If You Can Keep It

 Of all the myths and legends and actual history surrounding the founding, one story comes most obviously to mind on this 250th anniversary.  It comes from a more than decade after the Declaration, after the War for Independence, and after the initial Articles of Confederation.  It comes from the Constitutional Convention.

Moments after the Convention came to final agreement and adjourned, the story goes that a woman stopped Benjamin Franklin as he was leaving the hall, and asked him what kind of government the nation would now have. Though the quotation is perhaps a more succinct version of his words, they are the ones that have come down to us:

"A Republic--if you can keep it."

It is the question of the moment, because the Republic currently is teetering.  Whether the question is preserving or reviving or both, can we keep it is the guiding and crucial question of the future, beginning this year with the upcoming November elections. 

No enemy, foreign or domestic, has done as much damage to the American Republic than elected and appointed officials of the federal government have done and continue to do this year, as well as last year.  It turns out that norms we assumed were inviolable are easily ignored and violated with impunity.  Our only constitutional protections it turns out are impeachments and elections.  

I was working in Washington during the 200th anniversary, the Bicentennial in 1976. (I wrote about it here.)  The integrity of the Republic had been tested just two years before, with the hearings in the House and Senate over the crimes of the Nixon administration known collectively as Watergate.  Those painstaking hearings, broadcast to a huge audience over months, saw agonized Republicans and reluctant Democrats move towards Impeachment and conviction of President Nixon.  In the end, no one tried to deny proven facts, or to repeatedly insist that Americans believe what politicians say and not what they could plainly see for themselves.  

At nearly the same time the Vietnam War stumbled to its ignominious end, after so many revelations of official lies and skullduggery used to justify and manipulate it.  Though the country immediately applied as much amnesia as possible to exploring the meanings of that war, some impressions led to change.  With a new administration to be elected later that year, many looked forward to what in fact happened:  professionalism and something akin to integrity became more of the norm in government and the military. 

The mood in 1976 was a little punch drunk, but there was relief that the Republic had in the end acquitted itself well, and hope that lessons had been learned that would strengthen the Republic.  

Recently the current vice-president commented that President Nixon's crimes in Watergate would be no more than a one day story today.  That may be true, if only because the current occupant of the presidency commits an impeachable offense nearly every day, with a great many High Crimes included among the Misdemeanors.  But there are few if any Republican statesmen in Congress, and by the end of the this congress there will be none.  Impeachments are no longer considered on their merits, but seen only as partisan attacks--except perhaps by the American people.

This past week the radical right majority of the Supreme Court subverted the law and the Constitution to award even more power to our mad king--indeed providing him (as a dissenting Justice wrote) power beyond that of actual kings.

Last week his own financial disclosure form showed the extent of Boss Chaos corruption--some two billion dollars in one year, at least. Members of his cabinet, staff and even the First Lady, have also enriched themselves. Influence peddling, inside information and insider trading, market manipulation and forms of coercion are either on the public record or strongly suspected. Not only has America never seen corruption on this scale, the amounts dwarf the stealings of leaders anywhere in the world.

 They are robbing the economy and stealing from the nation and increasing the debt that future presidents must pay.  They have damaged the federal government extensively and deeply, at a critical time, endangering the country and all of its people--except perhaps the billionaires who are absorbing its funds.  Agencies of the federal government important to the safety of Americans and to stability and conscience in the world have been wrecked.  Professionalism in government and the military is being punished and erased, replaced by incompetence, cowardice and corruption. Foreign relations have been wrecked, and bribery is openly practiced.

Thanks to Chaos privileging his wealthy cronies, millions of Americans are losing health care this month, putting further pressure on a health care system that could collapse. This on top of high grocery prices, gasoline and the cost of living generally.  Except for the projects of favored billionaires, science and technology are being bled of federal support, which not only weakens the future but strands graduates in those fields looking to begin useful careers.  

In 1976 President Gerald Ford marked the Bicentennial by attending the annual swearing in of new US citizens at Monticello on July 5, praising the role of immigration and making it a central symbol of the uniquely American identity.

  In the summer of 2026, some 10,000 immigrants were arrested in five days, swelling the warehouse prisons where they may languish unseen indefinitely. This relentless attack on immigrants joins the systematic reversal of progress on racial justice of recent decades. The opening words of the Declaration being celebrated--all men are created equal--are no longer operational.  Even the rights and status of women--the largest category of voters--are under direct attack. 

On July 3, the New York Times headlined a story about the FBI sending more than 200 agents to "investigate" phantom fraud in 2020 elections in Georgia. (The photo at the top ran with that story.)  This is another pathetic but nonetheless dangerous effort to undermine the upcoming elections.  It also signals a dire threat to those elections: the substitution of repeated lies for demonstrable facts, well beyond the usual political mendacity.  

That is a daily feature of the Chaos administration, and in the upcoming campaigns it is likely to be greatly augmented by AI generated lies, such as videos of Democrats saying things they never said.  Perhaps financed by dark money, unattributed, with some likely the products of foreign operations that Chaos has welcomed into American elections.

There's more to be said about the celebrations themselves this year.  But for now, 250 years into what is even more accurately called the American experiment, the Republic is in peril.  Franklin's question is apropos to this moment.