Democracy at peril
The great 19th-century US poet Walt Whitman said that “[Democracy] is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten because that history has yet to be enacted.”
He famously noted that the history of democracy could not be written because democracy (as he knew it) was not yet properly built.
It seems arguable that the Jan. 6 event at the US Capitol has proved him right. What is happening in the US might not be surprising. No human process is pure; it is a mix of good and evil, justice and injustice, egotism and altruism, rationality and unreason.
The oppressed minorities are still in the process of self-liberation, and the oppressors or those who have benefited from their oppressive forebears are defending their inherited privilege.
The question is how strong the apparent progressive, liberal, humanitarian force is. At this moment, it appears that such a force is not strong enough to counter the opposing party in the US.
For example, Trump’s supporters, followers or sycophants are unlikely to sideline him, and the US Senate is unlikely to convict him after an impeachment, before or after he leaves office.
Upon watching TV news reporting on that day, a devout Christian friend told me the following story: “God is educating humanity to become what God intends it to become — a community of mutually respectful and loving individuals. God found humanity He created so recalcitrant that He had to send His Son to the world to teach humans with His self-sacrifice for them.”
This is a unique story, if not history.
However, this kind of view seems to neither sound convincing nor provide hope to those who believe that history has amply demonstrated that God is aloof, or indifferent to, human affairs.
A question close to many American hearts remains: From the early third decade of the 21st century, what will be the fate of US democracy?
A bold prediction might be as follows: Given the widening gap between the rich and the poor, continuing discrimination against minorities, religious and nationalist intolerance, and political figures who corrupt laws and give a bad name to democratic politics, US democracy might not survive indefinitely.
US democracy can slit its own throat or quietly take its own life in the act of “democide.”
I hope that history to be written will prove this dire prediction wrong. And I will toast to that.
Yeomin Yoon
New Jersey
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