Let's work together to protect our democracy

Back in the day, we all, or almost all, liked Ike around here in our proud but humble corner of the world. As a child I stood in a crowd of children on York Street near the Square, all of us waving our small flags, welcoming the President to Gettysburg. Later on, Mamie sightings were common around town as the president’s wife shopped and chatted in the local stores. Dignitaries came and went. I once saw President Nehru of India in his well-known “Nehru” jacket and cap walking out of the old, pre-fire Hotel Gettysburg on the Square. We felt a part of something really big, something we were proud of. The Dwight Eisenhower brand of Republicanism was something we could share in and admire.

Since then, the Republican Party has changed a good bit. Would it be unfair to say that many Republicans—elected officials and party spokesmen especially—are pretty angry these days and sometimes a little fact-resistant? Critically important public health measures during the pandemic like masking, social distancing, and vaccines have seemed to many of them like an imposition, an affront to their liberty. Election results that have been recounted and recertified twice, as in Pennsylvania, have been contested and yet another recount, this time framed as a “forensic audit,” is being called for. The personal information of Pennsylvania voters including social security numbers and driver’s license information will be gathered and entered into a data base with PA taxpayers—us—footing the bill, assuming this audit goes forward.

On the tax and spend front, debt that was acceptable during the Trump administration when massive tax cuts for the wealthy were passed is now, apparently, a major concern for Republicans as bills are debated that would help those left behind by our high-tech economy with funds for infrastructure and broadband, for childcare and expansion of access to healthcare and with some modest steps in terms of addressing climate change included as well. Climate change, of course, does not exist for many Republican officials. Or if it does exist it’s not caused by us, or by our fossil fuel dependent economy. Or if it is caused by us, there’s nothing we can do anyway, nothing the government can possibly do. Government, so the story goes, is the problem. Always the problem.

Would it really be unfair to say that the Republican party has gone a bit off the rails lately? Dwight Eisenhower was both a principled conservative and a patriot but he was never shy about taking decisive government action when the occasion called for it. A case in point would be the massive interstate highway system he invested in during the 1950s. Eisenhower understood that federal leadership and massive federal spending were needed to bring the American highway system up to date. He understood that this investment would serve as an engine of economic growth throughout the country. He understood that partnership between government and the private sector is almost always the way to go.

What’s the right way to talk about all this, this profound change in the Republican party? I don’t want to disrespect or demonize anybody, but it has been a wild ride over the last couple years, and the denials and distortions are beginning to add up—and they have consequences. In the summer of 2020, when vigilantes armed with loaded assault rifles invaded the National Cemetery, much of the Gettysburg Battlefield, our downtown and other public spaces, our Republican state senator Doug Mastriano didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he was photographed fraternizing with these moonshine patriots out by the Virginia monument. When Donald Trump lost the November election and called for the disruption of the certification of that election by the US Congress on January 6, Mastriano urged his followers to attend and chartered multiple buses to carry them to Washington.

More recently and closer to home, Republicans have urged local school boards to ignore the governor’s mask mandate for students and teachers and have been slow at best to take up the call to get vaccinated. Who among us doesn’t hate wearing a mask? Who wasn’t annoyed by the many shutdowns and pandemic-related slowdowns of recent years? Who doesn’t long for a big drink of “normal”? But an embrace of “liberty” unbalanced by concern for the well-being of others quickly degenerates into old-fashioned selfishness. More than 700,000 Americans have now died of in the Covid-19 pandemic. How many could have been spared, if Republicans had embraced reasonable and absolutely necessary public health measures?

Republicans of good will have some serious thinking to do, and some significant decisions to make. In order for our democracy to function, we need at least two parties, with both committed to facing facts, even when they are unpleasant, and to working together to address a growing list of problems. Democrats, though we are flawed, are not demons. We are your fellow Americans and your neighbors. Together we share an amazing country, full of great potential despite our problems. But our democracy, our republican form of government, is also in some respects a fragile thing. If we lose it, it will cost us all dearly. How about we set aside the toxic rhetoric, take a deep breath, and see what we can do—together—to protect the democracy we all depend on?

Will Lane is a lifelong resident of Adams County who teaches in the English and Environmental Studies Departments at Gettysburg College. He is also a founding member of Gettysburg Democracy for America, active in its Healthcare Task Force, and the convener and host of the Green Gettysburg Book Club.