
haunt me for
some time.”
—DINTY W.
MOORE