Remember these things

Reflections on the 13th of July

I imagine many of you are reeling right now. Over the past 24 hours, I’ve taken some time to listen, and to think.

I won’t dwell today on the way some figures have been recklessly using this tragedy to attack and silence political opponents and whet people’s appetite for retribution. Instead, I want to share a few things I’ve been pondering as I’ve been trying to find my footing.

The first is from Pete Wehner’s Atlantic essay on “The Power of Restraint”:

We don’t yet know whether the gunman was motivated by political hatred of the former president, a deranged desire for fame, or some other force. We have to await the results of the investigation.

But what happened yesterday was an assault on American democracy. The democratic order rests on treating those with whom we disagree as opponents rather than enemies, on the belief that we share not just a continent but a country. It means that we respect the outcome of elections and the will of the people, even when those outcomes are ones we profoundly disagree with. It means that even those with whom we fiercely disagree have the right to be heard, and to campaign, and to win….

People who love America—especially its political leaders, but not them alone—must now, amid all the fury and distrust, resist the temptation to lash out, to provoke, to blame others, to settle scores…

Wehner adds:

I’m not naive enough to believe that a spirit of shalom will characterize politics in any era, let alone this one. But I believe that good men and women who revere this nation can, at certain key moments, strive to understand one another a little better, to resist the recriminations a little more successfully. We can even, in our best moments, see the humanity and dignity in those with whom we have fought pitched battles.

Today, in the flurry of political prognostications, let’s not lose sight of the personal loss. Corey Comperatore had recently turned fifty and was a doting father of two girls. “Corey was a girl dad,” his family shared with Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. “Corey was a firefighter. Corey went to church every Sunday. Corey loved his community. Most especially, Corey loved his family…Corey was an avid supporter of the former president and was so excited to be there last night with him in the community.”

Corey Comperatore died shielding his family from an assassin’s gunfire.

Two other men, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were also critically wounded in the attack. All three men were participating in our democracy, and what happened was an unspeakable tragedy inflicted on American citizens and their loved ones. In the midst of everything else, this needs to be foremost in our minds.

Today I was also stirred by Diana Butler Bass’s post on Harriet Tubman, “An Icon of Defiance,” where she reminds us:

But there are different kinds of fights. There are fights of the raised fist and fights of holding hands. There are fights we start for ourselves and fights we find ourselves in for others. There are fights for revenge and retribution and fights for love and justice. They are those who fight with whips and fists and those who fight with maps and prayers.

There are things that must be defied. We must never give up, not as long as we are strong and able.

Even when we want to surrender. Even when we feel lost. Even when afraid.

This afternoon, I found myself picking up my well-thumbed copy of Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, a book of twenty lessons we can learn from twentieth-century history and the fight against authoritarianism. Today I didn’t turn to my favorite lessons but instead found myself flipping to ones I hadn’t memorized, to ones that hadn’t resonated with me in the same way when I first read the book several years ago:

Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.

Listen for dangerous words. Be alert to the use of words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the ends of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hiterlian book. Do not fall for it.

Be a patriot. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

And then, I turned to one of my favorite lessons. But this lesson hit me differently this time:

Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.

If you haven’t read Snyder’s book, I highly recommend it. In a future post, I’ll share some of my favorite lessons, lessons I’ve taken to heart over the past few years.

I’ll close with words Robby Jones pointed me to earlier today as I was wondering what people like us could do in the face of such enormous and discouraging circumstances, words from James Baldwin:

“The bottom line is this: You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it…If there is no moral question, there is no reason to write. I’m an old-fashioned writer and, despite the odds, I want to change the world.”