As Lies Abound and Divisions Deepen, Democracy Is Calling

I have a story to tell that feels eerily relevant to our dire political moment.

It’s 1953, and I’m 9 years old in Fort Worth, Texas. I hear a knock at the door, and I rush to say hello. A stern man looks down at me: “I’m from the FBI, and I need to speak with your parents.”

Hmmm… must be important, I thought, calling out: “Mommy, daddy, someone’s come to see us!”

Yes, indeed, it was grave—totally unexpected and life changing.

Since none of today’s mighty challenges—from climate chaos to virtually unprecedented economic inequity—can be addressed without democracy, our calling is clear.

“I’m with the FBI,” he said. My dad invited him in, and they sat talking. I had no idea what was going on. But later my folks explained that the FBI was investigating us because my parents had co-founded the first Unitarian Church in our city. Somehow that made us suspect—as communists or sympathizers.

My parents were not arrested. But word spread quickly of the FBI probe, and some of my best friends’ dads lost their jobs solely by virtue of association with it. The trauma in our community was great.

Our family escaped the harm others suffered likely because my dad’s work as a forecaster in the U.S. Weather Bureau was essential. He soon accepted a two-year “hardship” post on a tiny island in the Pacific, which later I came to assume was an attempt to evade this suppression.

For most of my life, I have assumed our church was targeted because the FBI believed Unitarians were atheists, which at the time was associated with communism. Only many decades later when I gained access to FBI archival material did I discover that I was wrong. Our church was targeted because it was integrated when Fort Worth was strictly segregated.

This awful time came to be called “McCarthyism”—triggered by the leadership of the junior senator from Wisconsin—Joseph R. McCarthy who in 1950 alleged that he had a list of 205 suspected communists who were working in the government.

Eventually, it led to a period of fear, limiting freedom of speech and thought. As happened in Fort Worth, many were blacklisted, lost jobs, or faced persecution. And many more hesitated to express dissenting opinions for fear of being labeled a communist. Such self-censoring no doubt led to stifling intellectual and artistic life.

Now in our current moment, I find myself asking: Are Donald Trump’s tactics just as dangerous to democracy?

For one, both rest on false premises. About 10 months ago, NPR produced an analysis called “162 Lies and Distortions in a News Conference: NPR Fact-Checks Former President Trump.” It found that he uttered “more than two a minute.” Late last year New York Times columnist Peter Baker decried that “Trump’s Wild Claims, Conspiracies, and Falsehoods Redefine Presidential Bounds.” Perhaps most destructive to democracy was his lie that he was the real winner of the 2020 election.

Yet, today lies continue to undermine democracy, and, just as in the McCarthy era, they are not without consequence.

Immigration has been one of the clearest areas where lies abound. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, and they complement rather than compete in jobs while adding to our GDP and taxes. Yet, Trump has cracked down on the border.

In an opinion piece published in late April, I argued that the removal of migrants without due-process—and particularly the targeting of those who had been advocates for causes contrary to Trump’s agenda—posed a deep threat to key democratic principles including free speech.

It hasn’t stopped with migrants: Without constitutional power, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.). Charged with a crime for going to an ICE facility to oversee its action, which she described as “my job and my lawful right as a member of Congress.” When ICE moved to arrest Mayor Baraka, colleagues encircled him, but ICE pushed through and arrested the mayor.

Many of us have heard the refrain that “democracy dies in darkness,” the slogan officially adopted by The Washington Post (now ironically owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos). It feels right. Fact-based exchange is democracy’s life blood.

I began with my memories of the lives devastated by lies in the 1950s. And, as the cliché goes, those who do not learn from history will repeat its errors.

Today, most of us would likely agree that democracy cannot survive without fact-based interchange, as history offers strong evidence—from Hitler to Stalin to Mao Zedong whose lies divided their people.

And, since none of today’s mighty challenges—from climate chaos to virtually unprecedented economic inequity—can be addressed without democracy, our calling is clear. Democracy requires our determination to create a more widely shared understanding of the dangers we face.

Remember every one of us is an influencer. So, we can fact-check the many charges so dividing our nation and speak up in conversations with friends, family, and coworkers. We can support citizen organizations such as Democracy Forward “using legal strategies to challenge anti-democratic actions and advance democratic values” and Protect Democracy working to “defend elections, the rule of law, and fact-based political debate against authoritarian threat.” Another is Common Cause fighting for “the democracy we deserve” via transparency, accountability, and campaign finance reform.

When so much is at stake, democracy itself is our moral calling.