Tim Nesbitt: Are We Capable of a Third Founding?

Reflections on the Insurrection in Our Midst

Tim served as Chief of Staff for Gov. Kulongoski. A former union leader, he lives near Independence and oversees a specialty apple orchard.

"US Capitol" by Fintrvlr is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

We are all a bit battered now. None of us escaped the assault on the U.S. Capitol last week. Nor can we yet cordon off the turmoil and get on with our lives.  

The rioters, even in retreat, continue to shout their claims to supremacy. Their enablers persist in lies and false witness. The inciter-in-chief remains defiant. He and his people are still in our house. It remains a shared house, but a shaken one. A door slams and our fists clench, fearing the worst.

We are still in the throes of last week’s events and will continue to be, even after the transfer of the presidency on January 20. For an uncertain time to come, we will have to contend with threats to our body politic.

Like many of you, I’ve been scouring the web for commentaries, listening to podcasts, and talking to friend—nonstop—in a search for clarity on the best way to steady ourselves, repel these threats, and find a path forward. But clarity is difficult to achieve in the grip of this trauma—even more so when we begin to argue over “who we are.”

Is this who we are?

Let’s start with that question. In their first reactions to the storming of the Capitol, several lawmakers resorted to an old cliché: “This is not who we are.” President-elect Biden concurred: “The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America. Do not represent who we are.” But, according to three New York Times staffers who drafted an opinion piece and posted a video on the Times website, statements like Biden’s are “not true at all…Everything we saw that afternoon was exactly who we are – because it’s the product of who we’ve always been.”

No.

Judging from the comments that followed the Times piece, most of us don’t see treason in the hearts of those we know as fellow citizens. And a new Marist poll finds 88% of Americans oppose “the actions of the Trump supporters who broke into the U.S. Capitol.”

Yes, we can and should learn from the evils of our past in order to counter those of the present. But this moment requires a more nuanced response than the broad strokes of flagellation, self-directed or otherwise. We need a united response that combines swift condemnation and appropriate punishment of those who assaulted our democracy with a reaffirmation of our founding values and a rededication to the self-discipline that is essential for self-government.

Biden understands this. His demeanor last week in response to the insurrection was firm, clear-headed, and steady. His words were pitch perfect – forceful, stern, righteously angry. He condemned the rioters as domestic terrorists. But, just as importantly, he stayed true to his pledge to represent all Americans in the shared conduct of democracy.

We need to build back a better democracy

Biden began his campaign with an appeal to “build back better,” a slogan reminiscent of an older generation of Jobs Democrats, repurposed to respond to the ravages of a pandemic and the challenges of climate change. That slogan has since come to capture the even greater imperative of rebuilding a better democracy. This is the path forward we need now.

It will likely be a long haul. The Armageddon-like warnings that have been swamping my Twitter feed are not all stress-induced fever dreams. Noah Smith, a Bloomberg commentator, sees the potential for a decade-long political struggle he calls a Cold Civil War. He is clear-eyed in his analysis of who we are and where we are headed. I can’t dismiss what he sees. But I can choose to see it in a better light.

"Lincoln memorial, Washington DC" by KP Tripathi (kps-photo.com) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Are we capable of a Third Founding?

We know now that we are at an inflection point. There will be no return to an old normalcy. Yet, if the events of the past week have convinced us that we need to build back a better country, then our efforts to do so can be well guided by the centuries-old templates of our founders.

Abraham Lincoln grounded the first founding of our nation in the assertions of self-evident equality in the Declaration of Independence and in the ideal of a government of the people. What followed became known as the Second Founding, enthroned in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments that embodied those ideas in a more expansive conception of equality in citizenship.

Those ideas were soon put to the torch by the terror of the South’s Lost Cause and betrayed by the country’s complicity in segregation and racial violence. But those same ideas vitalized the movement that achieved women’s suffrage a century ago, gave moral force to the demands for the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, and remain ready to be fully realized in a Third Founding today.

We have a President leaving office who, frequently, bombastically, and absurdly, compared himself to Lincoln. Ironically, that same President has created the conditions for a Lincolnesque moment – to perfect the ideals of our first and second foundings and embody them in a stronger democracy of equality.

I realize I am reaching again for better angels themes here. But it’s the choices we make that define who we are, both in spite of and because of our history. I’m hoping that these themes can begin to unite us in response to the insurrection in our midst. But I also expect that the path to a Third Founding will be treacherous and years long. We may have survived last week’s assault on our democracy, but we would be wise to understand that we are all long haulers now.

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