My brother’s post:
Does anyone see the irony of Russian dissidents fighting for democracy and risking their lives everyday, coupled with Ukrainian democrats fighting Putin and his non stop propaganda when compared to US 2020 elections deniers and their false fake theories? Puts to us in a sad state when compared to real preservers of legitimate democracy elsewhere.
My response:
Yes. And anybody who has worked in the field of democratic development in other countries finds this kind of thing more frustrating than just about anything else. There are so many brave people all around the world who are fighting so hard to try to develop democratic systems that are real.
When Americans who do this kind of work come home and see how unthankful so many Americans here are for what we have, how they assume they can beat up democracy here and think it is too strong to fail, like the implication of the terrible song “Glad To Be An American”, with the worst words ever written in a supposedly patriotic song: “…at least I know I’m free…”
No. You don’t.
You have to work at it and oppose those who do not understand how difficult it is and how much work and risks to one’s life it takes to get democracy back once you’ve lost it.
American soldiers coming home from World War II understood this. We have forgotten, and are in danger of falling back into pre-World War II isolationism. This is what Trumpism, in part, represents in historic context.
Those brave Russian dissidents and protesters, and those brave Ukrainians fighting Russia right now as we speak, understand how hard it is to get democracy back once you’ve lost it in a way that we can only hope we in America never will have to understand it.
