Milling amidst the multitude on the National Mall, I felt ennobled, inspired by my kind. These souls had come to their country’s capital not to force change, not to be acknowledged for their participation, but to be heard. Individually, none had power to forestall America’s collapse into cruelty, confusion and corruption; collectively they endorsed no strategy; they just wanted to say no for the sake of having said it, hell no, regardless of any risk to their wellbeing. (Drones observed from above, no doubt taking names.) The White House was cordoned off by a sudden new black metal fence, which bulged into the sidewalk, forcing marchers into the road. The message couldn’t have been clearer. Democracies discuss, tyrants dictate. Our scared elected leaders were hiding from the citizens they hoped to thwart. This outrageous assemblage was permitted only because it could not – yet – be prevented.
The marchers’ mood was gentle, tolerant, law-abiding, convivial, their anger mostly conveyed by placards and the occasional rhythmic chant. Lambs to the slaughter could not have been more compliant. Yet the massing threatened, like a rising river in a hurricane. Where and when the levies would break, who could say, but all knew that they would, the flood would drown, because it must.
America’s slide into civil war each day feels less preventable. The feeling’s weird. Never in my seventy-three years have I perceived myself as loathed, oppressed, targeted by our chosen leaders. Others were excluded – people of color, women, various ethnicities, the poor – but I was among the sauntering elite, at most two hellos removed from those in power. I did not recognize my privilege – the privileged seldom do – we mistake dumb luck for divine law. Now I was a pariah, an enemy of the state. I shuddered – I am fearful too – but the estrangement strangely enlivened. “Depend upon it, sir,” harrumphed Dr. Johnson, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” My mind these days is concentrated wonderfully. I prepare – for the levy to break. Do or die.
We all prepare. Acquaintances may vow to avoid the topic but it’s impossible. Not discussing the crisis takes effort and doesn’t last long. A mortal diagnosis is as easily ignored. “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
For years, I’ve predicted this descent into terminal stupidity, violence, self-slaughter. This wasn’t clairvoyance, only voyance. The strife between the rich and the rest is a permanent recurrent dynamic in civilization’s brief history. The rich get richer, the rest get restless, and bingo, the war is on. All empires fall – typically from overconfidence, what the old Greeks called hubris. When folks proclaim, “It can’t happen here,” count on it, it will happen.
How will events unfold? My crystal ball is out for repair, but here’s my guess. The rich, threatened by the multitude, will attempt to stomp them. That’s what’s happening now. The Nameless One and his thugs aim to cripple any source of opposition: universities, schools, scientists, independent media, Democrats, lawyers, allies, anyone who dares to pipe up. Anyone who says what they see will be branded traitor, any critiques bewailed as a national crisis. The vote will be canceled (unless it goes their way). To save the state, individual liberty will be suspended – “temporarily” – which can last an eon.
The multitude – the restless rest – will gradually wake to their predicament, mumble, grumble, consult, cohere, and the fight will be on.
That’s what was happening on the Mall and in thousands of city centers April Fifth. Smug and indolent for too long, we the people were learning to say no.