Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

The Long Haul

 Josh Marshall makes an important point about the fight to preserve liberal democracy from creeping authoritarianism - not just here, but globally. The idea that this could be solved via the 2020 election is simply not how conflicts are resolved. Russia didn't conquer Ukraine in February of 2021, nor has Ukraine defeated Russia in the years since. Japan didn't collapse after Guadalcanal, nor did the Nazis after Stalingrad.

This is a generational struggle. It's been going on for at least 8 years, maybe as far back as the Tea Party. There have been victories and defeats, with 2016 being the most notable of the latter, but 2020 was not the final victory over authoritarian threats to American democracy. 

If we can pull out Democratic victories in 2024, I'd offer the following analogy. In 1863, Union forces defeated Confederate forces in Gettysburg. That is roughly analogous to 2020. If we rack up another win in 2024, that would be like the Union victory in Atlanta. The writing will be on the wall, but the fight won't be over.

Stop thinking of this as having an end point. It's going to take years and we have to prepare ourselves for that.

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