If We Can Keep It

Michael Tomasky

I managed to squeeze in two books on the plane rides between Ireland and Denver.  The first was IF WE CAN KEEP IT by Michael Tomasky, my favorite pundit.  It falls right in line with all the other stuff I've been reading lately (THESE TRUTHS, THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK, FREDERICK DOUGLAS).

After the constitutional convention, someone asked John Adams to comment on the strength of the thing they produced.  He said the constitution was good (or words to that effect) "If we can keep it."

That's quite an admonition and Tomasky's book suggests that we haven't been keeping it very well of late.  The subtitle adds "How the Republic Collapsed and How It Might Be Saved."  And that's exactly what the book does.  It offers a tidy history of the US, focusing on the early seeds of polarization and how they grew and currently flourish.  He then offers suggestions to get us back on course.

The book starts with a really handy six page chronology of the events that got us to our current state of polarization.  This list starts with the Connecticut Compromise of July 1787 where the strange equations of representation in the legislature created the inherently unrepresentative United States Senate.  August, 1987 is another big date.  That is when the FCC, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, repealed the Fairness Doctrine.  The result was a proliferation of right wing talk shows.  And, of course, November 1994.  That is when Newt Gingrich becomes Speaker of the House, a black day in American history.

Tomasky also offers a fourteen point plan to reduce polarization.  It is listed there right at the beginning of the book and elaborated on in the last section.  None of his points are particularly new or surprising, but they all make sense.  Seven of his points are aimed at revamping the way our politics work by getting rid of Gerrymandering, reintroducing at large congressional elections. eliminating the filibuster, getting rid of the Electoral College or making it obey the popular vote, etc.  The other seven are geared to society in general and most of those involve tinkering with the educational system, especially things like civics education and cultural exchange programs.

Like I said, the book doesn't really offer many surprise solutions, but it does offer a crystal clear explanation of the situation and it sheds new light on certain portions of modern history that we might have forgotten.

It also has some great quotes:

"Today, most of us, whether we like to admit it or not, are consumers first, citizens second.  In the 1930's most people didn't see themselves that way."

"The American Friends Service Committee found that segregated private schools were opened in 31 percent of counties in five Deep South states.  Because they were religious academies, they enjoyed a tax exemption.  But in 1969, some black parents sued and were granted an injunction, and then in June 1970 the Nixon administration unexpectedly ended the schools' exemption.  And that's what originally got the religious right into politics--the fact that they had to start admitting black children to their school."

"Most people resist introspection; whole societies are no different.  Liberals,  however, tend to welcome introspection, and liberals and Democrats of that era [Carter years], starting with the pious man in the Oval Office, did quite a lot of reflecting on what was happening to the national character.  So surely one of the great secrets perhaps the great secret, of the conservative movement's coming success, of Ronald Reagan's success in particular, was to free people of this responsibility of introspection, to release them from the guilt in which liberalism makes them wallow."

"My civic self has rarely been more depressed than it was after September 11 2001, when President Bush, New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, and others said that if citizens want to help the country, they should go shopping."

"Since 1990, not a single Republican House member or senator has voted for a tax increase."

"Before too long, the kind of car one drove, music one listened to, and salad greens one preferred were taken as indicators of political preference.  . . . The simpler, more straightforward choices (Branson, iceberg lettuce) were the preferences of 'real' Americans, while the fussier alternatives (Sonoma County, arugula) marked their adherents as elitists."

"Liberals want to fix the house up.  Conservatives want to burn it down and build a new one."

I've noticed, after rereading some of my recent book "reviews", that I keep mentioning the quote where James Baldwin says that "the world is held together, it really is, by the love and devotion of a very few men."  When I first heard him say that in a talk show interview years ago, it spoke volumes to me.  I always showed a tape of Baldwin's life with a clip from that interview to my AP classes, and I think it arrested them.

After reading the cross over history stuff I've been fascinated by lately, I see even more powerfully the truth in Baldwin's statement.  Jill Lepore's THESE TRUTHS,  Robert Kagan's THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK, and now IF WE CAN KEEP IT by Tomasky all tell the story of a country populated by selfish and venal men willing to stop at nothing to have their way.  These despicable human beings are consistently opposed by all those devoted and loving men and women that Baldwin talks about.  These are the people who somehow manage to, in John Adams' words, "Keep it."

I'm desperately looking around for more men and women like that.  They are hard to see and hear amidst all the noise.